Nothing but Blue Skies

37

Monday morning in the American West. J. P. Morgan was pissing off the securities firms by expanding its underwriting. Now I’m happy again, thought Frank. Dog eat dog. Stock prices higher, bonds surge, NASDAQ sets record for third day. Nervous investors looking for strong earnings records. John Deere is laying people off. Restructuring charges were producing a quarterly loss for United Technologies. Not a word about chickens.

On the hope that there is synergy even in failure, Frank had invited Orville Conway of Wilsall, Montana, to his office for a meeting. He had read over the weekend, between morose fits of bathrobe living, that Montana’s ninth-biggest chicken farmer was facing bankruptcy. Frank thought this could be the missing portion of the synergy he dreamed of for his old hotel. Orville Conway’s defeat implied that the seven-month winter canceled certain business opportunities. It was especially poignant in the case of Orville Conway, who was widely admired as a modern and skillful practitioner in the industrial multiplication of chickens. The very word “failure” made Frank reach out to Orville, and so he called him and told him he had an idea.

Orville got right past Eileen and presented himself in Frank’s doorway. He had a rawboned, rural face with deep-set eyes and prominent enough teeth that it was quite a struggle for him to keep them covered with his lips. He also had a fashionably blow-dried hairdo that formed a kind of pouf just over his forehead, covered half his ears and came down over the collar of his buck-stitched blue western sport coat. The possibility of failure hung over Orville Conway like a soggy, impermeable cloud of desperation and defiance. Frank stood briskly and came out from behind his desk, thrusting his hand into Orville’s big, work-hardened mitt. The weight and toughness of that hand in the context of the sartorial fancy and mushroom cloud of impending doom touched Frank. He could see that, imperiled as his own business life was, he had more edge left than Orville Conway. Still, they shared the prospects of financial desolation, and that was inspiring.

“Please sit down, Orville.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I have Eileen bring you some coffee.”

“I’m all coffeed out,” said Orville. Frank picked up the phone and asked Eileen to hold his calls.

“Orville, I learned about some of your business problems in the paper,” Frank said, and Orville reddened right out to his ears. Frank had not seen such shame in a grown man before.

“We’re talking about restructuring some debt,” Orville murmured.

“That just slows things down, gives the bank a deeper choke hold on you.” Frank was instantly dizzied by his wrath against banks.

There was a sustained quiet as Orville Conway took his time evaluating the moment. “I don’t have a lot of choices. It’s all I’ve ever done. This was my shot and I took it. I don’t have a lot of information about other businesses. I got a wife and kids at home. And we done pretty good all along there, considering. It’s not an excuse to talk about changing times. I’m way too far from the transportation. The bank’s got a pretty good lien on the place. I done this all on the home place and it’s about two thousand feet higher than here and it is just too darn cold. I already starved out there once, in the cow business. Feed costs are high, but really, it’s bein’ high and cold and too far from things. I hate like heck to go under and I’m not going to let it happen if I don’t have to. I feel kind of bad about, you know, whoever might have been looking for me to go ahead and make it come out right.”

Frank was thinking, This could be the birth of a new chicken kingdom. He felt a slight buzz, a familiar surge edging on gooseflesh. He and Orville were going to kick ass, Conway and Copenhaver (C & C), people ingesting chicken like bats in a cloud of houseflies.

“Orville, I have an idea.”

Orville didn’t look very hopeful. He had seen some heavy weather. Frank was moved by him and took a moment to reconsider; his own back was against the wall and he wanted to be sure he wasn’t simply transferring some bad luck. He didn’t think he was. Shooting fish in a barrel was not necessarily a universal business image either.

“Orville, do you own the property on which you raise chickens?”

“I have a large mortgage.”

“So you are faced with a bank wishing to foreclose while there is something left.”

“That’s true.”

“I am in a similar situation with a property I own here in town, a clinic. It is substantially leveraged. I have failed to get along with my tenants and they have moved out. I am trying to buy some time before the bank comes in, but I may not succeed.”

“Sounds like we’re in the same boat.”

“Not entirely. I also own the Kid Royale Hotel on Main Street, which as you may know is a famous building from the Territorial era. It was the biggest hotel on the Montana frontier but I have never been able to do anything with it because the cost of renovating it would be prohibitive. Back in the seventies when I acquired it, there was a lot of money for that sort of thing, federal grants, floating around. But we never got it. Those funds were all spent back east, pilgrim stuff, whatever, the Civil War.”

All through this summation, Orville developed a series of nervous and possibly impatient gestures: knitting and reknitting his fingers, biting the back of his right thumbnail, darting his eyes to the window and recrossing his legs. Frank could feel the pressure of the needy chickens. Finally, Orville spoke.

“I know that they have been real successful in the East and Midwest raising chickens in old hotels. But Mr. Copenhaver, I have to be honest. I can’t afford to rent your hotel from you.”

“I don’t want you to. I just want you to move in. We’ll joint venture. If this makes the difference for your business and moves it back into profitability, we will commence the payment of a lease at that time. But my part wouldn’t kick in until you were in the black again.”

Orville didn’t have to think very long. “You want me to draw something up?”

“That’d be fine. I know we can find fair numbers. The main thing is, I own this building outright. Let the bank take back your chicken ranch. Let ’em raise a few eggs themselves. They’re all talking about going back to basics. They can start with chickens.”

“The cocksuckers,” said Orville rather surprisingly.

“Exactly.” Frank hesitated only a moment trying to imagine whether he meant the bankers or the chickens. Once again, Frank shook the powerful hand of Orville Conway. There was a very definite feeling about Orville, that he knew what he was looking at when he was looking at you. And this was the first little bit of accustomed movement Frank had felt in a long while. But he couldn’t always expect June to come around and get him going.