Joe Lansdale: Leather Maiden

“It’s a start. I can work my way up.”

“Hell, you’re almost at the ceiling now, boy. Thing is, you come from skyscraper material. You had that job in Houston, a Pulitzer nomination. What was it, something about some murder?”

“That’s right. It was luck I was nominated.”

“I was thinking it might have been. Still, you didn’t last in Houston.”

“I came back here for a while, then joined the military.”

“Could there have been a reason you suddenly dropped that job in Houston? What was the problem there?”

“My boss and I didn’t get along.”

“Because you drank?”

“No, ma’am.”

“You know I can call him and ask.”

“You call him, I don’t know he’ll have much to say about the drinking, but whatever he says I doubt any of it will be good, even after several years. He doesn’t like me.”

“You can be straight with me. Nothing you say will embarrass or shock me.”

“I was banging his wife. And his stepdaughter. The daughter, by the way, was thirty, the mother forty-eight.”

“No teenagers in the mix?”

“No, ma’am.”

“And I assume your indiscretions do not include the family dog.”

“No, ma’am. I believe you have to draw a line somewhere.”

“You think you’re quite the player, don’t you, boy?”

“I did then.”

Mrs. Timpson pursed her lips. “Go on out there and have Beverly, that’s the receptionist—”

“We met,” I said. “And I believe it’s Belinda.”

“Have her show you your desk. Working for a newspaper is like riding a bicycle or having sex, I suppose. Once you’ve done it, you should be able to do it again. But you can fall off a goddamn bicycle and you can fail to pull out in time when you’re doing the deed. So experience isn’t everything. Use a little common sense.”

“I will.”

“I hope so. Won’t be much in the way of Pulitzer Prize material to write about here, though. Last thing we had in the paper, outside of world news, that was anywhere near exciting was a rabid raccoon down at the Wal-Mart garden center last week. He chased a stock boy around and they had to shoot him.”

“The stock boy or the raccoon?”

“There’s that sense of humor again.”

“Yes, ma’am. And I promise, I’m all done now.”

“Good. I’m putting you on a column. That’s the job you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Maybe it was a skunk.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“The animal in Wal-Mart. Now that I think about it, it was a skunk, not a raccoon…Your column. It’s for the Sunday features. Most of the time you’ll be out of the office, but you got a desk. Still, you’ll report to me regularly. Get a taste today. Leave when you want to. Tomorrow morning, nine sharp, we’ll toss you into the fire.”

I got up and smiled and stuck out my hand to shake. She gave me a dismissive wave of the hand.

I started for the door.

“Varnell Johnson,” she said.

I turned. “Ma’am?”

“That was the colored boy’s name—one that broke your passing record. He could throw like a catapult and run like a goddamn deer.”

3

When I came out of Timpson’s office one of the reporters at one of the few occupied desks, a twentyish black guy in a bright yellow shirt with the sleeves rolled up, waved me over. It was like the president summoning a lackey, but I started over there anyway, went to his desk as he stood up and pushed his chair aside. He was short and broad-shouldered, with his hair cropped close, a crisp part cut into it. I stuck out my hand and we shook. He had one of those determined handshakes, not so brisk, but really strong, like it was more of a contest than a greeting.

“Cason Statler,” I said.

“I know who you are. I’m Oswald, like the guy that shot Kennedy.”

“Glad to meet you, Oswald.”

“How did it go in there?” he asked.

“I’m part of the team.”

“Oh, there are no team players here. We’re all pretty much out for ourselves. Trust me on that. Bend over and you’ll feel an intrusion. Look, I know Timpson seems old and grumpy and pretty much out of date, but I want you to know, she doesn’t just seem that way—she is that way.”

“We had a particularly pithy exchange about the colored.”

He grinned at me, and this time it seemed genuine. “Welcome to nineteen fifty-nine.”

“Actually, I’m from here, and I’d put this place more about late nineteen seventy. So don’t go putting it down.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Oswald said. “I didn’t move here until last year.”

“Why?”

“I’m asking myself that every day. But people are always telling me how it was wonderful in the old days. Probably not so wonderful for black folk, though.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Wouldn’t you love to come home to a shack out back of a white man’s plantation and sing some Negro spirituals after a hard day of picking cotton? Kind of kick back to let your whip lashes cool?”

That actually got a snicker out of him. “The only thing I’ve ever picked is my nose. I heard you were in the military.”

“That’s been a little while back. I had an accident and they had to let me leave.”

“You look fine now.” He said that like I had never been hurt.

“Accident was bad then, but I healed quicker than they expected. I haven’t made a big point of telling the military that.”

“I heard you got some medals,” he said.

“They were passing them out that day,” I said. “See you, Oswald.”

I saw Belinda putting down the phone, and as I walked away from Oswald’s desk, she rose from hers and intercepted me.

“That was Mrs. Timpson. She said I should show you your desk.”

She led me over to it and I was chauvinistic enough to watch her walk and decide she really was more than cute. She was a major looker, a little out of style in the hair and makeup department, but she dressed all right and I liked the way her skirt fit; it was tight enough and right enough to make the world seem like a happy place for at least a few moments.

“This is it,” she said.

It looked like everyone else’s desk. There was a computer on it and there was a drawer in the center and drawers on the sides. I opened them. The ones on the sides were empty. The one in the center had pencils and pens and paper clips and half a pack of Winterfresh gum. I took a stick, peeled it and put it in my mouth. It was like trying to chew a Band-Aid.

Belinda showed me her braces. “Good, huh?”

I took the gum out of my mouth, wadded it up inside the wrapper, dropped it in the trash can. “Not so much.”

“It’s been in there since the creation of gum.”

“I believe that.”

“So, how did you like our fearless editor?” Belinda asked.

“Very colorful.”

Belinda smiled her mouthful of braces at me. “That’s not what the others here call her.”

“No?”

“No.” She looked over her shoulder at Oswald, who had returned to his seat behind his desk. “What about the assassin of John F. Kennedy?”

“I can’t decide if he’s just testy or an asshole.”

She smiled. “Actually, Cason, he’s a testy asshole.”

I went around and met some of the reporters, folks in the advertising office, and was told a lot of them were out on assignments and I would meet them later. I made a few promises of lunch, went over to my desk and sat for a while and moved a pencil around.

It wasn’t as good as the desk I had in Houston. It wasn’t as good a newspaper. The pencil was even cheap. But here I was. I had screwed things up so I could arrive at just this spot. I was deep into having myself a pity party when Oswald, the testy asshole, came over. I had hoped me and him were through for the day. But no such luck.