The Hollow Men - Episode 18
A forest is planted in Gardendale. Trends in the oil field have caught Drew's attention, but money is still flowing like oil, Texas tea that is.
Last week in Episode 17 Sue and J.T. host the New Year's Eve party of the century at their new home in Gardendale, Texas, and Mike explains the concept of "sand and starch" to Drew and Rick.
The Hollow Men is the second collection of not quite true tales of Texas. If have recently subscribed and like to read things from the very beginning feel free to start with The Cold Days of Summer, the first collection of not quite true tales of Texas. Each episode of The Cold Days of Summer and The Hollow Men contains a link to the previous and next episode so you can easily move through the story line.
Keep on growing
The world was back at work on Monday, January 4th, 1982. Ned called me in the morning to tell me that he expected to have all five tanks ready for inspection at the end of the week. Friday morning I was at SouthWestern Tank with Ned to watch the hydrostatic pressure test and review the x-rays of the welds. It was another quality job by SouthWestern as the vessels passed both the hydrostatic test and the review of the x-rays. I signed the release paperwork on the vessels and told Ned I would have the vessels picked up from the SouthWestern tank yard Monday morning. Once I got back to our office I called Peter Tilden and told him the first five tanks were off the assembly line and ready for painting and coating.
By the end of the week all five vessels had been sandblasted, painted and coated according to New Mexico Chemicals specs. The next week scaffolding and ladders were set up on all five vessels. Final touch up and cleanup was performed the following week and with that all five tanks were ready for shipping to New Mexico the week of January 24th. Two trucks with long bed trailers and lifting cranes rolled into our yard the morning of the 27th and rolled out of our yard that afternoon. The vessels arrived at their final destination on Friday, January 29th, were hooked up over the weekend and were ready for use by Monday, February 1st.
Monday morning Peter Tilden called and let us know he was happy with the tanks, the setup, the whole deal. I told him that he would get the next five tanks the first week of March and he would get five tanks the first week of every following month until the order was complete the first week of June. I also told him I would be sending out the second invoice, this one to cover the remaining owed on the first five tanks.
Checks for SouthWestern and the other subcontractors were already sent. Five vessels down, twenty to go and the cost to us for each vessel was just below $5800. Since we were selling the vessels for $12,500 a piece, that meant a profit of over $6700 per vessel. We had a happy customer, we had a very nice profit. Things were looking good.
Later in the week, J.T. dropped by our office to tell us of another party at their house. Initially we were interested but then it started to sound like work. Sue and J.T. were planning a tree planting party. Bring a shovel, plant some trees and you could have all of the beer and hamburgers you want. The day of the party was set to be Saturday, February 20th and J.T. wanted to get started by 10:00 am.
“Hmm, you professionals might not work on Saturday's but us more down to earth folks actually work on Saturdays. Rick and me, we open at 7:00 am and work until noon. That makes us about 2 ½ hours late for the tree planting. Guess you'll have to shovel by your lonesome until we arrive, unless you have someone else showing up.”
“We do, I've already talked to James and Art. They both plan to be there. Mike Garrett will be too. And, there's a rumor going around that Barry is coming in for the weekend. I talked to his folks a couple of days back. I didn't tell them about the tree planting party, figure I'll let Barry know about that Friday evening. Looks like we can live with you showing up a couple of hours late, but if you show up at noon, you've got to work a little before you start drinking and eating.”
“We'll be sure to start drinking on the way to your house. Now, let's see that's you, Mike, Art, James, maybe Barry, Rick and me... Shit, how many damn trees are you going to plant, a whole forest?”
J.T. blushed a little and looked to the ground as he spoke. “Forty trees, most of them fruit trees. They're small trees. In most cases the root ball is smaller than 2 feet in diameter.”
“Forty trees! Hell, that's over five trees a person! Damn, you're going to kill us!”
“Blame Sue, she wants to make the place our own, put our stamp on it and she wants to do it all at once, at least as far as trees go. There's something else, some mulch to be spread, I'm having 15 yards of mulch delivered Friday afternoon. After the trees are planted I want to spread mulch around them.”
“Did you mention the 40 trees and 15 yards of mulch to anyone else?”
“No.”
“Didn't think so. Hell, we'll be there, for no other reason than to save you and everyone else from dying from the digging. Just make sure there's plenty of beer.”
“Good, Sue was confident you were coming and I appreciate the help.”
True to our word we arrived at Sue's and J.T.'s house at 12:15 pm on the 20th. Art, James, Mike, Barry and J.T. were taking a break when we arrived. True to our word we started drinking beer as soon as we locked the doors to our shop. It was a beautiful February day, one of those days the Odessa Chamber of Commerce needed to capture somehow and tell the world about. The morning low had been 40 degrees, but as the sun came up the day warmed up so that by noon it was 65 degrees without a cloud in the sky and a light breeze of 10 mph. Warm enough that you didn't need a jacket, but not hot at all.
J.T. provided us with the project status.
“Haven't made as much progress as we planned. Barry here has been complaining since he arrived at 10:30. He's also feeling more than a little pain from the night before. We've got five trees planted so far and around 11:30 everyone decided to take a break until you two arrived. Figure we can work for about an hour and a half, then have a late lunch, then get back at it until we're done.”
“Hmm, five trees? None of them mulched? That's going to mean a long day for all of us unless we get busy.”
“You're right, Rick. I've been telling them that all morning.” Mike smiled as he said that and took a long drink from his can of Coors. “I'm thinking, now that you two are here, we quit talking and start doing.”
“Great, we were hoping that you boys would have made more progress than you did, leaving us less to do.”
“Drew, you know that wouldn't be right, think of J.T. as Tom Sawyer and planting trees like painting a picket fence. It's going to be fun, or it will kill us.”
“Thanks for the perspective, Barry. Leave it to you to give us a literary analogy.”
“Always pleased to be of service.”
Sue's and J.T.'s house sat on three acres, that's roughly three football fields. Their lot was a little over 110 yards wide and around 170 yards long. Their house was centered in the width of the lot about 50 yards from the front edge. There was a two car garage that sat to the right and slightly behind the house and their driveway ran from the garage and curved out to the middle of the lot and onto the road.
J.T. showed Rick and me his plan for planting the trees. He had marked up a blueprint of the house on the lot. His markups showed four oak trees on each side of the driveway that in years to come would hopefully provide a canopy of shade for the driveway from the edge of their lot all the way to the garage. That accounted for eight of the forty trees. Another five oak trees would line the street edge of the lot. Two more oak trees were to be planted back near the garage. That made for a total of 15 oak trees. Five shade trees would be randomly placed in the side and back yard. The left half of the back yard, looking from the street, was going to be a fruit tree grove with four rows of five trees, or five rows of four trees, depending on which direction you were looking from. Fifteen oak trees, five shade trees and twenty fruit trees, and only five had been planted so far.
With that we all donned our work gloves, grabbed our shovels and started digging.
An hour and half later we had made some progress. We had initially started digging individually but Rick, Mike, James and I quickly realized that working together might be a more efficient approach. Mike and I paired up and started digging holes, while Rick and James started mulching the trees that had already been planted. The others noticed our approach and teamed up as well. By 2:00 pm Mike and I had planted three trees, Rick and James had mulched every tree that had been planted. Between Art, J.T. and Barry another four trees had been planted. All told, twelve trees had been planted and mulched. We had twenty-eight to go. It would be rough, but at least we had an approach that worked.
At 2:00 we broke for a late lunch. Sue had cooked the hamburgers on J.T.'s grill while everyone else dug, planted and mulched. The beer was cold and the hamburgers were good. I wasn't noticing any effect from the beer and my guess was that we were effectively sweating it out from the manual labor. It wasn't hot, but the work was hard and we worked steady so all of us had broken a good sweat in the last hour and a half, even Barry who by now had sweated away the effects of the previous night.
At 2:30 we started back to work. We kept to the same approach as before lunch. Mike and I focused on digging a hole, planting the tree and putting the earth back in place. Rick and James would then mulch the tree and we would move onto digging the next hole. Art and Barry teamed up to dig, plant and cover while J.T. alternated between all the jobs, basically filling the gaps as the afternoon wore on. We found a rhythm and by 3:30 we had planted and mulched another eight trees, leaving us with nothing but the fruit grove to plant. We took a short break, then hit it hard. In one sense the fruit grove was easier, the trees were smaller and all the work was right there. As soon as we finished one tree we walked a short distance to start on the next. Mike and I worked on one row, Barry and Art on another. Rick, James and J.T. made sure everything was mulched and all the loose ends were taken care of. By 5:00 we had planted ten fruit trees. By 6:15 we were done. All the trees were planted, all the mulch had been spread. But not all the beer had been drunk. Rick and I put our shovels and gloves in the bed of my truck and walked back to the house. J.T. and Sue had fired up the grill again. Our work crew was strewn about the back porch and Mike was a little concerned that we might run out of beer too soon.
“Sue, you're going to have to cut back on the beer. Otherwise there won't be enough for all of us hardworking men.”
“Mike, don't you worry, I have plenty of wine chilled in the house, you can keep your beer.”
“Oh, J.T., you've done well to marry a woman who doesn't drink your beer.”
“I know, I know, I'm a lucky man.”
J.T. was a lucky man. I wondered if the rest of us would ever be as lucky as him.
We drank into the night. Around 10:00 pm the beer ran out, but that was probably to the good. Art, James and Barry left around 11:00. Barry had to fly back to Corpus Christi Sunday afternoon and wanted to spend some time with his family before he left. Mike, Rick and I stayed to watch the rest of Saturday Night Live. As the credits rolled J.T. talked about the land.
“I hope these trees grow, I hope they grow large and tall. I want the oak trees to cover the driveway, provide shade all the way from the street to the house. That would be something. That would be something.”
“My love, you're drunk.”
“You're right. I'm drunk. But I'm drunk, happy and in love. I'm with my friends and it is a beautiful night.”
Sue was right, he was drunk. But he was damn lucky. Like I said earlier, I wondered if any of the rest of us would be so lucky in life and love.
There wasn't anything else to say or do so we drove back to Odessa.
Work continued well, we kept making money, but things did get a little scary in March. The price of oil dropped over three dollars from February. The rig count dropped over two hundred, from 4092 in February to 3823 in March. Our work buffer dropped from 190 to 185 days. At first, the numbers scared me but we still had a six month work buffer, that is we, we had work lined up six months into the future. The work buffer was going to be our strongest measure, as long as it was 90 days or better we knew what the next quarter would look like. I decided the other thing I would need to keep track of is how “wide” the work buffer was. Early on, we only had a single “assembly” line of building, coating, painting, scaffolding, trucking and hooking up tanks. Now we had four to six “assembly” lines at any one time. For the last few months and for the foreseeable future we had not only our yard filled with tanks to be coated, painted, scaffolded and shipped, but three other yards across town.
The first week of March we shipped the second set of five vessels to New Mexico Chemicals. I talked with Peter Tilden the day after the vessels had been delivered and set up. He liked what he was seeing, enough in fact that he said he was going to send me a new set of spec drawings to bid on. He wanted forty to fifty three phase separators built in the second half of the year. I told him that we would be glad to bid on them.
The next week the drawings from New Mexico Chemicals arrived.
Wednesday morning I worked on the quote for the separators. I dropped one set of drawings off with Ned at SouthWestern Tank.
“Forty to fifty separators? Shit, who are these people?”
“All I know if their money is good. These are the same folks who are buying the cones.”
“Well, it would be good to have a steady stream of work. And separators are hell of a lot more normal than those coned things. These things are pretty straightforward. Once we got going I bet we could make up to ten a month. That would be some good work and money. I'll have you a price and schedule worked out by Friday, how does that sound?”
“That'll be great. I don't owe them a quote until early next week. While you're working on the construction quote I'll generate the estimates for everything else.”
Friday afternoon Ned called and told me they could build the separators for $5500 a piece. Delivery could start 140 days after receipt of a PO and he could deliver 8 vessels a month. I already had my estimates for everything else. Painting and coating was going to run $1000 a vessel. Scaffolding another $700. Trucking and setup on site would cost $1000 a vessel. Our cost would be right at $8200 a vessel. The only question left was how greedy I would be. It didn't take me long to decide. I wrote my quote letter, dialed the phone and asked for Peter.
“Peter Tilden here.”
“Pete, this is Drew Remington, VP Tanks in Odessa, Texas. I've got a quote on those separators.”
“Drew! Great to hear from you. What kind of deal can you do for me?”
One problem I have is I never quit thinking. Forty to fifty separators was a lot of work. We already had a good relationship with New Mexico Chemicals. I was thinking how we could cement the relationship.
“Pete, here's the deal. We've learned a lot from working with you and these large quantity deals are good for both of us. When we build the same vessels in the quantities you order we get better at building them as we go along. We can't build more than five to eight in a single month, so here's what I want to do. The first eight will cost you $17,500 each. The next twelve will cost you $17,000 each. After you've bought the first twenty, I can sell you the next ten for $16,000 even. And after the first thirty, if you buy in quantities greater than five, I can give you a price of $15,000 each. So, let's look at the whole deal. If you buy forty of these separators, that's 8 times $17,500 or $140,000, 12 times $17,000 or $204,000, 10 times $16,000 or $160,000 and the final 10 times $15,000 or $150,000. Add it all up and you have forty separators per your specs for a total of $654,000. Based off our current workload, I can get the first five to eight separators setup at your site 170 days after receipt of your PO. After that I can deliver six, maybe eight a month. What do you think?”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment.
“Drew, you're the first person to call in with an estimate. I'm looking at two other places, but past experience tells me your price will be the best. Give me a week to make a decision.”
I had decided to to provide price breaks based off how many separators Peter ordered for two reasons. The first reason was to reel him in as a long term customer. The second was to give both of us an opportunity to break the deal. The cynic in me thought the market was turning and I wondered if in six months he could still work a deal for over $600k if a downturn started to speed up.
“Okay, but one more thing. Let's make this flexible for all involved. Versus one PO for the entire amount, let's have a purchase order along the price breaks I've given you. In other words one PO for the first eight, another for the next 12, another PO for the next 10 and one final PO for the last 10. That will allow us to schedule the work more effectively than if we have to deal with it all at once. If you want to go with different quantities, let me know and I'll adjust the estimates based off the schedule that works for you.
“Drew, thanks, you've given me something to think about.”
“I'll have a quote based off today's conversation in the mail tomorrow morning. You should have it in hand by Thursday.”
“Great, I'll call you next Friday with my decision.”
The rest of the week at work was uneventful save that we Remington's had a surprise Thursday evening. Mom, Dad and I had finished dinner. Kaiser and I were helping with the dishes. Kaiser was showing his age, moving a little slower and starting to lose his hearing but he still had a good appetite. That night Mom had fixed chopped steak with green beans and scalloped potatoes. Knowing that Dad and I would leave nothing to spare she fixed an extra steak and saved off some green beans for Kaiser. He was busy cleaning his plate while I cleaned up the kitchen when the phone rang.
Dad liked answering the phone as much as I did so it was Mom who got up from the couch and walked into the hallway where one of the phones was located. She said hello, then told my Dad “Honey, it's Elizabeth. Do you want to join in on the call?”
Dad answered with a grunt but he walked into the kitchen and picked up the extension. I turned off the water, dried my hands and stayed quiet. Kaiser had finished his cleaning and was lying contentedly on the kitchen floor.
I couldn't tell much of what was going on. I did hear Mom cry out excitedly and saw Dad curse to himself, but as his son I had become quite adept at reading his lips. I could hear both Mom and Elizabeth talking excitedly. A few more minutes passed, Dad hung up the phone and walked into the living room. Kaiser followed him. I heard the back door open and I knew he and Kaiser had gone out into the backyard.
Sometime after that Mom walked into the kitchen all aglow.
“Elizabeth is pregnant! I'm going to be a grandmother! You're going to be an uncle! Where's Gene?”
“Outside, he and Kaiser are in the back yard.”
She gave me a big hug and walked out after my Dad.
Elizabeth pregnant? The first thing that crossed my mind, and probably crossed Dad's mind was what that meant about college for Elizabeth and Bud. Up till then Bud and Elizabeth had been burning it up. They had both CLEPped out of 12 hours (6 hours English and 6 hours American History) during their first fall semester. Their first semester Bud took 15 hours and Elizabeth took 18 hours. They repeated the pattern in the spring of 1981 and ended up after their first full year with 42 and 48 hours respectively. After their honeymoon they both took 9 hours during summer school and repeated their 15/18 pattern in the fall and again in the spring of 1982. If all went well they would wind up with 81 and 93 hours respectively at the end of the spring semester of 1982, damn impressive for just being two years out of high school. The question in my mind, and probably in Dad's mind was what was going to happen now that kids were on the way. No one asked the question that day, which is probably best as no one had an answer.
The following Friday Peter Tilden called and again proved to be a man of his word.
“Drew, this is Pete Tilden. Let's build some separators.”
“How many?”
“Let's go for the whole shebang, forty separators along the price breaks in your quote. First delivery in one hundred seventy days after receipt of PO still good?”
“Yep, still good. Now that's it a go, let's talk about how we're going to cover the costs of building these things until we send you the invoice after delivery. We don't build this kind of vessel often so all of the heads, pipe, flanges and couplings won't come out of our inventory, we'll have to buy them special for this job.”
That wasn't entirely true. What was true is we didn't have any materials in stock. That's because we didn't have a material inventory in the first place.
“What are you thinking, Drew? As long as its reasonable I'm sure we can work something out.”
“When will you sending the first PO to us?”
“Assuming we can work out the details, I can have it to you by the end of next week. I already have clearance for the first shipment of 8 vessels.”
“Okay, here's what I'm thinking, we'll run two invoices for each PO, the first invoice to cover the cost of materials upfront, the second invoice to cover the difference. I'll send the first invoice within 14 days of receiving the PO and it will be a standard Net 30. Give me a minute to figure out a number we can play with for the first invoice.”
I punched some numbers in the calculator but already had a good idea of where I needed to be.
“Last time we did 40% of the entire order up front. This time, because of the fact we have none of this stuff in inventory I'm thinking 50% for the first invoice, then bill you for the remaining 50% upon delivery to your site. Based off that, once I get the PO for the first eight separators for a total of $140k I'll send you an invoice for $70k within 14 days. We'll do the same thing for each PO. How does that sound?”
The rest of the conversation was fleshing out the details. By the end of the next week I should have a PO for $140k. We agreed to a first delivery around September 17th, with 8-10 vessels every month after until New Mexico Chemicals had 40 separators up and running.
After I had hung up the phone I thought about the deal for a couple of minutes. To fully appreciate it I had a beer while I thought. I was on my second beer when Rick came in from checking up on some of our current projects.
“Damn, it is either a good day or a bad one to see you drinking beer before 5:00 pm. Which is it?”
“Good. You remember those separators that New Mexico Chemical asked me to bid on?”
“Yep.”
“We got the job. Forty separators for a total of …” I paused and took a sip to add some drama then spoke slowly. “Six hundred fifty four thousand dollars. First delivery is not until 170 days from now and we aim to deliver 8 separators a month. Our cost is a little under three hundred thirty thousand, we ought to a make a profit of over three hundred twenty thousand.”
“Damn. That is worth a beer or two. How many you had so far?”
I took a long sip emptying the can, crushed it in my hand and tossed it in the trashcan by my drafting table.
“That makes two. You've got some catching up to do.”
“That I do.”
I walked over to the refrigerator and got two more beers, one for me, one for Rick.
“Oh, one more thing, we're not getting one PO for the vessels, the whole order will be broken across four PO's. And, we're going to invoice for 50% of the PO within 14 days after receiving the PO. We should get the first PO for $140k by next Friday.”
“Well, I think we're done for the day. Any Friday you close a deal for $654k is a pretty good Friday.”
We clinked our cans in agreement. It had been a good Friday, and with the order in place, it looked like the rest of 1982 would at least be decent, no matter what else happened.
By the next Friday I had a PO from New Mexico Chemicals for $140k. On April 12th I put in the mail our first invoice of $70k for the separators.
As we moved into 1982 I added an extra bit of information to my numbers. I added an arrow up to indicate the latest number had increased from the previous month and an arrow down to indicate the latest number had decreased from the previous month. This helped me to see persistent trends. Rig count had increased month by month from April 1979 through December 1981 but was on a downward trend from January 1982 through May 1982. US Rig count have been on an upward trend from June 1979 through December 1981, but was on a downward trend starting in January 1982. The price of West Texas Intermediate dropped two dollars to $36.00 in June 1981 and had been on a slightly downward trend through March of 1982. It had bounced back up in April and May of 1982. Our work buffer was consistently growing and we aimed to keep it below 180 days by adding additional assembly lines. All in all, I was getting a little nervous, but not a lot, just enough to keep a close eye on the numbers and make sure people were paying their bills.
In April and May of 1982 we made our deliveries to New Mexico Chemicals and everyone else. Money kept rolling in, including New Mexico Chemical's first payment of $70k on their separators, but I kept a close eye on the measures. Our work buffer added up to nearly 2 ½ years of backlog work. Unless things got real crazy we were in good shape. We held to our pattern of every month either buying a new six month to one year CD or rolling our spare cash into Fidelity Magellan. Mike was following our lead, though not as aggressively.
In May 1982 we had several visitors at the office. First to show up was Rick's older brother, Robert. We were closing out the day, enjoying a couple of beers, when Robert walked through the door.
“Robert, what the hell are you doing?”
“Not much, Drew, not much. Been awhile, how are you?”
“Damn good, care for a beer? It's sort of our end of the day tradition.”
“I don't drink much anymore, but I'll have one with you and my bro.”
I got Robert a beer from the refrigerator while Rick gave him a good hug.
We all sat down, stared at each other, took a sip from our beers and stared again at each other.
Robert spoke first. “Is the conversation always this scintillating?”
“Yep, though sometimes Drew gets real quiet and withdrawn.”
“I can imagine.”
Having been challenged I decided to see if I could get the conversation going.
“How's Corpus? How's the house? Do you see Barry much?”
“Corpus is good. The house is great. As for Barry, he drops by the restaurant about once a month to have a couple of drinks and talk. I think he needs some kind of connection back to West Texas and I'm it. I'm working mostly full time but taking as many hours as I can without going too crazy. I'm officially a junior now. If I keep up at this pace I should graduate in another two years.”
“Excellent, what are you majoring in?”
“BBA in Management. I'm thinking of continuing in the restaurant business but move from being a waiter into full time management. I like the hours, the work and the people. How's the tank business doing?”
“We're making money, we've got no complaints there. Things seems a little strange. Some folks have no fear, they think there will never be a downturn. Other people are scared of their own shadows.”
“How about you two?”
That caused a pause. It almost felt like he was asking a couple how they were doing.
“Well, Drew snores...”
“And Rick never brings me flowers.”
“Oh, wait, that's probably not what you meant is it?”
“Uh, no, it wasn't, but now that I know, have you two talked about counseling? I would hate to see a couple like you hit the skids, after all you two have been through.”
“It would be a damn shame.”
Rick broke first and started laughing and then Robert and I joined in.
Once the laugher died Rick spoke. “Assuming you meant our business relationship, we're cautious and conservative. If a fool wants to give us a lot of money we'll take it, but we make sure the check will clear before we get too excited about the deal.”
“Do you think you will go back to school anytime soon?”
I spoke for us both.
“No, not for awhile. I think we want to ride this out, at least for a while. Hell, we've got work lined up for the next eight to ten months so there's no need for us to get nervous, at least not yet. We never spend more than we got, managed to put a fair bit of cash away so even if things get bad we should be all right.”
Robert glanced at Rick and said “I thought you said he's the quiet one.”
“Most times, then there are times when he just rambles on. That's okay, gives me time to drink my beer.”
We had another laugh and took another sip of beer. Things were going all right. Robert, the prodigal son, had turned his life around and while Rick and I weren't academics we were doing more than okay. The trick was a simple one, you ride the ride you're on for as long as you can and hopefully get down before you get bucked off.
The day after Bud and Elizabeth completed their finals for the spring semester of 1982 they drove back to Odessa to stay for a week before heading back to Lubbock and summer school. Before they visited the parents they stopped by our office on a Thursday around 10:30 am. Elizabeth was showing a bit. Rick was following up on a painting job when they arrived.
I was working on a drawing and was focused in on assembly details and didn't respond to anything until Elizabeth snuck up behind me and put her hands over my eyes.
“Guess who.”
“Don't know, but you sound like my kid sister.”
She moved her hands, I turned around and saw her and Bud. Bud walked over and shook my hand.
Being the good host, I offered Bud a beer, grabbed on myself and rustled up a coke for Elizabeth and Mary Ann. I was a little disappointed in Mary Ann, she did not approve of my having a beer or two before 11:00 am.
“What you got?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, my little sister doesn't drop in on me unless she's thinking about something so unless you've changed your ways I figure there's something you want to ask or tell me.”
She looked down for a moment, reached out for Bud's hands then looked up with a fierce gladness in her eyes.
“You know I'm pregnant.”
“I had heard rumors of such an event.”
“I'm, I mean we're having twins.”
That was worth a sip of beer.
“Twins? Really? When did you find out?”
“We had some suspicions, but we learned for sure this week.”
“Damn. That's good news, right?”
“It's real good news. You're going to be an uncle twice over before you know it.”
“Hmm... so, something I've not asked, I don't know if anyone else has asked, how does all of this affect college?”
“It slows things down some. We finished up the semester like we started, me with fifteen hours, Elizabeth with eighteen hours. I plan to take six hours this summer, Elizabeth will start scaling back and will take three hours. This fall I'll take fifteen hours but Elizabeth will take it easier. With the twins due in November, we're thinking that nine hours for her ought to be plenty. “
Sue added in her perspective. “I've talked to my professors, they know I'm expecting and they're willing to work with me. There are maybe some days I just won't make it to class but they're willing to cut me a little slack. Once the twins are born I want to spend some time with them so I plan to take only nine hours in the spring. Texas Tech has good on campus day care so I'll drop them off, go to class, get some studying done then pick them up.”
Bud added in with “I'll be helping out where I can. I'm getting used to the pace and load of engineering school and even though fifteen hours is a full load I'll find some time to take some of the day to day load off her shoulders.”
I nodded my head.
“You do know Mom is planning to take a couple of weeks off after you give birth. Have you thought about how the three, no, the five of you will fit in your apartment?”
“Some, some. We're setting up the second bedroom as a nursery, but there's also a second bed in there. I can't see Mom wanting to sleep anywhere else but in there.”
“You're right about that. The way she's been talking about her first grandchild since she heard you were expecting, well, she's been talking a lot. Does she know about the twins?”
“No, not yet. We're planning to tell both sets of grandparents tonight. That's the main reason we came down.”
“Well, I'm honored to be told first. Guess I'll have to buy you two lunch. Any preferences?”
Bud smiled before he spoke.
“Elizabeth figured we could get a free lunch out of you. She's sort of stuck on Harrigan's. Is that all right with you?”
“As long as you're driving.”
Mary Ann stoically stayed behind to keep an eye on the phones and deal with any other unexpected visitors.
After lunch Bud and Elizabeth dropped me off at the office and they drove back into town. By the time I arrived home that evening Elizabeth had already told Mom. Dad was still at work. Elizabeth and Mom were cooking dinner and Kaiser was keeping a close eyes on all that went on when I got home.
Author’s note
We covered a lot of ground with this long episode, but we’re setting the stage for the last half of The Hollow Men.
The one chapter in this episode was originally titled “A young forest” but this morning when I was making the final edits I changed the title to “Keep on growing,” a nod to the song “Keep on growing” on the album “Layla and other love songs” by Derek and the Dominoes. VP Tanks continues to grow, a new forest is planted in Gardendale, and Elizabeth and Bud will soon be parents of twins.
Next week in Episode 19 Drew takes a drive through his regretful past, the present slaps him hard in the face and a skeleton dog assigns him a mission. In other words, things get kind of strange.