Zodiac Read Free Page B

four different articles, all written by different reporters (no specialist on the staff; not considered an important issue) on vaguely environmental subjects. A local dump leaching crap into an estuary; a freeway project that would trash someswamp land; mysterious films of gunk on the river; and concerns about toxic waste that could be coming from a plant just outside of town, operated by a large corporation we shall refer to as the Swiss Bastards. Along with the Boston Bastards, the Napalm Droids, the Plutonium Lords, the Hindu Killers, the Lung Assassins, the Ones in Buffalo, and the Rhine-Rapers, they were among the largest chemical corporations of a certain planet, third one out from a certain mediocre star in an average spiral galaxy named after a candy bar.
    Each of the articles was 2500 words long and written in the same style. Clearly, the editor of the
Lighthouse-Republican
ruled with an iron hand. Local residents were referred to as Blukers. Compound sentences were discouraged and the inverted-pyramid structure rigorously followed. The PR flacks who worked for the Swiss Bastards were referred to by the old-fashioned term “authorities,” rather than the newer and sexier “sources.”
    My only worry was that maybe this editor was so fucking old and decrepit that he was already dead, or even retired. On the other hand, it seemed he was a dyed-in-the-wool “sportsman,” a type traditionally long-lived, unless he’d spent too much time sloshing around in a particular toxic swamp. Esmerelda, accustomed to my ways, had sent a xerox of the most recent masthead, which didn’t show any changes. The senior sports editor was Everett “Red” Grooten and the sports-page editor was Alvin Goldberg.
    Raucous laughter probably sounded from my office. Tricia hung up on Fotex’s PR director and shouted “S.T., what are you doing in there?” Called the florist and had them send the usual to Esmerelda. Cranked up my old PCB-spitter and searched my files. “Fish, marine, sport, Mid-Atlantic, effects of organic solvents on.” “Estuaries, waterfowl populations of, effects of organic solvents on.” These were old boilerplate paragraphs I’d written long ago. Mostly they referred to EPA studies or recent research. Every so often they quoted a “source” at GEE International, the well-known environmental group, usually me. I directed the word processor to do a search-and-replace to change “source” to “authority.”
    Then I pulled up my press release about what the Swiss Bastards were pumping into the waters off Blue Kills, which my gas chromatograph and I had discovered during my last trip down there. Threw it into the center of the piece and then composed a hard-hitting topic sentence in basic Dick-and-Jane dialect, no compound sentences, announcing that Bluker sportsmen might be the first ones to feel the effects of the “growing toxic waste problems” centered on the Swiss Bastards’ illegal dumping. Hacked it all into an inverted-pyramid shape, and ended up with 2350 words. Put on a final paragraph, the lowly capstone of the pyramid, mentioning that some people from GEE International, the well-known environmental group, might be dropping by Blue Kills any day now.
    Opened up my printer and put in a daisy wheel that produced a typeface that went out of style in the Thirties. Printed the article up on some unpretentious paper, stuck it in an envelope along with some standard GEE photos of dead flounder and two-headed ducks, suitable for the
Lighthouse-Republican’s
column width. Federal Expressed it to one Red Grooten at his home address, because I had this idea that maybe he didn’t stop by the office all that often.

2
    Wyman called. Wyman, the Scourge of Cars. He wanted the keys to the Omni so that he could drive to Erie, Pennsylvania to see his girlfriend, who was about to leave for Nicaragua. For God’s sake, she