The Meeting 137

Just a quick flash story for fun.

The plot is contrived and silly, perhaps even slightly cartoonish, but then again this is escapist fun not serious literature. I had the idea for the plot and the words describing it are more to get the concept out than an attempt at valid prose. In other words, I know my writing isn't up to par, my dialogue often idiotic, and the stories somewhat contrived but I do try to make them fun. I do my own editing and have a basic ninth grade education so what you get is what you get (and yes, I am over 18, my children are over 18, and some of the grandchildren are approaching it)

After posting my last story I came up with a good way to deal with the comments, I don't read them. So, if you are looking to discuss what I write with me, or criticize it, maybe just email me. Orson Wells referred to critics in Mel Brooks "History of the World, Part 1" as the "inevitable afterbirth" which covers the anonymous commentators here quite well.

All the usual restrictions apply. Copyright 2018 all rights reserved to me. No sex in this one as usual I don't do sex scenes all that well.

*****

I had requested this meeting as a final condition of the divorce. My wife and her new lover, my former friend, and CFO of my company, had agreed, probably just to get it over with. After all I was a beaten man, they had nothing to fear from me. Finding him in bed with my wife, in our home and in our bed, and then the contempt she treated me with, had beaten me down. They knew they had won and I had lost all that I held dear.

The conditions of the divorce gave them, between them, full ownership of my former company effective the day the divorce was finalized by the judge. Under the no fault divorce laws in the state we lived in Marilyn would have been granted half of my 90% ownership stake and John, her new lover and partner, owned 10%, so they would have controlled 55% of the shares, allowing them to make any changes they desired. In exchange for some considerations that I will describe shortly I agreed to give Marilyn the remaining 45% I owned in the divorce.

We had arranged to meet at 2:00 PM in my lawyer's office and were just waiting on word from the court that the paperwork had been signed off on by the judge to start. One of the few items I had insisted on, besides retaining full ownership of a few small, insignificant, corporate entities, was the inclusion of a final resolution clause in the filing. As part of the divorce Marilyn had signed away any and all rights to seek modification or redress after the final paperwork was signed. I wanted the whole sorry business over and done with and never wanted to see the inside of a courtroom again.

Surprisingly we had a fairly full conference room for the meeting. Marilyn and John, her lawyer, the corporation's lawyer and his assistant, my lawyer and his assistant, and me. Eight people, former friends and confidants, we now sat mostly silent, the lawyer's chatting aimlessly to each other, the principles just staring at one another almost vacantly, for a good ten minutes until we received word that everything was done. My life's work, twenty-four years of sweat and toil, had just been stolen from me by my traitorous bitch of a former wife and her oily new boyfriend.

The corporate lawyer started the proceedings off. I had known him for years and to say he was disgusted by what they were doing was an understatement. He had wanted to resign from representing the company, but I had actually asked him to stay on to help implement the terms of the divorce and ensure the remaining employee's interests were looked after. He pushed some paperwork over to me.

"Robert Williams, it is my sad duty to inform you that you are being released, effectively immediately, from your duties and offices as President and CEO of Wil-Cor Industries. You will be allowed supervised access to your office to remove any personal effects at a mutually agreed upon time."

"Thank you Peter I know this is difficult for you as we have been friends and colleagues for a long time. I have already cleaned out my office. We can discuss the terms of my severance payments at a later date though."

Peter looked through the termination letter. "I don't see any offer of severance here."

"Really? They intended to deny me even that? We can get back to that in a bit. As I understand it, I have only been granted one hour for this talk and would like to make the best use of the available time although I doubt I will need it all. It is nice that they can spare me one hour in exchange for twenty-five years of marriage, hard work, and fidelity. First though, Marilyn, I only have one question. Why? Wasn't I a good husband, a good father, a good provider? When did you ask for something, I didn't try to provide for you?"

She had the decency to almost look ashamed for a moment. "It was the money, Bob, pure and simple. You know we had a solid offer to sell. Forty-three million dollars. John would have gotten four million and we would have had almost forty for ourselves. We could travel, get away from this backwards town, move to France or somewhere else. This place is a backwater and you seem to enjoy staying in it."

"But what about the employee's if we sold? They were as instrumental as making this company a success as we were. More than you as you never spent any time working there. Many of them put in long hours helping to make it a success, a success you plan to cash in on. You know the buyers planned to close the plant, all they wanted were the patents, they can move the production overseas. These are your friends and neighbors, Marilyn, people you see at social and school functions. Our daughters went to school with their sons and daughters before they left for college. You know your buyers really only want the patents and will close out the factory as soon as they can. They will all be out of jobs that this community depends on."

"What do I care about these yokels? What did they ever do for me? All they care about here is football and hunting and their little lives. I deserve better than this. You think I want to spend the rest of my life doing church bake sales and PTA fundraisers?"

"And your daughters? How will they hold up their heads here when they see their friends and know their mother put their families out of work?"

"My daughters will be fine. Why would they ever need to come back to this place? They can move on into the larger world instead of spending their lives in this redneck haven."

"I think you might find you don't know them as well as you think you do. But why the sex? Did you really need to humiliate me and cuckold me with John? Was this part of your master plan? To have me walk away with nothing, not even my dignity? For some reason I don't think you love him like you once did me."

"I needed John's 10%. With that and the 45% I would get in the divorce we could force the sale. Sex was merely part of the package. Once we had consummated the deal with sex, we both knew there was no turning back. With your narrow-minded morality, your outdated thoughts of fidelity and duty and honor, I knew once you caught us you wouldn't be able to forgive us. By putting all the profits back into the company John wasn't seeing any income from it beyond his salary, this way he can cash out. He wants out of this town as much as I do. But neither of us expected the stunt you pulled, exchanging the remaining 45% of the company in exchange for the pension and severance package for any employee's let go due to the sale or forced closure of the company."

"So, you had sex in exchange for money. We won't discuss what women who do that are called. And the whole thing was a set-up from the beginning. Me catching you with him in our bed. Yes, you are right, my narrow-minded morality refused to accept it and I would have insisted on divorce if you hadn't filed first. Not that it matters, but was this your idea or John's?"

"Let's just say it was a mutual decision arrived at after much discussion. John and I might not be in love, but we do share a common outlook and goal. Look Bob, we agreed to this meeting as part of the divorce, but this is rather pointless. What's done is done and nothing here will change it. I know you are having a hard time accepting this, but it wasn't personal, it was strictly business."

"OK let's keep this strictly business then. I assume John is taking over as the head of Wil-Cor?"

"John will be president to negotiate the sale, I am taking over as interim CEO. Peter's firm will continue to remain as general counsel under contract."

"Let's discuss the issue of my severance first then. Under the terms of the recently registered divorce decree any employee who is not a stockholder after the decree was implemented, and who is terminated, for any reason, within three years of the date of the judge signing off on the paperwork, essentially 2:10 PM today, is entitled to one year's salary at the pay scale on record at the time of said signing. Also, that all monies required to cover 100% of all employee's severance has been established in an independent escrow account which would function even in the event of bankruptcy. In addition, in the event of sale if the new owners decide to terminate the manufacturing plant the severance clause would go into effect. Peter would you agree this is correct?"

"Yes, that is the terms of the assumption of ownership by Marilyn Williams spelled in the divorce decree. As you know the escrow account has been set up and is being overseen by a separate entity. Wil-Cor had to borrow heavily to fund this account, an action which I advised against, but was approved by Mrs. Williams lawyers and overseen by the court. I know you recused yourself from all activities related to this so no appearance of bias or corporate malfeasance could be attached to it and are therefore allowed to participate in it."

"Then under the terms of the decree, my termination having occurred after the divorce was finalized, I am due one full year's salary, payable immediately. As you can see from the following papers, and copies of recent check stubs, as president and CEO I am entitled to 1.2 million per year in compensation. I will be submitting a claim to the escrow account for the full amount. Marilyn, John, understand that as owners of the company you are under a legal obligation to fully fund that account and if any shortfall occurs you must meet it prior to any sale of stock and account for any projected shortfall prior to the same of any stock. Bill, do you have those papers for me?"

My lawyer slid some papers across the desk to me. I looked them over for several minutes before pushing copies across the desk to Peter, John, and Marilyn.

"This is to inform you that Williams Trust Corporation, of which I am President and sole owner, is hereby canceling manufacturing rights to any product covered by patents held by Williams Trust and currently manufactured by Wil-Cor Industries, effective at the end of this month. As these production rights have been covered by a month to month production agreement you will find that this is fully within the terms of the existing contract and that all rights are held by Williams Trust unconditionally. Under the terms of the production contract Wil-Cor must also cease and desist from selling any and all previously manufactured product at that point."

I gave them time to read the documents. After a few minutes Peter began to chuckle, John sat there with his mouth opening and closing without saying anything, and Marilyn's lawyers looked worried.

"I don't get it what is going on?" Marilyn finally said, clearly getting annoyed with it all.

Peter was the one who finally answered, and I swear he had a twinkle in his eye.

"It would appear that Wil-Cor doesn't own any of the patents, but they are owned by a separate company fully owned by your ex-husband that was assigned to him in the divorce decree. As he has been leasing the patents to Wil-Cor for only $100 per month per patent, some of them for over twenty years, the corporate earnings of Williams Trust are probably under $100,000 per year. Bob must have set this up when he started the company which was before I started representing him. I assume my father arranged it for him in order to protect the ownership rights to the patents in the event of Wil-Cor failing."

I just nodded at him. As I said we were friends as well as colleagues.

"I still don't get it. What does it matter that Bob owns a small corporation with $100,000 in income? We don't plan on manufacturing for long anyway we were going to sell the company and close it down."

John finally exploded at her. "It matters, you stupid cow, because there isn't anything to sell. All anyone wants to buy are the patents and Bob still owns them. All we own is a company with millions in debt and no assets. We can't manufacture anything, we can't sell anything, we borrowed heavily to set up this stupid escrow account, and we have no way to recoup the loss. We will need to lay off every employee at the end of the month and pay all of them a year's salary. Even the money to do that is tied up and out of our hands. I expect we will be in bankruptcy in thirty days. At least I will get a years pay out of this fiasco, but I doubt you will keep much of anything."

I let Peter get in the last word.

"Actually, John, as a stockholder at time of establishment you are excluded from the severance package in order to avoid a conflict of interest."

Epilogue

Within six months I had purchased all the properties of Wil-Cor at auction and reopened the manufacturing plant. I rehired all my employees who wanted their jobs back, a few of them having taken the years pay and moved on to other endeavors such as starting their own businesses or having children, the rest enjoying a six-month paid vacation and six months of double pay. Marilyn and John lost everything in the bankruptcy although Marilyn did live out her dream of moving away from this area. When the story got out about her having set out to destroy so many lives and livelihoods as well as the contempt she had shown for her former friends and neighbors she could no longer appear in the community without whispers and sometimes outright hostility. I did help her monetarily to get an apartment, more for my daughters sake then hers, but had no further contact with her. I understand that instead of bake sales and PTA meetings she now spends her time waiting on tables. Both my daughters came to work for me agreeing that they liked small town living. And me? I have met someone locally who seems to like small town living as well and we are seeing if something can develop between us.