Читать книгу The City Man - Howard Akler - Страница 17

From his desk, Eli observes the origins of copy. Watches reporters race out of the newsroom and return within the hour, possessed of answers who, what, where, when and, if possible, why. They hastily sit and start to type, cudgelling events into coherence. Some do this in total silence. Others mutter to themselves. Still more pace the floor and badger their fellows with so little restraint that the entire women’s section was seated out of earshot of the four-letter words that leap out, like perverts, from the anxious newsroom.

Shit piss fuck, says Mackintosh, the City Hall man.

Eli looks over. What’s up? he says.

Another protest piece.

Yeah?

Some nut says he’s going to march out front of City Hall for three days straight.

What’s he after?

Fair wage. Same old thing.

Three days is a long time, says Eli. Says he’s got nothing to lose.

Says he’s a goddamned soman ... sonab ... what the fuck’s the word again?

Somnambulist, says Eli.

Says he walks in his fucking sleep.

Ten minutes later. A pimply boy in a peaked cap rips the pages out of Mackintosh’s Underwood and runs them over to the copy desk where Johnson, ancient and hawk-nosed, takes few pains to properly place the modifiers. A snap of the fingers. Another boy grabs the edited pages and descends, one floor down, to the composing room where the type is transformed. Cast into lead. Set onto steel plates. Another descent and plates are affixed to the presses that roar tremendously and spew sheets and sheets and sheets of newsprint. The papers are cut, folded and finally delivered into the denizens’ hands six times daily, seven in summer.