Story about an audacious theft?
“Audacity is a term I prefer to reserve for the exercise of righteous daring. The word is derived from the Medieval Latin: audacitas, or boldness, derived from Classical Latin, audacis, genitive case of audax, or brave. How we would be degrading this ennobling word, a word describing a way of being that I would like our citizenry, our young people, to aspire to! Theft in all its forms is craven, a hidden act that takes place in the shadows even when those shadows are cast by the collusion of so-called respectable people and institutions. Theft is not worthy of celebration — certainly not in a daily newspaper serving a city renowned for the stunning cupidity of those who purportedly act for the public good. No, a theft is a theft, Kat. A theft is a theft. I do not think that it is in the interests of our readership to glamorize the act because of the means of its accomplishment. In Othello, Shakespeare writes, ‘The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.’ Well, in this case I believe Mr. Shakespeare is dead wrong. Shakespeare is wrong. The robbed that smiles is stealing something more from his own self.”
Story about the Mob’s influence on casino gambling?
“Now, how do we know that this story has to do with the Mob? The Mafia? La Cosa Nostra? Because this old college roommate of yours says so? This has become another easy shibboleth in a culture addicted to shortcuts. The Mob. Let me tell you a story. Where I grew up, there was a pizza parlor. Little pizza parlor on Forty-seventh Street right where I grew up. And when we went in there, there were these coolers filled with colored fruit drinks. And do you know what we called it, the various colored liquids bubbling in these coolers? ‘Mafia juice.’ And when we saw cigarette machines outside the corner store, or in a cafeteria, or at the pool hall, we called them ‘Mafia cigarettes.’ And when there were those coin-operated mechanical horses they have chained up outside the five-and-ten? We called those ‘Mafia rides.’ You know why we called them that? We were lazy. We knew something was off, yes, we knew something was wrong about those watered-down drinks, about those stale cancer sticks, about those twenty-second rides, but did we look deeply at the reasons why those things were put there, where we were? No, we did not. We did not. If we had, it might have told us something that we didn’t want to think about. We had told ourselves the story we needed. We did not wish to be informed. Well, the purpose of a newspaper is to inform and educate the population, not to cater to its fantasies about the causes and conspiracies underlying everyday facts of life. Mafia. Tell me, Kat. How would it sit with you if I told you that casinos were elements of a Jewish conspiracy? Or, better. Better still. What if I were to say that the Chinese were involved with gambling? Fan-Tan. Pak Kop Piu. Long, long history of gambling in Chinese culture. That is a fact. Hmm, must be the Chinese involved. Not quite so obvious a story now, is it, Kat?”
Story about greed and temptation?
“Are we supposed to suggest to our readers that money will set them free? Are we supposed to appeal to their basest fantasies about what it is that money can do for them? You know what I see when I go outside and look at the young men there? Half of them want to be basketball stars. The other half want to be rap stars. Basketball and rap. And you think, I know you’re thinking, well, that is just one segment of the population. I assure you that it is not. I was at a dinner the other evening. A very elegant dinner at the well-appointed home of a man who is rightly considered a pillar of the community. Elegant dinner in Highland Park, night falling on quiet streets lined with homes that spoke eloquently of achievement, of permanence, of perseverance. Well, this man’s son and two of his friends came in. They were boys from the affluent suburbs. Boys who’d never done without anything, who understood what money could buy because they’d always had those things, and they’d watched their parents go to work each day — lawyers, doctors, businessmen, college professors, executives, board members, volunteers reaching out if not to the world at large then at least within their own community. Citizens who live by the credo that my own grandmother lived by and put to me: work hard, follow directives, and be credible. And do you know what these young men, the product of affluence, the flower of their generation, spoke of as they deigned to sit down with us for dessert? They spoke of getting rich. They spoke of getting rich in a manner that would enable them never to work again. They spoke of billions. The language today is of billions, as if mere millions, hundreds of millions, could never be enough to sate their desire for money. The surefire idea: that was the extent of their plan; to devise the surefire idea that would bring a veritable cavalry of white knights sweeping in with cash sufficient to idle them for the rest of their days. And I could tell that the parents of this young man, to whom it has never occurred to stop working and building and ceaselessly trying to make a difference in their community, were embarrassed by their son and his friends. I could tell that, in that moment, they felt as if they must have done something gravely wrong, must have failed somehow to impress upon him that the money was merely one part of the reward one reaps for a lifetime of hard and fulfilling work. There was a palpable sense in that dining room that for all that they had done by way of example, for all of their attempts to influence their son’s thinking, something, something terrible, had influenced his thinking more than they ever could. What might that something have been? Could it possibly have been the continuous depiction of wealth as an end in itself in our mass culture? Let me ask you: is it responsible to add even one stick of kindling to a raging inferno?”
He had started really messing with her now. He’d rocked behind his desk, his hands gesturing first to one side, then the other, shoulders working beneath the fit of his shirt. This was the voice and cadence, the attitude, that he’d intended his dead column to impart. When he had finished he let his hands drop into his lap, exhaled deeply, gazed at her.
He’d asked, “Do you read the police blotter?”
“Uh.”
“Every day, in Metro, the police blotter. You read it?”
“Not really.”
“Dry as dust. Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts. Someone aims a gun at a liquor store owner, pulls the trigger for the hell of it. Someone beats an old lady on her way home from visiting her sister. Someone paints a swastika on the door of a synagogue. The facts take up sixty words or less. Often much less. Metro editor decides. Mike Turowicz decides that’s what we need to know. Mike Turowicz decides because the story doesn’t seem to be about anything. Now who the hell is Mike Turowicz? Mike Turowicz walks to the El every night drinking a can of beer out of a paper bag. Mike Turowicz has never read anything but the newspaper. He’d be the first one to tell you that. Mike Turowicz’s idea of whether a story is about something or not generally centers on the complexion of the characters in that story. But I’ll tell you something. I will tell you something. There is one thing and one thing only that Mike Turowicz and I have in common, other than our employer. Mike Turowicz and I both want the stories we print to be about something. Now maybe you want to take a minute, think, and tell me again.”