“It’s okay. I usually don’t drink the stuff.”
“Smart boy,” Arnold volunteers.
“Yes,” Phil answers.
“How long have you been here?” Arnold asks with just a trifle edge in his voice.
“Five months, I guess,” I answer, wary now. For some reason I begin to imagine that one of them will fling his coffee in my face.
“You like working here?”
“Sure. Sure.”
“Ever think the paper might lack something?”
“Yes, does it ever seem incomplete to you? You know, with a big void somewhere, where it really should have something? Some papers are like that, you know. Some have terrific sports sections or society columns, maybe great arts reviews, and nothing whatsoever in international news. You ever feel the Trib lacks something?”
“Some void you could fill.”
This is apparently a routine. I’ve heard some of the reporters refer to it as the A & P workover. I decide silence is best. No sense prodding the already sensible fury present. Then Waldo’s phrase slowly emerges from some self-protective depth. The sign slowly comes up from underwater and it reads “Replaceable.” These guys are replaceable. I feel better listening to the routine.
‘For a long time now, I’ve thought,” Arnold says across the top of his coffee cup, “that this paper needs a chess column. And Phil and I were just talking about, and we thought, is there somebody here, some newcomer, some fresh blood, some young talent that deserves a break?”
“Deserves a byline,” Phil interrupts, “because, after all, chess columns all have bylines and we thought of you.”
“I don’t know anything about chess.”
“What do you know about the city council, about the police department, about firefighting, about any goddam thing? What do you know about any goddam thing?”
Phil seems really angry, but Arnold’s voice is suddenly soothing. The old good-guy-bad-guy routine. “New reporters don’t know very much, but they learn. You could write a piece on the city council. You can write pieces on the chess world.”
“I don’t play chess.”
“You don’t run for city office either.”
“You’re right,” I answer evenly, “and I don’t plan to.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Arnold asks.
“Nothing.”
“Good. Then it’s all settled. Tomorrow by eleven you have a nice fresh chess column for us, one quarter page, for the fill between sports and finance, and then you have another one and another one every fourth day. You got it?”
“How long does this assignment last?”
Phil shrugs. Arnold shrugs. They put their coffee cups down. “Most people like bylines ‘till they retire.”
“Or die,” Arnold adds.
“I see.”
“I wonder if you do see,” Arnold says. “I wonder if a smart fella like you really does see.” He starts down the corridor, replaceable gleaming on his back.
Phil says, “You should check the columns elsewhere. It’s fairly routine, once you learn the moves, heh, heh.” And still laughing he wanders off after Arnold.
On the stairway up I resolve to speak with Waldo, who merely sits Buddha-like, watching a spot to the immediate right of my head.
“This is your idea of a column?”
“A deal is a deal. I delivered a column, didn’t I?”
“I don’t give a shit about chess. For chrissakes, Waldo, why not let me cover city insurance. It’s got to be more interesting.”
“I thought about that, when I heard that’s what the Bobsie twins had in mind. But I make it a practice to take a few deep breaths and apply a number of telescopes to the picture before I blow something out of the water. There are a few good points.”
“Name two.”
“One, the task can be routinized, and two, it doesn’t require much prose. You can fill the space with those little drawings of the board and the formal game notations.”
“Those are supposed to make it attractive to me?”
“Initially I should think it would make it very attractive. Your work while you’re learning the silly game can be more or less done for you.”
“No deal.”
“What does that mean, no deal?”
“It means I tell Pam, it’s been fun but no cigar. And I go back to something real.”
“You mean the beaches? You’re out of shape for that.”
“Very funny.”
“I contracted for a column with a byline and I delivered.”
“No dice.”
“And Pam’s the only loser then. You get a new career for not seeing her, is that it?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“For one thing there is at least one more attraction to the chess column.”
“And that is?”
“Travel. Little out-of-the-way places like Berlin, Paris, Montevideo, Manila, Rome.”
There is a soft silence as we savor the names. After a mutual smile, I say softly, “I’ve always liked Pam.”
“She certainly likes you. Needs you. With her, you’re, you’re—“
“Irreplaceable.”
“Precisely,” Waldo says looking me right in the eyes. “Now I’ve got a lunch, and you’ve got some research.” Waldo gets up and puts on his crisp blue blazer. “Try 794.8,” Waldo says.
“What?”
“At the library, 794.8, the chess books.”
“Most libraries use the Library of Congress system,” I add, “but if you haven’t been in one since, say, 1957, I suppose the Dewey Decimal system would stick in your mind.”
“Why don’t you try 794.8?” Waldo says with that supreme assurance that comes tasseled and shining from a clear future of endless decades at the club bar.
Chapter 4
Pam spreads the
