Though he had been in failing health for some time, Polk remained engaged and outspoken, never losing his passion for the newspaper he inherited from his father.
In an interview last week at Charity Hospital, he said, "There's no greater privilege than publishing a daily newspaper, and no greater responsibility than delivering the truth, even when it ain't so pretty."
Emma glances up. "He really say that?"
"Word for word. Did young Maggad's quote make it on the front?"
"If it didn't, somebody's out of a job." Emma continues:
Headstrong and visionary, Polk transformed the Union-Registerfrom a folksy, small-town journal to a dynamic, award-winning newspaper with an increasingly urban circulation of 82,500 weekdays and nearly 91,000 on Sundays.
"We turned it into a first-class outfit," he said. "The conscience of the community."
The only son of the Union-Register'sfounder, Ford Polk, the kid known as Mac started in the newsroom fresh out of college as a telephone clerk, working his way up the ladder to managing editor.
When his father retired unexpectedly in 1959 to open a dwarf mink farm, Polk took over as publisher. His firm-handed stewardship of the paper continued until 1997, when he sold it to the Maggad-Feist Publishing Group for a reported $47 million.
"MacArthur Polk was like a second father to me," said Race Maggad III, the chairman and chief executive officer of Maggad-Feist. "He was a teacher, a friend and an inspiration."
This is too much for Emma, who blurts: "What a hypocritical little prick!"
The old man would be hopping mad, that's for sure.
"Otherwise I think he'd have liked the story," she says. "You did a nice job, Jack, considering all the distractions."
"What are you talking about?" The piece isn't badly done, but plainly it is not my style. "Fervid philanthropist"? Give me a break.
"What I mean," says Emma, "is that it must've been hard to sit down and write this yesterday, waiting for Cleo's goons to call."
"But I didn't write it, Emma. Look at the byline."
"I amlooking at the byline."
Lunging forward, I grab the story out of her hands.
Outrageous. That craven sonofabitch Abkazion crumpled like the bumper on a Tijuana taxi. He stuck my name on top of Old Man Polk's obituary!
"Evan wrote this," I protest, waving the newspaper at Emma, "while Juan and I were driving to the lake."
"I don't get it."
"Simple. Maggad ordered me assigned to the obit. Abkazion was scared to piss him off so he put my name on it, thus screwing a decent hardworking kid out of a byline."
"Pretty shitty," Emma concedes.
I turn to the jump page and skim the remainder of the obituary. There, below the last paragraph, is an italicized credit line: Staff intern Evan Richards contributed to this story.
I feel rotten and helpless. So does Emma. "You want me to read the rest of it?" she asks halfheartedly.
"Not aloud. No."
Another illustrious milestone in the career of Jack Tagger Jr. Finally I get back on the front page, and I didn't even write the damn story.
Soon I'll be getting that phone call from Charles Chickle offering the cushy trustee gig, yet even the prospect of being paid to torment Race Maggad III fails to cheer me. What happened to Evan sucks; I hate seeing any reporter get shafted.
Emma tries to help by reminding me that the kid cobbled the old man's obit from my notes, clips and interviews. "It was mostly a rewrite job," she says. "The bulk of the work was yours."
"Nice try." I reach for the phone. "Has our Evan got a listed number?"
He answers on the third ring, which is encouraging. I've known interns who would have already hung themselves in despair.
"Hi, Jack," he says quietly.
I launch a virulently indignant diatribe against shifty spineless editors, which Evan spoils by informing me that he is not the aggrieved party. He didn't write the MacArthur Polk obituary, either.
"I choked, man," he confesses. "Abkazion bailed me out. He grabbed all your notes, sat down at the city desk and banged the whole story out with, like, twenty minutes to deadline."
"I see."
Evan can't stop apologizing, and he's wearing on my nerves like a whining Chihuahua. "Once you told me the obit was for the front page," he says, "my brain locked up big-time. I'm really sorry, Jack."
"Don't be. It was wrong for me to dump it on you like that."
"What do you think Emma's gonna do?"
"To you? Nothing," I say. "I'm the one who's in trouble."
"Really?" the kid says anxiously.
"Oh, she's an animal sometimes. It's scary."
Emma peers curiously over the top of the newspaper. "Who's an animal?"
"See you Monday," I say to Evan, and hang up smiling.
We're back in bed when the telephone rings. Emma's head is resting on my chest and I'm not moving, period.
The answer machine picks up. The call is from Carla Candilla, her voice hushed and urgent.
"Derek really did it! 'Ode to a Brown-Eyed Goddess'—Jack, it was so fucking lame."
She's calling on her cellular from Anne's wedding, which I'd come tantalizingly close to forgetting.
"It took him half an hour to read," Carla says, "meantime I had to pee like a racehorse. I wrote down a couple lines 'cause I knew you could use a laugh."
Emma stirs against me. "Jack, who's that on the phone?"
"The daughter of an old friend. She's the one who loaned me the gun." The gun now resting somewhere in Lake Okeechobee, where I tossed it.
"Dig this," Carla is saying on the machine. " 'My heart melts anew each time your brown eyes light on me. Passion sings in my breast like the soaring sparrow's harmony.' "
"Ouch," says Emma.
"And that's a best-selling writer," I feel duty-bound to report. But at least he wrote her a poem, which is more than I ever did.
"Can you believe it—birds in his breast!" When Carla's giggle fades, her tone turns more serious. "Anyhow, Mom looks awesome and the champagne is killer, so I guess I'll survive. The real reason I called, I want to make sure you got home okay from your big adventure last night, whatever it was. And I hope your friend's okay, too. Someday I'll get you drunk and make you tell me about it. Oh, one more thing: Happy Birthday, Blackjack."
Oh Jesus, that's right.
Emma raises her head. "Today's your birthday? Why didn't you say something?"
"Slipped my mind." Incredible but true.
Emma snaps her fingers. "How old again?"
"Forty-seven."
So long, Mr. Presley. Hello, Mr. Kerouac. I suppose this will never end, until I do.
Emma springs out of bed. "Get up, you old fart. We're going shopping."
That was the most time I'd spent in a mall in ten years. Emma was buoyant and sassy; she likes birthdays. She bought me the new Neil Young CD, two pairs of stonewashed jeans and a bottle of cologne that she says is "the bomb." Then she wanted to treat me to a movie, and she wouldn't take no for an answer. It was an action remake of the TV series Petticoat Junction,starring Drew Barrymore, Charlize Theron and Catherine Zeta-Jones, three beautiful sisters who live at a rural railroad depot. In the old television show, the girls had weekly comic encounters with cranky relatives and colorful characters who came and went on the train. In the movie version, however, all three sisters are working undercover for the Mossad. For me, the plot never quite came together.
A small FedEx box is sitting by the door when Emma and I return to the apartment. My mother's birthday present: a first edition of Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage.Where she found it I can't imagine, but what a beauty! I've got a shelf devoted to books my mother has given me on birthdays. Tucked into the pages of the Zane Grey novel is a card, and also a long brown envelope. For some reason I open the envelope first.