It was early August and shortly before the first potatoes were to be harvested. Izzo Farms had a contract with Cali to deliver 40,000 pounds of potatoes, for forty days in a row. The truck would show up at the farm and the work crew was to carry out, and load the semi with four hundred, 100-pound bags of potatoes in less than an hour.
Miguel said, “Boss, this is the weirdest damned thing in the world! Why are we making a fence out here in the middle of nowhere? I just don’t understand.”
Chad pulled off his gloves and slapped them against his thighs, driving dust into the air. “Okay. You guys have been with me all summer, right? You must have noticed that a lot of people do me favors, favors I don’t pay for. Right?”
Most of the work crew were nodding their heads “yes”.
“This is how I return those favors. The central valley is cursed with a plague of feral hogs. Folks can’t shoot them because all the guns have been confiscated and it takes a month to get a permit to control any varmint. This slope is covered with Jeffrey pine and oak trees. This is the first place in the valley where the acorns ripen. Every hog within fifty miles comes here starting in mid-August.”
“We are making an industrial sized, Figure ‘6’ hog trap.”
“People will do things for five pounds of pork loin that they would not do for a thousand Callors.
“But don’t worry. There will be plenty of pork for us to eat. The thing is, we got a good thing going here, and just one person blabbing can spoil it. By the way, every ‘student’ who ever worked here gets a little package of pork each year. That is just the way I roll.”
Miguel asked, “You know, I never figured out why you get a new crew every year. It seems like it would be way more efficient to keep the same crew year after year. I know you spent a lot of time training us in how you wanted us to do things.”
Chad nodded in agreement. “That is how it started out. We got to keep the same crew year after year. But then about three years after Calexit there were some rural uprisings. The people at the Department of Education decided that the students and the farmers were working together too well. The people who make policy decided that it was better to have the farms be less efficient as long as the people they were supervising remained off-balance and easier to manage.”
“Things are going to get real busy over the next three months. First, we will be harvesting potatoes, and then we will harvest the cabbage. We will have some long days but we will feast like kings.”
Ken said, “I am real sorry, Chad. But I am not picking up your potatoes today. Some chick named Lois and a tool named Terry showed up at the motor pool and stirred up a bunch of shit. They flashed their badges and kicked me off my own damned truck. They brought a couple of big-city thugs to drive the truck. Like I said, Chad, I am real sorry but it looks like they plan to fuck you over, big time.”
Chad spoke into his phone. “Hey, no sweat. You can only do what you can do. Tell me, how did that dry rub work with the pork loin?”
“Damn, Chad. That was the best damned meat I ever ate. You were right. Slow cooking it at low heat over a tray wet down with a can of beer is the bomb. Gotta tell ya, my wife loved it too. And when mama is happy, everybody is happy.”
“Hey dude,” Chad said, “I gotta thank you for the heads up. I will let you know if I need anything special. ‘Preciate the help.”
The semi pulled into the loop that ran alongside the shipping shed. A nattily dressed man with a bushy mustache got out of the passenger side. He walked over to Chad and handed him a document.
“My name is Branch. I am from the Department of Education and I am auditing your compliance to your production quotas.”
“Isn’t that somebody else’s sandbox?” Chad asked.
“The moral character of our education vendors, that would be you, is of the highest concern to the Cali Department of Education. We are trying to raise good citizens. That means that we need to weed out people who use fraud and sleight-of-hand to meet their quotas.”
“I am not disputing you, but how do you intend to audit my operation?” Chad asked, secretly amused.
“I intend to personally weigh every bag of potatoes loaded onto this truck. Furthermore, I intend to audit the contents of random bags to ensure that you are not shipping dirt, rocks or rotten produce.” Terry Branch said.
“What the hell! Weighing every bag will take hours.” Chad objected.
“Time is not a concern when justice is at stake.” Terry beckoned to one of the goons in the cab. The goon got out and unloaded an ancient, balance beam scale from the trailer.
“You have to be shitting me. You cannot weigh stuff with that. It will take forever!” Now Chad was exasperated.
“This scale is the one that the Department of Education made available to me. It is certified to NIST 2025. The thing about balance beam scales is that they are as reliable as gravity. This is what we have. And this is what we are going to use.” Branch said.
It took Terry Branch two minutes to weigh each bag of potatoes. He weighed them to the nearest ounce.
He demanded that one in every three bags be opened and spread upon the ground for inspection.
It took thirteen hours to load the potatoes instead of the fifteen minutes it took when they used the fork truck to move the potatoes into the truck on pallets. It tied up most of the crew for the same time period, causing them to miss the time in the field to pick potatoes for tomorrow’s quota. Mardi demanded a copy of Terry’s weights. She was allowed to photocopy the raw data.
Later than night, Mardi opined, “Well, we are in deep shit now. We have twenty-five thousand pounds of potatoes in the shed and we are on the hook to deliver forty thousand pounds tomorrow. Branch really screwed us, and our crew. What do you think we should do?”
Chad said, “It is like poker. You play the hand you have, no matter how crappy, and you wait for somebody else to blink.”
“It looks to me like we only need one or two of the crew to load if they are going to weigh each bag. I think we send most of the crew out to the fields at first light to harvest the potatoes for the day-after-tomorrow. Maybe we move the first five thousand pounds to puff-up what is there.”
“Yeah, but that still leaves us ten thousand pounds short for tomorrow.” Mardi (who had always been good at math) exclaimed.
Chad said, “That is why we count on miracles.”
He pulled out his phone. “Ken. You were right. They are out to monkey-hammer us.”
”Yeah, I could tell by the way they were putting their heads together they weren’t planning anything good.” Ken said. “Man, let me know if there is anything I can do to help. I hate those assholes on principle. The fact that dicking with you screws up twenty other farmers who count on me for transportation doesn’t bother them a bit.”
“Well, now that you mention it, there is something you can do. Do you still have that old flat-bed?” Chad asked.
“I sure do.” Ken said.
“How many pounds of potatoes do you think it can carry if they are in bags?” Chad said.
“Oh, hell.” Ken said. “Probably about ten thousand pounds. It used to be a wrecker, back when everybody had cars.
“Ten thousand pounds! Good deal.” Chad replied, “I want two things from you. I want you to unlock the gate at the southeast corner of the warehouse. The other thing I want you to do is to park your flatbed on the corner of Idaho and Ione streets with the keys tucked above the sun visor.”
“Whaddya plan on doing, buddy?” Ken asked.
“Nope, I can’t tell you. A lot of times it is better to be stupid than to know too much.” Chad said.
“Well, if you are thinking of doing what I think you are planning on doing, you are going to have to keep an eye out for Walkers.” Ken said.