Double Coverage

Chapter 7: Sporadic Work

Chapter 7: Sporadic Work

8:29 P.M.

Jaymar Lemon, the Vipers’ chiseled and black cornerback, was pulled over by a Vanmer police officer for drunk driving. Officer Jim Tanner woke me from a nap, calling my cellphone, and said, “Get down to Wesper and Rodone with your camera. Some heavy news is about to break there.”

I told Jim thanks, promised him hot and spicy wings in the near future, and ended his call. Then I grabbed my digital Nikon, cellphone, shoes, and bolted for my Avalanche, which was parked in front of the Tudor on a shell drive.

My work was sporadic as a photojournalist. Current action in the city and surrounding towns was hard to find on my own. Special leads like Jim helped me get some great photographs and stories for the Independent.

I drove to the corner of Wesper and Rodone, parked in the convenience store’s lot, and made my way to Jaymar’s Cadillac Escalade.

Jaymar was blitzed out of his mind, drunk and high. Officer Kyle Mestner found a bag of white powder under the front seat. I snapped a few photographs of the vehicle, the football star getting cuffed, and the bag of white powder, which I knew was coke. There were two unregistered handguns in the Escalade, which Mestner also retrieved, and I took a number of pics of them.

Beth Harriday, one of the Independent’s best journalists, and my sidekick, was on task, taking handwritten notes to create an eye-awakening article of Jaymar’s arrest. She and I moved about the scene like sniffing dogs, hard at work.

Jodi Mitchell, a news reporter for WTVC, arrived at the scene in a white van with her team. She and a frumpy cameraman jumped out of the van and Jodi started interviewing Jaymar while the frumpy cameraman filmed the scene. In the process, the two interrupted Kyle Mestner’s work, pissing him off. Mestner yelled at Jodi, “Keep back! Out of the way, Jodi! You know the rules and how I work!”

I took a few more shots of Jaymar as he was being placed in the backseat of Mestner’s cruiser. He grinned like a crazy motherfucker, showing off a gold tooth. If the sonofabitch wasn’t cuffed, he probably would have waved at me.

My job was quickly over at the scene. All the important photographs were taken. A woman by the name of Harriet Batcher, a veteran in her field, and a coworker, was already at the police station, ready to snap more pics of the cornerback upon his arrival. The only thing I had to do was to edit my photographs and send the set to Ted Burk, my editor, who would have them on the front page of the morning’s Independent for all of Vanmer to view.

As for Jaymar, he would get his mother to pay his bail, be released from jail, and end up with a few hefty fines and community service for his bad behavior. He would not spend more than two hours in the block because he was a celebrity in Vanmer, someone of importance with a high profile. He had a high powered team of lawyers who would save his ass. But in the end, his incident made good journalism, which pleased me and kept me in a job.