Bloodlines

19

“M Y HERO IS AN ASSHOLE.”

“Irene…” Lydia said in mild protest.

I said it sadly, not as a declaration of pride. I did not deliberately choose an asshole to be my hero. I discovered he was one in the way most of us make such discoveries: I got to know him.

Lydia, a friend since childhood, knew that I spoke of none other than Connor O’Connor.

At a distance, over years of reading my morning newspaper, I had come to admire O’Connor more than any other journalist, and that included Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein. I was in J-school during the Watergate years, so that’s saying a lot.

Both Lydia and I wanted to become reporters long before Watergate, and there was never any doubt in my mind that the newspaper I most wanted to work for was the Las Piernas News Express. The Express was the first newspaper I read-my father read its funny pages to me before I learned to read, then helped me with the big words when I started reading the articles themselves. By the end of grade school, I began looking for stories written by O’Connor, because I knew they would be good ones. I wanted to be like him.

When Lydia and I were in the fourth grade, we cajoled our neighbors into buying subscriptions to a self-produced newspaper that lasted one issue- Sister Mary Michael, catching us in the act of surreptitiously using the school’s ditto machine for edition number two, suspended publication.

We were on the school newspaper together in junior high, high school, and college. She was often an editor. That was fine with me. I just wanted to be a reporter, to write like the man who had inspired this dream, whose words had lured me into my career. O’Connor.

The asshole.

“He’s not, really,” Lydia said.

I just shook my head.

“Well, I will admit you have a reason to be upset,” she said.

Of course I had a reason to be upset. The legendary O’Connor had just stabbed me in the back.

“Would you be happier over in features?” Lydia asked.

I glared at her.

“No,” she said. “Stupid thing to ask.”

“You should be working in news, and we both know it.”

“I don’t want to have to deal with what you’re putting up with,” she said.

She meant the hazing I was experiencing in the newsroom.

My first job after college didn’t take me to the Express. The Express only had openings in features, not news. My first question on any job interview was, “Do women cover hard news for this paper?” The answer was seldom an unqualified “Yes.” At the Express, the answer was, “Once upon a time we did, but not now. Maybe someday, if we like your work in features, we’ll give you a shot at it.”

Someday wasn’t soon enough, so I went to Bakersfield, where there was an opening in news on the Californian. As an added benefit, I could get away from the embarrassment I felt when I was dumped by a creep I had dated in college-the number-one inductee in my Dating Hall of Shame.

Lydia stayed in Las Piernas and took a job in features. Not so many years earlier, the features section was known as the “women’s pages.” Lydia wrote about cooking. The editor of the food section left the paper about eighteen months later, and the next thing you know, Lydia was promoted.

I’d been gone from Las Piernas for two years. Now I was back, and thanks in part to Lydia’s help, I was able to land a job at the Express, too.

The first day I walked into the newsroom, I discovered with no surprise whatsoever that its occupants were almost all white (the sole exception: Mark Baker, who is black) and almost all old (I counted four who were under forty, and Mark was one of them). H.G., the city editor, was pushing sixty. He was a quiet, cynical man who smoked cheap cigars and whose rugged face seemed to have only two expressions: one indicated his usual state of unflappable, contemplative calm and the other mild, private amusement. He led me to my desk wearing the former and walked away wearing the latter. The cause of the change might have been the shock on the faces of his fellow newsmen. The leading caveman, who I later learned was known as Wildman Billy Winters, came up to me and said, “Honey, you’re in the wrong room. Women write for features-down the hall.”

I was ready to reply when the publisher, Mr. Winston Wrigley II, strode out of his office and said, “She’s in the right room, Bill. And she’s not the first woman to work here. Ask O’Connor-Helen Swan was one of his mentors. Ms. Kelly was taught by Helen-and Jack, too. That’s more than good enough for me.”

It took me a moment to recall that Helen Corrigan had been Helen Swan before she married. The journalism program at the college had three or four former staffers from the Express on the faculty. Helen was easily my favorite instructor at Las Piernas College.

Another favorite was Jack Corrigan, who had taught there, too. He had died of a stroke six months before I started working at the Express, while I was still up in Bakersfield. I hadn’t learned of his death until after the funeral. Hardly able to talk for crying, I’d called Helen. She told me it was quick, that he had been among those he loved when it happened.

“Every morning after he turned fifty, the first thing Jack would say was, ‘What a pleasant surprise,’” she said. “I suppose that was because he believed that anyone who had lived as hard as he did shouldn’t take any new day for granted.”

Thinking of her that first day in the newsroom of the Express, I vowed to find time to visit her.

My first weeks in the newsroom of the Express weren’t especially happy ones. About a third of the men were openly hostile or patronizing. I heard the word “honey” more times than a beekeeper. Some, like Bill Winters, treated me as an occupying force, my desk a beachhead taken by the enemy. Others tried to pretend I was invisible. A few didn’t seem to have any problem with it. Like H.G. and the news editor, John Walters, they were content to watch events unfold, and neither helped nor hindered me. That was fine. I figured anyone who didn’t hinder me provided all the help I needed.

Then there were those who thought Winston Wrigley II had hired me to “improve the decor,” as one of them put it-inveterate oglers, and generally the most repulsive guys in the building.

I wasn’t held dear by most of the women staffers, either. I saw them every time I wanted to use the bathroom, because the newsroom of the Express had no women’s room nearby. You didn’t even need to step out into the hall to find a men’s room. There was one right off the newsroom.

There were three women’s bathrooms in the entire building: one downstairs, near classified advertising, where the staff taking calls for ads was entirely female; one upstairs, near the executive and business offices of the paper (where the typing pool and payroll clerks were female); a third on the same floor I worked on. Same floor, but reached through a maze of hallways, and at the far end of the large open room that housed the features department. It was as if whoever designed the building wanted to make sure that no one ever brought a tampon anywhere near the newsroom.

So I had to allow time for the hike when nature called, and it was easy to see that I was as much an outsider among the women in the features department as I was among the men in the newsroom. Whenever I entered this domain, there was a noticeable pause in the clatter of IBM Selectric typewriters all across the room. The faster a features reporter went back to typing, the more likely I thought we’d get along once the novelty of my situation wore off. Lydia was there, of course, but in those early days we went out of our way not to spend time together at the paper, so that we wouldn’t be accused of being unprofessional or wasting company time. We seldom spoke more than a word or two of greeting to each other until after work. Later I learned that some of these women-most of whom had worked for the paper for several years-had previously tried to move over to the news side. They had been turned down. One more reason I was so popular.

I could have eased some of this, I’m sure, if I had gone drinking after work with the staff, or out to dinner with “the girls.” The minute I was finished with work, though, I had to hurry home to my father.

I almost hadn’t taken the job in the first place. I half-hoped Mr. Wrigley would tell me that he still didn’t have a job opening for a woman in news, so that I could come back home to my dad and say, “I gave it my best shot, and it didn’t work out, so I’m going to stay home and take care of you.” But I’m not sure twenty-four hours a day of his rebellious daughter would have given my father much peace of mind, and my whole reason for coming back to Las Piernas-leaving behind a job I liked and a man I wanted to get to know better-was to make life easier for my father, to have time with him while I could. It did not seem likely that much time was left in that life.

My problems with O’Connor began on a Thursday, the day before I decided he was an asshole. Before then, he had merely been grim-faced and standoffish, but he was that way with everyone.

That Thursday, I had received permission from my city editor, H.G., to take a couple of hours off to take my dad to a doctor’s appointment-a follow- up visit after his first major cancer surgery. Part of Dad’s stomach was gone now, and he was weak and thin, but we were relieved: if the cancer had been worse, they would have taken the whole thing. He couldn’t eat much, he got sick a lot. He slept most of the day.

He was alive. Recovering. I said this to myself whenever some insistent fear for him pushed its way into my thoughts. I said this to myself a lot.

I had an assignment that day, too, to cover a school board meeting. There are not many assignments that are lower level than school board meetings.

Despite delays at the doctor’s office, I managed to get my dad back home before I needed to leave for the meeting. But the woman we had hired to care for him while I was at work called in sick. It wasn’t the first time, and I wondered if I should just tell her not to bother coming back. The thought of going through the interviewing and hiring process again was so daunting, I put off making any plan of action for seeking a replacement for her.

I called my older sister, Barbara. She wasn’t home. I reached her answering service-she has a business as an interior decorator. I left a message.

My father’s voice, once so strong, able to command anything, called to me as not much more than a whisper. I hurried to his bedside.

“Barbara won’t come here,” he said. “It’s because of your mother.”

“Mom died twelve years ago. That’s not much of an excuse for Barbara.”

“Your mother died of cancer. Barbara’s scared. Don’t judge her so harshly.”

“You think I’m not scared?”

“Oh, you are,” he said softly. “And I’m sorry for that.”

“Dad- I didn’t mean to say…”

“Hush. You’ve got more Kelly in you,” he said, taking my hand, “so I know you’ll be all right. That’s why I called you.”

We sat in silence. Probably nothing else in this life had cost my father’s pride more than asking me to come back home from Bakersfield. That gave me some idea of how frightened he was himself. I swore a silent oath: I would stop bitching about Barbara to him.

“I’m just going to sleep,” he said. “Don’t worry about me. You go on to work.”

“Dad, it’s only a school board meeting-”

“It’s your job. Go.”

Able to command anything, even at a whisper.

“Call the paper if you need to reach me,” I said.

“I will. I promise.”

But just before I left, he got sick to his stomach again. He had managed to get out of bed, so the bedding was okay. I helped him change into new pajamas and cleaned up the floor. I didn’t want to go, but he insisted that the next time he was sick he wouldn’t be such a damned fool, and he’d use the plastic basin on his nightstand instead of trying to get up.

“Go on, now,” he said, “do your work. I’ll die of guilt if you stay here.”

“Don’t talk about dying. Not from anything,” I said.

“Go.”

So I hurried to the meeting. I will admit that it did not hold my interest. My thoughts wandered to my own worries. I did manage to grasp the main issues under discussion. I rushed back to the paper.

I thought of calling my dad, but if he was asleep, I didn’t want to wake him.

I called Barbara. I got the answering service again.

My father and I knew that Barbara would be fairly useless in this sort of crisis. Neither of us had expected her to develop an ability to vanish that would be the envy of a magician.

I wrote the story about the school board as quickly as I could. I got it in just before deadline. I went home.

My father was sick all night long. I dozed off on a chair in his room sometime before dawn.

Barbara never returned my calls, but just as I finished dressing, I heard a car pull up in the drive. I looked out the window, expecting to see her Cadillac.

Instead, I saw a cherry red ’68 Mustang convertible. The woman who got out of it looked with disdain at the car next to hers in the drive-my Karmann Ghia. Her long gray hair was plaited into a thick braid. She wore blue jeans and an embroidered denim shirt.

My father’s aunt, Mary Kelly. I felt myself smile.

I opened the door and said, “What’s a night owl like you doing out and about so early?”

“Why haven’t you come by to see me? Never mind-I know the answer to that. Are you late to work?”

“Not yet.”

“Patrick called me last night, told me his helper was sick. I thought he meant you. Glad to hear it was just that other one. I don’t think she was good for him, anyway. Why don’t I take over for her?”

“Mary, that’s generous of you, but-”

“But nothing.” She looked me directly in the eye and said, “I want the time with my nephew. Patrick is dear to me.”

“I know he is,” I said, returning the look. “But you argue with him.”

“Of course I do. He needs someone to argue with-he’s a Kelly.”

“Not now he doesn’t.”

“Irene. Are you going to stand there and tell me that in the weeks you’ve been home, you haven’t argued with him once?”

She had me there.

She smiled and said, “Thought so. You can trust me not to do him harm, Irene. You know that.”

“Yes, I do. Thanks, Mary. If it’s okay with Dad, I’d certainly appreciate it. It would be-a great relief.”

“Prissy Pants isn’t anywhere to be seen, I suppose.”

“I do fear that one day you’ll slip up and call Barbara that to her face.”

There was a certain glint in Mary’s eye that made me quickly add, “That was not a dare.”

Mary laughed and said, “Go on to work, I’ll mind things here.”

As on many another occasion, I prematurely felt pleased to finally be out of the woods. The woods are surrounded by quicksand.

Knowing that Mary would not abandon my father, I set to work on the next story assigned to me-an increase in the fees for dog licenses-with more enthusiasm than I had felt in some time. It wasn’t that the story itself was anything glorious. The difference was that I could concentrate on what I was doing without worrying too much about the care my father was receiving.

I got some good quotes from dog owners, went back to the newsroom, ignored everyone there, and went to work. I had a story. I knew how I was going to tell it. Nothing else mattered. It felt good.

The newsroom was all but empty by the time I finished. Most of the men had gone across the street for the traditional happy hour at the Press Club. I filed my story with H.G.

Now that the story was in, I realized that I had been putting off going to the bathroom. I’d never make it to the women’s room in time. I glanced around. No one was looking toward me. I ducked into the men’s room. Fortunately, no one was in there.

I went into a stall and closed the door. I wasn’t in there for more than the most important minute when I heard the bathroom door open and the voices of two men. Mortified, I pulled my feet up, not wanting to betray my presence.

I recognized the voices-O’Connor and Mark Baker. My first fears were allayed when neither of them tried the stall door. Then I realized what they were talking about.

“Why are you so down on her?” Mark Baker said.

“Because she’s not much of a reporter.”

“Man, that’s cold.”

“I’m going to ask Helen if she ever really taught her.”

“You think she lied in her interview?”

There was a pause, then O’Connor said, “No, I doubt that. But you’ll never convince me that Helen had much influence on anyone who turned in a half-assed story like the one Kelly turned in yesterday. And that wasn’t the first weak piece she’s filed. She doesn’t put any effort into anything. She just does the minimum. The worst part is, she’s giving every man who thinks we ought to have an all-male newsroom all the ammunition he needs for his arguments. She’s a sorry excuse for a reporter, and she’s going to make it more difficult for any other woman who wants the job.”

“I think you’re being too hard on her.” Mark laughed, a little uneasily. “C’mon, man, you have to at least admire her guts. She’s been taking shit from almost every dude in the newsroom.”

“And giving it back,” O’Connor said as they moved toward the door. “What a mouth she has on her. Who knows? Maybe Wrigley asked her to talk dirty to him…”

The door swung shut and I couldn’t hear any of his other complaints or innuendoes.

I waited until I stopped shaking, or at least didn’t shake quite so much. I went to the sink and washed my hands and face. At that point, I didn’t care if Wrigley himself walked in on me.

Just about anyone else on the news staff could have said the same things about me, and I would have shrugged it off. But O’Connor, the man whose work made me want to be a reporter, thought I was lazy, foul-mouthed, and had slept my way into a job.

I lived past the initial few seconds when I felt an urge to cry. That, I decided, would really undermine any chance I had at surviving in the newsroom.

Close on the heels of this devastation was rage.

I took a deep breath, turned around, and marched out of the men’s room.

In retrospect, I’m glad only two people saw me at that moment, and that of any two it could have been, it happened to be Mark Baker and O’Connor.

I considered letting O’Connor hear just how foul-mouthed I could be, and telling him I learned all those words from his mother. Instead, I walked up to them, looked only at Mark, and said, “Thank you.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw O’Connor’s suddenly bright red face. I heard him call my name as I strolled out of the newsroom. I kept walking.

The moment I was sure I was out of sight, I scurried like a rabbit through the warren of corridors to features. Lydia was still there, signing off on the last of her pages for Sunday’s paper, which would be printed on Friday.

“Come with me into the women’s room,” I said. “Hurry.”

She looked puzzled, but followed.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You’re kind of pale.”

“I need a favor,” I said.

“Okay, what?”

“Would you please get my purse from my desk? I just made a grand exit, and going back after it will ruin the effect.”

“You quit?” she asked in dismay.

“No. Not yet. Get the purse and I’ll buy you a drink… Not at the Press Club,” I added hastily. “How about the Stowaway?”

“All right.” She started to leave, then said, “Why did you drag me into the women’s room to ask me this?”

“I might go into the men’s room, but I don’t think O’Connor will go into the ladies’.”

“What?”

“Long story, which I’ll tell you over that drink.”

We made our escape. The Stowaway is a small place, a quiet little restaurant with an ocean view. I called Mary from the pay phone when we got there, and found she didn’t mind if I got back a little late.

I told Lydia my story over dinner and drinks. And declared my hero an asshole.

“And you know what the worst part of it is? He’s right.”

She tried to argue with me.

“Okay, so I’m not about to stop swearing for his sake, and I didn’t sleep with anyone to get the job. But he’s right about my work being half-assed.”

“Irene, with everything that’s going on…”

“No excuses, Lydia. None. You stuck your neck out to get me hired at the Express, and I’ve let you down.”

“Baloney.” For Lydia, that was red-hot cursing.

We sat in silence for a few minutes.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Prove him wrong,” I said.