Rick Mofina - If Angels Fall

He splashed his face until he washed the fear from hismind.

The few strands of gray invading the temples of hisshort brown hair were multiplying. He was thirty-three. Thirty-three and he hadnothing. Nothing that mattered. Nothing but his job, self-doubt, and anincreasing affection for Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Sipping Whiskey. When Annleft, she opened the door to a dark truth, showing him exactly what he was. Onthe way back to his desk, Reed saw Molly Wilson reading the memos posted on thenewsroom bulletin board.

“Hey, Tomster, finish the story?”

“Why haven’t you gone home yet?”

“Didn’t feel like it. Feel like a beer?”

“I am tired. It’s been a long day. Can I take a raincheck?”

Molly stepped closer. He could smell her perfume.“I’ve given you a handful already, Tommy. When are you going to put them touse?”

He liked her perfect-teeth smile, her ice-blue eyesinviting him to a place he as tempted to enter.

“See this?” A perfect fingernail tapped a memo. “Couldbe exciting, don’t you think?” Molly said before leaving.

It was a managing editor’s notice calling forapplications for the paper’s new South American bureau in Sao Paulo. Reedtook five seconds to ingest the idea of applying and the consequences ofsuccess before returning to his desk for his jacket.

“Any problems?” he asked Duggan on his way out.

“Good piece. Just in time for first.”

“I’ll cover the Becker press conference tomorrow?”

“No, you’re working the night shift in here tomorrownight.”

“But I’m the lead report on this one.”

“Benson called in the order. You’re off the story.”

Myron Benson, the editor of the paper’s largesteditorial department, controlled fifty reporters. Invoking Benson’s name gaveany instructions immediate currency. Duggan stared at Reed. No elaboration wasneeded. The fuckup last year, and that Benson had nearly fired him and kept himon indefinite probation were known facts.

“Fine, fine. I get it.”

Duggan gave him an opened business envelope addressedto the paper. It bore Metro University’s seal and came from a Dr. K.E. Martinof the psych department. Reed’s name had been scrawled on it.

“What’s this?”

“Benson wants you to do a feature on this bereavementgroup.” Duggan nodded at the envelope. “He wants you to tie it in with theanniversary of the Donner murder and the Becker kidnapping.

Reed was wounded. Again. He swallowed it.

“Sure. I’ll get right on it.”

Crumbs and crap, that’s what they were feeding him.Reed tucked the envelope into his jacket and headed for the parking lot.

The distant horn of a tug echoed from the bay as Tom Reed walked across the Star parking lot. Cool Pacific breezes carried the stench of diesel and exhaust fromthe freeway overhead. The green ’77 Comet he had bought after Ann left waitedlike a lonely, faithful mutt.

Reed lost his awe for San Francisco- the lights ofCoit Tower, the financial district, the pyramid, the hills, the bridges, theBay.

He ran a red light entering Sea Park, a community ofuphill mansions whose views rivaled Russian Hill and Pacific Heights. Itbordered a small park dotted by stone tables topped with permanent chessboards.Old European men brought their own worn pieces here to play friendly games andreminisce. Beyond the houses were rows of condos. A sedate community. GleamingJaguars, BMW’s and Mercedes lined the streets. Precision clipped shrubs andhedges hid the pong of tennis balls, the splash of a private pool, andthe occasional whispered investment tip.

Reed parked near the three-story Edwardian house wherehe lived with five other men. The owner, Lila Onescu, was a Rumanian grand damewith gypsy blood who lived in a condo two blocks away. After Ann left withZach, Reed couldn’t bear living alone in their house. A buddy told him of LilaOnescu’s place, a jewel in Sea Park, well kept, quiet. A hundred bucks a weekfor a room on the second floor where he would share a bathroom and kitchen withtwo tenants. This was his home.

Reed creaked up the staircase, welcomed by the typednote taped to the door. “Where is the rent? L. Onescu.” He was two weeksbehind. He would give her a check tomorrow he promised, fumbling for his key.

His room had three bay windows overlooking the MarinaDistrict and the Pacific. A dorm-style single bed with rumpled sheets wasagainst one wall. A mirrored dresser stood against another near an ornamentalfireplace. A small desk sat opposite the bed, and a tattered, comfortable sofachair was in the middle of the room, which had hardwood floors and faded greenflower print wallpaper. Reed’s framed degree, his two awards, a Star front page, and silver-framed pictures of Ann and Zach, were leaning on thefireplace mantel, hastily placed in the hope they would be collected at amoment’s notice. A stack of newspapers tottered a few feet from the floor nextto the dresser. It had started growing the day he moved in-three weeks afterAnn moved out of their bungalow in Sunset. When she left, their house hadbecome a mausoleum for their marriage. He had to leave, or be entombed. Theyagreed to rent their house.

Reed went down the hall to the kitchen for ice. In hisroom, he poured some Jack Daniel’s, striped off his clothes, casting them ontothe pig-sized heap in the corner, slipped into jogging shorts. He opened thebay windows and watched the twinkling lights of the Golden Gate.

All he ever wanted in this world was to be a reporter.The dream of a kid from Big Sky Country. His dad used to bring him a newspapersix days a week, The Great Falls Tribune . He’d spread it open on theliving room floor and read the news to his mother. When he was eleven, hestarted his first Trib route. Trudging through the snow, shivering inthe rain, or sweating under the prairie sun with that canvas bag, nearly blackwith newsprint, slung over his shoulder like a harness. Dad had knotted thestrap so the bag hung just so, like an extension of himself. He would read thepaper as he delivered it, dreaming of seeing his stories in print. He had fortycustomers and every day, by the time he emptied his bag, he’d have read theday’s entire edition.

Life’s daily dramas enthralled him. He became a newsaddict and an expert on current affairs. In high school, he graduated from newspaperboy to cub reporter, writing stories for the school paper. He was accepted intoJ-School at the University of Missouri, where he met Ann, a business major withbig brown eyes and a smile that knocked him out. She was from Berkeley andwanted children and her own shop to sell the children’s clothes she woulddesign and make herself. That was a secret, she told him.

He wanted a family, too, but he wanted to establishhis career first and maybe write books, the last part was a secret. If you talkabout writing books, you’d never do it.

They were married after graduation. A few weeks later,he got a job with AP in San Francisco. Ann was happy to move back to the BayArea, where she would be near her mother. And Reed was determined to provehimself in San Francisco. He hustled for AP, breaking a story about the RussianMafia. He was short listed for a Pulitzer, but lost out. The San FranciscoStar then offered him a job as a crime reporter at twice his salary.

Ann got an administrative post at one of SanFrancisco’s hospitals, at night, she worked on her business plan and clothingdesigns. He traveled constantly, worked long hours and was rarely home. Theyears passed. Starting a family seemed impossible.

Then boom. Ann was pregnant. He was stunned.Unprepared. She had forgotten her pills when they vacationed in Las Vegas. Hehinted that she’d done it purposely. Not true, she said. They didn’t want toargue. In the following months, they retreated, withdrew into themselves. Annwelcomed the coming of a baby, Reed braced for it.