Mourning Wood

by Daniel Paisner

  This time, too, the front page was not awarded to Pimletz for anything he had written, but for what he was asked, by default, to write. It fell to him, is all. The significant play had nothing to do with Axel Pimletz and everything to do with Terence Wood. The front page was there to be filled.

  Even so, Pimletz is plenty pleased with himself as he strolls to the paper’s reception area to pinch a couple more copies of the four-star final. He wants a complete set, a front page from every edition (maybe he’ll have them framed, side by side, for one of his bare walls), and he also wants some extras, just to have. You never know, he’s thinking, as he lifts seven or eight copies from the stack by the main elevators. He hugs the papers close, partly to conceal his excessive filching, but also for the strange comfort and assurance they offer. They are like a blanket to him, these newspapers, a protective coating, and the heavythick smell of newsprint reaches him like he matters. Yes, he thinks to himself, inhaling deeply. Yesyesyes.

  There is so much ink committed to the sixty-point front-page headline—WOOD’S EXIT?—that Pimletz’s fingers and clothing are right away rubbed black with the residue. This kind of mess he doesn’t notice, at first, and when he does, he doesn’t mind. This kind of mess he can get all over his not-pressed white shirt and probably when he gets home, he’ll just hang the thing in his closet and leave the stains where they are. This kind of mess is a validation.

  In truth, Pimletz’s obit/tribute/send-off is just a sidebar to the lead story, but he rubs up against the banner headline as if it were his own. He walks the stack of papers to his desk and brings his nose to the front page of the one on top, breathes it in like it could not have been the front page without him. Who knows, he considers, working at some perspective, while somehow managing to keep himself in the picture. The headline to his own piece is far smaller than the banner—TERENCE WOOD: A MAN OF PARTS, in twenty-four–point, uppercase—but he chooses to view it in context.

  Inhaling, still, he reminds himself of the kids in his elementary school pressing the teachers’ freshly mimeographed assignment sheets to their faces, breathing deeply at the hard scents of knowledge, importance, technology. The smells are nothing alike, but the essence is the same. It’s been thirty-five years, and he’s moved from there to here, just.

  He follows his story to the jump at the back of the paper, to look again at the spread of accompanying photos. Often, in the writing, Pimletz tries to picture his fallen subjects in his mind, to bring them back to life, although it rarely occurs to him to seek out an actual photograph while it still might impact on his actual prose. With Terence Wood, it would have been nothing to stop at the photo desk or to pull some clips from the morgue to help with his half-hearted attempts at visualization. It would have been nothing and everything, both. Instead, now, taking in the dozen or so images chosen by the photo desk to illustrate the actor’s noted accomplishments, Pimletz kicks himself for what he’s missed. There’s a lot. There’s that famous windswept still from The Half Shell, which Pimletz has, by this time, seen all over the television news accounts, and with each sighting, moved further from fathoming how he had somehow neglected to discuss the guy’s breakthrough movie. There was that fleeting relationship with one of the Nixon girls, captured here in an uncaptioned paparazzi shot from some years-ago charity function. The romance sputtered after only a few weeks, but, by the time it did, it had made enough noise along both coasts that there might have been some indication of it in Pimletz’s piece. There were screen collaborations with more Hollywood luminaries than Pimletz now cares to count—and more, apparently, than he cared to mention. There is even a photo of a baby-faced Wood testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee, but Pimletz seems not to have had the inclination to elaborate on the actor’s role in these proceedings.

  Oh, well. His glaring omissions are enough to counter his enthusiasm over the Wood story, but not enough to leave him despondent. Really, it hadn’t gone that badly, considering. (In consideration of what, Pimletz is not quite sure, but it never hurts to qualify things.) He did get to do his job, on deadline, over fifty column inches. He did cover the basics, basically. He did get a quote from Scorcese—something about how Wood managed to occupy more space than he actually took up (a positive quality, Pimletz is assuming)—and he did find some compelling anecdotal material from Wood’s early years. And the kicker is the front fucking page, deserving or no. There he is, for all of greater Boston to see, or dismiss, or gloss over. “By Axel Pimletz.” That he’s missed a few of the particulars does not dim the light he was able to shine on Terence Wood’s life and presumed death. Hopefully. And anyway, who the hell will know the difference?

  “You call this an obit?” Hamlin, two desks over, pulls Pimletz from his post-mortem like he’s on a string. Either he’s noticed the holes in Pimletz’s effort, or he’s jerking him around.

  “You mean, apart from the fact that this guy may or may not be dead?” Pimletz says back. He means to hang tough, to keep Hamlin and anyone else with the same idea from spoiling his already uncertain sense of accomplishment. He’s feeling good enough about himself, doesn’t want to lose it.

  “Apart from that.”

  “Apart from that, yeah, why not? It’s all there.”

  Hamlin moves quickly for the kill: “Was it Julie he nailed, or Tricia?”

  Jesus, Pimletz thinks, this guy doesn’t miss a thing. He throws up his palms in easy surrender. “Fine,” he says, not wanting to argue Hamlin on this one. “Fine. So I fucked up. Beat me, whip me, fuck me dead.”

  “Just making a point,” Hamlin says, disingenuous, moving from the attack to the defensive.

  “Point being?”

  “Point being it wasn’t just you who fucked up, it was the whole fucking process fell apart. It’s this sorry ass rag we write for. One guy fucks up, it’s not a problem, it happens, but there’s no checks and balances. No system. That’s the fucking problem. One hand’s got no fucking clue what the other is doing.”

  Pimletz sees Hamlin is revving himself up, and when this guy gets going on what’s wrong with the Record-Transcript, or newspapers in general, or the decline in the ability of the general population to distinguish between its ass and the couch it’s sitting on, there’s no derailing him. He’s like a rollercoaster gone berserk. Here it comes: “This is just one thing, but it’s everything. No one knows what anyone else is doing around here. Who’s minding the fucking store? I mean, don’t take this personal, Axel, but come on, if some goddamn hack is going to drop the ball on a story, then Volpe and whoever the hell he’s got working the copy desk and running photos should know better than to call attention to it. ‘Hey! Look! Our guy fucked up! Here’s pictures to prove it!’ What the fuck are these people thinking?” Hamlin’s words generate their own momentum as he talks, he’s picking up speed: “I’ll tell you what the fuck they’re thinking, they’re not thinking anything, that’s the fucking problem. Nobody’s thinking. That’s the crux right there. That’s it. These assholes haven’t had a thought in their heads since they thought to apply for their damn jobs, and who knows what they were thinking then?”

  Hamlin runs his fingers through his not-baled hair, catches up with his breath. “Okay, fine, so you missed a couple points on this actor,” he says. “Big fucking deal. But how in the fuck can they run those pictures without fixing the holes in your story? This is basic stuff. Either they shit-can the pictures or plug your story.” Hamlin has whipped himself into such a complete frenzy it appears he might choke on the foam in his mouth. He slows, trying to determine if he’s made his point. “Am I right or am I right?”

  “This is a rhetorical question?” Pimletz wants to know.

  “This is a rhetorical question.”

  “In that case, asked and answered.”

  “Fine,” Hamlin concludes, and underneath his conclusion, he’s wondering how it is he lets himself get all lathered around a guy like Pimletz. Asked and answered. What the hell kind of way to talk is that? It’s
like talking to a fucking sitcom lawyer, to a guy who’s being paid by the ten-dollar word. Once, Pimletz made the mistake of confiding that he sometimes makes an effort to work new words and phrases into his conversation, and Hamlin has been able to spot his lame attempts at vocabulary-building ever since. Asked and answered. Jesus.

  “Fine,” Pimletz echoes.

  “Civet,” Hamlin says.

  “Civet?”

  “For your precious vocabulary. It’s the fatty secretion of an animal. As in, the fucking cat got its civet all over the fucking place.”

  “Fuck you, Hamlin.”

  “Fuck me,” Hamlin concurs. “Put me in my place.” He’s had about enough fun at poor Pimletz’s expense. There’s no sport in it. It’s like the Red Sox playing those fuckers out at Harvard. Unchallenged, disinterested, he retreats to his desk and turns on his computer. By the time the prompts appear on his warmed screen, he has rolled his sleeves, sugared his coffee, sorted the mess of papers at his desk, and speed-dialed one of the mayor’s top advisors for a comment on the just-proposed city budget.

  Pimletz looks on and can’t help but marvel at this guy. He gets going like that on what’s wrong with the paper, on and on, and then he just lets it go, moves on to the next thing. Plus, he’s got more next things than anyone. He’s exceeded his quota of next things. His next things are corralled into one of those snake lines they’ve got at the bank, waiting for Hamlin’s next available piece of attention. With Pimletz, it’s the other way around. He’s the one on line, endlessly waiting for some next thing to fill his day, to move him forward. He can look up civet in the dictionary, but that’s about it.

  “Hey, Axel,” Hamlin hollers, when he’s off the phone with city hall, waiting for his next call to go through. He’s gotten a second wind with his razzing. His eyes are fixed on his terminal as he talks, he doesn’t swivel to face his target. He doesn’t need to look at Pimletz to know he has his ear. “This is what I’m thinking,” he says, typing, leaning over to lap at his coffee. “I’m thinking either it’s Ash Wednesday, or whatever it is you people celebrate, or you’ve been moonlighting as a fucking chimney sweep.” He keeps typing as he talks, working his budget story.

  “Say again?” Pimletz tries. He’s got no idea where his heckling friend is going with this one. Somewhere. Usually he can tell.

  “The newsprint, Axel. What’s with the newsprint?”

  “Oh,” Pimletz says, “that.” He holds out his hands to check the damage. “Hands could use a wash.”

  “Fuck the hands,” Hamlin says. “Look at the rest of you. Look at your face. You look like you been working in a fucking mine.”

  Pimletz has no idea what Hamlin is talking about, can’t tell from his reflection in his dull terminal screen, but then he flashes back to a picture of himself putting his nose to the front page, and he thinks, Jesus, what a stupid fucking thing to do! Things are difficult enough around here, and he has to go compound his problems by getting caught smelling the goddamn newspaper.

  Hamlin, swallowed once more by his next things, is deep into his story, back on the phone, so Pimletz slinks a couple desks over to Sam Haskins’s station and cracks the box of Baby Fresh baby wipes his fastidious colleague keeps by his terminal. Haskins isn’t in yet, most people aren’t in yet, and Pimletz pulls one of the aloescented, hypoallergenic sheets and rubs at his hands. The wipe is wetter than it needs to be. It’s supposed to be alcohol free, according to the label on its box, but it smells faintly medicinal as Pimletz reaches it to his face. He keeps one eye on Hamlin as he wipes himself. He’s satisfied he’s not being watched, but he lets his other eye take in the Baby Fresh packaging. He is satisfied to learn that he is not only cleaning the newsprint from his face and hands, but he is also moisturizing his skin with benzoic acid and grapefruit seed extract—a good side benefit. When he finishes, he tosses the spent wipe into Haskins’s lined waste bin, dries his hands against his pants, and returns to his own desk, largely unnoticed and somewhat refreshed.

  “Fresh as a baby’s bottom?” Hamlin chides, his back still to Pimletz.

  “You working or keeping tabs?” Pimletz says. Fucker is all over him, riding him, all the time, and this is the best he can manage. Once, just once, Pimletz would love to come up with something that might put this guy in his place.

  “Both,” Hamlin snaps back, punching out a new number, from memory, on the telephone. “I’m also chewing gum and cleaning my oven.” He swivels around to face Pimletz and reclines his chair. “See,” he says, chewing loudly. He rubs at his stomach and pats his head. “I can also do this,” he continues. Then he switches to patting his stomach and rubbing his head. “And this.”

  “The Amazing Hamlin!” Pimletz teases back. “Miracle reporter!” He’s not sure whether to play along or to lean into the guy for his baiting.

  Hamlin swivels back to his work, leaving Pimletz to figure if what has just passed between them has really just passed between them, if it was simply some stressful, one-sided interoffice rough-housing, or something else. He can never be certain with Hamlin, and just as his figuring has got him leaned to where he can imagine some affection underneath his colleague’s steady ribbing, Hamlin delivers a final blow to tilt his figuring the other way. “Maybe your friend Sam would be kind enough to leave a box of his moist towelettes in the Men’s,” Pimletz hears from the back of Hamlin’s head. “Never know when you might need to freshen up.”

  Great, Pimletz thinks. Just fucking great.

  One thing about Anita Tollander Wood Veerhoven: she is famous for the way she can’t make coffee, even instant. She never remembers if she should round off her spoons, or level them, or what. This was one of Terence Wood’s running complaints during their years together, one that ran with him to his next marriage, to Pet. His replacement, Nils Veerhoven, a Norwegian rug cleaner with unnecessarily curly hair and a smear of moustache, doesn’t seem to mind. Nils’s drink is cocoa, and he makes it himself.

  “Just some bottled water,” Petra Wood says, when Anita asks her to join her in a second cup only five minutes after pouring her first. “If you have.”

  “Tap,” Anita replies. “This is New Hampshire.”

  “Tap, then.” Beat. “It’s okay to drink?”

  “Yes, it’s okay to drink. You’re drinking it now. That’s what’s in the coffee.”

  “Maybe that should tell me something,” Petra says, laughing gently at her friend’s expense. (Back home, she makes her coffee with Evian.)

  It is late morning, but early for Pet, forget the time difference. Plane arrived at Logan about ten last night, and by the time she pulled into her friend’s drive, after some trouble with her bags, it was past Letterman. Nashua is, like, nowhere, she was thinking, driving, following the directions in the beam of map light supplied by her rented Sunbird. Make a wrong turn up here and you’re gone.

  Anita laughs back, happy to have so much shared history suddenly perched across her kitchen table. She needs this. With Nils, there’s been a surface comfort—Oh, Nita, how awful it must be for you! Tell me what you need—but there’s no connection, now, about what’s happened to Wood. How could she expect a connection? He tries, Nils, he wants to be there for her, but his there is not the same place as hers. She’s in a completely different zip code. It’s been more than twenty-four hours since she first heard, and she’s walking around like someone’s cut her arms off, that’s how helpless and desperate the accident has made her feel. Alone. She’s been left lost, crazy, unfocused, and she’s hoping maybe Pet can pull her back in time for Norman.

  God, Norman. Don’t even get her started about Norman. He left New York early this morning, borrowed his roommate’s car, said to look for him around lunch. At least she didn’t have to tell him. Some jerk wire service reporter took care of that, and as enraged as she was to learn of the way her son absorbed word of his father’s probable death—in the hall, outside some screening room, delivered cellularly by some interloping journalist who thought it appropriate t
o pull Norman from class for a comment—she was also grateful. What would she have said? Oh, Norman, by the way. . . . There’re no words to tell something like this. There’s no way to hear it. This way, at least, he knows.

  Pet’s mind isn’t focused yet on these unfamiliar surroundings or on the unsettling tragedy that seems to be happening, still, to some other set of people. It’s happening, sort of, but it’s not happening to her. It’s like she’s not paying good attention, like she’s watching a documentary that can’t quite hold her interest. (Plus, she’s in New Hampshire.) She thinks this is something she can undo, reinvent, that the facts of her estranged husband’s apparent demise can be rewritten as easily as one of his lousy scripts. She thinks this must be what people mean when they say something is surreal.

  Also, she’s not fully awake, and she has yet to move after the endless drive of the night before, or the long flight that preceded it. “Live free or die,” she says, in mid-distraction. “What the hell is that?” This has been troubling her.

  Anita’s thinking, we should be doing something here, must be someone we can call: police, lawyers, private investigators, someone. There’s this psychic down in Jersey, some sweet old lady, she’s been on all the talk shows with her knack for discovering dead bodies and missing persons, maybe she has some ideas. Then she’s thinking, no, we should leave the line clear, case someone is trying to reach us, that’s what we should be doing. She’s thinking she should have had that call waiting put in by the phone company back when it was being offered, free installation, even if she can’t stand it. Times like this are when you need a feature like call waiting. Maybe Norman’s having car trouble, maybe he’s trying to call. Maybe Terence has turned up on a piece of Pathfinder or driftwood a couple miles down the coast. Maybe he’s delirious or comatose. Maybe he’s lost his short-term memory. Maybe he’s asking for her. There are, like, a couple dozen things to consider, viable things, and she is startled when Pet introduces yet another. “What the hell is what?” she manages.