{"id":2196,"date":"2017-03-27T08:38:59","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T15:38:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=2196"},"modified":"2017-03-27T08:38:59","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T15:38:59","slug":"the-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/2196","title":{"rendered":"The News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"metaphors\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(a story from Todd\u2019s novel of stories Under the Table Books<\/i><\/a>)<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have much, but there\u2019s one thing I treat myself to every Wednesday, and that\u2019s a newspaper, fresh from the rack. No one else has touched it. The news is absolutely fresh. You can smell its freshness. The folds of the pages are sharp and clean. This is my greatest luxury, my last strong link to civilization. It may not seem like much to you, but for me buying the Wednesday news is absolutely, without question, the zenith of my week.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, it is absolutely essential that I pay for it. If someone gave the newspaper to me, it would have no importance whatsoever. I must get my news through ritual.<\/p>\n

Every Wednesday I wake up early, wherever I happen to be, and I take a bath. Sometimes I bathe in the river. Sometimes I use a garden hose, if there\u2019s no one around to tell me not to. Sometimes I am somewhere with a shower, and now and then I find myself in a house with a bathtub. That, of course, is the ultimate luxury, to soak for a while in a tub full of truly hot water.<\/p>\n

Then, once my body is washed, I put on my cleanest clothes and set forth to find a newspaper rack. I do not buy my papers from vendors or in stores. I want my news direct, no middlemen. When I have located a rack I like the look of, I approach it slowly, with solemnity. I do not allow myself to read the headlines. To know anything at this point would destroy the purity of the experience.<\/p>\n

I take three quarters from my pocket. Seventy-five cents still buys the news in this town, thank God. I will have had these quarters since the day before, at least. I will not beg on Wednesdays. No, the day I buy my paper is a day of dignity for me. On this day I am as good as any other man, even the President, even the Pope.<\/p>\n

I hold the quarters, heads side up, between the thumb and index finger of my right hand. I read aloud the dates on each coin. Lately, I\u2019ve been getting lots of those bicentennial ones. 1776-1976. George Washington on one side, a Revolutionary War drummer on the other. On the George side it says LIBERTY up above his head, and then in smaller print under George\u2019s chin it says IN GOD WE TRUST. If we didn\u2019t know better, we might think George was a mannish-looking woman, hawk-nosed and severe, with silly curls and sillier ponytail, with a ribbon in it yet. There is no mention anywhere on the coin that this person is George Washington. Somehow we know. Or maybe it would be more appropriate to say, somehow we have not yet forgotten.<\/p>\n

I put the quarters in the slot, give the handle a pull, and listen carefully as the quarters roll, then fall into the change box. Sometimes the chamber is empty and the quarters clonk against the bottom in a sad hollow way. Other times the coins settle gently onto a good pile of fellow coins, making a beautiful clinking sound. I sometimes think the sound my quarters make going in is more important than getting the paper itself. If I am sad, that beautiful soft musical sound can cheer me up. And if I\u2019m happy, that hollow clonking can leave me doubting everything.<\/p>\n

There are times when the paper on top of the stack is damaged, dog-eared or torn. I take the next one down, or the next. I want perfection of form if I can\u2019t get it from the contents. And sometimes only one paper remains, the paper held against the glass by the metal frame. I do not like these papers as well. They have been looked at by countless passersby and handled roughly by the person stocking the rack. I take them, but those Wednesdays are never quite as good as the Wednesdays when the quarters fall just right, and the papers are many and fresh, smelling strongly of ink, hot off the presses, still warm from the ovens of thought.<\/p>\n

I tuck the paper under my arm and go in search of a place to read. I need a table, sunlight and good coffee. I will not drink cheap coffee on Wednesday. Fortunately, there are many good places to go in this town, many good cups of coffee to be had. I am known in these places. On Wednesday I am not a bum, a freak, a shopping cart person. My shopping cart is hidden somewhere safe. I am free of my few things on Wednesday. I have a dollar to spend, a morning to dedicate to my god, the news. If all my days could be like Wednesday there is nothing I couldn\u2019t accomplish.<\/p>\n

I read the paper in order, front page to back. I read every word, save for the Classifieds section, and on a rainy day I will read that, too. I study the advertisements. I ponder the editorials. I read every comic strip, every statistic in the sports section, every letter to the editor, every shred of gossip. I meditate on my horoscope. I scrutinize the photographs and wonder at the movie reviews. I fall in love with the fashion models, devour the food section, second guess the business experts and check my stocks, the ones I would have bought a year ago when the market was way down and the time was right.<\/p>\n

All in all it takes about four hours. Then I carefully reassemble the paper and carry it to my friend Leopold who meets me in front of the library, downtown, every Wednesday at one o\u2019clock. Sometimes I get there before him. Sometimes he is waiting for me, leaning against the old stone building, holding it up with his strong little back.<\/p>\n

I give him the paper. He always asks, \u201cAnything good?\u201d\u00a0 I usually say, \u201cA few things.\u201d\u00a0 Though once I remember the paper was as empty of anything good as I have ever seen it, and I said, \u201cNo, Leo, not a god damn thing.\u201d\u00a0 To which he responded by putting it directly in the recycling bin without so much as a glance at the sordid headlines. And once, yes, once I said, \u201cOh Leo, it\u2019s incredible. You won\u2019t believe all the good news.\u201d\u00a0 To which he responded by hugging the paper to him like long lost best friend.<\/p>\n

And then, with or without Leo, depending on his mood, I walk to the Post Office where I purchase a postcard on which I write a brief note to the President, which I then send. Now and then I\u2019ll include a poem, if a good rhyme comes to me. Sometimes I\u2019ll quote an editorial or a news item. Whatever I write, it is inspired by the news I have just read.<\/p>\n

One time I wrote him a postcard that said, \u201cDear Mr. President, it is clear from the news that you have lost touch with the will of the people. As they grow more and more desirous of a peaceful world, you grow more and more vituperative, angry and irrational. I urge you to take some time off to search your soul, to listen to the inner voice, lest you drift too far from your purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the very next week the headline read PRESIDENT IN SECLUSION. Had he heard me? Did he read my note? I don\u2019t know. I only know that he cancelled all appointments for three days and went into seclusion. To think. To ponder. Perhaps to study the news.<\/p>\n

I like to think that he reads all my notes, and that he looks forward to my postcards as I look forward to the Wednesday news. He listens to me. He didn\u2019t at first, but now he does. Now his aides sort through the avalanche of mail to find my cards. They know my handwriting now. And I mark my notes in another way, too. I take a quarter, with the bust of George face up, and I press the postcard down onto the coin and then I take a pencil and I color in over the quarter, so that George and LIBERTY and IN GOD WE TRUST and the date come through, like a temple rubbing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not insane. I don\u2019t believe the President listens to me. I am a man who lives for Wednesdays. I once owned fleets of cars, now I push a shopping cart, which I did not steal. I found it by the river where the shopping carts grow. I will return it someday. Perhaps the day before I die. I have never stolen anything. I fathered three children. I had tens of hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars. I lived with a woman, my wife, and could not love her.<\/p>\n

What am I saying? Why have I told you this story? Because though the news itself may be a mass of lies and half-truths, rising above it, every Wednesday, is a tone, a feeling, a universal hum. And it helps me. It allows me to go on, to hope.<\/p>\n

Some find salvation in prayer, some in music. I am not saved yet, but if I am ever to be saved, if I am ever to find the peace I seek, I know where I\u2019ll read all about it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Beautiful hardback copies of Under the Table Books<\/i> illustrated by the author <\/a>are available from Todd\u2019s web site for just seven dollars plus shipping.<\/p>\n

A thirteen-hour reading of the novel by Todd<\/a> is available from Audible and other audio book sites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(a story from Todd\u2019s novel of stories Under the Table Books) I don\u2019t have much, but there\u2019s one thing I treat myself to every Wednesday, and that\u2019s a newspaper, fresh from the rack. No one else has touched it. The news is absolutely fresh. You can smell its freshness. The folds of the pages are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1823,3567,3363,4123,4126,4127,51,4124,9,33,4125],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2198,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions\/2198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}