Part 2The Friend I Sent to Prison

Then he hesitated, and gave me a careful look.

"So. Did you and Mr. Cole really have it out?"

My fork stopped.

"Mr. Cole?"

"Lucas." Nathan said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "That's what everybody calls him now. He took the name when he went off to school. University man, engineering degree, walked in here straight onto the management track. They think the world of him."

He sighed and lowered his voice.

"Don't go picking a fight with him. He's the golden boy around here. And his father's Henry Grant, the assistant plant manager. That's not a fight anybody wins."

Assistant plant manager.

Something went through me, sharp and cold.

I set the fork down. "Nathan, I want a straight answer."

"Go ahead."

"Lucas's family was hard up, weren't they? His folks sick, younger brothers and sisters to feed?"

Nathan stared at me. Then he nearly choked.

"Evan, did four years down south knock something loose?"

He tapped his fork against the tray and dropped his voice.

"Hard up? Henry Grant's been at this plant twenty years. Started as a machinist, made master, worked himself all the way up to assistant manager. That man signs things.

"They put in the first color console television on their road two years ago. Half the county came by to look at it.

"And Lucas is an only child. There's no brothers and sisters. There never were."

Something snapped in my head.

Lies. Every bit of it.

Four years ago he told me I'd missed the cutoff. A lie. Four years later he told me his family had left him no choice. Another one.

They'd had the money, the name, and every man in the building who owed them something, and they'd used all of it to take my life, and never lost a night's sleep over it.

The food in front of me went rotten in my mouth.

Then somebody yelled across the whole cafeteria.

"What the hell are you spreading around in here?"

A young quality inspector with a brush cut came at us fast and slammed his enamel bowl down on the table. Soup went across the front of my shirt.

Tyler Grant. A cousin's boy on the Grant side, and he'd gotten his job the same way everybody in that family got theirs.

Tyler put a finger in my face.

"You're some nobody who couldn't make it down south and came crawling back here for work. And now you're running your mouth about my uncle?"

Then he turned and pitched his voice to the whole room.

"Everybody listen up. This man's name is Evan Cole. Same name as Mr. Cole up in the office.

"He didn't get into college back then and he's never gotten over it. Now he sees Mr. Cole with a degree and a career and it's eating him alive, so he's going around telling people Mr. Cole stole his name.

"You ever hear anything so ridiculous?"

A few hundred faces turned toward me.

Nathan went white and slid quietly down the bench, away from me.

Tyler saw he had the room, and it made him bold. He leaned down close, where only I could hear him.

"What are you, exactly? What makes you think you're fit to stand next to my uncle?

"I'll tell you how it works here. This plant belongs to the Grants. You keep talking and you'll be packing your things tomorrow morning."

I picked up a rag off the table and wiped the soup off my shirt, slowly, until it was gone. Only then did I look up at him.

"Tell Lucas something for me. The truth doesn't stay buried."

Tyler's face twitched. "What are you talking about?"

I didn't look at him again. I picked up my tray and walked out.

Behind me the talk rose like a tide.

"Jealous, that's all it is."

"Specialist or not, there's something wrong with him."

"Looks honest enough. Rotten all the way through."

Back in Workshop Two, the German grinder that had shut down half the plant since morning sat quiet in the middle of the floor.

The old hands stood in a ring around it, and every one of them was shaking his head.