And five years ago most of those kids would have jumped at the chance to return here after college and join the paper at a humiliating salary, just to get in on the action. But after graduating next year, young Evan is heading straightaway to law school, his resume jazzed by a semester of working journalism once viewed as a baptism by fire, but these days regarded more as an act of exotic self-sacrifice; missionary work. Smart kids like Evan read the Wall Street Journal. They know that what’s happened to the Union-Register is happening to papers all over the country, and that any Jeffersonian ideals about a free and independent press would be flogged out of their callow hides within weeks of taking the job. They know that the people who run most newspapers no longer seek out renegades and wild spirits, but rather climbers and careerists who understand the big corporate picture and appreciate its practical constraints. Kids like Evan know that most papers are no longer bold or ballsy enough to be on the cutting edge of anything, and consequently are no damn fun.
When Evan first came to work for Emma, I thought he might be a keeper so I gave him a pep talk. I told him that plenty of reporters start out as rookies on the obituary desk, which is true, and that the talented ones advance quickly to bigger things, including the front page. And I recall Evan looking up at me with such rumpled perplexity that I burst out laughing. Obviously what the kid was aching to ask—had every right to ask—was: “What about you, Jack Tagger? Why are you writing obits after twenty years in the business?” And since the answer offered both a laugh and a lesson, I told young Evan the truth. His earnest reply: “Oh wow.”
Not wishing to spook him, I hastened to portray myself as an incorrigible hothead who more or less dug his own grave, at which point Evan politely interrupted. He said that while he appreciated my candor and encouragement, he’d never planned to make a career of the newspaper trade. He said that from all he’d been reading, it was clear that dailies were “over.” A dying medium, he told me. He had come to the Union-Register mainly to “experience” a newsroom, before they were all gone. His second choice was undoubtedly a cattle drive.
So I had no qualms about recruiting young Evan to help on the Jimmy Stoma story. Who wants to spend a whole summer banging out six-inch obits of dead preachers and retired schoolteachers? The kid deserved a taste of adventure, something memorable for his scrapbook. What a gas to be able to tell your college buddies that you helped sort out the mysterious death of a rock star.
And now I’m Evan’s hero. He’s as high as a kite.
“I almost freaked when she answered the door,” he’s saying. “I couldn’t believe it was really her. And she’s like, ‘What’s going on? I didn’t order any subs!’ At first I couldn’t hardly say a word because she’s standing there in a see-through bra… ”
“Easy, tiger,” I tell him.
We’re sitting in the cafeteria, Emma and I sharing one side of a bench table and Evan on the other. I’m taking notes, Emma is sipping coffee and the kid’s gobbling a plateful of miniature glazed donuts.
“Who else was there?” I ask him.
“Two guys. The taller one had shiny hair, like, down to his butt. The other one, the baldy, he had one eye and—”
“Whoa, boss. One eye?”
“He wore a black patch, Jack. It was sorta hard to miss. I asked him what happened and he said he was in a car crash last week.”
“Big no-neck guy? Earrings?”
“That’s the one,” says Evan. “She called him Jerry. The patch was on his right eye, if that makes a difference.”
I jot this down not because it’s an invaluable detail, but because it makes Evan’s day. He got the goon’s name right, too; I remember it from the funeral at St. Stephen’s.
“His forehead was all lumpy and bruised,” Evan says, “like somebody pounded him with a hockey stick.”