Abe Froman

Abe Froman gets chauffeured every morning by Dino, his driver of 15 years, to his luxurious office in downtown Chicago. Chicago was his town, and he had ruled it like a king for more than 30 years. He was a king; he was the Sausage King of Chicago. Abe built his sausage empire from the ground up, and it now spans seven continents, with an Antarctic research outpost receiving his sausage directly since last month. He was one of Chicago's true untouchables.

On the morning of June 11th, 1986, Abe arrived at his office and was greeted by his long-time secretary, Paloma Lowry.

"Freddy Peterson called twice this morning, Abe."

"My nephew, the Prince of Sausage, call him back and patch it into my office."

"Of course, boss."

As Abe opened the door, Freddy was waiting for him; he looked back at Paloma.

"Didn't you say he called?"

"He did call twice, but then he also showed up; I got his machine. Should I leave a message?"

Abe closed the door.

As Abe entered his office, he grabbed his morning sausage.

"I could eat sausage all day and night."

"Don't you worry about heart disease?"

"Look, Freddy, life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop to eat a sausage once and a while, you could miss it."

Abe gestured with a sausage on a fork, and Freddy passed.

"Profits are down, sales are down, the stock price is down; everything is down except your blood pressure."

"What's the problem? What's changed about sausage?"

"People's tastes are changing; take turkey sausage, tofu sausage, and farm-raised sausage."

"Farm-raised? what do I look like over here, Ol' McDonald?"

"What are we going to do about this?"

"The question isn't 'What are we going to do?' The question is 'What aren't we going to do?"

"I would say that the Sausage Brothers from Oklahoma are your number one threat. They just built a sausage factory in South Chicago. They have all these new sausage varieties," Freddy said as he hit the play button and their commercial appeared on television.

On a farm, the sausage brothers are seen walking. One of the brothers leaned up against a hoe.

"We're the Sausage Brothers, and we've been cooking sausage in Oklahoma's heartland for over ten years. We've mastered our formula, and we guarantee that our sausage flavor will be both familiar and unique to you."

The other brother took a step forward and tipped his cowboy hat.

"Get some Sausage Brother's Sausage today; it's available in a grocery store near you. Sausage Brothers, you can't beat our meat."

Freddy presses stop and eject on the VCR.

"That's what we're up against?"

"Brothers? Aiming to take out the king, I don't think so; how close is it?"

"Let me put it this way: three years ago, you had them beat by 38% market share; it was down to 12% this week."

"I want to meet these guys, Paloma!"

"Yes," Paloma says over the intercom.

"Get these sausage cousins from Oklahoma on the phone; I want to have lunch with them today," Abe shouts even though he can use the intercom.