novels

The second Novel - "worth"

Still not sleeping well and damned tired of waking up at all hours. Most nights lately it was actually pretty fitful sleep. Just seemed I couldn’t get enough rest and felt tired all the time - simple thing but dammit something just did not seem right.

And usually it was because I would be thinking about the past nine years, realizing things had not turned out as I imagined but then few things really turn out as they supposed to. Barbara was no exception. The girls? Well, they did turn out all right but even so it hit me that this was exactly what T.S. Eliot said - doesn’t end with a bang but a whimper. And boy did this ever whimper.

But it was only as time passed that we both realized that it actually was for the good - really good as it turned out. But during the trauma of the moment it seemed anything but good. We both begun to experience angst that the slow, widening distancing was placing on us, although it had not always been that way - especially at the beginning, when we first met.

We had been living with her parents when I got the reporter job on the Reading Gazette-Ledger newspaper in Reading, Pennsylvania. We knew we had to be closer to where I would be working and could not commute. And of course Barb had just found she was pregnant and so we knew we definitely had to get a place of our own. And that was what lead us to answer the ad for the small apartment in West Lawn. It was a small town about 8 miles west of the city — I could even take a bus to work if I had to. Perfect if Barb needed the car for doctors, shopping, whatever. And of course that was when I met Del.

It became one of my warmest memories that still stays with me, especially when I want to think of something good about our marriage. Remembering now, it was the light as it came through the windows and broke the dim dankness but only in the afternoon. It was our first home and walking arm in arm and smiling endlessly, oh yeah we had taken the apartment only because it was all that we could afford, and the beautiful natural light magically illuminating the living room was not a factor when deciding. Sure.

And Del was the landlord - a tired old man who walked stooped, ran the drugstore on the first floor below and was not very impressed with the new love of us. He walked ahead of us oblivious to our smiles and giggles we shared as he lead us through the three rooms and bath apartment.

"Well, ya take it or not? "

"We'll take it.”

So today, on a Wednesday, with memories converging too quickly and I cannot sort them out, I decided to take off and head back to West Lawn to visit Del and Emma. Lately it just seemed overwhelming. It was. Barbara and I were happy. Once. Maybe twice. Does it matter anymore. Miles down the pike and I’m still in moments of quiet remembering that the light coming in through that first apartment being like an old masters painting. Never thought of it that way before, now can’t think of it any other way. The things that register most deeply in the mind are like the broken frames in the film. Remembered most because they broke the continuity of the story line.

God I am tired. Doesn't anyone else ever get tired? Let's see, been in the Reading area for fourteen years. Yeah, Missy was fourteen. My God, it has been a long time. The changes I have seen. This street hasn't changed. Probably not in one hundred years. Except there are cars now instead of horses. But I bet sixty years ago somebody sat just like I'm doing and wondered why. Barbara, why?

Don't know now, didn't know then, didn't know in-between. Just that we both knew that it was time for it to end. We had grown to almost hate each other, and only seemed to find the others fault. But it became obvious that we both did care too much for each other and the girls to just let it go on. Seemed like such a noble thing to do at the time. Space. Room to grow. That's what it had been done for originally. Now. She's settled happily in her teaching and living with some dude. At least the kids like him. Think it's kind of neat for their momma to be acting like she's in love. Samantha said she liked him alright except that they are always, you know, kissing and stuff. That was how she put it. Somehow I am glad for her. Knew from the first time we married that it shouldn’t have been so. She tried and I guess that I took advantage. But she grew and I guess I didn’t give enough space. Space. And now I drink a lot each night trying to get to sleep or something, and wonder if there are others out there like me, and know there are. Glad she was happy. She's a nice person and deserved it. I knew she feels the same for me. It is so strange

The momentum of the day had been building. I had felt it the minute my feet had hit the floor in the morning, the sun pouring brilliant red fire through the room, my eyes bleary from the four hours sleep, my mind reeling from the scotch of last night. Too little sleep. Too much booze. The same as the night before. Struggling through the dressing procedure, I knew. Yep - I knew - I would take the day off. It was Wednesday, nothing big happens on Wednesday - no meetings, no city council, nothing. I decided to take a sick day. Hell with it. I would drive out and see Del. That’s what I would do.

My nose itched and I remembered I had gone to the doctor and he said the inside of my nose was crooked, Now what the hell was that supposed to mean? I had a perfectly good nose outside, but inside it clogs up on the right with the first good sized piece of pollen, and the right side has swollen up and over mucuses, or whatever the hell he said it was. All I know is I can't breathe out of the damned thing, and that sums up my life at this point.

And the doctor said it's crooked. He drew a picture that looked like a strange kite,

"Course that is the way I see it, " he said. Course it is, I can't look up my nose. God knows I've tried though since the prognosis. Daughter - Melissa in fact - walked in on me in the bathroom just the other day. Didn't see her for a second or two, and glancing at her sideways as I tried to pry the nostrils apart she had the distinct look on her face that her old man was absolutely nuts, needed to be pitied, but definitely daffy. Her 14 year old face said it all - oh my God if he ever did that in public. She sighed and shook her head.

"Dad, are you all right?"

What could I say. Sure Honey, just trying to get out this big booger that's stuck up there. Think she'd believe that I got a crooked nose.

Wonder if Fleischer would laugh at that. Probably not. He doesn't laugh at anything. When I had first come to work for the newspaper I had felt an incredible sense of challenge, and knew that by working hard and showing my superiors that I wanted to do well, was creative and hard working - well, I made it to assistant city editor. Even had the idea for the new front page and then the damned award for the gambling ring that had been broken up by the story that I had written. But the recent arguments that the lagging circulation of the paper could be improved by changing from the traditional four corner anchored layout to the more innovative horizontal format characteristic of magazine formats was met with scowls, frowns - told to mind my own business, that circulation had to improve. Rumor had it that the Ledger was going to go under unless there was a drastic improvement in the advertisement monies, and that was dependent on the circulation.

It had been happening day after day, like an internal gnawing. Day after day it had built up. I could feel it as acid indigestion, a burning at the top of my stomach. All caused from worry, about things I wasn't sure, about things I could not change and mostly about things I did not know what they were but were overwhelming in their sense of something huge being wrong lingering like the pungent odor of burnt dreams. And I tried to interject humor - especially yesterday.

Not that I want the news to be funny. God forbid I should make any real attempt to put humor into the police arresting two county councilmen, the deputy mayor and a representative from none less than the governor's office at Florie's whorehouse on East street. I mean they did let them put their pants on before they took them out. Naw there ain't a damned thing funny about that. Fleischer's right. Government is serious business. He said it a hundred times.

" Lanny," he said. "Local government has changed. I've seen the worst (only he says wurst) and I've seen ta pest (that's the way he talks) and what we've got here is a municipal that's run the way all cities ought to be run. Tight, tough and with no holds barred. After all, government is serious business."

Right, I say, and corrupt to their very souls. No, my boss says. Not since we got rid of the Pulaski hierarchy have we had corruption in Reading. Ah yes, so says me boss Ed Fleischer editor of the Reading Gazette-Ledger, bastion of journalistic excellence, known for its one Pulitzer won by a cartoon about the dammed Nazi's or something forty some odd years ago. Right Ed Fleischer, there is no corruption in Reading, the mayor's brother in law just happened to get the contract for repaving the streets - lowest bid, the records show it, Fleischer said. And hey his baby sister got that Federal apprentice appointment to local government and then there’s the dammed raid on Florie's.

My inside sources had told me this. So I get there with camera. Man, I was ready. They came busting in and I'm snapping away, and then they see who the hell they got. I get nailed, camera gets taken away, film ripped out and they escort out with all the big wigs, everybody’s laughing, I'm madder than hell and then the Captain takes me by the arm outside and talks to me like a son.

" You've done a helluva job here, Talbot, " he said. " I've read all your stuff. No harm's done. We'll get you some more film, but you have to understand that nothing happened here. The raid will happen later, we'll make sure that you know when."

Right. And Ed laughed when I get back to the office and told him. But I write the story - no photos but all the details. And when I brought the story in to his office and said this was what was going to run as the lead, he quietly walked around me, slammed the door behind me and walked up to my face.

"You can't corroborate it. I won't vouch for it, every witness will say they saw nothing, and your ass will hang. Not one person will come forward and back your story, and remember who you are dealing with, whores and misfits.”

" Is the city council considered that bad " I interrupted.

He paused. A scowl turned hard on his face.

" You can't use it Lanny. That's it. Quit if you like but you'll just have to learn. "

" Ed, if you would give me the go I can turn this city inside out. It is absolutely riff with corruption. What's the holdup. I mean, come on, you getting paid off too? "

Fire shot from his eyes. " I could fire you too for insubordination - if you weren’t so godammed good. No. To answer your question I am not on any payroll. I've just been around Reading a long time. I have seen corruption, and you, you little fucker don’t have any idea what it means to have corruption. Sheeit - Mayor Delaney godammit Talbot, for what you saying I damned well could have you fired. Now get your ass out of here and don’t bother me with such crap.”

Just like that because I accused the man of the only thing that I could think of that would make sense out of the nonsense and he says he could fire me.

So then, last night sitting, drinking scotch at the window of this dump, watching the slow moving traffic down Tenth Street waiting for the drag races to start. They always do, around nine-thirty. All the high school kids from around the Reading area congregate and make runs down the one way street, pulling up to the lights gingerly, gunning the engines, popping the clutch scamming a bit of rubber, holding the brake and racing the engines, loud emitting noise, gaseous clouds billow, oil smells and burning rubber. The light changes and all hell breaks loose as the two of them take off like sombitches. God, they get bad especially on Saturday nights, the noise, smells and cheers until the cops come and clean the street by constantly patrolling. The kids just quietly cruise, waiting. They know. The cops soon leave, usually in a blaze of flashing lights and screaming sirens as they head off to answer a call for a knifing, a shooting, a robbery, any of the million and one reasons that cops go screaming off into the night. And in Reading there was a lot of screaming off into the nights. Damned city.

And it got me thinking, Ed Fleischer the editor of the paper, and I was the assistant city editor having worked my way up from reporter, and was getting damned tired of the job. I had tried to do it well. I knew this city very well, like who to call for what information. Had spent many years at many a watering hole buying and listening. Always listening. Would pick up all kinds of tidbits from these nights, always new leads to check out. And many a story came from that. But damn there was a price. Barbara hated it. Said it was what led to our breakup. Whatever.

And now sitting listening to a light rain falling, becoming aware of the slowness of time. Waiting for the day to get started. Damn I got to get a life. Something had to change. I knew what I had to do. Dammit, I would take off today - I’d drive out and see Del. He was someone who would understand. He would listen.

Chapter One

Decisions

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