Begin to Exit Here

by John Welter

  No one knew of or even suspected the possible existence that day of anything genuinely worth writing about that sensibly could be called news.

  “You mean, no one has any stories?” Lisa asked, staring at us huddled together in listless apathy at the ten o’clock meeting.

  “There’s no news,” I said, holding out my empty hand.

  “Nothing,” Harmon said.

  “Not really,” Rebecca said.

  “Blank,” Theresa said.

  “Double blank,” Marta announced.

  “It ain’t there,” Donny said.

  Lisa seemed to accept this as a tentative truth, that the circumstances of life had so poorly aligned themselves that day that something called news refused to be there. Like the rest of us, she seemed jaded and apathetic. She pulled a rubber band out of her purse and began twirling her hair into a ponytail that she held in place with the rubber band. Then we sat in a lazy stupor on this newsless day.

  “What is news, anyway?” Rebecca said.

  “News is when some shit happens and you write about it,” I said.

  “Very good, Kurt,” Lisa said. “Did you learn that in journalism school?”

  “Don’t accuse me of going to journalism school,” I said.

  “I apologize,” Lisa said. “Well. What can we do, now that there’s no news?”

  “Sleep,” Donny said.

  “Go home and have sex with your husband,” Marta said.

  “What if you don’t have a husband?” Harmon asked.

  “Ask some man to marry you,” Rebecca said.

  And we were quiet again, like the eerie, newsless day was a toxic, numbing cloud making us sleepy and useless. Lisa drank some coffee and stared pointlessly at the floor.

  “This happens sometimes,” she said in a tired, distant voice.

  “Could we just print a note on the front page saying ‘There’s no news today: Fuck you’?” Harmon said sort of indifferently.

  Not even looking at Harmon, Lisa said, “Probably not.”

  “Okay,” Harmon said.

  I knew what it was. Probably by coincidence alone, each of us on the same day was weary and disgusted with the fundamental idea of news as this universally important thing that everyone in the public urgently wanted to see, when, actually, most people didn’t care what we wrote anyway, and almost none of it could be described correctly as very important. It was sad, kind of, to have to realize you were in a profession where you at least earnestly hoped you were writing things that people found interesting and useful, but frequently you were just filling up the white space next to the department-store ads. Few things in life were genuinely so interesting or urgent that they deserved to be told immediately, in detail, seven days a week. In a way, reporters were like little kids running around saying, “Lookit! Lookit!” about every ordinary thing no one wanted to see very much. It was painful when you realized that all at once. It resulted in a newsless day, like this one.

  Harmon rubbed a finger slowly across his lips, then said in a distracted voice, “Maybe an army transport plane will crash into a kindergarten.”

  “Quit trying to be optimistic,” I said. “You have no right to violate our apathy.”

  “Sorry,” Harmon said.

  As reporters, we were forced to treat this newsless day as if it were an ordinary day.

  “I know nothing’s happening. Write about it anyway,” Lisa said, walking dispiritedly back to her office, followed a second or two later by Harmon with a preoccupied look on his face, as if he was thinking of something that wasn’t quite there in his disordered and unkempt mind. To clear my head of extraneous thoughts and make room for some superfluous ones, I sat at my desk and used a North Carolina Division of Environmental Management press release on toxins in the public waterways to make an advanced paper airplane. It was advanced in the sense that it required intricate folding and precise symmetry, as well as some little flaps on the wings to give it superior lift useful in doing rolls and flips. What bothered me about modern architecture then was that the walls and ceiling of the bureau were too close in to allow for a really adequate flight for my airplane, unless I wanted it to constantly crash into things, which to me contravened the whole purpose of my being there that morning. Although if I remained idle and sufficiently estranged from the ability to think of news on our newsless day, I might not have to write anything at all, thus giving me time to think of something to write when it didn’t matter anymore. Good.

  “Kurt,” Harmon called out in a slightly high-pitched, officious-sounding tone, the one he used when he discovered an idea he wanted to inflict on someone else. He was gesturing at me from the doorway of Lisa’s office.

  “Kurt, c’mere. We got a story for you,” he said.

  It didn’t make sense that either of them would have gotten a story for me, just for me, when no one at all had any; as if something in Harmon’s disordered mind had conceived a particular story that he didn’t want to do and he went to persuade Lisa to make me do it.

  I went into the office, where Lisa glanced at me then looked down at a university press release on her desk. Harmon was gnawing on one of his fingernails like a hamster, staring distractedly at me.

  “Here’s a story you’d be good at,” Lisa said. “A feature on national viruses.”

  “You mean that movie Elizabeth Taylor was in when she was a girl?” I said.

  “That’s National Velvet,” Harmon said.

  “I like my title better,” I said. “And what’s a national virus? One that has a cultural and political heritage?”

  Lisa shook her head no. “The University Department of Epidemiology has a press release here on all the statistical work they do, saying they got a two-million-dollar grant to help track the rise and decline of AIDS across the nation,” she said.

  Janice.

  “No,” I said.

  “What do you mean no?”

  “I won’t do it.” I’d never refused to do a story before, never bluntly told an editor I wasn’t going to have anything to do with my job.

  “It’s a good story,” Harmon said.

  “Fuck you, Harmon.”

  “What’s going on?” Lisa said worriedly, staring at Harmon and then me.

  “I can’t do the story because my girlfriend works for the department of epidemiology. She compiles all those statistics you want me to write about. Harmon knows that, don’t you, Harmon?”

  “But, Kurt, it’s a good story, and you don’t have to interview Janice,” he said in a kind of wounded and indignant tone.

  “Is Janice your girlfriend?” Lisa asked.

  It seemed like Harmon thought it was funny that he’d maneuvered me into possibly having to write about Janice and treating her like news. He was trying not to smirk. I tensed my muscles.

  “What if I shatter your skull?” I said to Harmon. “Could that be a feature story?”

  He flinched. It looked like Lisa did, too.

  “Well, Kurt, you certainly don’t have to interview your girlfriend, at least not if she’s going to be a major part of the story, which she shouldn’t be because she’s your girlfriend,” Lisa said in an appeasing voice.

  “I shouldn’t interview her for any reason, and Harmon, let’s walk down the street so I can throw you in front of a truck. You’re heavy, but if I get a running start, I know I could throw you at least ten feet. Does death finally scare you, you stupid dick? Does anything matter to you? Your own blood, for example?” I walked to the edge of Harmon’s shoes like I could knock him down with his own fear, wondering if I should put my hand under his chin and shove his head through the wall.

  “It’s just a story, Kurt,” he said cautiously. “It’s not personal.”

  “Everything’s personal when it happens to you,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder in a friendly manner and squeezing down to the bone.

  “Let go,” Harmon said peevishly.

  “I guess intimacy scares you,” I said. “I’m glad something does.”
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  37

  The doctor in charge of the two-million-dollar grant said she scarcely had time to talk with reporters and that I’d need to call the project supervisor, who, when I reached her, was on her way to Atlanta and had no time to talk with reporters, saying I’d have to contact the chief assistant researcher on the project, Janice Galassi.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “You can’t? I don’t understand,” the project supervisor said curiously and impatiently.

  “The chief assistant researcher, as you call her, is my girlfriend.”

  “Janice? So you’re Janice’s boyfriend.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, why can’t you interview her, for God’s sake? You’re obviously quite comfortable with her already,” she said.

  “I’m supposed to be objective. If you interview your girlfriend, people might say you’re not objective.”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend,” she said. “Well, I do see your problem, though.”

  “Also, I’d feel a little strange treating Janice as news.”

  “Yes. But you don’t mind treating me as news,” she said a little caustically.

  “That’s different,” I said apologetically.

  “I know. I’m not your girlfriend. But I’m sorry to tell you that it doesn’t matter anyway, because I’m leaving for the airport now. You’ll just have to interview Janice.”

  I went to Lisa’s office and said, “Lisa. You’re a woman.”

  “I’ve known that for years, Kurt,” she said.

  “So is it all right if I interview a woman I’m in love with?”

  “You mean your girlfriend?”

  “Yes. That’s whose girlfriend I’m in love with.”

  “But can’t you talk with someone else at the university?”

  “No. Everyone’s busy. They won’t talk with me. They keep saying I have to interview the chief assistant researcher, who happens to be my chief primary only exclusive girlfriend, Janice,” I said, sighing loudly.

  “I’ve never faced a problem like this before,” she said.

  “And you still aren’t. Janice isn’t your girlfriend.”

  “Well,” she said.

  “Well,” I said.

  It was Lisa’s turn to say well again.

  “We have to have that story,” she said tiredly.

  “Make Harmon do it. That little fucker did this on purpose. I want to pull his windpipe out and blow on it.”

  Lisa shook her head. “I’ve got him on another story. In fact, even though everyone said this was a newsless day, everyone’s already working on stories, so I can’t just switch stories around.”

  “So I’m going to interview my girlfriend,” I said. “Would it violate journalistic ethics if I rubbed her thigh during the interview?”

  “But this isn’t really a conflict-of-interest story, Kurt. It’s a piece about epidemiology and statistics, right? You couldn’t be doing anything in print that would obviously or even slightly be construed as doing her a favor.”

  “If I kissed her neck,” I said.

  “You could do a phone interview,” she said.

  “Oh. Phone sex. It’s too remote for me.”

  She exhaled audibly and thumped the palm of her hand on her forehead, saying “Kurt. I’m sorry this happened, but we have to do the story. This is a slow news day and I’ve already promised this story on the budget.”

  “Fuck,” I said quietly.

  “No, Kurt. You have to remain objective,” she said.

  38

  Epidemiology. Galassi speaking,” she said.

  “Act like you don’t know me and you’re not in love with me and we’ve never been as one before so I can pretend to be professionally disinterested and interview you about the two-million-dollar grant, national viruses, and shit like that,” I said all in one sudden sentence to get it over with quickly.

  “Kurt? What in the hell are you talking about?” she said with amused confusion.

  “I can’t explain it, so all I’ll do is explain it,” I said. “Janice. Today when I didn’t have a story to work on, Harmon took a press release to Lisa suggesting I do a feature story on the two-million-dollar grant you guys got to study AIDS. No one else can do it, Lisa says we have to have it today, and your two bosses whose names I don’t remember are both too busy to be interviewed, so they both said I had to talk with you. I have to interview you, unless you say you’re too busy. Could you do that? Tell me you’re not there.”

  “Kurt. I’m here.”

  “Couldn’t you leave, so only the most ignorant and unhelpful people are there who couldn’t possibly be interviewed?”

  “They really want you to interview me? Don’t they know I’m your girlfriend?”

  “Yes, and they all want me to make believe it doesn’t matter. I told Lisa I’d do a phone interview so it wouldn’t seem like favoritism if I caressed your thighs.”

  “Are you saying this on the phone at work?”

  “No. I’m at the pay phone at Stanley’s.”

  “What’re you doin’ there, Kurt?”

  “It’s more private than the bureau.”

  “Good Lord,” she said in a puzzled tone. “You mean you talked with Dr. Samner and Carol Eisen and both of them can’t talk with you?”

  “I forget their names, but one of them just said she had no time for reporters and the other one, Eisen, I think, said she was going to the airport to go to Atlanta.”

  “And they said to interview me?”

  “Yes. Does this mean you’re intelligent or something?”

  “Or something,” she said. “Well, Kurt, I’d love to talk with you.”

  “Janice, that’s good, but don’t say that. You’re supposed to lie to me and say you’re going to Copenhagen or something so I don’t have to interview you.”

  “Why don’t you want to interview me?”

  “You remind me too much of my girlfriend.”

  “Are you afraid I’ll say dumb things?”

  “Janice. I don’t want to call you up and treat you with professional indifference, and quiz you and query you and turn you into a piece of news, goddammit.”

  “Well, I’m glad, Kurt. I feel better now. Where do you want to query me?” she said in a soft voice.

  “I don’t.”

  “Oh, Kurt. I love it when you query me.”

  “Stop it.”

  She began breathing rapidly. “Do you want to do it over the phone?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I’m by myself in my office, Kurt. The door’s closed. No one will know I’m being queried,” she said in a low, sensual voice.

  “Maybe we should do it in person.”

  “Oh yes. Oh yes,” she moaned. “And let’s do it on the record.”

  “Couldn’t we do it on the floor?”

  Her breathing intensified, growing louder and quicker. “Oh, Kurt. Let’s do it on a legal pad.”

  “Janice. Stay in your office. Keep the door closed until I get there. I’m leaving now.”

  39

  Taped onto the bathroom mirror with jaggedly torn sections of masking tape was a crumpled copy of the metro section with my story in it, the interview, and this note scrawled on it in blue ink: It’s not funny to me. My stomach began to sting and burn, like acid, and a panic went through me so quickly it seemed as if I quit breathing for two or three seconds and was suddenly sweating and slammed my head into the doorway because I couldn’t see or forgot to see, realizing I’d hurt Janice, rushing through me the panic that she could be gone. I called her at work, the woman on the phone saying she was at lunch. I was supposed to eat but my stomach was burning. I went back to the bathroom, looking at the crumpled story on the mirror, it’s not funny to me, drinking some water from the faucet which I threw up into the toilet, praying to Jesus that whatever I’d done I’d know, that it would be explained, Janice showing her pain to me I’d try to take it back from her, absorbing all of it although I couldn’t abs
orb her pain even if she’d allow me the attempt. Looking again at the paper on the mirror, trying to make my eyes focus on the print and whatever I’d done wrong, I read the lead saying: “A $2 million grant for AIDS research by epidemiologists at the University of St. Beaujolais comes out to about $2.99 per AIDS sufferer in America, or approximately the cost of a breakfast at Shoney’s.”

  Maybe the injury was there, contrasting an AIDS grant with how much it was worth per person per breakfast. I didn’t know and couldn’t have known, having no knowledge of whatever hurt her except that I came home for lunch and saw the crumpled newspaper taped on the bathroom mirror, not even thinking of returning to work then but waiting and waiting for Janice to get back to her office and I’d find out what I’d done and how far she’d moved from me that morning alone. I called again and she was in.

  Cautiously I said, “Janice, what did I do? I saw the paper in the bathroom.”

  “You don’t even know,” she said distantly.

  “I don’t. You have to tell me.”

  “That’s just it. I don’t want to tell you. You didn’t know to begin with that anything you could do so goddamn cleverly in the paper could have any effect on me, even though we were lovers.”

  She said were. “Did the lead make you angry?” I said.

  “And why would that make me angry?” she said quietly. “Why would I care that a newspaper story with me in it, representing my department and a major grant makes the public imagine we’re all happily, joyously comparing the deaths of thousands of people with breakfast at Shoney’s?”

  She was both angry and hurt, and it wasn’t going to end. Nor was there anything sensible or useful I could say then to explain why I did it or why I was stupid or that I was sorry for her because it wouldn’t reverse anything or even seem honorable. But I said, “I’m sorry, Janice.”

  “Well, I’m sorrier,” she said. “I’m writing letters to my bosses today explaining in detail that I said nothing at all to make you believe the department of epidemiology compares the worth of this grant to an ordinary breakfast, Kurt, because they might think that’s what I told you.”