Chapter 25
My father was a newspaper man. Or a paperboy, as he liked to call himself.
He started on a local desk covering dime-store openings and dog shows, and he worked his way up.
Way up—you would recognize his name. He was known for convincing his sources to reveal everything, and then later, as an editor, for convincing his reporters to risk everything.
He used to tell great stories around the dinner table, of journos tapping phones, hiding in bathrooms, posing as policemen.
His foot soldiers, he called them, and the content war was a game to him: What could he make them do today in the pursuit of news?
(My mother was long gone by then, thank God—she could never have countenanced such excitement!)
My father said that some of his bosses called him ruthless, that some of them professed to be horrified when they heard whispers of reporters stalking crime victims or shadowing celebrity children.
They didn’t fire him, though, did they? And I’m sure they wished they had, because by the time I reached puberty he had bought the paper and relieved them of their jobs.
Then he ran his empire the same way he’d conquered it.
He lured the best writers away from the competition, swallowed smaller outfits whole, and invested in expansion with every penny he could get his hands on .
. . including a few pennies that weren’t his own.
I was an eager little beaver back then—still wet behind the ears and living in my childhood bedroom—so I was determined to make myself a useful intermediary.
I sat my father down one night and presented him with several suggestions for modernizing the company.
I gave him the names of some reputable and discreet consultants who might be able to help us to straighten things out.
My father seemed to be taking it all in.
Then he said to me: “I had no idea you were such a pussy.”
I don’t remember much of what happened after that, only that my entanglement with the dental industry began immediately afterward.
The point is, my dad really didn’t appreciate people questioning the way he conducted his business, and neither do I. I wish those Evanses would just get on with it; it’s way too early in the game for things to get ugly.