The Bean Counter

There is a man. His hands are full of beans. He is in a room, and the room is full of beans. As a matter of fact, the room is made of beans. The table he sits at is made of beans. The chair he sits on is made of beans. The art that hangs on the wall is mosaics made of beans.

The beans are two colors: golden yellow and lively green. They drip from his hair, spill out of his ears, tumble from his pockets. He is knee deep in beans. When he walks, they click-and-shhh, click-and-shhh. When he bends over, digs his hands in deep, they press against his palms firmly. When he moves, they slide into the places where his feet were, leaving footprints like gentle hills and valleys.

The man is counting the beans. This is his job. He chooses one, examines it and counts it--just so. Then he tucks it behind his ear, in his pocket, under his tongue. Some of the beans are his and some he has dreamed into being. He has plans, and he has planned for an abundance of beans.

Now and then the man’s work is interrupted by an odd bean. It is fat and red. It is round as a drop. The man walks to a corner cupboard, opens the door. He takes out a scale, the old fashioned kind, the kind that Lady Justice holds on the steps of the courthouse. He places the round, red bean on one tray of the scale. With the gold and yellow beans he brings it to balance. One by one, he chooses, examines, counts them just so, and places the beans on the scale.

When the balance is made, he pours the bright beans into an envelope. They tumble over themselves with a click-and-shhh. The man writes a note, seals the envelope, pushes it into the mail chute.

He takes the round, red bean in his fist, bends over and thrusts his arm deep, buries that bean under mountains and fields of beans. Then he walks back to his table, click-and-shhh, click-and-shhh, and resumes counting.

This is why my friend Barbara died: In the 1970s, the Chrysler company was under the gun to reduce both vehicle weight (for better gas mileage and less pollution) and the costs of production. Aluminum and plastic were lightweight and cheap. The engineers went to work, replacing what metal parts they could. The wiper arms and fan blades became aluminum, and the radio knobs and bumpers and trunk liners became plastic.

But plastic and aluminum are fragile. They break. Engineers and risk managers took this into account, but there were other factors to weigh in the balance. Chrysler was deeply in debt, gas was sky-high, environmentalists were up in arms, Japanese economy cars were flooding the market.

And over all, Chrysler had payroll to meet. Things were grim in Detroit. You cannot imagine. Thousands of workers had been laid off. In the blue-collar suburb of Pontiac, Michigan, unemployment was as high as it had been during the Great Depression: 30 percent. There was no hope in sight. There were no jobs, no government or personal surplus for charity.

And the ripples were spreading. Imagine what happens to a city, to a people. Bumper stickers said, “Will the last one to leave Michigan please turn out the lights.” Had Chrysler failed, families would have been homeless, children and adults frozen or starved. Chrysler owed it to its workers to succeed.

This is how my friend Barbara died: She was living in South Carolina with her husband. They were driving their wedding present: his parents’ old Chrysler. It was election day. They stopped to vote.

The car had been making a noise. As long as they were out, they thought, they may as well take care of it. They pulled into a service station.

Outside it was raining. Barbara went into the service bay to stay out of the rain. She wandered, looking at posters and tools hung on the walls.

This is how my friend Barbara died: She lay on the floor, her throat cut. Above her, wedged in the concrete wall, a shiny bit of metal.

Her husband and the mechanic were bent over the engine. At first they didn’t notice that a tiny, bright bit had broken off the fan blade, shot past them both and homed in on Barbara across the room as if she were a magnet and it were steel.

The human body is a pressure vessel, and arteries are high-pressure hoses. Barbara’s heart pumped her blood out the nick in her neck. It leaped and showered until the pressure subsided. Then it burbled gently, like a spring in a well house. At the end it quietly welled, slow and steady, like a seep. But long before that she was dead.

One of Barbara’s friends notified the Chrysler company. Chrysler sent a check with a note, “Enclosed is the standard payment for this type of injury.”

The man in the room made of beans takes out the scale. He brings it to balance as best he can. He pours the beans into an envelope, click-and-shhh. He writes the note, mails it off. He buries the odd bean under hillocks of green and gold. In the aftermath he weeps, but he is weeping tears of beans.