The Journalist (6 page)

He sent her an email reply.

Ms.
O’Brien, Got your message. Will talk to you tomorrow. Please bring
notes on President’s speech. Thanks, Zackary
Stearn.

He leaned back. The ceiling fan stirred
smells of musty newsprint, peeling paint, decaying floor tile and
day-old Maxwell House coffee.

He checked the time—six-twenty-five—then
glanced to an olive-green file cabinet next to the entrance. The
cabinet served as a resting place for a vintage nineteen-inch
television Zack had picked up at a flea market. He had forgone the
newer flat-wide-screen-HD-3D razzle dazzle. Enough is enough, he
had thought and besides, he despised TV in general. McLuhan was
right, he often thought, the medium is the message

and with TV, the message is
Meat Loaf
.

Anyway, he would watch the President on the
proper forum for a former
Meat Loaf
TV sitcom star turned
preacher turned politician turned Commander-in-Chief—a
nineteen-inch TV.
How far we have come
, he thought.

His attention meandered over his desktop
clutter to, opposite the desk three feet away, a worn brown
Naugahyde sofa. It was there that Mary lounged when visiting his
office.
Too often
, he thought.

“Nuts.” He stood and went to a used end table
that was home to a yellowing used Mr. Coffee coffee maker. He
looked at the remains of yesterday’s coffee, thought about it,
paused.

“Long night any way you look at it—make a
fresh pot.” He took the pot in hand and went downstairs to the
employee kitchen for water. When he returned, he prepared his
special seven-scoop brew.

Mr. Coffee gurgling, coffee aroma beginning
to fill the office, he sat and studied the slow-turning ceiling
fan. The blades a gentle blur, he talked to the self he called
Jocko.

Your blades were supposed to have been
smooth, balanced, wafting a steady stream of wisdom, advice and
sacraments to the unwashed sinners.

“Fat chance, Jocko,” he sighed and, as usual
when this particular replay button got pushed, he kicked around his
estranged relations with the Church of Rome.

Born into an Irish Catholic family, faith by
genetic infusion, somewhere around seven, visiting the funeral
parlor where his father had been waxed, suited and laid out, mother
grieving, some uncle said, He was a good man.

“And around that moment I realized a
truth—everybody dies, good, bad or indifferent, including you,
Jocko. Problem is the who, what and why are we here and why is the
what after that, such a big secret.”

The nagging secret that began that day,
persisted to the now, he recalled his parish priest, Father
Alfonso’s explanation: “That nagging, son, is the Holy Spirit
wooing you

a calling.”

Agreeing with Alfonso, Zackary’s mother saw a
dreamlike vision of Zack in white collar, with water, blood and a
stained wooden cross all around. Then came the clincher. Zack,
failing tenth-grade Catechetical Curriculum, on the final he got an
A, Sister Ursula kissed his head, said, “A lead-pipe cinch, my boy,
a sign

” Zackary had been chosen, called to
do God’s work. But he knew he had stolen a copy of the final
test.

Nevertheless, twenty years later Bishop Riley
ordained him a Jesuit priest. Things went along fine for two weeks.
Then, third week on the job, he remembered thinking, “This is not
going to work.”

That nagging had grown stronger, becoming
a nightmare on some dead-end street
, he thought.

He put his hands behind his head and said,
“Nothing fell the way it was supposed to, Jocko, and how do you
know if the nagging is Father Alfonso’s priestly hope, a mother’s
vision or a Sister Ursula’s lead-pipe cinch?”

He glanced at the sputtering coffeepot. “And
then came widow Elizabeth and the five-year tryst even a torrid
novel writer couldn’t imagine.”

The coffee brewed, he took his black stein,
poured a cup, sat again at his desk and sipped. So here we are, he
thought, having struggled for to many years with beliefs, organized
religion, and the flesh, you come to realize that the struggling in
itself is a sign.

Kierkegaard came to mind,
I must find a
truth that is true for me. The idea for which I can live or
die.

What did he know? Crazy eggheads, him,
Nietzsche—all of them were screwy, one way or another. There is no
sign. Aquinas came up with
quinque viae
, five ways to know,
that generated still more uncertainty. Five ways to know but fifty
ways to doubt. The gut that says yes, the mind that says no. He
looked up, “And why all the secrecy from the Sign-Maker?”

He wiped his face with his hand. In boxing it
was simple. Knock the son-of-a-bitch down before he nailed you. Cut
and dried, no signs.
But this spiritual combat is all left hooks
in a ring with no ropes.

The video phone rang. He looked at the caller
ID. O’Brien. His mouth drying, he thought about answering. After
the fifth ring he picked up. “
Boca
, Zack.”

Toying with her hair, Mary appeared on his
screen. “Zackary, I’ve been trying to call you all over the
place.”

“I—”

“Did you get my message at the Bimini
Road?”

“No.”

“You didn’t go there? You always go
there.”

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

“I was there.”

“You were there?”

“Yes, ah, later, after you called—”

“I called twice, when were you there?”

“After you called, Case told—”

“You’re lying.”

“I

”

“Did you get the note I left on the office
front desk?”

“Yes, the email too, and the—”

“I saw your reply—breathtaking. Where did you
take off to Friday?”

“I went out fishing.”

“Something new, huh

how was it?”

“Okay, I

”

“So, what’s the answer?”

“About what?”

“You know what?”

“Mary, I

”

“I’m coming down there.”

“Don’t do that. I’m going to catch the
President’s speech, do some homework.”

“Work, work, work—what time you think you’ll
be going back to
Veracity
?”

“I have a lot to do.”

“I could meet you there.”

“I’ll be here all night.”

“Bull. So when are we going for a ride on
that boat of yours?”

“One of these days.”

“What did you eat for dinner?”

“Mary, I

”

“I know, you have to work. What are you doing
later?”

“I’ll take notes on Armstrong’s speech,
then...”

“Okay. Let’s go over them tonight, your
boat.”

“Bye.”

Chapter Seven

Mary’s presence persisting, Zack refilled his
coffee stein, sat, sipped, tried to think but O’Brien thoughts
wouldn’t go away.

“We’ve been over this, Jocko, damn
it

”

He shook it off, picked up a stubby
number-two wood pencil and flipped the pages of a yellow legal pad
to that draft editorial he had begun last Friday for Wednesday’s
Boca
. He read:

To listen to President Armstrong, the Second
Coming already happened and somehow we all—or most of us, anyway
(not him)—missed it. Turns out, J.C. is back and residing as a
guest at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Two things about Armstrong that must be
flushed out. One, his subtle references to innate racial behavioral
patterns in the world’s gene pool and what he calls,

their relation to the spreading
violence that is hemorrhaging America to death.

The other thing, most troubling, is his
references to a Divine

hallowed
voice” that he alone is privy to.

He made a note between lines—
more on this
after tonight’s speech
—and continued to read.

Benny should spend more time talking to a
psychiatrist and less to God. Start a grassroots fund for his
mental treatment. Of course, being so close to the Almighty, he
could skip the latter. Nothing is an accident with this President,
especially when it comes to the media. Count on it, he plays
television news like a Stradivarius, smiling all the way to the
next election. Mary O’Brien
.

He stopped. How the hell did she get in
there? He put his pencil down. Concentration lost, thoughts of Mary
bouncing like dropped ping-pong balls on a cement floor, he had
learned over many years that when the concentration was lost to do
something else. It was that time. He looked at his watch—6:50 p.m.
Ten minutes to Armstrong’s speech.

He thought he might as well get a head start
on Monday’s desk cleaning. He pushed around a pile of overdue
invoices, read a dozen letters-to-the-editor, threw away gobs of
junk mail, looked at his confused date book, savored the pictures
of palmas and blunts in an old cigar catalog and generally arranged
things into different mounds on top of his desk.

Nearing the end of his procrastination
rituals, he glanced at his watch—6:59 p.m. “The divined moment is
upon us.”

He picked up his remote, turned the TV on
and, to avoid the commercial network’s gibberish, clicked to
cable’s C-SPAN 4.

Seeing a wide shot of Armstrong behind his
White House Press Room desk, he said, “And there he is. Looking
more and more like a TV news show, Benny.” Zack leaned back, sipped
some coffee and watched a slow zoom-in to the President’s seasoned
leading-man face. “Hair’s a little less gray, Ben. Grecian Formula
or Just For Men?”

The camera zoom stopped at a medium shot of
Armstrong. Dressed in a navy blue suit, white shirt and red tie,
the President flashed what reminded Zack of a “tent-crusade smile”
then, as always before speaking to America in his soft
up-from-the-Piedmont South Carolina baritone, said, “May we have a
moment of silent prayer?”

Zack shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

Armstrong bowed his head and clasped his
hands on top of the TV-style anchor desk. The desk fronting the
White House’s version of a TV news set, in the background, twenty
silent television monitors flickered video from around the world,
round clocks displayed earth’s twenty-four time zones, and a
four-by-eight red-white-and-blue sign, dominating the background,
proclaimed WHITE HOUSE NEWS CENTER.

“White House News Center,” Zack shook his
head, “is that a joke or what.”

Armstrong ended his silent prayer, looked up
and smiled at the camera.

“Amen and amen,” he said.

“Me, too.” Zack popped a stick of Juicy Fruit
in his mouth.

In a medium close-up, Armstrong began: “My
brothers and sisters in democracy, a pleasant good evening to you.
Well, here we are, another anniversary of our declaration of
independence, on what should be a proud and continuing celebration
of America’s two and a half centuries of service as a good and
decent world citizen. I am especially pleased with the achievements
we have made in the little ol time of my administration. (Pauses,
wipes upper lip, then continues).

“But on the other hand I am chagrined.
Chagrined by the cowardly acts of terrorism especially of the past
few months. You know of what I speak. The senseless attack on the
citizens of Paris was bully cowardice. Shame, shame. As to the
French leadership, we must lead them into the light of the
twenty-first century. But that aside, tonight I am grieved to tell
you we have classified reports that this senseless terrorism,
feared to happen, is about to strike again at the very heart of
America.”

Zack, moving his Juicy Fruit gum between
molars and cheek, drank some coffee and observed that the famous
Armstrong smile was turning ominous. “Uh-oh.”

The President continued. “Fellow citizens,
America, not of her own choosing but by the weight of her being the
most blessed nation on earth, has truly been ordained the trusted
architect of mankind’s future. It is not a role that we cherish but
one that has been thrust upon us by a divine providence.”

At Armstrong’s pause for a drink of water,
Zack made a note
thrust upon us by a divine providence
“Hummm.”

Armstrong sighed and went on. “Fellow
Americans, there are evil forces in the world who would see our
great America destroyed. Yes, my dear friends, these dark forces
would rob us of our God-given destiny.”

The President paused to wipe his upper lip,
Zack jotted
god-given destiny

The camera tightened to a close-up of
Armstrong. “These beasts are driven by one thing—America’s
destruction. But I want to remind them tonight, all you nations who
harbor terrorists (wags finger)—and you know who you are. I remind
you, freedom is absolute and equality is certainly not true of
everyone

Democracy is a divine right, and
America will guarantee that that divine right (thumps desk) shall
prevail

”

“Hell you say.” Zack scrawled a note
America guarantees divine right
, spit his gum in the
wastebasket, mutered, “What happened to the original
guarantor?”

Armstrong proceeded. “Let me explain. In the
annals of humankind there have been many forms of governing, from
kings and queens to fascism to communism to democracy. And they all
have failed but one. One, dear friends. And that hallowed one is
democracy. And why do you think democracy has buried the
others?”

Zack frowned, “I have a feeling you’re going
to tell us,” and popped a fresh stick of Juicy Fruit.

Armstrong finished a drink of water and
smiled. “But of course. A free market. Yes, a free market, bathed
in democracy, guarantees freedom. America, democracy and the free
market, they are one and the same.”