The Big Ask by Shane Maloney Page B

Donny. ‘The bastard stitched me up good and proper.’
    â€˜Yeah?’ I said. ‘What’s the story?’
    â€˜The usual one. But I’m planning to rewrite the ending. Let’s get something to eat and I’ll tell you all about it. Come and meet Jacinta.’
    â€˜Who’s Jacinta?’
    â€˜ Mi corazon ,’ he said, as the Sandinistas of Samba kicked in.
    He led me into the sit-down eating area, a cluster of green plastic garden tables, and introduced me to two men and a woman sitting at a spread of chicken pilaf and pork rolls. ‘Roscoe, Len and this is Jacinta.’
    The men gave me curt but friendly nods. They had the same all-weather, hard-living complexions as Donny although they were a little younger and firmer in the body. Roscoe was lank and rangy. Len was the nuggety pug-eared type.
    Jacinta was fortyish, tawny skinned with cow eyes, masses of raven hair and a generous gap-toothed smile. ‘Sit down,’ she urged. ‘Help yourself. There’s plenty to go around.’ She had an accent, a glottal sort of American-Asian cross. A Filipina, if I guessed right. Donny beamed at her proudly. Last time I looked, he was flying solo. She seemed nice and I was glad for him.
    We sat down and tucked into the food. The band was loud and I butted my seat against Donny’s, raising my voice to be heard above the music. ‘You were saying about Howard Sharpe,’ I prompted. He put his plate down, as if the subject had ruined his appetite, parked his elbows on the table and gave me the oil.
    Twelve months back the brewery fell into the hands of corporate raiders. The new owners immediately set about carving it up, stripping the assets, flogging off everything that wasn’t nailed down. Including the fleet of trucks. The delivery contract went to Bob Stuhl, a known associate, who proposed to lay off the drivers on the brewery payroll. The union stepped in and brokered a deal. In exchange for improvements in productivity, the men would keep their permanency and conditions.
    â€˜Before long, the squeeze was on,’ said Donny. ‘Longer hours, double shifts. Anybody quit, they didn’t get replaced. Country runs, blokes were falling asleep at the wheel. Three fatals in three months.’
    Donny was the shop steward. The men sent him to talk to Howard Sharpe. The union had done all it could, he was told. The men could like it or lump it. Instead, at Donny’s instigation, they pulled a wildcat strike.
    â€˜Just before Christmas, it was. The period of maximum demand.’
    Under pressure from his corporate cowboy cronies, Stuhl folded, agreed to new schedules and overtime allowances. Three weeks later, Donny was offered a beer after making a delivery. ‘Used to be part of the culture. Some blokes’d drink ten, twelve pots a day. Reckoned the trucks knew their own way home. But that era’s long gone. Drinking on the job’s a sacking offence these days.’
    The publican insisted. Just the one, he said. No harm in that. Made an issue of it. Wouldn’t sign the docket until Donny had a drink with him. ‘Soon as the glass touched my lips, one of Stuhl’s managers tapped me on the shoulder, fired me on the spot. It was a set-up, but Sharpe washed his hands of me. Said I’d dug my own grave, undermined the union leadership’s credibility with employers. Twenty-five years a member and the self-satisfied sack of shit sold me down the river.’
    I nodded sympathetically. ‘He came to visit Agnelli a couple of days ago. Paraded his credentials as the champion of the working truckie. Problem is, he’s had uncontested control of the union for so long that he thinks he can get away with anything. And that’ll never change until somebody steps on his tail.’
    â€˜Well, that might just be on the cards,’ said Donny. ‘I’m not the only one who’s had a gutful.’
    â€˜That right?’ I