The hair was now jet-black and cut in a bob. The drawl became a little more west Texas than Carolina. The name underwent another change as well.
She spent more hours in front of the mirror, more testing, smiling, holding the pose to see how each syllable of each name would work against the next one. How would the face would look as it was being said? What expression would be left after that last sound? It was all so important.
“Well, my real name is Jean, Jean Ann,” she told news director Jim Brown. “I think I should use it, don’t you? I mean, I think that would be nicer, to use my real name. What do you think?”
The Ann came from a Name Your Baby book she found in a bookstore. There was no reason to go beyond the a’s once she heard the Ann with Jean and Maypin. It worked and made it, as she told Jim Brown, her real name.
If there was one thing to be said about Virginia Susan, Ginny, Sue, Jeannie, Jean Ann Maypin it was that she believed devoutly in her own press.
2
Tom Carter hated faggots. They were faggots, not gay. He hated that they used that word, a good word and now look at it. He also hated most women, old women especially. He hated cats and birds. He would tolerate a mean dog but he hated the small, simpering breeds as much as he hated puppies of any breed and as much as he hated children. But, he really hated faggots.
“Artsy-fartsy,” he would sneer every time someone did a story about artists or dancers or actors in the valley.
“They are all faggots,” he leered at photographer Jason Osner.
“Along with about ten percent of your newsroom,” Jason said with a smile.
Carter stared.
“Yup, ten percent of any population. That means you’ve got about four or five right here in your newsroom.”
“Who are they?” Carter shouted. “Tell me who they are.”
Jason laughed. “I don’t know who they are.”
“Well,” Carter took a deep breath, “I know you’re not one. You’ve got balls. I know that.”
“You sure?”
“Shit. I can smell those sissy boys. You ain’t no queer.”
“No,” Jason agreed with another smile, “but they are everywhere.”
Carter thought about that. He did have doubts about that artsy-fartsy guy Harold Lewis, the arts reporter whenever there were any arts. Carter wasn’t sure about him being a faggot. Sissy boy, yeah, not a queer. There was a difference.
Tom Carter also had some strong feelings about niggers, spicks, kikes, Polacks, hunkies, wops, greasers, wetbacks, jungle bunnies, Jew boys, frogs, smelly frogs and they all smelled, limeys, dumb micks, injuns, uncles, chinks, slant eyes, and gooks. That was a good new one.
To prove to anyone listening that he had such feelings, he would use those words in conversations with people in his newsroom. Morning producer Chuck, that dumb mick, Farrell kept a list of his pronouncements on race, religion and sex.
“Read it and weep,” he said to Ellen and handed her the sheets.
“The only good niggers I ever knew,” she read out, “were the ones that looked almost white.” Next to the sentence was a date.
“Jesus.”
“Someday it will come in handy,” Chuck said as he put the papers back into his file drawer and locked it.
One night, as the cameras pulled back, Carter said, “God, I can’t stand to be around those kids.” He waited until he knew the shot was far enough back before speaking. Some of those bastards out there could read lips.
“What?” Jean Ann smiled and straightened her papers for the benefit of the closing shot.
“Those cripple kids,” he said about the last story on the Easter Seals drive. “I can’t stand to be around cripples.”
Carter had nothing to worry about. As the most respected, the ads often claimed, news anchor in the state, he didn’t have to go anywhere or be with anyone unless he so chose. That made him a prized speaker at men’s business and service clubs throughout the city.
“The Cronkite of the Southwest,” is how the president of one downtown luncheon club introduced him whenever Tom Carter joined them. “And Tom Carter was here first, even before Uncle Walter,” he would add.
The men laughed at the way he said Uncle Walter, with a sneer and a snort. Then, they roared at his, “And we like Tom Carter even better than Uncle Walter because everybody knows Uncle Walter’s a Democrat and I think we all know where Tom Carter stands even if he doesn’t say so himself.”
The clapping would be strong, the nodding gleeful. Even the Democrats approved. In this state, the closest thing to a Republican was a Democrat.
Tom Carter never argued with the description. He was there first, before Cronkite, before television. Tom Carter was the voice of the Southwest back when the Southwest was just desert and sky. It was his voice that brought the news into the living rooms every night, a booming, strong voice that could be trusted.
He could stretch that s of Thomas across seconds. Thomasss Carter, a radioman, a newsman. He covered the news, as much as there was, from the stone courthouse to the capitol a mile or so down the road. He knew the good old boys who ran the state. He talked like them, looked like them. He was tough and mean and foulmouthed. He told the state exactly what they told him to tell the state.
In those days, you didn’t have to search out the news. They told you what they wanted said. Who could say whether or not the state was better now with all these reporters and photographers flying
