Eighty-Sixed: Chapter 18 - World News Tonight

Part II - The New Now

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PART II - The New Now

Traffic was unmoving on the streets below. 

As Peter peered down at the tiny vestiges of people and ant-sized yellow taxi cabs sitting at standstill in mid-day gridlock, he traced the path of streets carved out like canyons flowing between the towering New York skyline.  His eyes followed the unmoving line of traffic southward until it disappeared into the horizon and out of view.  There, something else caught his eye and pulled his glance skywards, up and up and up for one hundred and ten floors.  

Peter gasped.

“It’s still there,” he said breathlessly.

“What?” Blake asked.

“Come look,” Peter said.  “My God, they’re still there.”

Peter touched his throat, confused by the words coming out of it, as Blake joined him at the window.  Blake, a full foot shorter than Peter, pushed his face toward the glass and craned his neck, fixing his eyes in the direction Peter pointed.  Then he saw it, too.  The magnificent and awe-inspiring site of the World Trade Center’s mammoth twin towers, standing like towering unmovable monoliths above the New York skyline.

“I quit smoking for almost twenty years,” Peter said.  “But I had a cigarette the morning those towers fell down.”

“I remember,” Blake answered.  “You bummed the cigarette off of me.”

“That’s right,” Peter said, and smiled warmly at the thought, glancing briefly at Blake before looking back to the towers.  “I did, didn’t I?”

“I don’t understand,” Blake said.  “How are they there?”

Peter moved his hand from his throat to his lips, touching them gently with his index finger as if recalling that last cigarette.

“How are either of us here?” Peter asked.  

He was dressed in a dark navy suit, white dress shirt, tie loosened at the neck.  His brown hair — absent of any faint strands of grey - was immaculately cut, styled, and parted.  

“I thought I was just at my house in Gatineau Hills,” Peter said before Blake had a chance to respond.  “Actually, now that I think about it, I’m certain I was just there.”

“Do we…” Blake started, then turned and looked around the room.  

There was the familiar dark wood conference table surrounded by plush leather chairs.  On the far side of the room was the glass wall that peered into the bustling newsroom full of people who were either crying, hugging, or looking blankly at test patterns on the downward-tilted televisions attached to the ceiling.  

“Do we need to go on the air?” Blake asked.

“The air?” Peter echoed, looking down at Blake. “Do I still do that?”

“It just seems we should be doing something.”

“I’m still not convinced I’m even here,” Peter said. “I think I might just be sleeping.”

“Well, if you’re sleeping, I must be, too,” Blake said.  “I mean, shouldn’t we let people know what’s going on?”

“Do you know what’s going on?” Peter asked.  He looked towards the twin towers again.  “I certainly don’t.  But perhaps you’re right.  People count on us, don’t they?”

He then moved from the window, striding purposefully to the head of the table.  He sat, pulled a gleaming ebony Montblanc pen and small reporter’s notebook from his suit jacket’s inside pocket and began scribbling bullet points as fast as his hand would move.  With every passing moment, Peter felt like he was coming out of a dark and faraway dream.

“What time is it?” he asked.

Blake looked at his watch.

“Seven-thirty,” he said.

Peter spun and looked out the windows again.

“AM or PM?”

“I’m, uh, I don’t know,”  Blake said as he once again faced the wall-length series of windows that ran from floor to ceiling, overlooking the always impressive vista of busily drifting waters of the Hudson River six blocks to the east.  

“Looks like morning,” Blake said.  “But it could just be pollution.  Peter, did you hear me?” 

Blake moved to the seat next to his anchorman.  

“Do we need to go on the air?” he asked again.

“Date?” Peter asked.

Blake looked at his watch again.  

“July Twelfth.”

Peter looked up from his notepad, then over to his long-time producer.  Blake was sweating uncharacteristically, a feverish mess.

“You know, it just occurred to me,” Peter said.  “I don’t think I’ve seen you in years.”

Blake lifted a hand then and tentatively rubbed at his chin as if he was touching a wound, a raw patch.  He looked at Peter with eyes wide open.  

“Peter,” Blake said.  “I think we might be dead.”

“We’re not dead,” Peter answered tersely.  He scribbled another bullet point in the notepad.

“No, really,” Blake said, his brow furrowed as if he was just remembering this critical fact.  “I was at your funeral.”

“Don’t be asinine.”

“I’m telling you,” Blake said.  “A second ago I couldn’t remember it at all, and now I see it clearly as I’m seeing you now.  In 2005.  Lung cancer.  I produced your last broadcast in April of that year.”

Peter put the notebook and pen back into his suit pocket.  He stood from the desk and slid the chair back in place.

“Lung cancer,” Peter repeated doubtfully.

“You’d think I would have quit smoking after that, but I never did,” Blake continued.  “Never wanted to quit enough to actually do it.”

“To answer your question,” Peter interrupted, “yes, we need to get on the air.  Immediately.”

He threw open the glass door and the room filled with the sound of jabbering voices, all layered on top of each other, a jungle of sounds and emotions, jumbled and squawking.

“But what will you even say?” Blake asked as he chased after him.

“Who’s on copy?” Peter called out with authority but was promptly ignored by the confused throng of people in the newsroom.

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Something about the chaos was familiar and comforting to Blake.  His shakiness and sweating dissipated as quickly as they had appeared, replaced in an instant by his well-known steadiness, composure, and command.

“WHO THE HELL’S ON COPY?” he bellowed.  His normal composure unexpectedly returned, his voice surprisingly confident and deep and commanding.  He felt a flitter of joy in his chest and the deliriousness of it all.

The room tittered to an awkward silence, stifled sniffles coming from multiple people who wiped at their eyes and noses.

“No one’s on copy,” said a young woman.  

She sat at a terminal station that had heavy brown keys attached to a dark green monitor.  Multiple cables draped out of the back of the lumbering machine and collapsed into a hole drilled into the floor.  

The woman sat with her hands clutched to a gargantuan green handbag.  She had dirty blonde bleached hair with dark roots, all of which were coiffed and curly and blown dry amidst what must have been a thick stream of hairspray.  Her hairdo left her looking perpetually windblown and surprised.  A pair of purple plastic-rimmed glasses covered nearly half of her face, which in turn highlighted the rest of her gaudy outfit.  Below her neck was a massive white collar above a blouse seemingly held in place by enormous shoulder pads that gave her entire torso the appearance of an upside-down triangle.  Its garish pattern looked like an explosion of abstract flowers falling into her dark purple skirt below which was held in place by a thick leather belt adorned with multiple silver buckles.  Beneath it all, florescent green socks peeked out from the woman’s polished black Doc Martens combat boots. 

“No one’s on anything,” the woman said and clutched her purse more tightly.

“What’s your name?” Blake asked forcefully, straightening his tie as he spoke.

“I’m Janet Smithee, Blake,” she said, emphasizing his name through intentionally clenched teeth.  “You never did know my name.”

“Janet, okay,” Blake said.  “And what’s your job?”

“My job is playing Mahjong lakeside in Florida,” she said.  “I have no idea what I’m doing back here.”

“Okay,” Peter said calmly.  “You’re on copy now.”

“I’m not on copy,” Janet said.  “I don’t work here anymore.  And I sure don’t write copy.  I haven’t written copy in fifteen years.  I’m retired.”

“Can anyone write copy?” Blake called out.  Nearly everyone avoided his glance. 

“What do you expect us to write copy on?” Janet asked.  Her fingers now toyed with the gigantic collar of her ugly dress.

“What do you think I want copy on?” Blake said.  “We need to let the world know what the hell just happened.”

“What just happened?” Janet asked.  “No one has any clue what just happened.”

“Is that so?” Blake shot back.  

He habitually pulled a pack of cigarettes from his front breast pocket, fished one out, and popped it between his lips.  Patting the front of his pants, he found his lighter and lit up right in the middle of the newsroom.  

“Well then we’ve got our work cut for us, don’t we?” Blake said.

“Blake,” Peter said and pointed at Blake’s cigarette.  “Give me one of those, will you?” 

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