Read Online Some Great Thing by Lawrence Hill - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lawrence Hill
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to university. But I’ve been working in this joint since I was sixteen. It’s the only job I’ve had. If Mahatma Grafton fails his probation, he’ll just get another job. But what if they axe me? Where do I go?”
Mahatma Grafton was beginning to agree with Chuck Maxwell that newspaper managers behaved “like neanderthals.” Mahatma had spent almost two months on the job without any indication of how his work was viewed, or why his own initiatives were usually junked, or why he was receiving little from assignment editors. The only feedback he had was in how his stories were placed. In that sense, his worth was measurable in each day’s paper: page one meant good, page forty-nine meant not so good, and stories that never ran meant very bad. Nobody told him anything. Except Chuck, who warned Mahatma that his performance would be assessed by numbers. How many stories did he generate? How many ran on page one? Mahatma tried to produce more. But it was hard to dig up news on his own, and his editors weren’t assigning him much. He remembered something Ben used to ask him every day after school: “What did you do for humanitytoday?” As a boy, Mahatma grew to hate the question. He learned to shut out the voice of his father exhorting him to do great things for mankind.
Mahatma was flipping through the paper one day and wondering about the value of his work at The Herald , when his horoscope jumped out at him.
Don’t be hoodwinked by pedlars of mediocrity. Quality counts. Quantity doesn’t. But forget that for now and hustle to save your job.
Mahatma walked up to Helen Savoie. “Something tells me you know my birthday.”
“Late January, I believe. You’re an Aquarius.”
“Do you doctor those horoscopes?”
Helen grinned. “Sometimes I get inspired.”
“What does the management think about that?”
“Management?” she laughed. “It doesn’t care, dear lad. Management doesn’t read the paper.”
Don Betts was committed to hard news. Who shot whom, who got charged with electoral fraud, who was advancing the cause of totalitarian communism while working as mayor of Canada’s seventh largest city! This was what readers wanted. It was certainly what Don wanted. No entertainment, no comics. No lifestyle puffery. Horoscopes were the only exception—they were Don’s one weakness. They seemed written by someone who disliked him. He knew this was impossible— The Herald got its horoscopes from a syndicated astrologistin Los Angeles. But it tickled him to imagine some California wacko taking the trouble to insult him every week.
Around eight-thirty p.m. on September 20, Don Betts pushed away from his desk and walked to the men’s can, taking the horoscope page with him. He settled into a stall and began to read the entry for Taurus:
You will bungle whatever you undertake today. Do the world a favour and call in sick…
The lights went out. Don swore. He figured there had been a power failure. But someone entered the stall next to his and coughed.
He asked, “That you, Chuck?”
“Oh, you in here too, Don?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Can’t you hear, Don?” Chuck laughed.
“Why did you turn off the lights?”
“I find it relaxing.”
“He finds it relaxing,” Don echoed. “He turns off the fucking lights and finds that relaxing!”
“If it really bothers you, you can turn ’em back on.”
“I can’t even find my way out of here. It’s pitch black. Where’s the light switch, you nimwit?”
“Hold on. I’ll just be a minute. I’ll show you out.”
For Don Betts, that incident confirmed it. Chuck was around the bend. He wrote useless copy and Don wanted him out. Another person Don hoped to get fired was Mahatma Grafton, whom he despised even more than Maxwell. What infuriated Don was the way Grafton looked up at him blankly,the corners of his lips tugged up in a smirk, whenever Don approached him with a story idea. You could jazz up a quote or be caught drunk on
Mahatma Grafton was beginning to agree with Chuck Maxwell that newspaper managers behaved “like neanderthals.” Mahatma had spent almost two months on the job without any indication of how his work was viewed, or why his own initiatives were usually junked, or why he was receiving little from assignment editors. The only feedback he had was in how his stories were placed. In that sense, his worth was measurable in each day’s paper: page one meant good, page forty-nine meant not so good, and stories that never ran meant very bad. Nobody told him anything. Except Chuck, who warned Mahatma that his performance would be assessed by numbers. How many stories did he generate? How many ran on page one? Mahatma tried to produce more. But it was hard to dig up news on his own, and his editors weren’t assigning him much. He remembered something Ben used to ask him every day after school: “What did you do for humanitytoday?” As a boy, Mahatma grew to hate the question. He learned to shut out the voice of his father exhorting him to do great things for mankind.
Mahatma was flipping through the paper one day and wondering about the value of his work at The Herald , when his horoscope jumped out at him.
Don’t be hoodwinked by pedlars of mediocrity. Quality counts. Quantity doesn’t. But forget that for now and hustle to save your job.
Mahatma walked up to Helen Savoie. “Something tells me you know my birthday.”
“Late January, I believe. You’re an Aquarius.”
“Do you doctor those horoscopes?”
Helen grinned. “Sometimes I get inspired.”
“What does the management think about that?”
“Management?” she laughed. “It doesn’t care, dear lad. Management doesn’t read the paper.”
Don Betts was committed to hard news. Who shot whom, who got charged with electoral fraud, who was advancing the cause of totalitarian communism while working as mayor of Canada’s seventh largest city! This was what readers wanted. It was certainly what Don wanted. No entertainment, no comics. No lifestyle puffery. Horoscopes were the only exception—they were Don’s one weakness. They seemed written by someone who disliked him. He knew this was impossible— The Herald got its horoscopes from a syndicated astrologistin Los Angeles. But it tickled him to imagine some California wacko taking the trouble to insult him every week.
Around eight-thirty p.m. on September 20, Don Betts pushed away from his desk and walked to the men’s can, taking the horoscope page with him. He settled into a stall and began to read the entry for Taurus:
You will bungle whatever you undertake today. Do the world a favour and call in sick…
The lights went out. Don swore. He figured there had been a power failure. But someone entered the stall next to his and coughed.
He asked, “That you, Chuck?”
“Oh, you in here too, Don?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Can’t you hear, Don?” Chuck laughed.
“Why did you turn off the lights?”
“I find it relaxing.”
“He finds it relaxing,” Don echoed. “He turns off the fucking lights and finds that relaxing!”
“If it really bothers you, you can turn ’em back on.”
“I can’t even find my way out of here. It’s pitch black. Where’s the light switch, you nimwit?”
“Hold on. I’ll just be a minute. I’ll show you out.”
For Don Betts, that incident confirmed it. Chuck was around the bend. He wrote useless copy and Don wanted him out. Another person Don hoped to get fired was Mahatma Grafton, whom he despised even more than Maxwell. What infuriated Don was the way Grafton looked up at him blankly,the corners of his lips tugged up in a smirk, whenever Don approached him with a story idea. You could jazz up a quote or be caught drunk on
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