Hidden in the Mayonnaise (Part 3)

The Frybergs had a feast for the return of their prodigal son like it was a Monday, which it was. And the usual Monday fare was lobster bisque for starters. They were just served their main course, which was roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and a side of asparagus smothered in hollandaise sauce. To drink, there was sparkling water and a Cabernet Sauvignon from St-Emilion in France.

As Montgomery gazed upon this luxurious meal, all he could think about was back when he believed himself to be a vagrant named Sam Jones. It had only been that afternoon when he was standing underneath that bridge with Sullivan dreaming about salami sandwiches as they watched rancid mayonnaise dribble down a metal pole.

Now, he was eating a meal for kings—a meal that he’d eaten so many times in his life and never really thought about it being for kings. Truth be told, Montgomery never even cared for beef.

He immediately carved off a prime cut of it and dangled it underneath the table.

“Sparty!” he cooed.

That black and white rag doll cat was sitting on top of an armchair chattering and gazing dreamily out the window at flocks of pigeons dancing on the sidewalk. As soon as he heard his name called, he chirruped and pranced over to Montgomery to nab that juicy piece of meat.

Blaine, witnessing this, raised one eyebrow and puckered his lips sourly.

“Oh, really,” scoffed Montgomery’s fiancée Geraldine. She had been sitting next to him.

Harold, at the head at the table, pounded his chubby fist so hard down on it that it caused the entire family’s neatly arranged silverware to go askew.

“No feeding animals at the table!” the man bellowed.

 “Oh but surely, a little slice of meat—“ Montgomery said.

“Did you not hear what I said?” Harold said sternly.

Montgomery pointed his flattened palm to the cat and implored, “But look how happy he is…”

Spartacus had been purring so loudly as he chewed into the delicate beef that even a maid clear across the house, who was cleaning out the ashtray Dr. Vernon had left on the mantle place, could hear it.

“Of course it’s happy,” Harold declared. “It is an animal that’s just been handed a premium meal on a silver platter.”

Montgomery furrowed his brow and quickly assessed all the food on the table that was literally sitting on silver platters. “Well, let’s be accurate, he’s getting his on the floor.”

“And what did the cat do to deserve such a course?” Harold continued, ignoring that remark. “All he did today was laze on a chair, gazing at pigeons out of a window.” 

Harold, clenching his knife and fork with his chubby fists, began sawing madly into his own beef. He put a big chunk of it in his mouth and rapidly chewed as juices dribbled out of the sides. He used the napkin tucked underneath his collar to wipe it up before continuing to talk.

“Besides, cats don’t belong inside watching pigeons scoot around. It should be out nabbing one of its own, using its own wits and the natural abilities God gave it. If we kept cats outside where they belonged, they would clean the streets of all those varmints while they were at it. For Pete’s sake, when we take these creatures into our house and just feed it prime meals that it didn’t go out and earn, what good is it? It just takes up space.”

“Oh that isn’t true,” Montgomery said to Spartacus. He put the back of his fingers up to the purring cat who responded by affectionately rubbing his cheeks and his head on it.

Montgomery then cut off another thin slice off the meat and handed it to Spartacus, which was gladly accepted.

“Confound it!” Harold exclaimed, pounding on the table again and this time nearly choking on a big piece of beef that he’d just plopped into it.

Blaine had walked over calmly to slap Harold’s back, but Harold held out a palm to signal that he was alright.

Montgomery, closing his eyes defeatedly, said, “Alright, alright! I’ll stop feeding the cat.”

As soon as Spartacus swallowed his last bit of beef, he made a beeline back to the armchair and resumed watching pigeons.

Harold glared at his son tersely for these childish indiscretions. But he eventually shook his head and adopted a more business-like tone with him.

“Now Montgomery,” he said. “While you’ve been away from Fryberg Cold Storage—“

“Oh, must you talk business—,” wailed Minerva.

Harold waved her off. “Hush!”

“While you were out gallivanting around the city, Oscar Minter was kind enough to fill in your shoes as my Vice President of Operations,” he said. “But you’ve come back at a real consequential time in the history of our company. We need to take action quick.”

Montgomery sawed off a tiny sliver of his roast beef and carefully put in in his mouth and chewed, continuing to listen.

“Now we did all we could to keep the Camden factory operating during this economic downturn, but we continue to hemorrhage cash. We just can’t afford to keep it open.”

Montgomery took a sip of his wine to swallow down the beef. “What do you mean, how much cash are we hemorrhaging?” he asked.

“It’s real grim, Monty. Our profits are down 80 percent…”

Montgomery frowned and asked, “Is that all?”

Harold, looking back contentiously at his son, said, “What do you mean, is that all?”

“You said profits are down. That means we’re still making money, doesn’t it? I thought you said we were hemorrhaging cash.”

“Did you hear what I said? Profits are down 80 percent.”

Montgomery dabbed his lips with his cloth napkin and said, “Yes, I heard you. What I’m getting at is if we’re a profitable enterprise, how would that justify kicking hundreds of loyal employees out on the streets?”

Harold huffed, and his large tomato head started to turn to crimson.

“Listen, son, we’re not in the business of employing people. We are in the business of maximizing profits. And that Camden factory is just too large to support our current volume of orders—“

“So what?” Montgomery said. “Do you think this Depression is going to last forever?”

“Well, impossible to tell—"

“And when you started this company, I remember you telling people up and down the line that we’re in the business of bringing cold storage into every home. To make the average person’s life just that much easier. Alright, maybe there’s a Depression on, and maybe not as many people can afford to own a refrigerator right now. But they can dream about owning one, can’t they? And who knows? When this rotten Depression is over, maybe they’ll just go out and buy one for themselves. We would miss the Camden factory then, and all those hundreds of people we’d left in the lurch.”

“Montgomery, that’s not how it works,” his father explained. “All this nonsense about leaving people in the lurch. What nonsense. Think of the hundreds of other people we employ. They only have jobs because of us.”

“But what about the morality—“

“If you want to talk about morality…” Harold interrupted. 

He then embarked on a lecture that he’d told many times over about how God blessed King Solomon with wealth and prosperity and did much good with it—very much like Fryberg Cold Storage. But then something caught Montgomery’s eye. It was Spartacus. He was on his hind legs leaning against that window pawing at something. There was a person standing outside looking in. Montgomery’s heart skipped a beat.

It was Rita. 

As Montgomery gazed listlessly at Rita, he felt his face start to itch. He brought his hand to his cheek, and he felt rough stubble. He continued to feel it as it quickly grew into a full beard.

Harold stopped mid-lecture when he noticed what was happening to his son.

“What’s happening?” he said, starting to panic and his eyes widening. “What are you doing?”

Minerva, also noticing, suddenly started to bawl unconsolably.

Montgomery, ignoring all this, stood up. His eyes remained transfixed on Rita.

Geraldine grabbed the hem of Montgomery’s coat, trying to pull him down. “Come on, let’s finish supper,” she implored.

Montgomery brought his hands to the top of his head, where he found his hair was growing long. He then looked at his hands. They were dirty and grimy. He then looked at Spartacus who was standing on his hind legs and turning a rust color.

Montgomery walked back into his chair, which toppled over.

“Montgomery!” Minerva screamed. “Don’t leave us!”

Harold then shot out of his chair and lunged at his son, grabbing him by the collar of his jacket.

“Montgomery, If you’re not my Vice President of Operations, then someone else will be!” he yelled, frantically. “Take what’s being offered to you!”

But as Harold continued to look into his son’s eyes, something suddenly scared him. He gasped and let go. He then dusted off the dirt that had accumulated on his hands. 

“Get out of my house this instant!” Harold bellowed. “You’re not my son! You never were!”

Sullivan, the orange and white alley cat came walking on his hind legs to the front door, and Sam soon joined him. Sam took one last look at the Fryberg household before he would leave it for good.

“And if I catch you sniffing around this residence again, I will have the police remove you in handcuffs, you filthy vagrant!” Harold bellowed.

Sam winked and then went out the door.

 

~*~

 

“So what have you got for us today, yuckmeister?” Winnie Banks said to Harvey Stone at the WNRC studio, as he assembled his papers off his desk. “A small town in Kansas coming together to roll the world’s largest ball of twine? A man from Fresno who can whistle Yankee Doodle Dandy out of his nose?”

“No,” Harvey said flatly. “There’s a dog show coming to town. The Canine Cabaret. They have a schnauzer that can jump through a flaming hoop.”

“Is that so?” Winnie said, shaking his head hollowly. “Well I never…”

Winnie gave his papers one final tap on the desk and stuck them underneath his arm.

“By the way, whatever happened to that millionaire’s son… Fryberg? I heard he was out as Vice President of Operations at the cold storage company.”

“Oh,” Harvey said. “He’s dropped out. Decided to go his own way.”

“Is that so,” Winnie continued. “Millions of people would have given their left arm to have just a sliver of what he was born into, you know.”

Harvey grinned uneasily and said, “I do know. I wouldn’t mind a sliver of that myself.”

Winnie tapped Harvey on the shoulder and said, “We all would.”

Winnie then paused to muse, “I suppose we won’t be giving our thirsty public that kind of news on the air. People want to hear about people falling into riches. Not out of them.”

“Or in my case, schnauzers that can jump through flaming hoops.”

Winnie let out a boisterous laugh and said, “That’s why they call you the yuckmeister!” 

Harvey watched Winnie as he opened the studio door and closed it behind him. He wondered how Winnie might react if he’d ever wanted to make him laugh on purpose.

 

~*~

 

“I don’t know why we couldn’t have stayed there,” Sullivan said to Sam as they walked down 3rd Avenue. Sam had a brass ring in his pocket that he found in a discarded box of Cracker Jacks, which he was about to use to propose to Rita. “That place had some good eating.”

Sam shrugged and said, “We didn’t belong there.”

Sullivan twisted his cat lips and said, “Well, what about what your father said. If it wasn’t you pulling the strings at that company, it would only have been somebody else. Maybe you could have used your influence to prevent some people from being fired?”

“Perhaps,” Sam admitted, “but deciding who lives or dies, or who has a job or not, doesn’t seem like a human thing to do. Or at least something this human is interested in doing.”

Sullivan then paused thoughtfully before looking up at his human friend and asking, “What you said earlier about us not being God’s chosen people? That wasn’t true, was it, if you were born into that family. God did choose you for a life of riches and luxury after all.”

Sam scoffed and replied dismissively, “I don’t think so. Besides, that conversation you’re referring to was about manna. The lesson to take from that story is that God provides to his people what they need. What we did in that company is take all the manna for ourselves and then sell it back to the people to the highest bidder. If someone can’t buy manna, then they don’t get manna. And if someone can’t get any manna, then I don’t want any of it, either.”

“Something tells me you’re one of the few people in the world who thinks that way,” Sullivan said. “And yet you consider yourself human…”

Sam frowned.

Sullivan, then realizing he’d overstepped his bounds, tried to lighten up the mood. 

“At any rate,” the cat said, “we certainly have a lot more fun out here on 3rd Avenue.”

Sam looked upon Sullivan warmly and nodded.