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.