The Regular, page 20
And the heart of Dixie passes with hardly a notice.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the vanguard of the blue front has arrived, the gray front deploying to the south on its right-flank. The mixing of the two promises bloody meteorological conflict. But for now, it is a cold Winter rain falling. The clouds are in no hurry. A leaden ceiling rolls low over earth. It smothers the tops of buildings in the not-so-distant downtown. The spires of progress! slice open its grey underbelly. Guts pour out as rain. It could be viewed in a negative light: instigator of bad moods—despair, even. Yet the rain can hardly be taken to task. It is just doing its thing, proceeding without a care…. And Goodspeed walks down the avenue, as if unaware.
The rain is steady now; insistent, bitter, and raw, breath visible. But far from worsening, his mood is lightening with every step. He might as well be whistling a tune. Dixie? (No, dear reader, we could not resist.) Winter rain has been unable to penetrate his new coat. It is his first new anything in years. (The aforementioned desklamp and its short run can hardly count.) It is a waterproof trenchcoat, with a warm inner-liner. The well-oiled leather hat he's had forever. A water vein rolls off its brim and extinguishes the cigarette notched in lip-corner. He grumbles, spits out the butt, walks on through cold spit. He passes the old Carriage House at the outlet of Elizabeth, the equestrian depot's value to the neighborhood having been done in by Edison and Ford. As if to prove the point, this is the very road up which the Eastside Trolley's tracks strode from their downtown power-station before merging onto Memorial and continuing up to The Points—the new taunting and flaunting its arrival right under the nose of the old….
"Smell that, old-timer? It's the future, here and now! What are you gonna do about it?!"
The old closed-lip chuckles to itself in the face of the taunt, thinking: "The new, that poor dumb kid; has no earthly idea of the beat down the past will dole out when crossed."
The trolley tracks were asphalted over in the '50s. But chunks of pavement still crack loose on occasion to reveal a sliver of rail. The past, it is still there.
The Ashlands and Alta pass. Goodspeed treks on through the swampy field parks. It is walking that clears his head. It resets his mood, so often soured by the daily trials. He lights another smoke, rubs a black-and-blue welt at the corner of his eye. His lip is cracked, his knuckles scraped and scabbing over; wrist tight with a sprain….
The preceding day had proceeded routinely: slow to wake up, bourbon for breakfast, a long long walk. But when Goodspeed returned to his hovel, there was George waiting in ambush in the alley. Looking to make good on his threats, George was out for blood. He had rushed our man, who was unawares, and knocked him down. George came on flailing, landing blows. But the wild and unfocused attacker mapped out his weaknesses like phrenology: swinging against his core, countering and raising his centre of gravity, exposing ribcage with wild swings, etc. And Goodspeed, though stunned, snapped to and read the faults like a bestseller. He held off a flurry of swings, one splitting his lip. A lucky shot. Goodspeed viewed the rules of street-fighting in open violation: stagger elbows to mimic your stance, forearms perpendicular to your center, defend until the attacking's good. The fucking moron, defying them all, left his ribcage wide open. Bullseye! Goodspeed kicked with both boot-heels, with everything he had, knocking the wind clean out of the antagonist. Stunned, George stumbled backward, coughing breathlessly. Goodspeed brought all he had, blows windmilling like a Gatling gun. George blackened Goodspeed's eye with a wild self-defense swing; but this was a footnote to the beating doled out. It was a one-sided thrashing. The day belonged to Goodspeed. Honor bound in defense of "the way," he had brought the house….
Post-pummeling, Goodspeed had deposited the semi-conscious violator at the curb along with that day's trash. Howard, just then opening-up, happened across the aftermath, chuckling:
"Coulda seen that comin,' some kinda damned fool, that boy."
"Fuck 'im," Goodspeed wiping his bloody lip.
So it had gone down…. The field parks give way to Euclid past Austin, the sponge-like give of soaked moss and unkempt bermuda giving way to city sidewalk. Fooled by the absent sun, streetlamps light up. Goodspeed marches on, the precipitation soldiering on. They do what they must: the few, the proud. The Regular surveys the lay of his land: commitment, out here, a testament of one's faith. Invest yourself completely or move along without a word.
TORRENTS OF SIN-SOAKED WAVES wash down draws cobblestoned and lathed of enclaves filled of those full up on the spirit, a swirling whirling turbine of the dazed: Jockomo Feena Nay!….And we sight our crew through open wall-high casements: Cyrus and Kelly, Grey and fellow Crescent compatriots, Erin and Hari, cheering on the evening. It explodes in restless color. One last hurrah! A hot-blooded Gulf storm dumps rain. It pours off eaves, makes Venetian canals of las calles. The rain does not hinder. It is nature's absinthe doing what it does—what it must—the peal of lust a high thunder rolling.
Our good revelers cheer on a fellow reveler running / stumbling towards the overhang's shelter. He makes it, soaked for his effort. He gives the thumbs up. They toast him, their table strewn of Dixie lagers ringing a red-hot tin of crawfish. The boiled shells steam, a head-sucking promise goading the faithful out of their shell….Come forth, ye! Come out for—nay—take your part in the show!….A group of rhythm kings take to a delta-shaped stage angled into a corner. They wrangle the accordion, washboard percussion, upright bass; pour down Creole with a dash of Delta. Gas lanterns flicker at the sidewalk's edge, the dripping metal mesh of second-story balconies sure in their relaxed vanity, the downpour steady. It is all big, boisterous, easy. The year surges with a gusto (that one that could rightfully peg as verve) towards its final night.
Grey Stinson. Weekly alum and "In Case Anyone Cares" co-researcher—if not co-writer (which we'll address en un momento)—has recently left The Beacon to seek his calling amongst the coffee houses and tarot shacks of old NOLA. Actually, he'd just received a better offer than Prez was willing to counter. No one—not even Gibbs—had held his leaving against him, one being able to do MUCH worse than working as a staff-writer at a respected New Orleans arts-rag in the year-of-our-Lord, 1997. That said, at least one felt there had been unfinished business left in wake of a precipitous exit. (But with luck, the evening's planned charter will retain a civil course when the subject is broached. Fingers crossed.)
For the moment, the three former cohorts merrily dredge up ye olde days to the curiosity of the compatriots:
"Lane? No, no, he thought he was an in-house marauder," Kelly sizing up the fornication resume of The Weekly's recently mentioned ex-managing editor, calling it true: "but laying an intern and the intern's best friend, does not a lady-killer make."
"The magic was in that mustache. That was the irresistible element, got all you ladies a'tremblin," Grey with color-commentary.
"Hardly, voyeur."
"Voyeur? Hardly."
"The handlebar phase? That was bold. I will give him points for that," Cyrus' comment eliciting exactly two rumpled-lip head shakes indicating aye.
"Okay, but anyone else think '70s porn kind of ruined the mustache for, well, all time?" Kelly, elbows propped on table, palms ceiling-ward.
"Hmm, well, not a subject-matter expert. And you are since when?" Cyrus intrigued (in fact, just the slight bit engorged….)
"Ya, well, file it under: research I'd like to forget. Lane's idea—the pervert—wanted authentic fonts from title– and credit-reels to go with that piece on Midtown in the '70s."
"A New Southerner's Guide to Smut City," Grey's tone echoing the critical praise (and moral indignation) that met The Weekly's expose having led the end-of-year extravaganza, c. 1995.
"Of course, you had to sit through what came in between title and credits?"
"Literally."
"Ya, well, Lane literally couriered over a stack of VHS tapes to my apartment with a handwritten note, all matter-of-fact. Asshole."
"Still amazed that no one brought a suit during his time," Grey, an incredulous head shake.
"So, okay, I didn't 'have' to watch the tapes; but admit to some curiosity there."
"And?"
"And, after sitting through a dozen well-mustachioed Lowenbrau Men serving up money shots? Let's just say the details are kind of burned-in; for good, I fear."
"Great. I was unable to not see that in my mind. By what you're saying, there is no way I un-see that, right?" Erin's pinched look indicating a demonstrable mind's eye disturbance.
"Nope. In there for good, I fear."
"But now, it was '60s long hair evolving into the mustache once all the baby-boomers had to enter the work force; so, maybe a tip to past radicalism promoted a profusion of 'stache," Erin displaying a muscular command of 'stache theory.
"My god, y'all. The '70s. It was 'stache a Go-Go."
"Was it only hetero-porn?" Grey, sounding surprised.
"Lane?" Kelly, sounding surprised.
"Well, ya. Dude made a drunken pass at me my first year: Christmas party, what, three years ago? Before your time."
"Really? Would not have pegged him for a switch-hitter."
"Mm-hmm, grabs my package during the proposition. I was like man, you are not my type—and—being my kind-of-boss makes not a fuck all o' difference."
"Reeaaally?" Kelly punctuating with a quick violent laugh. "And nothing came of that?"
"Nope, fell into the 'we'll not speak of this again' moment; never did."
"Ya, well not actually too surprised. First thing Anna tells me when I started freelancing: sure as shit, he'll hit on you, but just roll your eyes, walk away, will shut it all down; should be fucking harassment, but that it's so pathetic. Sure enough, very first time we are all out, I am like no way, dude, and roll my eyes. He was wearing that freaking smoking jacket! Never tried it again, never came up. Great editor, but grade-A sleeze and cheese."
"Damn, now I'm feeling left out," Cyrus, a lover of the ladies, not really wanting his junk cupped by a dude; but still….
"Ain't a favorable portrait y'all painting," Hari, born outside of Delhi but raised in the American South (he even fixes to do things), giving voice to what the compatriots to this conversation are thinking.
"It was the package deal with Lane."
"Occasionally a grab-your-package deal?" Hari, catching on.
"Yes, occasionally. But for all his many often public faults, he understood storytelling, was serious about it as a vital cultural glue. It was innate," Grey echoing the others.
"It was a strange genius with Lane. He'd say: Now, Cy, to tell it true, you need to unearth the fact and the myth, as the truth of an era will eventually congeal somewhere in-between the two," Cyrus the student, an uncarved block—a sponge.
"And, let us not forget, he would say all this deep touchstone shit while gripping an unlit pipe in his clenched-teeth?!" Kelly accentuating the strange.
"And all while wearing that damned smoking jacket," Grey with more echoing.
"And reeking of cologne!" Kelly with the volley, adding: "Lane's fact-myth theory, also true of particular characters set within our own time, eh?" winking at her beau, having straightened up and flying right, knowing his headspace.
"It was a kind of genius, that is right. He was able to digest the present for its long-term nutrients. That notion of journalism as the first draft of history? He was uncanny, could separate the wheat from the chaff in the present."
"All the while acting out the role of a walking talking '70s stereotype."
"Even his real seemed fake; and maybe it was. For all his unapologetic willingness to be a public embarrassment, he was close to the vest. Maybe just part of the act: create your own myth?"
"Sounds like the tag line for a 'build your own' burrito place."
"Ha!"
"Ya, despite all of Lane's fake and highly annoying suave—I mean, he drank brandy and modeled his moves on soap operas, all."
"Right, would stop what he was doing every afternoon to watch the Young and the Restless, claimed it as the modern lineage of Shakespeare."
"Case-in-point: grade-A cheese."
"No question, but he also had a finger on the pulse: could plant his audience in front of the prism through which he wanted to be viewed, would gain their trust."
"In the tradition of fables?" Hari digging for clarity amidst the praise-fest.
"Right, right, left you wondering where the real left off and the myth began. But you never held it against him because of the larger truth in the telling."
"And, again, the hitting-on-everything-with-a-heartbeat thing aside, he could be mentor-like. It was not a power trip. If you said no, that was it—as if he just needed that setting of boundaries; my experience, at least. The work was the thing. He was hard, but fair."
"Aside from requesting that you research hours of exploitative porn?" Erin reality-checking, persisting on behalf of the skeptical two.
"Right, mostly fair," Kelly applying an asterisk. "But even that, you had to know Lane. It never seemed misogynistic, so much as a dumb bad joke. Poor taste? Perverted? Hell yes, but it was just him enjoying a laugh off-stage."
"At your expense," Hari, adding a brushstroke.
"Always!" Kelly emphatic, Grey and Cyrus confirming in-unison: a head-shaking chorus of mmm-hmms….
"But hoo, lawd! Could he spin the outrageous yarn. He'd command an audience, in-person and in-print," Grey exploding with restless color.
"Each and every one of his stories was leavened with, let's call them favorable, edits."
"Which, like his eye-rolling attempts to seduce, you forgave."
"Right, like waking up in a Miami dumpster with those German sailors? The details never interfered. You never stopped to ask a question like: Does Germany even have a navy?"
"That storyteller's gift: weaving in exaggeration without tripping up the punch-line. Still wondering how I missed his bi-tendencies; did seem to have an inordinate amount of sailor stories.”
"Or, how about his delivering the high school valedictory address?"
"A questionable reach right there," Kelly, again, palms ceiling-ward.
"Right, no doubt; but while peaking on, his words: a heaping handful of LSD tabs?" Cyrus, the amused skeptic.
"And the pièce de résistance: smoking crack at that Saudi prince's penthouse party, you know, because everyone else was; he didn't want to seem rude!" all three mimic the lines they had heard umpteen times from Lane himself, in-unison: "I ask of you this: what was I to do? When in Rome, right?"
A rolling peal of nostalgic laughter aligns with the distant thunder rolling, the rain continuing to drain down easy.
"Set as it was against all the corrupt assholes we were, still are, covering?! Those liars ooze sleazy manipulation for self-gain. Lane's embellishment was harmless fun."
"Ya, he gained nothing aside from an attentive audience."
"Which, of course, was a form of currency to Lane."
"For sure. He needed to be loved more than respected."
"A willing deception for the sake of others' enjoyment does seems an acceptable trait for cocktail parties. But, am I pointing out an obvious here? Seems a liability for the editor of a newspaper?" Erin the uninvested observer, positing fairly.
"For sure, and that is totally fair. But he employed it as an editorial strength, recognized the hues that trail off between fact and fiction, that they're often interchangeable in the present tense, all those little lies and half-truths we use to ease our minds, make what we're doing set up as legit, or at the very least: necessary to survive. Our perception of the world follows how we want to see ourselves in it. By default, that is part real and part what we want to think is real," Cyrus, the sponge exuding.
"Man, listen to Wittgenstein here. But true dat, Lane would tell me to let it all work itself out, the fact and the fiction; a more complete picture will inevitably reveal itself," Grey again with the giving of due.
"Hmm, also seem to recall him saying one should follow through on a piece to the bitter end." (Oh dear, it is what we had feared….)
"Okay, let's not start," Grey leaning back, folding arms.
"You walked away, is all."
"What could you be worried about? The piece is gonna win an award."
"Trust me, it isn't the praise that's the problem. It's the white-hot heat from the indicted, thank you; which I'm now taking on alone."
"Both Lacy and Gibbs gave you the chance to back out before it went to print."
"And they both have my back. Where are you?"
"Look, you know what, fuck that! We've been over this: it was always your thing, you were driving, you were the investigative journalist. I just got you in the door."
"I call bullshit. The ride-alongs? The scrutiny of stats? Both critical ideas. Your ideas led to the break; would say that has you invested in the aftermath too."
"I got involved 'cause of what my brother and the others in the precinct were hintin' at; to both of us, by the way. Do you not recall that? They were clanging alarm bells, alerting us, lowly little alt-rag reporters, we, that this thing was bigger than we could imagine, went down a deeper hole and all the way up the chain. We were profiling gang violence. Trey was like: man, you two need to step back and take it all in; goes beyond just the gangs. And that was all he could say. They went to us, too afraid for their jobs to go to the corporate news-hacks. I was just elbowing you, man! I wanted you to corroborate what he was sayin' and then run with it so I could back away from it all. I wasn't gonna get Trey fired over that!"
