All The News....That Fits....

It was business as usual at the offices of the Weekly World News.  Jimmy sat waiting for his appointment with the editor, and he tried not to let his despair show.  It wouldn’t do good to appear desperate.  He needed a job, and the WWN, as the staff affectionately referred to it, was the only paper on the entire East Coast that had been willing to grant him an interview. 

The editor flung the door open and a large, beefy man rushed out, followed by a cloud of hazy blue cigar smoke.  He strode briskly to the desk of the mousy young woman who had greeted Jimmy and picked up the stack of pink message slips, glancing at them momentarily before he crushed them into a ball and tossed them over his shoulder.  He turned to Jimmy and eyed him suspiciously.  “You the kid who’s here about the job?” he grumbled. 

“Yes, sir, my name is-“  He was cut off in mid-sentence by the outstretched palm of the burly man.

“I already know your name,” the man barked.  “Don’t waste my time with nonsense like that.  Follow me; we’ll talk in my office.”  Without waiting for an answer, he turned and marched back into the office.  Jimmy blinked for a moment, then rose and hurried after the man. 

The office was large and spacious, but felt almost claustrophobic due to the dazzling assortment of papers, filing cabinets, and bizarre souvenirs that filled it.  The editor took a seat behind the large mahogany desk and propped his feet up, nearly knocking over the Zuni Fetish doll that sat next to the telephone.

“Hey,” said Jimmy in delight.  “You’ve got one of those little doll things from that movie with Karen Black.  That movie scared the hell out of me.  How’d you get your hands on that prop?”

“Prop, my ass, kid.  This here’s the real thing.  Just keep your hands off that chain around his neck; I don’t want to chase that little bastard around this office all damn day.”  The editor puffed on the stogie that was clenched between his teeth and regarded Jimmy.  “Okay, kid,” he said.  “My name’s Carl.  We don’t worry about last names in this place, we don’t worry about formalities, we only worry about putting out a good paper.  I’ve seen your stuff; you’re a decent writer, so as far as I’m concerned you’re already hired.  I just wanted to fill you in on how things work here.”

Jimmy stammered in surprise.  “I’m hired?”  He was caught in a storm of conflicting emotions, he had a job, but he also knew that he could say goodbye to any hopes of a career as a serious journalist.

“Yeah, you’re hired,” muttered Carl.  “We covered that already.  Try and keep up will ya?”  He fell silent for a second as he studied the young man.  “Listen, I’m not gonna sugar coat this, kid.  This job sucks.  You’ll be traveling to every hick town and godforsaken country on this big beautiful blue ball we call the world.  But that’s how we get the big stories.  If I wasn’t willing to travel, I’d never have landed that exclusive interview with Bigfoot.”

Jimmy could not hide the look of amusement that spread across his face.  “Wow, Bigfoot, huh?  That’s quite a scoop,” he said.

“Ah, it isn’t as impressive as you might think,” Carl said.  “Catching up to Bigfoot is easy, and once he starts talking that hairy bastard never shuts up.  The tricky part was finding an interpreter.”

“I’ll bet,” said Jimmy.  “You really must have some amazing connections.”

“Yup,” the editor said with a smug smile.  “When you’ve been in the business as long as I have, you meet some mighty interesting people and you learn some very interesting things.  Best week in my life was spent with the denizens of Atlantis.”

“Atlantis, wow,” Jimmy smirked.  He was now convinced he was the victim of a put-on, the kind of harassment that all new fish were put through until they proved themselves.  “I imagine you got very good at holding your breath.”

“Didn’t have to.  Atlantis isn’t really under the sea, ya know,” Carl said conspiratorially.  “It’s floating seven miles above the surface of the earth over San Francisco.  See, the people of Atlantis are all a bunch of hippies.  Nice enough guys, but a real group of granola heads, know what I’m saying?  Anyway, the entire population is hung up on Transcendental meditation, and they reached such an enlightened state that they levitated the whole place.”

 “Okay, that’s enough,” said Jimmy.  “A joke’s a joke, but this has gone far enough.  Are you trying to tell me that all of those stories about Bigfoot and space aliens and Bat Boy are all true?  I know you have to pretend for the public, but you don’t really expect me to believe that all of that garbage is for real.”

Carl took a deep pull on the cigar and fixed Jimmy with a look of such openness and honesty that the young reporter was instantly silenced.  “Kid, every word we print is the absolute truth, even Bat Boy.  You’ll meet him at the picnic next month.  Word of advice, kid.  Let him have first crack at the hot dogs.” 

Jimmy chuckled.  “How can that be?  How come none of the other media outlets cover any of these stories?  If they were all true, wouldn’t they be reporting on these things?”

Carl scowled and lowered his feet.  He leaned across the desk and spoke in a low voice.  “Look kid, you better get one thing straight right here and now.  I don’t care what you’ve always heard about us in journalism school, I don’t care how many times you’ve laughed at us while you were in the supermarket checkout line, and I don’t care how many times we’ve been the butt of a joke on the Tonight Show.  The big media outlets, the television news stations, every paper across the country, they all mock us because we are the only independent publication left in America.  We print the truth, and they can’t do that.”

Jimmy sat silently in the chair.  Carl had a point.  Every “news outlet” he could think of was owned by a big corporation, and it was obvious to any thinking person that no story went before the public unless the government wanted it out there.

“This is a great country and it can be once again. But before it is, we need to stop fighting against each other,” Carl said.  His voice had taken on an impassioned tone.  “That isn’t what the folks in power want, so they print story after story that pits race against race, creed against creed, belief against belief.  They scare us into thinking that different is bad.  They keep us distracted from the important things, the unexplainable things that keep us wondering and searching for the beauty and mystery of life.  We are truly fortunate, Jimmy, you and I.  We have an opportunity to help people forget about the all the ridiculous things that scare them and frighten them and we get to help them smile, help them laugh; help them see that the world is still a place of wonder and magic.  Now do you understand?”

Jimmy wiped a tear from his eye.  The big man’s words had moved him and filled him with a sense of pride in his profession that had been missing for too long.  “Yes, I do,” he said.  “I thank you for this honor, sir, and I won’t let you down.”

Carl smiled.  “Don’t worry about me, kid,” he said.  “You just make sure you don’t let America down.  Everything else will take care of itself.”

Jimmy nodded.  He left the room sobbing at the beauty of the big man’s words.  Carl smiled as he watched the newest member of his staff close the door behind him.  Immediately, he burst into hearty peals of laughter.

“Boy,” he said.  “Is that kid ever gullible.”