An Unfinished Season Read Online Free PDF

giving a little backward glance to their table, and Butch smiling, entirely engrossed. Butch had forgotten his own question, but my father answered it anyway. Because the way the world’s going, you’re not going to be able to do without it. If you don’t have it, they’ll walk all over you.
    But always, Butch said, still watching the waitress, someone has more.
    Oh, sure, my father said. But there are fewer of them.
    So my father was quick to agree to Andy Carillo’s proposal and Carillo Printing became Carillo & Ravan Printing, and when the old man had a stroke at the outbreak of the war, he was as good as his word, retiring to an apartment in Fort Lauderdale, returning only for the quarterly meetings of the board of directors. My father became chairman and president. He said he liked the noise of the presses and the smell of the ink and paper, the heavy stock he used for his stationery line. This was hard, dirty, and dangerous work. My father had dozens of small scars on his hands from splashes of hot lead and two broken toes when one of the heavy iron turtles ran over his foot. He had no use for white-collar chairmen who did not know the details of the business they were in. Clean-desk chairmen who sat in suites of offices guarded by secretaries. Chairmen who didn’t like to get their hands dirty—and in fact he was delighted when he returned to his third-floor office with his white shirt streaked black with ink, evidence of a day’s work. My father thought of his men as collateral members of his family and each Christmas everyone got a bonus, the sum calculated by a mysterious formula known only to him. Not every bonus was the same and so there was resentment, and when one day the foreman asked him about it, my father whirled and snarled, None of your business.
    It’s my money, my father said. I’ll decide the bonus.
    The foreman did not flinch. Clyde said, If that’s the way you want it, Ted. But the men—
    That’s the way I want it, my father said. It’s my business. Not their business.
    I’ll tell them that, Clyde said.
    Tell them any god damned thing you want, my father said.
    They won’t like it, the foreman said. And bonuses aren’t the only grievance. There’s overtime and vacation time and the pension. We’re not making progress at the table. And the contract expires end of the month. You’re not around as much as you used to be. We were more comfortable when you were at the table in person, he said with an attempt at a smile.
    I’m around as much as I need to be. My offer’s fair and the men know it.
    The men don’t see it that way, Clyde said. They see themselves falling behind. And the national, they don’t see it that way either.
    Your national’s in Philadelphia. What the fuck does Philadelphia know about conditions in Illinois? What does Philadelphia know about my business?
    More than you think, Ted.
    Your national wants a strike. Doesn’t want a settlement, fair to both sides. Your national likes unrest, the more unrest the better. Put it to an honest vote, secret ballot. And when the ballots are counted, let’s be certain neutral parties are present to verify the tally. I don’t trust your bosses in Philadelphia. I don’t like their politics. I don’t like their threats.
    I’ll see they get the message, the foreman said.
    That was the conversation as my father replayed it to my mother that night, my mother sitting on the davenport, her legs curled up beside her, reaching for the cigarette box and running her fingernail across the chased silver before lighting a Pall Mall and blowing a perfect smoke ring, her eyes focused on a Havana of the middle distance. My father, pacing in front of the fireplace, continued to complain about outsiders interfering with his business.
    What’s gotten into my men?
    Teddy, my mother said.
Tranquilo.
You’ll have a heart attack.
    Bastards, he