Black and White

Standing in the rain-streaked darkness, James watched as the shadowed figure of the man moved away from him and up the street, wondering briefly why the man always had to select the most dismal and secret rendezvous for their business. In the distance, he saw the man flip up a coat collar as he disappeared into the night. James shrugged and moved on.

         In the pouring rain, James was aware of only two things: that it was now almost eight o’clock on Sunday, the last day of his vacation, and that he was walking somewhere near the East Village: he had left Soho a while ago after meeting the man in a deserted park for their clandestine transaction, and had then crossed the intersection that led toward Greenwich Village and his apartment. He had not wished it so. Leaving the comfort of his apartment he had set out on foot in a light rain, hoping the encounter would not take too long, and that he may not be soaked in the process. Both conditions had not been met; he should have learned to become accustomed to the man’s manner, which was at once shady and abrupt. His contact required of him absolute secrecy, and if that meant meeting in SoHo park in the middle of a tempest, then so be it.

         He walked on, one hand tucked in his pocket and the other offering a futile protection over a manila folder that was clutched in his left hand. He thought that he should conceal it better, to protect it from this night. Water ran along its edges, dripping off the sides, falling to the ground amidst the torrent from the skies above. He clutched it tighter, almost as if in defense of it. He wasn’t naïve, nor could he help thinking what another might do for this…to rip it from his grasp…to get it first- to be the best. He thought suddenly, that given the right circumstances one might kill for this; a fact he loathed…and a fact at whose discovery caused in him a conflicted regret, because he realized that it did not matter to him. He thought that it should- or at least that is what others would have expected of a man like him, but it did not. So it was that he remained a lone journalist walking down a dark street in New York, holding the pieces of an exclusive in his rain soaked hands, as the one thought on his mind was not of the headlines he would make, but of returning to his apartment, getting out of his wet clothes and trying to forget about this excursion.

         The contents of the folder, which contained a single piece of stationary, were really not important enough to mention, except to say that it amounted to more than any journalist or media mogul could hope to accumulate in a lifetime. He tried to think why: It wasn’t as though the information represented something unique, something out of reach, or something impossible to acquire, but rather that it was too neat, too concise and too dramatic for him to comprehend. He thought of a better word: it was too obvious. Someone should have suspected. But, as usual, no one had…including himself. And it wasn’t the last time, he knew, just as it wasn’t the first. It was information that would have an impact, information that would wow, dazzle and impress the city. It was newsworthy. But this was not what bothered him. No, what troubled him was its presentation.

         Somewhere now, in the city, he was walking, the nameless man who had given him the folder…a man who had spontaneously contacted him two years ago…a man who had since been supplying him with information such as this. And it was always different; sometimes the information would be weekly, sometimes daily…and other times he wouldn’t hear from him for months. It was during these times that he grew the weariest. It wasn’t because he needed the information, but because on these occasions he knew that the information, when it did come, would be the most generous. And tonight was a case in point. He knew, without questioning, that the story built off of tonight’s offering would adorn the front page, that it would sell, and that it would inspire the kind of jealousy in the other papers that one often dreams of. The man had simply handed it over

         “…Can I interest you in a Rolex sir?” A voice called. “…some movies, gloves?” The voice called as James stepped underneath an awning, out of the rain momentarily, approaching a makeshift booth; watches, wallets, DVD’s and other clothing laid out before him on a cotton throw cloth.

         “No thank you,” James replied. The man, who was dressed in a leather coat and matching hat, beckoned to him again as he walked by. The voice barely registered; and as he walked underneath the awning and past the booth the voice faded away, the sound of falling rain and the man’s voice merging together with each passing footstep.

         He clutched his coat about his neck and crossed the street at an intersection, thinking not of the cold nor the rain, but only of the five or so blocks he had left behind. The rain provided only a minor annoyance; the intermittent drops pelted his face as he walked past others, some covering their heads with umbrellas or their faces with their coats. He liked it that people were out tonight, despite the elements. Another man sauntered past, pushing a rusty shopping cart and carrying a bottle concealed by a brown paper bag. James found himself wondering at the people he passed; they knew nothing of him or of what treasure now lay in his hands. Many of them wouldn’t comprehend it, and the rest, he knew, wouldn’t care until the read it in the paper- until it was real. Closing his eyes, he felt himself capable of envy for the first time in his life.

         He looked at the cars in the road, speeding past, and thought about the man who had given him the folder. He was an elusive character, more myth than man really, for any attempt that James had made towards discovering his identity had been thwarted. As far as he could tell, the man simply did not exist. He was like a ghost, appearing at his whim- not to haunt, but rather to supply tidbits and inklings of journalistic enormity, and to hand this information over for little more than a pittance. For two years he had been paying the man what he demanded, and each time the man’s price had gone down by around ten percent. It didn’t add up. What news source or snitch, which was all he could be, worked for such trivial wages? He caught himself wondering why he thought about the man at all. Why did he spend any of his time guessing as to the ethics of a man who chain smoked cigarettes and demanded to meet at out of the way locations. But this last was a lie, he thought. Most likely. For if he had learned anything during his time spent in journalism, it was that appearances, much like circumstantial evidence in a courtroom, were most always suspect.

         He he heard footsteps behind him, but turning to look it was nothing- there was nobody behind him and the footsteps only part of his heightened imagination and overworked mind. He closed his eyes, thinking again of SoHo park for no reason in particular, adding it to list in his mind. Washington Square Park, Battery Park, The Lincoln Center fountain, Times Square...A Sbarro on 42nd street, Union Square Park, a backpacker's hostel on West 95th, Central Park, Harlem, The Bronx, A cafe in Greenwich Village, a Dim Sum restaurant in Chinatown, Cafe el Tregua in Brooklyn....The Promenade, also in Brooklyn. The Staten Island Ferry, The South Street Seaport. The list went on, not a collection of his haunts but a milieu of his encounters with a man who called himself simply Jackson Griffith. This time it had been SoHo park, and he wondered if he would remember this spot in conjunction with the others, or why he had the perverse need to keep track.

         He shook his head, admitting the lie he had told himself. He knew why he kept track, just as he knew why he he brushed his teeth in the evening instead of the morning or why he preferred cream in his coffee. It was because of motives. During his life, he had learned that there were types of people, and types of motives- some more dangerous than others. A woman who robs because she is poor, or a man that kills to protects his family; a child who skips school to get concert tickets or brother who faces jail for his sibling...these were all acts that grew out of the same root- action to serve a purpose. What of his contact’s purpose? He could not think what it could be. On some level, however, something troubled him much more than what the man’s motive was, and that was why? He couldn’t see any sane or rational purpose in someone supplying the kind of intel that this man did, or why of all the possible marks in this city he should have chose James. He was intuitive, but possessed none of the qualities of a mark- he worked hard for success but didn’t crave it, and worked hard for his money though he didn’t have much. He was not the kind of man who could throw wads of cash at a source for award-winning stories and never thought he would want to even if he could. He was a man who was in a field drowning in contacts, snitches and sources, but preferred ones of which he could achieve their trust by his skill and not by lining their pockets. And Griffith was no idiot; he knew this about James, and seemed to continue to request his presence despite it- or perhaps in spite of it. The man showed utterly no respect for James, his profession or his ethics, seeming to complete his task for a completely different end, and one that James was powerless to detect.

         The rain intensified, and James was driven to quicken his pace, though he found this futile. His misery was only strengthened as water pelted his face harder, so he slowed down again, accepting the storm and realizing that his reaction to his condition was the only thing he may be able to control. He saw several people cut through a park to his left and he followed them, using the trees as shelter to avoid the rain. Several students sat idly by under an awning, one student beating on a pair of hand drums as the others watched. He cut through, laughing as he saw one couple, engaged in conversation, the girl making it a point of finishing her conversation as they approached their car, the boy listening on, soaked. His observation was cut short, however, by a harsh wind, forcing a loose sheet of newspaper into his face, his hand tearing it off in a quick thrust. He looked to his left and saw a vending machine standing against a wall, the front page of The New York Voice screaming out to any passing, would be customer. It was morbid, he thought, reading the headlines: ‘Mayor to Stay Execution,’ it read, and under that ‘Two Men Killed in Shootout- Police Foil Robbery.’

         He found it morbid, and somehow tied to the animosity and mystery caused by Griffith. Why those headlines, he thought? Of what purpose did they serve? A hook, he thought, or perhaps a snare to drag the reader in, but why? He found it alarming that it was always the same, wondering why newspaper headlines always seemed to stand as a silent denotation of atrocity, and why a benign action never seemed to make front page headlines. The people of the city, it seemed, were enticed by such headlines as he had passed, but seldom by the opposite. Thoughts came to him, attacking him, laughing at him for his naivety. But why must they be naive, he thought, imagining a world in which a man would sit down at the kitchen table, coffee in hand, opening the paper not to this crime or that, but rather a headline like: ‘Doctor Saves Man’s Life.’

         Of course he knew this was naive. It had to be. They both happened with about the same frequency, and he often wondered what it was about people that wished to hear that part of live that was malevolent, and shun the good. James knew people, good people, who thought that life was an inherently fatal condition, and those who judged happiness as a lack of pain. As though, he thought, through the lack of pain one could hold claim to levity. It was prevalent in the comments of those he met in his profession. Once, while researching an article on diabetes, he interviewed a mother whose daughter had incurred blindness due to the disease. The woman had said hopefully: “It is unfortunate, the blindness my child has suffered…but I should be grateful…many others are stricken with far worse infirmaries...at least she doesn’t have cancer.”

         He had notated her words, suppressing a cringe. He could never understand that line of thinking, where one seemed to judge the tolerance of a situation based not on their own experience of it, but rather whether or not their situation was better or worse than another’s. He had heard people say that they should look for the best in a situation, and that one had no reason to feel sorrow for themselves while others had it worse off than them. But this was a fact that he could not except- it was a fact he had, it seemed, been fighting his entire life.

         What was it about these act that troubled him so, and why Griffith-

         A vibrating in his pocket disrupted his thoughts as he reached in and answered his cell phone. A man’s voice answered, yet James had a hard time hearing him as though he had a bad connection.

         “Hello,” he said.

         “Hello...” A pause. “Is this James Simone from The New York Voice?”

         “Yes it is,” he replied calmly. “Who am I speaking to?”

         “It's Caulyn Fredericks, from the Police Department. Can we talk?”

         “Caulyn,” he said. “Yeah, what is it?”

         “Not on the phone. I'd prefer to meet in person. Can we say Utopia in half an hour?”

         “Sure,” James said, sighing briefly on the inside. He had much hoped to get out of his cold clothes.

         “Okay, I'll talk to you soon Simone,” the voice said and then disconnected. James shut the phone, put it in his pocket and stood under an awning, attempting to dry his hair as best he could with a handkerchief he had in pocket. It had stopped raining and all but his shoes was at least relatively dry, but a cold chill still ran through him that he was powerless to shake. He also wondered what it was that Fredericks could want. Caulyn was a beat cop in the NYPD, and one who had helped him out multiple times in the past with either various leads or stories. It wasn't infrequent for members of the police department to contact him late, even on a Sunday, but he must admit that he wasn't expecting it tonight. He was cold, tired and overwrought after meeting Griffith, and truthfully just wanted to go home. But that was they job, he told himself. You never knew what was going to come out of a contact when they asked to meet with you, and more than one sensational story had come out of his impromptu meetings. So he simply shook his head dry under the awning for another minute, placed the handkerchief back in his inside coat pocket and headed off to Utopia to meet Fredericks.



                                                                              ***


         The restaurant Utopia, where Fredericks had asked James to meet him, was located on the Upper West Side near 89th street.  It was pricy, but had a nice bar, and was the kind of place where people had business luncheons over champagne, or where affluent men nervously proposed to their girlfriends over cavier. It was not, he thought, the kind of place where beat cops, or journalists for that matter, were known to frequent. However, he guessed that this was the basis of its appeal to Fredericks; James had learned that cops liked to help him, but usually he had to give them something in return. It was infrequently money; what they wanted most was anonymity, and for the most part James gave it to them whenever he could. 

         Exiting the subway terminal James noticed the sign indicting the restaurant up ahead. He also noticed, that now that the rain had mostly stopped that people were out. Stepping out of the way of a puddle James approached the building and walked inside.

         The sign at the door read: “Please wait to be seated” but after standing there for just a moment a hostess waived James in, instructing him to sit wherever he liked. He explained that he was looking for a friend and entered the interior of the restaurant. Looking around, what he found most interesting about the place was the lighting: it was semi-dark throughout the place; you had to walk down a set of steps to reach the floor, which then branched off into a larger area, with the bar to one side and the restaurant on the other. It was almost nine-thirty, and though there were a few patrons in the restaurant the kitchen stopped serving at ten and James wasn’t really that hungry. He looked around for a few minutes, attempted to find his Fredericks, but so far was having not that much luck. After a moment the hostess called to him from the entranceway.

         “Can I help you?” She asked. James took another look at her. She was young, he noticed. She had blonde hair with black streaks. She was attractive, he thought, but not showy. She didn’t ask the question impertinently, but casually, as though she wished to help him, as long as it didn’t deter her from watching over the front should another patron enter the establishment.

         “I'm meeting someone here,” James said.

         “Name,” she said distractedly.

         “Caulyn,” he said, but then realized that she would not know who he was referring to and corrected himself. “Fredericks.”

         She scanned her log. “You party's running late,” she said. “But he left a message that he'll be along shortly.” She paused. “Why don't you wait at one of the tables by the bar. It's right through there.” She pointed past a hallway of tables leading toward the back of the restaurant. James obliged and sat at a small round table a few feet from the bar, looking around the room as he waited. The room was moderate, and seemed congested. A large party adorned a large table closer to the bar, where the barman was fixing martinis, and a few lonely people occupied the seats at the actual bar itself, eyeing each other over the tops of their drinks or hidden behind clouds of smoke from their cigarettes. James ordered a beer as he waited.

         Roughly ten minutes later, Caulyn Fredericks entered the bar, escorted by a waiter. James observed that he didn't look particularly harried, but that he walked with a purpose. Most of the patrons in the bar could not possibly have noticed, but he definitely didn't carry the swagger of a casual patron looking to have a drink in a high end restaurant, but rather a man with a mission. Finding James, he sat down, ordering a beer and lighting a cigarette as the waiter went off to fetch his drink.

         “Thanks for agreeing to come James,” he said. He grinned. Fredericks, James remembered, was thirty-four, and had been with the NYPD for eight years now. He was slender, but not lanky, and had a casual nonchalance about him that often translated into a supreme self-confidence, although James wasn't sure how much of this Fredericks made visible for others' benefit. He was 6'1 and wore a head of brown hair that was neatly kept in place most times, but tonight was slightly messed from the elements. His usual dress blues were traded in for jeans, black dress shoes and a sport jacket over a button down striped shirt. He looked around nervously, as though afraid that someone might spot him speaking to James, but, apparently convinced that his secret was safe among the rich and affluent clientele of this bar he turned back to Simone, exhaling smoke above his head.

         “Thanks for coming James,” he said.

         “It sounded urgent,” he replied, taking a sip of his drink.

         “Sort of,” Fredericks replied. “I'm glad I got a hold of you.”

         “What is it?” James asked. “What can I do for you?”

         Fredericks laughed. “I like you James,” he said. “You're the only journalist I know that doesn't have the arrogance to think it would be the other way around.”

         “I just assumed,” James said slowly. “You did call me.”

         “No, you were right,” Fredericks said. “It just not something I'm not used to hearing.”

         James looked at him, waiting. This was frequently the way people treated him. He wasn't sure if his insight was keen, or whether he didn't have a filter that others did for sugar coating things. Most of the time he had no choice but to get right to the point, and he supposed it carried over to all aspects of his life.

         “So,” James repeated. “Why did you call this meeting?”

         He looked at James with calm eyes. Earnestly he said: “I need you to do me a favor.”

         “I'll do my best,” James said. “What is it?”

         “Do you remember the conversation we had last week?”

         James nodded his head in agreement. “Solomon?”

         “Yes,” Fredericks said, taking a sip of his drink. He thought about the name, and how sure he had been last week when he and Simone had last spoke. Solomon was a man's name, Richard Solomon, and was a veteran of the police force who had been involved in undercover work, until he had caught the attention of Internal Affairs. Fredericks hated Internal Affairs, as did any self-respecting cop, but it was his job to be informed, and what IA had suspected Solomon of being involved in was much more dastardly than investigating and attempting to arrest fellow officers. He had contacted Simone, only after realizing that the other papers had caught wind of the story and intended to go public. Fredericks didn't agree with them, and the information they had received. He wasn't too keen on it, but he had been asked by his chief to contact the papers, attempting to get the story right- or at least as right as possible, without damaging the NYPD too much in the process. Both the New York Daily Press and The Times-Gazette had not wanted to speak to him; they had their story, were satisfied with their sources, and were leery of a member of the NYPD contacting them with anything but a red herring. However, he had gotten in touch with Simone, who had listened, letting Fredericks know what information he had, and Caulyn in turn had let James know how much of the story he thought was right, and where he thought James needed more information. Honestly, it wasn't typically his style, and he abhorred sharing too much with the press, especially about what happened within the police department, but if the story was going to get out, he at least wanted to make sure it was accurate. But that was before he had learned more information- not information to make the story better, but less. IA had gotten their information wrong, accused the wrong man, and more than anything else Fredericks was terrified of what could happed to the life and career of a man such as Solomon after being wrung through a smear campaign. He took a sip of his beer, looking at James and feeling relieved, for reasons he mostly couldn't place. For some reason if he had to be forthcoming with a journalist, he was glad it was Simone.

         “What happened?” James asked. “Has something else happened.”

         “I got it wrong James,” he said. He sighed. “God, this makes me sick. When I talked to you I didn't have the whole story, just what I had learned from my sources. I was just trying to do the right thing.” He sighed. “God, what those other bastards want to run about Solomon- it could ruin his career.”

         James leaned across the table. “This is serious,” he said. Fredericks looked at him, and didn't see a man irritated with the information he had gotten, but patient as though he knew there was more to the story that had to come out. “Slow down,” he said. “Start from the beginning.”

         At that Fredericks had told him about the information he had gotten from IA this week, and more information that he had gotten from his chief, and how he had been charged with making sure the papers had gotten it right, and how he had failed with The Gazette and The Press. James leaned back, suddenly not so tired, but interested. Fredericks was a good cop, and had been a help to him more times than he could remember.

         “So you see our concern James...maybe it's a small thing, but it seems it has the capacity to do more harm than good- which, given the article, may seem a little bit of a paradox. I don't suppose something like that has the capacity to do a whole lot of good, but it's the truth, right and that's what journalism is. But when it's wrong-”

         “I understand,” James said.

         “And you see my conundrum too James,” he said. “I did this, the whole department did, and I'm afraid it's going to affect you too.”

         “What do you mean?” James asked.

         “Naturally you'll have to print a retraction. This kills me. Of all the slow, tardy ways to find the information, they tell me tonight, when I know those other guys have already gone to press. You guys always get it right. It'll make us both look bad. And Solomon...”

         “I'm sorry?” James said. “Retraction?”          

         “Yes,” Fredericks said. “As in a retraction, for a story. That is the word for it, isn't it, when journalists get a story wrong and have to right the wrong?”

         “I don't think that will be necessary,” he said. His tone wasn't assumptuous or rude, but calm. Fredericks looked at him.

         “I don't understand,” he said. “The story is wrong James.”

         “I understand,” James said. He took another sip of his beer. Fredericks looked nervous; it was clear he didn't understand.

         “I'm sorry James,” he said. “Maybe I'm being presumptuous. I naturally assumed that you would have gone to press at this point.”

         James nodded his head. “Norman would have sent it to press long ago,” he said. He paused, waiting a moment, hoping that Fredericks would understand. After a moment he said: “We're not running the story.”

         “You're not?” Fredericks said, confused.

         “No.”

         “Can I ask why?” He said. “Not that I'm not pleased, I just don't understand.”

         “Caulyn,” James said. “The story was good. But I don't know. Something bothered me about it...about how easy the whole thing seemed. I spoke about it with Keats and he felt the same way. We decided to wait on it, to see if anything developed before opening ourselves up to a libel suit or worse.”

         “You waited,” Fredericks repeated, trying to make sense out of this. Honestly, all that he knew about Simone was obtained during brief conversations the two of them had had during interviews. He didn't know what kind of man he was, but only what kind of journalist. And he figured, if his personal ethics were implied by his stories, that he was a man he wanted to trust.

         “It's a relief,” Fredericks said, in a better mood, taking a sip of his beer.

         James didn't respond immediately. A waitress walked by, and he gave her his beer. He checked his watch. It was now almost eleven, and he was getting tired, but he waited. He wanted to see if Fredericks needed anything else; he was sure it would only be a matter of time before he needed his help again.

         “Is that it?” James asked after a few minutes had passed and Caulyn didn't look as though he was going to mention anything else.

         “Yes,” he said. “That's what I needed James.” He paused. “Thank you.”

         “You're welcome.” James smiled. “I appreciate your help,” James said. “Contrary to what a lot of people think, journalists don't want to get a story wrong.”

         “Our lines,” Caulyn said. “They get mixed up a lot when we cross don't they? The press and the police.”

         James took a sip of his drink, leaning back in his chair. Fredericks was right, he knew. The police and the press had the tendency to irritate one another, and often to make each other's job more difficult than it had to be. As far as he knew, Fredericks and the NYPD had always gone out of their way to help the New York Voice, and James had likewise done his best to return the courtesy. There were lines, he knew, which when crossed could cause volatile reactions, almost like a child mixing chemicals in the chemistry lab unsupervised. However, he had personally never had that particular experience with Fredericks or any other member of the NYPD, and, among a list of similar things that could cause a similar reaction, he was proud of this fact.

         After a minute James spoke. “Do you think there's merit to the story for the future?”

         “That story?” Fredericks said. “With all the disclosure I can muster James- no, I don't.”

         James nodded, not needing more of an explanation, or without needing to press Fredericks more. “Alright,” he said. “Consider it killed.”

         “It's appreciated.”

         “That's the job.”

         “True,” Fredericks said quietly as he finished his beer. The waitress came and asked if they wanted more drinks, to which James and Fredericks replied no. It was late, and Fredericks had said what he needed to say, and James had responded in the way in which he had hoped. As they left Utopia, and as he watched Simone walk up the street and toward the subway, Fredericks couldn't explain why the encounter had been easier than he had thought. He thought on this. No, that wasn't what it was that bothered him. It was conditioning, he thought. Thinking deeper, he realized that the ease of the meeting was not what troubled him. It was something more, and something that went to the heart of his interactions with most people, and a way that he often felt after meeting with journalists. What troubled him was not that the interaction was easy, but that, even for a second, he had assumed it would be difficult. He shook his head, hailing a cab.


                                                                              ***


         Fifteen minutes after leaving Fredericks, James reached his apartment complex. It was an old, six story building, although housing was only available until the fifth; the sixth was occupied by a roof, which was supposed to be off limits, yet most of the residents found their way up there at one point or another. Exhausted, and feeling as though he could relax for the first time since he had returned, James entered his apartment complex, making his way up to the fifth floor where he opened his door and stepped inside. His apartment remained just the way he had left it. His kitchen remained still and quiet, a cream colored coffee cup resting on the counter. The inside of his apartment was rather small, but accommodating. His kitchen was small, with a round table and ample counter space; there was a rectangular hole cut out of the wall, which served as a bar where he liked to have his morning coffee or evening glass of wine.  A small wine rack sat underneath a few cupboards, displaying two bottles of red wine. Next to the rack sat another of his favorites, and coffee grinder and a Ethiopian coffee, whole bean. He set his keys next to these and left the kitchen.

         Exiting the kitchen and turning left, a dark hallway stretched away from him, that led to his bedroom and the bathroom. Walking straight out of the kitchen, however, led to James' living room, his favorite area of his apartment. Like the rest of his apartment it was small; little furniture adorned this section. There was a couch, and a coffee table in front of it. The sofa and table were not expensive, but they looked nice. In front of the table lay a television which sat on a wooden stand. Behind the sofa stood a single lamp, which turning it on now cast a soft glow over the sofa and surrounding floor. To the left of the sofa hung long, white blinds, which were now shut but when opened granted a view of the surrounding streets of Greenwich Village and the Empire State Building in the distance.

         He opened the blinds, peering out into the darkness. He saw people and cars in the streets,speeding past his apartment on their way to their destinations in the night. It had now all but stopped raining, and watching the cars driving past he felt a momentary bit of regret. He loved storms, always had. Especially the sound of rain falling. For him a storm caused a momentary gap in the to and fro motion of life, as though important things weren’t so important, causing people to slow down for a while, waiting until nature’s reach into their lives had been repealed. It always caused a small sadness in him when a storm passed, as though it signaled a return from reality.

         He walked over to the television and turned it on. It glowed silver-white, the glow from the tube lighting up his apartment. He turned on channel four; a news station was rehashing the robbery that had taken place this afternoon, the faint voice of the anchor speaking through the speakers. James tried to place him, but couldn’t. The summary of the day’s news tickets flashed by, but tiredness was setting in and he could make no connection to it, nor could he focus. He rubbed his eyes, looking around the room. He let out a yawn.

         In the darkness he looked toward a table on the other end of the room, where his answering machine blinked five times. He rubbed his eyes. Odd, he thought, that he had not noticed the awaiting messages when he had come in earlier to take a shower before meeting Thurston. It was late, and he should go to bed. But it was like an addiction to him. He couldn’t rest until he knew there was nothing too pressing he should attend to, even if it had to wait until tomorrow. He pressed the button, listening to the messages: one a credit card solicitation, another a reminder for a doctor’s appointment he had next week...two from Keats. The final one was from his lead reporter, Chris Brandt. It was a follow up on a story they had been working on the week prior, and James suddenly realized that he had almost forgotten it.

         He tried to think what Brandt could possible need, but couldn’t. This was an annoying habit of his, this inability to let things be. Whatever Chris needed, he was sure could be accomplished when he was at the office tomorrow. He had good writers that worked for him, and Chris was a great example of this. Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow.

         He walked over to the sofa, slumping back against it. He sat there motionless for a moment, the grayish glow from the television illuminating the space behind him. The anchor had now shifted focus off the robbery and had moved on to other topics...elections were coming. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again. He attempted to change the channel, landed briefly on a nature show, which only succeeded in making him more tired, and then a cooking show which accomplished the same. He kicked his shoes underneath the coffee table, leaning back.

         It felt good to be home. When Fredericks had first called him, he had felt defeated and that he could not possibly remain on his feet, but oddly now he felt at peace. The meeting had been important; he was glad he went. He felt it was a way for him to transition back into the work week, which, at this point, was only hours away. It was always a bit overbearing returning to work after vacation, as though while one part of you wanted to stay in that frame of mind, wanted to stay relaxed, the other part of you knew that you had to return, had to focus. Meeting Fredericks tonight seemed to serve as a graceful segue back into that world, and it also pleased him to a degree to be able to be of assistance to Fredericks in the manner he had requested. Plus, the conversation had provided him distraction, and had accomplished something else for him as well. He felt calm, and no longer did the mystery world of his elusive contact trouble him. He always felt out-of-touch after these meetings, mostly due to his desire to search out the man's motives and try to make sense out of it, but right now it seemed not to matter. Fredericks' gesture provided him with a momentary distraction and had quieted this some, and made him forget.

         The time flashed on the television...it was now one a.m. He knew that he needed to get to sleep. He switched the television back again to the news, lowering the volume, hoping the background noise would allow him to rest.

         Closing his eyes again, he tried to think of all the things he had to do tomorrow. There was paperwork to catch up on...there were stories to follow up on, new stories to pick up and emails to be read. There was a staff meeting...at the paper, the one thing that you could always count on, in fact grew quite accustomed to expecting, were staff meetings. He was sure Keats would want to see him...more paperwork, editing. He sighed. It was getting hard to focus.

         He closed his eyes again for a moment, and then opened them again. He lifted the t.v. remote, flipped the channel a few times again, finally letting his hand fall limp against the side of the sofa. He muted the television, sitting in the darkness. He sat there, motionless, the intermittent flashes of the t.v. as the commercials changed washing over him. He watched on in silence. After five minutes, he realized how quiet it was, and after ten that he was no longer paying attention. He considered shifting over- lying down- then forgot. The ignored television flickered on quietly in the distance as he closed his eyes and went to sleep.