Gone to Green

by Judy Christie

  Feeling suddenly antsy, I needed to think about change all right-changing the tire on my car to something more dependable. I thanked her again for her help. "Guess I'd better head back to town. Good luck with your sermon."

  "Come on back Sunday at eleven and see what you think," she said.

  "Oh, I'm just settling in and not sure when my things are coming. Besides, I'm not much of a churchgoer. I may stop in one of these days. Thanks for asking."

  I was not prepared to commit to church on my first Sunday in Green. My plans for the next year didn't include a commitment to anything other than the paper.

  When I returned to the newspaper plant, reporter Alex, fresh back from his meeting, brought the news that town leader Major Wilson was peeved with me. "He thought you would show up at the police jury meeting to introduce yourself and get to know everybody."

  Come to find out, the car dealer/real estate developer was also on the "po-lice" jury, as Alex called it. The young reporter apologized about mentioning my arrival to Major. "He already knew, though. Said Dub and Chuck told him weeks ago. You know, Miss Lois, he's a big cheese in town and a golfing buddy of the McCullers. You might want to give him a call."

  "So any real news from the meeting?" I asked, uncomfortable with this kid giving me advice.

  "Well, the huge development on Bayou Lake is moving forward. The jury gave it a unanimous green light, despite complaints from the neighborhood it will affect. They're planning to tear down about a dozen houses, mostly poor people, mostly Blacks-I mean, African Americans-on the lakefront. Build houses on stilts that sort of stick out over the water."

  He paused, his investigative lightbulb switching on. "The same kind of house they turned down for Dr. Taylor a few months ago-Kevin Taylor, that is. I need to look into that a little more." He jotted a handful of words into his notebook and stuck his pen behind his ear.

  I had covered enough political meetings to know anything can happen, but was puzzled at how this had gotten pushed through. "Won't there be political fallout? What about the commissioners-or police jurors or whatever you call themfrom the areas around the development?"

  "Major and his friends own the property, and they intend to make a lot of money and develop their own little compound over there. You'll learn soon enough that a handful of people in this town have all the power. What they say goes. Most of those folks have money. The ones who lose don't. The jurors from that area know which side their bread is buttered on."

  Troubled both by what seemed to be the unfairness of the decision and my etiquette faux pas at missing the meeting with Green's movers and shakers, I headed to the phone. I was more worried at that moment about irritating people who paid the paper's bills than I was by the housing development. After all, the guy did own the property. It was his to do with as he wanted. Those people could find other places to live, surely. It was prime real estate, after all, and they were just renters.

  A handful of phone calls later, I had set up meet-and-greets with my new challenge, Major Wilson, and with Eva Hillburn, who owned the Ford dealership and Wilson's Department Store. I had also left a message for Mr. Marcus Taylor, head of the Lakeside Neighborhood Association. Starting tomorrow, I would make it a point to see and be seen, getting out and making contacts.

  I dialed Marti in the newsroom, but she was running between meetings and couldn't talk.

  "Hang in there," she said. It was one of those rushed conversations I recalled well from my city desk days. Next I called the moving company for an update on the arrival of my belongings. Suddenly, sleeping in my own bed was incredibly appealing.

  Still restless, I headed to the newsroom and edited a few stories, trying not to grimace at run-on leads about spaghetti supper fund-raisers and an upcoming revival at the First Baptist Church. I made a few suggestions on headlines and how photographs should be cropped.

  A crisis developed when an ad in the second section fell through. "I've got this big hole that needs filling," Tammy said from the composing room. "I can't decide between those reader recipes left over from Tuesday's paper and this filler house ad." She held up copy that reminded people to place a garage sale ad, three lines for three dollars. "Lots of people like their yard sales."

  As I wondered how much money the extra newsprint would cost, pressman Stan ambled in to tell me we had a problem with the press, and he needed to drive up to Shreveport to get a part. He thought he could be back by 8 p.m. and have it fixed in time to run the next day's paper and to print the little free-delivery job we did on the side.

  "How much is the part?" I asked. "Are you sure the one you've got can't be fixed? What about getting the part locally? What if you don't get back in time? We have to get the paper out, no matter what. What are our options?"

  My questions revealed my fear and ignorance.

  "Miss Lois," he said. "I've worked on this old press for twenty-five years, and I'll get her up and running in time for tomorrow's paper. Now trust me. Sign this purchase order, and I'll hit the road."

  I gulped and signed. It was a good thing I had a free house and a year to figure this out.

  6

  Adopting a nutria litter for family pets was not a smart idea, according to Wildlife & Fisheries officials who were called to a Bouef Parish home after the animals ran amok, tearing up furniture and terrorizing neighborhood children. "Pets are pets," one agent, who asked not to be identified, said. "Wild animals are wild animals. Quit trying to mix them."

  - The Green News-Item

  Tammy opened the door for me on Friday morning a bit more cheerfully than she had the day before.

  "Doughnuts," I said, pausing to release the latch on the lobby gate. "Celebrating my first edition as owner of The Green News-Item." Moving around the building, I had fun holding up the green-and-white paper boxes. "Chocolate? Glazed? Maple?" The latter was my addition to the newspaper's doughnut tradition.

  "Thank you for helping get the paper out," I said, wandering from department to department, learning a little more about these people whose paychecks I now signed. My challenge was to discover who would help me make it in the coming year and who would hold me back. My corporate HR training courses from Dayton would come in handy.

  Lee Roy was in his office with the door shut, arguing with someone on the phone, but everyone else was apparently in a fairly decent mood. They treated me with the caution you always treat a new boss, but they didn't seem agitated.

  Stan had worked some sort of pressman magic on Bossy. "Don't worry, Miss Lois," he said, taking three doughnuts, one of each. "We'll be right on time this morning if I get the pages from the newsroom."

  Wandering over to the composing area, I saw several pages nearly ready to go, with my picture and a big front-page headline reading, "Out-of-state Owner Buys News-Item." Also on the page: "Police Jury Okays Houses," "Fine Feathered Friends: Blow Dryer Helps Teen Create Champion Chickens" and "Granny B. Celebrates 100th with Wit and Wisdom."

  "Wait," I said to Tammy, scanning the page. "We need to change that head. I'm not an out-of-state owner. I now live in Green." I avoided the champion chicken story and moved on to the birthday article. "And does that story on Granny B. really go on Page One? Is that the best we have?"

  Alex walked up, clearly hands-on in every aspect of the paper at the ripe age of twenty-two. "What do you want the main headline to say?"

  "Use bigger type and say, `News-Item Sold."'

  "That story on Granny B. is good," he said, a doughnut in his hand. "Have you read it? There are some great quotes, and the woman is a hoot. And that chicken story is interesting. The girl won eight thousand dollars at the Louisiana State Fair last year. She has to wash her chicken with four buckets of water and blow it dry to make it pretty."

  I watched Tammy change the main headline, glanced at the feature stories, and mumbled something about letting them stay. Alex was right. We needed good stories about local people.

  Two hours later when the presses rolled, I stood by with pride and admired th
e way the paper looked, all two sections and sixteen pages of it, with a house ad about garage sales and a page full of free weddings and anniversaries. I winced at a long story from a national drug company on improving your sex life, a story obviously copied directly from a press release and plugged in after I'd looked over the pages. I might hear from readers on that one. But the rest of the paper looked good, solid, and real.

  "Good feeling, isn't it?" Stan said, as he leafed through pages. "Never ceases to amaze me when it rolls off."

  Standing next to the press as it spit out more copies, I checked each page again. A small thrill ran through me. The part-time photographer even surfaced to take a picture "for the archives," as he put it. I decided to frame those picturesone of Stan handing me a first edition of The News-Item coming off the press and one of me looking through that day's paper.

  A tiny group of mostly older people waited out back to deliver their routes, and Iris Jo pulled around in a small purple pickup truck. Climbing out, she introduced me to the motley group of carriers, who welcomed me to town but paid little attention to me.

  "What are you doing out here?" I asked Iris. "We shorthanded?"

  She smiled. "We're always shorthanded, Miss Lois. But I throw this route for fun-gets me out of the office. I head right out to Route 2 and get in some good visiting every Tuesday and Friday afternoon. Besides, it eases up the load on Stan, and he appreciates that." She nodded toward the pressman/ mechanic/delivery guy, who was tossing bundles of papers off the dock to various carriers.

  Suddenly, she frowned. "Is that going to be a problem? I mean, do you want me to stay in the office all the time? Do you mind me throwing a route?"

  I didn't know what I wanted, needed, or expected. "No problem," I said and turned my attention to Stan, a lean man in his forties. He smiled and chatted quietly with the carriers as he worked.

  Watching the process unfold, I was struck by how everyone pitched in. At big-city papers, each person had a specific job. Most people didn't volunteer for anything extra and tried to pass work off to others when possible. Here it was less clear-cut.

  Shaking my head, I walked back in and stopped by Alex's desk. "Your story on the new lake development is a good read," I said, shaking his hand. "You put Major Wilson on the spot and got him to admit plans need to be made for displaced tenants. That's good reporting."

  His look of pride mirrored that of my reporters in Dayton, and he leaned so far back in his desk chair that I thought he might fall over.

  "I'm working on some new information," he said. "I'm poking around to see if I can find out why they turned down Dr. Taylor's house and let these go through. And I heard through the grapevine that some E.P.A. analysis has yet to be done. There could be an impact on water quality." He referred to his notes. "Supposedly, Major's trying to cut that agency out. There have been complaints that he's letting sewage from his houses drain into the lake."

  "Good work," I said. "Keep digging. See what you can come up with."

  Heading back to my office to prepare for my afternoon meetings, I nearly bumped into Lee Roy.

  "Oh, Miss Lois, I was just coming to see you. Wonder if you want me to take you around town this afternoon... for your meetings, I mean."

  Surprised that he knew I had set up visits with the city leaders, I paused and then decided he might provide insight into these unknown people I was meeting with. "That sounds good. Can you head out now?"

  "Sure thing, ma'am," he said. He grabbed his coat and turned off the light in his office.

  The afternoon turned out to be interesting and excruciating. The excitement of putting out my first edition subsided, and the reality of small-town politics settled in.

  Our first stop was at Major Wilson's real estate office, a modern wood building across the street from the lake, with a nice water view. An attractive woman in her early thirties greeted us and gave Lee Roy a little hug. She looked awkward, as if she didn't know whether to shake my hand, hug me, or do nothing. She took a step back and dropped her hands to her sides. "Welcome to Green, Miss Lois," she said. "I'm Linda."

  She ushered us back into Major's office, a large cluttered room with a couple of deer heads and mounted fish-bass, I thought-on the wall. Major stood up and greeted us enthusiastically, shook hands with Lee Roy, and gave me the weird for-women-only grip. He was in his middle sixties, a bit overweight, and sported a large duck on his brass belt buckle.

  "I see you met Linder," he said, putting an "er" on the end of her name. "Can she get you anything? Coffee? Coke?" Without a pause, he looked at his assistant and said, "I'll take a Coke, heavy on the ice."

  I declined any refreshments to avoid burping my way through my first visit with a town father. Linda returned with a Coke for Major and a Diet Sprite for Lee Roy, something he apparently drank on a regular basis because he had not even asked for it.

  "Thank you so much for taking time to meet with me, sir," I said.

  Major interrupted before I could say how happy I was to be in Green. "Sir? Let's get rid of that sir business. I ain't that old."

  He laughed as he said it, as though it were super funny. "Call me Major. We're glad to have you down herein Louisiana. Where is that you're from again? Illinois? Or was it Michigan?" He didn't pause, and I realized he didn't care where I was from. "I met that friend of yours-the one who bought the paper. Seemed like a nice enough fellow. Sorry about your loss. What you think about our little community?"

  I waited to answer, not sure if he would interrupt me again. "Speak up, girl," he said, shocking me with his arrogance.

  "Green's a nice place," I said. "I look forward to getting to know more about it and the people here."

  "What are your plans?" he asked. "You heading out in a few days?"

  The question startled me, and I glanced at Lee Roy, who watched intently for my response.

  Suddenly it hit me. Lee Roy expected me to leave town and let him run the paper. He planned on it. Major Wilson knew and expected it too.

  "Oh no," I said. "I've moved to Green. I'll be here for quite a while. I'm eager to work with you and help with your advertising needs. I want to do what I can for Bouef Parish."

  Lee Roy made a choking sound and set down his Sprite. "Went down the wrong way," he said. He pulled out his handkerchief, wiped his mouth, and then blotted a spill on his pristine shirt.

  The next hour passed slowly, with me on the edge of the leather wingback I had chosen and Lee Roy slumped on the end of an overstuffed couch.

  "Bouef Parish is a fine place to call home," Major said, "but it isn't the easiest place to do business, or to be in politics, for that matter. You can't please some people. They'll tell you they want things to be different but then tell you they don't like change. They don't get how tough it is to move things forward."

  "You do a good job," Lee Roy jumped in. "You've worked wonders in this town. You turned the real estate market around and got us that highway. Didn't let yourself be railroaded by those naysayers. You got that paper mill to come here too."

  Suddenly Lee Roy turned toward me. "Make sure you don't get in his way. Major makes things happen. He is a true patriot too. A fine fellow." His speech sounded like he was trying to sell me on a potential blind-date candidate.

  "We get it done, don't we, Roy?" Major asked, winking as he said it.

  I had digested about all of Major that I could. "We better be going. We've got another stop to make today," I said. "I can't wait to watch you in action, Major. Learn how it's done." I was not above sucking up to this guy if it made my life easier.

  "Linder," Major yelled suddenly. "Get Miss Lois here one of our coffee mugs and a calendar."

  "Yes, sir," she said, hopping up so quickly her chair rolled back and hit the fax machine. She scrambled over to a metal cabinet and pulled the items out. It had been awhile since I had seen someone move that quickly to follow a boss's order. "Here you go, ma'am."

  "It's Lois, Linda. Thanks. I look forward to seeing you again. Maybe I could buy yo
u lunch one day."

  As Lee Roy and I got in the car, I had to ask. "What's his story?"

  My ad director, circulation manager, and apparently owner-wannabe shrugged, as though deciding if he could be bothered to answer.

  "The usual. Major's an important guy in town-a power broker. You know he owns the Chevy dealership out on the edge of town and he's got his real estate business. He developed some real nice subdivisions for Green. Helps the area, helps the paper. He ran for office about a dozen years ago and decided he likes that too. Does everything and is a heckuva golfer. Been friends with the McCullers for years."

  He stopped, pursed his lips, and looked as though he didn't know if he had said too little or too much. I wanted to know more, especially about Lee Roy's relationship with Major, but at this point I didn't want to be too obvious.

  "Is that his real name?"

  "His real name's Bill, but he's gone by Major since his days in the Army Reserve right after college." That was all Lee Roy was going to say about Major.

  We parked on the street near the side entrance of Wilson's Department Store and headed in for our meeting with Eva Hillburn. After Major, I didn't know what to expect. We walked directly into the office, skirting an empty desk out front.

  "Louise takes Friday afternoons off," Lee Roy said as we passed. "Let's go on back."

  Eva was on the phone when we entered, but waved us to sit down. She was a tiny woman in her mid- to late-fifties, with a helmet of dyed black hair-hair so black that it looked like the color would rub off on your hand. Intricately poufedyes, pouf is the only word I could think of-it didn't seem to be so much a hairstyle as an arrangement. I wondered what was in there.

  I tried to take my eyes and mind off her hair and focus on the office and the rest of the woman. I finally had to make myself look away. Her desk was a small, ornately carved, dark wood antique. An Asian screen with hand-painted cranes sat in the corner. Some sort of silk-looking cloth behind glass hung nearby. Other Far Eastern pieces dotted the room, including a handful of vases and a few interesting mementoes. Everything was spotless, without a hint of clutter. Even her desk was nearly empty.