Hatchet Men

It was, of course, a business decision to bring in the area Manager from Terra Haute, with his business shoes all polished.  We anticipated a soft hat and trench coat, dapper but not over done; his degrees framed and tucked under one arm.  We surely would be assembled, like some military review, and then, right after the formal pleasantries, one by one we’d be called into an intimidating, mahogany office with various artificial plants here and there; no wait – they’re real.  Of course, no area Manager would have artificial plant-life festooning their intimidating office space.  What was I thinking?

One by one we’d be summoned to see the hatchet man.  That’s what they call them you know, hatchet men, called in for no other reason than to thin the herds.  Obviously it was a task too distasteful for John, who had gotten to know us as humans, been to our homes, and shared birthday cake.  No one who has shared birthday cake would bother to polish their shoes for such an occasion as this. 

As I stood there listening, feeling isolated and intimidated this area Manager spoke to me using business words, also highly polished.  We’d gotten too big, he said.  We’d over-grown the standard model and after some time his words blurred into some Terra Haute dialect, so foreign even the fichus began to question whether or not these were really words.  I found myself becoming quite irritated standing there listening to this hired monotone speaking of us as if we were no more than blips upon his graph.  Get to the bottom line, I screamed at him, to myself of course.  He had no clue I had begun to berate him in my head.  I was mentally snickering at his business attire and began having fun making snide silent comments about the very generic artwork strategically suspended from hidden nails.

I suddenly noticed a gap.  He had stopped talking and was now staring at me.  Had there been a question?   Did I miss the bottom line?  After all this… really?

Not to worry.  He was just catching his breathe.  Rejuvenated after his much needed gulp of oxygen he fell back into his verbal cadence, sighting by-laws and presidents.  I went quickly back into my mental fog, retreating as fast as possible from this Terra Hooten. 

Nothing any of us could have done would have prevented them from splitting us up. Our Scout Troop, that day, was divided into different districts.   Bobbie ended up in District 5.  We still saw each other at school and rode the same bus and shared each other’s birthday cake.  We just no longer attended the same Cub Scout meetings.

We were bummed.