And Lead Us Not

1: A Rock Falls on Dan

A huge rock was about to drop out the sky and land on Dan Bitterman. But it would cause no bodily injury, for it was entirely metaphysical.

Dan, of course, had no idea what was about to befall. He was a reporter for the Evangeline Press-Dispatch, a weekly newspaper that served the communities upriver from New Orleans. And things, he thought, couldn’t get any worse than they already were.

On average, reporters worked about a year for the Press-Dispatch before moving on to better-paying jobs. Dan, however, had been with the newspaper for fourteen years. So, at thirty-six, he was the senior reporter. That didn’t mean he was in line for a higher position, like editor. Winston Tully was the editor. And the publisher. And the general manager. And the president. He was also the great-great-grandson of Alfred Tully, who had started the newspaper.

It was Alfred Tully who gave the newspaper its motto, Don't tell the people what they already know. It appeared just below the masthead.

To Winston Tully, that was the most important precept in journalism. He constantly reminded his reporters that, by the time they went to press, their readers had already seen the news on television, read it in one of the dailies, or heard it on the radio, so the only way they could survive against the competition was to dig until they came up with a fresh angle to a news story.

In truth, the Press-Dispatch didn’t get much competition from the larger media. Town council meetings, church announcements, school events, garden club soirees, pet of the week pictures, and news releases about store openings were front page items with the weekly tabloid.

The Press-Dispatch was housed in a large, tall-ceilinged, wood-framed structure in Luling. (The building was brand new seventy-two years ago when Alfred Tully started the newspaper.) The printing presses occupied more than half the building. The graphics department, stripping room, dark room, front desk, reception area and Winston Tully’s office took up almost all the remaining space.

This left room in the news department for only two desks and two computer terminals for the paper’s three reporters. And that suited Winston. A good newsman, he would say, doesn’t spend his time at a desk anyway. He’s out and about, digging up news stories.

The cramped newsroom was just another aggravation heaped on top of countless other aggravations for Dan Bitterman. He didn’t like having to share a common office with two other reporters. He had a degree in journalism and fourteen years in the field. That made him a journalist. And journalists, he thought, were supposed to be cosmopolitan eyewitnesses to history. They were supposed to cover wars and interview the heads of nations. Yet here he was, stuck in the backwaters of swamp country, and covering small-town news for a little weekly newspaper. And he didn’t even have his own desk.

Dan hated his job. He hated the Evangeline Press-Dispatch. He hated the Luling-Sarpy area, and he hated its small-town mind. But most of all, he hated himself. He hated to have to look at himself every morning when he brushed his teeth and shaved. He looked like a galoot. That’s what he would tell himself when he looked in the mirror. He looked like a tall, skinny, long-necked, big-eared galoot with a crew-cut haircut, a thin mustache, and a stupid-looking grin.

Why, he asked, did he have to be born looking like this? He was smart, smarter than anyone else he knew, and he was talented. But it didn’t matter. People judged people on looks, and it was his looks, Dan believed, that held him back. People would take one look at him and tell themselves, Yep, he’s a galoot, all right. Probably grew up in Luling or Sarpy, and probably will be buried there, too.

So, to make his silly appearance look as if it were a matter of choice, Dan wore jeans, red-rimmed glasses that matched nothing except maybe the reds in his loud plaid shirts, a brown corduroy jacket, black-and-white tennis shoes, a black tie and a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap (even though the Dodgers had moved to Los Angeles long before he was born.) The baseball cap was an especially good touch, he thought. It gave him a boyish look and covered the bald spot in the back of his head. It also seemed to disguise his anxiety at never having amounted to anything.

So what if he was an under-achiever? So what if he was a small fish in a small pond?

He could make it appear he wasn’t really working at his trade. His boyish appearance made it appear he was really at play.

Generally, reporters for the Press-Dispatch had no previous job experience. They came straight out of college, and this annoyed Dan because anyone fresh out of college was immediately placed in the same office and on an equal footing with him.

For this reason, Dan made sure all newcomers understood he was first among equals. He made only slightly more than starting reporters, but he liked to intimate that he was earning a much higher salary, that he could have left on several occasions but Winston had offered him more money to stay put. He also made it a point to take newcomers under his wing. He would critique their copy and hold up his own writing as exemplary journalism. He would tell them that most reporters wash out in a couple of years but he had been able to stay in this reporting game a long time because he had a sixth sense that very few reporters have.

Invariably, this would lead to his telling newcomers about the time the Merchants’ Bank in Luling was robbed and how his sixth sense allowed him to scoop all the television stations and daily newspapers in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

Actually, the bank robbery occurred at a bad time for the Press-Dispatch. The weekly newspaper went to press on Wednesday nights, and the robbery occurred Thursday afternoon (with the arrest two days later). So, before the Press-Dispatch could report on the story, everyone already knew who the robber was, how much he took and how he was apprehended.

There was one widely-reported anecdote which made the hold-up story noteworthy: Just before crossing the street to rob the bank, the suspect had stopped at a diner for coffee and a doughnut, left a big tip for the waitress, and told her, I’m about to come into a lot of money.

Desperate for an angle no one else had covered on the hold-up, the resourceful Mr. Bitterman interviewed the waitress and learned that, while in the diner, the suspect had read the newspaper.

This led Dan to ask the FBI public information officer for the suspect’s date of birth. Checking the newspaper for the day of the robbery, Dan found that the suspect’s horoscope read, You will come into a lot of money.

So, although the Press-Dispatch was a week late with its report on the hold-up, Dan was still able to scoop all his competition. And even the district attorney, when the case went to trial, referred to the robbery as the Horoscope Heist.

*   *   *

On the morning of January 2, Dan was alone in the newsroom. Having shut himself off from everyone else so he could finish his article for the next edition, he plugged his ears and read aloud to himself, but still he couldn’t concentrate on his writing. He was of three minds, like the tree outside the window with three blackbirds in it.

The old wooden building creaked with each footstep, and he could hear snippets of the conversation in the reception area. It seemed he was the only one who was working. Everyone else was babbling on and on about Wally Zeringue and the news about Cunningham.

It was eighteen days until Charles Cunningham would be inaugurated as President. And eighteen days until Zeringue (pronounced ZUR-ANG) would be sworn in as Vice President.

With a smirk, Dan muttered to himself, Home boy gets elected Vice President, and the small-town, backwater, ignorant, little people in Luling and Sarpy think it’s a big deal. They don’t even know the Vice President is small potatoes.

*   *   *

Small potatoes it may have been, as far as Dan was concerned; but to people not just in Sarpy and Luling but all over the country, Wally Zeringue’s ascendancy to Vice President was big potatoes indeed.

With his party’s nomination assured, Senator Cunningham of Pennsylvania selected Wally Zeringue as his running mate because the polls indicated voters wanted an outsider, someone who was experienced in business, to help turn around the nation’s economy. And there was no more celebrated Washington outsider than Zeringue.

Zeringue was only thirty-seven years old and had never held a political office. An entrepreneur, he became a celebrity because of the novel way he marketed his company, Capitol Cards, Inc. He purchased sixty-second commercial spots (or, as he called them, Capitol Cards Minutes) on each of the network evening news programs to editorialize on the issues of the day. His Capitol Cards Minutes were popular because they seemed to present unique solutions to national problems, like the federal deficit. In one of his more provocative editorials, Zeringue suggested congressmen be provided for like military personnel—housed in barracks, fed in mess halls, and paid salaries commensurate with those of enlisted military personnel.

The idea inflamed a public that had grown frustrated with Congress. People petitioned their congressmen in such numbers that a bipartisan group of representatives held a press conference to explain the inadvisability of the idea.

If such a policy were ever enacted, they said, it would simply drive good people out of public service. The country could not afford a brain drain on Capitol Hill, they said.

However, with the mounting national debt, most of the country felt, as Zeringue put it, that perhaps now is the time we had a brain transplant.

So, to ally himself with this anti-Washington sentiment, Cunningham, shortly after arriving in New Orleans for his party's national convention, announced his selection of Zeringue as his running mate.

The election was extremely close, with Hawaii’s three electoral votes finally deciding the outcome.

*   *   *

Dan held a secret grudge against Wally Zeringue.

Dan lived at home with his parents. And his father, who didn’t like the idea that he was still supporting his thirty-six-year-old son with free room and board, constantly reminded Dan that the purpose in life was to move away from home.

But the only job Dan could find when he graduated from college was with the Press-Dispatch, which was right across the river in Luling.

When I was your age, Dan’s father would tell him, I was already married, had a good-paying job and was out on my own.

Dan’s mother finally prevailed upon Dan’s father to stop comparing himself to his son. If he persisted, she said, he would alienate his son.

So, in order that his son not hate him but still get the message, Dan’s father pointed out the accomplishments of others in the area who had ventured out on their own. And chief among those whose accomplishments he would cite was Wally Zeringue.

For fourteen years at the dining table, or when either Dan or his father was reading the newspaper or watching television and the other one walked into the room, or when either of them brought in the groceries, or when the bills had to be paid, or when anything in the house had to be repaired—Dan’s father would mention, in passing, that Wally Zeringue was from the area, that he was a success and had moved out on his own.

Didn’t you used to go to school with Wally Zeringue? or Didn’t you used to skim rocks on Fisherman’s Pond with Wally Zeringue? Those were the two most well-worn lines Dan’s father would use. Or he would innocently point out one of Zeringue’s commercials on TV or some item in the financial section of the New Orleans Times-Picayune or mention some new business acquisition of Wally Zeringue or say, When Wally Zeringue was your age six years ago, wasn’t he already the president of three companies and out on his own? Or, again, When was it that Wally Zeringue first started running commercials on TV? Wasn’t he something like eighteen and already out on his own?

Dan hated his father’s endless references to the wonderful Mr. Wally Zeringue. It was a point of constant irritation between his father and him. But Dan didn’t hate his father for it. He hated Wally Zeringue. It was Wally Zeringue who was causing Dan the aggravation at home.

And it was Wally Zeringue who was keeping him down. Three times Dan had applied for a job in a company owned by Wally Zeringue, and three times he had been turned down. Twice Dan had applied when there was an opening in the editorial department with Capitol Cards. On the third occasion, when he applied for a position in the public relations department at Zeringue’s corporate office, the man who turned him down was Zeringue himself.

Turned down by a man who had just got lucky in life!

Yes, Dan hated Wally Zeringue as much as he hated himself.

In his heart of hearts, Dan felt it was he who had started Wally on the road to success when they skimmed rocks on Fisherman’s Pond together. And not only didn’t Wally remember the incident, Wally didn’t even remember Dan and, thus, didn’t feel any obligation to reward a friend from long ago with a job in the public relations department.

*   *   *

With his fingers in his ears and his shoulders hunched over the computer keyboard, Dan tried again to read what he had written. This time, however, his concentration was broken when the floor cracked with the weight of someone opening the door to the newsroom.

Here he is. He’s in here, someone said before Dan could complain about the interruption. Dan, haven’t you heard the news yet?

What news? Dan asked irritably. I’m trying to write in here.

The words hit Dan like a meteorite. The President-elect is dead.

2: The Turtle in its Shell

At the precise moment Dan Bitterman learned President-elect Cunningham had died, there was a terrific boom. It shook the walls, rattled the windows and brought down a cloud of dust from the twelve-foot ceiling.

My God! What was that? someone exclaimed.

Sounded like an explosion, said another.

Maybe it was at the oil refinery.

No way. That sounded closer. I think the grain elevator.

Because of the many factories and plants upriver from New Orleans, jolts of this nature were nothing out of the ordinary. So, when there was no follow-up explosion, everyone dismissed the boom as probably insignificant. Everyone, that is, except Dan. With the words that accompanied the boom still reverberating in his head, he said in shock and disbelief, The President-elect is . . . dead?

Happened just now, someone replied, four thirty-seven, our time . . . heart failure . . . Walter Reed Hospital.

Then Wally Zeringue will be the next President, Dan muttered, as though in a fog.

That’s right, came the response, Wally Zeringue of Sarpy, Louisiana.

Dan rose from his chair. Maybe he rose too fast and there was a rush of blood to his head; but as the full weight of the matter flooded his brain, his sight blacked out, and he felt a sudden fever along his temples and the back of his neck. I need air, he said, and he stumbled away from his chair.

Is he all right?

Are you all right?

The voices sounded distant to Dan.

Slowly, his sight returned, though what was not black splotches to him appeared now to teeter and wobble. He braced himself unsurely against a desk. Wally Zeringue, he said again, is going to be the next President of the United States?

It’s on TV right now, came the reply, and someone turned on the small black-and-white television in the newsroom.

Courtney, who had just graduated from college in December with a minor in journalism, stood next to Dan as the TV news anchorman recapped the terrible news. In the few short weeks she had been with the Press-Dispatch, she had been unable to contain her thrill at having landed a job right out of college. And even now, with the news that the President-elect had died, she