“From the owner of Fat Billy’s Saloon. He’s my husband. You know, the little shithole just outside of town?”
“I was drinking, but I’m not a drunk.”
“I thought you said it was a party.”
“A party of one. It’s not a habit. I just tied one on a bit. You own a bar, so you know how it is. Now and then, you just drink more than you should.”
“The husband owns the bar,” she said, capturing her teeth with her upper lip as they moved a little too far forward. “He and I are separated. Have been for twenty years. We just never got around to divorcing. We get along all right, long as we don’t live together, or see each other that often, or communicate in any way. But he called and told me about you. He knew you, of course, knew you were trying to get on here at the paper. He said you mentioned it quite a few times between drinks.”
“Guess I was a little nervous.”
“He said you used to play football, quarterback for the Bulldogs. I looked you up. You lost most of your games, didn’t you?”
“But I threw some good passes. I think I have a high school record.”
“No. It got beat two years ago by the Johnson boy. What’s his name? Shit. Can’t think of it. But he beat you. Colored fella.”
I thought to myself: Colored? I hadn’t heard that used in many a moon.
“You were in the service?”
“Signed up for Afghanistan after the towers went down. I was there, but I ended up in Iraq. I kind of felt snookered on that end of the deal.”
“You’re not messed up in the head from being over there, are you?”
“No,” I said, “but the whole thing left me feeling like a cheap date that had been given cab fare and a slap on the ass on the way out the door.”
Timpson twisted her lips, and lined me up with a watery eyeball. “That was humor, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Just checking.” She swiveled her chair and looked at me from another angle. “I hire you, you don’t have to sit behind a desk all the time, but I like to think you’re working. That your time is my time, and my time is my own. You know this job doesn’t pay much?”
“It’s a start. I can work my way up.”
“Hell, you’re almost at the ceiling now, boy. Thing is, you come from skyscraper material. You had that job in Houston, a Pulitzer nomination. What was it, something about some murder?”
“That’s right. It was luck I was nominated.”
“I was thinking it might have been. Still, you didn’t last in Houston.”
“I came back here for a while, then joined the military.”
“Could there have been a reason you suddenly dropped that job in Houston? What was the problem there?”
“My boss and I didn’t get along.”
“Because you drank?”
“No, ma’am.”
“You know I can call him and ask.”
“You call him, I don’t know he’ll have much to say about the drinking, but whatever he says I doubt any of it will be good, even after several years. He doesn’t like me.”
“You can be straight with me. Nothing you say will embarrass or shock me.”
“I was banging his wife. And his stepdaughter. The daughter, by the way, was thirty, the mother forty- eight.”
“No teenagers in the mix?”
“No, ma’am.”
“And I assume your indiscretions do not include the family dog.”
“No, ma’am. I believe you have to draw a line somewhere.”
“You think you’re quite the player, don’t you, boy?”
“I did then.”
Mrs. Timpson pursed her lips. “Go on out there and have Beverly, that’s the receptionist—”
“We met,” I said. “And I believe it’s Belinda.”
“Have her show you your desk. Working for a newspaper is like riding a bicycle or having sex, I suppose. Once you’ve done it, you should be able to do it again. But you can fall off a goddamn bicycle and you can fail to pull out in time when you’re doing the deed. So experience isn’t everything. Use a little common sense.”
“I will.”
“I hope so. Won’t be much in the way of Pulitzer Prize material to write about here, though. Last thing we had in the paper, outside of world news, that was anywhere near exciting was a rabid raccoon down at the Wal- Mart garden center last week. He chased a stock boy around and they had to shoot him.”
“The stock boy or the raccoon?”
“There’s that sense of humor again.”
“Yes, ma’am. And I promise, I’m all done now.”
“Good. I’m putting you on a column. That’s the job you wanted, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Maybe it was a skunk.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“The animal in Wal-Mart. Now that I think about it, it was a skunk, not a raccoon…Your column. It’s for the Sunday features. Most of the time you’ll be out of the office, but you got a desk. Still, you’ll report to me regularly. Get a taste today. Leave when you want to. Tomorrow morning, nine sharp, we’ll toss you into the fire.”
I got up and smiled and stuck out my hand to shake. She gave me a dismissive wave of the hand.
I started for the door.
“Varnell Johnson,” she said.
I turned. “Ma’am?”
“That was the colored boy’s name—one that broke your passing record. He could throw like a catapult and run like a goddamn deer.”
3
When I came out of Timpson’s office one of the reporters at one of the few occupied desks, a twentyish black guy in a bright yellow shirt with the sleeves rolled up, waved me over. It was like the president summoning a lackey, but I started over there anyway, went to his desk as he stood up and pushed his chair aside. He was short and broad-shouldered, with his hair cropped close, a crisp part cut into it. I stuck out my hand and we shook. He had one of those determined handshakes, not so brisk, but really strong, like it was more of a contest than a greeting.
“Cason Statler,” I said.
“I know who you are. I’m Oswald, like the guy that shot Kennedy.”
“Glad to meet you, Oswald.”
“How did it go in there?” he asked.
“I’m part of the team.”
“Oh, there are no team players here. We’re all pretty much out for ourselves. Trust me on that. Bend over and you’ll feel an intrusion. Look, I know Timpson seems old and grumpy and pretty much out of date, but I want you to know, she doesn’t just seem that way—she is that way.”
“We had a particularly pithy exchange about the colored.”
He grinned at me, and this time it seemed genuine. “Welcome to nineteen fifty-nine.”
“Actually, I’m from here, and I’d put this place more about late nineteen seventy. So don’t go putting it down.”
