Six weeks of my life belie the absolute truth of that statement, but Lewis is partially correct.
Over the course of the fall, he and I, and numerous other
reporters, compiled over twenty-five hundred pages of notes, interviews, phone numbers, hotel and restaurant receipts, all sorts of trivial documents. We could have done Ph.D. dissertations on any of these four men: Thomas John Berryman, Jefferson John Terrell, Bertram Poole, Joseph Dominick Cubbah.
Lewis was writing a book then too, but he was also being conscientious, even noble, about his city editor responsibilities.
He?d sit around the
city room nitpicking some fourteen-year-old farmboy?s account of an automobile wreck, then he?d call me at home at twelve midnight, and ask if I?d like to meet him somewhere like Lummie?s Heart of Dixie.
?Just to kick around some theories I have about Berryman,? he?d always set the hook. ?Just for thirty minutes or so, Ochs.?
More often than not I?d meet him.
Lummie?s Heart of Dixie is a
lunch bar which is returned to the local, or ?real,? people after 5 P.M.
From five o?clock on it?s crawling with failed country music singers who will slide into your booth and give you a sad song for the price of a Sterling beer. By my standards, it?s the best, certainly the cheapest show in town.
By general Tennessee standards though, Lummie?s is a talking bar.
Because of my high 6?7? visibility, and my general good-natured laugh, I?m tolerated by the crowd there.
Lewis Rosten, however, can be a wholly different matter.
On account of this, we generally tried to commandeer one of the red vinyl booths near the rear exit. It would take us twenty minutes to spread out all our notes and scraps, and they?d cover up every flat space available.
Only then would we begin the ritualistic struggles over what was going where, in which article.
This letter is typical of the kind of notes and scraps we brought to decide what to do with. It had suddenly appeared in my mail slot one Monday in late September:
Dear Mr. Ochs Jones,
My occupation is customs inspector. I live at Rockaway Beach in the Queens, New York. Recently I read one of your stories about the killer Thomas Berryman in
magazine. This was the story that ran here on September 7th.
Well, to get to the pernt. At the end of July, I was sent Diner?s Club chits for four dinners at the Tale of the Fox restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee. But I had never been to Tennessee, and sure enough, when I check my wallet, no Diner?s Card, and a few others missing too.
The forged tabs were forged J.P. Golly, myself, and it wasn?t until this month that they were traced to Thomas Berryman. Included on each tab was a listing of the exact meals which might be of interest to your files.
1 Vodka Gimlet
1 Sirloin
1 Black coffee
I even started to picture this character, this elegant pickpocket, settling down to these cute little dinners. On yours truly!
Anyways, I don?t know what this information is worth to you, but I don?t think I should be the one to pay for the dinners.
John Patrick Golly
GS-11
The funny (peculiar) thing was that J.P. Golly had already been recompensed for his losses by Diner?s Club. The
wasn?t about to pay him, of course, but we checked with Diner?s anyway.
Rosten and I checked
that could humanly be checked.
Moses Reed had written an editorial about Jimmie Horn the day after Horn?s election in 1970. An immediate public opinion poll was taken on the piece?s merits, and the side and rear windows of Reed?s Country Squire were subsequently broken by men and boys with Louisville Sluggers.
The editorial had begun:
IN HIS CHILDHOOD PHOTOGRAPHS, JIMMIE LEE HORN, A SQUARE-JAWED CASSIUS CLAY PHYSICAL TYPE, LOOKED LIKE A LEADER, AN OBVIOUS, NATURAL-BORN LEADER.
SO TOO, HORN?S EARLY WORK IN THE NASHVILLE SCHOOL SYSTEM BORE OUT THIS FACT.
HAD THIS CITY, THEREFORE, HAD THE FORESIGHT TO SELECT HIM FROM AMONG THE CHILDREN GROWING UP AT THAT TIME IN OUR SHANTYTOWN DISTRICT, HAD THIS CITY PUT HORN THROUGH TWENTY- ONE YEARS OF FORMAL SCHOOLING (INCLUDING SEVEN YEARS OF IVY SCHOOLING); HAD THIS CITY GIVEN HIM THE HARDBOUND EDITION OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES WHICH HE BOUGHT FOR HIMSELF UPON HIS VALEDICTORY AT PEARL HIGH SCHOOL; HAD THIS CITY GROOMED THIS OBVIOUSLY SPECIAL NATURAL RESOURCE, AS IF IT WAS DESTINED TO BECOME SOMETHING OTHER THAN A BUS STATION REDCAP?
