is saying, his hand on my arm. “But you were snoring.”
In my cubicle at the National Star the next morning, Tim Earheart stops by to deliver coffee. It will be my fourth of the day, and it’s only just turned ten. But I need all the help I can get. The many beers and only slightly fewer Wild Turkeys of the night before have left me fuzzy-headed and furrymouthed. I take a couple scalding gulps before I’m able to read Tim’s lips.
“Let’s go down for a smoke,” he’s saying for the second time, glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone’s listening.
“I don’t smoke.”
“I’ll give you one.”
“Quit. More or less. Thought you knew—” Tim raises the back of his hand and for a second I’m sure he’s going to slap me. Instead, he bends close to my ear.
“What I’ve got isn’t for general consumption,” he whispers, and walks away toward the doors to the main stairwell.
The basement of the National Star is the exclusive domain of two species of dinosaur: smokers and historians. It’s down here where the preelectronic database issues of the paper are stored,as well as some archival bric-à-brac including, I have heard, the shrunken head of the newspaper’s founder. Aside from a few postgrad researchers the only people who come down here are the last of the nicotine wretches. A dwindling number, even among reporters. The kids coming out of journalism school these days are more likely to carry a yoga mat and an Evian bottle than a flask and a pack of smokes.
It leaves the Smoking Room one of the last places in the building where you can hope to have a private conversation. Sure enough, when I close the door behind me and feel my stomach clench at the carcinogenic stink, it’s only Tim Earheart in here with me.
“They’re not running it. They’re not fucking running it,” he says, literally fuming, grey exhaust spilling out his nose.
“What aren’t they running?”
“The note.”
I know that Tim is enough of an obsessive that if he’s this excited, he’s talking about a story. And his story right now is Carol Ulrich and Ronald Pevencey.
“Left it by her body,” he goes on. “A part of her body. Her head, as a matter of grotesque fact. Typed out nice and neat for whoever found her.”
“You have possession of this note?”
“Sadly, no. One of the cops on the scene told me what it said. He shouldn’t have, but he did.”
“And you brought it to the suits.”
“Expecting it to go A1. Because if this isn’t front page, what is? But the police caught wind of it, and they begged us to muzzle it. Ongoing investigation, lives at risk, an eventual arrest could be jeopardized, blah blah blah. Just throw a blanket on it for a few days. So now they’re not running it.”
“Does it say who wrote it?”
“It’s not signed . But I think it’s pretty damn clear.”
Tim finishes his cigarette, grinds the butt under his heel and has another in his mouth in less time than it takes me to speak.
“What did it say?”
“That’s the reason I’m telling you. I was hoping you might have some literary insight.”
“You’re talking about a serial killer’s note, not Finnegans Wake .”
Tim takes a step closer. Smoke rising from his hair.
“It’s a poem, ” he says.
The Smoking Room door opens and a lifer from Sports comes in, gives us a distasteful glance and lights up. Tim makes a zipper motion across his lips. I’m about to step outside when he grabs my wrist. Presses something into my palm.
“Call me later about those Leafs tickets,” he says. Winks a secret wink.
A business card. Tim Earheart’s writing squeezed on to the back. I read it over a few times in mycubicle, then tear it into confetti and let it fall into my recycling box.
I am the ground beneath your feet
The man in dark alleys you don’t want to meet
I live in the Kingdom of Not What It Seems
Close your eyes, you will see me—here in your dreams.
Not much, as poems go. Just a pair of rhyming
In my cubicle at the National Star the next morning, Tim Earheart stops by to deliver coffee. It will be my fourth of the day, and it’s only just turned ten. But I need all the help I can get. The many beers and only slightly fewer Wild Turkeys of the night before have left me fuzzy-headed and furrymouthed. I take a couple scalding gulps before I’m able to read Tim’s lips.
“Let’s go down for a smoke,” he’s saying for the second time, glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone’s listening.
“I don’t smoke.”
“I’ll give you one.”
“Quit. More or less. Thought you knew—” Tim raises the back of his hand and for a second I’m sure he’s going to slap me. Instead, he bends close to my ear.
“What I’ve got isn’t for general consumption,” he whispers, and walks away toward the doors to the main stairwell.
The basement of the National Star is the exclusive domain of two species of dinosaur: smokers and historians. It’s down here where the preelectronic database issues of the paper are stored,as well as some archival bric-à-brac including, I have heard, the shrunken head of the newspaper’s founder. Aside from a few postgrad researchers the only people who come down here are the last of the nicotine wretches. A dwindling number, even among reporters. The kids coming out of journalism school these days are more likely to carry a yoga mat and an Evian bottle than a flask and a pack of smokes.
It leaves the Smoking Room one of the last places in the building where you can hope to have a private conversation. Sure enough, when I close the door behind me and feel my stomach clench at the carcinogenic stink, it’s only Tim Earheart in here with me.
“They’re not running it. They’re not fucking running it,” he says, literally fuming, grey exhaust spilling out his nose.
“What aren’t they running?”
“The note.”
I know that Tim is enough of an obsessive that if he’s this excited, he’s talking about a story. And his story right now is Carol Ulrich and Ronald Pevencey.
“Left it by her body,” he goes on. “A part of her body. Her head, as a matter of grotesque fact. Typed out nice and neat for whoever found her.”
“You have possession of this note?”
“Sadly, no. One of the cops on the scene told me what it said. He shouldn’t have, but he did.”
“And you brought it to the suits.”
“Expecting it to go A1. Because if this isn’t front page, what is? But the police caught wind of it, and they begged us to muzzle it. Ongoing investigation, lives at risk, an eventual arrest could be jeopardized, blah blah blah. Just throw a blanket on it for a few days. So now they’re not running it.”
“Does it say who wrote it?”
“It’s not signed . But I think it’s pretty damn clear.”
Tim finishes his cigarette, grinds the butt under his heel and has another in his mouth in less time than it takes me to speak.
“What did it say?”
“That’s the reason I’m telling you. I was hoping you might have some literary insight.”
“You’re talking about a serial killer’s note, not Finnegans Wake .”
Tim takes a step closer. Smoke rising from his hair.
“It’s a poem, ” he says.
The Smoking Room door opens and a lifer from Sports comes in, gives us a distasteful glance and lights up. Tim makes a zipper motion across his lips. I’m about to step outside when he grabs my wrist. Presses something into my palm.
“Call me later about those Leafs tickets,” he says. Winks a secret wink.
A business card. Tim Earheart’s writing squeezed on to the back. I read it over a few times in mycubicle, then tear it into confetti and let it fall into my recycling box.
I am the ground beneath your feet
The man in dark alleys you don’t want to meet
I live in the Kingdom of Not What It Seems
Close your eyes, you will see me—here in your dreams.
Not much, as poems go. Just a pair of rhyming
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