Tom Hanks - Uncommon Type - Some Stories

QUIET! REPORTERS WORKINGwould be a superfluous sign here at the Daily News/Herald these days. We’ve been on computers since the eighties, though the first generations of them were called word processors—that was what we called ourselves . The point being, Al Simmonds would not be able to fathom how we have been reading our newspapers in ever greater numbers over the past five years—bent over our handheld miracle machines. Too, he’d not recognize how we’ve put out the newspaper for the last three decades. “Where’s the roar and fury of a newspaper going to press?” he’d holler. At me.

IN AL’S HONORhere’s an experiment: if you are reading this on your phone, I’ll write some of it on mine. My edited, proofread, stream of consciousness…

“I’M GOING TOmiss reading a physical copy of the paper, on newsprint, delivered to my front lawn seven days a week by a fellow named Brad who scoots by in a car, chucking my copy out the window with but the smallest of deceleration, or from the copy I read at the Pearl Avenue Café (on Pearl Avenue) a few days a week. I’ll miss the sensation of a story placed above the fold on page one, and the shame of a story being relegated to page B6. I admit I get a kick out of seeing my face and my byline—my column—on the back page—so easy to find, and did you know a reading of the column and the timing of a soft-boiled egg are a perfect match? If/when the Tri-Cities Daily News/Herald goes all-digital/no print, this reporter will be sad/resigned at the advent of this thing we call Reality. And Al Simmonds, in Rewrite Heaven, will scratch his head in confusion, his typewriter flipped up forever.”…Now, an auto-corrected version, pinched out on my phone…

I’M GOING TO miss reading a physical copy of the paper, on newsprint, delivered to my front lawn seven days a week be a fellow named bark who scours be uv a cat, chi hubs my cope it the window Eugene the shanked the dr fjsrstik, or FYI. The color I eat at the peak avebure cadge on Zoesrkavfnud a few days a week. I’ll miss the sensation of a dying place Abu d to gold page one and the shame oif a duties relegate to osfs h6. I admit I gat a kick out is seeinmy fx e and my belie—my Viking—on gage back page—so esu to find, and did you know a reading of the volume and the timing of a foot hooked egg is a perfect match? If/when the tri-cities Zfaiky need/heard hies all-digital thus rouoter will be sad/resigned at the advent of hugs gjjng called result And All Simmonds in Rewrire Heaben, will scratch his head in confusion, hostyoeetotoer flipped up forever…

GOTTA RUN NOWand get my copy down to the pressroom…

Kirk Ullen was still asleep, in bed, under a quilt and an old Army blanket. As it had been since 2003, when he was five years old, his bedroom was also the back room of the family home, one he shared with the Maytag washer and dryer, an old, chipped, out-of-tune spinet piano, the idle sewing machine his mother had not used since the second Bush administration, and an Olivetti-Underwood electric typewriter that had been rendered inoperable when Kirk spilled a root-beer float into its innards. The room had no heat and was always chilly, even on this early morning in late June. His eyes were rolled up into the back of his head as he dreamed he was still in high school, unable to dial the correct combination for his gym locker. He was on his seventh attempt, turning right, then twice around to the left, then once back to the right, when a flash of lightning made the locker room blindingly white. Then, equally suddenly, came a darkness that encompassed his whole world.

There were more flashes, like sheet lightning, then blackness again—everything white again, then an impenetrable black, over and over. But there was no rumbling thunder, no claps of Thor echoing off the distant canyons.

“Kirk? Kirkwood?” It was his father. Frank Ullen had been snapping the overhead light on and off—his idea of an amusing wake-up signal. “Were you serious last night, kid?” Frank began singing. “Kirkwood, Kirkwood. Give me your answer, do.”

“Wha’?” Kirk croaked.

“About going to Mars? Say no and I’m gone. Say yes and we start your birthday like true Ullen men, brave and free.”

Mars? Kirk’s brain flickered into consciousness and he remembered now. Today was his nineteenth birthday. Last night after dinner he had asked his father if they could surf in the morning like they had the day he turned ten and, again, the morning he turned thirteen. “You bet!” his father said. Conditions at Mars Beach would be good. There was a swell coming from the southwest.

Frank Ullen had been surprised at the request. His son had not joined him in the water for some time. Mr. College-Kirk was not as willing to brave the elements as he’d been in high school. Frank tried to remember the last time he and his son had surfed together. Two years? Three?

Kirk had to ponder his schedule for the upcoming day, which was hard to do right out of his dreamland fog. Birthday or not, he had to be at his regular summer job, manager of the Magic-Putt PeeWee Golf Course, at 10:00 a.m. What time was it now? 6:15? Okay, this could work. His dad, he knew, had only one job site going, the new minimall on Bluff Boulevard. Yeah, this was doable. The two of them could pound the waves for a good two hours. Or until their shoulders dislocated.

It would be good for the two of them to be back in the water, once again the Submersible Ullen Boys, Princes de la Mer . Kirk’s dad was a carefree man in the water, on his paddleboard in the morning. The hassles of the job and those flare-ups at home were left onshore—all those complicated family moments that came and went, as unpredictable as brushfires. Kirk loved his mom and his sisters as dearly as life itself; the fact that they were such squeaky wheels on such bumpy roads was something he had accepted long, long ago. His dad, the father of the pride, had to work two full-time jobs—provider and peacemaker—with never a day off. It was no wonder the man took to surfing as both his physical tonic and his mental astral-plane therapy. For Kirk to head out with his dad would be a bracing vote of confidence, a manly huddle, a backslapping “we are in this together, you and I” birthday embrace. Name a father and son who didn’t need that.

“Okay,” Kirk said, stretching with a yawn. “I’m comin’.”

“No law against staying under the covers.”

“Let’s do it.”

“You sure?”

“You trying to avoid getting wet yourself?”

“No way, knothead.”

“Then I’ll be your huckleberry.”

“Excellent. Breakfast fit for a long-haul trucker. Twelve minutes.” Frank disappeared, leaving the light on, making his son squint, protectively.

Breakfast was savory perfection, as always. Frank was a master in the morning kitchen; his forte was timing. The kielbasa got to the table hot off the stove top, skillet biscuits were soft and butterable, the coffeepot was eight cups deep (an old Mr. Coffee), and the eggs were never dry, so the yolks were fluid gold. Cooking a dinner was beyond his capabilities, something about having to wait around for a shank to roast or potatoes to boil. No way. Frank Ullen preferred the bang-bang immediacy of a breakfast—cook, serve, eat—and he had made the morning meals fun when the kids were young and the family lived on a schedule, the breakfast conversations as heated (sometimes too heated) and thick as the coffee-laced hot cocoa Frank gave them, starting in third grade. But these days Mom slept so late, she was never seen at breakfast; Kris had escaped to San Diego, where she lived with her boyfriend; and Dora had declared long ago that she would come and go as she pleased, on her own clock. So it was just the men at breakfast, dressed in baggy surf sweats, unshowered, since what was the point if they’d be in the water?