you, John, I’m tired. Dog-tired, down-and-fucking-out tired.”
I glanced at my watch. Mo Katzen usually runs his course in fifteen minutes, and the repetition of his opening stanza is often the giveaway. “Mo, I was …”
“You know, that’s why they got me in here.”
Often, but not always, the end-game.
“They gave me my own office. Me, a reporter. No Pulitzer putzin’ Prize or anything. Just me. Back in the day, I don’t think the city editor had his own office. But I got one. And you know why?”
I cleared my throat. “Ah, no, Mo, I don’t.”
“It’s because of them.” He swung his hand in a majestic, all-inclusive arc. “It’s because of youth, John. The brass is afraid I’ll infect them. So they stay out there with their video terminals and I stay in here with my Remington,” which he paused to slap, firmly but affectionately. “Mo Katzen types his stories on this, but then they gotta go to somebody at one of those terminals to be entered. ‘Entered.’ That’s another word like ‘intern.’”
“Bad words, Mo. One and all.”
“Tell me about it. I haven’t had three stories in a year get printed without ‘constituency’ becoming ‘constitutional’ or ‘receive’ becoming ‘recieve’ or … oh, I dunno. I’m just so tired, John. So fuckin’ tired.”
He paused again to resuscitate the cigar. I leapt into the breach.
“Mo, I was wondering if you could help me.”
“Sure thing, John.” Two puffs, fresh smoke. “What’s up?”
“I’m trying to locate a guy who was a reporter for a suburban paper but now is supposed to be in Boston. His name is Thomas Doucette, and—”
Mo held up his hand to stop me. “Assistant editor, The Gay News, South End. I forget the street.”
“Thanks.” I rose. “I really appreciate it.”
“Hell, John, if that’s all you wanted,” Mo Katzen managed between puffs, “why didn’t you just say so?”
Fifteen
I HAD A FILLING MEAL at Dante’s, a restaurant on Beacon Hill with a spicy Italian menu and an incongruously Asian staff. It’s a candlelit place, spread over several rooms, with low ceilings and fireplaces. I was the only one eating alone. Romantic couples occasionally glanced sympathetically at me as I chomped my linguini and read the Evening Globe.
Next morning, I started out running four miles but cut it back to two because of the humidity. I cleaned up and grabbed a few doughnuts on my way to the rent-a-car, happily still parked where I had left it.
The Gay News was located on a South End street that was “in transition.” For some cities, that expression is an unfortunate euphemism for racial evolution. Boston, however, uses the expression to reflect a building-by-building renovation. The South End (not to be confused with heavily Irish South Boston, where I grew up) is predominantly narrow streets, some with imitation gas lamps. The architecture is three- and four-story, attached brick townhouses, many with beautiful, bowfront windows. The population is a mixture of upper-middle-class, young professionals, gays, blacks, Greeks, Cubans, and a dozen other racial or ethnic minorities. The major condominium developers in Boston moved from Back Bay and Beacon Hill to the Waterfront, somewhat leap-frogging its South End because of the street-level drug trade and derelicts, neither ever brought under control. Accordingly, you can have one block of burgeoning gentrification and an adjoining one of accelerating degradation.
The newspaper offices I was looking for were over a Greek restaurant in the middle of a nice block. Finding a parking space, I trudged sweatily up the stairs.
To find no air-conditioning. But by the bustle of activity in the large cavern, you’d never guess that the staff was troubled by the heat. About ten men and women were telephoning and typing (old I.B.M Standards, most not even electric), editing and jabbering cross-desk or cross-room.
A man about twenty-five came up to me. “Can I help
I glanced at my watch. Mo Katzen usually runs his course in fifteen minutes, and the repetition of his opening stanza is often the giveaway. “Mo, I was …”
“You know, that’s why they got me in here.”
Often, but not always, the end-game.
“They gave me my own office. Me, a reporter. No Pulitzer putzin’ Prize or anything. Just me. Back in the day, I don’t think the city editor had his own office. But I got one. And you know why?”
I cleared my throat. “Ah, no, Mo, I don’t.”
“It’s because of them.” He swung his hand in a majestic, all-inclusive arc. “It’s because of youth, John. The brass is afraid I’ll infect them. So they stay out there with their video terminals and I stay in here with my Remington,” which he paused to slap, firmly but affectionately. “Mo Katzen types his stories on this, but then they gotta go to somebody at one of those terminals to be entered. ‘Entered.’ That’s another word like ‘intern.’”
“Bad words, Mo. One and all.”
“Tell me about it. I haven’t had three stories in a year get printed without ‘constituency’ becoming ‘constitutional’ or ‘receive’ becoming ‘recieve’ or … oh, I dunno. I’m just so tired, John. So fuckin’ tired.”
He paused again to resuscitate the cigar. I leapt into the breach.
“Mo, I was wondering if you could help me.”
“Sure thing, John.” Two puffs, fresh smoke. “What’s up?”
“I’m trying to locate a guy who was a reporter for a suburban paper but now is supposed to be in Boston. His name is Thomas Doucette, and—”
Mo held up his hand to stop me. “Assistant editor, The Gay News, South End. I forget the street.”
“Thanks.” I rose. “I really appreciate it.”
“Hell, John, if that’s all you wanted,” Mo Katzen managed between puffs, “why didn’t you just say so?”
Fifteen
I HAD A FILLING MEAL at Dante’s, a restaurant on Beacon Hill with a spicy Italian menu and an incongruously Asian staff. It’s a candlelit place, spread over several rooms, with low ceilings and fireplaces. I was the only one eating alone. Romantic couples occasionally glanced sympathetically at me as I chomped my linguini and read the Evening Globe.
Next morning, I started out running four miles but cut it back to two because of the humidity. I cleaned up and grabbed a few doughnuts on my way to the rent-a-car, happily still parked where I had left it.
The Gay News was located on a South End street that was “in transition.” For some cities, that expression is an unfortunate euphemism for racial evolution. Boston, however, uses the expression to reflect a building-by-building renovation. The South End (not to be confused with heavily Irish South Boston, where I grew up) is predominantly narrow streets, some with imitation gas lamps. The architecture is three- and four-story, attached brick townhouses, many with beautiful, bowfront windows. The population is a mixture of upper-middle-class, young professionals, gays, blacks, Greeks, Cubans, and a dozen other racial or ethnic minorities. The major condominium developers in Boston moved from Back Bay and Beacon Hill to the Waterfront, somewhat leap-frogging its South End because of the street-level drug trade and derelicts, neither ever brought under control. Accordingly, you can have one block of burgeoning gentrification and an adjoining one of accelerating degradation.
The newspaper offices I was looking for were over a Greek restaurant in the middle of a nice block. Finding a parking space, I trudged sweatily up the stairs.
To find no air-conditioning. But by the bustle of activity in the large cavern, you’d never guess that the staff was troubled by the heat. About ten men and women were telephoning and typing (old I.B.M Standards, most not even electric), editing and jabbering cross-desk or cross-room.
A man about twenty-five came up to me. “Can I help
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