by Howard Owen
She ignores my question.
“He wants you here in an hour.”
That would be ten o’clock, about four hours before I start getting paid.
“Sally,” I tell her, “I know he’s standing right there beside you, making you call me. Just say ‘All right’ if that’s so.”
She pauses for a couple of seconds, then says it.
“OK. Tell him I’m on my way.”
She says “All right” again and I hang up.
It’s only ten blocks up Franklin Street from the Prestwould to the paper. It’s a nice, compact little world. I pass the YMCA, where a better person would stop for a workout on the way to the office, and the city library, and only a block beyond the paper is Penny Lane, where everybody knows my name. Who could ask for anything more?
I’d hate to mess this up. If I get fired, there isn’t anything else I can do that’s legal that would pay nearly what I’m drawing now.
Still, give me truth serum and I’d tell you that I don’t regret being the fly in the ointment, the turd in the punch bowl, refusing to write off Richard Slade. Most of my best stories were the ones somebody told me not to write. If I took orders better, I’d still be drinking and hobnobbing with our state legislators, where all the crimes are legal, instead of spending my late middle age chasing police cars.
It’s not much after ten when I get there.
I go straight to the fourth floor, where Sandy McCool greets me and tells me Mr. Grubbs will be with me shortly. I know better than to expect Sandy, longtime friend and Grubby’s executive assistant, to be The Weather Channel and tell me just how big a shitstorm I’ve stirred up. Sandy’s a good woman, but she takes her job seriously.
Five minutes later, she tells me he’ll see me.
I knock on Grubby’s door and he says to come in. He doesn’t even bother to get up from his desk.
“Sit,” he says.
“Willie,” he begins, leaning forward, “what part of ‘Let Baer have the Richard Slade story’ did you not understand?”
I start to protest that I haven’t written a word about Slade in the last three days’ papers. He puts up one of his hands to stop me.
“You blogged about it, and from what I can tell, about half the city’s read that. You went to the funeral. You went to the city jail and talked to him, you and Marcus Green.”
I don’t know how he found out about that last part, but it’s not that big a town.
“Do you know I’ve been on the phone with Giles Whitehurst? He called me at seven this morning. He doesn’t want to fire your ass, Willie. He wants to fire my ass, because he assumes I don’t have any control over this newspaper, over what our reporters do.”
I’m truly sorry for that. James H. Grubbs is a back-stabbing corporate climber who sold his journalistic soul for an MBA, but I did promise to stay off the story, and I haven’t. I don’t want to make anyone the recipient of a seven A.M. phone call from the chairman of the board, not even Grubby.
There isn’t much to do except try to convince our publisher that there was a good reason for doing what I did, that there is that tiny chance that we’re putting the hanging before the trial.
Even as I’m telling Grubby what I know about Slade, I realize that it’s weak as water. My ex-con housemate and friend knew him in prison and doesn’t think he’s capable of something so heinous. There’s a guy out there, according to Slade, who will corroborate his story. Slade has never, to anyone’s knowledge, ever assaulted another human being, let alone murdered one.
When I tell him about Susan Winston-Jones and the alleged missing diary, journal, memoirs, whatever the fuck it was, Grubby seems only mildly more interested than before. I catch him sneaking a peak at his watch.
“We have to do something, Willie,” he says.
“We?”
“OK. I. I have to do something. You’re suspended.”
“For how long?”
“Let’s say two weeks. Two weeks without pay.”
It doesn’t really bother me as much as it should. Two weeks won’t break me. Quite.
“This isn’t going to look good on my résumé. How am I ever going to get a job at the Washington Post with this blemish on my reputation?”
Grubby almost thinks I’m serious, then nearly smiles at the idea of the Post hiring a fifty-something almost-white guy whose reputation already has more stains than a two-year-old’s bib at a spaghetti supper.
I figure there’s not much to lose, so I tell Grubby that the presumed-guilty Mr. Slade probably is my cousin.
“So you’ve not been exactly unbiased about this.”
I concede that this might possibly be the case, but that I do believe the story hasn’t been fully told yet. I add that it doesn’t seem like Giles Whitehurst is an impartial bystander either.
“Oh, he’s definitely not a bystander,” Grubby says.
We both know there’s a whole herd of sacred cows out in Windsor Farms, and I’ve been trying to tip one of them over.
I have to ask one more thing, though, even as Grubby is reaching for his coat, no doubt due somewhere else in five minutes.
“I promised to help Baer. Do you want me to do that?”
I don’t ever really want to help Baer. I think our publisher and I both know that.
“If you want to, but it’s on your own time. The paper does not back or condone anything you do connected to this story. That is our official stance.”
“But what I do on my own time is my business, right?”
He pauses and sighs.
“Right.”
Another pause.
“Leave it alone, Willie. I don’t know why, but this has become Giles Whitehurst’s burning desire, that we get this story on the straight and narrow. No diversions, no side streets. Come back in two weeks and start with a clean slate.”
I say nothing, but I’ve got to think even Grubby is smart enough to know that telling me to leave a story alone is like waving a pork chop in front of a pit bull.
I get off the elevator at the second floor. Baer is at his desk all fresh and alert. I realize I have a free day. Free two weeks, for that matter. Free of pay, but free nonetheless. I don’t do well when I slip the bonds of employment, though. I wonder who’s going to get the choice assignment of night cops for the next fortnight.
I decide I might as well make a mildly honest effort at giving young Mr. Baer what I promised.
“You wanted an interview with Richard Slade’s mother.”
He looks up, either surprised to see me so early or shocked at my appearance. Didn’t have time to shave.
“Yeah. Yeah, definitely. But . . .” he hesitates and lowers his voice. “But don’t, you know, don’t mention that we’re going out there. I’m not supposed to be doing this. I think they just want me to let it drop, everything after Slade’s arrest, other than the piece on the Simpson family.”
I explain to young Baer that I’m totally aware of the repercussions of pursuing the rest of the story with too much vigor.
“Suspended?” he says. “Just for that blog?”
Baer is weighing in his devious mind the pluses and minuses of coming with me to Philomena Slade’s house, consequences be damned. He wants to please, but he wants something big, something that’ll move him one step closer to the top of a profession that’s becoming as relevant as the Pony Express.
The urge to get ahead outweighs his fear of incurring Grubby’s wrath, as I thought it might.
“But you’re not getting paid,” he says.
“It keeps me off the streets.”
We get to Philomena’s a little after noon.
“What do you want now?” she asks me.
I introduce her to my friend, Mark Baer, who is unnaturally courteous, the way he is when he wants something, and explain that we’ve talked to Richard down at the jail and want to work with Marcus Green to see what we can do about telling her son’s side of the story.
She doesn’t really buy this, but she�
��s a little bit grateful to me, I think, for giving her a heads-up on Richard’s unfortunate Kwik-Mart video.
The twins are eating lunch in the background, but come in to check out the latest white guy. I’m thinking there haven’t been many white folks in Philomena’s house, and probably the ones who were there didn’t bring good news.
I tell Philomena that I’m taking a couple of weeks off to do some snooping around on my own, and that Baer is going to be working on whatever we write about her son from now on.
“But you said you were going to do it,” she says, obviously not as taken with Baer as he’d like her to be. She has good instincts.
“I’m still going to be looking into it, but just behind the scenes.”
“Behind the scenes,” she repeats. She’s sitting on a somewhat worn couch in the living room, with the sound turned down on the TV. “They didn’t fire you, did they?”
I tell her I’m on a leave of absence, then try to give her what reassurance I can.
“Philomena,” I say, “I’m going to be checking into it, whether they pay me to or not.”
“They don’t want you all to write anything about my son, except what a bad man he is. Do they?”
My silence is all the answer she needs.
“You all better go,” she says quietly. When Baer tries to sweet-talk her into changing her mind, I see the look in her eyes and gently guide him out the door. The twins follow us with unblinking eyes.
When we get back to the car, Baer stops to fish in his pocket for his keys.
“What happened there? I thought we were going to interview her.”
I look back at the little rancher, sure we’re being watched, by Momma Phil, her charges and probably half the neighborhood.
“She’s just figured out what the score is,” I tell him. This is probably not exactly true. I’m thinking Philomena Slade knew the score of this particular game a long time ago, when her son was arrested for raping a white girl from the right side of the tracks.
I get in and, after a few seconds, Baer does the same. We screech away, or as much as you can peel rubber with one of our aging, anemic company cars. Baer, the model of charm a few minutes ago, seems pissed.
“You said you’d get me an interview with her.”
“I said I’d try. I’ll try again.”
But I don’t think Momma Phil is ever going to open that door to me again, unless I’m by myself. And maybe not even then.
I’ll make my peace with her. I want to. But for now, Baer is going to have to be satisfied with me picking up the tab for lunch at the Red Door.
Penny Lane whispers my name as Baer parks the car. For distraction, I go with him upstairs to the newsroom. He walks a couple of steps ahead of me, sulking like a two-year-old despite his free lunch.
Sarah Goodnight beckons me.
“Thanks a lot,” she says, looking almost as pouty as Baer.
“What?”
“I’m on night cops for two weeks.”
Sarah knows the basics of what I do. Out of curiosity and a desire to learn all she can, she has ridden with me a couple of times. This is her reward.
“What about your regular beat?” They have Sarah writing features and also let her do an occasional turn covering the General Assembly, which is in high season now.
“Oh, Wheelie said to see if I could manage to sneak in a few GA stories on the side. He said, and I quote, ‘You’re young. You can sleep later.’ ”
She’s mimicking Wheelie loudly enough that I can hear Jackson, sitting ten feet away, snickering.
“The only good news is, I don’t have to do any more of those damn Sense of Place stories.”
Wheelie would never pull that crap on an older reporter. Chuck Apple covers cops the nights I’m off, but Chuck’s covering city schools, and I’m sure that when he told Wheelie he couldn’t be two places at the same time, Wheelie just smiled and backed away.
“Oh,” Sarah says, realizing that she might not be the only one having a bad newspaper day, “I’m sorry, about the suspension and all.”
Ah, callow youth.
I tell her not to worry, that I’ll walk her through it. Plus, night cops isn’t quite as fraught with adventure in January. People are not as quick-triggered in January as they are in July.
She thanks me. No problem, I tell her. I’ve got nothing but time.
I drive over to Oregon Hill, just to make sure Peggy’s place hasn’t burned down. Nobody answers my knock, but when I try the door, it’s open. I find Peggy and Awesome Dude sitting in the kitchen, a roach lying in the ashtray between them. Neither one of them notices me at first. Then, Awesome sees me and jumps half a foot. Usually, when people appear suddenly in Awesome’s world, they don’t mean him any good. Peggy and Les have taken him in, but I’m thinking that, drug-wise, this is somewhat like housing gasoline and matches together.
“Dude,” he says, settling back into his purple haze, “you scared the shit out of me.”
“Don’t you ever knock?” my mother asks by way of greeting.
“Has all that dope impaired your hearing?”
She tells me to show some respect, which cracks both of us up.
“That was too bad about Philomena’s boy,” she says when she stops coughing. “Looks like he’s just about done for.”
I tell her that we’ll have to wait and see.
I ask her where Les is. He’s taking a nap, something he’s only started doing lately. Maybe it comes with old age or dementia. He’s still a bear, though, not much diminished physically since I first met him.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” she asks when she finally focuses enough to read the clock on the wall.
I explain why I’m at leisure.
“So somebody, some big shot over in Windsor Farms, wants you off the case. Same as it ever was. Money talks, bullshit walks.”
“Yeah,” Awesome kicks in. “I heard the other day on TV about how the middle class is just disappearing. Ain’t no hope for the little man.”
I keep my smile inside. Neither Peggy nor Awesome has, in their adult lives, risen to what the world might call “middle class.” Peggy’s still renting. Awesome might be sleeping in a cardboard box or a homeless shelter, spending his days at the downtown public library, without my addled mother’s benevolence.
Peggy offers me a beer, which I accept. When I start to light a cigarette, she tells me I’ll have to smoke it outside. Incredible.
“Them Simpsons are strange,” Awesome offers more or less out of left field.
I ask him if he knows them socially.
Awesome sees that I’m kidding and smiles. He seems to have a tooth or two less than the last time I saw him, but maybe it’s just my imagination.
“Nah,” he says, “but I knew Wes.”
“Alicia’s brother?”
“She the murdered girl? Yeah. Anyhow, Wes, he used to hang out sometimes down by Texas Beach.”
According to Awesome Dude, Wesley Simpson, during his stay at the “retreat” where his family parked him, had slipped away on more than one occasion.
“He said he didn’t like it there, that those people were—what did he call them?—vulgarians.
“He must be really tore up about his sister, though.”
I tell Awesome that I assume anyone would be “tore up” about something like this.
“Yeah,” he says, “but she was the only one he had any use for. He used to talk awful about his momma and daddy, and the older sister—he said she just thought he was a loser. He called her a West End bitch.
“He said Alicia was the one that looked out for him. Called her his angel. He was pretty wacked out. A couple of times, the cops came and got him. He was scarin’ the tourists.”
“The tourists,” I’ve learned from Awesome, is how the people who consider themselves the legitimate residents of Texas Beach, ensconced in their makeshift tents and boxes in the thicket above the river when the weather will permit, refer to the swimmers, kayakers
and tubers who come down to the little sandy spit to play in the fecally enhanced water of the James.
“But even when he was wacked out,” Awesome says, “he thought a lot of Alicia. He said he owed her, but he wasn’t ever going to be able to pay her back.”
We chat for a while, then Les comes out, rubbing his eyes.
“What’s for breakfast?” he asks. Then, he looks at the clock, which tells him it’s half past four.
“Oh, yeah,” he says.
Peggy’s little makeshift family gets by. Usually, at least one of them has a grip on reality. Les has taken care of my mother, and now she’s taking care of him. I know from experience that Peggy, for any faults she might have, looks after her own. And she and Les both consider Awesome “their own” now. He sometimes disappears for a few days at a time, maybe missing his old friends who can only find shelter under government- and charity-supported roofs. But he always comes back.
I talk to Les a little about the upcoming baseball season. An ex-ballplayer himself, he can tell you who won every World Series from 1941 to sometime in the late sixties, although he might forget where Peggy’s house is at the end of one of his occasional walkabouts.
When I leave, I look back in the fading light and see them all sitting there side-by-side on the living room couch, watching Dr. Phil or some such shit, with their popcorn, beer and dope. Just like a real family.
I call Kate on my cellphone. She’s still allowed to use Bartley, Bowman and Bush’s offices while she’s doing her little Richard Slade sabbatical. I tell the receptionist that I’d like to speak with Kate Black, then correct myself. Must be some kind of Freudian slip.
To my surprise, she answers.
“So,” I ask, “is Richard Slade a lost cause?”
“I don’t think so. Besides, even if he was, you know how much I love lost causes. I married you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah. But that’s one you had to run up the white flag on.”
“Touché. But you have to admit, I gave it my best shot.”
I resist the urge to tell her that I wish she’d tried harder. I can hear the clickety-click of fingers on keyboard. Kate, always the overachiever, is multitasking.