Damn Dram

Ah, the tangled web of the newspaper game. It is a profession where best-laid plans are as likely to trip over their own ink-stained feet as they are to strike gold—or, in this case, government financial reports.

Allow me to relate one escapade that began with the noble pursuit of truth and ended with a detour. The evening was as bleak as a congressman’s explanation of public debt, and my spirits were about as buoyant.

Deadlines loomed, and my editor had promised unspeakable consequences if I returned empty-handed from my hunt for the government’s latest financial report. I stumbled out of the office, pondering my plight, when I spotted the familiar gait of a rival reporter.

She worked for the competition, but for the moment, necessity made her an ally—or so I hoped.

“Where you headed?” I asked, affecting a casual tone as though I were out for a midnight stroll and not scrambling to avoid professional ruin.

“After the government financial report,” she replied.

“Mind if I tag along?” I ventured.

She stopped, turned, and looked at me with a disdain usually reserved for a used car salesman caught in a lie. “No, sir. They don’t like you or your newspaper.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” I said, sighing as though the news had crushed my tender heart. “But fair enough.”

We walked on, and as we passed a bar, the scent of food wafting out, curling around us like a siren’s call. She hesitated, gazing at the doorway with a longing usually reserved for a long-lost lover.

“I could use a short drink,” she admitted, “but the report won’t wait.”

“Suit yourself,” I said. “But if you ever need assistance, I’ll be at your service—provided it doesn’t interfere with my own deadline, of course.”

That seemed to soften her. “All right,” she said. “You can help me copy the report. But no tricks, mind you.”

We procured the report—an uninspiring little document filled with numbers that would have put an insomniac to sleep—and returned to the bar. I copied the text while she indulged in whiskey.

The arrangement seemed equitable until I noticed she was making extraordinary progress on the bottle I had purchased. By the time I jotted down the last figure, she had developed a cheerfulness one could only describe as catastrophic.

We parted ways, she toward the nebulous regions of journalistic ambition, and I to the office, where I triumphantly delivered the report to my editor. My satisfaction was short-lived as not long after we went to press, the door to our office burst open, and in strode the editor of the rival paper, his face as red as his ledger.

“Have you seen my reporter?” he bellowed. “She’s gone missing, and the report is nowhere to be found.”

Feigning innocence, I offered my condolences and suggested she might have gotten sidetracked. The man stormed out, muttering oaths that made the wallpaper blush.

It wasn’t long before the missing journalist was discovered in another bar, delivering an impassioned speech on the sins of government waste. Her audience, a group of intoxicated folks, greeted her every pronouncement with thunderous applause. Her editor carted her off as she protested that she had not yet reached her most damning conclusion.

Naturally, the competition’s paper went to press without the report, and naturally, the blame for this fell squarely on my shoulders. I protested my innocence—truthfully, I had done nothing but watch the evening unfold—but the aggrieved parties were not inclined to believe me.

And so, I learned that in journalism, as in life, the path to success is paved with failures, mine included. As for the financial report, it was published in our paper the next day, ignored with the enthusiasm it so richly deserved.