| Vintage Reading® Stories Heard Over the Back Fence
"The Story Ending We Never Printed"
Adapted from E. A. Walcott's 1898 Account
By Rita Buday
FEBRUARY 2008 :: © Buday Books / Vintage Reading®
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"GORMLEY!"
Managing Editor Dix's voice exploded from his office into the City Room where reporters had their desks.
Gormley grunted from his desk, "I'm here."
"What you working on?"
"Danger of smallpox from over-ripe sewers."
"Let that go--it'll keep. Peters wants you."
News Editor Peters was
waiting. "I want you to take the next train up to the
Legislature. There's some kind of political ruckus going on;
Thompson's wired for help. He can tell you about it when you get there."
Gormley wished it was anywhere
but the Legislature. He'd been up there dozens of times and each time
he wondered where in the world there was a more self-important bunch of windbags, ready
to say or vote for anything that insured their cushy paychecks, perquisites and re-election.
Oh well, like it or
not, it had to be done. He caught the 4:30 Limited due in the Capital at 8:30 p.m.
~
It was 8:55 that same
evening. Except for Torres working the Night Desk, and Managing
Editor Dix tying up loose ends before going home, the City Room
was deserted; all night-side reporters were out covering their
beats. Downstairs, Linotype operators typeset manuscript copy for the
morning edition.
Suddenly, the door at the far end of the Room flew open. A
newsboy--maybe twelve or thirteen--ran like a scared jack-rabbit into Dix's
office and threw a Morning Post envelope marked
"URGENT" on the desk. Dix saw a shadowy figure over the boy's
shoulder . . . couldn't see the face, but it was the unmistakable form
of Ed Gormley. Gormley? . . . what's he doing here? . . . Peters sent him to the Capital hours ago!
"Who gave you this envelope?" Dix asked.
"I--I found it--I found it all of a sudden in my
hand, and a man--I think it was a man--or a something--said
it was Rush!--deliver this right away! . . . his hand was like ice! . .
. I could see right through his hand and his coat! . . . I never seen nothing like that! . . . I run all the way . . . but every time I look back he's right behind me! . . . I don't know who or what he was, mister!"
Dix tore open the envelope, scanned the first scribbled sheet and let out a long, low whistle.
"GORMLEY!" he called. No answer.
"TORRES!--where's Gormley?"
"Not here, Dix. Took a train hours ago to help Thompson at the Capital."
"No he didn't! I just saw him a minute ago!"
"Can't be, Dix. Nobody been through here except the boy."
"Well he's here somewhere! I'll be with Peters; meantime, pay the boy for his delivery."
~
"Lucky you sent Gormley," Dix told Peters. "Boy just gave me his story about the Limited
being wrecked--they found one hundred eighty killed so far--cars on fire--all the
details. Gormley's the best reporter we've got for something like this.
What I don't see is how come he left the scene to hurry back here."
Peters looked at the sheets. "Look at when and
where this happened--8:25 p.m. at Greendale--just four miles from the
Capital. It's not even 9:00 o'clock now! How could Gormley write ten sheets of copy and get it here in a half-hour? Greendale's four hours away!"
"JONES!" he shouted to the Telegraph Desk; "anything on the wire about a train wreck anywhere?"
"Nope. Wire's been quiet all night."
Dix and Peters quickly checked the other Editorial floors--No
Gormley.
In the City Room, Torres was trying to calm the
frightened newsboy who brought the envelope. "Did you see the face of who gave you the envelope?"
"I never seen his face--it's like he didn't have none."
Dix and Peters looked at each other for a full minute. "I know I just saw Gormley," Dix said. "He was in the doorway when the boy brought the envelope, just as sure as I'm standing here."
Peters scribbled a note on a sheet of paper. "I'll have Jones wire Greendale to see what they can
tell us--there's got to be a logical explanation."
"Dix! Look here! It says, 'Among the killed was Ed Gormley, Morning Post reporter who died in the wreck.'
This whole thing is
screwy, starting with the boy's story about someone he did or didn't
see, giving him the envelope. He saw something that scared him stiff, but a man he could see through? Come on!
Then you have Gormley who was supposed to be on the train . . . if he
died in the wreck, he couldn't have written the story, let alone get it
here in a half hour from a place that's four hours
away!"
"Mr. Peters! This is Jones at Telegraph! I'm getting your train
wreck--just coming over the wire! Thompson's at Greendale; says the Limited
broke
through the bridge--terrible disaster--about 8:25 tonight--cars on
fire--doctors and ambulances all over--many covered bodies--cops roping
off the scene--railroad people not talking--more copy to come."
"This gets crazier!" Peters told Dix. "Railroad's
stonewalling, of course. We've got Thompson's report, and what looks like on-the-spot details
reported by a dead man--or a ghost--or somebody who couldn't have been
there, but we can't confirm details because the railroad won't say
anything. I don't see how we can use it before Thompson sends us more."
"Let's go with it Jack," Dix said to Peters. "Run it on page one with a banner head and Gormley's by-line."
"Run it? Okay Dix--you're the boss; but what if the boy brought us a phony? How could it be by
Gormley--it says right here he died in the wreck."
"Jack, everything you say is true. I don't know why, but I'm sure it's by Gormley. Trust me; print it."
~
By midnight the Morning Post Extra Edition was on the street with a screaming head on page one--
WRECK OF THE LIMITED KILLS ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY
EXCLUSIVE REPORT BY EDWIN GORMLEY
~
All night long, Jones relayed bits and pieces of wire reports as the
railroad released them; still incomplete confirmation, but it was getting more firm all the time.
"Dix," Peters said, "what made you so sure that story the boy brought was genuine?"
"Jack, you'll think I'm crazy to say this, and you're
crazier to listen to me, but . . . you remember that cold Christmas Eve
in '78 when we had a sudden three foot of snow and Old Man
Crowley's barn caught fire? Only a skeleton crew worked that night, so
I went on the story to report it. As I got near the fire I saw a
pumper stuck in a snow drift; I grabbed a shovel to help dig it
out. I was 20 years younger and a little overweight, but the
adrenalin was running for all of us; what with shoveling and firemen pushing
and horses pulling, we got the engine unstuck and on its way.
"Suddenly I felt
like an elephant just sat on my chest; I could barely breathe, then
I
collapsed. A fireman saw me on the ground, he yelled for help; they
put me on a wagon and took me to the hospital."
"Yeah, I remember. What about it?"
"Well, here's the part I never told anyone except the hospital chaplain.
"All the time I was on the ground, on the wagon, in the
hospital -- how can I say this right -- all
that time I was like a spirit body, standing next to my real body, watching
what was happening to me!
"I saw myself lying there . . . being put on
the wagon . . . leading the horse pulling that wagon around snow
drifts;
saw the doctor pumping my chest and giving me a needle. Then I opened
my eyes while the "real me" lay on the hospital stretcher, and `woke
up.' I know it sounds fantastic, like some kind of
disturbing dream. I had to tell someone--the hospital chaplain.
"He said he hears this from people who were very near
death before being revived. They talk of seeing bright lights
and beautiful things as they were slipping away. But they don't
shout it from the rooftops; there are too many armies of smart-aleck nay-sayers, convinced they know everything, and they know these are just hallucinations by crackpots telling sensational stories to get attention.
"Fact is," he said, "we all fear dying. The living can't know what
happens at death until we've been there. Until then, we laugh too loud
and say it's all superstitious baloney
and hallucination. It's like whistling as we go past the graveyard.
"It doesn't matter one bit what we say. Death is one of the
mysteries of the Almighty. Accept what happened to you as a
second chance at life, and make the most of it."
~
"That's the story, Jack. Don't ask me how, if Gormley died in the
wreck, he could write his story, or how it got here, or who the boy
thought he saw behind him. That shadow I saw in the City Room doorway belonged to Ed Gormley--I'd bet my second life on it!
"Gormley was always a real Pro. I'll bet it was his spirit brought those
notes from Greendale, then came to see the newsboy delivered 'em and we
got 'em! That's why I said we should print it."
~
By noon the next day, the railroad confirmed everything in our
newspaper account, including the death of Ed Gormley, found
with a charred reporter's notebook, missing ten sheets, in his hand.
Gormley was buried at the paper's expense. We never talked about
his "scoop" at the office. Few besides Dix and Peters knew all the
details. Those who did know had a strong feeling some things don't have
a logical explanation and are best left alone. That's why we
never printed an
end to the story.
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