Grievances Page 6

  Walker kept writing and editing. I knew he would have to be done soon because final deadline was approaching. Except for me, Walker, and a front page editor to handle the last edition airplane story rewrite, the rest of the newsroom had headed home. Except for sports. Because sports got the latest deadlines to accommodate news of West Coast night games, it was still fully staffed.

  But no one in sports or anywhere else, including me, even looked up when the sound of human suffering, an anguished, frustrated scream, erupted from the middle of that department. “You pathetic mess!”

  The sound came from Henry Garrows, one of the greatest sports writers in the history of the newspaper. Garrows attended sporting events but he didn’t write about games. Instead, he wrote about universal human themes like struggle and sacrifice and failure. Sports writing was cerebral for Garrows. It was creative and imaginative. Garrows wrote to make people see and he believed every story could be a masterpiece, every insight or turn of phrase a work of art. And Garrows was every bit the tortured artist.

  As deadline approached, Garrows would prepare to create art by placing a liter bottle of diet cola just to the left of the computer screen, donning yellow noise-canceling headphones, belting himself to his chair and draping a large black shroud over the computer terminal and his head to create a light-proof tunnel between his eyes and the screen. Eliminating distraction and creating focus, Garrows believed, was the only way all of his genius could emerge in the short period of writing time mandated by covering sports news for newspapers on deadline.

  The system was not foolproof, however, and Garrows, increasingly anguished as deadline closed in, would resort to verbal self-abuse, as in “you pathetic mess” and much worse. It happened frequently enough that no one commented or even looked up anymore. Staffers would, however, look up when the abuse escalated to include the physical. “You piece of worthless shit!” Garrows would howl and then pop himself in the jaw, hard, with his own clenched first. “You total screw-up!” Once, still belted to the chair, he knocked himself over and struggled like a turtle flipped on its back for several minutes before remembering to unlatch himself from the chair.

  But tonight the muse was kinder and “you pathetic mess” apparently got the job done. There were no more explosions from Garrows.

  Finally, Walker summoned me. “I think we’re ready to roll.” I scanned the story on the screen. It included lots of the detail I had gathered in pretty much the form I had given it to Walker.

  “A pilot neglected to notify authorities that his airliner hit a telephone pole a half mile short of a Charlotte airport runway Tuesday night, bringing 121 people 20 feet from near-certain death,” the lead said. It was classic Walker: the story was good; an attempted cover-up was even better.

  Walker hit the “send” button on the computer and the story went to the front-page editor on its way to the copy desk and then production. At this stage in the evening, this close to deadline, there would be no questions.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  “I need to talk to you about that other story.”

  “Sure,” he said with an enthusiasm that surprised me. It had been a long day for him. I hadn’t come in until afternoon. He started at 9:30 every morning, which meant he was due back at his desk in nine hours. But Walker loved a story. And if you had one, he wanted to know about it. I followed him to the conference room with the Famous Front Pages. Walker slouched in an easy chair with his feet on the coffee table. He leaned his head back against the pillows, balanced a Ticonderoga #2 pencil between his lip and his nose and closed his eyes.

  “So watcha got?” he said, straining not to move his upper lip and upset the pencil.

  I told him about Bradford Hall showing up in the newsroom, a reminder that the whole situation started with me just doing my normal nightshift job. I explained the basics of the Wallace Sampson story: a thirteen-year-old boy shot in the head with a deer rifle shortly after midnight following minor civil unrest, a murder apparently uninvestigated and unsolved despite widespread suspicions in the black community; a crusade by a wealthy Yankee plantation owner to solve the killing which had aroused opposition in his family.

  What I didn’t get into is the personal commitment I had begun to feel. Some think reporters are supposed to be objective, to chronicle the events of life and not get involved in them. There is no question reporters can and must be fair and that a reporter has to take pains to ensure that all sides in a story are conveyed completely and accurately. That is a standard of the profession. But objectivity is impossible. Everyone, journalists included, has an opinion. Everyone is a product of their past.

  “Walker,” I said, “the uninvestigated murder and Bradford Hall’s search for justice is the minimum we get. That in itself is a helluva story. And the maximum story we get is that we solve the murder.”

  Walker sat upright. The Ticonderoga went flying. “Here’s what we need to do,” he said. “We’ll get all the great investigative reporters and line them up at the South Carolina border and we’ll have them ride high in the saddle through the state from the mountains to the sea. They’ll write stories they flush out as they go. It’ll be like hunters flushing out birds. My God! There’ll be Holy Shit, Mabel story after Holy Shit, Mabel story. Pulitzer Prize after Pulitzer Prize. There’s probably a million Sampson cases down there.”

  “Let’s just start with this one.”

  Walker sighed. “It is a good story. There’s just one problem. Hirtsboro isn’t in our circulation area. There are a lot of good stories out there. A lot of them. The Middle East. That’s a good story. The ferry crash in the Phillipines. That’s a good story. But we won’t be staffing them either because they are not in our circulation area.”

  It was true. The Charlotte Times billed itself as the newspaper that covered the Carolinas from the Appalachians to the Atlantic and at one time that had been the case. But over the years, maintaining outlying circulation proved expensive. Charlotte-area advertisers had been reluctant to pay for distribution to people who would seldom travel to Charlotte to shop in their stores. So distribution to far-flung areas of the Carolinas like Hirtsboro had been cut back, at first restricted to single copy sales from racks and then eliminated entirely.

  “Maybe there’s a local angle,” I pressed. “We won’t know unless we investigate.”

  “What kind of local angle? Bradford Hall passes through Charlotte on the way to the plantation?”

  “Walker, sometimes you have to do a story because it’s a good story. Hirtsboro isn’t in our circulation area but it isn’t in anyone else’s either. If we won’t do it, it won’t get done.”

  “I’m not worried about stories in Hirtsboro not getting done. I’m worried about stories not getting done in Charlotte. Matt, in case you hadn’t noticed, we have six empty desks in the newsroom. Six reporting jobs I can’t fill. Why? Because the publisher has decided we’re in a hiring freeze. No hires until ad lineage improves and circulation starts going up again.”

  “Uh, maybe we could improve the circulation numbers by not cutting back in places like Hirtsboro.”

  Walker laughed. We both knew the newspaper’s business and marketing policies were suicidal. Cut back distribution, reduce the number of reporters and thereby stories in the paper, and then wring your hands wondering why fewer people are reading. Go figure. As managing editor, it was Walker’s job to represent management to the journalists. But Walker was enough of a journalist himself that he couldn’t pretend to defend top management’s decision-making when it was so obviously indefensible.

  I felt an advantage and pressed ahead. “Walker, this is the kind of story that gets people reading wherever they live. It’s a Holy Shit, Mabel story. And it’s a story only a newspaper can give them, not TV or radio. It’s why we exist, for God’s sake.”

  Walker closed his eyes and sighed. “Matt, it’s a tough time to argue that. I’m go
nna have to bite the bullet and tell you something I was hopin’ I wouldn’t have to. The Jeffries hire kinda put us in the hole. The publisher’s makin’ noises about cullin’ the herd even more to make up for it.”

  It took me a moment before I understood him. “You talking layoffs? To pay for Jeffries?”

  “Pardner, it’s worse than that. You’re on his list.”

  I was stunned and hot. “It’s not all about Jeffries, is it? The son of a bitch is gonna cave! He’s gonna sacrifice me because of the heat we’re taking!”

  “It hasn’t been a fun time,” Walker admitted.

  He was right about that. For the last two weeks the Charlotte Times had been the subject of vocal protests from some in the black community over a minor story I’d uncovered about supervisors in the Department of Public Works using city workers for their private projects like driveway paving and roof repairs. It ran on the front page of the local section along with photos of four of the seven supervisors. The problem came because the pictured supervisors happened to be black and the ones whose photos were not used happened to be white. An unfortunate headline referred to taxpayer money going to a “black hole.”

  The Charlotte Times hit the streets, as always, by dawn. The first press conference to denounce the newspaper for racism occurred by noon. The local caucus of black officials—led by a city councilman running for mayor—threatened a subscriber boycott. Members of the black clergy denounced the newspaper from the pulpit, encouraged picketing of the Charlotte Times building and organized a letter-writing campaign. Because few in the public understood that the reporter doesn’t write the headlines or choose the photos that go with a story, the protesters focused their anger not just on the Charlotte Times but on the reporter who had produced the story—me. I’d received more than one hundred letters, some addressed by name, many addressed simply to “The Racist Reporter.” A handful had come to my home. Picketers marched for two days until the publisher agreed to their demands for a meeting and apologized for the newspaper’s unthinking mistake, as he should have.

  “Walker, none of that’s my fault,” I argued. “The story was fair. It was the news desk that screwed it up. You know I’m no racist.”

  Walker gave me a weak smile. “Of course. All along I’ve been thinking this is probably like a summer Texas thunderstorm—lots of dark clouds and lightning but no rain. And it still has a chance of blowin’ right by. But you have to figure that if the publisher’s lookin’ to make sure the posse has given up the chase, shootin’ you is one way to do it.”

  “Walker, you can’t let him get away with that.”

  Walker leaned forward. “Pardner, you need to know it ain’t the only ammo he’s got. He did a count of every reporter’s bylines for the last year. You didn’t rank so high. And no blockbusters, either.”

  “Of course not. I spend most of my goddam time doing roundups and local inserts. To get a blockbuster, you need a real story.” I thought a moment. “Where’d I rank?”

  “They way he tells it, dead last. Matt, here’s the deal. The publisher wants more obits in the paper and I can barely get Bullock to crank out one each night. I got six reporters in the newsroom who come to work every day disguised as empty desks and just as much newshole as ever to fill. The publisher’s lookin’ to cut even more to make up for Jeffries. You’re already on his Most Wanted list because of the public works story. This ain’t the time for you to be checkin’ on some long-shot investigation. Besides, the trail has been dead for years. People forget. People move on.”

  “Not in Hirtsboro. In Hirtsboro, nothing changes.”

  “Matt, you’re a good journalist. Someday, you might even be a great one. As good as your daddy or your granddaddy. But you’ve never done a big investigation before. I don’t know that you’re ready.”

  “Walker, I’ve already done some work. I’ve been down there. If it’s there, I can get it.”

  “You don’t seem to appreciate that we’re both already in hot water. You screw up and the publisher’s gonna nail your hide to the wall for sure. And I’m not all that inclined to break a habit I’ve gotten used to in order to save you. It’s called eating. Developed it as a kid.” He slouched back in the chair and rebalanced the Ticonderoga on his upper lip.

  “Give me two weeks,” I pleaded. “Two weeks to go down, take a proper sniff. And then I’ll come back, we’ll look at what I’ve got and make a decision then.”

  “If we have nothing, we stop.”

  “Then, we stop,” I agreed.

  He closed his eyes and I knew what he was thinking. Positives: good story, remote chance of a great one. Negatives: old story out of the circulation area, staff shortage, and crap from the publisher. “It’s risky, Matt,” he said. “Your career can’t take a failure.”

  “Walker, two weeks.”

  “I’ll think about it, Big Shooter.”

  “Please. I need this story.”

  Chapter Five

  I showed up for work the next day desperate for a byline and with my stomach churning over Walker Burns’s pending decision. The notice that the newsroom Discipline Committee needed to convene put an immediate dent in the byline hopes, although the meeting did have Live Toad potential.

  The Live Toad Theory, developed by Walker, held that if you did something terrible the first thing every day, like swallow a live toad, the rest of the day would invariably go better. There was no way it was going to get worse.

  At one time the Charlotte Times disciplined newsroom employees like everybody else: management decided who screwed up and what the consequences should be. Bowing to staff complaints that the process was inconsistent and favored some groups of employees over others, management established an employee-run Discipline Committee to hear evidence in disciplinary cases and make recommendations as to the appropriate outcome. While the recommendations weren’t binding and management retained the right to do whatever it wanted, it seldom overruled the committee. Staffers rotated on and off the committee and, as it happened, this month I was in the barrel along with three others. The process was often petty and humiliating and, if nothing else, it was time away from what we were paid to do: report, edit, take pictures, or design pages. Given my standing in The Great Byline Count, it was time I couldn’t afford to lose.

  “Who is it now?” I asked Walker.

  “Bullock,” he said with a shrug.

  We gathered after first edition deadline in the dark-paneled boardroom beside the publisher’s office on the third floor, away from the prying eyes of the newsroom where there were reporters who could read lips through glass conference room walls. The lighting was low and indirect. I sat at a long conference table, swallowed up in a huge, black, high-backed chair. I felt small, as if I were a kid playing executive.

  The other members of the committee were already seated and Walker had just taken his place at the head of the table when Ronnie Bullock walked in dressed, as usual, in khaki pants and a khaki shirt. He looked like a cop. His creased, ruddy face, big hands, and stocky frame gave the appearance of someone who worked outside. He was sixty and although his forehead had expanded a little, he still kept a thick head of reddish-brown hair. I thought of him as a short John Wayne. Newsroom lore said he carried a gun. Bullock nodded to members of the committee and took a chair.

  John Hafer, the company’s director of human resources, entered. Always smiling and attentive, Hafer did his best to come across to all employees like he was their understanding advocate and friend. But everyone, including Hafer, knew that the publisher signed his paycheck. I was surprised to see him and I could tell my colleagues were, too.

  “John’s here because he is the one who’s ringing the fire bell,” Walker said quickly. Walker was not part of the committee but served as the moderator. “John, let’s get to it.”

  “As you know, this involves Ronnie,” he said, nodding at Bullock.

  “Aga
in,” huffed Carmela Cruz, the Times’ s diminutive front-page editor known equally for her page-design skills and her general contempt for local news and sexist behavior. No one followed up. The black-haired, black-eyed Carmela was mercurial and most found it best not to engage her.

  Hafer knew it, too, and quickly plowed ahead. “It happened yesterday and I felt it best to report it to Walker. It seems we have a new assistant librarian who is, uh . . .” Hafer’s face twisted as he struggled for the right word. “She is, uh . . . She’s very . . .”

  “She has a nice ass,” Bullock interrupted helpfully.

  “Ronnie, you can’t say that stuff,” Walker said calmly.

  “Why not?” said Bullock. “It’s verifiably true. Look at her. How can you not be allowed to say something that’s true?”

  “You can think it,” Walker said. “You just can’t say it.” He turned to the committee. “I think what John’s trying to say is that Ronnie found the new assistant librarian very appealing. Would that be a good way to put it?”

  “Yeah,” said Hafer, relieved at finding a way to avoid expressing a personal value judgment based on appearance.

  “Bullock would find mud appealing if it had breasts,” Carmela hissed. The assistant sports editor chuckled. Carmela shot him a dagger glance and he smothered the laugh into a cough.

  “Save the commentary,” Walker sighed. “Go on, John.”

  “Well, apparently she was walking through the newsroom yesterday delivering some clip files and she caught Ronnie’s eye. He picked up the phone and called my office and asked me a question which is so offensive I’m not sure I can repeat it.”

  “We can handle it, John,” Walker advised.

  Bullock interrupted. “Hell, I just asked him a question about my pension.”