Spirits

By Michael Jesse

Chapter 27

When he woke on Sunday morning, Jack felt like going for a run, but he didn't want to leave the apartment because Millie was going to call. He opened his door to see if his newspaper delivery had started, and it had. There on the floor in front of his door was the Sunday Morning Star.

The sight of it, there on the hallway floor, made him happy on multiple levels. He had a great new job at the best newspaper in the state and he had a cool apartment. But most importantly, he was waiting for his girlfriend to call -- and his girlfriend was, against all expectation, Millie Jenkins.

Picking up the paper and turning back into his apartment, Jack was also reminded of the framed journalism quote he had not yet taken into the office. He had started noticing in college that lots of newspaper people had favorite quotations about journalism, and the first time someone asked for his, he was unprepared. He hated to be unprepared and began collecting journalism quotes in one of his notebooks. Some were lofty, some humorous and some cynical, but none quite seemed to fit the new persona he had only recently begun to assemble back then.

At his first job in Carlisle, one of other reporters had a framed quote, the first sentence of which was big and bold, but each line got smaller and smaller until the reader had to be close to make it out.

That wouldn't quite do either. Jack wanted something irreverent, but less offensive. For a while, he used the "afflict the comfortable" quote whenever the topic came up, but always had to explain that the original quotation, from a 19th century satirist, was not actually a compliment to the profession.

It was not until several years later, when he was in Harrington and living with Allison, that Jack found his quote. They were listening to music and in that nice phase of the evening when they were both a little drunk and high, but not yet drunk enough for Allison to start a fight. He had heard the lyric before, and it was not really about journalism, but that didn't matter. The next day he had it printed and framed.

Jack plopped the paper down on his coffee table and dragged the metal trash can closer. Like all big city newspapers, the Sunday Morning Star was as thick as a phone book, though half of that was the advertising inserts for all the department stores, grocery stores, auto dealerships and other businesses for whom newspaper advertising was the best way to reach customers. Although the larger businesses also ran commercials on TV and radio, those did not compare to the value of newspaper advertising, which allowed them to distribute multi-page, full-color booklets to every home that subscribed to the newspaper – and most people did.

Tossing the advertising inserts in the trash, which nearly filled the can, Jack settled on his leather couch with a fresh cup of coffee and scanned the front page. The lead story was an investigative report that he knew the special project team had been working on. The story related the decades-long financial misdeeds of State Sen. Ted Wilcox, one of the most powerful men in the Legislature.

The scion of a political family, Wilcox won his first run for office in his mid-20s and two decades later was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. He was also chairman and CEO of Wilcox Auto Sales, which was founded by his father and now had General Motors dealerships in nearly every county in the state. Jack remembered seeing a glossy Wilcox Auto Sales pamphlet in the stack of advertising inserts he'd thrown away. Guess we might lose that account, Jack mused. He had heard rumors before that Wilcox steered business to himself, but there'd never been anything to prove it – until now. The story jumped from page one to two full pages inside the A section. There were a couple of sidebars and a credits box listing additional contributors, including Millie.

The phone rang and Jack was across the room picking up the receiver by the second ring.

"Good morrrr-ning!" Millie's voice sang out. He loved her voice. "I hope I didn't wake you."

"Of course not," he said, taking the cordless phone back to the couch. "I was just reading the Wilcox story."

"Oh, did they finally run that? I haven't seen the paper."

"And you have a credit."

"Did they publish my history piece on the Wilcox family?"

Jack had noticed that story at the bottom of one of the inside pages, and when he looked at it more closely he saw that it was bylined to her. "They did, with your byline."

"I actually wrote that a few years ago, but it's just been part of my internal files until recently. On the main story, did they credit the staff too?"

"Research: Library Director Millie McGuire and the Morning Star Library staff," Jack read. "I'm still adjusting to you not being Millie Jenkins."

"Yeah, I almost changed it back, but after Todd and I split, it took us a couple of years to actually get divorced. We both knew it was over, but it was hard for us to act on it. In our families, divorce is not just sad and depressing; it's also a sin."

"Technically, it's not a sin until you remarry."

"True."

"So have your attorney present when you go to Judgment Day. You can beat this rap."

She laughed. "I like a man who can do eschatology jokes."

"Eska-what?"

"Eschatology. It's the study of the End Times."

"That has its own word?"

"People in academia like naming things. My point was that the divorce took a long time and by then I was working at the Morning Star, and everyone knew me by that name. Plus I kind of liked the sound of it better."

"Well, I have sentimental feelings for your old name, but I have to admit Millie McGuire is a great-sounding name. You could be a TV private eye with a name like that."

She giggled again. It was intoxicating. "I'll keep that in mind if I need a career change." There was a pause and then she added, "I'm looking forward to us, you know, being intimate again."

"So am I."

"I think we'll get better at it."

"I hear it takes a lot of practice."

"And I'm glad we both told each other about our . . . "

"Problems?"

"I was going to say limitations, but that's not right either."

"How about what makes us 'special'?"

"I really want this to work, Johnny."

"I do too," Jack said, and had to stop himself from adding "because I love you," though he did.

After the call, he finished the paper and then went for a long run. In the afternoon, he cleaned his apartment and put fresh sheets on the bed to be ready for Millie's next visit. As 5:00 approached, he went to his car and drove out to another AA meeting he'd found on his list.

"My name is Ken, and I'm an alcoholic."

"Hi, Ken."

Ken's story was similar to others Jack had heard. He started drinking at a young age, loved it immediately, and proceeded to accumulate the consequences of alcoholic drinking for the next 15 years. He'd been arrested, ruined family gatherings and was in and out of detox before finally getting with the AA program and working the steps.

"I had a hard time with the steps at first," Ken said, "because of all the God stuff. I just couldn't believe in that big powerful God I grew up with, but I learned that my higher power doesn't have to be that God. AA is not a religious program; it's a spiritual program. You get to decide what kind of higher power you can believe in. Your higher power can be anything that is more powerful than you. It can be the ocean. It can be a doorknob. I didn't believe in anything, but I did what my sponsor told me to do. Every morning, I pray to my higher power to keep me sober one more day, and every night before I get in bed I put my knees on the floor and thank my higher power for looking out for me. At first, I was just going through the motions, but things started happening. I got a good job, met a sweet woman who puts up with me. Bad stuff still happens, but I know that my higher power, that I call God, is watching over me. One time I was having a really hard time, and I found myself driving home from work a different route that was taking me past the same liquor store I always used to go to. And I was thinking maybe tonight I will give myself a little break, and I was going to do it too, but when I got to the store, it was closed because of an electrical outage. That was my higher power at work."

When the meeting was over, Jack again approached the person running things to get his signature. He was out the door in seconds, but heard a voice behind him. It was Ken.

"Thanks for coming, friend," he said, and glanced at the paper in Jack's hand. "That's how I got started in AA. How many more meetings do you have to do?"

"Two," Jack said, inching toward his car as they spoke.

"When that happened to me, I stopped coming as soon as I completed the court order and I barely remember the next six years."

"I'm sorry you've had such a hard time," Jack said, "but I'm not like you. I was just unlucky. I went to a party and got stopped by a speed trap on the way home. I passed the roadside sobriety test because I was not impaired, but then I blew slightly over on the breathalyzer and here I am. I didn't do all the shit you did."

"You haven't done those things — yet."

Jack laughed. "Heard that one already. I've only been to four meetings and those quaint idioms are starting to repeat themselves. And by the way no, my higher power can't be a doorknob. Not unless that doorknob also happens to be an all powerful deity in its spare time."

"Well, that example is kind of an exaggeration to make a point," Ken conceded. "I always tell my sponsees that your higher power can be anything that's more powerful than you – like the ocean for example. You're not more powerful than the ocean are you?"

"No, but does the ocean know I exist?" Jack asked. "Can the ocean hear my prayers? Can it make the liquor store be closed? That's asking a lot of the ocean, don't you think?"

Jack was in his convertible now, with Ken standing nearby. "Look, I'm glad you found something that works for you, Ken," he said, "and I really like all the people I've met at these meetings. I'm glad the 'higher-power-but-not-God' thing works for them. That rationale just doesn't cut it for me."

He pulled out of the parking lot and as he accelerated, the wind lifted his court paper up, and it nearly flew out of the car, but Jack grabbed it in time. "Thank you, ocean," he said. "But since you're so powerful, why don't you start focusing on all the war and suffering in the world instead of dicking around with liquor store closing hours. You really need to work on your priorities."