One Good Punch
Authors: Rich Wallace
Contents
Coal-Mine Fires Continue to Smolder
City Moves Forward, Slips Back
‘Scranton Pride’ Campaign Produces Mixed Results
SECTION B: LIFESTYLES and OBITUARIES
Anxiety Has Negative Effect on Performance, Report Finds
Expert Links Cheating to Maturity Level
Courtship Rituals Tied to Primitive Need for Attention
Study Connects Denial to Suppressed Guilt
Costly Fumble Threatens Season
Decisive Match Is a No-brainer
SECTION D: BUSINESS and CLASSIFIEDS
Downtown Renewal Plans Still Unclear
Three East Students Expelled Following Weekend Drug Bust
For Sandra
SECTION A
NEWS and OPINION
Coal-Mine Fires Continue to Smolder
P
EOPLE KEEP DYING
, so my phone never stops ringing. I’ve made notes in the computer for fourteen obituaries tonight, and I haven’t written up a single one. Most I’ve ever done in a shift is fifteen, and it’s only 9:23, so there’s plenty more to come.
“
Scranton Observer.
…Yeah, we got time…. He was a high school valedictorian, and then he worked in the
mines
?…Which Legion post?…In Jessup?…Mercy Hospital; family by his side. Okay. Talk to you later.”
I’ve been doing this job for five months now, and this is the busiest night I’ve ever had. Officially, I’m an editorial assistant, which used to be called a copy boy and generally means gofer.
I’m a backup phone-answerer for the news department, but mostly I talk to the funeral directors and get information for the next day’s obituaries—the dead person’s name, age, where they were born, where they lived, surviving relatives, employment history, etc. Also the stuff that makes these things interesting—their hobbies, organizations they belonged to, their World War II–era nicknames (already today I’ve had Babe, Pops, Hammer, and Dingle). Then I write it up into readable paragraphs for the morning paper, doing it as fast as I can.
“
Scranton Observer.
…c-z-y-k?…Okay, so ‘after a dignified and courageous struggle.’…Life member of VFW Post 4921. Where’s that again?…Lone Pine Hunting Club…. Where’d he work?…Yeah, call me back with the survivors. No problem.”
I’m on a first-name basis with all of the local funeral directors, who call us in the evenings to get their latest clients featured in the paper. I work Friday, Saturday, and Monday nights, which sucks when you’re a high school senior—I miss all the parties—but it’s undeniably good experience for what I want to do with my life. These were the only shifts available.
“
Scranton Observer.
…Yes, Mr. Powell, this is Mike…. I haven’t written it yet, but I’ve got my notes right here…. Scranton Eagles Memorial Classic at South Side Lanes, 1946. You say he rolled a 282, not 280…. Fixed it. Anything else?…I’ve got his brothers Fred in Minooka and Johnny in Dunmore, and a sister Kitty in Green Ridge. And predeceased by a brother Buddy in 1997….
“Yeah, of course we can mention the dogs…. Lucy and E-t-h-e-l. They both Labs?…Sweet. They gotta be missing him. They let dogs go to funerals, don’t they?…Oh yeah, I’m running like eight miles a day. I jump on a treadmill at the Y when it’s icy, but it’s been dry lately. We start working out for real on Wednesday. Can’t wait…. Thanks. Come see a race if you get a chance.”
There are a lot of very old people around this city. Well, obviously there are fewer all the time. But you learn a lot about their lives taking down the information for their final appearance in the newspaper.
You can get a real history lesson reading the obit section every day—all the factories and mills that shut down way before I was born; the huge number of different churches and organizations people belong to (just in the last ten minutes, for example: the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Polish Women’s Alliance, the Red Hat Society, the Olyphant Billiards Association).
Good people—lots of war veterans, lots of faithful parishioners, lots of beloved grandparents. They die at home or in the hospital or a senior center, of old age or cancer or who knows what. The worst cases are when a kid dies in a car accident. Nobody I know yet, but I had to write one a few months ago when two guys from that football team went over the railing on Route 81 in a pickup truck.
You read the obits and you learn about the city’s history. But they also get you worrying about its future.
“
Scranton Observer.
…Don’t call me here, Joey…. Because I’m
working.
…What kind of emergency?…Look in your backpack. I gotta go…. Because the phones ring constantly. People die around here every fifteen seconds….
Old
people mostly…. I gotta go, man…. The other phone is ringing. Get lost.”
“
Scranton Observer.
…That’s me…. Sure. One second…. Okay—spell that last name…. Lifelong resident?…So we’ll say that he lived briefly in Carbondale before returning to Scranton in 1953…. Know when here tired?…Okay. Can you hold on a second?”
“
Scranton Observer.
…Hi, Mr. Rasmussen…. No problem. Can I call you right back?…Okay.”
“Thanks for holding. I think I knew this guy. Did he umpire Little League games in East Scranton?…Right. Right, the gold teeth. Great guy…. You can call me back with that…. The Friday night deadline is eleven, but we got time…. You know where he served?…So you’re going to want the American flag symbol with this one?…You bringing in a photo?…No problem. Call me back. We got plenty of time.”
It’s no wonder the city’s population drops with every census. We’re still burying former coal miners and textile workers—remnants of long-gone industries. One night last week—both within twenty minutes—I wrote obits for two ladies that were over a hundred years old. Both had lived their
entire lives
in Scranton.
Who replaces them? Probably not me.
I’m out of here in a few months, off to college and then who knows where? If this city had more to offer, I’d probably come back, but as things stand, I can’t see it.
Scranton started dying years ago—fading into urban blight. Not collapsing, just losing its gleam. Most of the textile factories closed way back, and although coal-mine fires still smolder under parts of the city, none of the wealth and employment of that industry remain either.
I sometimes picture myself at age thirty, unemployed, sitting on the porch of my parents’ house in the evening, drinking a can of beer. It isn’t a difficult leap to make—a third of the houses in our neighborhood have someone like that hanging around.
We’ve had a line of mayors who promised downtown renewal—visions of trendy lofts and premium office space and upscale restaurants and shops. But mostly I run past neighborhood bars like Marty’s and the Limerick and all the tire places and used-furniture stores and pawnshops and the unadvertised businesses—there’s prostitution and underage clubs and fronts for other stuff. We know where to buy drugs if we wanted to. That’s no secret from anybody.
“
Scranton Observer.
…This is Mike…. Scranton lost. Dunmore won. Prep won…. I don’t know; this is obits. Hold on, I’ll switch you over to sports.”
“
Scranton Observer.
…God, Joey. It’s probably in your locker…. That stuff better not be in
my
locker…. Midnight if I’m lucky….
Stop
calling me here.”
“
Scranton Observer.
…Sure thing. From this afternoon? Let me find it…. The Elks, the Kiwanis, and the Polka Lights?…Oh. L-i-t-e-s…. Yeah, I can still get it in…. We’ll say a long illness…. Umm, did he actually die there?…I gotta check with an editor; I don’t know if we can get away with that…. Could just leave it out…. I can write around it. Hold on a second.”
“
Scranton Observer.
…Not from this phone…. Hold on.”
“Anybody order a pizza?” I yell.
“Hello? Doesn’t look like it…. We don’t have anybody named Charlie. Somebody’s jerking you around…. No problem.”
“Mr. Morrison?…Sorry. How about ‘after a lengthy battle with an addiction’? Nah. That sounds terrible. We could just put something at the end like ‘Donations to alcoholism research appreciated.’ They’ll figure it out…. They found him in the men’s room?…Yeah, it’s a shame…. Oh yeah—‘a courageous struggle with personal demons.’ They’d be writing
my
obit tomorrow…. Talk to you later.”
Bear with me—I want to be a writer. My dad is a classics professor at the U, and my mom is a poet and freelance magazine writer. My grandmother, who lives three doors away from us, is a historian. We go to all of the productions at the Scranton Cultural Center (no, that’s not an oxymoron) and the colleges. I’m familiar with the works of Shakespeare and Hemingway and Bob Dylan. Someday I want to write at least one piece that would stand up to theirs. For now, I’m at the bottom of the ladder as far as creative writing is concerned, but at least I’m in the business, right?
“Yo, Joey. You find it?…You suck…. If you stashed it there, you’re a dead man…. They
do
search…. They do, too. With dogs. Especially on weekends…. It better not be, I swear to God…. Keep looking…. Find it.”
“
Scranton Observer.
…Hey, Mr. Salinardi. I can read that part back to you if you want. Hold on…. I got it. ‘She was a loving grandmother and friend to all, known especially for her pies and hand-knit sweaters. She was a rabid fan of the Philadelphia Eagles.’…How about
dedicated
instead of
rabid
?…Great…. Memorial contributions to the church. No problem…. Yeah, I’m looking at Penn State, but I don’t think I’d make the team there. So Kutztown maybe, or East Stroudsburg. If they don’t have a good track team, forget it…. Thanks. See you later.”
“
Scranton Observer.
…Okay…. Francis with an
i
or an
e
?…You know what city in Ireland?…Came to Scranton in…?…You can call me back with it. Where did he work?…Got it…. Memberships?…Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick. Okay. Mr. Delcalzo, can you hold on for just a second?”
“
Scranton Observer.
…You suck, Joey. Why did you put it
there
?…They find that stuff, I’m dead.”
“
Scranton Observer.
…Oh, right…. Yeah, you already gave me the Sons of Saint Patrick…. Bridge, gardening, and ceramics…. Okay…. I’ll wait. No problem.”
Dammit, Joey. You’re an idiot.
The sports guys are still finishing up when I’ve turned in the night’s final obituary to my editor, so I walk over to that end of the newsroom. The sports department always holds things up by five or ten minutes, but I guess by now they’ve built that into the press schedule.
There are lots of strange characters in a newsroom, but the sports department tops them all. Fat, nasty Larry is sitting there in his undershirt, scratching the pimples on his back with a ruler. He’s the assistant sports editor, and he’s waiting for Andy to finish his write-up of the Scranton-Hazleton play-off game.
“Hurry up with that thing so we can nominate it for a Pulitzer,” Larry says.
Andy smirks and nods. “Last sentence,” he says. Andy is a shirt-and-tie guy, polite and professional. He’s only two years out of Penn State, and you know it won’t be long before he’s at one of the Philadelphia papers or a magazine. No way he’ll be sitting here in thirty years, bored out of his mind, leaking pus, editing high school sports news like Larry.
I don’t think Larry is the type of guy who ever really got it, who ever understood how important sports are. I am totally driven by winning the 800 meters at the district meet and getting to the states. Then winning a medal. A big part of me is driven by winning the state gold. That’s so farfetched that I wouldn’t say it to anyone. But I think it can happen.
On the wall behind Larry is a poster of Gerry McNamara, the kid from Scranton who as a freshman led Syracuse University to the NCAA basketball title a few years ago. He almost single-handedly lifted this city up for a while. Busloads of fans would travel the two hours from Scranton to Syracuse for his games over the next three years. For his final home game, sixty buses—
sixty
—made the trek.
There’s an editorial from the
Observer
taped next to the poster, from the day after McNamara’s final collegiate game. It says that the guy “embodied the grit and determination of this entire region, particularly the city he calls home.”
From this end of the newsroom, you can look out over our gritty, ever-struggling city, which is dead this close to midnight. There are pockets of activity around the bars, but most of the streets are virtually empty and windswept.
Larry notices that I’m looking out the window. “The Electric City,” he says scornfully. “The greatest city in this corner of Lackawanna County.”
I shrug. “It has its charms.”
“Oh yeah.” He stands up and waddles over to the window. He stares down at Flaherty’s Pub, right across the street from the Observer building. “There’s one of them charms behind the bar…. I’ll be home soon, Mildred,” he croons, pointing toward the bartender. “Make sure that keg is cold.”
Since I’m an athlete, you’d think I’d want to be working in the sports department, but I’ll pass. There are a couple of young guys like Andy with ambition who’ll use this as a jumping-off point for something better, but mostly it’s older burnouts like Larry who’ve been here forever and spend their time drinking and arguing over baseball trivia.
How can anybody do the same damn job for thirty years?
Rico and Jay are standing on the corner across from the square as I walk home from work, so I go over. They’re probably drunk—they do too much of that—but maybe it’s the final fling before practice starts. I never hang out with them (except a couple of times when I
did
get drunk), but track gives us some common ground, especially since we’re all on the same relay team.
For me, the lure of track has always been to assert myself as an individual, but sometimes you can take four guys who wouldn’t quite make it to the states on their own, lump them together in a relay, and have big-time results. That’s what we’re thinking will happen this spring.
“Kerrigan,” Jay says. He’s taller than me, with straight blond hair and a perpetual smirk. He’s faster than I am, too, but not by much. And I always beat him in any race longer than a sprint.
“What’s going on, boys?” I ask.
Rico is leaning against the building, hands in his pockets. He’s new here; arrived in our freshman year. Like most of the small influx of newcomers to the city, he’s brownish. “We’re kind of wasted,” he says with a smile.
I shake my head. “The season’s here.” Neither one of these guys is as committed as I am, and that always pisses me off. I don’t really know if I’m fast enough or strong enough to win the districts on my own; if I’m going to the states, it’ll probably be on the relay. And I don’t want anything to interfere with that. These guys need to step up as much as I do.