The Best Journalist In The World

Once again I found myself sitting in Jeff’s office. Jeff was my editor at the shitty mid-circulation community newspaper I worked at. I hadn’t worked there long, but I was already making a name for myself.

Suddenly, the door slammed, and Jeff walked in. He looked happy, or maybe he looked angry. I’ve never really been good at reading people. Happy people mutter “goddammit” and “fucking retard” under their breath right? If that’s the case, then I make lots of people happy.

“What’s up chief,” I said with a smug smile. I knew he called me into his office to congratulate me on my latest article.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that,” he said happily.

“Okeydokey, sillynuts.” Sillynuts was my little nickname for Jeff. He fucking loved it.

“God-fucking-dammit, don’t call me sillynuts!” For a supposedly religious person, Jeff took the lord’s name in vain a lot. Especially when he was around me. I guess that’s okay now.

Note to self: say “goddammit,” around religious people from now on, but stop masturbating in churches.

Jeff started talking again but I wasn’t really paying attention. I just assumed he was praising my brilliant article on the new sales tax in town. However, I was paying attention to the pictures that adorned his desk and bookcase. This was some hardcore smut. I mean, kinky shit. There were kids and animals. And I was into to it.

I interrupted Jeff, “Say Jeff, I didn’t know you were into to kinky porno.”

“What? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Come on man you can be straight with me. Look at all these pictures,” I said motioning to his desk and bookcase. “But if you think this stuff is good you should see my hard drive; I’ve got a video of this girl and a llama that….” Jeff stopped me.

“These are pictures of my family and our pets, not smut you pervert.”

“Oh right, gotcha,” I said winking. “Have to keep it on the down low because of all the squares in the office.” I winked again for emphasis and also because I’m not really sure how winks are supposed to work.

“No really, these are just pictures of my family,” Jeff insisted. Regardless of what they were, I knew I would be masturbating to them later.

“Look, I need you to do something for me,” Jeff said in a serious tone. I knew exactly what he wanted me to do. My belt was unbuckled and my pants were unzipped before he could say “Rudolph red pecker.”

“Of course I’ll bang the bejesus out of your wife,” I said with enthusiasm. “She won’t be able to see straight when I’m done with her!” Jeff was so excited that I accepted his offer he couldn’t talk. He just kept mumbling under his breath and his face turned a deep shade of crimson. The vein in his forehead became engorged with blood, just like the wiener in my underpants.

“ARRRGGHHH! NO! I don’t want you to have sex with my wife,” Jeff said, well actually he kind of screamed it. “If you keep making sexual advances on my wife, we’re going to have to press charges.” Jeff complained a lot. It was always something with him, quit making sexual advances on my wife; you have to work with pants on; quit libeling the mayor.

“I need you t– no, goddammit we just went over this, put your pants back on–to rewrite your article on the sales tax.”

“Why? I thought you loved it?”

“No, quite the opposite. I hated it.” I was crushed. I thought for sure that article was gold.

“What was wrong with it?” I asked slightly hurt while giving my best “aw shucks” look.

“Well for starters, under the byline you wrote Richard Q. Gayballs….in crayon”

“And…”

“And? AND? And that’s not your fucking name!” Jeff opened his top desk drawer and took out his medicine, which was really just a pint of Congress Vodka. He took a deep gulp, “If I get another article written by ‘Richard Q. Gayballs’ or ‘Herbert M. Nerdlinger’ it’s your ass”

My ass? What did that mean? Was he going to rape me? No, I think he was coming on to me. I just played it cool and gave him the “of course I’ll fuck you and your wife eyes.”  As thoughts of Eiffel Towers and double stuffs swirled in my head, Jeff took a moment to collect his thoughts.

“I’m trying to run a newspaper,” Jeff got up and started to pace, “which is extremely difficult when my reporters don’t use facts.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m not trying to say, I am saying I don’t think there was one goddamn fact in your whole article.”

“Well I don’t think that’s entirely true I-”

“Really? Because you interviewed Dick-Fuck Jones, Jerk-Off Johnson and Whack-Off Jackson.” Jeff was now standing in front of me looking directly into my eyes. He was so close I could smell the gas station Vodka and Funions.

“Are you trying to tell me that they are real people?”

“Define real.”

“They actually fucking exist. They have social security numbers. They have addresses and contact information. They have a physical body.”

“Well then, no. But to be fair, I was really swamped and I had some stuff to deal with. You start one brawl at a drag show and the police want to ask all sorts of ‘questions.’ You know how it goes.”

“Actually I don’t, and what you do at the Ramrod is your own business. Anyway, I gave you a two day extension.”

Jeff walked back around to his desk and slumped into his chair. He took another healthy dose of his “medicine” and pulled out the draft of my article. He examined it for a minute or two and then said, “And if I’m reading this correctly, which unfortunately I believe I am, you interviewed a cat?”

“Oh yeah, Mr. Boots.” At that point I started to get nervous. Maybe I had been prejudiced. I knew that I should have interviewed a dog too. “It was hard to get him to talk but eventually he did.”

“I could see that, seeing as he’s a goddamned cat,” Jeff responded curtly. Then he started massaging his temples slowly and methodically. It hit me that Jeff was really upset about me interviewing a cat. I guess he was a dog person.

Note to self: Interview more dogs.

“So you’re saying you want me to interview more dogs?”

“No, I’m saying I want you to stop interviewing cats and dogs or any other animal because they can’t fucking talk!”

Note to self: Disregard last note to self. Stop interviewing dogs.

Jeff picked up my draft again and examined it once more. “There’s also a problem with your ending.” Jeff peered over the pages of the draft and looked at me as if to say, “Do you think there might be a problem with your ending?” But I remained silent because I knew my ending fucking ruled. “Well, I’ll take your silence as a sign that you don’t think there’s a problem or as a sign of ignorance, but probably both. Anyway the last paragraph is only one sentence and it just says, ‘Sales taxes are totally gay.’” Jeff held up a hand to stifle any further protest from me and continued, “I want you to work on this with Alex because he’s a good reporter and you seem to be functionally retarded.”

“But I hate that guy; he’s such a wiener.”

“I know you don’t like him, in fact the whole newsroom knows you don’t like him after last week. Do remember last week?” Jeff didn’t give me a chance to respond he just continued his verbal lashing. “You took a dump on Alex’s desk, wiped you exceptionally filthy ass with his latest article and started shouting ‘WHO’S THE BIG SHOT JOURNALIST NOW, HUH!?!?! MR. PULITZER.’ After that you told the fax machine to ‘quit looking at you funny,’ gave the finger to the computer monitor and passed out.”

I didn’t really recall what Jeff was talking about, but then again you forget a lot of things when you have Irish coffee, minus the coffee, for breakfast. Besides, who hasn’t taken a dump on a coworker’s desk? Some people are too sensitive. Jeff started talking again, right as I was contemplating taking an epic brontosaurus dump on his desk.

“You know, I don’t know why you weren’t fired after that. In fact, I don’t know why we hired you at all. When we asked for references you just gave us a list of women that you’ve had sex with. Ah fuck it, you know what? You’re fired! Get the fuck out of my office!”

“Really that’s how it’s going to end you’re just going to fire me? That seems like a cop out.”

“Well yeah, but like most of your articles, you didn’t really have an ending.”

“That’s true. But I mean what am I going to do? Just let perfectly good dick jokes go to waste?”

“Well if you feel guilty about it you just slap on a to be continued and come up with the rest of the story later. Even though you probably won’t.”

“Brilliant!”

TO BE CONTINUED… MAYBE… ACTUALLY PROBABLY NOT…

*Editors Note: I wrote this in pieces in varying states of consciousness. Some parts were written sober, some were written buzzed, some were written drunk and some were written sleep deprived. I don’t know if it’s awesome or problematic that I can’t tell/remember which parts were written in which state of mind. They all seem similar. Also for you mouthbreathing idiots out there who didn’t get it, the last four sentences are breaking down the 4^th wall between characters and author/audience.