Used to Be: The Kid Rapscallion Story by Mark Bousquet Page A

as this other new reporter, Bernard Bish.” Carol shakes her head and laughs. It is a beautiful but cold January morning outside the cafe. Nancy has taken Jason up on his offer to put her in touch with another reporter who has sidled up to a costume. “He was a political reporter, but he kept missing out on these stories that should have been on his radar. Big stories. Political stories. Stories that went to other papers first. He was on the line, about to be fired … but then he started getting stories on a new hero in town.”
    “Senator’s Sun?”
    The waiter brings the coffee and smiles at Carol, who gives a professional smile in response and tells him, “No, thank you, this will be all.” And then, to Nancy, “Yes, Senator’s Sun. I was so jealous,” she laughs, “and Bernie knew it. He spent a few weeks teasing me about it, and then one day he tells me about a big story that he needs help with. ‘I’m going to distract this Congressman and I need you to break into his apartment and steal a file that he keeps in a safe,’ he said.” Carol sips at her black coffee. “Well, he gives me the safe combination and I wait until he calls my desk, then I head over to this Congressman’s apartment. Except it’s not the Congressman’s apartment. It’s Bernie’s. He’s standing there wearing Sun’s golden pants and black boots and that yellow and gold mask he used to wear. The one that was patterned on the American flag? But yellow and black? God, the first costume was so ugly.”
    “I don’t think I’ve seen it.”
    Carol continues on, as if Nancy isn’t even sitting across from her. “He tells me that he realizes he can’t be his own reporter. Maybe if he’d decided to be a photographer, he could pull it off, but he was a reporter and if he kept getting the Sun’s exclusive stories, people would eventually put it all together. He needed someone else to be his reporter.” Carol shrugs, smiles, sips coffee. “It was a successful partnership.”
    Nancy plays with her cup. “But … do you ever feel like he was using you?”
    “Of course he was using me,” she laughs, “just like I was using him.” For the first time since she sat down, Carol gives Nancy a good look, and realizes the young woman is conflicted. “Listen, this whole game — the reporting game, not the superhero game — is all about leverage, same as it is for reporters covering politicians. You’ve got to figure out what parts of what you know make it out to the world, balancing the public’s right to know with the public being better off not knowing. And if you blow all your information every time you file a story, you’ll never get ahead.”
    “Jas— Kid says—”
    “Oh, God, you’re fucking him,” Carol laughs, pushing back on the table to press against her seat. When Nancy’s face turns read, Carol does her part to erase the shame. She leans forward and asks, “Is he big? It looks like he's got a big cock.”
    Nancy is momentarily horrified because she is barely old enough to legally drink alcohol and Carol is almost ready to retire, but the friendly smile on the older woman’s face soon has Nancy smiling, too.
    “It’s not as big as I thought it was going to be,” she confesses.
    “They never are.”
    “He does know what to do with it, though.”
    “That’s what counts.”
    “I think … I dunno … he’s something of a sex addict.”
    “There are worse things to be addicted to.”
    “Did you and Senator’s Sun …?”
    “God, no. No, no, no,” Carol laughs. “That’s where I drew the line.” She sips more coffee and accepts the check from the waiter. “Always remember that you’re a reporter first,” she says, “and not a PR firm. Make sure you get as much as you give. Make him give you leads about stories he has nothing to do with. A bribery case. Corporate malfeasance. A chemical spill. You have to be careful about the public thinking you’re only good for getting Kid Rapscallion stories,