Spike = Iron Shoulder

Just for Medialine fans:

Spike = Iron Shoulder

So suck on that.

Blog Abandoned?

Many people have noticed and commented on the fact that I haven't been writing lately. There have been a combination of factors at play. For one thing, not a whole lot has been going on. Sarah has backed off somewhat, but she still has a tendency toward bitchiness. The live truck now has a transmission leak that hits the exhaust pipe and causes it to smoke. Wendy is still... Wendy. There just haven't been many major developments or stories to tell.

So I've been spending my time reading science fiction novels. I discovered the wonderful creative work of Dan Simmons and read the entire Hyperion series (which in part inspired the previous "Fiction Bastards" post). Then I moved to Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Next I think I'll start on some of Phillip Dick's work, since the Scanner Darkly movie is coming out soon. As I've mentioned before, I get most of my reading done for free at Borders, simply sitting in the cafe and reading their books, then reshelving them and hoping that nobody buys the last copy before I come back the next day for another few chapters.

It's a simple existence. I awaken. I read. I go to work. I sleep.

I was trying to fit blogging into that routine as well, but I have been somewhat puzzled by the responses to my writing. First and foremost, I appreciate the advice and encouragement I have received. But for the past couple of months an ugliness has been building that has finally overshadowed the positive feedback and taken away any pleasure I have received from writing.

Some people continue to criticize me for airing my station's dirty laundry. I've had some accuse me of hating women. I've been called a loser for continuing to work here. I've even had people accuse me of making the whole thing up. That last one I understand the least; if people hate me because they think I'm some kind of liar, why do they continue to read it, then send me hateful emails? What does that accomplish?

People have asked me, so I'll answer. Is everything here accurate? Not entirely. I have changed certain details to protect my identity and the identities of my colleagues. Why would I do such a thing? I think it's a perfectly reasonable attempt to protect my privacy, but perhaps I should let this email from one of my readers speak for itself:

Dear 'Max,'

I know that's not your real name. It doesn't matter, because you will be found out soon enough.

You have no business airing your station's dirty laundry. You have no business working in this business. I'm sure you think it's funny. Well now the joke is on you. I figured out where you work. I know who 'Sarah' is. It won't be hard for your nd to figure out who Wendy is. They won't appreciate hearing what you wrote about them.

I figured you would like to know that I just emailed your nd with a link to your blog. Here's what I said.

'Dear [name omitted],

I thought you might like to know that a photog you recently hired is airing your station's dirty laundry on the internet. He has a blog he has used to smear you personally as well as your reporters and producers. He is behaving unprofessionaly and doesn't deserve to represent your institution.

His blog is www.ironshoulder.blogspot.com. I think you may find it interesting reading.

Signed,

A Concerned Citizen'

So how do you like that, 'Max'? Better start making tapes, because your days there are numbered.

Whoa. Someone actually went to the trouble of emailing a news director to get a blogger in trouble. However, it wasn't MY news director he emailed, and I never heard anything more about it. He got the wrong station. Somewhere some ND probably ended up reading my blog and trying to figure out how any of it applied to his station. Hell, maybe he's now one of my loyal readers.

So how much of this is real? Most of it is. Yes, the casket story really happened. Yes, the sheriff really ran into me. Yes, there really was a kid who brought guns to school. The parts that aren't 100% accurate are simply shaded to conceal my identity. I wouldn't try to pass any of this off as newspaper articles, but "Sarah" and "Wendy" are real people. As are "Jake" and "Al." As am I.

I've been asked why people can't find these stories by searching the Internet. Maybe their search skills suck. I do know our website sucks, simply because it's run by one guy who is also our entire "creative services department" and is usually busy making commercials for local mattress dealers. I doubt it has been updated in months. It actually still has a reporter listed on it that no longer works here.

Our local newsrag didn't even cover some of this stuff. Still, I did find some of this material in my own search attempt on Yahoo. If other people can't find it, it's either because I've ommitted or shaded certain details that would help them zero in on it, or maybe they're just too stupid to do a thorough search.

I tried to put a stop to the bullshit by turning on comment moderation here on the blog. Assholes still continued to send me comments. Then they started emailing me. When I ignored them, they posted whiny messages on message boards trying to discredit me. When I refused to respond, they accused me of "running away."

Yet, how the hell can I respond? The only way I can "prove" this is real is to reveal my identity. Great solution. Then the asshole who wrote the message quoted above WILL know who my ND is and will get me fired. It's a catch 22.

This is the only response I intend to make on this issue. If you don't like my blog, don't read it. Go read a book, or watch American Idol, or do whatever the hell it is you people do. I really don't care. I don't make any money off this. I only do it for writing practice and for my own pleasure. Take away the pleasure, and there's no reason to continue.

Have some fiction, you bastards.

Three o'clock in the morning, and my implant screams to life in my head.

"Incoming call! Incoming call! Incoming call!"

"Sleep mode!" I scream out loud to silence the buzzy voice. I really don't have to speak the commands any longer, now that the bugs have been worked out of the latest neural interface firmware. I could just think the command, but old habits die hard.

"Priority override!" screams my implant. "Incoming call! Incoming call!" I have the station's voice terminal set in my override filter, so that even in private sleep mode calls from the station can get through.

I stumble out of bed to my own terminal. "Voice only," I say. I'm still in my underwear, and I really don't want Wendy to see me sitting here half naked. "Accept."

My terminal screen flashes to life. Yep, it's Wendy, the person I least want to see at three in the morning.

"Max, signal 37. Hey, I don't see you. Are you there?"

"Yes, I'm here," I say. "Signal 37. Where is it?"

"I'm forwarding the address to your implant now. The radio traffic on this one's a mess, so this may be pretty good."

"I'll be out the door in five," I say. "End!" The image on screen collapses to standby mode.

"What's going on?" the young redhead in my bed asks. She's not a real redhead. The last natural redhead was born over seventy years ago. This one has had TGR (targeted genetic retrovirus) treatments to simulate the, um, natural redhead look, but she still can't pass the genes on to her kids.

"Where is this?" she asks, watching me pull on my pants. At the moment I'm drawing a blank on her name. Rachel, maybe? My head is throbbing. I had a lot to drink last night. So did she, which would probably explain why she's in my bed. Lately the rage among these college girls is to get drunk and fuck old men. When I was 22, girls wouldn't even look at a guy my age. Now I can't keep 'em out. As if I would want to.

"Oh, yeah," she says. "You're Mark."

"Max," I say, no longer embarrassed to have forgotten her name. I grab a hangover pill and swallow it as I reach for my shoes. By the time the laces are tied, the headache is already subsiding. Wonderful thing, those pills. I wouldn't be legal to fly right now if not for them.

Five minutes later my vest is booted and the fans are spinning up on my hovercar. I don't really need to wear the vest any more, now that I have storage implants, but old habits really do die hard after more than 80 years in this business. My second wife tried to convince me to have my access shunt removed, but I kept it. Now I plug my vest into my neck and verify that all banks are empty.

"Destination?" the car asks. I silently transfer the address from my implant to the car's navigation system. "Notice to Airmen," the car says. "Temporary Restriction in place over destination." The heads up display on the forward windscreen flickers to show the TR area superimposed over the city map.

"Transmit clearance request," I respond. "News4 Unit 7, holojournalist exemption."

"Clearance granted," the car says. "VFR flight plan filed with Arrington Approach." With that exchange, I'm able to fly anywhere the police hovers can go. It's times like these that I appreciate living in the country of California, where Freedom of the Press is still enshrined in our Third Amendment and ensured by fifty years of case law. I really don't know how newsies in the Republic of Texas or the Manhattan Protectorates can get their jobs done with such restrictions on access. Despite the pressure in those territories to simply report the government releases, they still keep trying. God bless them.

I pull up on the collective and shoot a hundred feet into the air, bank hard left and point the car toward the north end of town. Even at this low altitude I can already see the flashing red and blue emergency lights at the scene. The nose of my hovercar dips as I transition from hover to forward flight and quickly accelerate toward the column of black smoke upon which all the lights seem to be converging.

The ride is short, but it's long enough for my mind to wander. I'll be 103 years old in two weeks. As a youngster, I never thought I would live this long, much less still be working. Hell, I thought I was going to die when I had that hovercycle accident thirty years ago. A ninety foot fall that once would have ensured a certain death left me with ceramic bones and artificial muscles in my legs that are stronger and faster than anything nature could provide. Now I could leap 90 feet if the governors allowed it, but I'd probably give myself a heart attack in the process. I'm proud to say that, unlike so many of my colleagues, I still have most of my own internal organs, and my heart is still pumping as strong as when I started in this crazy business.

This business. I've seen so much change. When I first started "shooting," as they used to call it, we were just making the transition to high definition flat display technology, or HDTV, as it was known then. Dozens of acquisition formats (including tape!) appeared and went obsolete before their sales even paid for their research and development costs. Then came affordable holographic projection, and everything flat was obsolete.

Those first holocams were monsters. We had grown accustomed to HD minicams that would fit in a palm. Suddenly the cameras were back on our shoulders. BOTH shoulders, with lenses on both sides for the stereoscopic view required for holographic display. The first time I wore one, I thought somebody had put a goddamned jet pack on me.

To think we've come to the point where I can get better 3D modeling out of a unit that I can wear like a pair of old spectacles. Some of these younger kids are now actually getting ocular implants, so that they don't have to wear any external gear at all. I personally think these smaller in-the-eye cameras don't produce as good a holo, but the viewers at home don't seem to be able to tell the difference.

The biggest problem with these ocular cams isn't the holo, but the operators. The human eye naturally flits around several times per second, even when the head is perfectly still, to bring various aspects of the scene to the attention of the brain. These things were sold with the idea that the audience would be able to "see what the operator sees," literally, so that the experience would be like being there in person. The problem is that what the viewer wants to see isn't necessarily what the operator wants to see, so simply having the viewer go along for the ride is extremely disorienting. When it's projected in 3D holo, it's even more disorienting, when what might seem like a natural shift of vision when viewed from straight on suddenly becomes a sidewise rush when viewed from any other angle in the room. In other words, it's a mess.

To compensate, operators are now trained for "ten count stares," but few of them can really do it. The ten count stare involves focusing on a single point for ten seconds at a time. The operator counts to ten, then shifts his gaze to something else. Five minutes of unedited holo usually has less than a minute of usable fixed gaze, as instincts take over in between "shots" and eyes flit around as normal.

Most of us old pros still prefer the eyeglass configuration. It's simply much easier to hold your head still for ten seconds at a time than your eyes. Plus, with the larger lenses available on external units, you have much better optical zoom ratios. Read: higher quality.

My own holocam is clipped to my vest as I approach the scene. I look down through my side hatch at the devastation of another terror attack, probably by the Mexicans or Texans. It doesn't really matter which. Ever since Civil War II California (which now includes the old States of Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, and parts of Utah, Idaho and British Columbia) has been a target from Mexican nationalists from both territories. We've suffered sixty years of these attacks, dating from when Governor (and later President) Lindsay Lohan ordered all the Mexicans out during the war.

They've blown an apartment building. From the looks of it, they used conventional explosives, but the entire block is levelled. My hovercar's environmental sensors indicate no radiation. Yep, it was a good old fashioned bomb. I grab a few aerial holos from the hover, careful to avoid the shifting fire containment fields being generated by emergency management. I access my implant for the location of the command post and land a block outside the perimeter the cops have set up.

Suddenly my implant speaks up. "Incoming call!" It's Wendy.

"Status?"

"I just got here," I say.

"Do you have any word on how many victims?"

"No," I say. "I just landed. I'm headed to the command post now."

"We want to take your head live as soon as you can give us a holo of the scene."

"I've already sent you some aerials," I say.

"Yeah, they're here on my screen now," she says, "but I want live head."

You and everybody else, I think. "I'll leave my radio open," I say.

This is one of the problems of working as a one man head. In the old days we would go out in pairs. One of us would handle information gathering and link it to the other through our implants. The other would concentrate on image acquisition. Trying to do both at the same time, while fielding calls from some producer who probably never used her implant for anything more stressful than chatting on the telesphere, can be really exhausting.

I find the command post and jack in with the other half dozen journos and holojays who have arrived. I get the initial nugget of information PIO Ramirez has released, but I'm just in time for the man himself. I don my holocam and begin sending data to the storage packets in my vest.

You might wonder about the name. Yes, Ramirez is Mexican by heritage, but his family dates back to nineteenth century California, one of the so-called "Old Families" that were allowed to stay during the purge. That's not to say that he hasn't met his share of discrimination and racism. His wife was actually murdered by Skinheads, and he was beaten and left for dead in the attack. Cops tend to stick together, however, and some of his old Academy buddies hunted them down and killed them. All of them. Now there are no Skinheads left in California; or if there are, they're not letting themselves be seen.

"Well, let's get started," says the PIO. Ramirez likes to take control early, getting his first word out before most of us have our feet under us on the ground. I hear Wendy chirp in my implant that she's taking my head, so I stand very still and focus intently on Ramirez.

"At approximately 2:53 this morning a blast levelled the entire block along 118th Street in the Franklin Heights area. None of the structures in the block survived. We believe an explosive device was planted in the basement of the apartment building that stood at 1104 118th. We have found some survivors, but our initial estimates are 1231 dead, 85 injured. Those are preliminary figures which will be revised throughout the morning.

"We have already received a claim of responsibility from the Texas Liberty Riders. We are tracking several suspects at this time, and we hope to have something more for you later this morning. That's all for right now; I'll have more for you in a couple of hours."

Ramirez quickly disappears into the mobile command post before the assembled journos can hurl too many questions at him. I hear Wendy give me the all clear in my implant.

Suddenly the ground opens up under the command post and flames shoot thirty feet in the air. I'm thrown to the ground by the force of the blast, but I've been doing this long enough that my instincts take over. I keep my head level and storage packets recording. I can hear Wendy screaming in my implant over the ringing in my ears. "What the fuck was that? What's going on? We're taking your head live again now!"

I get to my feet just in time to see...

Eh, maybe I'll finish this. Maybe not.

Six Months

I hadn't been in the building five minutes this afternoon before Rick, my chief photographer, came looking for me.

"I need to give you your review," he said.

I was a little surprised, because I had heard nothing about this. My first thought was that I had done something wrong. I soon learned that this was just routine.

"Today's your six month anniversary," he said. I smiled at the mistake. I had a girlfriend once who insisted on celebrating our "one month anniversary." When I corrected her and explained that the word anniversary implies that a year has passed, she got irritated with me and said she was sick and tired of my trying to make her feel stupid all the time. We didn't have a two month anniversary. I remembered that lesson and said nothing to Rick.

"This'll be quick," Rick said, once we got into the conference room. "You're doing fine so far. On the positives, you learned the truck faster than anybody I've had and your shooting is solid."

"Thanks," I said. It felt awkward to smile, but I couldn't help it.

Rick continued. "On the 'need to improve' list, you should try to get along with the reporters and producers a little better. I know they can be frustrating, but you don't always handle it the best way. I can't have you refusing to do stories."

"I haven't refused anything," I said.

"Maybe you haven't outright refused, but you've given the impression you're going to refuse to so what you're told."

"Wait, so I'm being reprimanded for what Wendy thinks I might do?"

"No, you're not being reprimanded, and Wendy doesn't have anything to do with this. This is just a review, and I have to put things in here for you to improve."

That statement seemed a little odd and took me off guard. He has to put things in there? That made it sound like he was under mandate to find fault, even where none exists. Even so, I let it go for the moment.

"I also have to include the incident with the live truck--"

"But that wasn't my fault! That guy hit me!"

"I'm not saying it's your fault," he said. "But I have to include any damage to equipment in the review, even if it's an accident. It doesn't count against you."

"If it doesn't count against me, why is it there at all?" I asked.

"See, this is what I'm talking about, about how you handle stressful situations. You're raising your voice and getting angry, and that's not the proper way to handle this."

I held my tongue and fumed.

"You really need to work on that anger issue. So, overall, it's a satisfactory review. Do you know about the scores?"

"No," I said.

"I can give you a 3, 4 or 5. Three is 'needs improvement.' Four is 'satisfactory.' Five is 'good.' There's also a two and a six, but two gets you fired and we aren't allowed to give sixes."

There was another "secret" mandate. I wondered why the company had a six in their review score if they weren't allowed to use it. "What if somebody really deserves a six?" I asked.

"Nobody deserves a six," he said. "I'm not even sure why we have it."

"Has anybody ever gotten a six?" I asked.

"I think the sales guys get them sometimes," he said. "But that's just some kind of incentive they have. I'm not allowed to give sixes. Anyway, you have a four, which is fine. If you can keep up the good work until your year review, you'll normally get a raise then. It won't be much, like a dime or something."

"Okay," I said. I wasn't feeling very good about this review process.

"Now I just need to sign this," he said, scribbling on the bottom of the second sheet, "And you need to sign here also."

I looked at the paper he handed me. There was a signature line for me at the bottom, above where he had scribbled his own name. Above that was a brief statement which read:

I have read the above and understand it to be an accurate reflection of my performance during the review period. This review has been thoroughly discussed with my supervisor, and I have been given an opportunity to answer and correct any statements herein which I feel do not adequately describe my job duties.

"I can't sign that," I said.

Rick looked surprised. "Why not?" he asked.

"Because I don't agree with what was said about me in there."

"You don't have to agree with it," he said. "You're just signing that you received it."

"That's not what it says," I said. "It says I 'understand it to be an accurate reflection of my performance.' I don't think it's accurate."

"Well, uh... What's not accurate about it?"

"I told you. I haven't refused to do anything I have been asked, and the live truck accident had nothing to do with me. If anything, that's the station's fault for sending me out with faulty equipment."

"I told you that stuff doesn't really matter," he said. "I have to put that in there, but you're doing a good job. I hope you're not going to screw it up by causing a problem with this."

There was silence for a few moments while Rick stared at me, and I stared at the paper. Then I broke it. "What happens if I don't sign this?"

"Well. I don't know," Rick said. "Nothing good, I'm sure. For one thing it will cause ME a headache."

I thought about it for another moment, then picked up the pen and struck through the words "and understand it to be an accurate reflection of my performance during the review period" and "I have been given an opportunity to answer and correct any statements herein which I feel do not adequately describe my job duties." Then I initialed both sections and signed the paper.

Rick took the paper and looked at the lines I had drawn. He seemed to be struggling to decide whether he could accept that. Finally he said, "Well, uh. Okay, I guess. Keep up the good work."

And that was that.

I have had employee reviews before, when I worked at the bookstore. Those gave us the option of disputing whatever was in the review, in writing, and they didn't require us to sign that we agreed with the assessment. It was weird to be instructed to agree to an assessment I believed was wrong.

Later this afternoon I was talking with Dax about it, and he said the GM actually requires the managers to find bad things to put into their employee reviews. "They make you sign that you agree you have problems, so if you ever cause any shit they can pull out the paper and say 'See? You even admit you fucked up.' You could save somebody's life and shit, and they still wouldn't give you a good review. Ain't nothin' you can do about it, so don' worry about it."

I guess I won't. I guess.

Enemies List

Back in my elementary school days, it wasn't uncommon for a teacher to leave the kids in the classroom under the watchful eye of a class monitor selected from among the students, while the teacher went off down the hall somewhere to do something infinitely more important than supervising those under her charge. The class monitor was usually someone the teacher could trust, which meant a girl with high grades whom most everyone else disliked for her overbearing nature and the speed with which her hand always shot up to volunteer for the part of the snitch. If anyone talked or left his seat during the teacher's absence, it was the monitor's job to write the name of the offender on the blackboard, so that the teacher would have a list of those deserving of punishment when she returned smelling like cigarettes.

The punishment for ending up on the monitor's list usually wasn't very severe. It was the threat of punishment that tended to keep the kids in line. When a boy wanted to tell his neighbor something of great importance, like the fact that he could see the outline of Samantha Harris' training bra through her shirt, it wasn't the idea of being whacked on the palm with a ruler or having to write sentences that kept his mouth sealed. It was really fear of seeing his name on The List that maintained his good behavior.

The List wasn't just restricted to the blackboard, however. Some teachers kept their own lists while they were in the room. If a student whispered out of turn when he was supposed to be reading or doing classwork, the relative quiet might suddenly be shattered by the teacher's thunderous voice: "MAX! YOU'RE ABOUT TO FIND YOURSELF ON MY LIST!!!" Other times there was no warning; the miscreant would think his misbehavior had gone unobserved until just before recess, when suddenly the teacher would call out The List of names: "Joey, Billy, Alan, Bobby and Max, please come up here and see me! Everyone else line up in the hallway for recess!"

The kids quickly learned this listmaking behavior. In fact, they were taught to make lists for various exercises of spelling, science or social studies. "List your favorite things," a teacher might say.

"List your favorite foods."

"List different kinds of animals."

"How many kinds of tree can you list?"

"Make a list of leaders."

"List people you admire."

Of course, the kids quickly learned they could apply this method of categorization and organization of data to their own purposes. For example, discovering one's name on someone's Friends List could be the highlight of the day, unless of course it was the Friends List of one of the Snodgrass brothers, the smelly poor kids who didn't bathe. Then you could count on being tormented at recess for your association with the undesirable element. There were also sex lists, starting in more innocent years as the Pretty Girl List and progressing through the Girls I Like List, Girls I Would Date List and ultimately the Girls I'd Do List in junior high school. If there were positive lists, there also had to be negative ones. There were Ugly Girl Lists and People I Hate Lists.

Not every kid was making all these lists. My point is that The List wasn't uncommon, and it didn't originate in any unhealthy or sinister tendencies among students. Listmaking didn't identify anyone as a problem student or potential criminal, even when they were making Hate Lists. Putting someone's name in writing just created an illusion of some kind of power, like seeing one's name on the chalkboard. "You're on my list," was a vague threat that really didn't mean anything at all.

That brings me to the ultimate Hate List, the Enemies List. In my formative years, Enemies Lists really weren't considered any more sinister than any other kind of lists. It's a natural part of childhood development for a child to begin to categorize the things around him and divide them according to their relationship to him. Having an Enemies List didn't mean a student really intended to do anyone any harm. It was simply another way to process and understand relationships that weren't always positive. I mean, if someone called you names, tried to get you in trouble or punched you in the gut on the playground, why shouldn't you consider him an enemy?

But after a string of high profile school shootings around the country, and especially after the incident at Columbine, bewildered educators and law enforcement officials began looking for the Sure Fire Warning Signs that would positively identify a young mass murderer before he ever took action. Throughout the country, parents who unrealistically expected their kids to be 100% safe at school began to support "Zero Tolerance" policies on this kind of expression. In some places, a kid can actually get arrested for what he's thinking, without ever having actually done anything to anyone. Just the act of categorizing someone as an enemy is enough to get a student expelled from school, despite the fact that the students learn the behavior from their teachers in their early years. Even our own government makes regular use of their own Enemies List of regular citizens they think might be hostile, in order to keep our airports and airlines safe; but if Bobby Teenager does it, he MUST be planning some kind of terrorist attack on his school.

Last week we got a flashy press release from the Chief of Police of a nearby town, which I'll call T-ville for simplicity's sake. T-ville is the county seat, and Chief Axelrod is the same chief mentioned earlier who ran against Sheriff Jones for his county's top cop position and is now rumored to be in the running for a chief position in a much larger city. The heading of the release read, "Terror Plot Avoided at T-ville High School." Then, in smaller letters underneath: "Zero Tolerance Policy Nets Multiple Weapons, 200 Rounds of Ammunition." It was full of Homeland Security buzzwords meant to catch the easily impressed eyes of assignment editors and producers.

Wow! High school terrorists in our own back yard! This has the makings of Story of the Year!

T-ville High is a pretty big school, enrolling 1500 students in grades eight through twelve. Thus, it includes part of the age group usually associated with junior high, with seventh graders graduating directly from middle school to high school. The school itself is a county school, and most of its students live outside the city limits, spread out in rural areas of the county. Since the school is inside the city limits, however, its School Resource Officer (SRO) is a T-ville city cop.

This rural county still maintains many of its old traditions. One of those traditions is for many of the boys to learn to fire their fathers' hunting rifles during their preteen years and accompany their fathers on hunting trips by the time they become teenagers. By their mid teens, it isn't unusual for these boys to go on hunting, fishing and camping trips with their peers and their older brothers, without adult supervision. High schoolers occasionally even go hunting after school for a few hours, and up until Columbine many of them would keep their rifles in their cars to be able to head straight out to the woods together when the bell rang without having to waste time regrouping somewhere else.

The Zero Tolerance Policy on School Violence took care of that; now no weapons of any sort are allowed on school grounds. That's certainly a positive development, but occasionally a kid will forget to take his rifle out of his truck after a weekend of shooting. If he's caught with it, he'll usually face a stern threat from the SRO and a few days suspension to think about it. Usually that's all. The Zero Tolerance Policy also makes it a crime to make "threats against the school, its teachers or other students," even if there's little evidence any such threat will be carried out. What actually constitutes a "threat" is vague.

Nobody has ever been arrested under the Zero Tolerance Policy. Until now.

Mark was still working as my nightside reporter the day this story broke. We were actually working on another story but were reassigned in a flurry of excitement and panic when Chief Axelrod's press release came in during one of the early evening shows. There was no press conference scheduled according to the release, but the Chief would be available most of the evening for interviews and to show us the evidence seized from the young terrorist's home.

We got out there at the same time another station had arrived, so we ended up sharing an interview. Chief Axelrod greeted us with a big smile and handshakes all around, then led us into a rather small room arranged like a classroom. "We can do the interview in here with the evidence, if that's okay with you folks," he said.

There was a large table in the front of the room, on which were displayed a single bolt-action hunting rifle, a small assortment of knives including utility knives for skinning game, a small box of shells for the rifle and a scattering of loose ammunition, most of which were shotgun shells. There was also some cold weather hunting gear, including a mask that would cover most of the hunter's face.

This scene almost immediately irritated me. While it wasn't exactly inaccurate, the press release's promise of "weapons" and "200 rounds of ammunition" brought to mind something much more impressive. I was expecting several guns and lots of bullets, not some kid's regular hunting gear. I began to smell something ugly going on there.

We set up for an interview, Chief Axelrod standing behind the table with his trophies before him. Even though this wasn't supposed to be a press conference, the chief obviously had his remarks prepared and started right into a statement.

"Earlier today Officer Jacobs, my SRO at T-ville High School, was alerted by a teacher to the existence of certain documents indicating that a fourteen year old white male was allegedly planning an attack on other students at the school. Officer Jacobs detained this young man and examined the documents in question. At that time he determined that a threat existed and took the young man into custody. He was removed from the school for the safety of the other students and is currently being held here in our jail pending arraignment.

"Subsequent investigation uncovered the weapons you see here, including two hundred rounds of ammunition. That's enough ammunition to kill or injure this young man's entire class.

"We also seized the young man's computer and discovered an extensive collection of pornographic materials. Our investigators are still sifting through that material to determine if any of it is child pornography or illegal.

"I'm saddened and disgusted by what has happened here today, but I have to commend Officer Jacobs for his quick action to seize control of the situation and remove this threat from our school. I can't release the young man's name to you, since he's a minor, but we have booked him into the jail on charges of making terrorist threats under our Zero Tolerance Policy on School Violence. I'd be happy to take any questions now."

The other station's reporter went first. "You said Officer Jacobs received some documents. What kind of documents were they?"

"This young man had compiled a list of people he intended to do harm," the chief said. "Another student found it and gave it to a teacher, and she passed it on to Officer Jacobs."

"What kind of list was this? Was it just students, or teachers?" the reporter asked.

"It was students," he said. "It had ten or eleven student names on it and said 'Enemies List' at the top. It was in the young man's handwriting, and he admitted writing it."

"Do you have any details on the plot?" asked the reporter. "What was he planning to do?"

"At this time, we have no further information on that, but we're questioning him further to get more details and we'll let you know as we find out more."

I was getting itchy, and Mark was just standing there with his lower lip jutting out, asking no questions at all. There were huge obvious questions that I really wanted to hear answered. I ask questions on my own sometimes when I'm working by myself, but I usually don't speak up when I'm with a reporter, so I kept quiet.

The other reporter continued. "Tell us more about the weapons you seized."

"The rifle is a Remington 223. You may remember that this is the same kind of rifle used in the DC sniper case. There's also two hundred rounds of ammunition and a number of knives. We also discovered camouflaged combat gear, as you can see here."

By this time I was grinding my teeth. The DC snipers did NOT use a Remington, but he was trying to associate this kid with them. I don't know that much about guns myself, but I specifically remembered that they used a Bushmaster. There were also not 200 rounds of .223 ammunition. At least half the pile was shotgun shells, which fit a gun the cops didn't even seize.

"That's all I have," the reporter said, looking at Mark. "You have anything?"

Mark just shrugged his shoulders to indicate he had no questions.

WHAT THE FUCK? I couldn't contain it any longer.

"I have a question," I said. I may have been overstepping my bounds, but something needed to be done.

"Sure, shoot," said the chief.

"You said that's a 223 rifle?" I asked. I was nervous, and I think my voice probably shook a little. Usually the interviews I do by myself are simple little conversations that don't involve challenging the interviewee at all, especially a police chief.

"Yep, it's a Remington 223," he said.

"It looks like there are a bunch of shotgun shells mixed in there. Did you seize a shotgun also?"

"No, those are rounds for another gun," he said.

"Did this kid have a shotgun?"

"No," he said. "They were for his brother's shotgun, but his brother doesn't live there in the house."

"In the kid's house?" I asked.

"Yes, all these weapons were seized on a search warrant for the young man's room."

"Was any of this stuff seized at the school?"

"No, he was keeping it all at his house."

"Did he take any of this stuff to school with him?"

"No, like I said, it was all in his room. Anything else?" The chief was starting to get irritated, and I was starting to lose my nerve. Luckily Mark caught on and saved me.

"So..." he started slowly. "What indication do you have that this boy intended to use these weapons at school?"

"We're still investigating that," the chief said. He glanced over at me menacingly after he said it. I buried my eye in the eyepiece and tried to hide inside the camera.

"Let's go back to this list," Mark said. He was on the scent now. "You said it's an 'Enemies List.' What exactly is that?"

"It's a list of names of people this young man intended to do harm," he said.

"I'm sorry," Mark said. "I know you've been over this already, but sometimes I have to hear something a couple of times before it registers." That, coupled with the fact that Mark looks a lot dumber than he really is, disarmed the cop a little. "I hope you'll bear with me a little bit."

"That's okay," the cop said.

"So, this list... Did it say anything else on it besides 'Enemies List'?"

"It just had the names of the victims."

"Victims?" Mark asked. "Did he actually attack any of them?"

The cop revised his position. "No, I should say 'potential victims'."

"What indication did you have that this kid was going to do something to these people?"

"Well, the list itself is enough," the chief said. "Under our Zero Tolerance policy on school violence, threats like this are considered sufficient to establish that a threat exists to the safety of the school."

"So there wasn't actually a threat to the students?" Mark was on it now.

"Well, sure there was!" the cop defended. "Some kid makes a list of people and calls it an 'Enemies List', that's threat enough!" He was off balance. Mark can sneak up on you like that if you assume he's stupid.

"About this camouflage," Mark shifted the subject. "You called that combat gear earlier, but isn't that more like hunting camo? The jacket even has the orange strip on it."

"It could be used for hunting," the cop said.

"So it's not really military gear?"

"Uh, no, but you could use it that way."

"To camouflage yourself in a school?" Mark asked. I almost laughed out loud at that.

"To... As... As part of the whole intimidation factor," the cop stammered.

"I guess that's all I have," Mark said.

"I have another question," I jumped in. The cop just nodded at me. "You said you were searching his computer for child pornography. Do you have any reason to believe that he's involved in child pornography in some way?"

"No, we have no reason to believe he's involved in it, but it's pretty much standard procedure to look for it. We, uh, we actually didn't seize the computer to look for pornography. That's not what the warrant was for. We were looking for emails or plans relating to an attack on the school."

"Did you find any?" Mark jumped in.

"Not at this time," he said. "But we have some specialists working on the computer to recover any files he may have deleted."

"So how much porno did you actually find?" I asked.

"There was quite a bit of it in his cache," the cop said.

"So it wasn't actually saved on his computer?"

"No, it was saved in the cache."

Holy shit this guy is full of crap, I thought. At this point I was really angry for this kid. The evidence against him consisted of an Enemies List with no other specific threats, his hunting gear and porno on his computer. Take away the Enemies List, and the other two items are perfectly normal for a rural fourteen year old. I would actually be a little concerned if he weren't looking at porn. Perhaps by his age he should have outgrown the interest in making an Enemies List, but not everybody grows up at the same rate. It certainly wasn't evidence that he intended to shoot these other kids, despite the school's Zero Tolerance Policy.

About this time I think the cop began to realize this whole thing wasn't turning into the public relations triumph for which he was hoping. Suddenly his attitude changed, and he tried to get out of the predicament by playing the good cop hamstrung by unreasonably harsh laws.

"Look," he said. "I have to enforce the laws we have. The law says we have Zero Tolerance for school violence, and that includes threats or potential threats to other students. This law is important for keeping our kids safe. What we don't want is to ignore the warning signs and end up with another Columbine. Hopefully now we can get this young man the help he needs. I think that's about all."

And thus concluded our interview. What a weasel.

The kid spent the night in jail, but the next day his parents, the school and the prosecutor worked out a deal to keep him out of court. The prosecutor apparently thought the whole thing was bullshit also. He mentioned to another of our reporters that he thought this was nothing but a publicity stunt for the chief to get his face on television. Then again, the prosecutor is a good friend of Sheriff Jones, so one might be wise to take what he says about Jones' political enemy with a grain of salt.

Things didn't go so well with the school. The kid was asked not to return. He now has to attend another school in the county, which will force his parents to drive him 30 minutes to school each morning.

I have to give Mark kudos on his handling of the story that night. While the other station used the inflammatory rhetoric from the press release and from the beginning of Chief Axelrod's interview to perpetuate a story that didn't exist, Mark said, "I don't want to do this story, but Wendy's gonna make me." He then put together a fair picture of what happened, focusing on the actual offense and highlighting Axelrod's good cop act at the end, letting it seem as though the chief's hands were tied even though the kid really did little wrong. My instinct would have been to make the chief look like the idiot he is; but I'm sure Chief Axelrod was watching, and Mark's story allowed him to save face so that we can maintain a professional and cooperative relationship with his department.

As for me, I suspect that I'm now on Chief Axelrod's Enemies List.

Delays, Delays

I'm busy. Sue me.

I've mentioned before that this blog isn't the only project that demands my attention. I do this as a diversion from other things that are going on. I enjoy writing it. I hope you enjoy reading it, and I appreciate all the positive feedback I've received. However, given the length of some of these posts (which is usually necessary to properly relate the story), you can probably imagine that it takes a considerable chunk of time to write them. Unfortunately, from the comments I've read lately, it appears I can't keep up with the demand; so the demand will have to simply wait for the supply.

Major developments I have every intention of sharing in the near future include:

The live truck is back, thanks to Jake the Engineer's fine handiwork.

Sarah is back on nightside after a couple of weeks of "help" with her writing.

Lynn isn't talking to me any more because I'm a lying bastard.

Please look forward to those and more, or as my Japanese friends would say, "Otanoshimini!"*

Meanwhile, why not expand your knowledge? For instance, you could learn all about absinthe, the Devil's own liquor. Or you could check out a giant, flying soccer ball. Use one to fuel your dreams about the other, and by the time you come back down maybe I'll have something new for you to read here.

*I actually don't have any Japanese friends. But I know at least one Japanese word, and by God I used it!

So why haven't you written about it?

I've been hiding from the obvious story I should be telling: What happened after the St. Patrick's Day Incident? These other stories about dead obese women and crazy sheriffs are probably just meaningless, empty diversions, placeholders for what people really want to read. A number of obstacles have stood between me and the telling of the real story, one of which being that I haven't spoken with Kat since she returned home from her visit here.

Last night, however, I received an email from her.

"So why haven't you written about it?" she wrote. That single line is a prompt, a permission and likely a plea. So I'll relate to Kat, and the rest of the world, how I see what happened.

Picking up where I left off:

Kat and I sat up for quite a while that night talking and waiting for Joe to return. Her mood had improved, and our conversation got so far off the issue hanging in the room that at times it seemed like we had forgotten it. By midnight we were laughing and reminiscing in a way we hadn't been able the entire time she had been here, since the two of us had had virtually no time alone together just to talk.

Kat glanced at the clock. It was past midnight. "Don't you have to be at work in the morning?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I should probably get to bed soon."

"Don't wait up on my account," she said.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm just gonna sit up a while and wait."

"Where the hell could he have gone?" I wondered aloud.

"Who knows. He's weird."

"You think he's okay?" I asked. I didn't really want to go look for him, but it made me a little uncomfortable that he had been gone for hours with no word.

"He's fine. He does this," she said.

With that, I retired to my room. Despite everything that happened, I was pretty exhausted, so I drifted off to sleep fairly quickly.

About 2:30 I awoke when my bedroom door opened. Kat was standing in the doorway.

"What's wrong?" I said.

Her voice told me she had been crying again. "I don't want to sleep alone," she said. "Can I stay in here with you?"

"Joe didn't come back?" I asked.

"No," she said, her voice lilting upward as she tried not to cry. "Please," she whispered.

"What if Joe comes back?" I asked

"I don't care." In fact, she didn't have to worry about that at all. By that time, that idiot was in a hotel several hours away. When Joe left my house, he walked to the shopping center down the street, got a cab out to the airport and rented a car to drive back by himself. He fucking left her there, the bastard.

"Please," she said.

"Okay," I said, "But I'm in my underwear. Let me get up and put on--"

"I don't care," she said, as she was already slipping under my comforter. She pressed herself against me, burying her head in my shoulder. She was wearing her sweats. I was at a distinct disadvantage, but something about the situation felt too fragile to risk breaking away from her.

I held her like that for a while, listening to her breathing become more calm. Her hair smelled great. I could feel her heart pounding against my ribs. Certain parts of my body responded in a predictable manner, but I was resolved not to take advantage of this situation.

Unfortunately she was not so resolved.

I'd like to say that I remained the perfect gentleman. Absent that ability, I would like to say that it was beautiful and tender. I could probably say it anyway to make a better story, but Kat would know I'm lying. I can at least say that I didn't make the first move, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it.

It was terrible. I was terrible. It seemed like both of us were all knees and elbows. Our bodies just didn't seem to fit together. Our timing was all off. It was over almost before it started. Unfortunately neither one of us wanted to leave it at that, so we tried again two more disastrous times before giving up in an awkward tension that left us laying on opposite sides of my tiny bed, our backs to each other, each trying not to steal too much of the comforter from the other while keeping a thin demilitarized zone between us. We came as physically close to each other as two people can get, and yet the entire time we've been friends I never felt more distant from Kat than I did that night.

That Saturday morning I left her sleeping and slinked off to work in a guilty stupor. All day I kept thinking what a betrayal I had perpetrated on Lynn. We weren't "officially" dating, but I still knew this was wrong. To make things worse, Lizzie, Lynn's friend, picked up on my mood almost immediately and asked me several times during the day why I was so quiet. I couldn't exactly tell her.

I decided pretty quickly that this was not something Lynn needed to know about (which presented the other major obstacle to relating it here). The reader is probably thinking, "Duh, no shit, moron." Unfortunately, however, while "what she don't know won't hurt her," I have a hard time dealing with my own guilt in situations like that. When I've done something wrong, I have a sense that I should be punished for it. I resolved to make it up to her, even if she never knew the truth, by being the best man I could be for her from that time forward.

The other pressing issue, how to face Kat later that night, was solved for me. She, her car and all her stuff were gone when I got home. I hadn't talked to her since then, but in characteristic Kat fashion she emailed me last night almost as if nothing had happened. She explained what happened to Joe, thanked me for letting her stay and said she had a good time. The only reference she made to our mistake was that one line at the end of her message:

"So, why haven't you written about it?"

I hadn't written about it because I was afraid I had lost my friend. I truly hope that's not the case.

Unfortunately I did lose my girlfriend. I'll save that part of it for another day.

Sheriff Jones

Lizzie and I went out to the county seat of a neighboring county Sunday to cover a spring fair. The fair itself wasn't supposed to start until 1pm, to give everyone time to get there after church; but we headed over early with the idea that we would grab lunch first, get there right as it started and get back in plenty of time to put something together for the evening show.

Upon arriving in town, we cruised by the park where the festival was being set up, just to get a lay of the land. This was around 11:30, and there were still people erecting tents and scurrying around to get everything ready. At one end of the park, a couple of sheriff's deputies had their cruisers parked up on the grass facing opposite directions, with the driver's side windows facing each other so they could talk without leaving their vehicles. The town also has its own municiple police force, and we found a couple of its officers at the other end of the park, leaning against their cars and chatting. I thought it was interesting that they segregated themselves that way. The deputies had ignored us, but the city cops eyeballed the Hate Van as we cruised by. I'm sure a white, unmarked cargo van is always suspicious, especially when it drives slowly through an area without stopping. But they apparently decided we weren't terrorists and went back to their conversation.

Satisfied with the reconnaissance, Lizzie said, "Let's eat!" We headed back toward the middle of town to find this little home cooking place Lizzie wanted me to try. As I stopped at a red light right off Main Street, we suddenly felt a jolt.

"What the--?" I said. I looked into my rear view mirror to see that a large gray Suburban had bumped into us. "That guy just hit us!" I said.

Not again. I was already having flashbacks as I jumped out of the van. I was pretty mad. But as I approached the Suburban, I noticed the two old guys inside were laughing hysterically. I stopped and just stared at them. "What the fuck?" I thought. The driver rolled down his window.

"You need to get that heap a' shit out the road before you get a ticket!" the man said.

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "You HIT me!"

"Seems to me that you hit ME," the guy said. "I's just sittin' here waitin' for the light to change, and you just backed right into me. I gotta witness right here."

"That's right," said the passenger. "Just backed right into us. Wasn't nothin' we could do!"

"You guys are crazy!" I said.

"Best watch yourself, young man," said the driver. "You might need to cool off that temper at the county jail."

By this time Lizzie was standing on the other side of the Suburban, where the passenger had rolled down his window. She was laughing. I was thoroughly confused.

"Sheriff, you better leave my photog alone," she said. I slowly began to realize what was going on. This was Sheriff Jones driving the Suburban. I finally recognized him from having seen him on our own newscasts, but I had never met him myself. He had been over at the park and had recognized Lizzie when we passed.

"Tell 'im he needs to get that junker outta the road, else I'm gonna have it towed!" The three of them laughed, while I stood there bewildered.

Sheriff Jones is an older guy, probably in his 60s. He's a good old boy with a deep voice and a country style that people like despite the fact that it's obviously all a big act. He has connections to just about anybody of importance in the area; the guy sitting next to him in his truck was actually a county judge.

He also understands the dynamics of rural politics. During the last election year he caused a bit of a ruckus when word came out that he had told all his deputies not to write any more speeding tickets, because speed traps discourage votes. Never mind that the county had come to count on that revenue for certain projects. The sheriff's prospects for reelection might have been damaged by the loss of that money when certain county commissioners in the enemy camp tried to pin the county's budget shortfall on him. The tactic backfired on them, however, when Sheriff Jones reminded them that state law prohibits counties and municipalities from basing their budgets on income from fines.

In reality, every city and county in this state still budget for ticket revenue and set quotas with their traffic officers, pretty much ignoring the law. But the Sheriff managed to play off that law so well that the commissioners in question actually lost their seats in their next election, after he convinced the voters that they were actually the ones to blame for the budget shortfall because of their own ineptitude with the citizens' hard earned tax money. He came out of it looking like a hero who was doing the voters a favor by not harrassing them on county roads while fighting waste and corruption in the county seat.

"What the devil are you guys doing?" Lizzie asked.

"We're on our way to dinner," the sheriff said. "Why aren't you in church, young lady?"

"I'm workin'," she said, dropping into a kind of sympathy drawl to match his style. "Why aren't YOU in church?"

"Won't do any good," he grinned. "At my age, I'm already a lost cause."

The three of them laughed, but I wasn't quite sure how to act. I was still angry at having been hit, especially after the accident in the live truck from a few weeks ago. The sheriff had only bumped us, so there wasn't any damage. Even if there were, the Hate Van is so banged up we wouldn't have been able to tell. Still, I can't just change gears from angry to happy on demand, regardless of who it is.

"What're y'all doin' out here?" the sheriff asked.

"We're coverin' the fair," Lizzie said.

"That's not your story," said the sheriff. "I got a better one for you."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"Well," he started, his voice taking a little more dramatic tone. "'Sources say' that the police chief here in town is up for another chief job out of state."

"What sources are saying that?" Lizzie asked.

"Well, I am, for one," he said. "But you can't quote me on that."

"Who can I quote?"

"Why don't you quote 'sources who wish to remain anonymous.'"

"You know this for sure?"

"I have some paperwork on my desk that'll prove it. And you can always ask him yourself."

Now this was interesting. There was a lot of bad blood between the sheriff and the police chief during that last election, because the police chief actually ran against Sheriff Jones and was backed by the same commissioners the Sheriff effectively escorted out of their seats. Anybody taking on this story would have to tread carefully to make sure the sheriff isn't using her.

"So who can I get an interview with on this?" Lizzie asked.

"Why don't you come by my office some time in the next few days and we'll sit down and talk about it," he said.

"You can't talk to me about it today?" she asked.

"Not right now," he said. "The Judge and I have folks waitin' for us. But you come on by this week and you'll get your story. It ain't goin' nowhere."

"You're not gonna run off and tell somebody else about it first, are you?" Lizzie asked.

"No darlin'," he said. "It's ALL yours."

"All right, I'll try to come by tomorrow."

"That's fine," he said. Then he glanced over at me. "And tell your cameraman he needs to be more careful with his drivin' before I haul him off to jail."

I saw him laughing as he pulled around me, nearly hitting me as I was trying to get back into the van. Then he cut in front of us and squealed the tires as he gunned it out onto Main Street. Crazy bastard.

We covered the fair, but it was pretty obvious that Lizzie's mind wasn't on it. She was excited, but it was clear she was also irritated at having gotten a taste of something she couldn't have yet. I was actually excited about it also, until I realized that since Lizzie works dayside during the week, I won't get to work on it.

Dammit.

I'm Sad

Yes, I know I haven't updated the site. That's because I haven't felt much like writing this past week after all that happened. Besides that, I'm embarrassed about it and really don't know how to write it.

No, I'm not going to tell you what happened. Not yet, anyway. Maybe in a day or so. Or maybe not at all.

Meanwhile, until I find some new inspiration, enjoy some interesting design. I particularly like the freaky building block apartments in Tokyo with the sloping floors and low doors to make old people have to keep their balance and climb around a lot. If I save for 1000 years, maybe I can afford one.

The Lady in the Casket

Last night's story was most certainly the weirdest thing I've covered.

Shortly after I arrived at the station, I noticed that Sarah was at her desk writing instead of attending the afternoon meeting. I thought that was odd, but I didn't particularly want to go talk to her to find out what was going on. As I was checking my email, however, my answer walked up to me in the form of Mark, who informed me that he and Sarah were switching shifts for the week.

Whoopeee! Mark didn't know why they had to switch, but I have a feeling it has something to do with giving me and Dax a break from that crazy woman.

As I loaded up the van, Mark began filling me in on our story for the day.

"You're gonna love this," he said. "This 400 pound woman died, and her family bought a coffin that was too small for her. They shoehorned her into it, but the handles on the coffin broke while they were carrying her out to the grave Sunday."

"Jesus," I said.

"Yeah, seriously," he said. "The funeral home is saying they tried to tell them the coffin was too small, but they wouldn't listen. They insisted on the cheapest one. The family is saying the funeral home shouldn't have sold them a coffin that couldn't handle her weight, and they're talking about suing. The daughter says the casket bent up around her, so now they can't get her out."

"Holy shit," I said. "What did they do?"

"Well, nothin' yet. The funeral parlor wants to bury her in that same casket and just give 'em a discount on it. The family wants a whole new casket for free."

"Is the funeral parlor gonna talk to us?" I asked.

"I think so," Mark said. "I talked to him earlier and told him we were coming."

We headed first to the home of the grieving family to speak with the deceased Mrs. Ledbetter's daughter, who had lived with her during her last days. These didn't appear to be very wealthy people. The house was old and run down. The screen door almost came off its frame in Mark's hand when he opened it to knock. Inside, the furniture was broken down and torn, and everything was covered in a yellowish film with the stench of cigarettes.

The daughter, who was pushing 300 pounds herself, directed Mark to the couch, where he found himself surrounded by other family and friends who had assembled to lend their support. I went to work setting up for the interview.

"So, I guess, tell us what happened," Mark started.

"Momma been sick for a long time," the woman began. "She had cancer. She finally passed on last week. Just like, went to sleep, you know?" Her voice turned a little angry. "We were gonna have the funeral yesterdie, but then this all happened."

"What exactly happened at the funeral?"

"Well, the boys took her outta the hearse and started carryin' her up to the grave. The rest of us was all standin' up there already with the preacher. 'Bout halfway up the hill, looked like Billy stumbled. Then the whole casket just dropped on that side and crashed down, like 'whoomp!'"

She demonstrated the crash with her arms. Her anger seemed to be increasing as she continued.

"We thought they'd just dropped her, on account of her size. But when we run down there and looked, we seen the handles broke off! Can you believe that? What kind of funeral parlor sells people a defective casket?"

"What did you do?" Mark asked.

"I was in shock. Shock. When she hit the ground, the lid came open and we could see her arm flop around. We all run down there to see if the boys were okay, and I put her arm back in and shut the lid. It wouldn't close right. Poor Billy, he started sayin' 'I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to.' We was mad at him at first, but then we seen the broken handle. I was horrified. Horrified."

"Was anybody hurt?"

"Well, not physically," she said. "But them young ones gonna be scarred for life now. Little Jessie screamed and started cryin' when it happened."

"How bad was the damage to the casket?"

"It's all bent up on the side where it hit. They cain't get her out of it. It don't shut right, so they cain't leave her in it."

Mark took a deep breath. "I talked to Mr. Jones over at the funeral home," he said. "And he told me he tried to sell you a bigger casket, but you wouldn't buy it."

"They just want money," the woman said, angrily. "He tried to tell me we had to buy an $8000 copper casket. Momma didn't leave us that kind of money. He was just tryin' to take advantage of our grief. He already squeezed enough out of us."

"But he says if you had bought the bigger casket, this problem wouldn't have happened."

"If they'd built the casket like they were s'pose to, none of this woulda happened!" she growled.

After shooting video of a picture of Momma and plenty of b-roll of the family sitting around smoking and grieving, we headed out for the funeral home. I had a huge headache by then from the haze in that place and was glad for the fresh air.

Mr. Jones greeted us warmly in the dim, quiet waiting area of the funeral parlor.

"Welcome, welcome," he said, smiling sympathetically. His suit was perfectly tailored. His handshake was perfectly firm, but not intimidating. Every hair on his head was perfectly in place, in a hairstyle that swept from one corner of his forehead back over his scalp without a part, like a televangelist's wig. His voice was deep and artificially soft and soothing, no doubt from countless hours of practice. He had an odd cadence to his speech, an unusual way of emphasizing certain words to enhance their sympathetic value.

I loathed this man from the moment I saw him.

We set up the interview in a "showroom" of sorts with rows of beautifully polished caskets. The room was decorated with large, fake, electric candelabras, along with some displays of synthetic flowers. The crucifix or cross was the primary religious symbol in the room, with a Star of David here or there to provide a little diversity.

"First let me say we are dedicated to making this right for this family," he began, once I was rolling. "This was a very unfortunate situation, and I will do everything in my power to see that they're taken care of."

"They'll be glad to hear that," said Mark. "Can you tell us a little bit about what happened?"

"Well, you know, the loss of a loved one is a stressful time, and we do what we can to put the family at ease. Sometimes, though, a miscommunication can happen."

"What kind of miscommunication?"

"Oh, with all the distractions, sometimes the family members aren't really in a clear state of mind. That's why we try to take care of everything for them so they can deal with their grief."

It was immediately clear this guy would rather talk around the situation. I've mentioned before that Mark doesn't always come across as the brightest bulb in the package, but in this instance I was glad to see he was willing to push.

"Let's get specific with this case," he said. "Why did the handles break on this woman's coffin?"

"Casket," Mr. Jones corrected him.

"What?"

"We refer to it as a casket," he said.

"Okay, casket. Why did it break?"

"Well, each of our caskets have a certain weight rating. We have some bigger ones that go up to 500 pounds, and some that can handle 300 pounds. The model Mrs. Ledbetter's family selected was rated for 250 pounds."

"So the casket couldn't handle her weight?"

"Unfortunately, yes. But we did explain the weight issue to the family. We did suggest to them very strongly that they purchase a larger casket. Unfortunately they insisted on the less expensive option."

"Why didn't you just refuse to sell them the cheaper casket?"

"Our job is to make things easier for the family, not more difficult. We would never refuse a customer's wishes. When our gentle persuasion proved unsuccessful, we had no choice but to honor their wishes."

"So, I guess the bottom line is, what are you going to do to make this right for this family? Can you give them another casket?"

"No," Mr. Jones shook his head. "Unfortunately that's not possible. We ran into some difficulty with Mrs. Ledbetter's casket and won't be able to transfer her to a different one. What we can do, pending the family's approval, is to send the casket back to the factory to be repaired."

"With Mrs. Ledbetter in it?"

"Um, yes, that's correct."

"What about... Mrs. Ledbetter's daughter said the casket won't seal up now."

"Oh, that casket never sealed," Mr. Jones explained. "The less expensive models don't come with a seal on the cap."

"Cap?" asked Mark.

"The 'lid' is actually called a 'cap.' But that one isn't supposed to seal. I think she's getting confused. Right now the cap doesn't close properly, but they can fix that at the factory."

"So you're gonna ship her out to the factory?"

"Oh, no, we're not going to ship her off, ha ha. The company we buy our caskets from actually has an assembly plant here in town that serves the entire region. We'll take her to the factory in our hearse, and the craftsmen there will see that the vessel is in an appropriate condition. We'll make sure she's treated with the utmost respect."

"And who's gonna pay for this work?"

"Oh, the family will not pay a dime. Not a dime. In fact, I'm fully prepared to offer the Ledbetters a refund on the entire service. We're here to take care of bereaved families, and I'll do whatever I can to demonstrate our commitment to that goal."

After a bit of video of the various caskets, including both the box Mr. Jones recommended and the one in which Mrs. Ledbetter now rests, we had everything we needed. We put the story together and aired it in our late news, much to the shock of our audience. Or, at least, our anchor SAID it was a shocking story in the tease before the show. Our viewers probably weren't as shocked as our anchor thought they should be. But then, what do viewers know, anyway.

And finally, to top off the entire day, the anchor introduced the story with the cliche, "It's a family's worst nightmare." I'm pretty sure Wendy wrote that.

Fight!

"You wanted to come here!" Kat shouted, as I opened the door.

"Only to keep you from fucking Max!" said Joe.

Whoa. What the hell did I just walk into? I had to run by the bank and the post office before they closed this afternoon, so I had gone out by myself. When I came back, this is what greeted me. It stopped me dead in my tracks in the doorway. I just stared at them.

"Max! Tell him there's nothing going on between you and me!" Kat barked.

"Uh, what?"

"This idiot thinks I came here to sleep with you," she said. "Tell him we've never slept together."

"You TOLD me you thought you might have feelings for him," Joe said. "You don't drive 800 miles to visit somebody you're just friends with!"

"Well I DO!" Kat shouted.

"I'll leave you guys alone," I said, heading for my room.

"No, I'm coming with you," Kat said.

"Oh, no you're not," said Joe. He grabbed her arm above the elbow.

"What the--Let GO of me!" Kat growled. She dug the fingernails of her free hand into his wrist.

"C'mere!" he said. He gave her a pretty violent jerk. "LISTEN to me!"

There's seriously nothing going on between me and Kat, nor has there ever been. However, I wasn't about to let him handle her like that.

"Hey!" I said, and stepped up next to Kat in an attempt to get between them. Joe's actually bigger than I am, so I'm not quite sure what I was thinking. Stepping into his space took him by surprise, however, and he let go of her and stepped back.

"Stay out of this, Max. This is between me and Kat."

"This is MY house," I said. "You need to mind your manners."

Kat turned and went into my room, slamming the door behind her. Joe tried to follow, but I blocked his path. "Joe," I said, in a threatening tone. I was actually shaking where I stood, so I'm not sure how menacing I actually was. But he looked away from my door and made eye contact with me. "I don't know what's going on here, but you need to cool it," I said.

He looked away. He was really angry, but he's not usually an unreasonable guy. "Alright," he said. He took a step back, then looked around awkwardly, trying to decide what to do. He sat down on the edge of the couch, but tense as a coil and poised to spring up again at any moment.

"What the hell is going on here?" I asked.

"Doesn't concern you," he said, looking at the floor.

"Look," I said. "I don't know what you're thinking, but Kat and I are just friends."

"I said, it doesn't concern you," he said, a little more emphatically.

I stood there for a minute, trying to figure out what to do. I was still shaking. Joe slid back a little and put his head in his hands. I decided to try to talk to Kat and turned toward my room. I was relieved that Joe didn't try to get up.

I knocked on the door, two soft raps with the back of the knuckle of my middle finger. It seemed kind of stupid to be requesting permission to enter my own room; but when a woman decides a room is hers, would a sane man argue with her?

Kat didn't answer. "I'm coming in," I said, and tried the handle. Fortunately she had left it unlocked.

Kat was laying on my bed with her face buried in my pillow and with my comforter pulled up over her. I sat down sideways on the edge of the bed.

"You okay?" I asked. She didn't say anything. I reached out and put my hand on the comforter where I judged her shoulder to be. She suddenly swatted backhand at me, not seriously, but just violently enough to let me know to leave her alone. I was just about to do exactly that, when she suddenly turned under the comforter toward me and shifted right up against my leg, burying her face against my hip. I rested my hand on her shoulder, and she let it stay. She was crying softly.

I don't know how long we stayed like that. I can't imagine what torture that must have been for Joe to be sitting in the next room hearing absolutely nothing from us. I heard the television come on and was glad for the break in the silence.

"Hey," I said. She didn't respond. "Hey, are you okay?" She nodded her head affirmatively against my hip. "You wanna tell me what happened?" I asked.

She pushed away from me and sat up, facing toward the other side of the room.

"We had a fight," she said.

"Yeah, I could kinda tell," I said.

"He's so stupid."

"I could tell that, too," I said. She let out a disgusted laugh in response.

"You know what he said to me?"

"What?"

"He asked me if I would have a threesome with your roommate."

"WHAT?"

"Yeah, can you believe that?"

Actually, I could, in a way. Joe's a regular guy. A regular guy wouldn't be able to hear what went on in Suzanne's room the other night without imagining himself having sex with her. Even when you come to realize you'd probably contract some kind of disease and your common sense overrules your penis, you still have a hard time not imagining it.

"I thought he was joking at first, but he was serious. And he wanted me to ask her!"

"Holy shit," I said. "He wants to have sex with her even after what happened the other night?"

"What do you mean?" Kat seemed confused. "What happened the other night?"

"You know, when we were watching the movie."

"Huh? No! Not Suzanne! I was talking about Emily!"

"WHAT?"

"Yeah, he wanted me to try to get Emily to have a threesome with us."

"Holy shit!"

"Yeah!"

"Why did he--" I was flabbergasted. "What makes him think--?"

"It's one of his fantasies to be with two girls," she said. "We've talked about it before, but I always thought it was just fantasy, you know, dirty talk. I didn't think he was serious about it."

"But why Emily?" I asked.

"You know I usually don't hang around with girls," she said. That's true. She has always seemed to prefer the company of guys. "For some reason he thinks that since Emily and I get along so well, maybe Emily would be into it."

Now that I think about it, I can almost see where he's getting that idea. Almost. Emily and Kat really did hit it off, and I've been quite surprised at how well they get along. They're like long lost sisters, which is really unusual for Kat. Last night Emily was hanging around with us, and we all had had a little too much to drink. We weren't wasted, but things got a little loose, and Emily ended up laying on the end of the couch, with her legs dangling off the end, but her head resting in Kat's lap. There was nothing really sexual about it, unless of course you're Joe, and you're thinking about a threesome anyway.

But still. Emily?

"I told him 'no,' but he kept pestering me about it until I told him to shut up. We got into a fight. I said if he wanted to fuck Emily so bad he oughta just do it and leave me out of it. He said, 'Oh, that would be convenient, wouldn't it?' I asked him what he meant by that, and he accused me of wanting to sleep with you. That's about the time you walked in. I mean, he's the one who brought it up, not me."

"Jesus. What makes him think you and I have something going on?"

"I don't know," she said. "He said he wanted to come along this week because he was worried about me driving by myself. Then he sprung that bullshit on me about keeping me from getting with you. You're my best friend, Max. Why can't he see that?"

We both paused in thought. I heard Joe stirring in the living room, and I thought I heard the front door close.

"Huh," I said, finally realizing that if he was jealous of me, it was probably eating him up that I was in my bedroom alone with his girlfriend. "We probably ought to get back in there."

"Screw him," she said. "Let him think we're fucking our brains out in here. Dumbass."

"No, let's not make this any worse." I got up. "You can stay in here if you want. I'm going."

"I'm just... I don't wanna face him."

"That's okay," I said. "You can stay."

But she didn't actually have anything to worry about. When I went back to the living room, Joe was gone. Kat's car was still out front, but Joe's bag was gone. He freakin' left! I don't know where the hell he went, but he took his shit and left!

"Should I go look for him?" I asked, once I had told Kat.

"No," she said. I could tell she was really mad. "Asshole. He does this. He wants me to go running after him, and I'm not gonna do it." I could tell she really wanted to go find him, but I wasn't about to trespass on her pride by bringing him back myself.

All this just happened about an hour ago. After her crying fit, Kat said she felt "wretched" and wanted to take a shower, so I figured I would take this opportunity to write about it while she's not looking over my shoulder. She still reads the blog, and I'm sure she knows this will all end up in here, but I don't think she'll mind. When I've written about her in the past and asked her how she felt about it, she just said, "Whatever."

We were going to go out for a little while for St. Patty's Day, but this has put sort of a damper on the situation. Lynn and my roommates are all working tonight. It was just going to be me, Kat and Joe. Now Joe's gone and Kat's locked in the bathroom, and I have to work in the morning anyway. I hope this doesn't drag out all night.