Authors: Ardella Garland
Peaches snorted. “Humphf! You know you wanted to give that boy some panties when you were seventeen but you were just too scared.”
“Forget you.” I cut my eyes at Peaches.
“Remember I was dating his friend, super-fine Sidney, but I wasn’t the scary type, don’tcha know!”
We both laughed, then high-fived each other.
“Peaches you were such a fast girl! We just knew you were going to turn up pregnant!”
“Nah!” Peaches laughed, “I fooled y’all. I waited till I was an old lady in my thirties before I had my baby Satch. But damn if I don’t wish I was still hanging with Sidney. I heard boyfriend is an accountant in Atlanta now, happily married, and doing real well.”
“That’s nice, wish A.J. could have turned out like that. Does he still live with his mother?”
“Naw, she put A.J. out because he was acting crazy. A.J.’s living on the street he says. I know ’cause he stops by here every now and then. I buy him some food in exchange for him sweeping up. Never mentioned it before because it’s so sad to see someone you grew up with hit bottom.”
After that I tried to relax. I enjoyed the rest of my night at the club clowning with Peaches and accepting free drinks from the regulars. My thoughts, of course, slipped away to my story-the retaliation drive-by for the double murder in Fellows Park. I wondered to myself, What’s going to jump off next, and when?
T
he “when” turned up two days later.
It had been two days since the drive-by shooting and I hadn’t had a lead story since.
I had called the cop shop every couple of hours. Nothing new, they said. No ID on the suspects, which meant there was no lead story there.
I had called the hospital. Of the five shooting victims, three were still being cared for. One, a teenage girl, remained listed in critical condition. No lead story there, either. Nothing but update material for an anchor to voice-over file tape of the original shooting.
I had even called Detective Eckart hoping to coax something out of him. It would be a long shot, but I can’t count how many times nagging a long shot has ended up helping me turn a tough story.
I pictured Detective Eckart each time I called—handsome, gruff, but caring. I couldn’t help but find him interesting, especially after those flirtatious looks. But don’t you know he didn’t return any of my calls? I stared at the phone on my desk. Should I try him again? After a few minutes of indecision, I decided to call him just one more time. I reached for the phone just as it started ringing.
“Uggggh-huh-huh …” was all I heard when I picked up. Two things I could distinguish immediately—one, it was a woman’s voice, and two, she’d lost it.
“Hello?” I asked. “Who is this? What’s wrong?” I got focused because whoever was on the line was very afraid and very on edge. “Take a deep breath and pick your words carefully. Speak slowly.”
“My baby … is … miss … ing … she gone.” Emotion forced the woman’s words out in a misshapen sentence.
Oh God, some poor woman whose child was missing. I thought of my three-year-old nephew, Satch, Peaches’s boy, and thought of how upset we would all be if he were missing.
“Ma’am? Ma’am!” I said, trying to calm her. “Take deep breaths. Now wait and just listen. Let’s start over. First, what’s your name?”
“Kelly Stewart. My baby missing and she don’t be going off by herself no time and won’t nobody—”
“Kelly, Kelly! Stop a sec. I need you to try to calm down. I know it’s tough. Here, try this: Just answer my questions and that way I’ll be able to get all the facts, okay?”
“Oh-oh-oh- … kay.”
I grabbed a pen. “Now, Kelly, where do you live?”
“Fifty-fifteen South Hedge.”
She lived in the neighborhood where the drive-by happened two days ago.
“What’s your daughter’s name?”
“We named her Kelly, afterah me, her last name is Johnson, afterah her daddy, but ev’rbahdy call her Butter ’cause she love bread and butter sammiches.”
“How long has Butter been missing?”
“Since yes’day evening and I called the police but they ain’t wanna come out here and do nothing. Won’t nobody help me and then the kids say you was out here the other day and was real nice so I thought …”
“How old is Butter?”
“She six.”
“Are you married, divorced, or a single mother?”
“Single mother.”
“Could Butter be with her father? Maybe he stopped by and got her and didn’t ask—”
“No, he’s in the army, stationed overseas.”
“Could Butter be at a friend’s house, with another relative, something like that?”
“All her friends live in the neighborhood and they ain’t seen her, and all our relatives in the city live right here, in this house—my mama, my sister, her son, me, and Butter. We done searched everywhere. She ain’t been to see her daddy’s people in the South but twice and Butter don’t know nothing about getting down there.”
“Okay, who did you talk to at the police station?”
“Sergeant … uh-uh … Reynolds, then I talked to a Sergeant McGuire …”
I knew McGuire. He was a bit moody but always straightforward. I had talked to him a couple of times today when I called about the drive-by.
“… and nobody wanted to help me! Butter is a good girl, too. Butter gets awards in school and in church. Spelling champion. Perfect attendance. Damn, don’t y’all get it? My baby is a good girl and she’s missing!”
This kid, Butter, didn’t sound like a runaway. “Okay, Kelly? Kelly, hang on. I’m with you. Let me go talk to my managers here at the station about coming out to do a story—”
“Thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!”
“I’m not making any promises, Kelly, but I’ll do what I can and I hope everything will turn out okay. Give me your number and I’ll call you back.” I wrote down the number and hung up the phone.
I walked over to the assignment desk where the managing editor and the assignment editor usually sit. It’s the hub of the newsroom and it’s set off with maps, police and fire scanners, computers, and things needed to make quick decisions on what to cover, who to send, and how to get there. My managing editor and assignment editor are both white men. They were sitting there with Bing, also a white man, discussing a special project for next month. The top decision-makers at WJIV are all white men.
“Hey, guys, I just talked to a woman named Kelly Stewart. Her daughter is missing.” I relayed the facts I had, which included where the family lived. “I want to do a story.”
Bing, the senior manager, scoffed, “Well, I say no, kids like that are always getting into trouble and running away.”
“Kids like what, Bing?”
“You know, kids that
live there
. We can’t do a story every time some kid in the ghetto runs away from a bad home.”
I wanted to go upside Bing’s head. How cheap. How insulting. Instead, I inhaled and exhaled sweetly. “So, you’re assuming because this is a poor black child that she’s in trouble or she’s a runaway? That’s …”
I paused. I started to say “racist” but that word would set Bing off on a defensive pattern that I didn’t want to deal with right now. And it was clear that the other two managers sitting there were not going to help me. As usual, there was a big gap in understanding between me and the white boys, a gap as wide as a crater left behind by an earthquake.
“… that’s a common assumption and surely you all are above that in this wonderful, fair, and impartial newsroom in which we work.”
I could tell from their looks that I hadn’t drawn blood. I had to make a decision: throw a fit or try another angle. “The point is, guys, that the family lives in the same area where the drive-by was two days ago. If I go cover this story, that gets me points with the people in the neighborhood, which builds contacts and sources for future stories. I’ll need that help because Detective Eckart told me off camera that he thinks a major turf war is about to erupt.”
I got them where they live.
“Well,” Bing said, “maybe we’ll run the kid’s picture with a description. Maybe a sound bite,
if
it’s good. Just do a quick hit on the story and not a long package. Yeah, check it out.”
Believe, receive, and run!
I got out of that newsroom as fast as I could. I stopped only to call Kelly. I told her three things:
One: I was on my way.
Two: I needed photos of Butter and I wanted to interview as many members of the family as I could.
Three: I would do my best to keep her story on the air, in the public eye. Heat like that would help solve Butter’s disappearance faster.
I was overjoyed. The roller-coaster ride of news was on the upswing. What I didn’t know was that it was headed down—quick and in a hurry—as soon as I got the next phone call.
T
he phone began ringing in the truck; Zeke and I were in the express lane headed south on the Dan Ryan. Zeke was trying to beat the sleek el train that runs between the multilanes of traffic stretching north and south. We were smokin’ the race when I answered the phone.
“Hi.” It was Nancy. “There’s a change in plans. We’ve gotta package this new missing kid story for the six o’clock, plus a live shot and package for the ten o’clock.”
“That’s great, Nancy. That’s what I wanted to do all along. I really have a gut feeling about this little girl Butter—”
“Not her. There’s another missing kid. In Hyde Park. You’re closest. The other missing kid story is dead.”
“Oh, c’mon!” I shouted. “You’re not going to pull this!”
“Don’t jump on me,” Nancy said in a slow and deliberate voice. “Bing and the guys asked me to call and tell you because obviously they knew you’d be upset. But listen, this kid missing in Hyde Park is apparently the eight-year-old son of a University of Chicago professor, a Nobel Prize–winning chemist. It’s a big deal. The police are already at the family’s house.”
“So how long has the boy been missing?”
“Five hours.”
“Five hours,” I said, gritting my teeth. Then I asked a question that I knew the answer to: “Is he white?”
Nancy didn’t say a mumbling word.
“So, this little white boy comes up missing for just five hours and we automatically deem it a story, and a lead story no less. But when this little black girl is missing we don’t want to do the story because black kids
allegedly
come up missing all the time. I guess little Butter has the wrong skin color, lineage, and zip code. Three strikes and little Butter is out, huh?”
“Don’t beat me up, Georgia. All of the other stations are hot on this U of C missing kid story. It’s the lead. And you gotta hustle because we can’t get beat, either.”
An idea flashed through my head. “Nancy, why not do both stories? A double lead.”
“I’m tight on time. I just don’t have room in my show for both. Besides, Bing said he told you the story was weak but go ahead and check it out just to build up your contacts in the neighborhood. With the little information you have, it just doesn’t hold up as a double lead.”
“Of course not. A double lead would be too much like right. God, Nancy … this woman is going nuts about her little girl. I already called her and said that I was coming. What am I going to tell her, huh? What can I possibly say to that girl’s mother?”
“I know,” Nancy said soothingly. “I know.”
I was sunk. I had no out. I got the address and more info on this new story from Nancy. I moved the phone away from my ear and told Zeke, “Head to Hyde Park.” Then I dialed Butter’s mother. I had the foul task of telling her I wasn’t coming.
“Why?” Kelly moaned over the phone, emotion bubbling to the surface. “I got the pictures. And we’re all here ready to talk. Please come!”
What could I say to her? How could I explain the mechanics and prejudices of how news is covered? In a thirty-minute newscast, there’s only about sixteen minutes of real news. Weather and sports get three minutes apiece, the commercial breaks add up to five minutes, chat and cutesy stories eat up the rest. Then the stories picked are either tragic, or scandalous, or affect a wide group of people like big layoffs, blizzards, school strikes, or tampering cases, stuff like that. Missing people were always low on the list but sometimes families with money or fame or contacts can get instant airplay. It’s difficult to admit that today this kind of crap is still going on.
I promised Kelly that I would try to help in some way. She called me a “low-down bitch” and hung up. I didn’t say a word for the rest of the drive to Hyde Park. Zeke just glanced over at me periodically. Luckily the good Lord had blessed him with enough common sense to know that I was pissed off and not to mess with me about it.
We pulled up to the house and the news trucks of the other stations were already there. Obviously I was being sent late to the story. I was behind. I hate getting beat on a story!
Zeke and I headed up the walkway of this grand mansion, landscaped with expensive shrubs and rock designs. As we got halfway to the door it flew open and the professor came running out, followed by a woman I assumed was his wife. They were tailed by reporters and camera crews from the other stations. “Roll! Roll!” I shouted to Zeke as I instantly reversed direction.