Some Great Thing

by Lawrence Hill

  They kept Yoyo three days in the hospital. He gained a few pounds; he hadn’t eaten so well since leaving Cameroon. He wasn’t bored or depressed in the hospital. He considered writing about the experience for La Voix de Yaoundé. Several things had surprised him and would surely interest readers in Yaoundé: no patients brought their own food, no relatives came to sleep by their ailing family members, and no nurses worked with babies slung on their backs.

  The day that Mahatma received the photos, Edward Slade slipped, uninvited, into the chair by Yoyo’s hospital bed. His manner displeased Yoyo. He was unshaven. His clothes were unkempt. He started interrogating Yoyo without displaying the common decency to enquire into the state of his health and that of his family. In fact, he barely introduced himself. “I’m with The Star,” Slade said, pulling a notepad from his coat. “I’m doing a story on how the police handled the Polonia Park riot.” Yoyo nodded weakly. “How do you feel about how the police acted?”

  “I can’t really blame the police,” Yoyo mumbled. “Things got out of control. If this demonstration had happened in my country, people would have been killed.”

  “But what about your arm?”

  “It will heal.”

  “But they broke it?”

  “Yes, they did.”

  Slade scribbled, “They broke my arm.” Then he asked, “Weren’t the police brutal?” Yoyo gulped at the memory of his arm cracking in the riot. He felt food rising in his stomach and fought off the urge to vomit. “Hmm, Yoyo, what do you say to that?” Yoyo grunted and nodded his head slightly. “You agree? You agree with that description?” Yoyo nodded. He had to vomit. He had to get Slade out of there. “I need a picture,” Slade said.

  Yoyo weakly lifted his arm. “No pictures.”

  “C’mon,” Slade said, “don’t worry about it. It’s just a photo. C’mon, put your arm down. That’s it.”

  Slade shot half a roll of film in ten seconds. “Thanks for your help. Get well now. I’ve got to run.” He took off. Yoyo rushed to the toilet to vomit. When he was finished, he wept in humiliation. To be invaded in such a way—to be displayed at one’s weakest in a photo. Quelle honte! Yoyo didn’t know how, or when, or where, but he vowed to get even with Edward Slade.

  Pat MacGrearicque said, “I’m in a hurry.”

  “This is important,” Mahatma said.

  “I thought you were suspended.”

  “I’m back.”

  “Jesus Christ. You’ve got one minute to tell me what you want and to get out of here.”

  Mahatma stared into MacGrearicque’s blue eyes. Then he set the photos on MacGrearicque’s desk. The cop flipped through them and tossed them back at Mahatma. “So, what do you want?”

  “C’mon, Superintendent. These are photos of police brutality.”

  “I don’t know who took those photos, or when or where they were taken.”

  Mahatma knew he had him. He knew MacGrearicque was panicking. He had to be desperate to argue the time or place of the photos. “For the record, let me ask you again if you believed your officers behaved well at the riot.”

  “I have already commented on that. And as for these photos, I don’t know a thing about them.”

  “Are you not concerned to see photographs of your men clubbing one man, punching another in the throat and grabbing a woman by the hair?”

  “Get out of here before I throw you out.”

  “What about the fact that your officers stole the camera that took these photos, developed the prints and then sat on them?”

  “I said get out of here.”

  “If you change your mind and decide to comment on these photos, you’ll be able to reach me at the newsroom today. If I’m not there, try the managing editor’s office.”

  Fifteen heads turned when Mahatma walked into the newsroom. Helen Savoie waved. Chuck Maxwell shouted a greeting. Mahatma smiled at his friends but kept walking. “I’ve got something to do, but I’ll see you a bit later.”

  Lyndon Van Wuyss and Don Betts were meeting in Van Wuyss’ office. Mahatma tapped on the managing editor’s door, then opened it.

  Betts saw him and swore. “Jesus Christ,” he began.

  Van Wuyss placed his hand on Betts’ arm. “If it can’t wait, Mahatma, please get to the point.”

  “These are photos from the riot. The cops stole the camera that took them, developed the photos and sat on them. I managed to find them.”

  The managing editor’s mouth dropped.

  Betts grabbed the photos. “Well, sonofabitch. Sonofabitch, would you look at those cops. Hey, who gave you these photos?”

  “A source,” Mahatma said. “I want you to run these photos and I want you to run my story. In that story, I’m going to lead off with Georges Goyette accusing the police of stealing his camera after he took those shots. I’m going to quote the police if they care to comment. I’m going to quote Jake Corbett about getting roughed up. And I’m going to describe the riot. If you don’t run the photos—”

  “Fucking right we’ll run it,” Betts said. “We’ve got the photos, we can back up the story. We have to run the stuff. It’s news. Good hard news. I still think you’re a smartassed bastard, Hat, but if you’ve got a good story I’m not getting in the way.”

  “Great photos,” Van Wuyss said. “But what about the way we’ve already handled this story?”

  “Who gives a shit?” Betts said. “People will call us idiots for changing our tune. It gives ’em something to do. But the point here is that we have a story. We have to run it.”

  Van Wuyss seemed to agree. “Well done, Mahatma.”

  “Take good care of those photos,” Mahatma said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to knock out that story.”

  “Hold it, Hat, and listen for a sec,” Betts said. “I’m gonna tell you how to handle this story, and I don’t want you getting all high and mighty. What you’ve gotta do is play up the cops covering up the photos. That’s what’s new. Then you can rehash some of the Polonia Park stuff at the bottom of your story.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Mahatma rolled over in bed and turned on the 7:30 a.m. radio news: “Crime Superintendent Patrick MacGrearicque refused to speak to CFRL Radio this morning about photographs of police brutality and allegations that his officers had stolen the film to cover up the incident.

  “The pictures appeared today in The Winnipeg Herald. They show police officers beating one man on the head, punching another man in the throat and yanking a woman’s hair during the Polonia Park riot last Sunday.

  “Another embarrassing photo appeared in The Winnipeg Star this morning, which showed an African journalist in his hospital room after being allegedly beaten by police at the same riot…”

  Mahatma Grafton was bombarded with attention after the morning news. It started with his father, who wandered into Mahatma’s bedroom. “Good work, son. I knew you didn’t mess up.”

  Then the phone rang. CBC wanted to interview him. Had he been surprised to find the photos? What did he think would happen now? Mahatma said he wasn’t surprised because he knew the pictures existed and that they would be uncovered in time. He called for an inquiry into police behaviour at the riot. Mahatma hung up. The phone rang again. It was CRFL Radio, with similar questions. He answered them. Six other radio stations called, and two TV stations, and The Toronto Times and The Brandon Advance. After that, Ben unplugged the telephone.

  Jake Corbett hung up the phone in Frank’s Accidental Dog and Grill. “They’re gonna put me on TV.”

  “Right,” Frank said. “And they’re gonna put me on the moon.”

  “CBC is gonna innerview me about welfare and my constitution rights and about me being subject to cruel and unusual treatment at that demonstration on Sunday.”

  “Somebody take this man’s tempitcher,” Frank called out.

  “When the TV people come, send ’em up.”

  Before the CBC arrived, a young woman from The Brandon Sun came to interview Corbet
t. She was a student.

  Jake began, “I was born with epilepsy but they took it for psychological problems and put me in Selkirk Mental and gave me electric shock treatments and kept me there seven years! It’s ’cause of all that that I’m having all those there problems with the welfare people. But my troubles began in public school, before they sent me away to the mental, when one day I…”

  The student reporter scribbled wildly while Corbett skipped back and forth over time. He confused her totally. When the CBC crew arrived, Corbett tried to retell his tale.

  “No no no no no,” said the CBC reporter. “I ask the questions. You answer them. First, how did it feel when the police clubbed you at Polonia Park?”

  “I didn’t feel much. It knocked me out. But when I woke up, I wasn’t one bit happy.”

  “Had you started the trouble? Did you hit any officer?”

  “I was minding my own business, thinking about my potato—”

  “What potato?”

  “The baked potato I got at the Yooker-Anian reception. I was gonna eat it in the park.”

  “But you initiated no trouble of any sort?”

  “No. Is this going on the six o’clock news?”

  “Maybe. Why were you in Polonia Park?”

  “It was a nice day. I was having a banana with an African and then all these people came running in and I got hit in the head.”

  “Do me a favour,” the reporter said. “Forget the Ukrainian potato and the African banana, would you? You’re just going to confuse our viewers. When we get you on camera, stick to how you were minding your own business, relaxing on a park bench, and the next thing you knew the cops had knocked you over the head and loaded you into a paddywagon. Okay?”

  The six o’clock news showed Jake Corbett talking about being knocked out by a billyclub. Jake was keenly disappointed. The TV people didn’t mention his overpayment deductions. They didn’t even talk about the welfare people not giving him enough to live decently. Reporters never told it straight. They didn’t know how.

  Georges Goyette’s St. Boniface bungalow had been vandalized the night before. Walking up the porch steps, Mahatma Grafton saw spray-painted on the door, “Frogs Go Home!” Goyette swept the door open. “Come in, jeune homme.” Newspapers from around the world cluttered a coffee table. Le Monde, El Pais, The Washington Post, The Toronto Times. Goyette excused himself, retreating to the kitchen.

  One of Goyette’s columns in Le Miroir had been framed and hung on a wall. Mahatma studied the column, in which Goyette attacked the provincial government for trying to water down minority language rights.

  Mahatma stopped reading. To date, he had seen no details about the government’s position on French language rights. The Herald had only reported that the Francophone Association and the government were negotiating a language deal whose details remained secret.

  Mahatma checked the date of the column: September 20, 1983—that was three months ago. He read on, seeing Goyette’s description of Manitoba’s “first negotiating position” on the language question. How did Le Miroir have this information? Why didn’t The Herald have it?

  Goyette returned with a platter of cheese and pâté. Mahatma protested. “Don’t say a thing. You’re hungry. I’m hungry. So let’s eat.” They sat by a window, looking out at children playing hockey in the street. “Ever played hockey?” Goyette asked.

  “No. Never had skates. You?”

  “You’re asking a French-Canadian if he’s played hockey? Sure I did. Try that Brie!” Mahatma spread the soft cheese on rye bread. It struck him as incredible that in the six months he’d been in Winnipeg, this was the first time he had slowed down enough to enjoy Goyette’s company “Beer?” Goyette asked.

  “Sure.”

  Goyette came back with two bottles and more food.

  “To friendship,” Mahatma said.

  “And to your restored honour.”

  They clinked beer bottles. Mahatma tried some chicken liver pâté. And some Camembert. Then he asked Goyette about the framed column.

  “You are probably the first anglo to read it.”

  “You broke that story and no English media picked it up?”

  “Exactly.” Goyette had acquired the provincial negotiating document, written the story and watched it remain ignored by the English press.

  “How could that happen?” Mahatma asked.

  “Les anglais don’t read our newspaper.”

  “But we’ve spent months trying to find out the government’s position.” Goyette nodded. Mahatma asked, “How come you never told me about this?”

  “Do you run to me with scoops that I can read in your paper?” For a moment, they ate in silence. “What do you think of the language negotiations?” Goyette asked.

  “I’m no expert,” Mahatma said. “I don’t really have an opinion on it. I’m just an ordinary person. Just a reporter.”

  “Just a reporter! What does that mean?”

  “It means my job is to report facts, not to editorialize.”

  “Editorialize? I’m asking you to think! And don’t tell me you’re not an expert. You are. You are a news expert. You are paid to stay abreast of the news. You attend demonstrations, you watch people get beaten up and you grill police superintendents. Don’t bullshit me about being an ordinary person. If you can’t think for yourself, who the hell can?”

  Mahatma made a sad, inward smile. He had nothing to say. Spewing out daily news had deadened his thinking. If he had to write an editorial on any subject, he wouldn’t know where to start or what to say.

  The day after his suspension was revoked, Mahatma was handed a scrap of paper that said 205 Killarney Avenue, Apt. 4. “A murder just came over the radio,” Betts said. “Our new crime reporter is doing another story. Better get down there fast.”

  A cop opened the victim’s door. He wouldn’t speak to Mahatma. Wouldn’t tell him anything. Mahatma didn’t fight it, didn’t argue.

  Standing alone in the green-painted corridor of an apartment where a young woman had lived until a few hours ago, Mahatma felt weary. He didn’t remember murder stories bothering him so much before. He remembered the thrill of beating Slade to the home of the French hockey player killed in St. Albert. He remembered how keenly he took quotes from the mother. It seemed like another era. Another life.

  Mahatma rang a neighbour’s buzzer. The lady who answered the door named the victim—Katie Bonner—and said she was in her early twenties and had lived alone. “She had men coming in every night! Different ones!”

  Mahatma started, mindlessly, to jot that quote down, then stopped himself. He was fighting the story. But that wouldn’t get the job done.

  Another neighbour said he had heard the shot and called the police and seen the ambulance attendants carry the body from the apartment. Mahatma forced himself through uninspired questions: What time had the shot rung out? How many police officers had come? Mahatma did not want to pursue the story. Nor did he want to lose his job. He concluded that the minimum effort required to avoid another suspension would be to try to talk to Katie Bonner’s family. He looked up the name in the phone book and found a P. Bonner on McAdam Avenue. Mahatma drove there. A woman opened the door. “Are you Katie’s mother?”

  “Do we have to do this again?” she said. “That other man made us talk. He was from The Star. He said they would fire him if we didn’t talk about Katie.”

  “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Mahatma told her.

  She didn’t want to. Mahatma checked the woman’s name and her husband’s name, and then he left her. He collected his thoughts in the car. What was he doing? Searching for people to speculate publicly about the murder of someone they loved. He tracked down another Bonner in the phone book. Katie’s aunt. This woman gave a few details of the victim’s life. Mahatma didn’t push her. What purpose would it serve? At most, entertainment. Mahatma asked the police a few questions and let his investigation end there.

  “What’d you get?�
�� Betts asked before Mahatma had his coat off.

  “Neighbours didn’t know much. Family wouldn’t talk. I’ve just got a few inches.” Betts scowled. Mahatma ignored it and wrote what he had. Two hours later, the phone rang on his desk. It was Helen Savoie and she was speaking rapid French. Mahatma listened, astonished.

  “I can’t explain now, but you’re in trouble and I’m going to help. Tell me who you interviewed on the murder story and what they said. Talk to me in French.” Mahatma complied.

  “Don’t tell anyone we were talking,” she said. “I’ll be fired if you do.” She hung up. Mahatma shrugged and wrote a five-inch story on the murder. The next morning, Helen called him at home. She told him to meet her after work at the bar Pantages, but not to approach her in the newsroom.

  Helen Savoie’s first contact with The Winnipeg Herald came in 1964. She was thirteen. As a grade seven student, she had won a prize for her history essay. She and eight other top students—all boys—were escorted through The Herald newsroom, which Helen concluded was a secretarial pool. A strange one. With men, instead of women. Talking on the phone, listening to radios, shouting, typing very fast with two fingers, walking around with their shoes off. Helen studied the clattering machines and decomposing telephone books and ringing telephones and paper clicking out of wire machines, but could make no sense of the chaos. She and the other students were hurried into the office of the managing editor where they were awarded plaques and doughnuts and fruit juice. Their names and pictures were to run in the Saturday paper. The managing editor gave a short, boring speech. He spoke like a military officer. “Society has its hopes pinned on young men like you.” A ruddy hand clasped Helen’s shoulder as if it were a doorknob. “Your name?”