The Editor Shows Up for Lunch
I heard a voice on the stairs. A big voice. I knew immediately it was Hughes.
Panic stricken, I looked at Pee Wee with the hope that he might convince me that yesterday’s edibles were still in effect.
“Do you hear Hughes?” I asked.
Pee Wee nodded “yes” without looking up from his Sudoku puzzle.
“Holy fucking shit,” I said, “If he wanders into the editorial department and finds them all watering their plants and playing Hades Star or stops by the art department and sees the cavalcade of edibles displayed by the coffee machine, I’m going to lose my fucking job.”
The words, “I heard that Gutbloom,” bellowed out from a loud voice in the hallway, followed by the heavy steps of Hughes making his way towards my door. “How many times have I told you that Managing Editors should keep their office doors closed?” He shouted.
Once at the threshold of my office Hughes stopped and stared. He is a big man with a pumpkin head that is framed by tortoise shell glasses and a messy mass of hair. He usually wears the wardrobe of the editor trope — tweed jacket, khakis, big brown hard shoes — but today he was wearing an all white Adidas track suit and sneakers. He looked like an overweight German on his way to watching a soccer match. I stayed in my chair, stunned.
“Come on,” he said, “It’s time for our annual meeting. Don’t pretend you have something to finish up. Just get your hat and let’s go.”
“Why no phone call?” I asked, “And why are you wearing white before Memorial Day? That’s not like you.” Even his mask was white with an Adidas symbol on it.
“Technology has created a world we all hate, Gutbloom. The only way forward is by changing what we do. Wear white if you want to, connect with others, be kind. I didn’t call or text because I haven’t seen Pee Wee in years.” He turned towards Pee Wee and asked, “How are you, George?”
“Fine, thanks,” said Pee Wee.
“What are you doing about the Celtics-Nets game tonight?”
“I put 1K on the over,” Pee Wee said. “The Nets will blow out the Celtics in the first half, stop playing defense, and then the scrubs will all try to score during garbage time.”
Hughes took out his phone and started texting someone.
“Thanks,” he said to Pee Wee as he started walking down the hall. “Come on, Gutty.”
I hate when people call me “Gutty.”
When we got outside it was a beautiful day. It’s been very dry and as soon as we stepped out the door Hughes’s outfit made sense. He had an electric bike parked outside.
“Go get your bicycle and come along.” Hughes said, already beginning to peddle around the circular driveway in front of the Old Building. “And put a mask on. I don’t want to catch the Codfish variant.”
I went to get my Raleigh 3-speed out of the Oakum Shed where it has been for at least 20 years. I took it out and noticed that it didn’t have a chain guard. I walked the bike from the shed across the lawn to where Hughes was making what looked like figure skating patterns on the macadam. For a big guy who walks like an ox he was remarkably graceful on the bicycle.
“I don’t have a chain guard”, I said, “I’m going to have to go inside and get a rubber band to tie up my pants.”
“Fuck the rubber band and put on your mask,” shouted Hughes.
“What happened to being nice?” I asked.
“I’m trying,” said Hughes.
We headed towards the main road. His electric bike took off like a shot. The roads around the Mill were repaved last year. On a long, flat stretch of new pavement I got my bike up to third gear and caught up to Hughes. He was breezing along.
“Where are we going to lunch?” I asked.
“We’re going to the Squaw’s Succotash Truck down in Frenchytown.
“I don’t think you can call Rebecca ‘The Squaw’ anymore,” I said.
“Why not?” He shouted, “That’s what she calls herself.”
“She can call herself that, but we shouldn’t.” I said.
“OK,” said Hughes.
That was it. So unlike him. He just said “OK” and started looking at the ocean which had come into view as the land dropped away around us. We began descending a big hill towards Frenchytown.
When we got to the Food Truck the sign had changed. It no longer said “Squaw Succotash.” It now read, “Mz. Rebecca’s Organic Succotash.”
As soon as the Squaw saw me her face turned to stone.
Hughes noticed it immediately and had to comment.
“Oh, Gutbloom, Miss. Rebecca seems thrilled to see you. Let’s just hope that whatever you have done wrong isn’t bad enough to have her spit in both of our orders.” Then he looked up at the Squaw and said, “I’m not his friend, I’m his boss.”
“What happened to being nice,” I asked.
“I’m trying,” said Hughes.
“This one,” the Squaw said, pointing a finger at me, “sold me an ad that was supposed to appear in all four issues of last year’s Seaside Offerings, The Tourist Fishwrap. The ad only appeared in three issues, the picture of the truck was so bad that you couldn’t read the sign, and they misspelled ‘Rebecca.’”
“How do you misspell ‘Rebecca’?” Hughes asked.
“It can be done,” I said, “I blame the art department.”
“We’ll have two bowls of succotash with cornbread, Miss Rebecca,” said Hughes, “Hold the spit on mine. I have nothing to do with editorial sins of Gutbloom or the entire Mr. Mildew Omnimedia empire”
“You’re the Executive Editor,” I said.
“No I’m not,” said Hughes, “I’m president of content and lead developer of integrative projects.”
I looked at Rebecca. “I’ll give you a whole year free if you want, and I’ll send Radio Free Spruce down here with the good camera to take a picture of the truck.”
Rebecca replied, “You’ll run the picture I send you from my phone, and you’ll print the bingo cards for the church for free this year.”
“It’s a deal,” I said.
“She spit in her hand to shake.” I did too.
“I’m glad you’re wearing your mask, Gutbloom,” Hughes said. Then he asked Miss Rebecca for a glass of ice.
“Why did you change the name of the truck,” I asked.
Rebecca replied, “I got sick of talking about it with tourists. When I told them I was full Mushamaguntic, they would want me to say something in my language. Then they would tell me about their trip to Arizona, how the dream catcher they bought helps them sleep, and then they would ask me if I did bead work, sold pottery, or went to pow wows. Some even cried. I would say to them, ‘Don’t cry, just give me the keys to your car.’ That never worked. Since I’ve changed the name, I don’t have to put up with any of that.”
“Well,” I said, “The new sign looks good.”
“I liked the one that Walt painted much better. It lasted all this time because the old sign paints had a lot of lead in them. Those paints are illegal now, so that sign is a vinyl sticker. I bet it doesn’t last two years.”
“Yea, it’s a shame,” I said. “Too bad things like that have to change.”
“It’s a bummer we can’t poison ourselves with lead anymore,” she said.
Hughes sat down on a rock overlooking the harbor to eat his succotash. He pointed to a nearby picnic table.
“You sit there, Gutbloom. I don’t want you breathing codfish variant all over my food.”
He took out a flask and poured liquor into his cup of ice.
“How are we fixed for money this year?” I asked.
“No worries at all,” he said. “We are flush with Covid and economic relief money. Making you sit six feet away lets me use PPP funds to pay for this meal. I want you to immediately restart all publications, especially the ad-driven ones that appeal to the advertising departments of penis enlargement and erectile dysfunction products.”
“That would be all of them,” I said.
“Good!” shouted Hughes, and succotash flew from his mouth. Always a messy eater, he couldn’t control the succotash. His mouth was like a bingo hopper of corn and beans.
“It might be difficult getting up to full swing,” I said, “None of the building and grounds crew want to come back to work. I haven’t seen the Dank brothers yet this spring, and since the pot store opened up downtown nobody in the art department will show up before noon. I also just got a note from the copy editors saying they can’t come to work unless we allow cats again because their cats won’t be able to separate so suddenly.”
“Don’t lie to me, Gutbloom. It’s obvious you haven’t had a copy editor in decades. As for the rest of them, everyone has to come back to work in person, stat!” Hughes said. He laughed when he said “stat!” then looked up from his food. He stared right at me for a moment.
“The pandemic lowered the ocean and exposed the technological wasteland we have created. People are hungry to have things back the way they were. Even Medium is trying to go back in time. If you listen carefully, you can hear they are calling out to the Soul Bloggers. They’ve put up a bat signal of dreck, so print those personal essays, run the weak-sauce offerings about food, and give the green light to that stupid “Let’s Make Fun of a State” garbage. Let’s see what happens.”
He had taken off his mask to eat and now he smiled. I don’t remember ever seeing Hughes smile like that before.
“If we go back to the way things were, we will be flooded by spam and trolls and ads for pirated movies and games,” I said.
“That’s true,” said Hughes, looking at his succotash again. “We might have to put up with that bullshit, but that’s OK. Everybody hates trolls now. Everybody hates spam. Nobody wants that shit. Maybe we’ll find our way around it. Who knows? Things change.”
“I hope so,” I said.
“Here’s the important thing,” he said, looking at me to make sure he had my attention before looking at the ocean again. “Cynicism is dead. If you insist on running with the incompetent middle aged white guy trope again this season you have to end the ugliness. Nobody wants to see more meanness. It’s time to paint a picture of the future that calls us to it. It’s time to connect. It’s time to be kind.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” I said. “Are you saying that we should be hopeful like ‘listening to Jefferson Airplane’ hopeful?”
“Well,” he said, “That shit doesn’t hold up well, but, if ‘yes’, then the Marty Balin love song Jefferson Airplane, not the Grace Slick… ‘It doesn’t mean shit to a tree’… Jefferson Airplane.
“That sounds kind of depressing to me,” I said.
“Tut, tut!” Shouted Hughes, “Turn that frown upside down, Gutty. No more of your Gen. X voodoo gothic death vulture emotionalism. A brighter day is just around the corner! Things change. We can do better.” Then he paused and looked at me again.
“How was your bowl of spit?” He asked.
“Good,” I said.
“Does she know that Chief owes you money?” He asked.
“No,” I said, “I didn’t want to bring that up. It’s not her fault that that guy can’t play cornhole.”
“But $10,000 is a lot of money.”
“It’s not Chief’s fault that the edibles by the coffee machine were mislabeled,” I said.
“Well, have a good season, Gutbloom,” Hughes said as he mounted his bike. “It was nice to see you again. I’ll have to have you out on the boat for a sail sometime this summer.”
“That’s what you said last summer.”
“Things change, Gutty. This might be the year!”
And with that he zipped up the long hill we had ridden down to the food truck. I got out my cell phone and called Pee Wee.
“Get the van and come pick me up at the Succotash Truck. Hughes stranded me here and we have a lot of work to do.”
“Same shit, different season,” Pee Wee replied.
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