The Goal

41

gates and seeing that it's past 1 P.M. I'm slowing down to make the turn through the gate, when-I don't know how else to say it-it just doesn't feel right. I look at the plant. And I put my foot down on the gas and keep going. I'm hungry; I'm thinking maybe I should get some lunch.

But I guess the real reason is I just don't want to be found yet. I need to think and I'll never be able to do it if I go back to the office now.

Up the road about a mile is a little pizza place. I see they're open, so I stop and go in. I'm conservative; I get a medium pizza with double cheese, pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, green pep- pers, hot peppers, black olives and onion, and-mmmmmmmm -a sprinkling of anchovies. While I'm waiting, I can't resist the Munchos on the stand by the cash register, and I tell the Sicilian who runs the place to put me down for a couple of bags of beer nuts, some taco chips, and-for later-some pretzels. Trauma whets my appetite.

But there's one problem. You just can't wash down beer nuts with soda. You need beer. And guess what I see in the cooler. Of course, I don't usually drink during the day... but I look at the way the light is hitting those frosty cold cans...

"Screw it."

I pull out a six of Bud.

Twenty- three dollars and sixty-two cents and I'm out of there.

Just before the plant, on the opposite side of the highway, there is a gravel road leading up a low hillside. It's an access road to a substation about half a mile away. So on impulse, I turn the wheel sharply. The Mazda goes bouncing off the highway onto the gravel and only a fast hand saves my pizza from the floor. We raise some dust getting to the top.

I park the car, unbutton my shirt, take off my tie and coat to save them from the inevitable, and open up my goodies.

Some distance below, down across the highway, is my plant. It sits in a field, a big gray steel box without windows. Inside, I know, there are about 400 people at work on day shift. Their cars are parked in the lot. I watch as a truck backs between two others sitting at the unloading docks. The trucks bring the materials which the machines and people inside will use to make some- thing. On the opposite side, more trucks are being filled with what they have produced. In simplest terms, that's what's hap- pening. I'm supposed to manage what goes on down there.