"That's it? Slam bam?"
Emma points. "There's a slice of orange peel stuck to your butt."
Not exactly a line from a John Donne sonnet, but my spirits rocket nonetheless.
22
Good newspapers don't die easily. After three years in the bone-cold grip of Race Maggad III, the Union-Registerstill shows sparks of fire. This, in spite of being stripped and junk-heaped like a stolen car.
Only two types of journalists choose to stay at a paper that's being gutted by Wall Street whorehoppers. One faction is comprised of editors and reporters whose skills are so marginal that they're lucky to be employed, and they know it. Unencumbered by any sense of duty to the readers, they're pleased to forgo the pursuit of actual news in order to cut expenses and score points with the suits. These fakers are easy to pick out in a bustling city newsroomthey're at their best when arranging and attending pointless meetings, and at their skittish, indecisive worst under the heat of a looming deadline. Stylistically they strive for brevity and froth, shirking from stories that demand depth or deliberation, stories that might rattle a few cages and raise a little hell and ultimately change some poor citizen's life for the better. This breed of editors and reporters is genetically unequipped to cope with that ranting phone call from the mayor, that wrath-of-God letter from the libel lawyer or that reproachful memo from the company bean counters. These are journalists who want peace and quiet and no surprises, thank you. They want their newsroom to be as civil, smooth-humming and friendly as a bank lobby. They're thrilled when the telephones don't ring and their computers tell them they don't have e-mail. The less there is to do, the slimmer the odds of them screwing up. And, like Race Maggad III, they dream of a day when hard news is no longer allowed to interfere with putting out profitable newspapers.
The other journalists who remain at slow-strangling dailies such as the Union-Registerare those too spiteful or stubborn to quit. Somehow their talent and resourcefulness continue to shine, no matter how desultory or beaten down they might appear. These are the canny, grind-it-out prosGriffin is a good examplewho give our deliquescing little journal what pluck and dash it has left. They have no corporate ambitions, and hold a crusty, subversive loyalty to the notion that newspapers exist to serve and inform, period. They couldn't tell you where the company's stock closed yesterday on the Dow Jones, because they don't care. And they dream of a day when young Race Maggad III is nabbed for insider trading or cheating the IRS or, even better, attaching a transvestite to his cock while cruising the shore of San Diego Bay in one of his classic Porsches. This vanishing species of journalist would eagerly volunteer to write that squalid story or compose its headline, then plaster it on the front page. Once upon a time they were the blood and soul of the newsroomthese prickly, disrespecting, shit-stirring bastardsand their presence was the main reason that bright kids such as Evan Richards lined up for summer internships at the Union-Register.
And five years ago most of those kids would have jumped at the chance to return here after college and join the paper at a humiliating salary, just to get in on the action. But after graduating next year, young Evan is heading straightaway to law school, his resume jazzed by a semester of working journalism once viewed as a baptism by fire, but these days regarded more as an act of exotic self-sacrifice; missionary work. Smart kids like Evan read the Wall Street Journal.They know that what's happened to the Union-Registeris happening to papers all over the country, and that any Jeffersonian ideals about a free and independent press would be flogged out of their callow hides within weeks of taking the job. They know that the people who run most newspapers no longer seek out renegades and wild spirits, but rather climbers and careerists who understand the big corporate picture and appreciate its practical constraints. Kids like Evan know that most papers are no longer bold or ballsy enough to be on the cutting edge of anything,and consequently are no damn fun.
When Evan first came to work for Emma, I thought he might be a keeper so I gave him a pep talk. I told him that plenty of reporters start out as rookies on the obituary desk, which is true, and that the talented ones advance quickly to bigger things, including the front page. And I recall Evan looking up at me with such rumpled perplexity that I burst out laughing. Obviously what the kid was aching to askhad every right to askwas: "What about you,Jack Tagger? Why are you writing obits after twenty years in the business?" And since the answer offered both a laugh and a lesson, I told young Evan the truth. His earnest reply: "Oh wow."
Not wishing to spook him, I hastened to portray myself as an incorrigible hothead who more or less dug his own grave, at which point Evan politely interrupted. He said that while he appreciated my candor and encouragement, he'd never planned to make a career of the newspaper trade. He said that from all he'd been reading, it was clear that dailies were "over." A dying medium, he told me. He had come to the Union-Registermainly to "experience" a newsroom, before they were all gone. His second choice was undoubtedly a cattle drive.
So I had no qualms about recruiting young Evan to help on the Jimmy Stoma story. Who wants to spend a whole summer banging out six-inch obits of dead preachers and retired schoolteachers? The kid deserved a taste of adventure, something memorable for his scrapbook. What a gas to be able to tell your college buddies that you helped sort out the mysterious death of a rock star.
And now I'm Evan's hero. He's as high as a kite.
"I almost freaked when she answered the door," he's saying. "I couldn't believe it was really her. And she's like, 'What's going on? I didn't order any subs!' At first I couldn't hardly say a word because she's standing there in a see-through bra ... "
"Easy, tiger," I tell him.
We're sitting in the cafeteria, Emma and I sharing one side of a bench table and Evan on the other. I'm taking notes, Emma is sipping coffee and the kid's gobbling a plateful of miniature glazed donuts.
"Who else was there?" I ask him.
"Two guys. The taller one had shiny hair, like, down to his butt. The other one, the baldy, he had one eye and"
"Whoa, boss. One eye?"
"He wore a black patch, Jack. It was sorta hard to miss. I asked him what happened and he said he was in a car crash last week."
"Big no-neck guy? Earrings?"
"That's the one," says Evan. "She called him Jerry. The patch was on his right eye, if that makes a difference."
I jot this down not because it's an invaluable detail, but because it makes Evan's day. He got the goon's name right, too; I remember it from the funeral at St. Stephen's.
"His forehead was all lumpy and bruised," Evan says, "like somebody pounded him with a hockey stick."
Emma is giving me a narrow look and I can't help but grin. Now it's officiaclass="underline" Cleo Rio's bodyguard was my burglar. And I put out his eye with a dead lizard! Perhaps one day I'll be flooded with remorse.
"What else did you see?" Emma asks Evan.
"Hang on." He reaches into a back pocket and takes out his own notebook. "When I got back to my car I wrote down everything so I wouldn't forget. Let's seethey had Eminem on the CD player. The TV was on, too. Jerry was watching wrestling."
"Half-watching," I quip, avoiding Emma's gaze.
Evan continues skimming his notes, flipping pages. "Cleo was walking around in her bra, like I told you. I figured they were getting dressed to go out. The guy with the mermaid hair was hogging a blow dryer in one of the bathrooms."
"Was anything going on?" Emma asks.
"You mean like fooling around? Not in front of me," Evan says. "Cleo looked a lot different than on the video. No lipstick and really frail, like a ghostbut still she's way hot."