The Reporter

CHAPTER TWO-2

Weatherly was both impressed and annoyed when Jesse laid the copy on his desk. “Jesus Christ, I don’t have that big a news hole for this piece. The advertisers are taking up all my space.” He read the first few paragraphs. His growls and mutterings made Jesse think he might wad the paper up and throw it in the wastebasket.

When he finished reading, he stared at Jesse long and hard. “Who the hell uses thunderous in a news story? What are you trying to be? Some kind of Ernest Hemingway?”

Jesse started to defend his copy, but Weatherly waved him off. “All right, all right. I don’t want to hear it. You make me nervous. Go on. Get out of here. I’ll see what I can do to turn all this overblown bullshit into something people can actually read.”

Jesse headed back to his desk, relieved to have the story completed, and surprised and elated at how easily the words had flowed. Still, he wasn’t sure if he had passed the Weatherly test.

He stopped by the desk of the police beat reporter, Glen Barnes, a forty-four-year-old newsman who’d bounced around Midwestern newspapers for twenty years. He was bowlegged and walked with a slight limp to favor his right hip. He had a beer belly that made his belt disappear. He wore inexpensive suits, wrinkled as the many days in a row he wore them. Glen was a kind-hearted, old-school journalist who loved to teach young reporters the techniques and ethics of their profession.

“So, you got her done under deadline. Good show,” Glen said. “Let’s go celebrate at Henry’s Bar. Nobody’s getting murdered. Our work here is done. We can drink until the paper comes out. You can see your first byline. It’s a big moment. You don’t want to miss it.” He paused. “You are getting your name on this piece, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “Weatherly didn’t seem to like the story much. And, by the way, why do they call it a byline?”

Glen laughed. “Because it’s by somebody.”

The two men left the newsroom and walked across the street to Henry’s. It was nearing midnight, and the paper would come out at 1:30 a.m. Jesse felt flattered that Glen would hang out with him while they waited to see if he got a byline.

Henry’s was a downtown neighborhood bar known to be a hangout for reporters and actors and musicians and novelists and politicos and dancers and artists and hustlers of all s****l and professional persuasion. It was a freakishly cosmopolitan crowd for a Main Street tavern in a city surrounded by never-ending corn and soybean farms.

Glen paused with his hand on the doorknob of the side door entrance before opening it. “He didn’t tell you to sit down and rewrite it, did he?” Jesse shook his head. Glen smiled. “That means he liked it.”

Glen opened the door to a blast of rock and roll on the jukebox and noisy conversation in the air. The bar was long and narrow, fire coded for seventy-five people, but often served more than one hundred tightly packed partiers. The air was thick with cigarette smoke as Glen and Jesse wedged their way in and looked for a place to sit. The booths beneath the round leaded glass exterior windows were occupied, as were the stools facing the ornate mahogany bar. Henry, the bald-headed proprietor, was helping two bartenders mix drinks by the dozen behind the bar.

“Looks like your typical Friday night free-for-all at Henry’s,” Glen said as he wedged into the bar and held his fingers up like a peace sign to order two draft beers. They were served so quickly the frothy heads were spilling over the glass mugs. Jesse and Glen had to slurp to keep from getting wet.

They drank standing up for a couple beers until a booth opened and they slid in. “How does it feel?” Glen asked.

Jesse drained his beer mug. “Nice to finally get a table.”

Glen took a big gulp and smiled as he shook his head. “No, I mean how does it feel to do your first story on assignment?”

“To tell you the truth, Glen, I can’t believe it actually happened. I was beginning to think I’d be writing obits the rest of my life.” Jesse raised his arm to get the waitress’s attention for another round. “And, let me tell you. It felt good, writing on deadline. It felt like getting high, like I’ve been doing it all my life.”

Glen emptied his mug with a satisfied sigh. “That, my fine young friend, is the acid test. If you get a kick out of writing on deadline, you’re a reporter. If you don’t, you’re not. It’s as simple as that. I remember my first story. I was scared to death. It was a murder in Des Moines. I got there just as they were loading this poor guy into the ambulance. He got shot in an alley behind a bar over some gambling dispute. I didn’t know he was dead until the next day. They didn’t identify the body until the day after that.”

Jesse raised his eyebrows. “So what did you write?”

Glen set his mug on the table with authority. “That’s what had me terrified as I sat down to write the story with the city editor breathing down my neck. Before I really knew what was happening, the story started writing itself. And it was just like you said. It was a rush.”

Jesse leaned in closer to Glen. “But what did you write if you didn’t even know it was a murder?”

Glen tilted his head back and laughed. “You write that a man was shot and seriously wounded behind Poor John’s bar on the city’s south side last night at ten thirty. You write the who, what, when, where, why and how as best you can, and you leave it at that. You don’t worry about it. You write the facts and let the chips fall where they may. You don’t try to solve the crime. That’s what detectives are for. But you do get to know the cops, so they’ll tell you what they find.”

Jesse exchanged his empty mug with the waitress for a full one. “I gotta say. The police beat scares the crap out of me. I’m afraid I’ll miss a big story and get scooped by the afternoon paper.”

Glen hoisted his new beer to clink Jesse’s mug. “No, no. You don’t have to worry about that. You develop your sources. They’ll tell you what’s going on. Believe me, they want to see their name in the paper as much as you do.”

Glen regaled Jesse with tales of how to cover cops. He went on until Chuck Macy, the school beat reporter with eight years in the business, came up to the table with a beer in his right hand and a copy of the freshly printed morning paper under his left arm. It was 1:35 a.m.

Chuck was round faced and slightly pear shaped, but he moved like he might have played shortstop in Little League. “Well, well, well. Look who’s here, Mr. Byline Reporter himself. Look at this, front page, city section. ‘Pierceton Raises the Roof’ by Jesse Conover. You finally did it. Not bad. Not bad at all.”

Jesse grabbed the paper. The story was above the fold, upper right. It was the lead local story. His name looked larger and even more impressive than he imagined. It jumped off the page at him like a neon sign. He tried not to act too impressed. “I’ll be damned. Weatherly kept my lead.” He kept reading. “Damn, he ran the whole story. I can’t believe it. He ran the whole goddamned story. Holy s**t, he even kept in thunderous. He made fun of me for that. Look, there it is, big as life, right where I put it.”

Glen took the paper from Jesse and read the article carefully, reciting several paragraphs out loud. When he was finished, he looked over the top of the paper at Jesse. “By Jove, I think you’ve got it. You might make it in this business after all. Did you come up with that thing about raising the roof?”

Jesse nodded.

Glen reached across the table to shake Jesse’s hand. “Welcome to the news business, young man. I hereby anoint you, Jesse Conover, cub reporter and future king slayer.”

Jesse took a long sip from his beer and set the mug down carefully. “I get the cub reporter part, but what’s this about a king slayer?”

Glen smiled a tight-lipped smirk as he looked Jesse in the eye. “You’ve got real power now, boy. The pen is mightier than the sword. One story from you could bring down the mayor. Look how they’re exposing Nixon. Those two reporters for the Washington Post, what are their names?”

“Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein,” Chuck said.

Glen pounded his mug on the table. “See, you know their names. Those guys are going to be national heroes before this Watergate thing is over. Either that or they’ll get shot.”

“But their sources are anonymous,” Jesse said. “Is that even legal?”

Glen half stood up and leaned across the table to get closer to Jesse “People are too scared to talk these days,” he whispered, his breathing smelling like stale beer. “You’ve got to protect your sources. A good reporter will go to jail before he reveals his source. Without anonymity, the bad guys take over. And don’t think they won’t.”

Jesse was surprised by Glen’s passion, but he appreciated the lesson. Glen sat back down, winded from the outburst. He lit a cigarette and then told more hair-raising stories from the police beat.

Chuck had his own lessons. “Glen’s right about the power of the pen and slaying dragons or whatever. But the main thing is to get the facts right. Never believe any one source. Crosscheck everything. Get as many points of view as you can. Don’t take sides. Be fair. Most of all, don’t believe what you read in a police report. Get the names of witnesses from the report and talk to them yourself. They’ll tell a much better story than the cops.”

As Chuck and Glen and Jesse were clinking their mugs in a boisterous toast to the principles of journalism, Henry, the club owner, came over to the table with four shots of tequila on a tray. He was six feet tall and a broad shouldered two hundred pounds. He looked like a man who could have played football for Notre Dame. In fact, one of his three sons did play for Notre Dame. When Henry had too much to drink, he would stand on a chair and sing along with the “Victory March” fight song playing at top volume on the jukebox.

“Did I hear somebody got his first byline tonight?” Henry said.

Jesse held up the paper as his fellow reporters cheered. Henry served the shots and kept one for himself. “We have a little tradition here at Henry’s. New reporters get their first byline shot on the house. Consider it your initiation ceremony.”

Glen raised his shot glass high. “Here’s to Scoop Conover. Long may you report the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

As Jesse winced down his shot, he followed Henry’s gaze to the front door of the bar. A man in a flowing black cape and broad-brimmed hat was making an entrance like he was on the red carpet at the Oscars. He waved the cape at the booths and tipped his hat to the barstools in flowing, dancelike motions.

He promenaded up to Henry and asked, “And what, may I ask, are we toasting at this fine witching hour?”

Henry bowed to the man in the cape and announced loudly, “Ladies and gentlemen, did you notice that Charles Allen—the Charles Allen—has finally decided to grace us with his presence?”

Charles did not return the bow. He performed a curtsy so deep it looked like a yoga move. “Ah, my Henry, my Henry the Eighth, so sorry to be late. I’ve been unavoidably detained.” Charles exaggerated a wink. “So who have we here? I see Glen Barns, my beloved police reporter, and Chuck Macy, my favorite school reporter. But who is this gorgeous young man?”

“This is Jesse Conover,” Henry said. “Jesse got his first byline tonight.”

Charles arched his head back and extended his hand for Jesse to kiss his ring. Jesse shook his hand and stood up as best he could in the tight booth.

“No, no, my dear boy. Please remain seated. ’Tis I who must bow in your presence.” Charles bowed like a butler. “And please, my good friend Henry, would you be so kind as to allow me to purchase another round of whatever these fine gentlemen are drinking? You know, I’m never above bribing members of the press, or the fourth estate as we like to call it.”

Jesse scooted over on his bench to make room for Charles to have a seat. Charles slid in and immediately placed his hand on Jesse’s knee. Jesse firmly removed the hand before it could slide up his thigh. “So, you’re the famous Charles Allen. I’ve been wanting to meet you.”

Charles responded to the flattery like a cat getting stroked. He was a tall, thin man, who would never admit to being sixty years of age. His long, pointed goatee and handlebar mustache made him look like Don Quixote. He grabbed the newspaper and read Jesse’s article aloud and with theatric embellishment. He finished with a flourish as the next round of tequila arrived. “This is good. This is very, very good. I’d love for you to come do a story on my dance studio.”

Jesse began to see why people were paying him so much attention. It wasn’t about him. It was about the free advertising he could provide. Damn, he’d have to be careful about getting used. It felt good to have something everybody wanted. He felt the power of the pen surging into his consciousness. He realized, right away, he couldn’t let that power go to his head.