Obituary Writer (9780547691732) Read online

  Two of us worked on obits: myself and Dick Ritger, a twenty-year veteran of the Independent who had once been editorial page editor and now wore a mouth guard so he wouldn't chew himself from the inside out. As a result we rarely talked. When I had arrived, he had been writing obits for a year and a half and his jaw had been wired shut. The cause of Ritger's downfall was anybody's guess. He had few friends in the newsroom, and everyone had a different opinion about what had happened. Post-traumatic stress, cocaine, a double life about to be exposed. Something from his past, quite literally, gnawed at him. Before the newsroom ban on cigarettes four years ago, Ritger had been a chain smoker, and when he could no longer light up in the conference room, he quit, cold turkey, and started filling his mouth with gumballs.

  Before the breakdown, Ritger was by all reports a classic, why-because-I-said-so newspaperman. He had a gravelly voice and a bad temper. His favorite word was "asshole." His face went from crimson to purple depending on the time of day, and he was bald but for a band of close-cropped gray hairs. His physical deterioration, however, belied his sense of style. Tall and trim, he wore fine tailored suits, perforated black suspenders, and pointy Italian shoes.

  When the gumballs no longer worked, when, as one of his colleagues at Editorial explained it, "he looked as if his head would explode," Ritger checked himself into the hospital. Diagnosed with an extreme condition of tooth grinding, which if unchecked would eventually wear away the dentin and expose the nerves, he took three months to recuperate. An announcement was left on the office bulletin board explaining the situation, giving the address of a rehabilitation center where flowers and good wishes could be sent.

  When Ritger returned to work in a neck brace and with his jaw wired shut, the editorial page had a new editor. Within a week another young obituary writer had been promoted, and Ritger was placed in the vacant slot. That young obituary writer was now one of two metro reporters covering the demonstrations in Eastern Europe. It had taken him just a year and a half to make it—enough to give a young reporter hope.

  I had been working long hours, coming in on weekends and staying late, helping the ad people compile death notices, getting my name out to funeral directors, scouring the wires for recent deaths. I wrote thirty of the forty obituaries that ran each week, leaving a handful for Ritger, who seemed interested only in writing up decorated veterans and old-school journalists.

  Secretly, I had started the Independent's first archive of prewritten obituaries, which I saved in my personal computer file, accessible to no one else, under the trade name "advancers." Every morning until eleven, when Ritger steamed in, and evenings from seven until ten, I worked exclusively on obituaries of the not yet departed.

  My first advancers were the four living American Presidents. I'd search Who's Who, Lexis-Nexis, Current Biography, and library clip files, taking four workdays and parts of the weekend to write each thirty-inch piece. Aging world leaders came next: the Pope, Deng, François Mitterrand; then entertainers: Bette Davis, Leonard Bernstein; then Nobelists, writers, athletes, and so forth. I wanted to stockpile as many advancers as possible, but at the same time I prided myself on crafting elegant mini-biographies that would make readers wish they had known the person.

  When advancers crept their way back into the headlines, I'd have to make updates. A particular nuisance was Jimmy Carter, with his international peacemaking, forcing me finally, after a dozen revisions, to give up on the idea of keeping his file current. By the time he died, I figured, I'd be miles from the obituary desk.

  On the morning of Alicia Whiting's phone call, in my customary first ritual of the day, I counted seventy-nine prewritten obits queuing in my archive. As of yet, however, I'd had no occasion to use one.

  She called at a quarter to five on Saturday, October 5, fifteen minutes before a tight deadline for the Sunday paper. Little distinguished this day from any other. Emerson Electric's chief financial officer had died overnight and the business desk had requested a third of our allotted space. I was on hold with a funeral director, checking facts and at the same time reducing the life of a Wentzville dentist to one column, eleven inches.

  "This is Arthur Whiting's wife," the woman said in a regional accent that I couldn't place. "You've probably been expecting my call."

  I wrote the name on the back of a press release, put her on hold, and paused for a moment with the phone on my shoulder. I'd never heard of Arthur Whiting. I checked the space budget list to see if he was scheduled for the next day, flipped through some recent wire printouts, opened the paper to the obit page.

  "What was your husband's name again?"

  "Arthur Russell Whiting."

  I asked if she knew this was the obituary desk.

  "Of course. I assume your people were trying to reach me today. Well, I was out. I wanted to be gone when the press arrived."

  She sounded too young, too self-controlled to be a widow.

  "My husband, Arthur Whiting," she repeated his name in her calm, insistent voice, "was a man of consequence."

  I told her I was sorry and to please hold again, then stood up to scan the newsroom for Ritger. I walked over to Editorial, where he sometimes went to make old colleagues nervous, but he wasn't there. I checked the east wall and stopped by the main stairwell and called his name from the banister. Not wanting to bother anyone furiously typing away on deadline, I went back to my desk and sat down heavily, wondering how someone "of consequence" could have escaped my memory.

  I called the librarian in Research, asked him to pull up anything he could find on an Arthur Whiting, closed the computer file on the Wentzville dentist, and told the funeral home that I'd call them back.

  "Not to worry," Mrs. Whiting said as I returned to the phone, apologizing for making her wait. "I understand how it is with busy people. Arthur was a busy man."

  Her accent was distinctive but still unfamiliar. It had neither the languor of Kansas City and St. Louis nor the twang of the towns in between. I would have said it was Southern, but there was a touch of the stage actress as well that made it sound more refined—the way she said "not to worry," the breathiness of "Arthur." In journalism school, broadcast people were taught to speak a certain way, and I always found it sad hearing kids my age from Texas and Arkansas bury their regional accents. Alicia Whiting's voice had that same distilled quality.

  "We'll have a large number for the funeral. Hundreds, I suppose," she said. "There's so much to get ready before Tuesday."

  Whiting, I was thinking to myself. I knew a construction company with blue signs and a cityscape logo. I'd seen one hanging off a crane just this morning.

  "I have to put the service together all by myself," she went on. "I'll order white roses. Definitely, white roses."

  I opened the Yellow Pages to Concrete—Construction—Contractors. WILEY, one of the bigger ads read, BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE SINCE 1948.

  "Arthur had excellent taste," she was saying. "We aren't rich, but what we have is of good quality."

  I slid the phone book back into my desk.

  "Our Irish wolfhound placed at Westminster last year. That's at Madison Square Garden in New York City. I don't know why people make such a big deal. I really don't care for New York City."

  I looked at the clock—a minute to five—and typed her name in the new file. Besides reducing the Wentzville dentist's obit, I had to finish fact-checking with one funeral home and call another to confirm a death, a formality I rarely left to the last minute. I had yet to update the space budget list or alert Layout that we'd need a more recent picture of the Emerson Electric CFO. It wasn't wise for someone in my position to be late on a Saturday for the early-run Sunday paper. But I was strangely unfocused listening to this woman, running "Whiting" over the contours of my memory.

  "What's your name?" she asked.

  I paused a moment before telling her, mindful of the journalistic protocol of keeping things impersonal.

  "I always like to know who I'm talking to," she explained. "I'm
Alicia Whiting."

  The research librarian called on the other line. I put Mrs. Whiting back on hold. "We've got two clips," he said. "The first one's about a bank robbery. Arthur Whiting was assistant manager at a Portage Savings in Creve Coeur. He tripped the alarm and was hero for the day. Front page of Metro's got a picture of him. The caption reads, 'He had never been so scared ... blah, blah, blah.'

  "There's a quote here about how he kept reaching for the button and missing it, and his boss says some nice things about him. The second clip's about a dog show."

  "What are the dates?" I asked.

  "The bank one's from 1984, the dog show's last February. I'll bring them over."

  I got back on the phone with Mrs. Whiting. I knew I sounded rushed. "I'm sorry. Our deadline is five o'clock, and I have several things left to wrap up."

  She said she didn't mind holding. And for a split second her disarming calm—why she had gone on sharing such odd details of her life—made me believe I was dealing with a woman paralyzed by grief.

  At quarter past I tapped on the glass door of St. John's office expecting a reprimand for being late, but the back of his high-backed chair didn't move. His secretary said he'd been gone much of the day and probably wouldn't make the six-thirty meeting. I left her the list of the next day's obituaries and asked if she had seen Ritger. "He went home sick," she said. "Just after lunch."

  Waiting on my desk were the picture and the two clips on Arthur Whiting, all the paper had from the past ten years, and one was about a dog show. This "man of consequence" had turned out to be an ordinary guy. Strange how quickly I had doubted myself. Others had gotten through to the desk before when I was on deadline—grieving widows, irascible family members, parents of accident victims—but it rarely took more than a few minutes for me to say what I had to say: "Our deadline is final. We can't do it until tomorrow," even if tomorrow meant the time and location of the service wouldn't appear until the day of the funeral, even if tomorrow was too late. So why hadn't I done the same with Alicia Whiting?

  The hold button was still flashing. It had been twenty minutes.

  "Are you still there?" I asked.

  "Yes." Her voice didn't reveal a hint of irritation.

  "Mrs. Whiting," I began.

  "Alicia," she said.

  "I'm afraid the deadline for tomorrow's paper has passed." I tried to sound resolute. "You'll have to call back in the morning."

  "St. Louis is a nice city," she said sadly. "I like it here, but I should probably leave."

  "I know," I said in an effort to hurry her along, now convinced that my instincts had been right. This was a woman in shock. There was the clink of ice and a sound like breathing into a glass, and I wondered if she might be drinking.

  "I used to drive around and feel like this was my very own city. The streets were my streets and the river was mine and the barges and riverboats. And the buildings, too. Especially the buildings. I'd walk up and down the stairs of the old post office and run my hand over the banisters or sit in the main reading room of the public library looking up at the high ceilings, like they were ceilings in my own house. But I don't feel that way anymore."

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  "I just want to stay home now, and my house is small. Fall is the best time of year, when the leaves start to change. Arthur liked to take me on walks in the botanical gardens."

  This woman had waited for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes I'd had her on hold and she didn't even mention it. This must be despair, I thought, going to such lengths to keep a stranger on the phone.

  The fan clattered away on its evening cycle. Apart from the racket, it cast a noxious odor, especially at this time of day when the lead particles, having accumulated from all corners of the newsroom, made a final turn from my desk on their way to the lower floor.

  "What's that noise?" she asked.

  As if on cue, the fan abruptly stopped.

  "You should call us in the morning," I said, making use of the pause. "If you'd like to gather the information and fax it, with place of residence, age, occupation, cause of death—"

  "Let me give it to you now," she interrupted.

  And I realized that I wouldn't stand firm, that I was losing this fight, had lost it in fact an hour ago when I was convinced somehow of her husband's importance, then drawn in by the loneliness in her voice. I took down the essentials and promised I'd do my best to get it into the next morning's paper. With Ritger not looming over me, it wouldn't be much trouble finding space for a small obit. And that's exactly what I did—tapped out five inches, no subhead, fourth column, below the fold:

  Arthur R. Whiting, 43, a loan officer with Portage Savings Bank, died Friday of a heart attack at his home in St. Charles.

  Mr. Whiting was born in Davenport, Iowa. He was graduated from the University of Iowa in Iowa City with a degree in business administration. He also served in the U.S. Army.

  Mr. Whiting was employed by Portage Savings Bank for 15 years. He worked as a bank teller, assistant manager, and manager before becoming chief loan officer at the St. Charles South branch.

  He was treasurer of the Whispering Pines Country Club and former treasurer of the Clayton Lodge of Elks. A dog enthusiast, Mr. Whiting owned Irish wolfhounds that won several local, state, and national awards.

  He leaves his wife, Alicia; a brother, Joseph R., of Winfield; and a sister, Margaret M., of St. Charles.

  I hit Save and made a few more cuts to the dentist's obit to make room. I hadn't eaten since breakfast and could feel the dizziness that sets in with extreme hunger. I brought up a plate of rice and some kind of goulash from the cafeteria, forwarded my calls to the switchboard operator, and devoured my dinner, staring at the green blur of letters on my computer screen. I was in no mood to stay late, having wrapped up an advancer on Joe DiMaggio late the night before. So I packed up my briefcase, and getting up to leave, noticed Arthur Whiting's picture and the two clips still sitting on my desk.

  In the picture, Alicia's husband was standing in front of the Portage Savings Bank shaking a policeman's hand. Tall and stoop-shouldered, he had thinning hair, rather long in the back, and a discernibly large Adam's apple. He looked older than forty-three, rawboned and hollow-cheeked.

  The bank robbery had occurred just as the librarian described it. Arthur had gone for the emergency button, couldn't find it until the last possible moment. A pair of squad cars happened to be a block away, and the dispatcher had the police there in minutes. The robber was sixty-eight years old and had no accomplices. "It's not often a criminal is active at that age, much less still alive," an officer was quoted as saying.

  The dog-show clip was short, a three-inch brief in Hannah Greene's "At Home and Around Town" column:

  NEW YORK—An Irish wolfhound from St. Charles has won a top prize at the famous Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York City. Gambolling Gavin of Galway, a 2½-year-old male owned by Arthur R. and Alicia Whiting, 436 Dalecarlia Drive, took first place in the Sight Hound Division after winning Best of Breed in a field of 24 dogs. To qualify, Gavin won state and regional competitions in July and October. The dog, according to Mr. Whiting, was a wedding gift to his wife.

  It was time to go home. The initial sense that I had stumbled on an important obituary with Alicia Whiting's call was quickly fading. The clips all pointed to the fact that Arthur Whiting had led an unremarkable life, and that Alicia had simply inflated her husband's memory.

  On my way out, one of the security guards stopped me to hand me a package that had just come in.

  "There was a lady in here just a few minutes ago," he said, passing me a thin manila envelope with GORDON HATCH, REPORTER written in large capital letters. "We tried to call you but your line's switched over."

  "Did she say anything?" The return address was a personalized sticker, with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals logo, of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur R. Whiting.

  "Not much," he said. "She wanted to talk to you."

  "How
old would you say she was?"

  "Mid-thirties, blond. She had a big gray coat on. Nice looking."

  I thanked him, trying to look casual as I walked out, in case Alicia was just outside. A brisk fall wind had picked up, and the sun was setting just in front of me, about to drop beneath the Cupples Station warehouse, the old freight storage complex on Ninth Avenue. An orange stripe cut across the Independent's masthead.

  Down the street a docent at the bowling museum was bringing in his signboards and locking up. An elderly couple stood arm and arm at the corner waiting for the light to change.

  I turned the envelope over to open it. On the back, Alicia had written "Photo Enclosed." I pictured her husband, his hollow face, thought of her disappointment tomorrow at the tiny obituary: no picture, below the fold. Instead, I slipped the unopened envelope inside my briefcase and headed home.

  3

  TO PREPARE MYSELF for the night police beat—my next job, I figured—I had bought a scanner that I listened to after coming home from work. It gave me a chance to hear where the homicides were, what neighborhoods were considered unpatrollable, and how long it took police to respond to a call. That evening I had just turned it on and collapsed on my living room couch when the phone rang. Still caught up in the reverie of the day, I almost expected that it was Alicia Whiting calling to make sure I had received the photograph.

  "What are you doing home?" my mother asked half accusingly. "You're never home at this hour."

  "Research," I said, annoyed.

  "What about last night? Where were you? I left a message on your machine and you didn't get back to me."

  "I didn't check the machine until late. Too late to call."

  "Why didn't you wake me? It's not fair when I don't hear from you."