reading

Birkbeck College (William Rowe), 43 Gordon Square, London, WC1 H0PD, United Kingdom

Composed in Aldus, designed by Hermann Zapf (1954), named for the fifteenth-century Venetian printer Aldus Manutius.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The characters and situations in this work are wholly fictional and imaginary and do not portray, and are not intended to portray, any actual persons or parties. Any similarity to actual persons or events is coincidental, and no reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.

THOR declares his intention to explode “journalism” at its core, bringing the city to its knees in a rain of shame & indictments. He explains his work at CITIES NEWS SERVICES, covering BAY CITY’S crime & mayhem, his duty to bear witness. Introduction to the NEWS EDITOR KATE UHLI & the founding editor, DICK TRIMBLES.

THOR & JERRY visit CANDACE & HEATHER’S apartment. JERRY tells a story about an affair involving CANDACE & HEATHER’S mother & their family being threatened by the Russian mafia. HUGH arrives, everyone gets loaded & goes to play pool. Back at the apartment, THOR shares an intimacy with HEATHER, after which she tells him to leave.

THOR covers the shooting death of a nine-year-old girl, whose cousin spits at him when he tries to ask questions. Introduction to the CHIEF EDITOR ROB SERNATH & fellow reporters RICHIE – who routinely mocks THOR & his pretensions – & TOMMY-G, who seems to be an albino.

THOR goes to a Cuban restaurant & a baseball bar with KATE, who talks about stories she covered during her old job in Miami. She invites THOR to her apartment. THOR declines, buys a bottle of vodka & walks home. He is beaten by a security guard outside a transition home.

THOR describes life among the winos, junkies & prostitutes in the Silvertown area of Bay City. THOR & JERRY discover WORMS living in the ceiling of their apartment.

TV journalists report warning of “possible terrorists on the loose.” THOR & JERRY struggle to achieve their dreams of art & stardom. They discuss love, get in a fist fight.

PRESIDENT WOLFGANG G. MNUNG announces launch of Operation: Peace, Freedom, Security, Justice & Liberty in historic address from the Oval Office.

THOR covers son’s axe-murder of parents. At a ball game, JERRY tells THOR that HEATHER went to the Alps for special health treatment. THOR observes patriotic display at ball game. He & JERRY join with crowd in chanting at youths to “Stop Smoking Crack!”

The Ivy Leaguer SCOTT T. VARICK comes to work at Cities News Services. THOR covers arrest of REVEREND LANGLEY CHOWDERMILK, accused of sexual assaults on children.

THOR attends the wedding of an old college friend, SAMANTHA, whose mother is dying. THOR describes some of his college experiences, the person he was in college. At the wedding, THOR has an intimate encounter with TERRI, drinks too much & vomits.

THOR watches PRESIDENT MNUNG war victory celebration on television. SCOTT VARICK has been promoted after nine weeks on the job, & THOR attends a party in his honor at the 50 Million club. VARICK displays his wit & wisdom, buys drinks for everyone.

THOR has no money & goes to ex-temping colleague GENE KEAKS’ house for free booze. They watch Cannibal Holocaust, discuss presidential assassination attempts & the 9/11 attacks.

THOR recalls his office’s reaction to 9/11 attacks. He leaves GENE’S house & goes to a hospital to report on victims of a mass shooting. (1 news article, 1 footnote)

THOR covers police shooting of an unarmed man. Also: Transcript of PRESIDENT MNUNG news conference on location at president’s Mississippi ranch set. Event features water balloon fight between visiting Saudi & Israeli envoys. (1 news article)

The ROCK STAR CHRIST SUNBEAM commits suicide. THOR & JERRY drink whisky, THOR remembers the magic & mania of SUNBEAM’S incredible career.

THOR & JERRY host party for SUNBEAM’S suicide. HEATHER attends with an older man, CURTIS, a photographer. THOR meets CHRISSY. They smoke drugs & he kisses her.

THOR goes out on a night reporting mission with the Bay City drug detectives WODGERS & BANTING. THOR participates in bust of drug suspects. (1 news article)

CHRISSY calls THOR at office, invites him to her new house. They have sex in CHRISSY’S pool, eat hamburgers & watch a Bruce Willis film.

THOR & RICHIE attend MAYOR FAVELLA’S press conference after 37 people are killed in 36 hours in an unprecedented Bay City crime wave. RICHIE is thrown out of conference after angrily questioning the police seizure of just four guns in a crackdown.

THOR begins living at CHRISSY’S house. THOR describes their life together, incidents in CHRISSY’S past. They “appeared to live in a state of high intelligence & being, untroubled by daily hassles.” THOR meets CHRISSY’S mother, MAXINE, who suffers from Parkinson’s, & her boyfriend, GERARD. They attend the Feed World Hunger benefit with Hollywood stars. (3 news articles, 2 footnotes, one transcript)

THOR & CHRISSY attend Passover celebration in New York. They return to Bay City, where CHRISSY is threatened by a man masturbating in a parking lot. THOR gets paranoid. They have a disagreement over the French film Hell Is My Body & Other People’s. CHRISSY gets emotional, asks THOR if he loves her. (4 news articles)

MAYOR FAVELLA launches “Permanent Crime Amnesty For The City” crackdown. CHRISSY introduces THOR to anal sex. CHRISSY leaves to visit a spiritual guru in the mountains, an experience that leads to her painful confession of a college abortion. CHRISSY & THOR go to the Lunabear new-age convention in Colorado. THOR watches coverage of terrorist attack in Russia on television, gets drunk. CHRISSY locks him out of hotel room.

DICK dies. THOR attends funeral service & staff party, gets drunk. KATE corrals him into a taxi & takes him to her apartment, where he spends the night. (1 news article)

THOR & CHRISSY have a fight. CHRISSY storms out, drives off somewhere for the night. THOR gets drunk & watches TV news.

THOR goes home for HIS MOTHER’S birthday, watches television with his mother & her husband, HANK. Hank tells dirty jokes, shows THOR inventions he’s working on in the garage. THOR goes to a mall to buy gifts for his mother, including a PRESIDENT MNUNG DOLL.

THOR goes out with his boyhood friend, TOBY, who is married with children & works as a prison guard. They get drunk, clash with high school acquaintances who have become neo-Nazi skinheads. TOBY hits a cat while driving drunk. THOR is beaten when he tries to enter a party without an invitation. THOR, his MOTHER & HANK attend church. CHRISSY calls THOR to say that GERARD has had a heart attack. THOR decides he’ll ask CHRISSY to marry him.

THOR goes with CHRISSY & HER MOTHER to see GERARD in the hospital. THOR leaves the hospital, buys a bottle of alcohol. THOR & CHRISSY go to see the film Mnung Is A Cancer That Is Destroying America. Afterwards, they have a fight. CHRISSY drives off, leaving THOR in the street. CHRISSY sends THOR’S belongings to him by mail.

KATE has been offered a job in Cleveland & suggests THOR move there with her. KATE also would like a BABY. THOR declines, KATE sobs. They have difficult sex.

TOMMY-G tells THOR he’s planning to leave Cities News to take a job at Lawn Care & Mowing Weekly. THOR covers a shooting at a high school.

CHRISSY’S DOG, ANDY, dies. THOR comes to CHRISSY’S house to comfort her. They watch PRESIDENT MNUNG interview on television, during which MNUNG displays the CAPTURED DICTATOR’S artificial leg. THOR helps MAXINE after she falls. CHRISSY asks THOR to bury ANDY in her backyard, but slaps his hand away when he gets in bed with her.

THOR attends JERRY’S performance at a Best New Band contest held by MUSIC MONKEY TELEVISION. JERRY & his band mates are assaulted during a robbery outside the club. THOR attends a post-contest party, meets the DEEJAY DEB FLOWER, who has a cold sore on her mouth. THOR goes to DEB FLOWER’S house, sees a DEAD BIRD in her bathtub.

THOR sets up a job interview at the EXAMINER-MAIL. However, there’s a PROTEST outside the office, & editor BOB NEATH does not have time to meet with him. THOR returns home & receives phone call from NEATH, who regrets to inform him the paper has a “hiring freeze.”

CHRISSY takes THOR out for his birthday. They go to the swinger’s club BAMBILAND, where THOR gets drunk on vodka & absinthe. He vomits & is escorted out of the club.

THOR is promoted to NIGHT SHIFT, working alone through the night. He drinks heavily during his off hours, plagued by visions of CHRISSY & HEATHER, obsessing over crime in the streets, throwing objects at the WORMS sliding down the apartment walls. He goes to a party & sees that as part of her medical treatment, HEATHER has lost her hair & had a chemical pump implanted in her shoulder. HEATHER gets in a fist fight with another woman at the party. THOR receives an anguished voice message from KATE in Cleveland.

THOR, SCOTT VARICK & TOMMY-G go to a strip club to celebrate TOMMY-G leaving Cities News. THOR talks to several strippers. THOR & VARICK drink heavily, take cocaine, get in a fist fight on the street. VARICK says his mother had an affair with his hockey coach.

THOR covers PROTESTS at PRESIDENT MNUNG’S “ROLLIN’ ON AMERICA” REELECTION TOUR. A protester gives THOR a pamphlet explaining the forces allegedly controlling the MAINSTREAM MASS MEDIA. THOR is beaten by police ,taken into custody.

THOR, who has been slightly injured, is released from custody after providing police with his media credentials. In his speech, PRESIDENT MNUNG declares: “We have embarked on the march for PEACE, & we will win the WAR, because the war is right for AMERICA.”

THOR researches the career of FORMER CIA DIRECTOR WILLIAM COLBY, who was quoted in the protest pamphlet saying the CIA controls “everyone” of significance in the major media. THOR finds evidence of media manipulation, but no proof the COLBY quote is factual.

ISLAMIC TERRORIST LEADER OOMALAMMAH “NIPSY” VAN GHOUBELIN threatens AMERICA with destruction in a video released days before presidential election. Insta-Poll shows surge in voter support for PRESIDENT MNUNG

THOR is promoted to Courts Reporter, a move that submerges him in a world of horrific crimes. He calls the criminal courts THE DUMP, a place where human trash piles up. The suffering & cruelty on display exact a spiritual toll. THOR suggests there’s just a “meanness” in the world.

RICHIE announces he’s leaving Cities News to become a freelance correspondent covering the WAR. RICHIE was recently detained after erupting at the MAYOR over a corruption scandal.

THOR & fellow legal reporter MARTY ATRAZINE cover the execution of SERIAL KILLER STEPHEN “TEX” WALKER. THOR loses in a lottery with other reporters & must witness the execution by video link. MARTY fails to write his post-execution “think-piece” by deadline, instead passing out drunk as he & THOR watch HARDCORE PORN FILMS in the hotel room.

THOR receives a phone call from HIS FATHER, who has been arrested for physical violence against his fifth wife. His FATHER calls from the rehabilitation center where he is receiving treatment for alcoholism. His FATHER says “GOD’S WILL” must be operating in their lives.

THOR gets drunk, wanders to the police festival We’re Winning The War Against Crime. He makes phone calls to his friends & women he knows, but no one answers. He finally contacts his boss editor, SERNATH, & curses at him drunkenly. After hours more drinking, THOR winds up outside CHRISSY’S house. CHRISSY, who has called the police, warns THOR not to bother her anymore. Police officers take THOR’S PHOTO & escort him to a taxi.

THOR attends HEATHER’S FUNERAL, has a brief exchange with CHRISSY. SCOTT VARICK shows up unexpectedly at THOR & JERRY’S apartment with boxes of food & booze. They eat & drink & look at pictures of U.S. SOLDIERS torturing PRISONERS on the internet. (excerpt from military training manual)

SERNATH gives THOR his job evaluation & a 1.87 percent salary increase. A RIOT ,meanwhile, is breaking out in the streets over the police killing of an unarmed suspect. THOR gets into a confrontation with a fellow patron at a bar, where he has gone to watch the riot coverage on television.

THOR goes out with CATHY FONG, a clerk he met at the court building. THOR spends the night at CATHY’S house. CATHY wants to set up further dates, but THOR is noncommittal.

JERRY & his new girlfriend, JOYCE, arrive to move out JERRY’S belongings. JERRY has become a Christian & started to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings. JOYCE says the health authorities should be called due to the high volume of WORMS infesting the apartment. THOR & JOYCE clash at a bar, THOR telling JOYCE of his intention to “continue until VICTORY.”

THOR is visited by BEARDSLEY, who is troubled by the WORMS covering the ceiling, walls & floor of THOR’s apartment. After a concert, BEARDSLEY is injured when he & THOR help capture a suspected thief. THOR & BEARDSLEY go to a donut shop, then see a DEAD MAN in the street after a gang-related shooting. They wait for a bar to open at 6 a.m. THOR bets another bar patron on flips of a coin. BEARDSLEY LEAVES THOR IN THE BAR.

The plan was simple, basic, a no-brainer. I figured, first, to explode “journalism” at its core, pocketing at least one Pulitzer by the age of 30. I’d rock the city at dawn, I’d crack the dirty, filthy, louse-ridden bitch wide open. I’d sit back and watch, smoke curling around my lips, as the chips of deceit and depravity fell in a rain of shame and indictments. The establishment elites would cower under my onslaught, railing red-eyed and blustering as I brought them under sword.

I would move quickly into books, mainly novels and short stories, as well as plays and poetry. I would storm the arena of the writers, drinking and taking drugs extensively. My material would be big and raw and new – ahead of its time, yet also timeless, cleaving to the classic eternal themes, but leaving out the bullshit. I’d name and master my sorrow, my every sentence would contain a hidden dagger. I would break the neck of the accepted banalities, shatter into disorganized dust the sophistries that formed society’s creaking stilts. I would slam into the teeth of the matter, throttle the masses, erupt in a massive, fiery blossom that would burn for the ages.

POLICE: 13 KILLED IN WEEKEND VIOLENCE BAY CITY (CNS) – Authorities said 13 homicides occurred over the weekend in Bay City, among them five teenagers and three people over 60.

Sgt. Alan Jondh said the first murder was reported at about 12:30 a.m. Saturday, when Miguel Pedernales, 19, was shot and killed as he sat in a car in the 3200 block of 277th St. in Pine Ridges.

Jondh said that at about 3:30 a.m., Benjamin Oates, 23, and Deniro Robinson, 18, were gunned down by unknown assailants near the intersection of Gonis Drive and Clover Ave. in the Silvertown section.

Jondh said that about 10 a.m. Saturday, neighbors found 71-year-old Burma Deros dead inside her Hennessy Ave. apartment in Six Points. Jondh said evidence suggested she may have been beaten to death.

At about 6:10 p.m., Jondh said a 17-year-old youth was shot to death...

People were shooting, hacking and mutilating each other, blasting, strangling, torturing and butchering. They were killing for drugs, for money, for love, for hate, in pursuit of sick joys. They were killing over “disrespect,” real and imagined. They were murdering for pure ego thrill. They were gouging and biting and stabbing for no obvious reason at all.

Some of the killings were big news that traveled far and wide, especially mass killings involving three or more victims. Most, though, were just “blips” – killings and murders as real as they come, but unnoticed by anybody except possibly the families, maybe a cop or two, and our desk. It was our duty to bear witness, to cover them all at least once.

The killing of a single white, especially a little girl, could provoke days of wall-to-wall coverage, depending on where it happened and how. On the other hand, the average prostitute found stuffed down a toilet, or single black man cut down in an alley, were not going to trigger a wave of mass coverage – if they got covered by TV or the dailies at all. Somebody’s paint job did still matter, and “black-on-black crime,” it turned out, had never been a big ratings leader. It would generally take the brutal and tragic killing of a straight-A aspiring black scholar-athlete, or helpless old lady, or a multiple killing of blacks and/or Mexicans, to get the TV and newspapers interested.

I went to the scene of shootings and murders, car crashes, suicides, drug busts. I spent 90 minutes across the street from a burning apartment building, inhaling smoke and knocking away flaming debris, only to hear the screams of a mother being told her three children were dead. On another occasion, I spent six hours standing outside a hotel where Nelson Mandela was staying, in case he happened to die.

COCAINE, PILLS, MARIJUANA FOUND IN SOFA

BAY CITY (CNS) – Bay City police said more than 50 pounds of cocaine, 100,000 ecstasy pills and 250 pounds of marijuana were found Wednesday stuffed inside a hollowed-out sofa that had been left for trash pick-up in the Commerce Avenue area.

Sgt. Ricardo Del Pena said the street sale value of the drugs was estimated at more than $10 million – one of the city’s biggest seizures of illicit drugs ever.

Del Pena said city sanitation workers became suspicious and called police after a quantity of white powder spewed from the sofa as it was being thrown into a sanitation vehicle.

“They made the right decision,” said Del Pena. “The war against drugs requires that citizens be alert and notify police of all suspicious activity.”

The job involved making upward of 100 phone calls a day – to the police, the County Sheriff, the Fire Department, the Highway Patrol, the District Attorney, the Drugs-Enforcement Agency, the FBI, the Customs Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, the hospitals and county coroners, the airports, the Harbor Authority, Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department of Forestry, the National Weather Service – basically every publicly known law enforcement agency in the nine-county area.

Each place had to be called every 15 minutes (Bay City Police Department), half-hour, hour or 90 minutes, depending. You sat at the desk, marking off the places from these colored checklists. All the phones had been programmed with speed-dial codes.

Mostly, it must be said, the cop or publicity person on the other end would sigh. They might even yawn.

But 12 or 13 times per day, and sometimes more, the line would pop and hiss, the cop or P.R. man would give. Out they’d blurt with one or more of the key words: “shooting,” “homicide,” “drive-by,” “fire,” “explosion,” “stabbing,” “assault,” “robbery,” “gang,” “weapons,” “rape,” “carjack,” “cocaine,” “crack,” “methamphetamine,” “marijuana,” “substance,” “armed,” “multiple,” “hate crime,” “abduction,” “hostage,” “homeless,” “seizure,” “indictment,” “felonious,” “suspected,” “warrant,” “raid,” “collision”... We took anything and everything with words like this.

GANG-RELATED SHOOTING IN SILVERTOWN

BAY CITY (CNS) – Bay City police said a 20-year-old man was shot to death Thursday in the Silvertown area in a suspected “gang-related” homicide.

If confirmed as gang-related, it would be the 128th gang-linked murder so far this year in the city, Sgt. Ricardo Del Pena said.

Del Pena said witnesses reported that the victim, Damon Garey, was walking in the 6700 block of Elmhurst Lane when an individual leaned out a passing sports utility vehicle and fired multiple shots at Garey’s back.

The cop flack would spiel it. I’d lick my lips, get a tingly feeling. Sometimes my heart pounded, my head might slightly spin – especially if it looked like I was the first clown to stumble across something really bloody and horrifying, or better yet, something still “in progress,” such as a hostage-taking or a “gunman on the loose.” That was what you really wanted. The editor stuck a “bell” on top and away we’d go with what they called the “running add.” Gee whiz, it was fun.

>NEWSFLASH – URGENT

BAY CITY – GUNMAN OPENS FIRE AT SIX POINTS

APARTMENT COMPLEX – POLICE

Depending on the nature of the bloodshed and the potential body count, the story was sometimes repeated by the bozos on local TV and radio within minutes. They never bothered to check it themselves. We’d tune in for the headlines:

CLOWN: There’s a report of a multiple shooting in the Six Points area of Bay City. Latest word from the police is that SWAT units have surrounded an apartment complex in the 5600 block of Pryor Avenue. So if your business is taking you in that direction, be on the lookout for the city’s finest doing their duty...

“Great job!” Kate Uhli, the Day Editor, would say, hopping up and down like a cheerleader. “We’re leading everywhere right now!”

Kate was the desk pro, responsible for final edits on all dayside breaking. She was somewhere in her 30s and wore flesh-colored braces on both her wrists – the price of too many newsbiz years of too much typing. Her last job had been for a newspaper in the Miami area, where she covered the many Cuban problems. She claimed to love Cuban food, Cuban music, Cuban dancing, Cuban etc. She lived with her boyfriend, Joel, who allegedly made his money “designing computer games.”

Kate would call me over to explain some change she had made in a story. She’d look at me, the lines around her light blue eyes crinkling: “Nice work, stud.” Or she might walk up behind my chair, briefly massage my shoulders: “Good one, Thor.”

BODY OF MISSING 11-YEAR-OLD GIRL FOUND

MT. BURNEY (CNS) – Mt. Burney police said the body of an 11-year-old girl was found Monday, and that an ex-convict has been charged with her murder.

Police Chief Oxley Rice said the suspect, Eric Stanton, 34, led police to Kimberly Nellison’s body late Sunday in a wooded area on the Toca Linda-Lakeview county line, about three miles from her home.

The girl had last been seen at her home in Mt. Burney on Thursday.

Rice said Stanton had become acquainted with the girl’s family while working with a landscaping crew at their home.

The cop flack would spiel it, or he patched you through to an officer or detective handling the case. You’d bang the info into the computer, sometimes following with a quick call to the hospital or somewhere, depending on the casualty situation. Whether it was “true” or not was of very little concern. We likewise had little time or motivation to bother with “context” or “background.” The thing that mattered was that a cop had said it.

A cop would spiel: Some kind of major blood, an apartment on fire. The editors would clear on it and I’d grab a map and recorder and jam out there, piling in with a photographer or jumping a taxi. In most cases the “event” was already over, the guns tossed and the bodies carted, but still you found cops and firefighters standing around, puddles of blood, the stench of burnt flesh, smoldering ash, various smashed remnants of hell that had fallen on somebody’s head.

I’d flash my press badge, lurk on the edges of the police yellow tape. I’d poke around, digging up some “color,” trying to scrounge an interview – with cops, with “witnesses,” with sad crying people who had somehow in a flash lost everything. I’d call it in. Kate would slap in the new details and throw a new version on the wire. Cities News was the reigning champ when it came to marking Bay City’s daily outpouring of grief and human wretchedness.

ARRESTS IN CONNECTION WITH DRUG DEATHS

BAY CITY (CNS) – Bay City police said five people were arrested on suspicion of selling a mixture of cocaine and heroin blamed for the deaths of up to 17 people in the last two weeks.

Capt. Stuart Stennis said the suspects were taken into custody Tuesday and Wednesday in raids at four separate Bay City locations.

Stennis declined to release the identity of the suspects, saying some of them were minors.

Stennis said three of the suspects have admitted to investigators that they delivered drugs to 16-year-old Pamela Gutierrez, who died of suspected drug-related poisoning on Sunday.

Officials said toxicology tests have indicated the deaths were likely caused by a combination of heroin, cocaine and the painkiller fentanyl.

The operation was pure “scientific management,” as dreamed up by sadists, designed to minimize thinking and errors while maximizing “story sausage” output. The system relied on a rolling rotation – as soon as you finished the calls on the Bay City North list, for example, you switched to West Bay/Santa Costa. Someone else would ditch 4-County and get the jump on Bay East. The editors watched like hawks, they kept a running tab on how many stories you pulled and how often you rolled into the street for on-the-spot bloody-and-breaking. Under the grand theory, you were supposed to knock off at least one phone call per minute, and the only times you were allowed not to be dialing were if you were typing or had gone street-side for a debacle. Another rule: you always led with the source: “The police said Tuesday...” It was easier that way, for us, but also for the radio and TV subscribers, who preferred it so they could “rip and read.”

We made the phone calls and checked off the lists. Kate or one of the others kept an ear cocked on the police scanners, listening through the mud and crackle for Code-3’s (lights and sirens blazing) or shoutouts of “Officer Down!” Officer Downs were not uncommon, but they rarely meant a cop had been shot. Mostly they meant that somebody in the ghetto needed help, fast. Ghetto residents had long ago learned that “cop shot” was the one way to guarantee a police/ambulance response. Cities News policy was to wait for official confirmation before rolling to an “Officer Down.”

Bay City burned like a smoky red cinder at the tip of the peninsula, the crown jewel megalopolis of the nine-county zone. The zone claimed 17.9 million people, five cities, hundreds of square miles of suburbs, farming hubs and fish towns, two-thirds of a mountain range, 26 lakes, seven rivers and associated tributaries, four pro sports teams, nine universities and junior colleges, 238 high schools, six airports, one U.S. Army base, one Air Force field, two state prisons, one federal penitentiary, two amusement parks, four water slides, three horse race tracks, one dog track and 27 public and private golf courses.

It was lively, there was never a shortage of action. The city was gripped by cross-currents of high tension and malaise, it wobbled between crushing despair and last-ditch optimism. Taxes had been cut, drug prices were down, murders, rapes and food-stamp disbursement were up. Armed bank robberies were averaging 1.8 per week in the greater metropolitan area, while official school district figures said violent attacks on teachers were averaging 3.1 per week. Unemployment officially stood at 12.8 percent (23.9 percent in “minority” zones, i.e. black and Mexican), while the federal stats said one of every 5.4 residents was officially “living in poverty.”

POLICE HIT DISTURBED YOUTH WITH STUN GUN

BAY CITY (CNS) – Bay City police said a 14-year-old boy suffered severe burns to his head and back Thursday after police sprayed him with a flammable chemical then shot him with an electrical stun gun, igniting his clothing.

Commander Dennis Honig said Police Chief Nathaniel Nachba had ordered the chemical Oleoresin Capsicum removed from the police arsenal immediately following the incident in the Silvertown section. He said an official investigation has been launched.

Honig said officers had initially responded to a 911 call from the youth’s mother. Honig said the youth was acting “irrationally” and carrying “two knives and a hot plate” when officers arrived at the Beck St. address...

Of course, you could always quit, no one forced you to stay. There would never be a shortage of kids who thought news was a fun game, who wanted to come to the big city and get in on the “news gig.” Cities News had more applicants than they knew what to do with, young crapheads from across the country came to bang at the gate. Maybe it wasn’t always the alleged cream of the crop, but the bosses could take their pick in the slave driver’s economy and they knew it. The bosses didn’t care if you quit, and many did. I saw ten or twelve go – most within months, a few within weeks – fleeing at the first opportunity for the better-paying shores of public relations and “teaching.”

Strange as it seems now, I had to bare my teeth and battle my way in. There had been no response from Cities News (or anybody else in Bay City) after I sent in my resumé and clip package. Several e-mail inquiries and an online application had also failed to elicit a response. That was wrong – that was clearly wrong. So one day during my lunch break while temping at the Telephone Tower, I looked up the office on a map, took the bus over and rang at the door.

It smelled like smoke. A blond girl with a small, mouse-like face stared at me quizzically from behind a brown plastic desk.

I was reaching into my satchel to remove my folder of clips when... The gods sighed or frowned, I still don’t know which.

A short, fat old man in a white-grey beard, smoking a cherry-smoke smelling pipe, walked up. A cheery light burned in his eyes.

“Well, that is a convergence indeed. We placed the advertisement for a new reporter just this morning. I looked it over myself not more than two hours ago.”

SANTA COSTA MAN SEVERS THREE BODY PARTS

SANTA COSTA (CNS) – The Santa Costa County Sheriff’s Dept. said a 36-year-old man on Monday used a knife to cut off his finger, scrotum and penis in an apparent act of self-mutilation.

Sgt. Dennis Mickleby said the victim’s wife indicated Neil Gennert was acting under the influence of drugs when he attacked himself.

Mickleby said Gennert’s wife told investigators that during an argument, Gennert chased her from their home to a neighbor’s lawn, where he pulled down his pants and cut off his scrotum and penis in front of several bystanders.

Mickleby said it was not immediately clear if doctors would be able to re-attach the severed body parts.

Dick walked me through the office to his glass box and sat down at a desk stacked high with papers and books. He cleared a small space and flipped open the folder of stories I had written for small and tiny papers in the desert and on the coast, for miniscule weekly rags, in the years before the big blind Bay City leap: County funding crises, debate-club champions, bingo games for the elderly, school building repairs, hobos who had fallen asleep on the train tracks and the predictable results that followed...

Those thin strips of fish wrap were my best and only evidence. I had slaved and sweated over each word. Many a night had found me staying alone at the office until nine or ten or even midnight – hammering it down, honing my craft, proving I could stick it out, tightening and hardening myself into condition to play with the big boys...

Dick’s walls were crammed with shelves of books and knickknacks, dusty wood carvings of birds and ducks and elephants. A gold-plated plaque behind the desk read: OH LORD, BRING ME A BASTARD WITH TALENT. There were scale models of antique cars, framed political cartoons, an engraving of Benjamin Franklin, water-related landscapes and plenty of photographs – shots of somebody who looked like Dick with Wilt Chamberlain, Dick in a group with Arthur Miller and Mickey Rooney, Dick with Joan Baez and Jacques Cousteau, Dick in oily overalls next to a motorcycle, Dick shaking hands in the Oval Office with Gerald Ford...

“Yes, indeed,” said Dick. “Everything seems in order. I notice you used the term ‘hands of bananas’ in this article on dock workers. That is an interesting locution.”

He peered at me. “I said that – ‘hands of bananas’ is quite an interesting locution to see in a newspaper story.”

Dick nodded and shuffled paper. It was hard to believe, and also I couldn’t quite hear. Dick had a way of talking like his mouth was full of sawdust.

SEVEN DETAINED FOR SWALLOWING COCAINE

BAY CITY (CNS) – Federal drug officials said Tuesday that seven people have been detained at Bay City International Airport on suspicion of swallowing packets containing cocaine.

Andrew Tischling, spokesman for the U.S. Drugs-Enforcement Agency, said the suspects arrived Monday on two flights originating in Kingston, Jamaica.

Tischling said cocaine had been found in condoms recovered from two of the suspects so far.

Tischling said drug-trafficking and conspiracy charges were expected to be filed after authorities obtain all the suspected cocaine packets ingested by the suspects.

Dick Trimbles had founded Cities News 35 years before and was the guy who had sold it off to Capps-Neubold. Under the deal, Dick was bestowed the title “Executive Senior Editor,” which apparently gave him clearance to puff his pipe in the office. He also was allowed to interfere in any aspect of the operation that interested him. Dick would putter around in his glass box, thick and blocky like a bag of wet sand, flipping through magazines and newspapers, cutting out articles and putting them in folders. He would pop out and invite you into his office for a chat.

“I must tell you, Lincoln was the master of mounting a sentence. He could spell out a fine point, and clearer, I think, than any man of his time. Any young journalist would do well to read his speeches. I’ve been reading them for about 50 years now.”

“It stands for Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. You’d do well to think about that.”

Or: “Always be careful with statistics, young man. Just remember, a fellow with his head in the oven and his feet in the freezer is statistically O.K. In reality, he’s dead.”

HOMELESS MAN LOSES LEGS IN TRASH TRUCK

BAY CITY (CNS) – Bay City police said a homeless man lost both his legs early Wednesday when the Dumpster he was sleeping in was emptied into a city sanitation truck.

Sgt. Dave Chester said sanitation workers heard the screams of Amos Atterlee and stopped the truck’s grinders in time to save his life.

Chester said Atterlee, 56, lost both his legs above the knee in the accident in the Financial District.

Bay Community Hospital spokeswoman Melinda Dowell said Atterlee was in critical but stable condition.

Sanitation Dept. spokesman Reuben Matas said the members of the truck crew – Jaime Acton, Javier Lafianza and Douglas Yates – would receive official commendations for their life-saving action.

Telephones buzzed, workers mumbled, computer keyboards clacked – the wire rolled. Internet technicians with bum-fluff mustaches took our stories and photos and pasted them up for the world to admire. The smell was of paper and dust and electricity-fried copy machines, burnt coffee, Dick’s smoke and last night’s spaghetti with mushroom sauce that someone had heated up in the microwave.

I wore ties and button-down shirts, polyester slacks, my shoes were a three-dollar pair of maroon Salvation Army wingtips. I often felt bad, generally, but I was never “sick,” I never missed a day at the office. I showed up on time, even early, some days I’d be on the phone by 6:55. Looking back, I probably raced around brisk and quite stiff, like a two-dollar firecracker had been lit and stuck in my ass.

I remember, it felt like I’d been punched in the stomach when I saw my first weekly paycheck: $294.19. It was impossible to live on money like this, it was certain to keep me hooked on noodles and trapped in the ghetto. But no way was I going to quit.

I didn’t care, the fucking hell – I was slinging blood and guts in the big city at long last. For one thing, it had taken me out of working “temp.” For another, and this was the main reason – I was the World’s Greatest Journalist And Writer. Cities News was only the necessary first part of my destiny.

For most of my life I had been fodder for sixth-rate dictators. I had come out of a long line of religious nuts and suicides, jailbirds, drunks and pot gobblers, half-wits and half-time whores. They had smacked me around with two-by-fours, unloaded on me with backhands, and when they weren’t beating me or lying to me, they had ignored me. They had taken me before priests, preachers and high honchos from three sects, who had all performed their voodoo in an attempt to save me and set me upon the right path.

I had never belonged anywhere. I was always looking out from the dark and tangled forest. The stuttering kid, the kid allergic to cats, the kid with “asthma,” the kid coughing phlegm into his pillow, the kid sleeping in a pee-stained sleeping bag. The kid standing off to the side with a red eye swollen from “pollen” and a shirt a size too small. Even the alleged “outsiders” were disgusted – I had been outside the outsiders.

It far from mattered now – I had stepped out from the dead grey debris. My fate was to be the Conquering Writer, loved and feared and hated – but mostly loved, it must be said. I’d be constantly in the newspapers and magazines, pictures of me would flash upon the world’s television screens. I would be continually drunk, stoned, loaded, blitzed out, nine-and-a-half feet high and getting taller. I saw it as the only possible outcome, the only possible option.

Jerry had a girlfriend, Candace, who was rich. She lived across town on Ocean Way, sharing an apartment with her sister, Heather. Candace was a law student, Heather was in her sophomore year or had failed her freshman, it was never made clear.

In any case, their dad paid for everything. The dad was an old man who had made a fortune in cable television and magazines many years before. Now he “did nothing” while the money “rolled in.” The mother was still young and good-looking. The old man had met her when she was nineteen and working as a cocktail waitress at the old Playboy Club in Chicago.

“The old guy’s cool,” said Jerry. “He bought Candace’s mom this little house so she could screw her boyfriend in private. This big Greek guy named Thomas.”

It went on for like, four years, until one day the Greek guy just dumped the mom. She went into these huge depressions, they spent thousands on psychologists. She went to Beverly Hills and got all this plastic surgery, these injections. She was depressed for like, nine months. They put her on five different pills.

Then, when she was almost through it, the Thomas guy started to go nuts. He started calling all the time – in the middle of the night, at five o’clock in the morning. He would drive by in his car and yell out the window, honk his horn. He got all fat and huge, didn’t cut his hair or shave. He would sit in his car down the block, jacking off and giving kids the finger.

Then one day, Thomas says he’s gonna put the Russian mafia on them. That’s what he says: “Russian mafia.” Candace’s mom and dad got super scared, they didn’t know what the hell. They called the police, but all the police said was nothing could be done until an actual crime had been committed.

They hired all these security guys to guard their house 24 hours. They hired a team of private detective dudes to spy on Thomas, find out what he was up to. The guys followed him around a few weeks, but all they said was he was crazy – that he might kill them, but then again, he might not. They couldn’t figure out crap.

Finally, Candace’s dad had enough. They set up a meeting at the Black Angus. The father went with one of the detective dudes, who had a gun in his coat and was secretly recording everything. These other detective dudes were secretly filming it from this other table.

Well, said Jerry, so Phil ended up giving him the little fuck house for free. Signed it over to him right there in the Angus. Believe that?

“Now he sells vitamins, nutritional pills, this kind of crap from there by mail.”

Jerry nodded. “Gave it to him. I totally kid you not. It was a pretty nice house, too.”

I’d known Jerry a couple years. Jerry was a bank clerk, guitarist and songwriter, and fairly decent at all three.

It was the afternoon by the time we got there. We stood at the stop, waiting for the bus. We checked the schedule, but still no bus. Only a gray cracked street, a variety of dried turds. I gandered a stained newspaper against the fence, a cantaloupe rind, a burnt trashcan lid. Cars crawled past stupidly – an old Ford, a lousy Mazda, a rusty Toyota dragging a chain. A pile of wet cardboard sat on the sidewalk, next to a torn sock with a black and green stripe.

A fellow in a reggae-style cap shuffled about in a slouch in front of the PRINCE OF PEACE – A HEARTREACH CENTER, something that might have been a brain sitting in a plastic sack over his arm.

We crossed the street and went into a place for take-out coffee. NO SLEEPING! a sign screamed. DRUG-FREE ZONE – NO GUNS!!! MUST WEAR SHOES NO SKATEBOARDS NO LOITERING NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH YOU ARE BEING FILMED NEW! TERIYAKI DOUBLE-BACON WISCONSIN CHEDDAR

We came out of the place with the coffees. As we did, a guy in a beard, scarf and yellow rain slicker came hustling down the sidewalk at us. He was sweating terribly and carrying a black dog in his arms.

The guy saw us, stopped and spluttered. I didn’t catch all of it. Then he held up the dog by the neck, let him hang a second, and drop-kicked him. He held up the dog by the scruff of the neck, glared at us, spluttered, dropped the dog and let fly with the boot.

The pup let out a shriek then whimpered. He clattered against the sidewalk, pulled himself along, whining. The guy muttered something, spluttered again. I still didn’t catch it. Finally he snatched up the pup by the ears and took off.

Candace and Heather lived in a garden-style apartment complex, about a block off the ocean. We rang at the security door, then went up about four flights of stairs. It was a big sunlit place, smelling of cigarette smoke and laundry. Giant varnished wood tables were everywhere in the main room, stacked with computer gear and legal books, piles of discs, stereo equipment. The ocean glinted from the picture window. You could see little sailboats out on the water.

Candace was a short-haired dirty blond. She sat next to us on the floor, wearing a blue flowered skirt and a plastic sunflower on her chest, sucking at her drink from a straw and punching buttons nonstop on her cell phone. She smoked ultra-thin light cigarettes, about one every five minutes. Packs of them, full, empty and half-empty, were scattered around the apartment.

We sat with our drinks and looked at the TV with the sound off, music droning from the stereo system.

Pretty soon Heather came out from the shower, hair piled in a towel on the top of her head.

I stuck out my hand, but Heather didn’t bother taking it. She pulled off the towel and started working on the hair. Possibly she tried to smile, but her mouth just wouldn’t obey.

She was wearing yellow slip-on sandals, light blue short-tights, tan thighs tapering into tennis-player calves and the daintiest of ankles. Heather’s hair wasn’t blond like Candace’s, but more of a light brown. She had more freckles, and her lips weren’t as big. Also, her nose was smaller. She looked enough like Candace, but prettier and smoother, as if she had been caught under rushing water for several years.

Heather came back wearing a bright green eye shadow. It was really very bright green. Medium-size gold hoops fell from her ears, while on her lips she had put a light purple lipstick. I liked it, I liked the look. She sat back down and used a red ribbon to tie her hair into a stiff little tail sticking up on the top of her head. A few hair strands sprayed out over her forehead.

I took a drink off the vodka-cranberry. On the wide-screen, a raccoon was wearing a cowboy hat and riding a surfboard. Palm trees danced in a conga line. Mice, chipmunks and a zebra suntanned on the beach. Waves crashed, the sun rose, a chipmunk hugged a bunny rabbit. The sun set. FEEL THE FRESH FRUITY FLAVOR. I took another drink, draining the glass.

Heather took a pack off the coffee table and lit a clove cigarette. She got up and started to dance.

She spun around slowly, holding the drink in front of her, the cigarette tilted between the fingers of her other hand. The disco-hippie music droned, six thousand beats per second, a squeaky door hinge endlessly looping...