sting had been taken out of death. It refused to sink in any deeper than my computer screen. First Arthur Shatzky, then a painter named Isenstein I’d never heard of, then an electrician who’d fallen down an open elevator shaft.
There are four steps, Wallace told me, to writing a good obituary. First, their name and occupation. Second, the cause of death-even if they fell down an elevator shaft, make it sound tragic. Third, use one quote each from a former business associate and family member. Fourth, list the immediate surviving family. If they have no family, list the companies and committees that will lose their leadership. A life boiled down to a template.
I respected the dead, but in my opinion hiring a promising young journalist and making him write obituaries was like hiring Cassandra and having her make coffee. Screw ego, it was the truth.
On my third Monday, Wallace came over to my desk, interrupting my obituary of an architect whose sleep apnea had finally caught up to him.
“Henry,” he said, “I have a job for you.”
“Yeah? Who died now?”
Wallace gave a hearty laugh. “No, nothing like that. You’ve seen Rockefeller Center, right?”
“I’m vaguely familiar with it. We do work here.”
“So you’ve seen those spiders they have out front, right?”
I didn’t like where this was going.
“Uh, yeah, I have.” The arachnids Wallace was referring to weren’t real spiders, but huge twenty-foot monstrosities some artiste had constructed out of what looked like metal from an old barbecue. The only people interested in this “art” were visor-wearing tourists and small children who climbed it like some playground out of Stephen King’s nightmares.
“I want three hundred words on the artist and sculptures. Minimum of two quotes from bystanders. Copy for Wednesday’s edition.”
I heard Paulina stem a chuckle. Rather than leaving, Wallace stood there, waiting for a response.
“I think he’s got a problem with the assignment, Wally.” Paulina. Chiming in at the perfectly wrong time. Wallace raised his eyebrows. I avoided eye contact with both of them.
“Is that true?” he asked. I said nothing. Paulina was right. I hated writing obituaries and I sure as hell didn’t want to interview bumpkins from North Dakota about metal insects the size of commercial airliners.
“You want me to be honest?” I asked.
“It would upset me if you weren’t.”
I looked at Paulina. She was pretending to type.
“I don’t think I’m cut out for this piece. No offense to spiderphiles, but to be honest you’re really not getting my best work right now. And I think you know that.”
Wallace put his thumb to his lip, chewed at the nail.
“So you’re saying you’d rather work on more interesting stories.” I nodded. This was thin ice. I was asking the editor in chief of a major metropolitan newspaper for, essentially, more responsibility. After less than a month on the job. There were probably a thousand people who’d kill to write obituaries at the Gazette, but I’d worked damn hard to get here and screw it, I could do better.
Finally Wallace said, “I’m sorry, Henry, really, but this is all I have right now. Believe it or not, these stories are important. You want…” But all I heard was blah blah blah, trust me, blah blah blah.
“You see what I’m saying?” Wallace asked. I couldn’t hear Paulina anymore; she was in full eavesdropping mode. I didn’t move, didn’t nod. I knew what he was saying, but in my heart I didn’t believe it. Then right as I was about to open my mouth, an unexpected voice rang out through the newsroom.
“I have something Parker could help me with.”
Three heads turned to stare. The voice belonged to Jack O’Donnell, and he was staring right at me. Thankfully I peed after lunch.
A slight laugh escaped Wallace’s lips, and with a flamboyant wave of his hand he directed me toward the elder reporter.
Before I could even register that Jack O’Donnell-Jack freakin’ O’Donnell-was talking to me, my legs had stumbled over to his desk. He was leaning back in his chair. A light gray beard coated his face. His desk was covered in Post-it notes and illegible scribblings. A photo of an attractive woman at least twenty years his junior.
“So you’re looking for more action?” he said. My chin bobbed and I muttered a “Yes, sir” beneath my breath. I could smell tobacco and coffee coming off his breath in waves. I wondered if I could bottle it and bring it back to my desk.
O’Donnell slid his hand under a pile of paper and removed a notepad. He scanned it, then ripped off the top sheet and handed it to me.
“Not sure if you’ve heard, but I’ve been working on some copy about criminal rehabilitation.” I nodded again, kept on nodding. “You all right, kid?” I nodded some more.
Jack sighed an okay under his breath. “What I’m doing is profiling a dozen ex-convicts, a kind of ‘where are they now’ of the scum of NewYork. Then hopefully tie that into a larger investigation about the criminal justice system and its effectiveness, or lack thereof.” More nods. I was getting good at it.
When I asked, “What do you need me to do?” my voice cracked worse than a fifteen-year-old working at the drive-thru. I coughed into my fist. Repeated myself in a much deeper tone of voice.
O’Donnell tapped the paper, underlined the name, address and phone number on the page.
Luis Guzman. 105th and Broadway.
“I’ll call Mr. Guzman to tell him an associate of mine will be coming by for an interview. I’ve already spoken to his parole board, and they’ve confirmed it with Luis. They put pressure on ex-cons to do this kind of thing, put a happy face on the correctional programs. Don’t be afraid to lean on him if he’s reluctant to talk. I simply don’t have time to interview all twelve of these people by deadline. Give me the transcript and pick out some choice sound bites. Then give copies to me and Wallace. You get what I’m looking for, I’ll give you an ‘additional reporting by’ credit on the byline.”
“Wait, so I’ll be working with you on this?”
“That’s right.”
“Directly with you on this?” O’Donnell laughed.
“What, you want me to push you around in a stroller? Guzman did a few years for armed robbery, but records show he’s been a model citizen since parole. Half a dozen good, usable sound bites, and you’re done. Think you can handle that?”
I nodded.
“I’m assuming that’s a yes and you don’t have Tourette’s syndrome.”
“Yes. To the first question.”
Jack looked me over, clapped his hand on my elbow. Wallace liked the shoulder, O’Donnell the elbow. When I got my first page-one story, maybe I’d slap people on the neck to be original.
“You do this right, Henry, I might need some more additional reporting down the line.”
This time nodding felt right.
4
I lay awake that night, my mind swimming with memories I wished could be forgotten, swept from my head and air-brushed from reality. But that would never happen. The dreams would haunt me for years. The helplessness I felt that night months ago would never leave. Yet any nightmare paled in comparison to the truth.
It was in February, about three months ago. I was finishing up a term paper, trying desperately to boost my GPA a final few tenths of a point to impress employers, as though a tenth of a point was the difference between the New York Gazette and the Weekly World News. Three sleepless nights in a row and my brain was stringing up yellow tape and preparing to go on strike. Mya and I had been fighting all week. Something about unreturned phone calls. She was in New York, I was in Ithaca. It doesn’t matter now.
Hang-up after hang-up, words we’d eventually regret. At eleven forty-five with Flaubert in my mind and sleep
