John Domini - Talking Heads - 77

“Oughta kick your ass for being such a wiseass.”

Heat in his fingers, heat in his bruises. For a moment Kit could see it happen: the two of them shoving and punching in the gadget-filled space, the high cab rocking amid stalled traffic. Deliberately he exhaled.

“That’s what I’m telling the Grand Jury,” he said.

Didn’t sound too bad. After a moment, after his jaw relaxed, Kit added that once he got his paper away from Leo he was going to put the Monsod story in there as well.

“In your paper?” Garrison’s looks were turning pudgy again. “Man, nutty. Really. You think you’re ever going to put out a paper again in this town?”

Kit swiveled back to the window — and got his worst shock of the morning at the nudge of his tucked-away gun. A shock erupting through the otherwise silly image of him and Garrison in a scuffle. He spread a palm against the Plexiglass. Carefully he explained that it didn’t matter just how the story got before the public. “It won’t be news anymore,” he said, “but this isn’t about news. I’m the only witness.”

“Only surviving witness.”

Kit rolled his eyes. He distracted himself with math, trying to figure the sticker price of the truck, the cost of a gofer like Garrison.

“Whoa,” the guard was saying, “I really jabbed you there, didn’t I? Really jabbed and twisted. I’m sorry, man.”

“The story belongs before the public,” Kit said.

“I’m sorry, really. No call for that. I think it’s this traffic, you know, the old stall-n-crawl.”

Back to the diplomat?

“Gets everybody hot, you know? Traffic.” Back to the pout, the Irish Elvis. “I mean, Viddich, you yourself. Don’t you think like, you’re taking this story awfully personal ?”

“Personal?”

Garrison had his eyes on the road, his rig out of first gear. He said he knew enough about the news business to know reporters weren’t supposed to get emotionally involved in their work. “It’s unprofessional. Right? What goes in the paper, that’s strictly business.”

“Journalistic distance.” Just like that, Kit found himself grinning. Looking forward to this round.

“Distance. That’s right. You’re with the media, you keep your distance. Otherwise you can’t work.”

“ Sea Level isn’t a forum for me and my whining.”

“That’s right. Just look at the name, hey? Sea Level . That right there, that says everything’s like, balanced. Everything’s in its place.”

“Aw, Garrison.” Kit couldn’t hide his grinning. “Garrison, man, you’re out of date. You’re history.”

The guard, at last nosing off Storrow, could only glance away from the ramp traffic for a moment.

“What I do, it’s the future.” Kit gestured at the truck’s digital clock. “I’m alternative press.”

“What? Viddich, are you being a wiseass again?”

“Not really.” In fact he wasn’t, for all that he enjoyed this round. Or he wasn’t a wiseass any more than Tom Wolfe. “Alternative press, think about it. We started in the ‘60s and we’re headed straight for the future.”

“The future,” Garrison said, “is that Grand Jury.”

“Come on, listen. Learn something. Do you know what happened to the media in the ’60s?”

The guard heaved an incredible sigh, a varsity man after a long day at practice.

“It’s personal, Garrison. Personal voice, personal feelings — it’s all over the media already, and it’s only going to grow.”

“Grow.” A disgusted syllable.

“Don’t you see it happening? Haven’t you heard about cable television, dialing up any news you want, 24 hours a day? It’s personal, man. Your own personal alternative news. Besides that, pretty soon everyone’s going to have a computer.”

“A computer?” Garrison was squinting, trying to figure an angle. “My neighborhood, what people want is a video camera.”

“Okay, a video camera. A video camera or a computer, it’s the same phenomenon.” Warnings were going off in his head: You’re having too much fun with this. “The same, sure. Whether a person’s on camera or on the computer screen — in either case, they’re becoming part of the media. In either case, it’s not, ah, it’s not trained professionals gathering data and then putting what they select before the public.”

“What they select, ” the guard said. “What they select, yeah, that’s all it is.”

“But not any more, Garrison. That’s not what’s happening with the new technology.” Kit wasn’t a cowboy, no — he liked to talk, and never more than when he had a worthwhile insight. “Now what’s starting to happen is, the public selects and produces its own news. Alternative press, it’s everywhere. It’s call-in radio, roundtable talk TV. And pretty soon everybody’s going to have a computer, and you can bet they’re going to be talking to each other too.

“Computer to computer, Garrison. Everybody’s going to have one, everybody’s going to put their story on it. One big electronic medium, and everybody’s going to be part of it.”

Off the Central Artery, the guard had picked up speed. As Kit waited for a response, the man actually beat a yellow light.

“Personal is all over the media, Garrison,” he said quietly. He flexed his thigh against his Nutshell Library. “It’s the future.”

“Viddich. Fuck you.”

Kit snorted.

“Fuck you. Really. That Grand Jury, those guys, they don’t care about your theories, Viddich. Computers and the media, who gives a fuck ?”

Hardball was good, Kit figured. If the last round was hardball, that would get him ready for Leo.

“Don’t care what you did back in Minnesota, either.”

“Aw, Garrison. I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”

“You could have drunk all the blood west of the Mississippi, man. Not going to mean a thing. If you don’t have any friends in that Grand Jury, they’ll rip your balls out and hang ‘em up to dry.”

“Generally speaking,” Kit said, “people don’t try to frighten other people unless they’re frightened themselves.”

“Whoa. Viddich, myself, I’ll tell you. You ask me, I’d like to see your balls hung up to dry.”

Garrison whipped around a pothole fast enough to make the cab rock. “You know I hate to say this, Viddich. I hate to keep trying to help a bright-boy asshole like you. But our friends, man, they can still be your friends. Still.”

Kit’s turn to heave a sigh.

“You hear me, bright boy? Spite of all your bullshit, they can still be there for you. Our friends.”

“Like Forbes Croftall?”

“Fuck you. ” Garrison braked hard. Kit rocked in his seat — was he bracing for a punch? — and discovered that they’d reached the site. The MTA work in progress. Outside the tinted cab window, across a flagged-off strip of waterfront cobblestones, there ranged head-high plywood walls. Support 4x4’s had been set close together, and between them ran a second layer of protection, crosshatched steel fencing. Razor wire wound along the top, shivering in the harbor winds.

“Why do I bother?” the guard was saying. “I told you, I told you — but nobody can tell a bright boy like you.”

Kit counted only two view holes in the plywood. The rest of the wall had been angrily grafitti’d, blood red, ripe black, and scraps of greasy sandwich wrappings fluttered from under the fence. Pedestrians hustled past with eyes averted. All the site needed was a skull-and-crossbones.

Garrison grabbed his arm. “Hey. Dicksuck.”

His grip hurt, but Kit didn’t try to pull free. Hardball. “Garrison,” he said. “Think about it. These friends of yours, they don’t care about you.”