Mark

One month ago I watched my reflection in the doors as the elevator rose to the twelfth floor. My suit had been steamed, pressed and tailored. My tie, shoes and belt matched perfectly. I nervously eyed Wallace Langston, the older man standing next to me. My brown hair was neatly combed, the posture on my sixone frame ramrod straight. I'd bought a book on prepping for your first day at a new job. On the cover was an attractive twenty-something whose dentistry probably cost more than my college tuition. Security downstairs had given me a temporary ID. Not yet a member of the fraternity, still a pledge who had to prove his worth. "Make sure you have your picture taken before the week's up," the husky security guard with huge, red-rimmed glasses and a personality-enhancing cheek mole told me. "If you don't, I gotta run you through the system every day. And I have better things to do than run it through the system every goddamn day. You get me?" I nodded, assured her I'd have the photo taken as soon as I got upstairs. And I meant it. I wanted my face on aGazetteID as fast as the lab could develop it. I'd take it to Kinkos myself if they were backed up. When the doors opened, Wallace led me across a foyer with beige carpeting, past a secretary's desk with the wordsNew York Gazettein big, bold letters mounted on the wall. I showed her my temporary ID. She smiled with an open mouth and chewed her gum. Wallace pressed his keycard against a reader and opened the glass doors. As soon as the silence was broken, I thought how strange it was that all my hopes and dreams were embedded in one beautiful noise. To an outsider, the noise might seem incessant, cacophonous, but to me it was as calm and natural as an honest laugh. Hundreds of fingers were pounding away, the soothing rattle of popping keys and scribbling pencils drawing a smile across my lips. Dozens of eyes, all staring at lighted screens with type the size of microorganisms, reading faxes and emails sent from all over the world, faces contorted as though the telephone was a human they could emote to. Some people were yelling, some softly whispering. If I hadn't clenched my jaw trying to project confidence, it would have hit the floor like I'd stepped into a Bugs Bunny cartoon. "This is the newsroom," Wallace said. "Your desk is over there." He pointed to the one unoccupied metal swivel chair among the sea of tattered felt, showing how every day I would be wading through greatness. Soon I'd be seated at that desk, computer on, phone in my hand, fingers rattling at the keyboard like Beethoven on Red Bull. I was home. If you're in media or entertainment, New York is your mecca. Athletes count the days until their debut at Madison Square Garden. For classical pianists, Carnegie Hall is their holy ground. Professional strippersorry, exotic danceryeah, New York is their Jerusalem, too. It was no coincidence, then, that this was my holy land. The newsroom of theNew York Gazette.Rockefeller Plaza, New York City. I'd come a long, long way to get here. I briefly wondered what the hell a twenty-four-year-old with little more on his rÉsumÉ than theBend Bulletin,was doing here, but this was everything I'd worked for. What I was destined for. Wallace knew what I was capable of. Ever since my first page-one story in theBulletin,the one that was syndicated in over fifty papers around the world, Wallace had been following me. When he heard I was accepted to Cornell's prestigious journalism program, he made the threeand-a-half-hour drive to take me out for lunch. And during my senior year, before I could even start to look for jobs, Wallace made me an offer to join theGazettefull-time. The newsroom needs some new blood,he'd said.Young, ambitious kid like you, show the skeptics out there that thenext generation has its head on straight. TherePinter, Jason is the author of 'Mark ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780778324898 and ISBN 0778324893.