The text below is an excerpt from chapter II "The Saddlebags" of A Man in Full, a novel by Tom Wolfe
The
time had come, and so Peepgass drew himself up in his scat and raised his voice
and announced to the entire table, "All right, ladies and gentlemen-"
And then he paused. What he meant to say next was a brusque "Time to get
started." But that was close to being an order, and he was not sure lie
could look Charlie Croker in the face and bark out an order. And so he said,
"Why don't we get started?"
The Croker Global people who had been standing now took their seats. The
fabulous bird, Peaches, sat right next to Croker. The other sat several seats
away.
Peepgass had no intention of referring to Croker by name. Or, if he had
to, he wouldn't call him Charlie. He'd call him Mr. Croker as coldly as he
could, by way of letting him know that things have changed, that he was no
longer a star customer, a priceless pal, and an Atlanta business giant; he was
just another shithead. But as he looked at Croker's square-jawed face and
massive neck, the memory of how fawningly, how ingratiatingly, how constantly he
had called him Charlie, of how many times he had charlied him within an inch of
his life, came flashing back to him; and contrary to every conscious intention,
he beard himself saying:
"Charlie, I believe you met Harry on the way in." He gestured
toward the workout artiste. "Harry's the head of our Real Estate Asset
Management Department"-eventually, although not immediately, the shitheads
always figured out the acronym-"and so I've asked Harry-" He paused
again. He couldn't think of how to say what it was Harry was about to do.
"I've asked Harry to get things under way."
Harry didn't even look up. He just kept on writing on a yellow legal pad,
with his left arm and hand all curled around it. Silence commandeered the room.
It was as if Harry had more important things than Mr. Charles E. (for Earl)
Croker on his mind. Presently he lifted his big chin.
He sighted Croker down his nose and let his gaze linger ... and linger
... and linger . . . without saying a word . . . the way a father might into a
man-to-man talk with a boy who knows he's been bad.
And then he said in a high-pitched, rasping voice, "Why are we here,
Mr. Croker? Why are we having this meeting? What's the problem?"
Oh, Peepgass loved this part of Harry's workout sessions-the rude,
grating, condescending way they started off! This was why a workout artiste like
Harry Zeale was known as an artiste! This was artistry. This was boot camp in
the PlannersBanc Tower.
Croker stared at the artiste. Then he turned and looked past Peaches
toward his chief financial officer, a young but dour presence named Wismer
Stroock, probably not much more than thirty, who wore glasses with rectangular
titanium frames and had pale skin, a heavy five o'clock shadow, and the sunken
cheeks and stringy neck peculiar to compulsive joggers. Croker smiled at Stroock
in a smirking way, and this smile said, "Hey, what kind of cute little
stunt is this supposed to be? Who is this character?
What is this why are we here bullshit?"
Harry
kept staring at Croker, never once blinking. But Peepgass had to give Croker
credit; he didn't blink, either. How long would it Harry take to get the
saddlebags this time? Everybody rated Harry's performance that way, according to
how long it took him to get the saddlebags.
Finally Croker said, "You called this meeting', my friend."
Muh frin; he spoke with a South Georgia drawl. Croker hid lived in
Atlanta for forty years, but his act-Peepgass regarded it as an act-was Baker
County. Peepgass had never set foot in the place, of course, but he took Baker
County to be about as Redneck as it got in Georgia. It was in Baker County that
one of the first big civil rights protests of the 1960s had been ignited. A
sheriff known as Gator Johnson had shot a black man named Ware after Ware had
made a pass at the black mistress of the white overseer of a plantation
belonging to Robert Woodruff, the president of Coca-Cola. Gator Johnson thought
Peepgass . . . and if you read all the articles about Charlie Croker in The
Atlanta Journal Constitution and Atlanta magazine and the profiles that had run
in Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, you had to endure constant references to
the piney woods, the swamps, hunting, fishing, horses, snakes, raccoons, wild
boars, infantry combat, football, and a lot of other Southern Manhood stuff; but
above all, football. Back in the late 1950s, when Georgia Tech was a national
football power, Charlie Croker had been not only a star running back but a
linebacker, one of the last players on any major football team to play both
offense and defense, earning him the title, on the Atlanta sports pages, of
"the Sixty-Minute Man." The Sixty-Minute Man became a local legend his
senior year in the closing seconds of the big game with Tech's arch rival, the
University of Georgia. With forty-five seconds left on the clock, Tech was
losing, 20-7, when Croker ran forty-two yards for a touchdown. The score was now
20-14. Following the kickoff, with twenty-one seconds remaining, Georgia was
trying to eat up the clock with routine running plays when the Georgia
quarterback attempted yet another handoff to his fullback-and Croker blitzed
through the line from his linebacker position and took the ball out of the
quarterback's hand before his own fullback could reach it, knocked the fullback
to the ground like a bowling pin, and ran forty yards for another touchdown, and
Tech won, 21-20. To this day
old-timers recognized him in malls or lobbies and yelled out, "The
Sixty-Minute Man!" Atlanta
magazine had asked him what kind of exercise regimen he followed now, almost
fifty years later, and Peepgass had always remembered Croker's answer:
"Exercise regimen? Who the hell's got time for an exercise regimen? On the
other hand, when I need firewood, I start with a tree."
Croker was the kind who liked to be known as Charlie, not Charles,
because it was earthier. On his own plantation in Baker County he actually had
his black employees call him Captain Charlie, or just Cap'm. But lie was the
kind of Cap'm Charlie who always had to let you know he was a self-made Cap'm
Charlie.
"And
since it's your meeting," the Captain continued, "I s'peck you're
gettin' ready to tell us why."
He
said it with such a relaxed smile, Peepgass began to wonder if Harry was going
to get any saddlebags at all.
"No,
I wanna know if you know," said Harry. "Think of this as an AA
meeting, Mr. Croker. Now that the spree is over, we wanna see some real
self-awareness here. You're right, we called this meeting, but I want you to
tell me why. What's it all about? What's the problem here?"
Peepgass
watched Croker's face. Oh, he loved this part, too, the moment when the
shitheads finally realized that things have changed, that their status has taken
a header (into the excrement).
Croker
eyed Harry, really sizing him up now, not sure how to play it. (They never
were.) Every manly fiber in his being-and Charlie Croker's being was positively
thick with manly fiber-wanted to put this condescending asshole in his place,
firmly and rapidly. But if the
session turned into a personal pissing match, he was at a distinct disadvantage.
The condescending asshole could cause him severe grief. PlannersBanc held all
the cards. PlannersBanc could bring six other banks and two companies piling in
on top of him. Croker Global owed the other lenders an additional $285 million,
making a total of $800 million, of which $160 million were notes he, Croker, was
personally liable for.
"Well,
we're here," said Croker at last, "we're here"-(and if you don't
know why you're here, then we can't help you out)-"to see about
restructuring this thing, and we've come here with a good solid business plan
and I think you're gonna love it."
With
that he reared back in his chair again, mighty pleased with himself and Wismer
Stroock and the rest of the financial types and lawyers and division beads and
the Banking Relations preppies and Peaches and the other model-girl reared back
also, looking mighty pleased with Himself, too.
"But
what is 'this thing'?" asked the Artiste. "You're talking about
solutions, about a way out. First we gotta know what we're in, because it's
getting deep, and it's thick, and it's slimy. The Croker Global Corporation is
sinking into the ooze. You're disappearing on us, Mr. Croker, like the Lost
Continent. Before we lose you, you gotta tell me what this ooze is."