The Journalist

by Dan Newman

  Beside me, a jock in a blue jacket with an oversized T on the front curls his lip and drops a beefy hand on my shoulder. “Crash and burn, bud. Crash and burn.”

  I give him his moment. Mine will come later.

  • • •

  Part of my plan is, admittedly, kind of ruthless. But it’s good. After all, it’s the result of serious thought. Nevertheless, the ruthlessness does bother me, and as I sit here in the chair across from Dr. Coyle for my weekly appointment, I wonder what she’d jot down on that yellow pad if I told her about the plan. Of course, that can never happen—regardless of doctor/patient confidentiality and all that shit. But even then I suspect she’d mostly just listen. Perhaps ask the odd, penetrating question, just as she has for the last four months.

  I learned a lot about her in the first moment of our first session. She sat down on the simple chair across from me, lit up a cigarette, and said, smiling, “So, what’s wrong with you? Evidently Leo thinks you’re pretty fucked up.” And I understood why Professor Bowman liked her so much. Birds of a feather.

  “So what kind of day are we having today?” she asks, stubbing out her cigarette and mechanically lighting another.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Making any progress in the world?”

  Chloe Dysart’s ponytail flicks through my mind momentarily. “Does planning to make progress count?”

  The doctor takes a long drag on her cigarette. “I think it does. As long as there’s ultimately an action phase to all this planning.”

  “Yeah, I think there is,” I say, but even I hear the uncertainty in my voice.

  “Well, good, then. So…” Another deep pull on her cigarette. “Tell me about it.”

  “Oh, well, ummm…”

  “Roland,” she says, raising her palms on stick-thin arms, “all this may not look like much to you, but it costs money, and someone’s paying for the time, so let’s not waste it, okay?” I look around her office. It certainly doesn’t look like much. It’s a tiny hole in the wall in the West End, up a flight of rickety stairs and perched above a laundromat. No swanky downtown digs for her. There is no couch, no carefully staged room with calming colors or expensive wall hangings. No receptionist. No tranquil music piped in through invisible speakers.

  I swallow and respond. “Well, I am planning. Really. But there’s risk, I suppose.” Again, my voice carries a clear note of indecision. It’s like a gambler’s tell—something I have no control over.

  “Risk isn’t bad, Roland. Risk, weighed and contemplated, is not inherently a bad thing. You just have to be prepared to pay the downside price personally—should it all go to shit, so to speak.”

  I stare at the floor for a moment, then: “I guess it’s that personally part. It’s a little uncomfortable.”

  “Then I’d say you’re not done weighing and contemplating. You need to run this through your coconut some more. It’s what my old grampy would call a thinker.”

  A thinker. My aunt in Ottawa, Pat, she always called me a thinker. Like the statue, all muscled and bent in deep concentration, fist pressed firmly into head. I always thought it was because she saw me as pensive and charismatically brooding. I believed it up until I was twelve, when my cousin bloodied my nose over a bottle of Coke, and, unsatisfied with his physical handiwork, proceeded to explain to me that nobody thought I was deep and thoughtful at all, just weird.

  Twelve was tough for me. It was the first year that I really started to resent my parents. They left me two days after my fifth birthday, went out for a movie and the next thing you know I’m living with Aunt Pat and her meat-fisted son, Dwayne. It wasn’t until I was seven going on eight that I found out about the accident, and again it was thanks to Dwayne and his particular brand of torture. He loved to be the one to let the cat out of the bag, especially if he could watch it flail its claws at your tender parts.

  By the time I turned twelve, I had started looking for details. Aunt Pat, always smiling and nodding, obligingly handed over a small shoebox full of newspaper clippings and legal documents. There was big talk of a trial, the clippings indicated, followed by a preemptive settlement for the third victim. Apparently, my father was blamed for the accident—driver error, they called it—which killed my mother and him, and seriously injured a blonde teenage girl on a bicycle. Her picture made it into several of the clippings, but somehow my parents were never shown. I always wondered why that was, that the paper never printed my parents’ pictures. They were a handsome enough couple, and there were plenty of photographs around if any reporter had cared to ask. And now, a journalist myself (albeit an unemployed one), I still have no idea why.

  And, like a cartoon thought bubble, Professor Bowman pops into my head and begins nattering away with that lecture I know so well: “We set the agenda!” he cries, but the thought feels hollow just now, and so I stuff it back down. I rein myself in and get back to the conversation.

  Cathy gently tugs me from my thoughts. “Talk to me about risk. About the risk you face. Personally.”

  “Well, that’s just it. I’m okay with the risk—personally—but there’s more at stake. Like other people.”

  At this the doctor just nods and smokes. It’s one of her favorite plays; if she just sits and smokes and nods, she knows I’ll eventually babble on and fill the space. But after four months, I’m on to her.

  More sitting, smoking, and nodding.

  I lunge in. “I mean, it’s unavoidable, right? Risk is inherent in living. And so, risk to others, to people around you, is a natural part of, well, living, right? Being within a community, any community, is accepting of those risks—whatever they are.” It’s thin logic and I damn well know it. I need to shut my mouth; it’s all getting too close to Chloe, to the parts of the plan that are flawed and ugly, but Dr. Coyle is like a magnet to the iron-filing thoughts in my head. Her brow furrows. “You mean risk to other people as a result of your actions?”

  “…Well, yeah.”

  “And these other people are aware of the risks your actions expose them to?”

  A pause. “Not necessarily.”

  “I see,” she says, pausing in thought. “Well, I understand the dilemma, and it’s actually indicative of a known condition—the clinical term for it is being an asshole.”

  “I—”

  “Roland, I get that you’ve not had it easy. But it’s not a license for treating people like shit. This is the hard truth, and I’ve told you this before: the world does not owe you anything. There’s no cosmic wheel that’s out of balance because you got dealt the shittiest of shitty hands. And as long as you keep rationalizing and justifying being an asshole, you’re going to have two problems: you’re going to piss the world off, and you’re going to be alone.”

  “I know.”

  “Yes, I think you do know. And I think that whatever you’re planning has some measure of risk to innocent bystanders that you know is unreasonable. I think you’re fully aware that you’re going to piss the world off. And no matter how small a thing this particular instance may be—and I don’t even want to know what it is, to be honest, but it doesn’t sound like something good—it is a pattern, Roland. It’s your pattern. So just think on that.”

  So, whether I am a thinker or perhaps just a weirdo is still unclear. Nevertheless, my plan has some real merit, and the risk to me, personally, is acceptable. And if nothing happens, then there was no risk after all. Thin logic again? Maybe, but nothing of value in this world comes without risk.

  I leave Dr. Coyle’s with a band of uncomfortable questions looping through my head. The streetcar jostles me all the way to the university, where I hop off to watch Chloe Dysart’s evening class routine—from afar. But it feels creepier now, especially given that it’s dark and I can stand in the shadows. What the fuck am I doing? Dr. Coyle’s admonitions rattle around my head again but I’m already here, in the shadows, so I press on.

  I follow at a distance, carefully, casually. My research will need to be meticulous here,
and I watch intently for signs that she is aware of me, or that others are aware of my following her. I see none, and commit her schedule to memory—especially her route home.

  But far in the back of my head, the question pops up again: What the fuck are you doing?—only this time it’s Dr. Coyle doing the asking.

  • • •

  Trots is a dangerous man, and while I do fear him, I am also strangely drawn to him. He has a worldview that extends outward from himself, and if that worldview is ever contradicted, ever infringed upon to even the slightest degree, he becomes instantly enraged. Police, in particular, seem to upset Trots, and I know that his blatant contempt for them is also a source of personal pride. He is a charismatic man, six foot two, two-fifty, all of it muscle, and he walks with a long, loping gait that has his minions skipping to keep up.

  I first met Trots through a guy named Dave Torentini, a part-timer at Dory’s who was into betting on harness racing. He seemed to do well, and I eventually asked if I could tag along, maybe place the odd ten-spot on a football game. Dave said sure, but there were ground rules. “One—don’t screw around with these guys. Pay up if you lose; they’re pretty serious about their business. And two—don’t give them your real name. Just a precaution,” he said, smiling. And so I tagged along, smiled secretly as Dave was greeted as Paulie, and then placed a couple of bets myself under the lamest of pseudonames: Joe. It was all I could come up with under pressure. But it stuck. To Trots and Company, I am Joey.

  I claimed a few winners, just enough to get me hooked, and then came the losses. About a week after I started betting, Dave quit Dory’s for a real job in advertising—fourteenth-floor offices at the corner of First and Main. And yes, I was jealous. Anyway, he pulled me aside before he left and repeated his warning not to cross our man Trots.

  I recall that warning as I loiter in the lobby of the Royal Crown Hotel, watching the ebb and flow of humanity. I can see the train station across the street without being seen, and it isn’t long before I realize that Trots is not at work today. The day is bright and spring seems to have taken a foothold. The tourists have once again invaded the heart of the city, walking around in cruise wear, staring up at the building tops and consulting their battery of free maps and coupons. They laugh and buy hot dogs from street vendors, spending money they’ve made at good jobs. Jobs they have probably landed with ease. I wonder about each of them, pigeonholing each one with a job—lawyer, doctor, accountant. Are there any journalists among them, I wonder? I stay an extra few minutes in my spot at the Royal Crown, just to be sure, but Trots is clearly not around. He does, however, have representation—in the form of a wiry little kid by the name of Bosco.

  Bosco is maybe fifteen, pimply and dressed in a black-and-white tracksuit two sizes too big for him. He scans the crowd constantly, never reaching for the smoldering cigarette hanging eternally from the corner of his mouth. “Wussup?” he mumbles in my direction when he sees me coming toward him. “Doughna noya?” His feeble brain wrestles for a moment, then clicks in. His eyes light up and he points all four fingers at me the way military men do. “Shityah—yer dat Joey kid. Trots’s looking fer yer ass, man.”

  It bothers me that a fifteen-year-old calls me kid, but I ignore it. I have more important things on my mind. “Trots here today?” I ask.

  Bosco scratches at his zits and sniffles. “Naw, he ain’t here, man. And I can’t take no action from you. You froze out, man. Froze right duh fuck out.” He swings his arms wide as he says it, then does the military four-finger point at me again. “Trots’s looking fer yer ass, man,” he repeats. He finally pulls the cigarette from his mouth and casually flicks it. “Now pay the fuck up,” he says, and scans the crowd again.

  I reach out and poke Bosco with a forefinger, which causes him to turn back with a look of revulsion on his face. “Duh fuck you doin’, man?” he demands, rubbing the poke spot like a major wound. He is clearly annoyed and it makes me feel good.

  “You tell Trots he’ll get his money, but it’ll be when I’m ready—in a few weeks.”

  Bosco is, as I knew he would be, flabbergasted. “When you ready? Duh fuck?” He shakes his head and blinks, clearly stunned. “Few weeks! Man! Trots ain’t gonna go for no few weeks shit. Man, you askin’ to get dead, man. Fuckin’ dead.” He screws his face up to the point where zits must pop and shakes his head. “Trots’ll kill your ass, man. He’s runnin’ a bidniss, man. A frickin’ bidniss.” The zits hold. He shakes his head again. And then Bosco’s interest is suddenly redirected to another client loitering nearby.

  “Just tell him,” I say in an authoritative tone, but Bosco has already made his way through the tourists and is striking up another deal. No problem, I tell myself. The message will be sent, and I will soon be on Trots’s hit list—just the way I want it.

  • • •

  I originally thought that for my plan to work, I would have to get to know Colin Dysart’s daughter, Chloe. The meeting with her after the economics class was an exercise to sound that possibility out, but I always suspected that she’d want nothing to do with the likes of me. It only makes sense. Still, she is a central feature of my plan, and I wanted to get a more intimate sense of the person I was drawing into it.

  In the movies, the right move would be to simply woo the little rich girl, and marry into daddy’s money and influence. But realistically, most people are not equipped to pull that off, and I know I’m certainly not. I think these thoughts with hands thrust in pockets as I stand at the edge of the road that divides the station from the Royal Crown Hotel, that edifice to opulence so completely juxtaposed to the grim reality of life in the train station.

  I watch the ebb and flow of people from the hotel’s entryway, mostly tourists, businessmen, and a variety of people whom I imagine are having affairs and secret rendezvous. Among them I see a face that I can’t immediately place, although I am sure I know it. He is a thin, gangly man with posture so bad he seems to be a caricature come to life. I watch him as he shuffles through the door held open by the doorman and then disappears into the hotel. Nobody notices his departure, save me.

  It is a few moments before it comes to me, and when it does I am not surprised that it took so long to recall him. I remember him with a small beat of self-satisfaction, realizing that very few people would have known who he was. Alex Joiner is the executive assistant to David Holt, the director for USCIS—Citizenship and Immigration Services…the proverbial big cheese. I recognize Joiner from a number of press briefings I attended during my postgrad research, and from a series of articles he coauthored on the issue of illegal immigration. For the most part he is a behind-the-scenes operator, but he’s said to wield considerable influence in Washington, despite his low-key public persona.

  I wonder if Holt is in the city, too, and I scan the crowd but find only tourists, businessmen, and cheaters. I know Holt isn’t here—in any official capacity, at least—because if he were, we’d all know it. David Holt has that indefinable celebrity quality, and when he was confirmed by the Senate two years ago, an otherwise humdrum event became a call-in-all-the-anchors CNN lead. He’s the closest thing in politics to a true superstar, and he’s rumored to be a lock for higher office as soon as he decides to run. Hell, some tap him as a potential White House tenant at some time in the not-too-distant future.

  I wonder casually what Holt makes in a year, and Joiner, too, for that matter. I resolve to look it up, but suspect that I never will.

  Back in my apartment, I cook Kraft Mac & Cheese on my hotplate and ignore its quiet mocking. I eye it—with as much malice as you can when wielding a plastic fork. “My day is coming,” I say. “And so’s yours.”

  6

  I had no idea what I wanted to be when high school ended, so I just kind of shuffled into the college system like so many abattoir cattle. At the end of my second year I was coeditor for the university newspaper. By my fourth I had journalism firmly in my sights, enamored with the noble mission of the Fourth Estate, and returned fo
r a master’s degree after six months of résumés and cover letters failed to find their mark.

  I believed that with a master’s degree under my belt I would be a handsome prospect to the media industry, but soon discovered otherwise. Journalists are a strange lot, forever perched on a self-defined ideal of professionalism. We lack the board certification required of doctors, or the infamous bar of lawyers, but will argue our professionalism to the death. The ugly truth, however, is that to be a journalist, all you really need to do is write.

  Nevertheless, I now have everything I need to lay claim to the title of Journalist, save a job. And so, with so much of me invested in defining myself as a journalist, I must have a job, whatever the cost. Not landing a job in journalism is to deny my personal definition of who I am, and that has taken far too long to discover in the first place. And so I cast my mind back, to the Professor, and to the unshakable ideas he instilled in me about what a noble profession it could be. It’s a surety I have clung to over the last two years, and one I have no intention of releasing now.

  I pull back the sheets and feel the morning wash over me: a strange blend of mild panic, excitement, nervousness, and perhaps a pinch or two of self-disgust. It is a sensation I scrub at in the shower, as I linger beneath the steaming jet and contemplate my life, my plan, and the mildew gathering strength in the far corner of the shower stall. By the time I have finished in the shower my resolve is set once again, carefully resurrected by the look in Professor Bowman’s eye and by Colin Dysart’s cash-laden smile beaming from the cover of Newsweek.

  I make it to Dory’s early today, to score some free coffee and to make sure I get back into Rhona’s good books. I am agitated as I settle down in front of her TV, waiting for the coffee to brew. It’s on account of the bank machine slip crumpled in my fist. I have a total of just over twelve dollars in my bank account. It sets me thinking, and I mentally tally my debts. Again.