Obituary Writer (9780547691732)

by Shreve, Porter

  I introduced myself to the one with "Foreman" stitched on the chest of his blue jumpsuit. "We've got a new reporter coming in tonight," I said, sounding official. "She's about to head off for Eastern Europe and I wondered if I could walk her through the pressroom when the first edition starts rolling."

  The foreman went on for a while about union rules—the pressroom was generally off limits to the rest of the building—but in the end he handed me two pairs of yellow foam earplugs.

  "You'll need these," he said. "It's worse than a Who concert down there."

  The research library was on my way back to the newsroom, so I stopped off.

  "I'm trying to find somebody in Texas named Steele," I explained to the nightside librarian, who was eating dinner while watching CNN. "If there is a listing, it would be outside of Dallas, in a town called Weatherford."

  The librarian pointed with a piece of garlic bread to an overstuffed shelf. "Phone books," he said, his mouth full.

  Of the thirty-two Steeles in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area, only one was listed in Weatherford: Jacqueline. I took down the number and folded it into my wallet, pleased to think that Alicia had been telling me the truth—her parents, it appeared, were both dead. Jacqueline Steele was probably an aunt.

  By the time Alicia called from the security desk, the only people left in the newsroom were the night city editor, a handful of copy editors, a general assignment reporter who was watching the wires for updates, and Jessie Tennant.

  I hadn't seen Jessie Tennant in a month. I'd been coming in at ten, never leaving past six. She hadn't responded after my brief thank-you note. Now, on my way to the elevators, I watched her, posture-perfect over her keyboard, a broad-brimmed hat resting at her elbow.

  "Your elevator talks," Alicia said, stepping out into the lobby as the doors closed behind her.

  "You've never heard a talking elevator?" I led her by the hand to the Pony Express mural. "You've probably seen something like this before, though."

  She was looking toward the newsroom.

  "Recognize the signature?" I asked, pointing to the sweeping "Bobby Campanis" in the lower right-hand corner.

  Alicia's mind was elsewhere. "Oh." She smiled. "That's funny."

  We stopped at the wire machines and Alicia scrolled through the news.

  "It's fascinating, all the East Germans camping out on the Kurfurstendamm," she said. "Thousands of them, waiting all night for the fancy West Berlin shops to open. They're dying to see prosperity up close."

  St. John's office was unlocked, so we went inside for his view of the city.

  It was a clear night. Looking east from his floor-to-ceiling window we could see the white lights around the cupola of the old courthouse, the red warning light at the top of the Gateway Arch, the small lit squares of hotel rooms rising over the river, the approaching yellow light of a train coming west out of Illinois.

  "So this is your office?" Alicia asked. She was running her hand along the edge of St. John's polished mahogany desk.

  "No, actually, it's my editor's office."

  "It's nice," she said. "Where's yours?"

  Every office had a nameplate, so I couldn't exactly lie. But she knew I was a young reporter, and young reporters have to start somewhere. She'd understand.

  "I'm across the way," I said.

  I told her about the layout of the Independent newsroom, how it was modeled after the Washington Post. All the offices were made of glass so editors and reporters could each see what the others were doing.

  "It's what journalism is all about," I said. "No secrets. Everything comes out into the open."

  We walked along the east wall and I showed her National and Business, Layout and Editorial, pointing out desks of reporters and columnists whose bylines she would recognize.

  She looked at me thoughtfully, admiration in her eyes. She wanted to know everything. I felt like putting my arm around her as if to say, All this is mine.

  In the middle of the metro area, we stopped at Jessie Tennant's desk.

  "This is my friend Alicia," I said.

  Jessie Tennant smiled and shook Alicia's hand, then turned to me with a look of concern.

  "How have you been?" she asked.

  And before she could say I haven't seen you in a while or I've been worried about you, I interrupted her.

  "Oh, great, fine," I said, as if the Bette Davis disaster had never happened. "Business as usual. You know how it is."

  She glanced at Alicia, understanding that I was trying to make an impression.

  "I've read your columns," Alicia told her. "They're very powerful. Especially the human interest stories. I have to tell you, I wept when I read your pieces about Michael Moseby." Back in September, a death-row inmate had been released when another man, on death row in a different state, confessed to the killing for which Moseby had gone to prison. Jessie Tennant had written a series of columns about Moseby's family and their fifteen-year fight to clear his name. "I can think of nothing more terrible than being accused of a murder you didn't commit," Alicia said.

  Jessie Tennant nodded her head.

  As we were leaving, she touched Alicia's arm. "Gordon has a bright future in this business," she said. "He's got integrity, which means the path will always be brambled. But I think he'll be one of the really good ones."

  It was a typically moral Jessie Tennant remark, and I loved it.

  It was ten-thirty already, the usual start time for the first edition. I removed the earplugs from my pocket, handing a pair to Alicia. We took the back stairs down to the pressroom, in the basement of the Independent building.

  Our timing was perfect.

  Rounding the last flight of steps, we could hear the rumble of the presses starting up. By the time we reached the entrance, the great metal rollers were screaming. At the black swinging doors, marked AUTHORIZED on one side and PERSONNEL on the other in bold red letters, Alicia and I put in our earplugs.

  The expression on her face was pure happiness. She mouthed the word "ready."

  I tried to look indifferent, as if I did this all the time. With the earplugs in, I could hear nothing but my own pulse, the blood coursing through my veins.

  Inside the pressroom, the air was humid, the smell choking, like wet tar on a hot day. We walked carefully over the stamped-metal floor between two long rows of gigantic sky-blue presses. The first edition flew along the rollers in one long sheet, the black ink on white paper a gray blur. Under our feet, the floor trembled. The pressmen, in their smudged navy blue uniforms, strolled casually through the aisles and around the great machines, accustomed to their power.

  Walking amidst the deafening noise, able to hear nothing more than a steady hum, the power was physical, doubly intense. My ribs lifted in my chest; my heart was racing. At the end of the aisle I spotted the foreman from the cafeteria coming down a winding staircase with a stack of newspapers. I waved and he came over, handing me a first edition, still warm.

  The banner headline, above a fifty-seven-pica photograph of the first East Berliners crossing into the West, read: FREEDOM!

  Back in the newsroom, we took out our earplugs.

  "So, show me your office," she said.

  I walked her back to Obituaries, where the lead-removing fan clattered noisily above my desk.

  "It's not really an office," I said.

  She looked around, clearly disappointed. She reached up to touch the black-ribbed tubing. "What's this?" she asked.

  "It's part of a renovation," I said.

  "This is where you work?"

  I hesitated. "Not always."

  "Look where they've put you, Gordie." She turned to survey the newsroom. "This isn't right."

  I was going to tell her that there's a hierarchy to everything, you have to start somewhere, everyone pays his dues.

  "You should be in one of those big offices over there," she said, the color rising in her face. "This is crazy. Who do they think you are?"

  "It's not so important whe
re my desk is," I tried to say, startled by her sudden anger.

  "Of course it is. You can't let people step on you like this. They'll crush you."

  She slammed her hand on my desk and walked away.

  I followed her across the newsroom into the lobby, where we waited in silence for the elevator to arrive.

  "You're right," I said finally, to cool her down. "I'll talk with somebody about it in the morning."

  16

  ON MONDAY MORNING, signs of Ritger's return littered his desk: a half-eaten pen, his monogrammed handkerchief, a rubber ball he liked to squeeze.

  When I signed on to the computer, he had sent me a message. "We had to run a correction," it read. "You fucked up somebody's age."

  I opened the morning paper to page A2:

  April Wellstone died last Thursday, November 7. She was 76. In all Sunday editions of the obituary page, her age was listed incorrectly as 68.

  It was a common problem, one that had happened before, and not just to me but to Ritger as well. A woman dies who has been lying about her age; her sister says nothing about it when she calls in the obituary. A day or so later, a nurse or an old friend, someone who knows the woman's actual age, calls up the desk asking for a correction.

  Ritger's policy had always been, "So it goes." If the family's going to bend the truth, the newspaper shouldn't be held responsible for it. We had never run a correction before in such a case as this.

  "Her sister told me sixty-eight," I wrote him back. "She lied, so why the correction?"

  He responded immediately. "You know perfectly well why the correction," his message read. "It's called journalistic accuracy."

  I didn't dwell on Ritger. A month before, his message would have been devastating—I would have been sick with worry—but for some reason it didn't bother me now.

  I decided to try Jacqueline Steele's number, waiting three long rings before a soft-spoken woman answered the phone.

  "Is this Mrs. Jacqueline Steele?"

  "Yes it is."

  "I'm a reporter doing a feature story on Alicia Steele," I said. "I've done a number of interviews with her friends and colleagues and am eager to speak with family. Are you related to Alicia Steele?"

  There was a long silence, the sound of a lawnmower off in the distance. I hadn't prepared any specific questions. I was surprised to have gotten through.

  "She's my daughter," the woman said.

  "Your daughter?"

  "What's she done?" she asked.

  "Nothing." Stunned, I managed to add, "I'm just doing a feature on her painting."

  "I didn't know about her painting." Mrs. Steele coughed.

  "Well, I'll be in Texas on Wednesday on another story," I said. "Perhaps I can swing by your house on my way through Dallas."

  I didn't know what I was committing myself to—the words had just come out. I had work on Wednesday. There wouldn't be time to arrange for vacation. I'd have to call in sick or make something up. My father had dropped everything and left on a whim for Dallas. Why shouldn't I?

  "Why do you need to talk to me?" she asked.

  I didn't have an answer. "I just need to." I sounded impatient.

  There was a long pause. "I haven't seen Alicia in fifteen years. I'm sorry," Mrs. Steele said. "I just can't." She fumbled the phone and hung up.

  I found the travel agent in the Yellow Pages with the biggest ad and bought a round-trip ticket to Dallas leaving Wednesday morning, returning the same day. It cost a week's salary on such short notice, and there was no guarantee that Mrs. Steele would even be there, much less willing to talk. I didn't know what had gotten into me. I was going on journalistic instinct.

  My mother called as I was studying a map of Dallas and the outlying suburbs, drawing up a rough itinerary.

  "So what do you want for your birthday?" In the chaos of my current situation, I had forgotten that my birthday was that Thursday.

  Her call was serendipitous, because I was already living paycheck to paycheck and couldn't afford the ticket I had just bought. "It's funny you should mention it," I said.

  I told her about the trip to Dallas, thought about saying it was for a story that I'd been working on, but she wouldn't have understood why I'd need the money.

  They're not paying for you to go? she'd have said. If they can't afford you now, how do they expect to afford you when you're in demand?

  I told her that I was going to Dallas not on assignment but for something else, something personal. On the verge of my first breakthrough, I'd decided to go for the day, to be where my father was at the same moment in his career.

  "It's a pilgrimage," I said.

  The only problem, I explained, was how to afford it. I'd already bought the ticket—impulsively, I had to admit—but this was important to me. It was worth any sacrifice.

  "For my birthday all I want is a few dollars to help pay the fare," I said. "Everything's been arranged."

  My mother's voice got quiet. "I don't know if I like the idea. What are you going to do there?"

  I told her I'd go to the Book Depository and the area around Dealey Plaza, check out my father's old office on Commerce Street, drive by the house where he lived, maybe ask the owners if I could come inside and take a look. I said I might call a few of his old friends—Bob Strampe, Dave Vance, Skip Kaler—beat reporters from the local press whose names I knew from my mother's stories. But mostly I wanted to be in the place where he had been.

  "I've never been there," I said. "I want to go."

  She let out a cough. "Bob Strampe died in 1981, and I'd be surprised if the others are still there. There's an office complex where the house used to be. Dallas grew too fast."

  She said it was a sweet idea and she understood why I would want to go, but with so little left to connect my father's time with the present day, I might find the trip a disappointment.

  "It's best to leave Dallas in the imagination," she said.

  When I had convinced her that there was no talking me out of it, that I had already made my decision, that even if I changed my mind the ticket was nonrefundable, she turned to the upcoming weekend.

  "I hope you'll be back in time," she said.

  "It's a one-day trip. I have to get back to finish my story anyway."

  "I'll send you the money," she said. "But I'm still coming to see you."

  Just as my birthday had slipped my mind, so had the news of my mother's visit. I vaguely remembered a brief conversation from a couple of weeks ago. The timing could not have been worse, but there was nothing to do for it now.

  When I came back from lunch, Ritger's chair was pushed in. I signed on to the computer, expecting some kind of message from him, but there was nothing, only an All News announcement saying that the lead removal program was in its final stages; the environment would be clear of toxins by the end of the month.

  I checked the mail, and at the bottom of the pile was a number 10 envelope from Margaret Whiting.

  "As you requested..." she had written on a note, leaving a daytime and evening telephone number and a number for the Ralston Purina marketing department in Cleveland, where she would be on business until the end of the week. Inside were three color photographs—three-by-fives, unprofessional, and taken from a less than ideal distance—one of the bride and groom, the bride and groom with Margaret and Joe, and Alicia standing alone in front of the lake.

  What Margaret had said was true. Alicia looked completely different. Her cheeks were sunken and she had a startled look in her eyes. Her hair, dyed red, lay limp about her shoulders, her bangs sticking up. She was thin as kindling.

  In the solo shot, out on the point of Table Rock Lake, Alicia's arms hung loosely at her sides. Her head looked like a weight atop her small neck.

  I called Margaret at the business number in Ohio.

  She answered immediately.

  "Are you busy?" I asked.

  "I'm between meetings," she said.

  "I got your letter. Thank you." It was strange to say than
k you, considering what I held in my hands. But these were only pictures, I told myself. A person in a picture is not a person at all. I would see Alicia soon, and this pale woman from three years ago, this "stray," as Margaret had called her, would be the furthest thing from my mind.

  "I'm sending them back." I decided then and there, and slid the pictures into a fresh envelope, sealing it.

  "Were you surprised?" Margaret asked.

  "No, not particularly." I was beginning to wish I hadn't called.

  "You see what I mean? She looked totally different."

  The way Alicia looked was not something I wanted to discuss with Margaret. Anything else was fine—Arthur, Joe, her parents, even her feelings about the marriage, the wedding, the past—but how Alicia looked, her physical appearance, that made me uncomfortable.

  "Well? She does look entirely different now, doesn't she?" Margaret pressed.

  "Alicia's mother is still alive," I burst out, trying to change the subject. It was a careless slip, I would later recall, playing it over in my mind.

  "Really?"

  Recklessly, I said, "She lives in a place called Weatherford. She hasn't seen her daughter in fifteen years."

  "My goodness." Margaret drew out the words.

  I did the math for the first time. Alicia had left home at seventeen.

  "Where is Alicia planning to go now?"

  "You mean where is she moving to?"

  "Yes. Where is she moving to?"

  "I don't know. I haven't seen her in a while," I lied.

  "Didn't she sell most of her possessions at the estate sale?" Margaret asked.

  "I think you're right, she did." I hesitated.

  "So everything is sold, the house is empty, and she has no idea where she's moving to?"

  "Last I heard she's staying in the area."

  Margaret cleared her throat. Even on the phone, I could sense her anger rising.

  "I think I understand why she would want to get on with her life," I offered cautiously. "She's so young, and when something like that happens, in a way it's best to start over."