Last One Out, Turn Off the Lights

Well, I took another crack at the NYC Midnight writing challenge. Last year, my fairy tale, “Two Princes of the Caribbean“, failed to make it out of round one. This year, my genre was Political Satire, my subject was “an auction“, and my character was “a technician“. I thought political satire would be easy, but as I struggled with the prompt, I realized how hard it is to satirize what is already so seemingly absurd in today’s political landscape. I also didn’t want to stray into a polemic and focus on my own political beliefs. Ultimately, it came together when I just embraced the difficulty and gave it to my characters. Jackson has run a satiric mag for years, he and his father have been in the industry for the weighty, the weird and the wild, but like many publications, they just can’t compete anymore.

Once again, I did not make it out of round one, but I did receive an honorable mention and some very kind feedback from the judges. So here is “Last One Out, Turn Off the Lights.”

Last One Out, Turn Off the Lights

Jackson sat at his desk and watched the snow falling outside. He picked up the stapler, weighing it in his hand. Then he turned and hurled the stapler across the room into the TV, knocking it off its wall mount. It landed face-down on the carpet with a soft whump. He picked up his phone and rang the secretary. “Taylor, get Mimmo in here.”

Mimmo walked into the office and surveyed the damage.

“Hand me my stapler, would you?” Jackson said.

Mimmo found the red stapler next to the television and bent down to admire it. 

“That’s a beaut, Jackson. Original?”

“Swingline 747, official film prop. Makes a handy weapon.”

“I see that,” Mimmo said and nudged the television with his shoe. “What did the TV do to you?”

“Mimmo, look outside and tell me what you see.”

Jackson’s secretary peeked in and both men turned. Seeing the TV, her eyes widened before she quickly ducked back out.

“It’s snowing, Mimmo. You want my Georgetown tickets? Sonny Davis is pitching for UConn tonight.”

“Yeah, sure,” Nimmo said, placing the stapler back on Jackson’s desk. “Listen, Jackson, we’re going to have to bag the Gulf rescue article. The Secretary of State issued a statement saying those divers, those deep-sea divers…”

“The Australian guys?”

“Yeah, so the official government position is now that those guys are pedophiles and will be arrested as soon as they surface with the kids. And they’ve taken Mosley.”

“Pedophiles? The Australians, or Mosley?”

“They say the divers are pedophiles, although we can’t find anything on record. Mosley had the draft written, but the Feds nabbed him.”

“Where to?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think we’ll see Mosley again. So I think we better, like I said, bag that article.”

There was a knock and a trim man in a blue work shirt appeared in the door.

“Mr. Jackson? I’m here to look at your television, sir.”

“What’s your name?”

“Guevara. I am the electronics technician.”

“Guevara? Forget the TV for a minute. Look at the guitar case in the corner over there. That’s the famous Che Guevara image on the front and look next to the beret. That’s Reagan’s autograph. Want it?”

“No.” Instead, Guevara walked over to the bookshelf with his hands behind his back and quietly looked through the shelves.

Mimmo looked at Jackson. “What’s going on?”

Jackson walked over to the window and looked outside. Thick, downy flakes had begun to cover the grass.

“Mimmo, I was going to call an all-staff, but since Mosley’s gone and Russell died last night…”

“Russell died? When the hell did that happen?”

“Last night. The plane crash at Dulles.” Mimmo dropped into Jackson’s chair with a thump.

“The Bombardier?”

“No, the other one.”

“The Learjet?”

“No, the other one.”

“The Fed Ex plane?”

“Yeah.”

“How the hell was Russell killed in a Fed Ex crash?”

“It landed on his car when he was driving home. Fell out of the sky. Listen, Mimmo, I think it’s time. We’ve talked about this for years, but I think this business has gotten beyond us.”

Mimmo slumped deep into the chair and looked at the back of Jackson’s head.

“I’m too old for this shit, Mimmo. We’re too old for this shit. It’s time to hand it over to the next generation.”

Mimmo sat back up in the chair.

“What next generation, Jackson? The Harvard Lampoon has been sued into oblivion, George Saunders is in Guantanamo, all the best picture nominees are political hagiographies…” Mimmo sank into the chair again. “We can’t just quit.”

Guevara cleared his throat and Jackson and Mimmo turned to look at him.

“Sir, may I have this book?”

“1984? Sure. There’s a whole box of banned books in the closet over there if you’d like to peruse.”

Guevara darted to the closet and got onto his knees to look through the books. Jackson walked back to the desk and stood over Mimmo.

“Get out of my chair.”

As he settled back into his seat, Mimmo kneeled over the television, which was still murmuring in its death throes. Guevara sorted through the books in the closet, taking them out one at a time and reading the book flaps.

Jackson called Taylor into the office, then he let his mind wander the empty halls of the old brownstone office. He remembered his schoolboy days, doing his homework in the lobby as his father sat at this very desk, calling the shots for the Washington Herald in its infancy, before the turn to satire. His father knew great men, and they knew him. Old Jackson had covered the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Watergate, Iran-Contra. He’d interviewed and had close personal relationships with both Donna Rice and Monica Lewinsky. Days of consequence and days of consequences. Old Jackson had covered tearful apologies and had attended Nixon’s resignation. Jackson hated remembering the old man in his Alexandria nursing home, drool on his chin, as he tried to explain alternative facts, fake news, post-truth.

Taylor entered the office and sat at the desk, pen hovering above her notepad. Mimmo sat on the floor next to the television and even Guevara stopped browsing the banned books and kneeled facing the desk. Jackson suddenly remembered his first day as editor-in-chief, his father felled by a stroke, the bold changes that he foresaw for the Herald. Where did that boldness get him? A staff of two, a television repairman, and insurmountable debt.

Jackson began: “I am an American. You are Americans. We have done nothing for which an American should be ashamed.” Mimmo tilted his head but Jackson plowed ahead. “You have written for your countrymen, for the rich and the poor, for the wise and the ignorant, against the government, against infamy, against those who came, administration after administration, to lie, to obfuscate, to steal, and to gerrymander. You know our enemy. Our enemy is known to all newspapermen…”

“And women,” Taylor interrupted.

“And women,” Jackson continued. “Newspaperwomen. Our enemy…where was I?”

Mimmo leapt to his feet and shouted “Black Hawk’s Surrender! Ha! 1830-something. Good one, Jackson.”

Jackson picked up the stapler, shaking his head in admiration. “Mimmo, that was a deep cut. 1832, Black Hawk War. I didn’t even get to the good part about drinking blood. Well done.”

Taylor raised her hand and asked, “What the hell are we talking about?”

“We’re talking about the end of an era, Taylor. The last satirical magazine in the nation, and one of the last independent publishers, period. We’re cooked. I’m up to my eyeballs in debt and the government watchmen keep nabbing my best talent. I’m all out of ideas and I’m all out of money.”

“Which means we’re all out of jobs,” Taylor continued.

“That about says it,” Jackson said. Taylor put her notepad and pen down on the desk. “I have an old friend in Boston, runs an auction house. We’ve got a lot of historic crap in this old building, and I’m packing up what I can this weekend and driving it over to make a few bucks. But since I’m sending you two out on your heels, I want to give you first crack at any collectibles you’ve coveted. You too, Guevara, whoever you work for. You find any more books?”

“We’re not going to print another edition?” Mimmo asked.

“Nope.”

“So, the Gulf of Mexico story was already dead? And I shouldn’t bother with that photospread of Fauci?”

Jackson put the stapler down and leaned across the desk towards Mimmo. “Get this through your skull, Mimmo. The government says its Gulf of America, even though the National Cartographic Society has filed a protest. Spoiler alert: they’ll lose the case and lose their jobs. The Aussies are not pedophiles, they’re goddam heroes putting their lives on the line for people they don’t even know, but they’ve managed to cross some billionaire tech Gestapo and wheels are already in motion to crush them. Try to stop them. Our man Mosley’s already been “unalived”, most likely, and someone dropped a plane on Russell. Mimmo, I know a guy who knows a guy who says that Fauci will soon join his old friends down in Guantanamo for the rest of his life. Now look outside, tell me what you see?”

Mimmo blinked but didn’t answer, stunned by Jackson’s outburst.

“It’s snowing. In DC. In May. Mimmo, if you want to walk out that door and start your own house, have at it. But the long history of the Washington Herald ends today. I’ll say this one last time: we can no longer compete with the ridiculous drumbeat of reality. Surreality. If you can’t see that, then you’re not the reporter that I thought you were.” Then Jackson stood up, marched out of the office to the bathroom, threw himself onto his knees, and vomited into the toilet. Mimmo, Taylor, and Guevara could hear him retching down the hall.

Back in the office, Taylor put her head down on the desk and Mimmo looked over Guevara’s shoulder at a growing pile of banned books that he was building.

“Would it even be legal to auction those, Guevara?”

Guevara didn’t answer. Mimmo grabbed the top book from his pile.

“Ray Bradbury. I always confuse him with Raymond Carver and Raymond Chandler. Did those guys have any books banned?”

Guevara took the book out of Mimmo’s hand and replaced it on the pile. “Don’t touch these,” he said.

Mimmo sat down at Jackson’s desk and looked at Taylor. He laughed to himself, and Taylor raised her head and looked at him with tears in her eyes.

“Taylor, it’s funny. I can’t think of a single thing in this office that I want. I just don’t want to remember any of this. Isn’t that strange? I’ve been here since I interned in college.”

Taylor wiped her eyes and looked around. The Che Guevara case sat in the corner behind a splintered Fender Stratocaster on a guitar stand. She thought it might be an old Jimi Hendrix model, or maybe Tom Morello. Signed movie posters of Casablanca, Wag the Dog, and Robert Redford’s The Candidate blowing a bubble in front of an American flag. She knew Jackson had more at home from his father’s collection. If he was deep in the hole, that might help.

“I don’t want anything either, Mimmo. What are we going to do?”

Mimmo leaned back to think as Jackson walked back into the office. “Sorry, boss,” Mimmo said, standing up from the desk.

“Go ahead, sit down. I’m sorry that I got upset.” He leaned against the doorframe. “What do you two think you’ll do next?”

Taylor shook her head and looked at Mimmo. So quietly that Jackson could barely hear her, she said “I think I’ll take some time off. Stay home with my son.” Then she slipped off the chair and brushed past Jackson out of the office. Jackson was sad to watch her go.

“Mimmo, what about you?”

Just then, Guevara rose from the book pile and approached Jackson.

“Mr. Jackson. I am Officer Guevara with the Department of Homeland Security,” and he flashed a badge. “I’m arresting you under Section 22 of the DC Code for knowingly housing and distributing banned literature on your premises.”

Jackson blinked. “Guevara, say it ain’t so!” He looked past Guevara to the stack of books on the floor. Then he laughed.

“Ulysses. Ha. Ever read that one, Mimmo?” He put his hands behind his back as Guevara removed a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket.

“No, Jackson, no one has.”

As Guevara slapped the cuffs on his wrists, Jackson asked him if he had read Ulysses.

“No sir, it is filth.”

“Oh yeah, which part?” Jackson asked, then winked at Guevara.

“Say Mimmo, before I take off. What did you say you were going to do now that we’re finished?”

Mimmo sat back in the chair and thought. Guevara had an eager look like he was ready to haul Jackson out to the street, but he waited on Mimmo’s reply.

“I’m older than you, Jackson. I’m about ready to retire, I guess.” He picked up the red stapler and put it back down. “I’ve got a little plot next to my garage where I thought I’d plant a little garden. See if I can grow some tomatoes or something.”

Jackson looked sober for a moment, then he said “What about the lead and asbestos in the dirt? From the fires.”

“Jackson,” he said, “do you honestly think it matters?”

At that, Jackson nodded and Guevara took him by the shoulder and led him out the door.