Wisdom Wednesday: Richard Wright Edition

Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread. –Richard Wright

Relationship Advice

Find someone who looks at you the way my students look at redundant word choice and predictable sentence structure.

Fox’s Game Chapter 5

An Economist Goes Discount Dress Shopping

Alyssa Morell drove slowly behind the young man walking in front of her. His crisp white shirt and black pinstripe pants indicated that he had money. He was too good looking and too confident not to be a player. The care-free way he spoke on his phone indicated He was neither worried about time nor aware of her presence. The lights in his white convertible BMW flashed as he shifted the bags in his hands. It was at this moment he noticed her. He looked into the windshield of her Camry and saw an attractive woman. He smiled and tried to wave, juggling the items in his hands. She smiled but did not wave. She wanted his parking spot, not his phone number.

As a woman in the field of Advanced Analytics, she was used to commanding attention with her confidence and intensity. She was also attractive, which helped, but she was well aware that relying on beauty when trying to gain respect hurt more than helped.

As an undergrad at the University of Maryland, she understood that if she wanted to compete in a field dominated by men that she would have to be as aggressive in the classroom as she was on the soccer field. Her tenacity earned her a scholarship. And she knew that the traits developed on the field were transferrable to her future career. She’d maintained the smooth movements and lithe frame of her sports days. But she knew her looks would only be an advantage if she could demonstrate her intelligence. One way she knew to do this was to infuse her writing and conversations with an apt quote, a relatable anecdote, or little known fact that could illustrate the point she was making.

Morell wanted to reflect technical expertise and polymathic learning. Her beauty and personality disarmed people, her intelligence kept them off balance. For instance, she would quote from King Lear “Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy laws / My services are bound” during a discussion on the Bayesian worldview. She enjoyed even more watching a surprised colleague nod solemnly in hopes of seeming like he was aware of the Shakespearean line.

Her dark brown hair that went just below her shoulders and well-toned frame complimented her business casual fashion sense. Her pencil skirts, high heels, and well-pressed shirts drew the attention of males invested in their libidos. As one colleague said, “It’s not that we think we have a shot with her or even want to. It’s just good to have someone nice to look at.” Many female colleagues viewed her with a begrudging ambivalence. It seemed unfair that a woman could have good looks, social adaptability, and be able to achieve success in a man’s world. She represented that which was good about the 21st century woman. But it was too easy to think, “why her and not me.”

Morell enjoyed shopping because it was economics at its most obvious level. The mall added an extra level of interest because, unlike grocery shopping, you dealt exclusively with luxury items. Yes, shoes and clothes were necessary, but when you went to the mall to get things, you were shopping for more than just necessities. Even when you went for value, it was a value relative to your class standards, not the type of value that the truly poor must consider.

As she walked through Green Hills Mall—the mall centered in the area of Nashville that melded old money and new—she couldn’t help but think about how financial economics was an odd art that blended the certitude of numbers with the unpredictable psychology of humans. For example, she new that she didn’t need a new outfit for this faculty party she was invited to, but she felt compelled to get one. The confidence she would have wearing something she’d just bought was worth paying for. And if that confidence could help make a stronger impression, then what she bought was a valuable investment. But how much worth does that investment have?

After a quick walk through at Express, she decided that if she were buying something special for a specific event, she should invest more. She could get a new outfit there for $30. But she felt she needed to pay more. She walked past Juicy Couture without even glancing towards it because a new outfit would cost $300 on sale. That was too much. She knew she needed something between $30 and $300. The difference, that middle ground, reflected consumer surplus. Her goal was to get as close to $30 as possible while trying to find an outfit that they could have sold for $300. The clothing stores wanted the inverse, to get her as close as possible to $300 for something they could have sold for $30.

This type of cost-value analysis applied to many situations, from dating to drafting a football team. Most of her friends enjoyed the chess match of maximizing profits while minimizing labor. This is what frustrated her about her field of study. So many women found interest in the theoretical aspects of economics, especially when it came to spending money. But men overwhelmingly dominated the field. She knew this stemmed from an antiquated notion that women couldn’t do math. Obviously, some men also shied away from economics for the same reason. But the point was that the building blocks shouldn’t scare you away from the actual building. For instance, learning to read is hard, but once you learn, the work is worth it.

Morell shook those thoughts from her mind in order to focus on the economics at hand. She walked into Ann Taylor Loft not knowing what she was looking for but conscious she’d know it when she found it. She perused the sale items noting they reflected an excess of supply and that companies lowered the prices in order to avoid a complete profit loss. It was the closest a consumer could get to taking advantage of the companies.

Even with a sale Ann Taylor Loft made profits many times the cost of the clothing sold. Morell spotted a black skirt-white blouse out. She recognized it from the spring catalogue and noticed there was no price tag. She shrugged, walked to the changing rooms, and tried it on. Morell liked the color black because of its simplicity. The higher up you go, the less you needed to say. But she knew a powerful woman dresses her pay. A man could wear a Hawaiian shirt to a business meeting. A woman could not.

The girl working the register rang it up as $140. Morell blinked in disbelief, “Excuse me, there must be some sort of mistake. This item’s on sale, right?”

“No ma’am. It’s $140, full price. Now, will you be paying with cash or a card?”

Morell’s eyes narrowed. She examined the girl, a blonde close to her in size but whose frame, Morell figured, was due more from genetics than Division I college sports.

“What size do you wear?” Morell demanded.

“I’m sorry?” the worker said.

“Your size. Are you size 4 like me? About 115 pounds?”

“I…Yes…No…It depends. Why do you even care?”

“You said this outfit was full price. But all the other items I saw in the spring catalogue were in the front of the store on the sales rack. If this skirt and shirt combo were so popular that it were still full price, you would have more than one in this size. Your boss–I’d like his or her name by the way—would have them overstocked like the rest of the outfits in that area of the store.

Large, successful companies are in the business of overestimating demand, not underestimating it. The profit in selling the outfit is so much greater than the cost to make it, it only makes sense to order too much than not enough, especially for a place like. If it were popular enough to re-order, it’d be popular enough to over-order. My guess is that you wanted the outfit for yourself.

Maybe someone returned this earlier today. Anyway, you saw it on the sales rack, which means once you used your employee discount, you would be buying it for less than a quarter for what it was worth. Because of that, your manager–I’m still waiting for you to give me that name by the way—probably didn’t want you reserving it for yourself. If that outfit made it to the end of the day, it was yours. But you had a feeling it wouldn’t. So you decided to hide it and ‘punish’ anyone who bought it by making them pay full price. C’mon. Am I right or am I right?”

The girl stared at Morell as if the professor had just juggled fire.

“L-l-l-ook,” she stammered. “I…uh…am sorry. Let’s not make a big deal of this.”

Her hands shook as she scanned the tag and $70 appeared on the register. The girl typed for a few moments and then $45 appeared. “Wow…ha…bigger sale than you thought, right? Forty-five dollars.”

Morell saw the girl couldn’t be older than 20. And something about her nervousness and disappointment reminded the professor of her struggling undergrads, “Look, you don’t have to do that. I just–”

“I know. I want to. I don’t know who you are. But that was amazing. My name’s Jessie. How’d you do that?”

“I’ve got a PhD in Economics. That’s the study of how everything flows: money, information, ideas, everything. It’s a good field of study. Lots of jobs, lots of opportunities. There’s some math, but nothing you can’t handle if you work at it. You should think about it. We could use more women.”

“I don’t know…School…I don’t really…”

“My name’s Alyssa Morell. Here’s my card. Think about it. If you change your mind, we can talk.”

Jessie nodded slowly as she read it. Morell checked her watch. “Look, Jessie I gotta go. Thanks for the discount. Hopefully, I’ll see you later.”

Morell exited the store and got in her car. She sighed as she realized the irony of wanting to buy an outfit to increase her confidence when it was her confidence that saved her over $100.

Fox’s Game Chapter 4

Dr. McDonough and the Art of Memory

Vanderbilt Library

Dr. Robert McDonough sat in a cramped college library cubicle crouched over microfilm, struggling to make sense of the Greek manuscript under the scope. He winced while shifting his weight, and for the first time, he noticed how sweaty he was.

But all this: the heat, the sweat, the sore bones were a minor distraction. He read on, stopping only to calculate the myriad English translations that could be inferred from the Greek phrasing. He typed quickly into his laptop before returning to the microscope. The ancient writing juxtaposed well with the modern technology.

As a classics professor at one of America’s elite universities, McDonough was aware that the work in front of him could either justify months of research or could lead to a dead end. There was no way to know other than to formulate a theory and assume it to be true until evidence proved otherwise.

This was the life of a scholar. Long periods spent alone in deep concentration, working on a project that may or may not come to fruition. Too often television made college professors appear as if they wrote incomprehensible symbols on a white board until they brilliantly made some connection between the theoretical world they were a part of and the reality in which they lived. Real scholarship was slower and played less well on camera. Real research did not so easily lend itself to attractive actors with impeccable hairstyles wearing tailor-fitted sports coats.

McDonough was a scholar of the poet Simonides, the inventor of memory. According to legend, Simonides attended a banquet where he was called outside by two young men. Just as he left, the structure collapsed, killing everyone inside. Simonides used his memory to identify all the dead bodies. The techniques he used to remember the names and seating arrangements of the other guests became the foundation of linking and imaging. Though probably untrue, it encapsulated everything McDonough believed about the nature of learning.

A story existed that reflected a larger truth. That story was grounded in reality—Simonides almost surely existed—yet it had elements of myth, the young men were reputed to be gods. And from that myth-based truth, information sprang forth and could be augmented. Mastering this ancient memory system, one could theoretically learn anything. And here’s where the nature of learning became complicated: learning and memorizing are related, but one does not necessarily lead to the other.

Simonides was a poet. This told McDonough that there is a creative element to true learning, that when you really make knowledge part of you by linking it with that which you’ve already learned, you’re not simply storing information so that it can be pushed out at a later date by newer information. You are gathering information and contextualizing it in such a way that it becomes knowledge. Consciously creating a memory is an imaginative process.

And McDonough looked to make sense of this knowledge paradox. He had devoted his professional life to understanding how the Ancients used story and memory to make sense of the world. In his own way, sweating in a hot, wooden, undersized study area he was doing what Simonides did over two millennia ago–he was using myth, memory, and imagination to illuminate something that is both ancient and new, something both in plain sight but not quite seen.

McDonough’s studies took him to a fringe sect of learning. He often found himself reading Medieval tracts on alchemy or witchcraft. This was another paradox of education: too often truth took heretical turns. Sitting in the comfort of the 21st century with over a 1,000 years of enlightenment and scientific exploration providing comfort, it was easy to see how an 8th century druid could find himself chasing ancient secrets that revealed themselves to be nothing but ancient hoaxes. The question he constantly asked himself was how would future generations view my work?

Would they feel an amalgam of pity and frustration when reading my writing? Would they see how he sees now that so many men wasted their best years uncovering secrets that didn’t exist? It’s one thing to be limited to the knowledge of your age because much can still be learned from it. Yet to be limited by your own blindness is another.

McDonough wanted future gatekeepers of knowledge to read his research and not be led down a sterile path of barren knowledge. Of course, he couldn’t predict what future generations would discover.

His ability to observe and remember was developed over time through practice that most anyone could do with a few trips to the local library. One could argue that memory was the first art, that without it we have no history, no sense of being upon the backdrop of time. He loved that he practiced and preserved an art that erodes just a little bit more with each passing generation.

But the confidence of memory leads to other thoughts. McDonough understood that nearly all learning is available to an organized mind. He wondered what ancient secrets that are being forgotten, or worse, already forgotten. The inkling of this thought made him wonder if the occult has treasures that have been obscured by too much comfort and common sense.

As McDonough typed, he noticed that his watch read 4:44. He’d been at the library for 3 hours since lunch and scarcely noticed. He often fell into a deep concentration that thinned out time.

McDonough collapsed on his couch and turned to CNN while he sorted through papers on his coffee table. He reminded himself that every piece of paper on his desk was a decision he hadn’t made

His mind and office were orderly. His home wasn’t. He took pride in knowing that he was not the only intellectual whose exterior messiness was incongruent with his internal efficiency. One of his heroes, Dr. Samuel Johnson, the man credited with the Oxford English Dictionary, was notoriously slovenly. Although McDonough knew he didn’t reach Johnson’s level of eminence, he comforted himself in knowing that he also didn’t reach his level of hygienic negligence.

The buzzing of his cell phone interrupted his thinking. He scrolled to his email app and saw it he’d received a message from Benjamin Hoek. “I just saw him today,” he thought.

Dr. McDonough:

You are cordially invited to a get together this upcoming Tuesday evening. I must warn you that this is not just for social reasons but for work as well. Don’t get me wrong: a Cajun-themed dinner will be served followed by a variety of desserts. But the purpose of the meeting is to discuss a new research committee upon which I hope you will consider serving. I shall provide greater detail on the responsibilities (and incentives) on the 18^th. I sincerely hope you will consider.

Sincerely,

Dr. Benjamin Hoek
Full Professor, School of Journalism
Vanderbilt University

McDonough hated sacrificing his Tuesday nights because that’s when he met with a group of friends for role playing games and logic puzzles. Like parents who hire a babysitter so they can leave the house, his friends gave him the opportunity to be more than just a scholar and teacher.

He considered inventing some excuse. But snubbing a superior in a social situation could result in a denied favor later on. McDonough’s motivations for attending went beyond office politics. Though his living room didn’t reflect it, he viewed himself as a professional who adhered to the etiquette and expectations of his career field.

As he typed his response, he wondered allowed, “who else was asked to be on this committee?”

He knew his book Mentalists and Magicians: A Brief History of Memory Tricks and Mental Games put him in the upper tier of the campus faculty pecking order. He didn’t care enough to call around. Instead, he focused on what was the Dean meant by “Cajun-themed dinner.” As a Louisiana kid who grew up on crawfish and gator, he’d learned to lower his standards whenever he heard that word used outside of his home state.

Fox’s Game: Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Email From an Old Friend

May 15^th

West End Apartments,

Hillsboro Rd

 

Tiffany woke up and glanced sleepily at her tear-stained pillow and shut her eyes. She somehow felt numb and angry. Her iPhone began playing a fast-paced Tink Tinks song, which she skipped, preferring a slow moving Civil Wars ballad.

She lurched half awake to the kitchen and started the Keurig. She cleared away her roommate’s dirty plates off the coffee table and set her laptop in their place. She began her day the way she began most days: devouring the news. She watched the local news on tv while reading about world and national events online. She would begin by scanning Huffington Post then Politico and finally NPR, clicking on and reading articles whose titles seemed interesting, except this time, she couldn’t do it. Less than a minute passed before she shut off the tv and closed her computer. Nashville was teeming with reporters from all over the world, and she was stuck at home unable to do anything but watch others do well what she could do better. She fought the tears that built up, but on this day, they were like everything else that was beyond her control.

Vanderbilt University

Dr. Benjamin Hoek sat in his office at Vanderbilt’s Business College reading as much as he could about the shooting that occurred less than five miles from where he sat. As a well-traveled journalist, he knew every news story had an information ceiling. If he read enough articles and watched enough television, he would know as much as was possible to know short of having an inside source. He believed he’d reached that point.

He called a few of his friends from the local media, but they had yet to return his messages. After working as chief editor at The Tennessean, he also knew that any Metro police officer who had real information would be too busy to talk. He had no reason to contact anyone other than to satisfy his own curiosity. And that wasn’t a good enough reason for him to interrupt someone from doing her job. In his decade as a college professor, he rarely missed the grind of journalist life. He could still write and travel, but he didn’t have to worry about the deadlines, conflict, and general headaches that came from having to produce a new news story. Today was an exception. He felt like a former athlete whose competitive juices coursed through his veins on game day but who could only sit and watch since the sport had passed him by.

Nowadays, the columnist-turned scholar received his journalistic excitement vicariously through his students—smart, idealistic, hopefuls ready to change the world with their words. He loved watching them with their iPads and Twitter pages. Their everyday tools would have been sci-fi inventions when he was their age. Yet the basics of good journalism had not changed. The best of his students could have covered Vietnam with him in the ‘60s using only a notepad and a pencil. And the worst will have left journalism in less than five years no matter what technology they had access to.

He glanced at his watch and headed to class when his office phone rang. He hesitated. He hated being late to class. Timing is more important in some careers than others, but in media, it’s as important as any. He wanted to set the example. But he also taught that every rule has its exceptions. And today he’d be invoking the time honored college rule that the professor can’t be late; class didn’t start until the teacher arrived.

“Hello?”

“Dr. Hoek?”

“Umm…Yes?”

“Tiffany Saunders. Remember me?”

“Ah! Tiffany! How are you, ma’am?”

“Uh…not so good. Do you have a moment?”

He glanced at his watch again. He knew what that type of question meant. He placed the receiver on his shoulder and thought. All Tiffany heard was three seconds of quiet. But those three seconds will tell you all you need to know about teaching.

Hoek turned his head towards the door. “Debbie, I need you to cancel my class for the day. Tell them I will post a write up online of what we were going to discuss in class. And remind them to read that as well as the next chapter in the textbook.”

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Hoek asked.

“Yes, I…I think I’m going to get fired. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Just relax and tell me what happened.”

Dr. Hoek listened quietly.

“I’m not sure what advice to give, but while I think on that, let me offer some words of comfort: you’re gonna be fine. If they really wanted to fire you, they would’ve done it. Like most things in life, it’s a test. They don’t know they’re testing you, but they are. If you respond well, you’ll be fine.”

“What do you mean by respond well?”

“Find something no one else has found. If not, admit you were wrong and offer another story that’s different from but related to this Harvel situation, something that reminds them of it.”

“Like a peace offering?”

“Tiffany, you have a way of phrasing things that I do not. Yes, like a peace offering. That way, you show them you’ve been working hard and even though you don’t have what they were looking for, you have something to show for it.”

“I think I can do that.”

“Of course you can. And if you can’t…well plenty of fine journalist have been fired. You’ll be neither the first nor the last.”

“Thank you,” she said. “When do you think I should stop working on the primary story and begin doing the peace offering?”

“That, Ms. Saunders, I can’t tell you.”

She could hear the smile in his voice, and it made her smile. “Okay Dr. Hoek, I’ll get to work. Thanks for everything.”

“Just pay it forward to someone else.”

Dr. Hoek hung up the phone. He knew these situations were often dead ends. The more media pursuing a story, the less likely one would break through with an original angle. It required investigative reporting that would take more than the two weeks allotted her. Hoek knew that Tiffany understood this; the key would be how she would go about solving a seemingly unsolvable problem. The experience she’d gain from this would come from the way she went about finding the answer—not the answer itself.

Tiffany re-opened her laptop and went to her notes. She double-checked the sources she’d used to write her original production piece. She found nothing that would led her to alter her original approach. She then spent the next two hours online reading anything she could find on the story. She turned on her tv, but it was the same as what she’d just read. Given the repetitiveness of the CNN crawl and the unoriginal words of the pundits, she began to doubt the usefulness of her career. Maybe she’d be more effective in a field less inundated with information. It’s like if you weren’t there to break the story, you’re relegated to regurgitating the words of those who broke the story.

She occasionally wrote a featured blog for Channel 4’s website, but that was only when a contrarian thought struck her. Most of the time, she focused on making the shows she produced run so smoothly that she could navigate the studio blindfolded and know where everyone would be and when.

She enjoyed writing, but her words were used to sell already known information, not make something new. She walked to her bookshelf, hoping the wood of the shelf held knowledge inside the wood of the pages. She kept Strunk and White’s Elements of Style for technical writing advice. But what about creative? She decided to start with Stephen King’s On Writing.

She read about how when completing The Stand King overcame the one and only time he had writer’s block by simply going for a walk, she saw the implications of his words. It wasn’t about the walk, it was about getting away from his routine so that his mind could get out of whatever track it’d been trapped in. But how could she do this? She had to laugh at the irony of brainstorming about how she should brainstorm.

Tiffany often went for runs to reset her mind, but this was something different. The idea of calling Dr. Hoek again wasn’t a real possibility. The man had things to do. And besides, one of her strengths was her ability to work independently. She couldn’t simply go back to him, at least not yet.

Or could she? What if she called because she was wondering how best to take a different approach to the problem? Maybe he could put her in touch with a writing professor who could provide her a different narrative angle. It was worth trying.

She decided to email instead:

Dr. Hoek,

Sorry to bother you again. But what do you think of this: I get with a literary professor and attack the story from a non-journalistic perspective while, of course, following journalism law and etiquette. Maybe I can tell the same story in a different way. A new perspective can be the same as new information, right?

Just curious,

Tiffany

With the uncharacteristic free time from his canceled class, Hoek decided to grab a leisurely lunch down the street at Nöshville, his favorite deli where he could enjoy what he boasted was the best sandwich in the city: the open-faced brisket with gravy. The New York style deli had much in common with the Midtown section of town where it was located. Midtown Nashville is the section between Broadway and Music Row where local Nashvillians go for an evening out. Like much of the music industry that drives its parent city, Nöshville has out-of-town roots but is a fixture in the Music City.

On a given day, one could find music execs networking at a table beside Vandy students discussing feminist theory while young adults ate heartily in anticipation of a long night of drinking. The eclectic mix belied the homogenous country stereotype associated with Nashville, or any city known primarily for one thing.

While standing in line, Ben noticed Dr. Robert McDonough, professor of the classics. The two exchanged a friendly nod because they’d seen one another around campus. But they weren’t friends. In fact, Ben only remembered his name because when he saw Robert’s name and picture on the faculty website, he couldn’t help but think that the man looked like a Robert. Though they’d never spoken, their reputations garnered mutual respect. One student even remarked that Robert reminded her of a younger, taller, hairier version of Hoek. He assumed it was a compliment, but you could never be sure with students.

He returned to his office and was surprised to find a message from Tiffany so soon after speaking with her. He clicked on it and unwrapped his sandwich while reading.

He finished his sandwich, rubbed his hands with sanitizer, and responded:

Tiffany,

I think a different direction sounds great. But what’s your end game? Are you changing angles with the Harvel story, or are you going with the “peace offering?” If you’re looking for someone to give you writing ideas like some sort of talisman, you could be heading in the wrong direction. But if you’re looking for a new way to see the story, then I think you’re walking down the right path. I have someone I could contact, although I don’t know him too well. But you want to make sure that you have a clear direction first.

Sincerely,

Dr. Benjamin Hoek

He pressed send and listened to a podcast about the 50^th Anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination. Ben thought about that day in school. Some of his teachers were crying, some were actually smiling. He remembered how distrusted and even hated Kennedy was during his life. Now it seemed as if he were universally beloved. Surely, some of those who were glad he was dead are still alive?

He thought of how Kennedy’s assassination changed the way Americans viewed conspiracies in general and government trust specifically. Ben believed that the seeds of Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate investigation on Nixon could not have been possible without the incessant coverage of Kennedy’s death. It seemed as if the more time that passed, the more layered the narrative, making the information of the actual events less clear.

Ben couldn’t help but think about how we know the Zapruder Film was edited before getting released to the public. Ben chuckled at the thought of something like that happening today. Camera phones and websites have made controlling something like Babineaux’s death virtually impossible. Any 2013 official version would have even less teeth than any “official” Kennedy Report. He rethought his advice to Tiffany. Perhaps a clear direction wasn’t the best direction. If you’re a conspiracy theorist, you’re going to see a conspiracy. If you’re rightwing you’ll see it as an attack on American safety, if you’re leftwing you’ll see it as an attack on progressive America. Either way, you will see what you want and report from there.

Perhaps what Tiffany needed was help developing a narrative direction. But she would need a non-conventional way of seeing the ordinary.

She needed someone to help her understand it in a new way. But to do that effectively in this blogosphere world, she would need more than “someone.” She’d need multiple someones so that she could create a pastiche of viewpoints threaded together by a consistent narrative.

Fox’s Game: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Bridgestone Arena sits in the center of downtown Nashville on the corner of 5^th and Broadway Street. Home of Nashville Predators hockey, the building also serves as a concert venue and locale for large assemblies. The arena is merely the latest and largest hub of an historical strip that is to Nashville what Beale Street is to Memphis. If East Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry helped birth country music, then downtown Nashville helped raise it.

It was here the Meredith Corporation helped disseminate country music from a regional bluegrass compliment to a national branch of pop culture. Names like Pat Sayjack and Robin Roberts came from WSMV

“I spoke to my bosses. Nashville is growing. It’s a major US city. But nationally, it’s still seen as a really big small town. There’s just too much negativity here in the South. A word like ‘assassination’ just brings to mind too much of the recent past.

“Let me start by saying I love your energy and your penchant for making a story out of information. But there’s a balance. Just like we’re not just information givers, we’re not just storytellers, we’re mouthpieces, we’re liaisons, and sometimes PR firms. Until you learn that, you’re going to keep bumping heads with your bosses.

Today, Nashville needed us to not just tell what happened but to also provide a measure of comfort and stability, a voice to say that even though this terrible thing happened, it’ll be okay. But if the terrible thing is too terrible, then they won’t believe us when we offer comfort.”

Tiffany listened intently. “Taylor, I—I understand. I don’t know if it’s the day’s sobering events or if it’s because I’ve already flown too close to the sun, but I see what you’re saying. I do feel as if I focus too much on the story and not enough on the implications of the story.”

“But?”

“But I do feel my word choice was correct.”

“Is that right?” He pulled out a dictionary from his bookshelf. Let me read to you the definition of assassination. Assassination, noun. The murder of a prominent or political figure by surprise attack.

“Andre Babineux is neither a prominent nor a political figure. He’s no minor figure to be sure, but his death was not an assassination. Had Harvel shot former Vice President Gore, then that would be an assassination.”

“I know it’s debatable.”

“No, it’s really not.”

“Hear me out. You definitely have a point. But dictionary definitions can be incomplete. Babineux might not be a prominent or political figure to the average Nashvillian. But his death is significant. I think we’re also teachers. People need to know that the death of AquaCorp’s CFO has meaning whether it happened in Nashville or Paris. Think about it: AquaCorp has about as much political influence as any French politician—that includes their president. How could their second-in-command not warrant that definition?”

“But wouldn’t you agree that some words have more emotional connotations than others? Couldn’t you have just said ‘murder’ and the same meaning would’ve gotten across?”

“Could I have used murder? Yes. Would it have been the most accurate word possible? No. I don’t want to be sensationalist. You know that. And if I could do it over again, I would probably compromise and use a different word. But I still think it’s an assassination. And I think time will bear that out.”

“I admire your conviction. In the next few weeks, a lot of information is going to get reported. For some, it may be an assassination. The only thing worse than reporting a murder as an assassination is firing the person who reports an actual assassination. It would seem like censorship, which is worse PR. Look, if they come back with evidence that says it’s not an assassination, then you keep your job. If not, then I’m sorry. If I have to get in trouble with my bosses, you have to get in trouble right along with me. I know you don’t want to sit on your hands, so do your best to see what you can find. If nothing concrete comes up over the next two weeks, then you’re fired.”

“When’s the drop dead date?”

“May 28^th. Two weeks from today.”

“Give me three weeks.”

“Two. Final answer.”

Tiffany breathed deeply and stood up. She walked out of Taylor’s office exhausted, wounded. As the door closed behind her, Taylor shut the dictionary and said to himself, “Good luck, Tiffany.”

She walked down the hall as if in a trance. She saw Anthony and knew she could talk to him. “Anthony.”

“Hey Tiff, you okay? How’d the meeting go?”

“I’m gonna get fired unless someone can provide evidence that it was an actual assassination.”

“Woah.”

“You don’t have to say anything. I—can we just talk after you get off?”

“Ummm…I’m not sure. Can I call you later?”

“Sure.” She knew what that meant. He would not call. Any hope of him being her boyfriend ended at that moment. She walked to her car. Before shifting into drive she started giggling. The giggles turned to laughter, the laughter turned to coughing. There was something overwhelmingly humorous about losing her job without actually losing it and losing her boyfriend ever actually having him. How could she not laugh. “I’ll cry later,” she thought.

Fox’s Game Introduction & Ch. 1

Introduction

Christopher Harvel, an 8 year military vet and professor of European history at Western Kentucky University lay next to the divider on I-40 bleeding to death. This news didn’t seem to hurt the feelings of the paramedics who lifted his body from the asphalt to the ambulance. They would do their jobs, they would try to keep him alive for the 10 mile drive to Baptist Hospital.

Harvel had just ruined Nashville’s most significant business and political moment of the year. He’d shot and killed André Babineaux, the Chief Financial Officer of AquaCorp Water Purifier and Distributers, just missing AquaCorp’s CEO Michelle Bissette and former Vice President Al Gore.

While Harvel lay dying in a speeding, blaring ambulance, the rest of the city was in a panic at the brazen act of violence or maybe it was terrorism? It was simply too soon to tell. Either way, safety was the word of the hour–safety for the foreign investors, safety for the political environmentalists, safety for the people of Nashville who attended the fundraisers, safety for those who didn’t.

Law enforcement acted swiftly and efficiently. Nashville metro police, volunteer security, and Vice President Gore’s Secret Service worked together to calm fears and maintain order. The panic was real. The shooting sudden. And the only thing more surprising than Harvel standing on the second floor balcony of the now ironically titled restaurant Big Bang and shooting the CFO of a growing foreign business in the light of day with hundreds of eye witnesses was that he was, at age 43, nimble enough to escape to his ’04 Camry before being chased into a guardrail on the interstate.

Harvel was pronounced Dead On Arrival, taking with him his motives and the reasoning that informed those motives. His motionless body lay on a hospital bed in Baptist Hospital’s 3^rd floor ICU ward, the blood from his wounds clean but still visible.

With two people dead and many more scarred, the only thing left was to ask why and evaluate the answers. Investigators, casual observers, reporters, and pundits began forming opinions like clams who make half-formed pearls in hopes that their idea, their ability to make sense of the mayhem could bring closure and understanding to a family, to a company, to a city.

Part 1:

Chapter 1

WSMV Studios, Nashville

“Good evening Nashville. Our top story continues to concern the tragic events that occurred this afternoon right in the heart of downtown. We’re still gathering information about what happened and why.”

The anchor read from the teleprompter in a polished, professional tone. Tiffany mouthed the words, hoping that nothing would get ad libbed, nor misstated. She glanced into the cameraman’s monitor as André Babineaux’s picture appeared on the screen.

The anchor continued, “Here’s the victim, a 38 year old French businessman and integral cog in the growing machine that is the AquaCorp Water Purification Company. He is believed to have been assassinated by this man.” Christopher Harvel’s face appeared next to Babineaux’s.

The two men couldn’t look more different: Babineaux had dark skin characteristic of his Nigerian heritage. The picture Tiffany chose was the standard one that all the news outlines used: an image of him from 5 years ago. It looked like a Hollywood headshot. He stared at you with eyes that radiated intensity and smiled at you with a playful smirk that suggested mischievousness. The image reflected his charisma and confidence. In contrast, Harvel looked as if someone woke him up just to take that picture and that he hadn’t exactly agreed to it when the photographer snapped the image. Harvel’s balding, disheveled hair complimented his wild, wide eyes, and his sarcastic smirk suggested an all-knowing cynicism. The image reflected an odd combination of chaos and confidence.

The anchor continued, “As expected, authorities are saying very little. Metro Police, FBI, TBI, and Secret Service for the former Vice President are investigating the assassination. You will know more as soon as we do.”

That word “assassination” made Tiffany nervous while she wrote it, and hearing it said aloud caused her heart to speed up. One could argue that it was incendiary language that could cause undo panic, but she felt that the word worked because AquaCorp was growing so quickly and in such a unique way that it was no longer a grassroots organization started in Versailles to fight poverty by providing clean water to third world villages while they worked to pay back their microloans.

What began as a local business became a mid-sized company, which then became a large corporation. Its meteoric growth made it a political symbol for environmentalists who used it to exemplify the belief that capitalism and saving the planet were not mutually exclusive ideals.

Started in 1992 by Michelle Bissette and three of her friends, the organization joined with groups that helped with Muhammad Yunas’ mission to end poverty by giving poor villages start-up money for their own businesses. The idea won him a Nobel Peace Prize. Bissette saw that if the people had to worry less about disease and lack of nutrition, they could do even more than what they were doing. And the low cost, high value, easily supported concept of clean drinking water made AquaCorp a favorite recipient of celebrities and philanthropists’ donations. Eventually, AquaCorp had to grow or risk losing its market to more aggressive, less charitable companies. In 2004, they hired an economics consultant to help them stay relevant. That consultant, André Babineaux, became one of the top people in the organization, becoming a Vice President in just 15 months of work.

Since the company was now a political emblem, its leaders were now political figures. Tiffany felt she could defend her decision on this basis if her boss Caleb Reid had a problem with it. She enjoyed blurring that line between news and drama, not to manipulate events or mislead the public but because she believed that people cared about what happened around them only if they were led to care. Caleb believed that the information should be laid out simply and with as little adornment as possible so as not to taint the public’s interpretation. And though Tiffany could see the merits of this approach, she believed that the emotional element of storytelling was a useful device that should not be ignored but used delicately like a pair of flashy shoes on an otherwise conservative outfit.

For the whole first segment, the anchor stuck verbatim to Tiffany’s script, “We have reporters on the scene whom we will check in with after this commercial break.” Much of Tiffany’s anxiety had by now subsided. She was confident the professionals she worked with knew what to do. And she was confident that she’d prepped everyone well. “Just remember, all you can do is prepare like crazy and then go out there and do your best,” she breathed to herself.

She knew Harvel would be the only story aside from very brief updates on weather and sports. Still, she did something she rarely does: she stood less than a foot behind the cameraman making sure the segments she put together went exactly as she’d planned. What else could she do? She couldn’t go back to the control room and monitor the show from there. Not today. Like a football coach who leaves the booth at the top of the stadium to join his players on the sidelines, she wanted to be right there. She felt her presence would be more effective in person on a day like today.

The rest of the 6:00 show went as planned. Ironically, it was the smoothest show she’d ever produced. Tiffany sat at her desk eating pizza and gulping down what was easily her sixth cup of coffee for the day. To an observer, it could seem as if she chewed greedily and gulped frantically. But this was just a habit many in the news business cultivated because you grabbed food when possible; you never knew what breaking story could take you away from your desk for an indefinite amount of time. She ate with some satisfaction as she mentally replayed the way she took control of the newsroom. The tragedy on the outside brought about a crisis for them, which, in turn, brought out the best in her and her staff.

She glanced at her watch and decided that any personal reflection would have to wait. While she chewed her last slice, she planned the intro for the 10:00 show. Because of the circumstances, she knew a production change would be difficult, which meant an early start would buoy her team during the last hour of their shift when everyone from interns to anchors would be fatigued from doing two days’ worth of work on such short notice.

Tiffany checked her iPhone, waiting for some sort of communication from her supervisor Anthony. She knew he was on site with their boss, but she expected some sort of contact since he knew she’d be working tonight. Never mind that the two of them had been unofficially dating for the past two months, it was his job to make sure she was doing what she was supposed to. She didn’t have time to think about that now, so she didn’t, at least not consciously. But her repeated cell phone glances indicated that some part of her brain was focused on it.

She felt ambivalent about having to answer to him because any rank he had over her was in name more than practice. Anthony was a decent writer, and with his athletic build and fashion-conscious wardrobe, he looked the part of a supervisor. But he didn’t necessarily fit it. Tiffany would never vocalize this, but it seemed as if the Peter Principle had gotten to him, the concept that people rise to the level of their inefficiency, that they continue to get promoted out of jobs they’re qualified for until they reach a position that they cannot do well. And then they just stay there until they quit, retire, or get fired.

And though Anthony could write headlines and was creative with pre-commercial teasers, he wasn’t fit to be in charge of other producers and other writers. He simply didn’t have the personality. He enjoyed being on good terms with everyone, so he often relied on others to confront an uncomfortable issue or to break bad news. He would then come by and play good cop and smooth over a troublesome situation. The problem was, new workers like Rachel took longer to train because they lacked real direction. And for some reason, it seemed like the one who ended up playing bad cop to Anthony’s good cop was Tiffany.

But that was work politics. Although she felt she could perform Anthony’s job better than he, that didn’t bother her. She didn’t want his job anyway. What bothered her was that for the past two months the two of them would meet up for dates on their days off. They worked together, and since he was technically her superior, it was wrong.

She just couldn’t get past the opaqueness of their relationship. They weren’t exactly together, but they certainly weren’t just friends either. They inhabited a weird dating purgatory that she noticed a lot of her friends were also in. This set up almost always worked in the guy’s favor: he got an automatic date to functions around the city, someone to hang out with, even someone to have sex with, and yet he was free of the commitments that come with being a legit boyfriend. He didn’t have to stay at her house and watch her tv shows, nor did he have to sacrifice his Saturday mornings to help her run errands. And most significantly, he was free to date other women.

She was always bothered that whenever they went out, he placed his phone face down, always took it to the bathroom with him, and always turned off the ringer quickly if it made any kind of noise. The summer before her senior year, she did an internship in DC where she noticed that the guys there simply didn’t date. They were too busy pursuing their legal, political, or business careers to even think about the opposite sex. It was as if the young men in DC collectively decided to focus on their work and when it was time to find a wife, one of them would throw a party where they could serendipitously meet a woman who coincided with their pre-planned life and marry her quickly without too much interruption to their goals.

In Nashville, she found a different phenomenon: guys dated you without actually dating you. If friends with benefits were a 21st century hybrid where platonic friends occasionally meet up for sex, then young men in Nashville found a way to evolve that concept so they could be in a relationship with a woman without being committed to her. It was like having a girlfriend on lease. A guy could take a girl out on Saturday nights, even expensive trips, but not call her his girlfriend, a loophole that allowed him to stay available for another girl.

And that’s what Tiffany and Anthony had. And what they had–whatever it was called—was the most poorly kept work secret. No one said anything but whenever the two of them spoke, she could see cameramen, editors, even the anchors sneaking furtive glances then whispering among themselves. Since Anthony had no power to bestow favors on her, no one cared in any professional sense, only in a workplace gossip sense. What troubled Tiffany the most was that he seemed to enjoy pretending they weren’t together. Tiffany was not exactly sentimental, but he could at least give her the occasional flirty smile. The only time she noticed him behaving as if he liked her is when he saw her talking to another guy. It could be the 55 year old maintenance man, he would walk over to them and insert himself into their conversation until it ended.

She glanced at her phone right as it started to ring. “Finally,” she thought.
“Hey Anthony,” she said. “How are things downtown?”
“It was good. Not good but you know what I mean. Crazy, for sure.”
“Yeah, I imagine. Look, tell Caleb I’m prepping things for the 10:00 show as we speak.”
“That’s what I’m calling about. I’m headed back to the station. I’m gonna be doing the 10pm. He’s sending you home.”
“Wait! What?”
“I dunno. He was pretty pissed. Something about your melodramatic writing.”
“What were his exact words?”
“Look Tiffany, I don’t remember. He just told me to get down there and relieve you or I’d be in trouble, too.”
“How am I in trouble?”
“He wants you to call him.”
“I plan on it.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you in a minute.”

She could feel her neck turning red as she marched to her office and slammed the door. She turned up the music on her computer. It was “Gold on the Ceiling” by the Black Keys. She hoped it would be just loud enough to drown out any yelling that might ensue.

Caleb answered after four rings. She knew he was making her wait, a subtle tactic designed to remind her that he was in control. She’d already received her punishment, so she wasn’t scared. She felt some confusion but mostly anger. And each ring of the phone heightened it.

“Hello?”

Tiffany clinched her teeth. He knew it was her, he knew she’d be calling. Yet he was going to give her standard greeting as if he didn’t expect her. The two clashed over their view of how news should be presented, which Tiffany didn’t mind. Professional conflict was fine as long as it was about the work and not personal. But she felt that the mind games Taylor played went beyond differing views on story production.

They were his way of keeping his employees off balance. Tiffany felt like he didn’t do this for any philosophical reason but for an egotistical one: he had power, and he wanted to exercise it as often as possible even with insignificant matters.

“Yeah? Anthony told me you had a few questions?”
“Is that what he told you?”
“Something like that.” If he wanted to play games, she would play them right back.
“What exactly did he tell you?”
“He said you wanted to talk. There’s no need to brief me on my decisions for the 10:00 show. I’ve been thinking about it since lunch.”
“Tiffany, I know Anthony told you I was going with him for the 10:00 show. I also know that you know why.”

Tiffany knew this wasn’t the time to point out that if he knew what Anthony said, then he shouldn’t have asked. Instead, she felt it better to focus on the second part of his statement. “I honestly don’t know why.”

Caleb paused longer than necessary. “Assassination? You really think the city of Nashville witnessed an assassination today?”

“Well what would you have said?”

“Tiffany, I give you the most leeway of all my producers. And for some reason, that’s still not enough for you. And I put up with it because there’s not much downside beyond my own exasperation and the occasional misunderstanding. But this time, there’s a big downside. That ‘assassination’ comment has taken a life of its own. It’s being replayed around the country. It’s being retweeted and syndicated by anyone with a computer. Even Demetria’s in a little trouble. You’re in a lot.”

Tiffany’s blood pressure spiked. Demetria Kaladimos has been a stalwart of Nashville news for two decades. The idea that she could get in trouble, even a little bit made Tiffany nervous. Normally, she and Taylor fought over abstract turf the way a teenagers and parents do. But this seemed like something else, more than the typical back-and-forth she was used to.

“Sorry, Caleb.”
“So am I.”
“Wait, are you firing me? Because I–”

“No, at least not yet.” She didn’t answer, so he continued. “I don’t want to do this, but when the people with the money get angry, someone has to pay. I stood up for you, which is why for now you’re only suspended for two weeks with pay. Maybe when the news cycle changes, they’ll cool off. Maybe then, I’ll be able to keep you on. But as for this moment, you’d be wise to update your résumé.” Taylor surprised himself at how bad he felt meting out the punishment. Regardless of Tiffany’s defiance, she cared about doing her job right, and that forced her coworkers to do theirs or else they would be exposed, which made his job easier.

She spoke but the words seemed to move on their own as if she were a ventriloquist dummy. “Look, fire me if you have to. I understand. But this story, this event is the type of thing that can change a career.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. I’ll be at the station in a little over an hour. Don’t go anywhere, and don’t do anything. Play games on your phone, read a book, I don’t care. But you’re not allowed to help with the news. At all.”

“Okay. I’ll be here.”

Tiffany thought of taking a nap but the coffee she’d consumed made it impossible. She took off her shoes, cut off the lights in her office, sat on the floor, crossed her legs in a yoga pose, and took slow, deep breaths.

Haiku Thursday: Presidential Edition

When I’m made Poet

Laureate, we’ll have State of

the Union haikus