Temple: The Initiation
"Governor Rick Perry Bonk! says the move will create Bonk! 140 new jobs... Bonk!" The local newscaster's every-woman voice drones on as Lilly whacks the side of the Daily Telegram's old, abused TV to make the picture come in correctly. It's her job to flip back and forth from the local 10 o'clock news broatcasts looking for stories we missed.
"31-1-1 in custody?"
"31-1-1 in custody at 211."
The police scanner, which looks like a pumped-up walkie-talkie with electrical tape wrapped around it to prevent foolish reporters from fussing with the settings, beeps and gurgles in front of me. In between the fuzz, dispatchers, officers, and paramedics exchange their coded messages. My job is to be here, on point in case something big happens. I'm waiting for the tell-tale tone, an extended high-toned beep, followed by a pause, a lower-toned long note, and a grunt. That means EMS is being dispatched. Then I have to be poised with my pen and pad, awaiting the address of the incident, which is given before the disturbance itself. Usually it's just the life-and-death health concerns of the many elderly residents in the area. Sometimes it's a car wreck. If it was a big enough or severe enough crash, I'd hop in my car and head to the scene. But most of my entries are immediately crossed out: "Killeen: 3-, 5-, and 6-year-old children may have taken mom's aderol, vital signs normal."
Today there was wreck in Belton, a small rupture in a gas line in a field, a carwash that started spraying water everywhere, a kid who got shocked by his car stereo and split open his finger, a...
The news is over. Lilly's on the phone behind me. "This is Lilly with the Temple Telegram, and I'm just calling to see if anything happened today that we should know about?
...
"Okay, thank you very much."
We're on our third and final round of calls to the area police and fire departments — Lampasas, Rockdale, Belton, Killeen... — to see if they have any news for us. They never do, Lilly says, but we call every day just the same.
"Hey, did you guys do two funeral boxes today?" one of my editors asks from his computer across the newsroom.
"Uh, yeah." I have to think back before I say anything around here, since everything new is so jumbled. "One of them had an error in it."
"The older one or the new one?"
"The first one, the old one."
We completed the obits earlier in the afternoon as they trickled through the fax machine, before rush hour's traffic accidents and evening's domestic disputes. My first stories for the paper: a life, in less than 100 words. Name, age, where you lived, where you'll be buried, school, occupation, marriage, family, survivors.
Cops beat, the first day.
"Governor Rick Perry Bonk! says the move will create Bonk! 140 new jobs... Bonk!" The local newscaster's every-woman voice drones on as Lilly whacks the side of the Daily Telegram's old, abused TV to make the picture come in correctly. It's her job to flip back and forth from the local 10 o'clock news broatcasts looking for stories we missed.
"31-1-1 in custody?"
"31-1-1 in custody at 211."
The police scanner, which looks like a pumped-up walkie-talkie with electrical tape wrapped around it to prevent foolish reporters from fussing with the settings, beeps and gurgles in front of me. In between the fuzz, dispatchers, officers, and paramedics exchange their coded messages. My job is to be here, on point in case something big happens. I'm waiting for the tell-tale tone, an extended high-toned beep, followed by a pause, a lower-toned long note, and a grunt. That means EMS is being dispatched. Then I have to be poised with my pen and pad, awaiting the address of the incident, which is given before the disturbance itself. Usually it's just the life-and-death health concerns of the many elderly residents in the area. Sometimes it's a car wreck. If it was a big enough or severe enough crash, I'd hop in my car and head to the scene. But most of my entries are immediately crossed out: "
Today there was wreck in Belton, a small rupture in a gas line in a field, a carwash that started spraying water everywhere, a kid who got shocked by his car stereo and split open his finger, a...
The news is over. Lilly's on the phone behind me. "This is Lilly with the Temple Telegram, and I'm just calling to see if anything happened today that we should know about?
...
"Okay, thank you very much."
We're on our third and final round of calls to the area police and fire departments — Lampasas, Rockdale, Belton, Killeen... — to see if they have any news for us. They never do, Lilly says, but we call every day just the same.
"Hey, did you guys do two funeral boxes today?" one of my editors asks from his computer across the newsroom.
"Uh, yeah." I have to think back before I say anything around here, since everything new is so jumbled. "One of them had an error in it."
"The older one or the new one?"
"The first one, the old one."
We completed the obits earlier in the afternoon as they trickled through the fax machine, before rush hour's traffic accidents and evening's domestic disputes. My first stories for the paper: a life, in less than 100 words. Name, age, where you lived, where you'll be buried, school, occupation, marriage, family, survivors.
Cops beat, the first day.
posted by Matt at 8:02 PM
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