Deadline (43 page)

Jake got up. “I’ve got ten minutes, Leonard. While we walk to the elevator, let me throw one more thing at you. I’ve got a friend who insists conservative Christians are portrayed unfairly in the media. I’ve always thought she was whining, looking for special treatment. She says she’s not, and though she overreacts sometimes, generally she’s pretty fair minded, and she’s hard to ignore. She can show me article after article where Christians are linked with censorship, bigotry, hatred, child abuse, you name it. At first, I always had an explanation. I told her it was her imagination, or coincidence, or an exception, or that it really wasn’t as bad as she made it out to be. But she makes a good case. And, of course, I know a lot she doesn’t. If she heard some of my inside conversations at the
Trib
, she’d really flip. What do you think? Any truth to her complaints?”

As they stood outside the elevator door, Leonard took another deep puff from his third cigar, almost as if he needed an extra boost of nicotine to take him down this path.

“Jake, I’m not a religious man. I waver between agnosticism and atheism. I haven’t darkened the door of a church in forty years, and I don’t plan to. Frankly, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for religion. Keep that in mind as I answer your question.

“Okay, back in the eighties they did the Lichter studies, which showed 90 percent of journalists didn’t go to church, more than half thought adultery and homosexuality were okay, the whole deal. Journalism was radically more liberal than the country as a whole. Most us knew that, but now it was official.

“Then, you remember the flap in ’93 when the
Washington Post
described the religious right as ‘poor, uneducated and easy to command.’ After all these people came forward with their PhDs to prove they weren’t complete morons, the
Post
apologized. But the reporter explained he’d meant no offense, he simply thought this description was a universally accepted one. And the truth is, among journalists, it was, and it is. How else could that statement make it through all the layers of editing? No one even saw the red flag. Pure and simple, religion is associated with the Dark Ages, the bad old days. Look at Ted Turner. Owns a network and one of the most influential voices shaping the news, and he tells a group of broadcasters Christianity is just a ‘religion for losers.’

“My point is, nobody could get away with saying that about anything but Christianity. But the thing is, who built all the hospitals and rescue missions in this city? It wasn’t the ACLU or NOW, that’s for sure. It was Christians. I’ve got a sister and a couple of nephews who are conservative Christians. I disagree with them, but they aren’t hypocrites. The thing your friend has to come to terms with is that people like her have no standing. There’s no legislation granting them special protection from being fired because of their convictions or lifestyles. There’s no proposals making it a special crime to harass Christians or hate Christians. There’s no sensitivity training sessions to help people understand that fundamentalists are people too. And I don’t even have to ask if they’re represented with the others on your multicultural committee. They never are.”

“You’re right. They’re not.” Leonard’s certainty about this unsettled Jake.

The elevator door finally opened and the two walked inside, Jake feeling relieved no one else was on board. Leonard didn’t miss a beat.

“Okay, that’s one side of it. Here’s the other side. Frankly, a lot of it’s their own fault. First, they abandoned journalism. They quote those statistics and say we’re lots more liberal than your average Joe living in South Dakota. True. I admit it. So what? Who told them they couldn’t be journalists? If we’re such heathens, why didn’t they send their children to be missionaries at America’s newspapers instead of sending them to Africa? It’s a free country, so don’t come whining when you cop out and then it doesn’t go your way.

“Not only that, but some of them treat journalists like we’re the devil. I mean, who takes the journalist to lunch? You know, I can’t remember the last time I had a casual conversation with one of these conservative Christians, except my sister and her boys at holiday dinners. Sure, a few people have called and bawled me out, sent me some angry letters. But that’s the only contact I have with them, ever.

“Meanwhile, I’ve had all sorts of lunches with abortion rights people and homosexual leaders and feminists and liberals of every variety. I don’t let them pick up the tab, ethics and all that. I’m not beholden to them, don’t get me wrong. But I’m sympathetic to them. I rub shoulders with these people. They tell me their stories. I play cards with a guy on the ACLU board. I speak at liberal colleges. How many invitations do you think I get to speak at Christian colleges or seminaries? How many Christian magazines ask me for an interview? How many of the abortion protesters invite me to lunch? Where am I going to bump into these people? At church? Don’t hold your breath! Next time I’m in a church will probably be my own funeral.”

They walked out of the elevator together, heading for the front door of the
Times
, and out to the sidewalk.

“I’ve told this friend of mine,” Jake said, “the Christian, that I get tired of the conspiracy theories. Some of them seem to think journalists sit around in smoke-filled rooms doing incantations to the devil and trying to figure out how to crucify Christians and bring the country to moral ruin. I admit we’re biased, but most of us are still trying to do what’s right. They can’t seem to accept that. When somebody treats me like I’m the antichrist or something, it’s pretty hard to take them seriously.”

Leonard laughed. “I know exactly what you’re saying, believe me I know. My sister used to talk about the newspaper’s ‘ungodly humanist agenda,’ as if editorial meetings consist of choosing the stories for the day based on what’s most ungodly and anti-Christian. But she’s helped me understand why it seems that way to Christian people. We finally came to something we can agree on—that the only conspiracy in journalism is the conspiracy of shared values.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, I’m a liberal, so are you. Most of us in this business are. So, naturally, if I share the same values of the feminists in NOW or the ACLU or the NEA or the Hemlock Society or the Gay Task Force, I’m going to be sympathetic to their agenda and portray it in a positive way. If I don’t share the same values of the Christian Coalition or the Catholics or the local Baptist church—and I don’t—obviously I’m not going to portray them and their agenda as positively. So even though I don’t sit down in that smoke-filled room with NOW and the ACLU, often I’m going to sound like I did. Of course, that’s not a conspiracy in the conscious sense. It’s just an unconscious alignment that exists no matter how objective I try to be. It’s a ‘conspiracy of shared values.’ That’s why we need true diversity in this business. And that’s why it’s too bad the Christians have largely abandoned it.”

“Interesting.” As usual, Leonard was making Jake think.

“People like your friend don’t know how to play the game, Jake. Things have changed. When I first became a reporter after the war, I was in a middle-sized town and I knew half the pastors and priests. The mayor was a deacon at the Baptist church, the chief of police was a conservative Christian. I had contact with these people—they were leaders in the community. Now it seems they’re all out in their evangelical ghettos, and they stick their heads out just long enough to yell at the rest of us and tell us what a mess we’re making of everything. Their books and magazines just talk to themselves. They don’t talk to people like me. Then they wonder why I don’t understand them. Of course I don’t understand them. They don’t understand me either. Sunday morning I play eighteen holes of golf while they sit in an uncomfortable bench and listen to someone make them feel guilty. Do I understand that? No!

“I pride myself on being objective, Jake. I know I have strong biases, but I can usually set them aside to understand someone else. But in some ways, I suppose it would be as hard for me to put a positive spin on an anti-abortionist as on a Ku Klux Klanner. Maybe I’d feel differently if I knew them better, if I understood why they believe what they do. But I don’t. When I do a story on cocaine addiction, I’m not going to balance it by finding someone who says cocaine addiction is good. Some things we just accept as right or wrong, and don’t feel the need to balance them. If we’re convinced abortion and homosexuality are right, why balance our treatment of them?”

Jake knew he had to get his cab quickly, but he held back, wanting to be with Leonard as long as possible.

“Bottom line? Your friend has a legitimate gripe. She’s part of a group that’s a lot larger than most of the special interests. But it’s like their time is past. Christians had their day in the sun and it’s over. The nation chose another direction, lots of other directions. People resent their efforts to regain power after giving it up so long ago. So now fundamentalist Christians are always fair game for a good journalistic kick in the teeth. Gays and abortion rights activists are never fair game. If someone takes on a minority, it’s persecution. If someone takes on conservative Christians, it’s about time they got their comeuppance. If the gays or feminists or abortion people get on our case and boycott our paper, it’s reasonable action in response to rights deprivation. If the Christian conservatives boycott us, it’s attempted censorship. They can’t win.”

With a wry smile he added, “Not that I want them to win. But I do wish there wasn’t such an adversarial role between them and us. We all want truth and justice and a better society. Maybe if we talked more we’d find out we could work together better.”

Leonard seemed to suddenly realize he’d come to his last words with Jake. “You know, I’ve read the biographies of Greeley, Hearst, Pulitzer, and other great newspaper men. Most of them died lonely and miserable—suspicious, jaded, wondering whether they’d accomplished anything of value. That’s not how I want to go out, Jake. It’s a very unsettling thing to have thought my life was dedicated to something noble, and now to wonder sometimes how much I contributed to the chaos.”

Jake saw something he couldn’t remember ever having seen before. Tears in Leonard’s eyes.

“What do you mean, Leonard?”

“I mean, I was on the forefront of opposing the old moral standards. I thought they were old fashioned and unnecessary. I helped portray them as that. And I supported the new, revolutionary ideas, thinking they were best for society. Well, I won, Jake. We won. We managed to change the way our society thinks and lives. But now I look around at the incredible violence, teenagers packing weapons to school, drive-by shootings, gangs, rape, drugs, AIDS, child abuse, and on and on. And I ask myself, what went wrong? And the only answer I can come up with is that we tore down the old standards but left no standards in their place. Maybe…maybe we had no standards to offer.”

Jake desperately wanted to stay and talk longer, but he knew he had to get to the airport. He stepped up to the edge of the sidewalk, facing traffic, and raised his hand to hail a cab, New York style. He wanted to tell Leonard about the investigation, but he really couldn’t. He wanted to share his important journey with someone so important to him. There was so much he wanted to say. But he was out of time.

Hearing Leonard standing there, reflecting back on his life as if it were done, he wondered if he’d ever see his mentor again. For a moment Jake wanted to put his arms around Leonard, like he’d never done to his own father. He sensed Leonard wanted to put his arms around him like he’d probably never done to his own son. Both hoped the other would. Neither did.

A beat up taxi slowed to the curb, running over the curbside debris. A windblown page of newspaper—Jake couldn’t tell which one—stuck to its back right tire, as toilet paper stuck to the shoe of an unsuspecting pedestrian exiting a restroom. The driver gave Jake an impatient what-about-it look. Jake nodded.

“Good-bye, Leonard. Thanks for your time. It means…a lot to me.”

“Thanks for coming by to see me, Jake. I wish it could have been longer. Take care of yourself.”

As the taxi drove off, Jake turned to look through the rear window, to catch one last glimpse of a powerful culture-shaping giant. He saw instead a sad looking little old man with slouched shoulders and sagging jowls, staring bewilderedly down a dirty New York street.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

T
he platform glimmered in the piercing light emanating from the throne. Made of materials unfamiliar to Finney, the platform seemed to have the raw strength of steel, but the flexibility and natural beauty of wood. A huge, attentive crowd had gathered, sprawling out as far as the eye could see in every direction. Finney thought of a gathering he’d attended in Washington DC, which filled the huge Ellipse in the great mall, then spilled over Constitution Avenue, and up toward the Washington Monument. But this assembly was thousands of times larger, at least.

Voices everywhere merged into a single hum of excitement. Finney zeroed in on snatches of dialogue here and there. Never had he heard such fascinating conversations. He felt connected to everyone in the crowd, as if they were old friends sitting in the same living room.

Sort of a galactic-sized “small group,” he thought. As Elyon’s Book said, “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.”

Diversity. One of the great wonders of Elyon’s creation.

In his creative genius, Elyon had built the unity of the universe not on the unwilling conformity of identical components, but on the voluntary yielding to one another of diverse components. On earth this meant two different genders, many different races and cultures and languages. Different personalities, gifts, interests, and callings, but all with one unifying center of gravity, all resulting in the glory of God and the common good of man. Diversity not as an aberration from Elyon’s created order, but in perfect harmony with it. Every component had placed itself under his lordship, creating an overriding unity that transcended the diversity. The unity was to be celebrated, and the diversity appreciated.

A woman on the platform began singing with a lighter-than-air voice that seemed at first to waft and float. But it became steadily stronger and more focused. The voice was as clear and audible to those in the back of the crowd, many miles away, as to those only feet from the front.

The words of the song were familiar, though the tune was new, an intoxicating melody. It struck Finney that he was drawn not to the singer but to the object of the song, not to the performer but the one for whom she performed. The woman’s focus was so clearly on Elyon and not on herself that the magnetism of her voice drew the crowd to God alone.

“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.”

Many of Michael’s legions seemed to appear from nowhere, some striding forward, some coming down from above, some appearing to come from beyond the far side of the throne. It appeared to Finney there were untold thousands of them, ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled Elyon’s throne, and sang in a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”

This vast choir sang with a quality of voice and richness of harmony that reflected either effortless perfection or disciplined and lengthy rehearsal, Finney was uncertain which.

Suddenly an explosion of sound pierced the air from behind and around him. Finney shook and trembled from the impact. He realized his old body could not have endured its force any more than it could endure a moment in the bowels of an erupting volcano. He was almost alarmed, though it was a welcome alarm, like the exhilaration of a surprise drop on a thrill ride. For a moment he still did not understand, then realized what the explosive force was—the united voices of the crowd. Everyone was singing now, with an impetus that actually pushed him forward toward the throne.

The angels still sang up front, but Finney could barely hear them now over the combined voice of the audience. He realized that rather than the greatest choir ever assembled, which he had at first thought, the countless thousands of angels in the front were merely the small worship ensemble. This “little group” was leading untold millions of others in a powerful hymn of praise.

Finney thought every creature in heaven must be singing the words that burst with a significance beyond anything he had understood on earth: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”

The decibel level rose far above the roar of a jet engine, yet it did not hurt his ears, but soothed them.

To be part of something so big, so right, so much what he was made for, filled Finney’s heart with inexpressible joy. How long the worship lasted, or whether indeed time passed at all, Finney could not say, nor did he care. Caught up as he was, preoccupied as he was, he lost touch with all else. He was utterly lost in the majesty of praise. Every thought was of Elyon, every energy directed to his throne.

This was what man and woman were made for, he thought, and though they were made for more as well, everything else—no matter how glorious and exhilarating—was so dim and remote in comparison as to be meaningless.

The air was thick with the glory of God. Finney breathed it in greedily as a man sucks in air after surfacing from a deep underwater dive.

“Second room on your left, Mr. Woods. Dr. Marsdon said he’d be there shortly.”

Jake walked down the hall at Lifeline Health Clinic, right next to the hospital. He’d been waiting nearly two hours, feeling the three hour jet-lag, which always seemed worse coming back than going. He walked into the room, white and sterile, the walls bright with crisp colorful medical posters, featuring muscles and veins and arteries and bones as if they were works of art. And so they seemed, an intricate work of art with design and purpose. But Jake reminded himself of what he believed, that the human body was simply the product of time and chance and natural forces. It could not, therefore, reflect a plan or design. Funny how it seemed to.

Medical centers, Jake pondered, testified that if there was a plan, something had gone badly wrong. Not only the bodies racked by cancer and ravaged by age, but even the aches and pains of his own “healthy” body, not to mention the stretched bottom two buttons of his shirt. He was getting older, and his most diligent efforts at exercise might postpone his death a little longer, but nothing could break his appointment with that final day. He wasn’t used to such thoughts, but all that had happened recently served as a constant reminder of his mortality.

Jake looked over to the three-pocket transparent magazine rack, featuring the kinds of magazines he hated. “Hypochondriac Monthly” he muttered to himself, summarizing his view of health magazines. The door flew open and startled him, as if he’d been caught doing something wrong. A tall red-headed man stared at him blankly.

“Dr. Marsdon? Jake Woods. Thanks for taking the time to meet with me.”

“All right Woods, the detective told me I could trust you, that everything I say is confidential. So what can I do for you?” Marsdon was businesslike but friendlier than he’d been on the phone.

“Look, Doctor, I know you didn’t get along very well with Greg Lowell.”

“That’s an understatement.”

Jake waited for an explanation, but none came. “Could you tell me why?”

Marsdon hesitated. “Exactly why are they investigating Lowell’s death?”

“This is confidential, but the police believe he was murdered.”

Marsdon’s stone face showed a flicker of surprise. Obviously, Ollie hadn’t told him.

“Who gave you my name?”

“Someone on the staff, I don’t remember who, said you worked with him on a committee.” Jake lied, not wanting to get Mary Ann in trouble. “If he was doing something controversial we need to know. Anything that would make him unpopular.”

Marsdon leaned up against the examining table, relaxing slightly. “Unpopular? Well, he wasn’t popular with me, I’ll tell you that. You’re not going to like this, but you asked for it. Our problems began when we were both on the ethics committee. I brought a concern from another physician, and Lowell didn’t like it. This physician wanted to remain anonymous. He saw serious flaws in the system, related to our lists of people waiting for transplants. In many cases these are life and death situations. Yet there’s no objective way to handle who gets priority.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Say six people are waiting for a kidney transplant. It’s not a simple first come first served situation, like taking a number at Baskin-Robbins. There’s lots of other factors. If number one on the list can go another four months without this kidney, and number three is failing—is going to die without it—then the doctors involved might bump him up the list, and number one becomes number two. In fact, there are times where it’s to a patient’s advantage to show signs of rapid failing. Medicine is geared to the emergency, to the critical demand.

“But let’s say the needs are equally critical. Number one didn’t respond to his beeper, so we go to number two. But he’s a middle-age man with grown kids and number three is a young mother with three little kids. Well, what if the person calling wants to help the young mother? Maybe dial the wrong number for patient two, so you can say he didn’t answer either? Then go on to patient three, the one you really want to get the kidney. Not that this happens, but the point is it could. More and more of our decisions determine who lives and who dies. It’s that simple. Demand is far greater than supply. Next thing you know people are going to be selling their body parts to provide for their families—or selling their family’s body parts to provide for themselves.”

Jake’s face registered disbelief.

“I’m serious. Medical journals have been talking about this for years. They’re calling for compensating people for noncritical organs and paying the donor’s family for critical organs. Since the doctors and hospitals and everybody are making money on this thing, they say it’s only ethical to pay donor’s families. Can you imagine the implications of that? The temptation to not only stop spending money on a dying relative, but making money from selling him off?

“And what about the pressure on doctors? We used to minimize the conflict of interest between potential donors and recipients by maintaining a strict separation between doctors working with the dying and those working in transplants. But with health care changes, the lines have blurred. Which gets me back to the doctor who came to me with the concern in the first place. He said people were getting bumped up and down on the waiting lists with no discussion except between two or three doctors. And with superficial explanations he wasn’t sure were valid. Is that controversial enough for you?”

“Uh…yeah, I guess so.”

“Your friend, Dr. Lowell, was in on several of these decisions. They seemed almost arbitrary. I mean, let’s face it, we’ve got major potential for abuse here. If person number five on the list is your sister’s husband, you’ve got vested interests in bumping him to the top. Or if he’s been a jerk to your sister but has a million dollar life insurance policy, you might want to bump him down. So several of us felt like we needed to establish much clearer criteria for rearranging the priority lists and to have more than just a few physicians involved in the decision.

“Some on the committee, Dr. Lowell the most outspoken, said this was just bureaucratic red tape. They said they wouldn’t practice medicine by committee, that they were the experts and needed to be free to make judgment calls. I could see some of his points, but I didn’t like his attitude. We butted heads and kept butting heads again and again till he finally quit the committee, just two months ago. Then he spread the word we were a bunch of pencil pushers trying to make everybody do it our way.”

“Sounds like a tough situation, doctor.”

“It’s a terrible situation. It’s rationed health care. Who gets it, who doesn’t? Everyone’s looking to cut costs. From a financial point of view, sick and injured people are just living too long. There’s no delicate way to say it. And it’s all so arbitrary. Thirty years ago doctors would have quit before they’d let a patient die. Now it’s common to withhold food and water for low quality of life situations. We’ve got people in the hospital right now who are being starved to death or are dying of thirst. By deliberate decision. Doctors and family members concurring. And that’s without even touching physician-assisted suicide. Not that I favor keeping people alive against their will. But it’s all so complicated.”

Jake soaked in the picture. Maybe it merited a column after all.

“You see why we need ethics, Mr. Woods? Well, your friend didn’t. But without ethics, money and convenience and selfishness are going to be the only considerations. Nearly 20 percent of the patients in ICU have DNR orders—do not resuscitate. Sometimes these are appropriate, other times I wonder. Are we just trying to make bed space, move people in and out as if this was a restaurant? Are we after their organs? Nobody’s going to admit it, but we all know it’s a factor. You want other controversial areas Dr. Lowell was involved in? How about fetal tissue research?”

“I’ve heard Doc was involved in it.”

“He was all for it, no reservations. When the president took the ban off it several years ago, Lifeline was right there, your friend in the thick of it—not actually doing the research, but pushing it. So suddenly we’re not just doing abortions, we’re tinkering with their parts, cannibalizing them to patch up adults. The anti-abortion people don’t like it, I’ll tell you that. They on your list of suspects? I thought so.

“Any way, the same thing’s been done with anencephalic infants, but there’s not enough of them. There’s lots of aborted babies. But it takes maybe three to eight fetuses to treat Parkinson’s disease or diabetes. I read that to treat every person in this country with diabetes would require something like twelve million fetuses. We’re way short. Some places pay winos to give blood. Next thing you know we’ll be paying women to get pregnant and have an abortion, and we’ll justify it by saying look how much it helps Parkinson’s and diabetes patients. And even if it’s illegal, demand still stimulates supply and forces up the price. A black market is inevitable. Somebody wants to make bucks? Get pregnant, get an abortion, walk away with cash.