Midnight Apprentice

In honor of Labor Day, I'm sharing an excerpt from the BryonySeries novel Staked! that gives a slightly (emphasis on the "slightly") exaggerated look at the what delivering newspapers seven days a week in the middle of the night looks like.

With more and more publications making the transition to web only, this excerpt gives you a rare look at an entire industry that will someday be no more, an industry in which my entire family and I used to work.

What makes this piece especially fun is that the main character, John-Peter Simotes, is completely fictional, and his "Uncle Ed" is not.

For the back story of how that actually came to be, check out my Calkins Day Address from 2020.

John-Peter wearily pulled the pallet jack down the row of hastily assembled plywood work tables in the large warehouse, neatly dodging the zombie-like carrier pushing a shopping cart of newspapers toward an exit to load into vehicles. Despite the service doors opening into the night, the air hung heavy and lifeless with the overwhelming heat and humidity the building effectively trapped by day. It had been a long, laborious week, not one filled with the reading and relaxation.

            At the dinner table Monday night, Kellen had unveiled a list of chores for John-Peter to complete that week at the Happy Hunting Grounds funeral home because Kellen’s secretary was on vacation. None of the tasks were difficult, only time consuming. John-Peter had spent the last three days filing and running brochure orders to and from the local printer, as well as tearing apart and cleaning the display cases before refilling them with souvenirs and then carefully dusting the enormous picture of Agnes Scofield, the first client of Happy Hunting Grounds. Kellen had once told John-Peter that Agnes, a ninety-three year old resident of Jenson Nursing home, had given Kellen the permission of feasting on her blood in exchange for being forever immortalized as "the first."

            Tomorrow, John-Peter would return to Thornton with his mother for a physical—two physicals to be exact—before beginning school on Monday. Then John-Peter could only help Uncle Ed on weekends and school holidays. Between running newspapers with Uncle Ed by night and helping Kellen by day, John-Peter had not read anymore of Grandma Marchellis’ diary. Any free time he had acquired, whether at home or riding in the car, was spent in sleep.

            “Hey, John-Peter!” a large, burly man called from across the aisle. “I didn’t get my Thornton Times!”

            “Count?”

            The man stretched his tight and faded blue T-shirt over his hefty belly, trying to cover the last inch of skin and failing. “Thirteen.”

            John-Peter handed them to the man who belched in reply. He couldn’t blame the carrier, or any of the other drivers, for being grouchy tonight. Their boss, Joe Reece, had tucked a policy change into their paycheck envelopes stipulating that only a certain number and colors of bags would be distributed. If carriers required more than that amount, the cost would be deducted from the next week’s pay.

            That move prompted Uncle Ed to express his displeasure with a limerick:

 

            There once was a cheap boss named Reece

            Whose supplies to carriers decreased

            When the carriers cried, “Foul!”

            Reece spat as he howled,

            “I’ll make you share one sleeve apiece!”

           

            “Someday,” Ed said, leaning close to John-Peter and dropping his voice, “people will refer to cheap acts as ‘doing a Reece.’”

            No negative situation existed where Uncle Ed could not compose an appropriate limerick.

            “The limerick is the most superior kind of poem,” Uncle Ed had often him. “Not only can people pronounce it, they can remember it and it flows freely from the tongue. This sort of poetry works in two ways. The words I say create fear in others, fear of how they will be remembered. This fear then promotes a willingness in your enemy to compromise, to confront you in more friendly terms, or maybe to ally with you.”

             But if Joe Reece, or anyone else for that matter, cowered in terror before Ed Calkins, he never showed it. Even the carriers themselves rarely expressed the respect and appreciation John-Peter felt was due Ed for his hard work.

            Ed printed and sorted route books, oversaw the unloading and distribution of entire truckloads of products, including bag shipments and fifteen different publications totaling over ten thousand newspapers. In addition, Ed fielded complaints, dispensed bags, retrieved and carried garbage to the dumpsters, and swept the warehouse. This was in addition to his regular, carrier responsibilities. Ed delivered newspapers to the outlying and remote areas no driver wanted to touch, including Munsonville.

            On school days, if John-Peter rose early, he'd grab a jug of water and sprint barefoot down to Main Street under the early morning sun, just in time to catch Ed Calkins filling the newspaper boxes outside Sue’s Diner. If Ed had a few minutes to spare, which he always seemed to have, he'd share an Irish joke, adjust John-Peter’s leprechaun, and point to John-Peter’s watch.

             “Bet you can’t say ‘Irish wristwatch’ ten times.”

            And John-Peter could, every time.

            “John-Peter, if you want to make an Irishman laugh on a Monday, tell him a joke on a Friday.”

            “John-Peter, while at the wake of his atheist friend, the Irishman said, ‘Poor lad. All dressed up with no place to go.'"

            “John-Peter, do you know it takes four Irishmen to change a light bulb? One removes it from the socket and the other three remark, ‘What a grand, old light bulb it was!’”

            If Ed was running late, he’d acknowledge John-Peter’s existence with a jovial nod before he dropped the bundles at the machine, fully expecting John-Peter to fill them.

            John-Peter, of course, always did. He understood newspaper deadlines. He had grown up with them. His father, Professor Simotes, not Kellen, had delivered a country route under Uncle Ed’s authority. John-Peter not only accompanied John on the route, he helped prepare the papers for delivery and consulted the route book when his father had a question about the location of an obscure address, a delivery instruction or code, or which combination of publications a particular customer might receive.

            The problem? John-Peter did not remember any of it.

            He had been too young, a tender twenty months of age when the professor had died. His memories of the newspaper business centered around Uncle Ed, who was not really his uncle, but a man who had been a good friend, as well as the boss, of John Simotes.

            Ed seriously undertook his news agency responsibilities, even referring to himself as a “ruthless dictator” who expected compliance within his ranks, although he rarely obtained it. The carriers snatched extra newspapers from the pallets, invented excuses for customer complaints, and stole inserts, hooks, and bags from each other’s stations. Never did one week pass without a carrier calling Ed with a crisis of why he could not deliver his route that night, and could Ed please do it?

            And of course Ed did, while hard at work composing a penalty limerick, which that said carrier would hear upon walking in the warehouse door the following night. However, Ed did not limit his control tactics to mere verse. No new carrier slipped through the ranks without at least one request to sign Ed Calkins’ petition. Ed’s birthday fell between Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and Valentine’s Day, a fact significant enough, Ed felt, to warrant a three-day national holiday.

            “The time will come when everyone around the world will eagerly anticipate the Ed Calkins Day parade,” Ed always said, beaming, as he pressed both paper and pen into the hesitant carrier’s hands.

            In the meantime, Ed himself offered the joys and excitement of his parade to the elite crowd fortunate enough to deliver newspapers in the middle of the night from the Jenson warehouse.

            For as long as John-Peter could remember, he celebrated each February thirteen watching a carrier pull Uncle Ed through the building on the pallet jack, one John-Peter had decorated with green streamers and balloons for the occasion, while an exuberant Ed waved to his constituents with one hand and tossed bite-sized, wrapped pieces of candies from the other one toward the work stations.

            So although John-Peter had no time to read the diary this past week, he could and he did spend much time reflecting upon what he had read as he busied himself with his required duties.

            Had Grandma Marchellis really lived part of her life inside Simons Mansion or was the entry simply the ramblings of a demented mind? Surely if she'd had a connection to the musician, his mother, grandparents, or even Kellen would have mentioned it. Besides, who knew if her son Frank even had read it? Grandma Marchellis chronicled the tale in her personal diary. Maybe she went completely senile before she shared it with Frank.

             “John-Peter! Where’s my Detroit Daily News?”

            “In transport.”

            “Late again?”

            “Afraid so, Dave.”

            John-Peter dragged the jack back to the dock. He had nothing left to disperse until the final truck arrived for the night. He closed his fingers around the leprechaun before heading toward Uncle Ed’s work station.

            With lightening speed, Ed bagged the Jenson Reporters for a carrier who took his year old daughter to the emergency room last night. Eyes down at his work, Ed said to John-Peter, “Stuff all the papers for Munsonville, and bundle my papers for Sue’s Diner.”

             John-Peter refilled his jug from the water fountain and then went in search of an empty grocery cart. He found one overturned near Joe’s office, in front of the rusted, dented metal shelves holding back issues of the previous week’s publications. The cart worked better than he had guessed. Its handle only slightly wiggled and three of the wheels actually rolled.

            He stacked the newspapers from Ed’s work area into the cart and dragged the load to the strapping machine. Three other carriers stood in line to belt their store drops. One short, round woman fidgeted with growing impatience.

            “Hurry it up, Kurt. You’re not the only dang carrier in this building.”

            But Kurt ignored her and continued strapping bundles with a steady pace. Soon the metered beep-beep of a truck’s back-up alarm broke into the carriers’ low, rumbling chatter.

            “’Bout time,” groused a tall, thin man as he scratched under his scraggly, bronze beard. “Gotta go to work this mornin’. Boss said if I’m late again he’ll can me.”

            John-Peter wondered if John Simons ever paid that promised visit to Grandma Marchellis. If he did, John-Peter doubted the musician entered through the front door. He believed the story of the magic music box. He might even have seen it.

            Ed tugged a pallet jack full of Detroit Daily News bundles past John-Peter as the boy strapped the last bundle.

             “John-Peter! Get that cart back to the station and help me get these Detroits passed.”

             “Affirmed, sir.”

            Carriers swarmed the dock and Ed’s pallet, opening bundles and grabbing stacks of papers, heedless of Ed’s loud orders to wait their turns. Joe Reece charged five dollars for every newspaper a driver delivered late. John-Peter plopped onto a work table, fished inside his other pocket for an apple, and wished the princess had given it to him. He took a bite and leaned his weary body against the table’s back. As punishment for disregarding his stern commands, Uncle Ed would be tormenting offenders tomorrow morning with a fresh supply of limericks.

            “John-Peter!”

            The boy woke with a start. The apple core lay on the floor. The warehouse was devoid of carriers. Uncle Ed must have already loaded his car because he looked ready to leave.

            The first rays of dawn were breaking through the dark the sky as the pair entered the parking lot. No chance of a nap this morning before he and his mother would leave for Thornton.

            “What time is your appointment?”

             “Eleven-thirty.”

             “Hmm.” Ed frowned and looked at his own green wristwatch. “I’ll hit the country roads later. Let’s deliver Jenson, and then I’ll take you back to Munsonville. You’ll never survive the day without a nap.”

            “Much obliged, Steward, much obliged.”

            With a light heart and a steady supply of apples in his left hand, John-Peter threw newspapers into the driveways of Jenson’s neighborhoods and fumbled for whatever publication Uncle Ed needed with his right. He was glad to skip the country roads. The joggers who inhabited them at three o’clock in the morning made him uneasy. Once, Ed nearly collided with a man who rode his bike straight at Ed’s car. Other carriers might have signaled their anger with a finger or colorful language. Instead, Ed soothed his jangled nerves with a limerick.

           

            O cyclist who rides in the night

            Making sure you’re hidden from sight

            One day you will find

            A driver’s who blind

            Who’ll flatten you without any fight.

           

            “John-Peter, did I ever tell you about the four great treasures of the Tuatha de Danann?”    

            Ed had just reached the part about the endless food supply of the Cauldron of Dagda when he threw two newspapers out the window into the driveway of the house before the stop sign.

            “Wait, Uncle Ed,” John-Peter said, reaching above the visor for the route book. “The Jenson Reporter is a vacation stop.”

            “What about the Thornton Times?”

             “Active, your honor.”

             John-Peter ran across the road to pick up the extra newspaper. Although the sun was now fully up, the absence of traffic made delivering papers almost a joy. After tossing the renegade paper back into the smudged, cracked laundry basket that held its clones, John-Peter, gradually perking up under the brightening sun, grabbed a handful of Munsonville Weeklies.

            “Can’t understand why that newspaper is still in business,” Ed complained. “How much news can that village report in a week?”

             “The Daltons bought a parakeet.”

             “Three more blocks and then we can do the stores. Keep up with me because I want to stop at Eircheard’s Emporium before we go back to Munsonville.”

            “Anything in particular you’re seeking?”

            “Another tin whistle.”

            Ed Calkins saved the pawn shop’s bundle for last, after first pulling off the road to adjust John-Peter’s leprechaun, a pocket-sized creature with a leering face, tiny black eyes glinting below a pair of bushy red eyebrows, and a thatch of wild red hair sliding out from under its tall green hat. In the center of its belly, a series of numbers in the billions spiraled downward. The lull in the action always caused John-Peter to nod off, but he always reawakened feeling as refreshed as if he’d slept the night. By waiting until daybreak to deliver the Eircheard’s Emporium, Ed could be certain that Eircheard himself would have unlocked the front door, prepared the tea, and, if the wizened shopkeeper was feeling particularly ambitious that day, prepared a loaf of warm, Irish soda bread--using vinegar instead of buttermilk and a vegan spread from Brummings in Shelby to top it--out of respect for John-Peter.

            But no whiff of freshly baked bread greeted John-Peter’s nose that morning, only the pungent scent of the tobacco that emitted from Eircheard’s clay pipe. When John-Peter was a small boy, the sight of this leprechaun-like old man intimidated him and became the source of a recurring nightmare. Since early childhood, John-Peter had often dreamed of the shop keeper, sitting on a tree trunk and carving a misshapen piece of wood with a long-handled knife. A series of incantations followed the store owner’s act of jamming the wood into the ground. While Eircheard chuckled in glee, John-Peter’s leering face emerged from the top of the wooden post.

             But the Eircheard’s fearsomeness now only existed in John-Peter’s dreams. Inside the pawn shop, he was simply an old man making a dime from those wanting a quick buck and parting with their possessions to obtain it. The one-room, wood shop was not large, but Eircheard had filled it to bursting with all manner of furniture, knickknacks, clocks, lamps, signs, clothing, wall hangings, books, record albums, toys, dishes, household furnishings, and so forth, all stacked haphazardly and without category consideration.

            “No tin whistles today,” Eircheard said, leaning back in his desk chair, puffing on his pipe, and gesturing to a side table. “But some fellow brought in a whole stack of records. All bagpipe music.”

            Uncle Ed made a dour face and recited:

           

            A pygmy did sit in his chair

            Luring the innocent into his lair

            He said, “Why not you stay

            And buy something today?

            If it’s garbage I really don’t care.”

           

            Eircheard grinned around his pipe and watched Ed weave through the card tables, laden with assorted figurines, plaques, and jewelry, to flip through the albums.

             John-Peter poured a cup of tea, popped his vitamin, and polished off the remnants of yesterday’s bread while Eircheard puffed and watched some more. The boy wished he had topped off his jug before leaving the distribution center. His parched throat screamed for water.

            “Saved the last from yesterday. Had a feeling you gents would stop this morning.”

            “Thankee, Mr. E.”

             Eircheard smiled through the black gaps between his broken teeth. “Anytime.”

            Ed looked up from the stack of records.

            “Want to drive Kellen nuts?”

            “I’ll pass, Uncle Ed.”

            Kellen’s disparaging remarks about classical piano music were the bane of John-Peter’s life. No need to blare bagpipes, too.

            Ed selected three albums and brought them to the counter. Eircheard rose painfully to his feet to ring up Ed’s purchases.

            “That will be five dollars even.”

            “You drive a hard bargain.”

            “Got to keep a roof over my head, same as you.”

            Ed picked up the records and turned to John-Peter, who spread margarine on this third chunk of bread. Three-fourths of the loaf had disappeared into the boy’s growling stomach. “Let’s drop Munsonville, and get you home.”

            “Think Reece will be mad the country route is late?”

            “Not mad enough to find someone else to take it out.”

            The combination of the sun’s glare off the windshield and the warm snack sent waves of sleepiness through John-Peter's numb brain. Twice he nodded into slumber against the window glass before he and Ed reached Munsonville.

            Ed parked his car in front of Sue’s Diner and reached for the newspaper bundle. “You rest. I’ll fill the machines.” In less than five minutes, Ed was turning onto Bass Street over John-Peter’s objections.

A customer wishes the real Ed Calkins best wishes on the very last day of his newspaper route earlier this year.