Carl Hiaasen – Basket Case

MacArthur Polk has been ailing since 1983, which is one reason I haven’t bothered doing a canned obit. The old bastard isn’t really dying; he just enjoys the fuss made over him at hospitals. For about the eleventh time he has been admitted to the ICU at Charity, so Emma is jumpy. Although Polk no longer owns the Union-Register, he is a community icon and, more significantly, a major shareholder of Maggad-Feist. When his obituary finally appears, it will be read intently by persons high up the management ladder, persons who might hold sway over Emma’s future. Consequently, she feels she has a stake in the old man’s send-off. She wants it to be sparkling and moving and unforgettable. She wants a masterpiece, and she wants me to write it.

So I’ve deliberately shown no interest whatsoever. My own stake in MacArthur Polk’s death is nada. I could sit down with a stack of clippings and in an hour knock off an obit that was humorous, colorful, poignant—a gem in every way. And it would be filed in the computer until the day the old man finally croaked, when it would be electronically shipped to another reporter for freshening. The story would appear under his or her byline on the front page. At the very end, in parenthesized italics, I might or might not be given credit for “contributing” to the research.

That’s how it goes around here. The moment Page One becomes a possibility, it’s not my story anymore. Nonetheless, I always make sure to type out my byline in boldface letters:

By Jack Tagger Staff Writer

To delete my name from the top of the story, Emma must first highlight it with the Define key. I like to think it’s a chore that afflicts her with a twinge of guilt, but who knows. She has her orders. She’s heard about me and Race Maggad III; everyone in the building has.

The fact that I haven’t resigned must chafe Emma, except on those rare days when she needs a first-rate obituary writer, as she does for MacArthur Polk. One measly fact error, one misspelling, one careless turn of a phrase could jeopardize Emma’s career, or so she believes. Old Man Polk is like a god, she once said to me. He was this newspaper.

Which he greedily sold to Wall Street heathens, I pointed out, causing Emma to cringe and put a finger to her lips.

Every morning she asks how the old man’s obit is coming along, and every morning I tell her I haven’t started writing it yet, which drives her batty. Today I’m still in bed when the phone rings.

“Jack, it’s Emma.”

“Morning, sunshine.”

“Mr. Polk took a turn for the worse,” she says.

“Me, too. What a coincidence.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Neither am I. Some sorta stomach virus,” I say. “I won’t be coming in today.”

Long pause—Emma, grappling with mixed feelings. As much as she would revel in a peaceful Jack-free morning, she needs me there. “Did you call a doctor?” she inquires.

“Soon as I get my head out of the commode. I promise.”

The unsavory image provokes another pause at Emma’s end.

“Talk to you later,” I say.

“Jack, wait.”

Here I moan like a terminal dysentery victim.

“They put Old Man Polk on a machine over at Charity,” says Emma. “They say his heart and lungs are failing.”

“What kind of machine?”

“I don’t know. For heaven’s sakes.”

“Emma, how old is he now? Ninety-five, ninety-six?” I picture her seething because she thinks I don’t even know the old geezer’s age.

Tersely she says: “Eighty-eight.”

The same as Orville Redenbacher when he died!

“And how old is the new Mrs. Polk?” I ask. “Thirty-six, if I recall.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying the old man isn’t going to die at Charity with a tube up his cock. He’s gonna die at home in the sack, with a grin on his face and a jellybean jar full of Viagras on the nightstand. Trust me.”

Emma’s tone turns cold. “You don’t sound very sick to me, Jack.”

“Oh, it’s quite a nasty bug. I’ll spare you the grisly details.”

“You’ll be back in the office tomorrow?”

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