Opening the front door of The Sentinel building felt to Cole like he was pushing it through sand. He really didn’t want to go in. He could think of a thousand reasons to go in. ‘Have to’ reasons but no ‘want to’ reasons. He used to fly through the doors on the run, heart pounding, adrenaline pumping. He used to be the hot-shit reporter with the scoop of the day. Now, he was doing well if he met the deadline for the stories the night editor assigned him.
Mick Brennan tried to throw Cole a bone now and again, but Brennan was tired and burned out. When Cole first came to the paper, Brennan became his mentor. “Got a ways to go, kid,” he used to say. Brennan showed Cole that he hadn’t really learned anything in college, and un-taught him the bad habits he picked up there. Write, write, and rewrite. Brennan used up boxes of red copy proof pencils, and turned Cole into a first-class newspaperman. Cole would have done anything to show Mick he could do it his way: the best way. But he never got it quite good enough. Never a compliment, always a kick in the teeth. That was Brennan’s style.
Cole had introduced her to Mick Brennan after spinning tales of the great newspaperman, and how much he meant to him.
“Too good for you, Cole,” was all Brennan said as he walked away.
Cole could still see the hurt in her eyes as they walked back to the elevator. Something broke that day. A bond, an unspoken, gentleman’s understanding, between the new kid and the old lion, the hero and the eager-to-please sidekick. It was gone. Not long after that, Cole was gone too. That was the first time he quit The Sentinel.
Cole had been 22 and Mick 42. Somehow, it was now twenty-odd-years later.
“What’s the problem? You wanna move it?” a harsh voice jabbed from behind.
A brown shirt delivery man, heavy boxes to his chin, stood glaring at Cole. Attitudes seemed to be growing out of the sidewalk. When did service providers become the aggressors in the war on civility? It would have been easy to have shot back a smart rebuke to his societal underling, but why bother? The world Cole now lived in was beyond dueling with taunt-calved, community college dropouts, in tight brown shorts. He pushed the door open, then let it swing back to hit the boxes. As the slurs and curses flew at his back, Cole went through the door marked ID Badges Required beyond This Point.
“Afternoon, Cole.”
“Greetings, Queen Jean.”
Cole barely glanced at the black woman behind the front desk. How life changes things. Years before, as a new staff reporter, he had bribed a kid guarding the front door of a burned-out apartment building $20 to get as far as the third floor, in hopes of getting an interview with Tashira, the firebrand orator of the Black Women’s Urban Army. The Army hated men, hated whites, and really hated white men, but up he went, and banged on the door like the landlord after late rent. An hour later, he left with a notepad full of quotes, and a recipe for sweet potato pie. That was a different world. Ideals, high hopes, and a heartfelt belief in something, that drove people to actually try to change the world. After five kids, 50 added pounds, and three men who took what they wanted and left with the first bump in the road, Tashira once again become Olajean Baker. The radical daughter of the single hotel maid mother, who raised her to fight back, just celebrated her 10th year of sobriety, and being the front desk receptionist at The Sentinel. A job she had thanks to Cole Sage. When the revolutionary fire had gone out in her, Cole still remembered the heart that burned white-hot for what should have been.
“Brennan’s been asking for you. Something about a dead kid or somethin’. I really didn’t get much out of it.”
Cole gave her that silent smile that was now all-too-familiar, and slipped through the swinging door at the counter.
Olajean seemed content. Why am I so miserable? Cole thought. Maybe it was turning 45. He always believed he would die in some adventurous blaze of glory. He got shot at in the Philippines, saw a car bomb go off in front of his hotel in Tel Aviv, and received enough death threats to wallpaper The Sentinel building. But here he was. When had he given up? Twenty-five years in the news business and he was at the bottom. No, lower than the bottom. He started at the bottom, and he was even lower now.
No one looked up as he made his way through the maze of cubicles. Mini flowerpots, kitty posters, and pictures of little leaguers, soccer stars, Brad Pitt, and big-eyed cartoon children blurred past him as he made his way to his corner of the world. Coffee cups, stacks of paper, and an old “Coming Soon to the Bijou” flyer decorated his carpeted “office.”
Cole made a half-hearted attempt at straightening his tie. He exhaled deeply as he stared at the numbers on the phone. Punching in 784, he waited.
“Brennan.”
“What’s up?”
“What, I don’t warrant an in-person audience?”
“Thought it...” Cole paused, not having an answer. “I thought I’d save time. Something about a dead kid?”
“Dead kitten. Seems a dozen people tried to get this cat out of a tree until some guy used a swimming pool net on a long aluminum pole. Looks like it touched a power line about the time it snagged the cat. Fried the kitty and shocked the shit out of the guy holding the pole. Anyway, follow it up, would ya? Natoma and 125th.”
“That’s it?”
“Yep, need filler. Nothing really happening today.” Brennan hung up.
A dead cat. Cole just stared, phone to his ear, dial tone humming. The movement of a copy clerk caught his eye. He knew he had to cover the story. That was the ache. Why didn’t he quit? The resounding echo was always, To do what?
Cole left his coat draped on the back of his swivel chair, and stood looking over the tops of the cubical walls; a sea of gray carpeted boxes, filled with people doing God-knows-what. At the far-end of the room stood three people deep in conversation. Next to them was the water cooler. Cole was not below eavesdropping. He made his way back to the trio.
“It’s stealing from the city plain and simple,” groaned an Asian man in a Georgetown sweatshirt.
“Prove it, Lionel. How are you going to prove it? Facts, remember?” challenged a tall acne-scarred man Cole knew as Katz. Cole didn’t like him. Katz always sounded like he read too many Superman comics, and never realized that Jimmy Olson wasn’t the hero.
Erica Sloan, whose bad haircut and wardrobe matched her writing style, chimed in. “Contractors can apply for low-cost city loans as long as they are either renovating existing buildings in low-income areas or building new low-income housing. It has been this way for years. What’s the big deal?” Cole helped train her when she first came on the paper. She was smart and knew it, still finding news, just like he taught her.
Cole filled a cup with cold filtered water. No news here, he thought as he turned to go back to his desk.
“Hi Mr. Sage, workin’ on anything big?” Katz beamed when he caught sight of Cole.
“He really is Jimmy Olson,” Cole muttered.
“Carl.”
“What?”
“My name is Carl, not Jimmy.”
“Of course it is, sorry,” returned Cole.
Carl Katz, now why isn’t he working on this story? Just think of the headline possibilities combined with his byline. Cole actually chuckled to himself.
Clouds rolled in from the east. No chance of rain, but enough to cast a gray shadow on the day. Cole enjoyed the cool breeze on his face. His tie flapped in the wind as he walked to the car. Long ago he gave up tightening his ties. His uniform was pretty much the same year after year: Levis, an oxford cloth, button-down collar shirt, and a Harris Tweed sports coat, with oval leather patches on the elbows. He owned three tweed sports coats. Gray for important meetings, interviews, or the rare occasion he was trying to impress someone. Dark brown for those, more and more frequent, dark days, when he didn’t feel like leaving his apartment. And camel-colored, his personal favorite, for the times he really needed to feel like his old self. Today he wore the dark brown.