by Bill Turpin
The Son turns to Max.
“Horse, Daddy!” he says, bending at his knees and pointing. “It’s horse. HORSE!”
Max picks up the Son and hugs him with one arm: “Do you want to say goodbye to your new friend?’
“We already said goodbye,” the Son says. “He said he liked the apple.”
1981
The Smiling Cobra
THE LINK BETWEEN Halifax and Montreal in the journalistic telegraph is a weak one. Max has been able to learn but three facts before his arrival from Montreal:
1. The city is served by two bad newspapers — a hoary old province-wide broadsheet and a “low-class” tabloid upstart — of which Max is now the editor;
2. In Nova Scotia, it is highly irregular for even a low-class tabloid to be edited by a CFA, short for “come-from-away”, i.e., someone born outside Nova Scotia;
3. His new publisher and boss is known to all who work for him as the Smiling Cobra.
“Max,” says the Smiling Cobra. “We don’t mind CFAs visiting here. We love visitors. We’re happy to see them come and even happier when they go. So, if you want to stay you need to adopt our ways, because we’re not going to adopt yours.”
Max strokes his chin to show that he’s taking it in. “How could it be otherwise?”
“We’re tired of central Canadians coming here and telling us what to do.”
So much for Maritimers’ famous reticence, Max thinks. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says. “I’ll just observe.”
The irony is lost on the Cobra.
“Well, there’s work to do, too,” he replies.
Max agrees. The morning’s front page features a huge photo of a dead man’s torso. There are three holes in it. The first two are highlighted by small trails of blood running down the man’s chest. The third is plugged with a screwdriver. The headline is Cops seek killer with loose screw. On Max’s arrival, the receptionist remarked to him that she was busy taking cancelled subscriptions.
No surprise there. Max’s reaction was to begin estimating the cost of returning his family to Montreal.
The Smiling Cobra places his hands on his desk as if to stand, but remains oddly still. Max finally spots the iron ring of the engineer on his pinkie. The Cobra sees that his ring has been duly noted and offers that he is a mechanical engineer, recently hired from a bankrupt government-run factory.
The Cobra stands. His torso is weirdly long which, combined with abnormally short legs, means that the effect of his standing up is almost negligible.
“Do you have any experience in the newspaper business?” Max asks.
The Cobra backs away. He inhales deeply and straightens up to fully display his towering torso. He moves his gaze down, causing the tissues of his neck to flare out — hood-like — and almost merge with his ears. The black eyes beneath his narrow forehead somehow line up with his nose and hold Max’s gaze. He maintains that position for several seconds. Then he smiles, his mouth a perfect semicircle. He licks his upper lip.
“Yesss,” he says. “That remark confirms what I have heard about you. A nattering smart-ass. Someone with no respect for authority. It doesn’t matter. I plan to fire you at the first opportunity. I know the Owner in Montreal likes you, but eventually you’ll fuck up so badly that it won’t matter. As for my qualifications, I’ve been an engineer for 10 years and a newspaper is just another system. People are just more parts. I know how to make them run.”
Further, the Cobra explains, the Paper’s readership is based in a fast-growing Halifax suburb, and therefore its miserable circulation numbers will improve on that basis alone.
“Give me a bright cocker spaniel for an editor and a hundred pounds of puppy chow, and this paper will grow,” he says. “You, on the other hand, worked for a crummy Sunday tabloid in Montreal — ”
“This is a crummy tabloid,” says Max.
The Cobra talks over Max — “and then bummed around Latin America for a while before getting fired by the only daily you’ve actually worked for, until now.”
And that’s why Max has to be fired soon, he explains. If the Cobra waits too long to shit-can him, then Max will get credit for the growth and may become impossible to fire.
Max agrees in principle but doubts he has much support in Montreal. Further, it’s clear no amount of market growth on its own will overcome the Paper’s ludicrous content.
He looks around the windowless office, which is on the second floor of a business park strip mall. Below is the newsroom. The floor is bare concrete, the desk is an oak veneer piece obviously rescued from a second-hand store. Bays of cheap fluorescent fixtures provide the lighting. The only acknowledgement of the Cobra’s high station in life is a private bathroom. Its hollow, unpainted door is open, so Max can see the toilet. The drywall hasn’t been finished.
“Okay,” says Max. “I’m onside. Let me get to work.”
“Just one more thing,” the Cobra says. “This province is run by 14 prominent families. You’ll learn who they are. Don’t get in their way.”
“El Salvador,” says Max.
“What?”
“El Salvador is run by 14 families, not Nova Scotia.”
“You see,” the Cobra hisses. “This is what we mean about CFAs.” He displays his fleshy hood again.
The Cobra turns away from Max, signifying the end of the meeting, but suddenly plants a heel and lurches stiffly back in the direction of his new editor.
“I almost forgot,” he says. “There is an Indonesian guy out there in the newsroom. Your first act as editor will be to fire him. I know you don’t want to do that. You don’t have the balls.”
“Of course. May I ask why?”
“You’ll see. He’s from a hot country. It’s October and beginning to get cold. Already I can see his blood getting thicker, making him slower and slower. I want him gone before winter.”
Max and his publisher engage in a staring contest. Incredulity versus dead certainty. Dead certainty prevails.
“Just to confirm,” Max says. “The blood of people from hot countries thickens in the cold, making them slow down in Canadian winters? Is my understanding correct?”
“Nova Scotian winters,” the Cobra stresses.
Max feels a black hole of fatigue take root somewhere in his head and begin sucking at his energy. He now knows that, for the sake of the Wife and Son, he must don the infamous, imaginary kneepads that hang in the newsroom of the Montreal Daily, and make the Cobra happy. How bad can it be? A few years of “Yes sir. Right away sir” and then they can all return to civilization.
Or, at worst, Toronto.
“Of course. It shall be done,” Max says to the Cobra.
Two steps out of the publisher’s office, though, he knows he won’t do it. Technically, newsroom staffing is his call but, in practice, publishers meddle when they can get away with it. Max is sure Montreal will come down on his side if he forces the issue, but the incident will be recorded as evidence that he cannot “manage up” or “find common ground”. When word of that gets out, as it certainly will, his former colleagues will begin circling high overhead, waiting to swoop down on Max’s new job.
Perhaps he should stall for time. Perhaps the Indonesian will be hit by a bus before Max has to do anything. “I was just about to sign his termination papers when I heard the ambulance pull up to the bus stop,” he’ll tell the Cobra. “Poor guy. At least I won’t have to fire him now. His family will be rich, though, because he’s in our insurance plan, right?”
In a way Max is relieved. He’s long been worried that his lack of emotion in tight situations means he’s a psychopath, but his decision to spare the Indonesian is evidence that he actually has a heart. Or lacks “the balls”.
No matter. Job One now is to send a message to his publisher.
• • •
Max steps into his newsroom. Ther
e are the usual teetering pillars of yellowing newsprint, which is reassuring. So is the sputter of the single police radio. But all that separates the staff from their adoring public are double-paned floor-to-ceiling windows supported by thin metal frames. Max loves the general public, of course, but prefers to do so from a safe distance and two or three storeys up.
Newsrooms are designed to manage the flow of a lot of information in a short time. Instructions originate from central points and information flows back, provoking revised instructions. The cycle continues amid a miasma of profanity and ego until, many hours later, the presses roll.
But here the desks are scattered like marbles. There is no discernible city desk or business desk or anything indicating that someone is in charge of something. Next to one desk, a white Scottish terrier is lowering its butt into position for a bowel movement. An hour earlier, Max would have been surprised.
“So help me god,” says a low voice to his right. “If that dog craps in here again, I’m going to punt the fucking thing onto the cocksucking freeway.”
This would be a sight worth seeing, Max figures, because the speaker is wearing a bright, flowered summer dress and looks like the mother from The Brady Bunch, only nicer and with better elocution.
The terrier looks at her, apparently getting the point. A guy with a Farley Mowat beard and pipe picks up the beast and carries it through a door leading to the parking lot.
“Och!” he says before exiting.
Max turns in the direction of the female voice. She’s maybe 20 years old, sitting at a desk two rows back. She’s sifting through piles of light brown paper that originated from a loud dot matrix printer. Max surmises that each pile represents a category of wire stories. To her right is the only authentic piece of newsroom hardware he can see — a shiny, four-inch spike with a lethal point at the top. These are standard in newsrooms everywhere. Any story that doesn’t make the cut gets slapped on a spike. This makes it easier to find on a slow news day when, hours later, there’s still a hole between the ads of the next day’s paper and any story, no matter how bad, will do.
Max figures the woman is the wire editor. He judges her to be a pro from the way she curls rejected copy so that she can snap it on the spike with one hand. At the highest levels of the craft, this is accompanied by a sneer and sometimes a muttered “piece of shit.” Max walks over to introduce himself, while at the same time scanning the room for an Indonesian.
His divided attention is a mistake: he catches his foot on a random extension cord and stumbles. He reaches out with his left arm to balance himself, but it lands on another spike sitting on an empty desk.
The pain is blunt at first and then sharp, but mild given that the spike has penetrated halfway into his left forearm. Max continues on to the Wire Editor, extending his good arm to her. She has a nice handshake.
“You must be the new Editor-in-chief,” she says with a British accent.
“Call me Max,” he says. “You from Fleet Street?”
“Winnipeg.”
“Winnipeg?”
“Winnipeg. Born and bred. I needed the accent to get hired. Anglophiles everywhere around here.”
“Is there some guy here from Indonesia?”
“Yup. The Cobra thought his accent was British, too, but he figured out the guy comes-from-away and doesn’t like him anymore.”
She continues to scan wire stories and snap them onto her spike. “He’s over there, on the copy desk.”
Max cannot see anything resembling a copy desk, which is normally several work stations arranged in a U-shape with the news editor in the middle. There is, however, a darker than average man hunched over a computer. Max notes with approval that he’s working on the computer while simultaneously spiking stories.
“Is he any good?” Max asks.
“He’s a star in our small firmament. He’s actually worked at real newspapers — Singapore and Hong Kong.”
“And you?”
“I’m a quick learner.”
There is an awkward silence while Max tries to think of his next question. The Wire Editor breaks the silence. “It’s early in our relationship for personal questions, but I was wondering about that spike in your left arm. Will you be removing it?”
“You noticed, eh?” says Max. “I was thinking of pulling it out right away, but I’m worried about making things worse by grazing tendons and such. Not to mention dealing with bacteria.”
The Wire Editor agrees, noting that this newsroom is more soaked in deadly microbes than most. “Best not to wait too long. There’s a walk-in clinic right in this mall just three doors down. I had a Pap smear there last week. Very efficient.”
“Good to know,” Max says. He says he’ll walk to the clinic with the spike in place, not the least because it will likely get him in to see the doctor faster.
“That gives me a better chance of being back in time for the news meeting,” he adds.
“I’ve heard about news meetings,” she says. “But this has been a weekly for three years and a daily for one. We still haven’t had a news meeting.”
“Who decides what stories to use and where to put them?”
The Wire Editor can barely hide her glee. She smiles sweetly: “The fucking composing room.”
Max gapes.
“Yep, the folks who set the type. Welcome aboard.”
This news causes Max to move the Indonesian problem down on his priority list. He heads for the clinic.
1981
How to Piss Off a Living Saint
MAX BEGINS HIS second day with a call from Desmond Tutu’s office in Cape Town. The caller says an unidentified reporter from the “Halifax News Collective” rang Tutu’s direct line at 2 a.m. to confirm a story that Mother Teresa was dead.
“Now tell me, does that reporter work for you?” asks the scratchy voice at the other end of the line.
Max says it’s entirely possible, but there’s no Halifax News Collective that he’s aware of. “I apologize and assure you — if this has anything to do with this newsroom — it won’t happen again.”
There’s a knock on the door just as Max is hanging up. A rotund, smooth-skinned kid likely barely out of high school introduces himself as the Police Reporter.
“I know you’re busy, but I want to say how pleased I am to have someone with your reputation heading up the paper.”
“You’ve heard of me?”
“No, but that’s my point. I promise to really suck up to you in the years ahead. That was just a sample.”
Max begins to formulate a rude response when the reporter stops him with a hand gesture.
“Think about it before you reply. I’m really good at it. If you give it a chance, you may find you like it.”
Point made, the Police Reporter squeezes past a tiny woman on his way out the door. She’s pixie-ish, possibly the angriest-looking pixie Max has ever seen. She hands him a long list of “issues that have be resolved immediately” and leaves without introducing herself. Top of the list is a high-end air purifier, followed by hiring a columnist writing exclusively for people with allergies.
Max’s office is a fish-tank — long and narrow, with a glass wall on one side. He stares balefully through the window at his newsroom. There’s no sign of the terrier, but little else to rejoice in. He has never seen so many people gathered together with so little evident purpose.
He brightens a little when the City Editor takes the stage. Today she’s wearing a businesslike skirt and snug but acceptable blouse. The silver bone in her nose is less reassuring. She walks past his office and then quickly looks back, as if she were trying to catch him in the act of checking out her backside. But Max knows that move.
He motions her into his office.
“Who was that guy yesterday with the dog?”
“That’s Big Mac, the Visual Arts Editor. How’s your ar
m?”
Best not to react to this too quickly, Max tells himself.
“Let’s take these one at time,” he says. “My arm is fine, thank you. No offence, but there are grocery store flyers with tonier content than this newspaper. What are we doing with a Visual Arts Editor? Why is he called Big Mac?”
“No offence taken,” she replies. “Glad you’re healing well. The Cobra hired him. Word is, it was some kind of political favour.”
“And the name of our Visual Arts reporter is Big Mac,” he says, putting the political issue aside for the moment. “Shouldn’t he be in Sports with a name like that? Why is he called Big Mac?”
“Because he’s not big,” she says. “It’s a Cape Breton nickname. Sometimes they’re ironic.”
“Seems like average height to me.”
The Wire Editor looks straight at Max. “It’s not about his height.”
She reaches down, opens up a copy of the Paper and points to a staff contact list on Page 2. Above her fingernail are the words “Amhuinn Maolmuire Maceachthighearna”.
“That’s his real name,” she says.
The heaviness that accompanied Max to work evaporates, a sign that a solution is about to surface.
“You know, that name looks Indonesian to me,” Max says, staring at the jumble of letters.
She ponders that. “I can see how you would make that mistake. It could be Welsh, for that matter.”
“No,” Max says. “I think it’s Indonesian.”
“But that’s his legal name — it’s Gaelic. He adopted it when he became a ‘Cape Breton radical’.”
Max has known about Cape Breton since he was a kid, but the Wire Editor’s tone is his first indication that the island has a special identity within Nova Scotia.
“Nobody could pronounce his new name,” she says. “So they dubbed him Big Mac, based on the last name, I guess. And he knows nothing about the arts.”