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Grievances
A novel
Mark Ethridge
NewSouth Books
Montgomery | Louisville
NewSouth Books
P.O. Box 1588
Montgomery, AL 36102
Copyright 2006 by Mark Ethridge. All rights reserved under Intenational and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.
ISBN-13: 978-1-58838-192-7
eBook ISBN: 978-1-60306-071-4
LCCN: 2005031245
Visit www.newsouthbooks.com
To my family
Contents
Thanks to Liz Holt, Margaret Lucas and Doug Marlette for providing early encouragement for this book and to Gerry Hostetler for letting me use her quote; to Jeff Kellogg of the Stuart Agency for his brilliant editing and for keeping the faith; and to Randall Williams, Suzanne La Rosa, and Brian Seidman at NewSouth Books for believing enough in Grievances to make it happen.
There’s something about a newsroom that attracts people with grievances. After five years in the business, I’ve seen my share of people convinced that the government is bugging their house, that aliens are controlling their brains, that a partner has cheated them out of a fortune, or that an ex-spouse is illegally denying them contact with their kids.
Because I work nights with no regular beat, I’m often assigned to talk to these nut cases and I’ve developed a talent for quickly identifying them. Reams of documents or long chronologies written in capital letters are dead giveaways. But I also think I have a genetic gift, passed on by my journalism family. My father, Lucas Harper Jr., was the beloved editor at The Detroit Free Press and his father was the crusading publisher of The New York Sun. They must have been good at spotting nut cases. In this business, you don’t get far unless you can.
But snap decisions can be wrong. Everyone in the business remembers the city editor who dismissed anonymous accusations about sexual escapades and the theft of millions by a TV evangelist. The tipster contacted another newspaper, which won the Pulitzer Prize for the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker scandal. And my father’s newspaper had won a Pulitzer Prize after it pursued a crazy, anonymous tip that a 1972 vice presidential candidate had received electroshock therapy and kept it hidden. No one wanted to be the editor or reporter who failed to take the next PTL club or Thomas Eagleton call.
I was running late when I reached my cubicle in the Charlotte Times newsroom. Walker Burns, my boss and the managing editor, sprawled in my chair, his feet on my desk. The sight stopped me short and sank my stomach like a blue light in the rearview mirror.
“Matt, what a dang treat!” he said, springing up to pump my hand like I was a long-lost friend. “Thank you sooooo much for coming in today.” At six foot four to my five foot ten, Walker towered over me. I felt like Romper Room’s youngest, smallest student being welcomed by Miss Francis.
“Sorry, Walker.”
“No problem, pardner. But a bunch of us have gotten together and decided we’re gonna try to put out a newspaper.” His smile loomed over the silver and turquoise slide of his Texas string tie. “I was beginnin’ to worry we were gonna have to saddle up and ride off without you.”
“Sorry, Walker.”
“Well, now that we’re all ready to go, there’s some ol’ boy at the reception desk who’s showed up with a yarn to spin. Spend some time with him. See if he’s got anything.”
“That’s
