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"Well, we were thinking of a follow-up. Something more in-depth," Mary told him.
What "follow-up" could there be to such lunacy? How "in-depth" could such an absurd incident be? Had the man had a family? If so, they would no doubt be upset. But how long an interview could Wallingford possibly sustain with the witness? And for what purpose? To what end?
"What's the other item?"
He'd heard about the other story, too--it had been on one of the wire services. A fifty-one-year-old German, a hunter from Bad-somewhere, had been found shot dead beside his parked car in the Black Forest. The hunter's gun was pointed out the window of his car; inside the car was the dead hunter's frantic dog. The police concluded that the dog had shot him. (Unintentionally, of course--the dog had not been charged.)
Would they want Wallingford to interview the dog?
They were the kind of not-the-news stories that would end up as jokes on the Internet--they were already jokes. They were also business as usual, the bizarre-as-commonplace lowlights of the twenty-four-hour international news. Even Mary Shanahan was embarrassed to have brought them up.
"I was thinking of something about Germany, Mary," Patrick said.
"I know," she sympathized, touching him in that fondl
y felt area of his left forearm.
"Was there anything else, Mary?" he asked.
"There was an item in Australia," she said hesitantly. "But I know you've never expressed any interest in going there."
He knew the item she meant; no doubt there was a plan to follow up this pointless death, too. In this instance, a thirty-three-year-old computer technician had drunk himself to death in a drinking competition at a hotel bar in Sydney. The competition had the regrettable name of Feral Friday, and the deceased had allegedly downed four whiskeys, seventeen shots of tequila, and thirty-four beers--all in an hour and forty minutes. He died with a blood-alcohol level of 0.42.
"I know the story," was all Wallingford said.
Mary once more touched his arm. "I'm sorry I don't have better news for you, Pat."
What further depressed Wallingford was that these silly items weren't even new news. They were insignificant snippets on the theme of the world being ridiculous; their punch lines had already been told.
The twenty-four-hour international channel had a summer intern program--in lieu of a salary, college kids were promised an "authentic experience." But even for free, couldn't the interns manage to do more than collect these stories of stupid and funny deaths? Somewhere down south, a young soldier had died of injuries sustained in a three-story fall; he had been engaged in a spitting contest at the time. (A true story.) A British farmer's wife had been charged by sheep and driven off a cliff in the north of England. (Also true.)
The all-news network had long indulged a collegiate sense of humor, which was synonymous with a collegiate sense of death. In short, no context. Life was a joke; death was the final gag. In meeting after meeting, Wallingford could imagine Wharton or Sabina saying: "Let the lion guy do it."
As for what better news Wallingford wanted to hear from Mary Shanahan, it was simply that she wasn't pregnant. For that news, or its opposite, Wallingford understood that he would have to wait.
He wasn't good at waiting, which in this case produced some good results. He decided to inquire about other jobs in journalism. People said that the so-called educational network (they meant PBS) was boring, but--especially when it comes to the news--boring isn't the worst thing you can be.
The PBS affiliate for Green Bay was in Madison, Wisconsin, where the university was. Wallingford wrote to Wisconsin Public Television and told them what he had in mind--he wanted to create a news-analysis show. He proposed examining the lack of context in the news that was reported, especially on television. He said he would demonstrate that often there was more interesting news behind the news; and that the news that was reported was not necessarily the news that should have been reported.
Wallingford wrote: "It takes time to develop a complex or complicated story; what works best on TV are stories that don't take a lot of time. Disasters are not only sensational--they happen immediately. Especially on television, immediacy works best. I mean 'best' from a marketing point of view, which is not necessarily good for the news."
He sent his curriculum vitae and a similar proposal for a news-analysis show to the public-television stations in Milwaukee and St. Paul, as well as the two public-television stations in Chicago. But why did he focus on the Midwest, when Mrs. Clausen had said that she would live anywhere with him--if she chose to live with him at all?
He had taped the photo of her and little Otto to the mirror in his office dressing room. When Mary Shanahan saw it, she looked closely at both the child and his mother, but more closely at Doris, and cattily observed: "Nice mustache."
It was true that Doris Clausen had the faintest, softest down on her upper lip. Wallingford was indignant that Mary had called this super-soft place a mustache! Because of his own warped sensibilities, and his overfamiliarity with a certain kind of New Yorker, Patrick decided that Doris Clausen should not be moved too far from Wisconsin. There was something about the Midwest in her that Wallingford loved.
If Mrs. Clausen moved to New York, one of those newsroom women would persuade her to get a wax job on her upper lip! Something that Patrick adored about Doris would be lost. Therefore, Wallingford wrote only to a very few PBS affiliates in the Midwest; he stayed as close to Green Bay as he could.
While he was at it, he didn't stop with noncommercial television stations. The only radio he ever listened to was public radio. He loved NPR, and there were NPR stations everywhere. There were two in Green Bay and two in Madison; he sent his proposal for a news-analysis show to all four of them, in addition to NPR affiliates in Milwaukee, Chicago, and St. Paul. (There was even an NPR station in Appleton, Wisconsin, Doris Clausen's hometown, but Patrick resisted applying for a job there.)
As August came and went--it was now nearly gone--Wallingford had another idea. All the Big Ten universities, or most of them, had to have graduate programs in journalism. The Medill School of Journalism, at Northwestern, was famous. He sent his proposal for a news-analysis course there, as well as to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
Wallingford was on a roll about the unreported context of the news. He ranted, but effectively, on how trivializing to the real news the news that was reported had become. It was not only his subject; Patrick Wallingford was his argument's best-known example. Who better than the lion guy to address the sensationalizing of petty sorrows, while the underlying context, which was the terminal illness of the world, remained unrevealed?
And the best way to lose a job was not to wait to be fired. Wasn't the best way to be offered another job and then quit? Wallingford was overlooking the fact that, if they fired him, they would have to renegotiate the remainder of his contract. Regardless, it surprised Mary Shanahan when Patrick popped his head--just his head--into her office and cheerfully said to her: "Okay. I accept."
"Accept what, Pat?"
