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CHAPTER 5: First Amendment
 By Jim Caple |
Previously at 24 College Avenue: Steve Hamilton, a talented sports photographer
for the State College Daily, took a great photo of the riot that broke out after
the Red Devils lost to the San Marco Brawlin’ Italians and started a fire that
caused $10 million in damage. . . .
Josh lifted the toilet seat, unzipped his fly and then jumped back in alarm.
“GGAAAAAHHHH!!!’’
Someone was in the bathroom with him. And when he turned and pulled back the
bathtub’s shower curtain to get a full look, he saw it was Steve, sitting up in
the tub, fully clothed, his arms drawn up around his knees as if seeking refuge.
“Steve, what the hell are you doing?’’
“Nothing. Just cowering in the bathtub, wishing I was back in my mother’s womb.’’
It wasn’t exactly then response Josh was expecting but it seemed accurate enough.
Josh zipped up his fly and took a seat on the tub, which was disgustingly dirty,
even by the low standards of the house. A thick buildup of scum ringed the tub,
the curtain was so coated with so much mold that it looked like the rind of a
rotting cantaloupe and the drain was clogged with enough hair to make a bad
toupee. The hair was so nauseating that no one dared to remove it even though
water could not drain properly and always backed up. You would be up to your
ankles in brackish water after a five-minute shower, which was for the best,
because no one wanted to stand in the tub for any longer than that anyway.
For Steve to be sitting in this filthy tub, even clothed, meant there was
something seriously wrong.
“Hey, man. What’s the matter?’’
Steve lowered his head, chin pressed against his chest. He trembled a bit and Josh
could see that he had been crying.
“Nothing. I’m just probably going to jail is all.’’
“Jail? What the hell for? Did they find all the photos you took up the
cheerleaders skirts? Do I need to get rid of mine?’’
“No, it’s not the crotch shots. It’s the riot photo.’’
Josh blinked. The riot photo? The one that showed the kid throwing the tear gas
canister into the police cars that started the fires? That didn’t make any sense.
“That was a great photo. Why would you go to jail over that?’’
“I don’t really know myself,’’ Steve said. “But you remember how the police came
by the house last week?’’
Josh did. That was the day he and Steve were inspecting the fire damage caused by
a tear gas canister the police had wildly shot through Josh’s bedroom window. He
had expected it to be the landlord but it was the police, and instead of
apologizing to Josh for the damage, they wanted to see Steve.
“They had seen my photo in our on-line edition and wanted to know if I had any
other photos showing the guy more clearly. I told them I didn’t know but I would
check them out. I went back to the newsroom to look through what I had on the
memory card and when I got there, my editor was there.’’
Josh knew all about The Daily’s editor. Woodward P. Redmond IV was the privileged
scion of the famous (or infamous) Redmond newspaper family. Woodward’s great,
great grandfather, Woodward the first, had invented green journalism, so-called
because he printed his tabloid newspapers on cheap green paper that left readers’
fingers green as well by the time they finished the lurid, slanted stories. The
Redmond newspaper chain was the most conservative in the country – it was the only
chain that endorsed Barry Goldwater for president even after he died – as well as
the most blatantly self-promoting. Just as USA Today insisted on referring to the
country as the USA in its stories, the Journal-American newspapers referred to
U.S. citizens as Journal-Americans.
For all its slanted reporting and its penchant for running photos of bikini-clad
young women, the Redmond chain was firmly dedicated to freedom of the press.
Despite the chain’s own reputation, its annual press awards were the most coveted
in journalism.
Just in case The Daily staffers ever forgot Woodward IV’s ancestry, he wore dark
wool slacks, fitted white shirts, bright bow ties and his great grandfather’s
green visor to remind them. No one in newspapers had worn visors since the 1940s
but Woodward IV thought it lent him an air of tradition and seriousness. He was
considered a bit of a tool.
“Anyway,’’ Steve went on, “Woody wanted to know what I was doing and I told him
what the police had asked. He went apes---. Said newspapers never reveal their
sources. That no reporter in the history of the Redmond chain had ever revealed a
source and that I wasn’t going to, either. I pointed out that we were the student
newspaper, not part of the Redmond chain, and that I wasn’t revealing a source,
just looking through photos we didn’t print because they weren’t as good as the
others. He said it didn’t matter, the principle was the same. He said newspapers
don’t open their newsgathering resources to the government.’’
“But that kid caused a fire,’’ Josh said. “Houses burned down because of him.
Well, because of the police, too. But the point is, he might have committed a
crime that wound up destroying a lot of innocent people’s property. All the police
are looking for is information.’’
“That’s what I figured. But I gotta admit, after talking with Woody for awhile, I
see his point. I mean, if people know the government can start looking at all our
memory cards and notebooks for their crime investigations, people will get real
nervous about talking to reporters. And the biggest losers would be the American
public since we wouldn’t be able to print the truth.’’
Josh wondered whether it would be so bad if the American public didn’t have access
to the Redmond company’s version of “the truth’’ but he supposed Steve had a
point.
“So what happened?’’
“Well, I told the police I couldn’t give them the memory card and they said OK. I
thought that was the end of it. But after a week went by and they couldn’t get any
more leads on who threw the tear gas, they came back to the paper this morning and
demanded we show them the photos on the memory card. Woody refused again and a
couple hours later, a guy comes up to me in the newsroom and goes, ‘Are you Steve
Hamilton?’ and I go, ‘Yeah, why?’ and he goes, ‘I have a birthday present for you’
and hands me this.’’
Steve held up a piece of paper that he had been clutching. He passed it to Josh.
It was a subpoena, ordering Steve to turn over the camera memory card.
“Wow,’’ Josh said. “What happens now?’’
“According to Woody, we still don’t turn over the card. And according to the
Redmond lawyers, we’ll be held in contempt of court. And if we still refuse, we’ll
go to jail.’’
“Jesus. Can they do that?’’
“Yeah. The current administration has been doing it to a bunch of reporters.’’
Josh thought he remembered reading a headline about something like that involving
a reporter covering the war or the president or something but he hadn’t actually
read the story. He was too busy looking at the Journal-Americans photos of women
in their bikinis.
“How long would you be in jail?’’ Josh asked.
“It would be up to a judge. A month. Three months. A year. Who knows?’’
Josh didn’t say anything for awhile. He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t
imagine Steve in jail. He couldn’t imagine himself in jail. The thought terrified
him.
“So,’’ he finally said. “What are you gonna do?’’
“I don’t know. Woody says that if we stand up to the police and go through this,
we’ll be heroes in the world of journalism. He says his family won’t forget and
they’ll get me a great job anywhere in the chain I want. And he says if I don’t,
I’ll be an embarrassment to the field and no one will hire me, certainly no one in
the Redmond chain, and I’ll wind up taking graduation photos in some little town
in Alabama for the rest of my life.’’
Steve tucked his head again and visibly trembled. “Josh,’’ he said. “I don’t want
to go to jail. I just want to shoot football and basketball. I want to take photos
of Mandy Stevenson and rest of the cheerleaders kicking their legs up with my zoom
lens. I want to go to a bowl game with the Red Devils. I don’t want to be the kind
of journalist who goes to jail over the first amendment. I want to be the kind
that stays in a nice hotel on the paper’s expense account and drink too much and
stays up all night watching porn on the in-room movie service.’’
Josh put his hand on his friend’s shoulder in a weak offer of support. He felt
more was probably warranted -- he should probably hug his friend – but touching
other guys was always kind of weird and especially if he had to sit in the bathtub
with Steve to do so.
“So did you even look at the rest of the photos to see who the guy was?’’
Steve nodded.
“Yeah. And that’s another problem.’’
Next: The Great Pumpkin
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