The Belly of the Beast

THE BELLY OF THE BEAST        907 words

As I walked into the large, musty room, I heard a lock click behind me.
“Better safe than sorry,” said Marge, as she followed me into the cavern.  She fumbled a bit on the sidewall and the fluorescent lights slowly buzzed on to reveal a long, black table surrounded by old leather meeting chairs.  High ceilings and a coat of dust on the table gave the room a feel of days gone by.

“Pull up a chair,” said Marge, sweeping her arm in a large arc that encompassed the table.  She then sat down, kicked off her three-inch heels and swung her bare feet up on the table, wiggling her toes and sighing.  She lit a cigarette and smoked in silence as I took a seat across the table and removed my shoes.

As I lit up, I examined the windows on our left.  Graceful, high Gothic columns of leaded glass muffled the noise of the traffic outside.  Partially raised blinds hung askew, coated with dust. 

“We’re in the belly of the beast,” I said.

“Yep.  This is the old boardroom where it all used to happen.  The big boys gathered here each quarter to squeeze out profits and talk about which politicians they were going to back.  This newspaper owned the city then.  There was no competition.  They say that as the board members were in discussion, Eddie, the shoeshine boy, would slide under this table and polish the old boys’ shoes.  There was even a private barbershop down the hall so the execs could get their hair cut without rubbing elbows with the hoi polloi.  No women allowed in this room in those days!”

Marge had been my savior as well as my mentor in these last weeks of a crazy new job. 
I had taken the call of a headhunter on a bad day and ended up accepting a job on the corporate staff of the biggest news organization in the Midwest.  I had worked as a Director – level manager in the high tech world before and this tough-guy world of the press was new for me.  It felt like I had stepped back a century or so. 

I had come with some romantic notion of hanging out with journalists.  My boss, Bill, had informed me in short order that I was not allowed to meet with a journalist for at least six months.

“ They like to scoop the management, “ he explained.  “You might innocently give them some information they can use to embarrass me.”  He went on to tell me that I had to “stay on my leash” for a while.  And how was I supposed to get the data I needed for the new program I was developing?  Well, he wasn’t sure, but no journalists.  “It’s like you are a racehorse – used to running free.  Around here, we go slow; we are cautions; we watch our back.  Get used to it.”

The day I met Marge, a Vice-President at the newspaper, I grabbed the lifeline.  “ I need a mentor, “ I said.  “ I need another woman to help me.  I feel like I have fallen down a rabbit hole.”

“ Well, there aren’t very many of us in management around here.  We’ve got to stick together.  I’ll introduce you to ‘The Club.’ 

“ I’ve been in this business since I left high school.  It’s crusty and hard.  You have to remember that they are all asses.  All puffed up and tough- guy.  The truth is that they are afraid of each other.  All of them are watching their back so hard that they can’t see where they are going.  They have no idea what we are doing.  So, the thing is, you just have to move ahead.  If you want to talk with the editor, I’ll introduce you.  He’ll tell you how the newsroom works.”

Since that day, I had moved ahead nicely with my program.  Marge helped me meet the people I needed to meet and today she had offered to show me the “inner sanctum.”  It turns out that the middle of the building had been deserted.  Thanks to computers and productivity, many of the center floors were not needed anymore.  The CEO sat on the twenty-fourth floor and the rest of the departments were distributed around the outer part of the building.  The inner-most part looked like a deserted Gothic cathedral.  “With a management style to match, “ I thought.

There was a loud knock on the door and a rattling knob. 

“Who’s in ‘ere?” a deep voice shouted.

Marge leapt to the door in her bare feet. 

“Johnny?  It’s Marge.  I’m having an important meeting.  You can’t come in.”

“Ok, Marge.  I got it.  Sorry to disturb!”

“ The security guard,” she explained, “ He watches over all the empty floors like some kind of ghost.  I think he used to be the barber up here.”

We slipped out the door and I took the elevator to my ninth floor office.  Bill was waiting for me.

“ I hear you’ve been smoking in the boardroom with Marge.”

“Well, just this once.”

“No, this is good.  This is good.  You’re finding out how things work here.  Marge is a good girl.  Glad you are hanging out with her.  Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No, thanks, Bill.  You’ve been great.  You really have.”

As he walked back toward his office, I smiled.  They really did have no idea.