seconds of various deadlines for various editions. He was strangely unsettled and not
remotely tired. He did not want to go home, and had fallen into a funk the instant West
had let him out at his car in the parking deck. He left the newsroom at quarter past
midnight, and took the escalator down to the second floor.
The press room was going full tilt, yellow Ferag conveyors flying by seventy thousand
papers per hour. Brazil opened the door, his ears overwhelmed by the roar inside.
People wearing hearing protectors and ink-stained aprons nodded at him, yet to
understand his odd peregrinations through their violent, dirty world. He walked in and
stared at miles of speeding newsprint, at folding machines rat-a-tat-a-tatting, and belt
ribbon conveyors streaking papers through the counting machines. The hardworking
people in this seldom-thought-of place had never known a reporter to care a hoot about
how his clever words and bigshot bylines ended up in the hands of citizens every day.
Brazil was inexplicably drawn to the power of these huge, frightening machines. He was
awed to see his front page racing by in a blur, thousands and thousands of times. It was
humbling and hard to believe that so many people out there were interested in how he
saw the world and what he had to say. The big headline of the night was, of course,
Batman and Robin saving the hijacked bus. But there was a pretty decent piece on WHY
A BOY RAN AWAY, on the metro section front page, and a few paragraphs on the
altercation at Fat Man’s Lounge.
In truth, Brazil could have written stories forever about all he saw while riding with
West. He wandered up a spiral metal staircase to the mail room, and thought of her
calling him partner. He replayed her voice over and over. He liked the way she sounded,
deep but resonate and womanly. It made him think of old wood and smoke, of field stone
patched with moss, and of lady’s slippers in old forests scattered with sun.
Brazil did not want to go home. He wandered out to his car, in a mood to roam and
think. He felt blue and did not know the source of it.
Life was good. His job couldn’t be better. The cops didn’t seem to despise him quite as
intensely or as universally. He contemplated the possibility that his problem was
physical, because he wasn’t working out as much as usual, and wasn’t producing enough
endorphin, or pushing himself to the point of exhaustion. He cruised down West Trade,
looking at the people of the night trolling, offering their bodies for cash. Sh’ims followed
him with sick, glowing eyes, and the young hooker was out again, at the corner of Cedar.
She walked seductively along the sidewalk and stared brazenly at him as he slowly drove
past. She had on tight cut-off jeans that barely covered firm buttocks, her T-shirt cut off,
too, just below her chest.
Typically, she wasn’t wearing a bra, and her flesh moved as she walked and stared at the blond boy in his black BMW with its loud, rumbling engine. She wondered what he had
beneath his hood, and smiled. All those Myers Park boys in their expensive cars,
sneaking out here to taste the fruit.
Brazil roared ahead, daring a yellow light to be red. He turned off on Pine and entered
Fourth Ward, the lovely restored area where important people like Chief Hammer lived,
within walking distance of the heart of the city she was sworn to serve. Brazil had been
here many times, mostly to look at huge Victorian homes painted fun colors like violet
and robin’s egg blue, and at graceful manors with elaborate dentil work trimming slate
roofs. There were walls and big azaleas, and trees that could clarify history, for they had
been here since horses, shading genteel streets traveled by the rich and well known.
He parked on that special corner on Pine where the white house and its gracious
wraparound porch were lit up, as if expecting him. Hammer had liriope grass,
periwinkles, pansies, yucca, ligustrum hedges, and pachysandra. Wind chimes stirred in
the dark, sending friendly tones of truth, like a tuning fork, welcoming him, her protege.