Sendoff

Oh Boss. I’ll never forget a February morning when we were shivering alone in the newsroom before dawn and the phone was ringing off the hook and you finally seized the handset, looking like you’d love to smash it into the skull of whoever was interrupting your editing. But instead you purred, “City Desk,” as if you had a family and were about to sing the kids a lullaby. After listening and nodding a bit, you slid into a pseudo-Scandinavian accent and said, “Yeah, sure, you betcha, I remember the Butcher of Plainfield.” We exchanged glances across our facing desks. You nodded some more and began performing elaborate jolly responses for my benefit — stuff like “No, I don’t know how many graves he robbed” and “I have no idea how many lampshades he made from them” and “Sir, I really would love to help you guys settle your drinking bets, but we’re trying to put out a paper here.”

Then we swiveled back to our Stone Age computers, back to the obits and wire stories we’d been massaging. Silence prevailed, except for the clacking of keys and the buzz of overhead fluorescent lights. Reporters began trickling in, shedding parkas, stinking of cigarette smoke. The red-eyed receptionist materialized, late as usual, and ran straight to the bathroom, right as the phone demanded attention again. You succumbed again — you couldn’t ignore shit as well as the rest of us. Ranting spilled beyond the receiver even as “City Desk” was still coming out of your mouth. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” you said, impersonating a robot, smiling your best fake smile, hanging up with no goodbye. “Dr. Demento?” I asked. Such was our nickname for that serial harasser, who blamed us for the loss of his medical license and inspired debate about whether Jew-hating could be distinguished from mental illness. You flashed me a Vulcan salute while pouncing on the doc’s instant callback. “Israeli Embassy,” you said, brisk and guttural now. “May I help you?”

Our eyes shared a laugh. But afterward, when we’d refocused on our screens, I heard you wonder under your breath whether you’d gone too far this time. No, I said in my head, no, keep going, let it rip. These lips, however, remained sealed, for I knew how you’d chafe at public reassurance from your young deputy.

The room settled into its normal irregular rhythm as the sun rose and first-edition deadline loomed, or so I seem to recall. Maybe a freelancer dictated a brief about a dairy farmer deliberately crashing his pickup into his own barn down near New Glarus; maybe our man at the cop shop got his hands on the autopsy report for a prominent citizen who’d turned up dead at a no-tell motel. At any rate, the receptionist disappeared into the bathroom again and the phone went nuts once more and you soothed another caller with the words “City Desk.” Your right hand raked what was left of your hair as you said, with no hint of condescension, “I’ll check.” You fished Sunday’s TV section out of a trash can, rustled through its pages, found the right one. “Yes, ma’am,” you said, “Lonesome Dove will be on again tonight.” Then came another “I’ll check,” and you studied the synopsis and declared, almost prayerfully, “Yes, ma’am, I think it’s going to be sad.”

A giggle jumped out of me. A tortured grin crept across your face. That night, for the first and only time, you called me at home. I don’t remember what reason you gave, or any of the words we spoke — only that they were trifling. And that a confession seemed to hover above them, but never land. I also remember that your dog started barking: a blessing, an excuse. Good night, we must’ve said. See you in the morning. A month or two later, a bigger daily hired me away.

Oh Boss. It was so long ago. Before the internet and these stupid smartphones, before we even had voicemail, for Christ’s sake. Before newspapers started suffocating. Back when machines spat out strips of type and people had jobs cutting them with X-Acto blades and pasting them onto blank pages, all of us strangers teaming up to create a meager record of other strangers’ lives. We had to believe it was better than nothing, right? It sure beat thinking of all the endings that lay ahead. Of how you could die without survivors, in spite of your dimples and soft spots, your smarts and smart-ass sense of humor. So here I stand in this funeral parlor — at your request, which you communicated only by leaving a note on your kitchen counter for the landlord to find — here I stand, offering up this sorry excuse for a eulogy because none of us knew you nearly well enough.

Oh Boss. What in the world were you doing in this world? Please don’t change too much in the next one.

BIO: Brooks Egerton (@brooksegerton) is the organizer of Sewanee Spoken Word.