Gathering String

by Mimi Johnson

In the kitchen, Jack poured two steaming mugs as the dog scrambled out from under the table and sat beside him, thumping his tail on the floor. When Sam reached out to take one, the dog began to growl softly, the hair across his withers rising. Jack looked down and said, “Cut it out, Rover.” Then he asked Sam, “You need anything in that?”

  “Black is great.”

  Sam took a sip, and then took a step toward the chair where he had draped his coat. At his movement, the dog came to his feet with a heavier growl, baring his teeth. “OK, that’s it,” Jack took a quick step between them, grabbing the dog by its leather collar. “You must need some fresh air.” Sam watched as he pulled open the door and shoved Rover out into the cold. “Sorry about that. He’s usually really friendly.”

  Sam shrugged and picked up his coat, pulling a reporter’s notebook and pen from it, along with a very small digital audio recorder. He flipped it on and dropped it in his shirt pocket. When he looked up, he found Westphal watching him, a slight frown on his face. For a few, uneasy seconds they only looked at each other, and then Jack sighed, “Well, I suppose we should get to it. How about right here?” He nodded toward the table.

  Unhappy with Jack’s clear reluctance, Sam suggested instead, “Why don’t you just show me around first? It’s a hell of a house. I couldn’t touch a place like this on the coast. I suppose it’s the family home?”

  Jack nodded, walking past him toward the dining room, “For well over a hundred years. Most of the furniture belonged to my parents and grandparents.” He pointed to the dining room table as he walked past, adding, “Even my great-grandparents.”

  “That’s hard for a guy like me to imagine,” Sam followed through to the living room, where Jack stopped at the stereo. “I grew up in a third-floor walk-up in Boston.”

  Jack nodded. “I caught the accent.”

  “You and everyone else in town. The young lady at the Tall Corn’s front desk last night asked what country I was from.”

  “That would be Dwight Quist’s daughter, Tawny.” Jack grinned as he pressed the docked iPod and the first movement of “The Four Seasons” drifted softly through the house. “Were you able to convince her Massachusetts is part of the United States?”

  “Hard to tell. When I told her I was from the Republic of the East Coast, she just snapped her gum at me.” Sam headed back toward the den. It was, he was certain, the best place for them to talk. It was the room where Westphal had placed the most personal, sentimental items he owned, and Sam was betting if there was any chance of getting the guy to relax and open up, it would be there, among the things that meant the most to him. “But you made some changes in here.”

  Jack followed him. “Well, the windows needed to be replaced on that north wall. And once I got the carpenters out here, it just seemed like a good idea to build in the bookshelves. I guess it just became my own space.”

  “You work from home a lot?”

  “Sometimes, when I just can’t take the office buzz any more.”

  Sam smiled, knowing what he meant. “It’s easier, writing without all those interruptions sometimes, isn’t it?”

  Jack nodded and said, "Tell me something; You're a hard-news guy, first the National Desk at the Trib, now Politifix. How'd you end up with an Ernie Pyle? That's a feature writing award."

  "Yeah, it was outside my usual realm. It was a piece I pitched to the Trib's Sunday magazine." Sam seemed to choose his next words carefully. "There was a kid named Wally Pinser and I was with him when, well, when he was in a bad accident. The guy pretty much had his entire face pushed in." Sam sighed. "The whole episode kind of haunted me. Finally I thought maybe I should write his story; how he faced all those surgeries and hung in day after day as he improved. And how he accepted that he'd never be completely the same. It taught me something, you know, about resilience and spirit. Funny thing is, the day we met, I called the kid a ferret and he thought I was a huge prick." Jack chuckled at that. "Turns out the story touched a lot of people. And that's all I'm really interested in; stacking paragraphs into a story that stays with the reader. That's the heart and soul of this business. The writing."

  Jack shrugged. "Spoken like a traditionalist. But before you write it, you have to get it, Sam. Today's tools let me crowdsource …"

  "Ah, Jesus, I'm sick of all the buzzwords. Community engagement, crowdsourcing, digital first. I'd die a happy man if I never heard them uttered again."

  Jack rolled his eyes. "Just yesterday, that buzzword nailed down a story for me. The county board of supervisors released its agenda for Monday's meeting. It included an item that just said, ‘Plans for county home.’ We'd heard a rumor that they might close down the place. My reporter called the supervisors and the director of the home, and none of them would comment on the plans. So I put it up on our Facebook page. Didn't repeat the rumor. I just said, 'Interesting item on supervisors' agenda: "Plans for county home." Anyone know what the plans are?' Within about ten minutes, I got an email from the home's maintenance manager. He was forwarding a message from the director, telling employees that the supervisors were planning to shut the home. So we were able to break the story before the meeting."

  "Oh, fuck Facebook," Sam snorted. "You know how I'd get a story like that? I’d have good enough sources that they’d forward that email to me when they get it, not when I beg for it on Facebook."

  "Well, however the story comes together, you still have to get it in front of the readers. You've got to understand which platform they use to get news."

  Now Waterman rolled his eyes. "No, it's my job to write stories, Slick. I don't give a shit about platforms."

  "Yeah," Jack sighed, "I hear that from a lot of job applicants when I have an opening. 'I just want to write. I'll even blog if I have to.' Most everyone just wants to do the job the way they always have."

  "Then you understand what I mean," Sam turned away and began to look over the photos on the shelves again, really seeing them now without Tess to distract him.

  "Sure, I get the point," Jack responded. "I just don't hire them." He looked out the window at the snowy orchard, wondering when the guy was going to get down to the interview. He didn’t see that a picture Sam spotted up on one of the high shelves suddenly took his attention. Setting the half-empty mug on the desk, Sam snatched it down, his face going hard.

  It was a picture of Jack with Tess leaning back in his arms, both of them laughing, perched on a high boulder, a running sea behind them, the spray flying up high in the background. In a white-knuckled grip, he held it out, without meeting Westphal’s eye. “Happy honeymoon?”

  Glancing back over his shoulder Jack answered, “Yeah. Tess did that with the delayed shutter. We’d only been married a few days.”

  “Where is it? The coast of Maine?” Sam's jaw was set, as if anticipating a blow.

  “No, we were up in Canada.”

  Sam shut his eyes and ground out, “Pacific Rim.” It wasn’t a question, and he stood rigid, fighting the urge to sling the smooth silver frame at the wall.

  As Jack turned, he frowned a little, taking in Sam’s rigid jaw and white lips. And then he said, “No. It’s Nova Scotia, up near Cape Breton.”

  Abruptly Sam turned away, hiding the relief he knew was swamping his face, “Nice.” He put the photo back and randomly grabbed another, forcing his eyes down, trying to concentrate on a very old picture of the two small Westphal boys smiling down at their baby sister in her bassinet. “Your family …” he cleared his throat, struggling to think, “the way you lost them had to be devastating. You were so young.” He turned around, and Jack nodded, waiting, but volunteering nothing. Sam put that picture back and thoughtfully searched until he found the right one, of all five Westphals together. “They were all good-looking. You want to tell me who’s who?”

  Jack stepped over and pointed, “My mom’s name was Sally, and my dad was Jim. That’s my brother, Matt and my sister Kak. Well, her real name was Kathryn.”

  Sam recited, “Sarah, James, Matthew
, Kathryn and …” he looked at Jack, “John?”

  Jack nodded again. “I was named after my grandfather.” He inclined his head back toward the hallway. “He died when I was 12. Right in the bedroom where he was born.”

  “Full circle.” Even trying, Sam couldn’t blunt the edge in his voice. “Very traditional, very ‘Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.’”

  Jack took the picture from him, looking down at it reflectively, aware of the tone and conceding, “It was a nice way to grow up.” Then his voice dropped. “Right up until they all died.” He put the picture back, saying, “My roommate took that the night of the accident, just before we went over to the stadium for my first basketball game at State.” Jack nodded toward a couple of wing chairs in front of his desk and said, “Let’s have a seat.”

  He picked Sam’s mug up off his desk, handing it back to him, then sat down in one of the chairs. “Coming to my home, talking about work and asking about my family and my pictures, it's all meant to draw me out. And it’s exactly what I would do if I had to interview someone like me. But I’ve got to be honest with you, Sam; I do it a lot better.”

  Sitting down in the other chair, Sam took a long swallow of his now lukewarm coffee and said, “OK.” He leaned forward, putting the mug back on the desk, set the recorder next to it, flipped the notebook open, and clicked the pen. “Maybe you’ll like my direct approach better. Tell me why you called me this morning. What changed your mind? You obviously aren’t enthusiastic about sitting for this interview.”

  Jack had expected Sam to lead with questions about his family, and for a second he only stared at the man. Then he said, “Tess felt bad about my turning down someone she used to work with. After I thought about it, I could see her point.”

  A sharp smile came to Sam’s face. “Well, I’ll have to thank her for putting in a good word for me. So, tell me about your breakfast with the Governor.”

  Caught off balance again, Jack’s eyebrows went up. “Well, Augusta does know how to cook, so breakfast was great. In fact, I probably shouldn’t eat again for the rest of the day. If you’re talking with her while you’re here, you’ll find out what I mean.”

  Sam shook his head. “I’ve got her interview on Monday afternoon about three. Too late for …”

  “Doesn’t matter. She’ll feed you.”

  “Then I’ll skip lunch.” Sam knew he was being steered off focus, and doggedly went back to the point. “So, what was the topic around the table this morning?”

  Jack shrugged. “Just catching up with the hometown folks, the fire at the Chamber of Commerce office, that kind of thing. He usually wants to hear all the news.”

  Sam tapped his pen impatiently. “I would have thought he read your website for that.” Before Jack could reply, Sam asked, “Did the name Patrick Donnelly come up?” Jack stood up without answering and pulled open a desk drawer, taking out a coaster and, tossing it on the desk, set Sam’s coffee mug on it. Sam muttered, “Thanks,” and waited expectantly. But before he returned to his seat, Jack pulled out his own digital recorder from his shirt pocket and rested it next to Sam’s. It was already running. “Just so we’re both clear on what’s said,” he said. Sam shrugged.

  As Jack sat back down, he said, “Pat’s a good guy. I was sorry to read about what happened. In fact, the story was yours. It was a good read.”

  Sam nodded his thanks and said, “But the question was: Did you and Erickson discuss him this morning?”

  “He came up,” Jack acknowledged.

  “And what did Swede say about firing him?”

  Jack sighed, “Not much. Anyway, nothing that you haven’t already reported. It upset him that Pat tipped you about the debate.”

  “So he even passes off that bullshit with his friends?”

  “He swears that’s all there is to it.”

  Sam’s hawkish stare studied Jack’s face, openly judging the honesty to be found there. His next question was deceptively collegial. “Don’t you think there’s got to be something more?”

  Jack shrugged, “I asked, he said no.”

  “And what did you tell him when he asked?” Jack frowned at the vague question, and Sam grinned, taking a shot from pure gut instinct, “If you’d take Donnelly’s job, I mean. He offered it to you, right?”

  Jack smiled slowly in unwilling admiration, his eyes narrowing. “Sorry, that’s a staffing question for the Governor.”

  “Spoken like a man who’s going to work for him.”

  “No,” Jack said firmly, “I’m not.”

  “So you turned him down?” Jack only stared at Sam without answering. “He didn’t offer?” Jack still said nothing, just sipped his coffee, and Sam sighed, “Oh come on, Hoss, I know you’d just tell me if the job was never on the table. So either he offered, and you turned him down, or you made a pitch for it, and he turned you down.” Sam’s voice dropped as he gruffly insisted, “Which was it?”

  “You know,” Jack settled back in his chair, “there’s one thing about our work that always surprises me. When you ask a source a question with enough authority, a lot of them will tell you something they never intended to. Sometimes I wonder if it’s an ingrained response, you know, after years of hearing from their parents and their teachers and their coaches, the old ‘answer me, young man’ line. Because often, if you put a question to them with a lot of expectation and force in your voice, the poor slobs just let the response roll out of their mouths. It’s like they forget that they don’t have to answer.

  “But I work in this business, Sam, so I know what it’s like to sit in your chair.” He nodded to where Sam was sitting. “You’re the one with the questions, I’m the one with the answers, and I decide what I’ll say and what I won’t.” Their eyes met. “If you want to know anything about the Governor’s staffing plans, ask him.”

  Sam didn’t say a word, just tapped his pen. For a few minutes Jack let the silence drag, then started to rise, saying, “Well, if we’re done here …”

  “No,” Sam’s voice was soft, but his eyes glittered, “we’re just getting started. Who owns The Pantry?” It was the only other grocery in Lindsborg, smaller than Swede’s store, dealing mostly with neighborhood walk-in business.

  Nonplussed by the seemingly random question, Jack answered without hesitation. “Rolf Olsen. Why?”

  Sam just shrugged, making a check mark on the top of the page, and then said, “Tell me what it was like, just after the tragedy. You were only 18.”

  “I was dealing with a lot of anger and grief,” Jack watched as Sam presumably wrote that down, his handwriting an indecipherable scribble. “I didn’t know what to make of all the press attention it got. And once I realized I had a whole state full of people giving me sympathy, well, I started to feel pretty damn sorry for myself. I might still be wallowing in it, if it weren’t for Swede.”

  Sam was writing steadily now. “How did he help?”

  “Well, he was close to my family from the time I was in grade school. My dad was Swede's basketball coach."

  Sam's head came up. "I thought your father was a farmer."

  "He was, just like my grandfather and great-grandfather. But he went to college. His major was agriculture, but his minor was physical education. He loved basketball. So when he came back to the farm, he also signed on as the high school basketball coach. Didn't pay a lot, but that didn't matter to him.

  “Swede was my father's first stand-out player. But it was more than just a good coach finding a good athlete. My dad knew how much Swede wanted to play and how hard his father, Carl, made that for him. Dad wasn't really quite old enough to be Swede's father, but he did kind of fill in the big gaps for a teenager who really needed a guiding hand. Carl was a sad case, damaged by the Vietnam War and using alcohol to self-medicate. At his best, he was a neglectful father. At his worst, well, he was a broken man, and living with him was hard."

  "So hard that the new governor didn't invite his own father to his inaugural?" Sam didn't look up as he asked the qu
estion. He'd read the clips and seen the pictures online. Carl was conspicuously absent.

  "No, that wasn't it," Jack shook his head. "That would have hurt Augusta, and Swede is very careful of his mother's feeling. No, it was some kind of family obligation that kept Carl away. I don't remember the details exactly, but it tied Carl up for that first inaugural, and he'd passed away by Swede's second. You know, it's a real testament to Swede's strength of character that he became the man he is."

  Sam wasn't interested in pursuing that idea and steered Jack back on course again. "Let's go back to your relationship with him."

  "Well, Swede was out here on the farm a lot in his youth, and we all got pretty close to him. When the accident happened, it hit Swede almost as hard as it did me. And then things kind of did a flip. Swede did for me what my father did for him. He was an example to follow. I watched him get on with things, even though he was suffering. And he read me well. Swede knew when I needed someone to listen, and he knew when I needed to be left alone, and he knew when I needed a kick in the pants.”

  “What kind of kicking did he do?”

  Jack smiled, remembering. “Oh, he rode me pretty hard about using what I’d inherited wisely. I was legally an adult, which, looking back on it, was absurd. But my folks never figured that they’d go together with both my siblings. It would have been better if there’d been a trust set up or something, but there wasn’t. Just a lot of land and more money from their life insurance than most kids that age dream of. Swede advised me, guided me on investments, which saved my ass. I didn’t have a clue what to do. I’d bring my buddies from the team out here, and with no parents, things would start to get wild. Somehow Swede always knew when trouble was brewing, and he’d show up and ride herd on us. God only knows what would have happened if he hadn’t.

  “One of the dumbest things I did was buy a little Jag. I thought I was something in that car, and it sure could go. I got two speeding tickets the first month I had it. And when I got nailed a third time, going 142 down the blacktop out by Nyman one night, they jerked my license. I was pretty outraged and started making noises about getting a lawyer to fight it. Man, the next thing I knew, Swede was banging on the door of my dorm room. He had me in tears, signing the title over to him within ten minutes. Eventually he did give me the money he got for the Jag, which was quite a bit less than I paid for it.” Jack laughed a little, and then, his smile fading, added, “In the end, I finally understood that just because I suffered a huge loss, it was no excuse for pissing away everything generations of my family worked for. Swede gets the credit for that. He got me settled down.”