Some Great Thing (13 page)

The judge fingered the cut on his cheek. “You know who gave me this? A police officer. I saw the police chase adults into the park. I saw police club people without provocation. I was knocked down by one and nearly trampled by demonstrators. I don’t agree with the French activists, but the police used too much force.” The taxi stopped by a house on Craig Street. Judge Hill had one leg out the door when he handed Mahatma a muddied notepad.

“I found this. You might need it.”

Mahatma entered the newsroom with blood on his jacket, a twig in his hair and mud streaking his face.

Betts asked, “You were there?” Mahatma nodded. “Good. What’s your lead going to be?”

“Give me some time, will you?”

“Never mind. I was there. With Van Wuyss. A clutch of loonies threw eggs at us. Did you see those crazy demonstrators?”

“Some.”

“Good. Make that your lead.”

Mahatma didn’t argue. But he didn’t agree, either.

Within two hours, the temperature dropped ten degrees. Mahatma noticed the stiff north wind as he left the newsroom to conduct some interviews. He drove a company car to the Accidental Dog and Grill. Frank, the owner, was
suspicious of Mahatma at first, but then fell all over him when he learned Mahatma was a reporter. Mahatma took the wobbly steps upstairs. Jake Corbett lay supine on his bed, feet raised on a rolled blanket, sweating. He lifted a hand a few inches off his bed.

“How’re you doing, Jake?”

“Not so good, Mr. Grafton.”

There was no place for Mahatma to sit. Books, documents, legal statutes, tracts, newspaper clippings and encyclopaediae were strewn on the window ledge, the dresser, the chair, the bed and even on the floor. Leaning against a wall, Mahatma took notes about what had happened to Corbett. The potato in his pocket. The African with two bananas. Everything. Mahatma wondered how much to believe. Corbett was clearly inventing parts of it. For example, he claimed that the African had written about him for a foreign newspaper. Corbett also said a bearded man had taken pictures of police beating him.

“I’ll look into it,” Mahatma said. “Did the cops arrest you?”

“They took me in. But they didn’t do anything. Some guy said ‘not you again’ and let me go.” Mahatma prepared to leave. “And Mr. Grafton?”

“Yes.”

“I want my money back!”

“What money?”

“My $602.38 overpayment deduction money. You want my lawyer’s phone number? We’re gonna take those welfare people to court!”

There were few reporting tasks Mahatma hated more than sneaking into hospitals. He was sure that nurses saw reporters as vultures and, to a degree, he agreed. Today, however, the task seemed justifiable. Yoyo was not critically injured. And Mahatma needed a separate account of police brutality at the park.

Yoyo was propped up in bed, his head bandaged. His eyes latched onto Mahatma. “You’re a good man,” Yoyo said. “I want to thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Mahatma said. “How’s the pain?”

“They have given me pills. The white man has pills for everything. The thing that has always confused me is, how does that pill know where you need it? How does it know your head is hurt? Could it not go where it isn’t needed? The wrong leg, for example?”

Mahatma laughed. “What did they do to you?”

“They operated on the arm. Now they’re watching my concussion. But let’s not worry about that. For a long time, I have wanted to meet you. You are responsible for Cameroon’s interest in the famous Jake Corbett.”

“Corbett? Famous?”

“I have written of him several times since you reported his arrest outside City Hall.”

“You’ve written?”

“For
La Voix de Yaoundé
, in Cameroon.”

Mahatma laughed. Jake Corbett, famous in Cameroon? It seemed an absurdity. “Could you answer a few questions about Corbett?”

“Most certainly.”

Aside from confirming that he and Corbett had shared a banana in the park, Yoyo said he had seen the cop fall on
Corbett’s legs, and he had seen Goyette snapping pictures at the demonstration. Finally, Yoyo described how his bone was broken. Mahatma wished the little man well and hurried out.

Georges Goyette had a black eye and a fat lip. He ushered Mahatma in with a swat on the back. “Anglos, anglos! You don’t come to parties. You never drop by to say hello. You just come for business.”

Mahatma smiled. “Describe what you saw at the demonstration.”

“I would have had the pictures to prove it, if a cop hadn’t belted me and snatched my camera.”

“I’m surprised you let that happen.”

“He got a hand from his partner.”

“You were taking pictures?”

“Yes. I got them hitting Corbett on the head. I got them clubbing Yoyo’s arm. Pauvre gars. He has had it rough in Canada. Did you know that he hasn’t been eating?”

“No. I just met him, actually. What do you mean, not eating?”

“He has no money. I learned today his landlady won’t feed him. But he came here believing she would provide all his meals.”

Mahatma couldn’t afford to get off track. “What happened between him and the cops?” Goyette confirmed what Yoyo had said. “And then?”

“Then two cops laid into me.” Goyette fingered his puffy face. “They knocked me about, then stole my camera.”

“Did they charge you?”

“Participating in a riot. I go to court next week.”

“They hurt you?”

“Naw. Torn clothes. Sore cheek. Sore chin. Black eye.”

“How many were charged?”

“Hey man,” Goyette said, “they didn’t give me a press kit. But there were a lot of us in the paddywagon.”

“You regret staging the demonstration?”

“No! We’ve got a right to protest. And the cops have no business beating up on us.”

Mahatma asked about the young men in army fatigues who had disrupted the demonstration. Goyette said, “Nobody knows who they were.” When Mahatma had to leave, Georges said, “I guess I’ll see you next time there’s an airplane crash or something.”

Mahatma stopped next at Helen Savoie’s home in St. Boniface. “I’m writing about the demo for tomorrow’s paper. Can you tell me what happened to Yoyo?” She complied, concisely. When she was done, Mahatma asked, “By the way, what were you doing there with him?”

“He’s a friend. We met in the park. I had no idea that the demonstration would end up there.”

“Alors,” Mahatma said, “tu parles français après tout?”

“Et oui,” she said. “One day, I’ll tell you about that.”

Mahatma worked alone in the newsroom. He felt good. He felt he was doing something worthwhile, something that wouldn’t be reported if not for him. He wrote the main story about the demo, and two sidebars.

The Manitoba Provincial Police acted with savagery and brutality yesterday in quashing a riot outside the Department of Francophone Affairs, according to Provincial Court Judge Melvyn Hill.

“The police had no business clubbing people,” the judge told
The Herald
yesterday.

Fourteen demonstrators were charged with participating in a riot after counter-demonstrators and police broke up the Franco-Manitoban rally.

Seven police officers and a number of protestors were injured, including a foreign journalist hospitalized after a police officer clubbed him with a billystick.

In an interview, Crime Supt. Patrick MacGrearicque conceded that “the officers really lost their cool and there is no excuse for that.” Still, MacGrearicque insisted that his men had no choice but to crack down on violent demonstrators…

Ben made Mahatma a potato omelette, spiced with Tabasco sauce he claimed to have discovered in Spain. “Come off it, abuelo,” Mahatma said, “Spaniards wouldn’t touch Tabasco sauce if you paid ’em. They wimp out on spices.”

Ben pulled a long face. “Why is a boy of your education using a term like ‘wimp out’?”

“I said it for your benefit, abuelo.”

“Hush up and eat your eggs.” Mahatma did that. But Ben objected to his shovelling food into his mouth, with his back hunched and his elbows on the table. “I hope you don’t eat like that in public, son. People will think you were raised in the street.”

“The son of a communist is raised in a chateau?”

“I’ll chateau you. And I’m not a communist.”

“You’re not?”

“Old men like me have no time for -ists and -ites. Socialists, communists, Trotskyites, Troglodites—humphh! They could save us all a lot of earaches by dropping their hot air and saying what they mean!” Ben stole a spoonful of his son’s omelette, then asked, “So, how was the demonstration?”

“Pretty rough.”

“Was your friend Goyette arrested?”

Mahatma looked up, surprised. “Yeah. And charged with participating in a riot.”

Ben whistled. “And your favourite judge? I hear he was knocked around a bit.”

“You heard?”

“I still get around.”

“You were going to tell me about him someday.”

“Soon, son. Soon.”

Mahatma Grafton was awakened by the morning radio news: “Police Crime Superintendent Patrick MacGrearicque has reacted angrily to suggestions that his officers used violence to quell a demonstration yesterday. He dismissed
The Winnipeg Herald
’s claim that police clubbed protestors outside the Department of Francophone Affairs. And he was outraged by a quote that had him criticizing his own officers for losing control at the riot.”

Mahatma groaned. Had he misquoted MacGrearicque? He couldn’t have. What, exactly, had he written? He rolled out of
bed, dressed, threw on his coat and hurried out to a newspaper stand. There, he saw MacGrearicque quoted, saying his officers “had really lost their cool and there’s no excuse for that.” Mahatma remembered having written it, but now he knew it was wrong. Or was it possible that MacGrearicque had said it? He rushed home to consult his notebook.

While Mahatma was flipping through it at the kitchen table, Ben joined him. He asked, “You haven’t eaten yet?”

“I’m in deep shit.”

“Meaning?”

“I misquoted a cop in a big story in today’s paper. Melvyn Hill blasted them for losing their cool at the riot, and I attributed his comments to this big-shot cop who’s gonna want my head.”

“You misquoted a cop?”

“Yes.”

“Without malice?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he may want to burn your hide, but he can’t kill you.”

“My story is discredited now.”

“Just stand up and say, ‘Folks, it was my fault and I’m sorry.’ That’ll take the sting out of the harshest critic.”

“But what about the rest of the story?”

“Is it important to you?”

“Yes!” Mahatma surprised himself by the vehemence of his answer.

“Then check all your facts, be sure the rest of the story is watertight, and stand by it.”

“I’d better get to work, Dad.”

“Keep your chin up, son. You didn’t beat anybody up, you know. The cops did.”

When Mahatma checked his stories in the paper, there were no other errors. He noted with relief that
The Herald
had downplayed his work. Only the first six inches of his main story made it onto page one, in one short column under the fold. Inside, the story and sidebars ran on page eleven. They had reservations about the story. Ordinarily such news would have been the line story on page one. Mahatma showered and dressed, choosing to wear a jacket and tie—items he normally left in the closet. Ben touched his shoulder as he was running a pick through his hair.

“Son, I’ve made waffles. They’re on the table. Eat them. African warriors never set out on an empty stomach.”

Winter had returned to Winnipeg. Wind bit Mahatma’s face as he trudged north on Lipton Street to catch the Portage bus.

In the newsroom, people avoided him. Everybody seemed to know something he didn’t. Finally, Chuck Maxwell slid into place next to him.

“I screwed up, Chuck. I misquoted MacGrearicque.”

“Was it your only mistake?”

“Yeah.”

“Then hang tough. You oughta see some of the doozies I’ve fallen into, over the years.”

“So what’s going to happen?”

“Don’t you know about the second run?”

The second and final edition of the newspaper rolled off the presses around 9:00 a.m. It had the broadest circulation of all editions and was delivered to Winnipeg homes in the afternoon. Running fresh news out of eastern Canada, Europe
and the Middle East, it also carried the stamp of Lyndon Van Wuyss, who arrived at work each morning to order some article replaced or rewritten.

Mahatma asked, “What about it?”

“Betts pulled your stories.”

“Pulled?”

“The works. He wrote a three-paragraph blurb on the front page, saying there had been a row between police and demonstrators near the consulate, saying how many people had been arrested and what the charges were.”

“Jesus.”

“He came in here swearing like a trooper. Saying he was going to can your ass. Saying he had
told
you how to write that story.”

“So where is Betts?”

“He’s out right now.”

Mahatma checked his mailbox: no pink slip awaited him. He flicked on a computer and opened his electronic mailbox: no nasty note there. He wrote one to Betts, explaining the misquote. Having no instructions to the contrary, Mahatma went to the daily press conference at the cop shop.

Officers in the building scowled at him. A magistrate who had provided him with court information shook a finger “tsk tsk” from a distance. Mahatma went into the detective division and waited. He was five minutes early. Randa, the secretary, raised her made-up eyes at Mahatma. “MacGrearicque is pissed at you, Hat. If I were you I’d boot it.”

“Thanks for the advice. But I’ll stick around.” Mahatma flipped through
The Winnipeg Star
. No mention of the demonstration. He scanned the crime pages, where Edward Slade
usually had a column. “Edward Slade returns from holidays tomorrow,” said a boxed message near the bottom of the page. A crowd burst through the doors. MacGrearicque, who glared at Mahatma, was followed by Bob Stone, Susan Starr, Edward Slade and three other reporters. All but Slade jabbed microphones in Mahatma’s face.

“Do you stand by your articles today?”

“I unintentionally misquoted Superintendent MacGrearicque, and I apologize for that honest mistake. But I stand by the rest of the story.”