Details at Ten
Authors: Ardella Garland
Details
at Ten
ARDELLA
GARLAND
Simon & Schuster
NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY SINGAPORE
SIMON & SCHUSTER
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New York, NY 10020
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2000 by Yolanda Joe
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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IMON
& S
CHUSTER
and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.
ISBN 0-7432-1125-1
Thanks to …
My family and friends who love and encourage me.
My dynamite agent and friend Victoria … I create and she makes it happen.
My editor, Constance, for her keen sense of how to shape a story… . And Tracy too for being a tireless supporter of this project.
And last, but not least, my writing peers, whose wonderful novels and poetry inspire me to push myself harder to create new and interesting work.
for
Karen E. Hodge,
a friend and a fighter
Details
at Ten
STORY SLUG: GANG MURDERS
REPORTER: GEORGIA BARNETT
10 PM SHOW AUGUST 16
(***PACKAGE***)
Natural sound cop shouting
(“Get back, get back …”)
(**REPORTER TRACK**)
CRIME SCENE: COP/FLASHING LIGHTS/CROWD
CHYRON LOCATION: SOUTH SIDE
A CHICAGO COP TRIES TO CONTROL A SMALL CROWD LURED BY GUNSHOTS AND SIRENS TO WHAT TURNED OUT TO BE A GRISLY MURDER SCENE.
PAN FACES IN CROWD/BULLET SHELLS ON GROUND
THE PEOPLE, YOUNG AND OLD, PRESSED THEIR BODIES AGAINST THE YELLOW CRIME SCENE TAPE. THEY WATCHED AS POLICE LOADED TWO BODIES INTO A PADDY WAGON.
BODY SHOT/PADDY WAGON
AMBULANCE/FLASHING LIGHTS
BOTH VICTIMS WERE BLACK MALE TEENAGERS. BOTH VICTIMS WERE SHOT FIVE TIMES. TWO AMBULANCES RUSHED TO FELLOWS PARK WHERE IT HAPPENED SHORTLY AFTER NINE P.M. BUT PARAMEDICS SAY WHEN THEY ARRIVED, THERE WAS NOTHING THEY COULD DO.
(***STOP/SOT***)
CHYRON NAME:
LEWIS REYNOLDS/PARAMEDIC
“When we got here the victims were over by the park bench near the baseball diamond. Blood was everywhere. I knew they were dead.”
(**REPORTER TRACK CONT**)
HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOK PICTURES:
THE VICTIMS HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED AS SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD BENJI ADAMS AND SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD LONNIE HEARD.
BOTH WERE JUNIORS AT JAMES HOWELL HIGH SCHOOL.
GRAFFITI ON SCHOOL WALL
POLICE SAY BOTH TEENS WERE MEMBERS OF THE ROCK DISCIPLES STREET GANG.
CHYRON NAME:
OFC. ALICE WITSOME/CHICAGO PD
(***STOP/SOT***)
“The Rock Disciples and the Gangster Bandits are feuding over turf. We don’t know what set off this shooting. They just kill each other at the drop of a hat.”
(**REPORTER TRACK CONT**)
ROLLING WIDE SHOT OF PARK/PEOPLE WALKING & KIDS PLAYING
RETALIATION IS LIKELY. RESIDENTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD SAY MORE POLICE PATROLS ARE NEEDED IN THE AREA. UNTIL THEN, THEY SAY, NO ONE IS SAFE.
GEORGIA BARNETT, CHANNEL 8 NEWS.
END OF PACKAGE/TIME: 1:30 SECS
A
nd no one was safe: including me, Georgia Barnett.
That’s how it all started. It began when I was sent to cover a story about rival gangs and a double murder in Fellows Park in Englewood. Englewood is a poor and criminally ravaged community on the South Side of Chicago. It was once a strong, working class neighborhood full of people with an immense sense of pride. I should know, it’s the neighborhood I grew up in. Some good people live there now but unfortunately crime has gotten outrageous.
That night after my story ran on the 10
P
.
M
. show, I kept looking for angles. I’m a newshound. I love fighting for the lead story. I know that when you get a lead story, you better hold on to it. A lead story is hard to lock down. This is especially true for a black woman reporter. Very often we are underestimated, forced to work the fluff stories, pimped. I’m not having it. For me it’s a simple case of pride and prejudice—to show some pride, you work around the journalistic prejudice.
Now if you want a hard news story that’s a bona fide lead, then, in the words of RuPaul, “Girlfriend, you gotta work!” And I mean work. You run twice as far and twice as fast to win the same prize. I had a hold of a darn good story, but more than that, in this case, I was trying to work my tail off to keep my mind off the fact that I’d just broken up with my boyfriend Max. My man Max.
He is brilliant. Max thought a story and talked a story. He gave you fears and tears. Those are the two things that are guaranteed to keep the remote on Middle America’s coffee table. Don’t change that channel! Max … well … the boy is just bad!
Now right this minute I’m going to tell the honest-to-Jesus truth. I lost Max to a hoochie mama I couldn’t compete with by the name of Emmy—as in the award. She was everything I’m not. A trophy he could handle.
After winning the Emmy award, it was simply TV. TV theme song that is. As in:
Next thing you know old Max is a star
.
Kinfolks said, Man, move away from there
.
Said, Network is where you oughta be
.
So the next thing you know he was movin’ to D
.
C
.
Global news that is
.
Overseas
.
Saddam
.
Satellites
.