The Scarecrow

“That sucks,” I said.

“Not as bad as what I heard happened to you today.”

I nodded.

“Yeah, I got downsized, Keish.”

“I’m so sorry, Jack.”

“Yeah, I know. Everybody is. Thanks.”

It should’ve been clear I was in the gun sights when they didn’t send me to D.C. with her two years earlier, but that was another story. A silence opened up between us and I tried to step on it.

“I’m going to pull out my novel and finish it,” I said. “I’ve got some savings and there’s got to be some equity in the house. I think I can go at least a year. I figure it’s now or never.”

“Yeah,” Keisha said with feigned enthusiasm. “You can do it.”

I knew she had found the manuscript one day when we were still together and had read it, never admitting it because if she did she would have to tell me what she thought. She wouldn’t have been able to lie about it.

“Are you going to stay in L.A.?” she asked.

That was a good question. The novel was set in Colorado, where I had grown up, but I loved the energy of L.A. and didn’t want to leave it.

“I haven’t thought about it yet. I don’t want to sell my place. The market’s still so shitty. I’d rather just get an equity loan if I have to and stay put. Anyway, it’s too much to think about right now. Right now I’m just celebrating the end.”

“Are you at the Red Wind?”

“No, the Short Stop.”

“Who’s there?”

Now I was humiliated.

“Um, you know, the usual crew. Larry and some Metro types, a bunch of guys from Sports.”

It was a split second before she said anything and in that hesitation she gave away that she knew I was exaggerating, if not outright lying.

“You going to be okay, Jack?”

“Yeah, sure. I just… I just have to figure out what-”

“Jack, I’m sorry, I have one of my callbacks coming in.”

Her voice was urgent. If she missed the call, there might not be another.

“Go!” I said quickly. “I’ll talk to you later.”

I clicked off the phone, thankful that some politician in Washington had saved me from the further embarrassment of discussing my life with my ex-wife, whose career was ascending day by day as mine sank like the sun over the smoggy landscape of Hollywood. As I shoved the phone back into my pocket I wondered if she had just made that up about getting the callback, attempting to end the embarrassment herself.

I went back into the bar and decided to get serious, ordering an Irish Car Bomb. I gulped it quickly and the Jameson’s burned like hot grease going down. I grew morose watching the Dodgers start a game against the hated Giants and get shelled in the first inning.

Romano and Shelton were the first to bail and then by the third inning even Larry Bernard had drunk enough and been reminded enough of the dim future of the newspaper business. He slid off his stool and put his hand on my shoulder.

“There but for the grace of God go I,” he said.

“What?” I said.

“It could’ve been me. It could’ve been anybody in that newsroom. But they tagged you because you make the big bucks. You coming in here seven years ago, Mr. Bestseller and Larry King and all of that. They overpaid to get you then and that made you a target now. I’m surprised you lasted this long, to tell you the truth.”

“Whatever. That doesn’t make it any better.”

“I know but I had to say it. I’m going to go now. You going home?”

“I’m going to have one more.”

“Nah, man, you’ve had enough.”

“One more. I’ll be fine. If not, I’ll take a cab.”

“Don’t get a DUI, man. That’d be all you need.”

“Yeah, what are they going to do to me? Fire me?”

He nodded like I had made an impressive point, then slapped me on the back a little too hard and sauntered out of the bar. I sat alone and watched the game. For my next drink I skipped the Guinness and Bailey’s and went straight to Jameson’s over ice. I then drank either two or three more instead of just the one. And I thought about how this was not the end to my career that I had envisioned. I thought by now I’d be writing ten-thousand-word takes for Esquire and Vanity Fair. That they’d be coming to me instead of me going to them. That I’d have my pick of what to write about.

I ordered one more and the bartender made a deal with me. He’d only splash whiskey on my ice if I gave him my car keys. That sounded like a good deal to me and I took it.

With the whiskey burning my scalp from underneath I thought about Larry Bernard’s story about Baltimore and the ultimate fuck-you. I think I nodded to myself a couple times and held my glass up in toast to the lame-duck reporter who had done it.

And then another idea burned through and seared an imprint on my brain. A variation on the Baltimore fuck- you. One with some integrity and as indelible as the etching of a name on a glass trophy. Elbow on the bar top, I held the glass up again. But this time it was for myself.

“Death is my beat,” I whispered to myself. “I make my living from it. I forge my professional reputation on it.”

Words spoken before but not as my own eulogy. I nodded to myself and knew just how I was going to go out. I had written at least a thousand murder stories in my time. I was going to write one more. A story that would stand as the tombstone on my career. A story that would make them remember me after I was gone.

The weekend was a blur of alcohol, anger and humiliation as I grappled with a new future that was no future. After briefly sobering up on Saturday morning I opened the file that held my novel in progress and began reading. I soon saw what my ex-wife had seen long ago. What I should have seen long ago. It wasn’t there and I was kidding myself if I thought it was.

The conclusion was that I would have to start from scratch if I was going to go this way, and the thought of that was debilitating. When I took a cab back to the Short Stop to get my car, I ended up staying and closing the place out early Sunday morning, watching the Dodgers lose again and drunkenly telling complete strangers about how fucked up the Times and the whole newspaper business was.

It took me all the way into Monday morning to get cleaned up. I rolled in forty-five minutes late to work after finally getting my car at the Short Stop and I could still smell the alcohol coming out of my pores.

Angela Cook was already sitting at my desk in a chair she had borrowed from one of the empty cubicles. There had been a lot of them since they’d started the buyouts and the layoffs.

“Sorry I’m late, Angela,” I said. “It was kind of a lost weekend. Starting with the party on Friday. You should have come.”

She smiled demurely, like she knew there had been no party, just a one-man wake.

“I got you some coffee but it’s probably cold by now,” she said.

“Thanks.”

I picked up the cup she had gestured to and it had indeed cooled. But the good thing about the Times cafeteria was free refills-at least they hadn’t changed that yet.

“Tell you what,” I said. “Let me go check in with the desk and if nothing’s happening we can go get refills and talk about how you’re going to take over.”

I left her there and walked out of podland and over toward the Metro desk. On the way I stopped at the switchboard. It sat like a lifeguard stand in the middle of the newsroom, built high so that the operators could look out across the vast newsroom and see who was in and able to receive calls. I stepped to the side of the station so one of the operators could look down and see me.