Chocolate Cake to Die for

The headline read “Lexington crash, leaves man hospitalized in coma and on life support”. Typical front-page stuff for the Beantown Messenger, one of Boston’s oldest newspapers. Pete, a veteran reporter, leaned way back in his chair and with feet on the desk, blew out a perfect smoke ring from his unfiltered Chesterfield King cigarette. “I don’t f____ing, understand why they don’t put the f___ing man’s name on the front page. Now you have to waste your f____ing time, looking it up on page 12”. It could be said of Pete, that he never met an expletive he didn’t use, and often. Pete shared the office with four other reporters, two women and two men, all of whom had marvelous control over their expletives.

Betty was a very young blonde woman (“Girlie Girl” as Pete would call her), fresh out of Emerson College. She used a laptop to create all of her stories. Betty was a little shy, but at just 22, lacked some of the basic understanding of reporting, specifically accidents and murders. She found Pete offensive and completely rude, raising her eyes to heaven every time he’d s say something off color or negative about women. Betty sat as far from Pete as she could, against the wall and close to the door leading out to the 4th floor hallway and elevator, also across the way from the Human Resources Department.

Kathy was a good writer, and had come to us via Washing D.C. and the Congressional Cryer, and more recently, from The Atlanta Journal Constitution in Atlanta, Georgia. Her credentials included coverage of the infamous Atlanta Child Murders, from the frantic search for any information to the capture and the found guilty trial of Wayne Williams in February of 1982. Kathy used an Underwood typewriter like the rest of us, but was saving money to buy a good laptop to make submitting stories to the editor easier. She tolerated Pete and even bought a floor model fan to blow Pete’s smoke back at him and toward the only window, always open, in the room, just behind Pete’s desk. Kathy did her smoking in private, and always outdoors or at home. She had 3 kids, but they were in college and high school. She also got the most phone calls for possible stories and often just hung up her phone and left abruptly, never asking for help.

Sam, was closer to Pete in age usually putting up with his negative slants on life. Sam didn’t smoke. He had been a promising baseball infielder out of New Bedford High School, and in the minor league system with the Pawtucket Red Sox until a bad car accident during the “Blizzard of 78”, caused permanent, career ending, damage to his right knee, closing out his aspirations of Cooperstown. Sam was both a thoughtful and subdued spirit, and I liked him. When given an assignment that he thought might benefit Betty he asked if she’d assist him, giving her half the credit if the story made the pages, but knowing she would gain knowledge and especially experience for her future. Sam’s style was to try and figure out why and how a murder or accident happened, rather than who was responsible for it. Betty was more likely to fixate on the who, and find the facts, or literal bullets, and, as Pete would say, “shoot the bastard”.

My job was first to be a reporter, but secondly to be the cattle boss for the five of us. “Head ‘em up, move ‘em out” I’d say most often just to get the day started. First coffees were done, donuts, if there were any, then small talk about whatever Boston team had done the day before, then lastly to now and the events of the day to be covered, or not. Terrorism was first, then murders, especially if a celebrity was involved, and then came robberies and accidents or whatever the TV people thought newsworthy, lacking those, we’d report on Boston and local events. I usually assigned reporters by seniority and by whoever had the most experience in certain areas. Pete was always the first assignment, regardless of category, this, to get him and his foul language and equally foul cigarette smoke and smell out of the office. The others never complained.

On this day, I sent, Pete by himself, to cover The New England Foodservice Show over at Boston Gardens. All the big boys of foodservice would be there, from major distributors like Sysco and Monarch and S.S. Pierce, to manufacturers from Kraft to Nabisco and frozen giants like Sara Lee and Tyson Foods, and all the brokers and salesmen to go with them. Pete would find a reason to make this a two-day fact-finding tour, making for a gourmet sized story. It was his thing, and I was OK with Pete and his cigarettes taking as long as he wanted. There was an upside, however, he would come back to the office laden with tons of food. At the end of every food show, there was the unwritten rule of giving away anything opened or thawed so as not to throw away good food. Much was donated to food banks, but The Boston Messenger’s oldest reporter, like a wise vulture, found only the best items to rescue. Pete was well known, and for a favorable review, was generally given anything he wanted. The best part of assigning Pete this job, was that he couldn’t wait to get going, “see you all in a couple of days”, and whistling smoke rings he’d disappear through the door and to the elevator.

Betty was OK with Kathy taking the lead on some break ins, down at the South Shore Plaza in Braintree. The robberies only happened late at night, when the place was closed. Betty would interview the stores surrounding the ones robbed, and Kathy would evaluate what the owners or managers of the stores that were robbed had to say. It seemed obvious to Kathy that someone who worked inside the stores or the mall, had to have assisted others, in breaking only into stores, mostly those with technology as their base. Comparing notes with Betty, over Orange Julius drinks, it was clear that Betty had more technological knowledge. Betty explained how games were the current rage for teens, and how it made perfect sense for enterprising thieves to steal and sell them. While there, Kathy used Betty’s knowledge to get tips on what to look for in a laptop, if she could ever afford one. In a meeting with offended stores, Betty suggested that each store use their own technology, via new digital cameras. They would stay on all night long and tie into a central, hidden room, for constant viewing by police and store security. Calling it a day, Kathy headed home, while Betty returned to the office; both planning the piece they would write and combine for tomorrow’s press.

Sam and I took the what “might be” double murder in Waltham, and follow up on “coma guy” in Lexington. It was July 15th, and 95 degrees in Boston, the second week of an uncomfortable N.E. heat wave. Always thoughtful, Sam signed out a comfortable air-conditioned Beantown Messenger Econoline for our ride.

Arriving at the murder scene in Waltham, I gave Sam the job of interviewing neighbors, while I would get with detectives to find out their take on what may have happened. Walking up the cement stairway to the front porch, I spotted Fred Pickering, the Middlesex County Coroner, coming out the front door. I asked Fred if he could fill me in on the murders, and shaking his head, he said, dramatically, “there’s been no murder committed here”. Surprised I quickly asked “What happened”. Taking a deep breath and reaching for a cigarette that wasn’t there, Fred explained that an elderly couple had both expired from heat prostration, the overheating of the body due to extreme weather conditions. Almost sounding like a lecture, the coroner described these types of deaths from an unrelieved hyperthermia. For my report I’d describe this as a tragic accident, a married couple in their eighties, living on the third floor of an apartment house, during a heat wave in July. It was clear that they had no air conditioning, and probably didn’t drink enough water to fend off the heat. Together with Sam’s input we were able to report that the deceased couple’s family were on vacation, somewhere on the cape. Assuring the detectives we’d hold the story until the relatives, were notified, Sam and I headed to Lexington. I couldn’t erase the image that Fred left in my mind, of an old couple holding hands in death.

Just a few minutes up route 128 and the Lexington 2A exit, Sam pulled into the Lexington Memorial Hospital. We inquired at the information window as to the condition of “coma guy”, and learned that he in fact was a teenage boy named Lawrence Brewster. He was no longer in a coma (good news) and better yet, able to see visitors. Sam grabbed the camera out of his bag, and off we went to interview our crash survivor. Lawrence preferred Larry, on his back in bed with right arm in a sling and a full cast on his right leg, sort of dangling before us, was a chatterbox. Larry explained that he had been delivering newspapers, of course they were Boston Messenger newspapers. As he was crossing the street, his shoelace got stuck in his chain wheel, this caused him to stop and as he set his leg down to stand, a car, a Dodge Diplomat, knocked him down and he hit his head on the street and that’s all he could remember. Thinking he would be a hero on the front page of The Boston Messenger, pictures were taken, good hands were shaken, and as Sam and I shook our heads, we left “coma guy”, Larry, to heal.

It was late Friday afternoon in July, as we headed back to return our perfectly cool transportation. I told Sam, that on a hot Friday, in July, there is more traffic heading out of Boston than into it. He nodded his assent. I started dreaming of the refreshing feeling I’d soon get, jumping into my parent’s pool, on Spring Street, in West Bridgewater; maybe a couple of burgers from the grill, “M’m M’m good”, a beer, and chatting to Papa about tonight’s Red Sox game.

Still in a dream state, suddenly there were police and firefighter sirens and lights directly in front of The Boston Messenger building. As Sam screeched to a halt, I jumped out to see what was happening. A policeman told me someone had fallen or jumped from the fourth floor, I thought, from our office? I could see that the man on the sidewalk was not moving. It was Pete, he was dead and covered in blood, I remember thinking why is there such a color variation? After, identifying Pete, I made my way inside and up to the fourth floor, the elevator took forever. Stepping out, I could see a tearful Betty, just inside our office. She was surrounded by policemen and Karen, from Human Resources Department. I approached as Betty was explaining that Pete had brought several boxes up from his car. He was gloating over this year’s haul at the food show, and enjoying a slice of chocolate cake from Sweet Street Desserts of Reading, Pennsylvania. Betty went on to say, as Pete was eating a second slice and trying to light a cigarette he tripped over a case of Howard’s Piccalilli, and straight out of the window. “I screamed and called the police, immediately. I was too afraid to look out the window.”

Later, as I thought of possible titles for his obituary, I smiled as I rejected “Death by Chocolate”, what a dumb f__, Pete would have said.