Alien Abduction Read online

  “Are you going to do the illegal road racing story next?” he asked.

  “Nah. I thought I’d work on the school board story.”

  Rick smiled, though the smirk hidden in his smile was obvious and was sending a clear message—the same message Bob told me to my face: If you want to keep your job, you need to pick better stories. Because of my seniority, I had some say in the stories I wrote, but apparently I was exercising that privilege unwisely.

  “Are you sure?” Rick said. “We’re talking about teens racing down Figueroa. It’s bound to get eyeballs.”

  “It didn’t look like there was much meat on the bone there,” I said, though rejecting the story wasn’t going to help my shaky tenure at the paper.

  “Okay, suit yourself,” he responded, then turned and started back toward his desk. “I’ll put up the LA River story. Make sure you respond to comments. If there are any.”

  And that was another thing I hated. I was expected to track the comments on my stories and respond to them if warranted.

  I sat up straight in my chair, ready to defend my decision to go with the school board story, ready to explain how the board’s new ruling would impact more than a hundred thousand teens in LAUSD, but instead I swallowed my pride.

  “I’ll do the racing story first,” I said.

  He turned back to me. “Twisted your arm, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I needed to play ball.

  “Great. Check your inbox. You’ll have the police info in one minute.”

  With that settled, Rick went merrily on his way, and I took another look at the practically empty newsroom. When I’d started working here twenty years ago, the place had been packed with reporters. Now, less than twenty percent of the space was occupied. A few of the remaining reporters, like me, were old school, but unlike me, the other survivors had successfully transitioned to the new model of journalism: low-quality, quickly written stories, without depth or facts, and full of opinions, many actually written in the first person. And most of the reporters now on staff were younger and had started their careers working within this new model—so they churned out these kinds of stories by the dozens.

  Of course, there were exceptions to these low-quality stories. Some of the old school reporters still managed to squeeze in a proper story here and there, a thoroughly vetted and researched story, with plenty of reliable sources. The problem was that the LA Times’s new owner didn’t value those stories. Those stories didn’t bring in readers, and without readers, the advertising dollars that kept the paper afloat went elsewhere.

  Bob’s office door swung open, and the two entrepreneurs stepped out. That had been a short meeting. So short, I concluded the two must have come to LA to give Bob bad news. Regardless of whether it was coming from an established company or an upstart, bad news was always delivered in person.

  The two men confidently strode toward the elevator, their mission accomplished. They didn’t so much as glance at any of the reporters along the way. I looked back toward Bob’s office and saw the editor in chief standing in the doorway.

  He motioned for me to come on over.

  A minute later, I entered his office, wondering if another pay cut or reduction in benefits was headed my way.

  Bob was glued to his computer screen, undoubtedly watching the real-time analytics that sealed the paper’s fate. The analytics tracked every story the paper ran, dictating the shelf life for each. Bob, as well as the paper’s Silicon Valley overlords, could track the popularity of each story, click by click, in real time. I wondered if my LA River story was already up on the paper’s website, living and dying by the click.

  Probably dying.

  I closed the door behind me and took a seat across from Bob. His desk was tidy. He’d probably cleaned it for the entrepreneurs.

  “So, more changes are afoot,” he said.

  “Let me guess. They don’t want to publish a print copy of the paper at all anymore.”

  “Print isn’t dead. It’s just a niche product.” He grinned. “That’s the term they use.”

  “I guess that’s putting a positive spin on the low subscription numbers.”

  “Yeah—and it comes with more good news. This ‘niche product’ gives the brand we’re leveraging some prestige.”

  “So the print edition lives.”

  “So far. But they want to cut the number of pages—again.” He leaned back in his chair and his grin disappeared. “Listen, Eddie, I don’t want to beat around the bush here.”

  “I don’t expect you to.”

  He took in a deep breath and the corners of his mouth turned down, as if what he was going to say next pained him. “I’m going to have let you go, Ed. I’m sorry.”

  My body went numb, and then I heard myself laugh—a quick cackle. “Let me go?” I blurted out. “Go where, Bob? There’s no place for me to go.”

  “I know you saw this coming.” Bob was calm. “Hell, we both did. Whatever your plan B is, it’s time to put it into action.”

  My numbness was turning to anger. I felt a heat in my gut. “I played ball,” I said. “I took the cuts in pay, the cuts in health insurance, the cuts in pension contributions. You name it, I took it.”

  “I know.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is, these guys are bottom line guys, and they want to implement changes at a faster rate.”

  “Can you tell them that I’ll change at a faster rate?”

  “I already went to the mat for you. More than once.” He shook his head. “I hate to say this, but you should’ve taken the severance package while it was on the table.”

  “Well, too late now, huh?”

  Bob didn’t respond.

  “What about Sam and Greg?” I said. “Are they being let go, too?” They were two of the reporters from my generation.

  “I can’t talk about their employment status. You know that. It’s private.”

  “I’m doing the street-racing story. I’ll turn those teens into folk heroes.”

  “There’s nothing you can do, Ed. We’re retooling. Like I said, it’s all about the bottom line.” A despondent look flashed across his face. “I really am sorry. You know that. I mean, we had a good run.”

  “What about you? Are the overlords letting you go, too?” That was uncalled for, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “Would it make you feel better if they were?”

  “I’m just wondering how much retooling they want to do.”

  “The print edition is going to get pretty thin,” he said, “and the plan is to go with younger, more versatile personnel in the newsroom. You know, writer/podcasters and writer/videographers and more freelancers.”

  “I can learn those skills.”

  “I know you can, but it’s too late. The decision’s been made.”

  “I can change.”

  “Ed—you don’t want to change.”

  That was the truth. No beating around the bush there. I didn’t have a comeback.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t save your job,” Bob said.

  “Me too.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I started looking for a new job immediately. I called all my contacts, but times were tough. Not just for me, but for everyone. None of my contacts had any good leads, and I discovered that many of my former colleagues had long ago opted for new careers. Apparently, I was the only one who hadn’t gotten the memo.

  Though honestly, the truth was that I had gotten the memo, I just hadn’t accepted its conclusion: that it was time to move on. Bob was right when he said I didn’t want to change.

  It had been four weeks since I was fired, and I still hadn’t told Jenny, my wife, nor my teenage kids. Bob had agreed to let me work those four extra weeks so I could add a little extra pay to the terrible severance package I’d received. But more importantly, he had let me search for a new job while I was wrapping up my old job. That had been a big help when it came to hiding the truth from Jenny.

  Bu
t now I found myself at the dinner table, having just left the newsroom for the last time after twenty years on the job, and unable to share this milestone with my family. I had to keep the swirl of mixed emotions inside me bottled up.

  If I had been realistic, I would’ve told my family about getting fired weeks ago, but instead my ill-conceived plan had been to land another job first, so I could deliver the good news with the bad. That had truly been wishful thinking. The odds of a man in his late forties landing a decent paying job in under four weeks had always been grim. It was going to take a hell of lot longer than that.

  “How was work today?” Jenny asked, out of the blue. She had long ago stopped asking me about work because she knew it would only lead to my complaining about the state of journalism. So her question caught me off guard.

  “Good,” I said.

  “That’s a change, isn’t it?”

  I amended my lie by turning it into a bigger lie. “Today was good.”

  “I thought there might have been a truce with the new overlords since you haven’t complained about them for a few weeks.”

  “They’re still overlording,” I said, weighing whether to just come clean and tell her the overlords had tossed me out on my butt. Meanwhile, I stalled. “Have you made that doctor’s appointment yet?”

  “No. But I’m feeling better.”

  “What’s wrong?” Jake said with genuine concern. Though he was seventeen, and was supposed to be well into his teenage rebellious years, he was still very close to his mom.

  “Nothing really,” Jenny said. “I’ve just been feeling tired lately.” She shot me a look: Why’d you have to say anything? She didn’t want to worry the kids.

  Hannah, our defiant sixteen-year-old, who more closely matched the profile of a rebellious teen, looked up from her plate and joined the conversation for the first time tonight.

  “Maybe forcing us to eat dinner together is wearing you out,” she said.

  “It’s just twice a week,” Jenny shot back.

  “Torture’s bad even if it’s just once a week.” Unlike her brother, Hannah didn’t get along with her mom.

  “If you’d make an effort at conversation,” Jenny said, “it might not be so bad.”

  “I don’t hear dad chatting it up much.”

  Jenny looked over at me, acknowledging Hannah’s point. “Why don’t you tell us what you’re working on, honey?”

  For the sake of preventing another dinner table battle between mother and daughter, I obliged. “I’m working on a story about unemployment.”

  “And…?” Jenny said.

  “And… well… Rick doesn’t want me to do the story.”

  “What story does he want you to do?” Jenny asked, doing her best to keep the conversation going.

  “Teens drag racing downtown.”

  “That’s a better story,” Jake said. “Kind of retro. Like from the fifties.”

  “The YouTube video got a million hits,” Hannah said.

  “How do you know?” I asked, amazed that she’d even heard about the underground craze.

  “Everyone’s seen those videos,” she said. She could barely contain her disdain toward my ignorance. “It’s old news, Dad.”

  So Rick had had it right. If the story was clickbait on YouTube, it would’ve been clickbait on the LA Times’s website. And it would’ve appealed to a younger demographic. But after Bob fired me that day, I didn’t go back to my desk to write the drag racing story. I wrote the school board story instead, as an act of defiance. Another bad move, career-wise.

  I smiled at Hannah. “You should be my editor and assign my stories.”

  “You’d quit if I assigned you stories.”

  I laughed, then Jenny and Jake and Hannah all joined in. This was the upside of Hannah’s rebelliousness. She had a great sense of humor, and I loved her for it.

  With the mood better, I decided to ask Jake about a touchy matter. “How are the last of the college applications going? Do you want me to look at any more of your essays?”

  “I got it under control.”

  “Good.”

  Before getting fired, I hadn’t worried too much about Jake’s college applications. He’d been meticulous about filling out the necessary forms for his top choices. But not so much when it came to his safety schools. And now, some of those safety schools—the schools where he had the best shots at receiving scholarships—were more important. Without a job on the horizon, who knew how much tuition I’d be able to afford next year?

  “Can I take a look at them?” I said. “Just to make sure.”

  “I said I got it under control.”

  “I just want to make sure the last of the applications are as good as the ones you did months ago.”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “Of course I trust you.”

  “You’re not acting like you trust me.”

  “Okay—don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m not.”

  I decided to drop it for now. I’d have to ask Jenny to talk to him about the essays. Of course, I couldn’t tell her why the safety schools were now a priority. Or I could tell her. For how long was I planning to wait?

  And there was a more pressing reason to tell her. She needed to go to the doctor for that checkup, to find out why she’d been feeling fatigued, before our insurance lapsed. My lousy severance package didn’t include health insurance, and though I was ready to move us onto COBRA—the program where you could extend your company’s insurance for a short time by paying the premiums yourself—it had restrictions. I thought it wiser for her to go to the doctor before our official insurance lapsed, which was in ten days.

  Also, from here on in, it was going to be much harder for me to hide my unemployment. Since today was my last day of work, what was I supposed to do when I got up tomorrow morning? Pretend I was heading off to work? That was ridiculous. We had a strong marriage, and I had never lied to her. Of course, we had our arguments and disagreements, but lying wasn’t an issue between us.

  After dinner, as we both cleared the table, I was on the verge of telling her.

  But I didn’t.

  It was my night to do the dishes, but she volunteered, so I went into the den, opened my laptop, and wrote an email to another former reporter, a friend of a friend, who now worked for a large public relations firm. He’d gotten the memo about the seismic shift in journalism and he’d taken action. He had long ago parlayed his reporting and writing skills into a public relations job.

  I was reading over the email, verifying that I didn’t sound too desperate, when Jenny walked in. I quickly closed my laptop.

  She flashed me a sympathetic smile, the kind that says I’m sorry for your woes, and I thought that she somehow knew I’d been fired.

  “Do the overlords want you to take another cut, honey?” she said.

  “Do I look that down?”

  “You’re quiet. I mean, much more so than usual.”

  “Have you heard anything more about the job at CBS-Radford?”

  “Why? I thought that discussion was over.”

  It was, but I wanted to open it up again. Not only because I wanted to change the topic of conversation from me to her, but also because I’d had a change of heart—a forced one—about her taking the job. Of course, I couldn’t tell her about my change of heart without telling her what had prompted it.

  Jenny worked as a prop master and liked her job. She’d been working in the art departments of TV shows for twenty years—but she wasn’t going to take a job this year.

  That had been my doing.

  Sure, it was a joint decision, but I had pushed hard, arguing that it would be best if one of us was around while Jake was applying to colleges and while Hannah, a junior, was prepping for the SAT and the ACT, as well as taking a heavy class load and swimming for the varsity team.

  Now that decision had turned out to be a colossal mistake. We could have had a paycheck coming in during my job search, a search that was l
ooking like it might last quite a while.

  A dull ache was growing in my stomach, an ache fed by my rapidly increasing anxiety. Anxiety about not having a job to go to in the morning. Anxiety that my sorry severance package wouldn’t come close to paying our monthly bills. Anxiety that I hadn’t told my wife the truth.

  “I was fired,” I blurted out, thinking this would ease the ache in my stomach. It made it worse. My stomach tightened into an agonizing knot and pulled the rest of my body toward it as if I was contracting into a tight ball of panic—I was too old to start again.

  “Wow…” Jenny said, her brow furrowing into an expression I recognized. It wasn’t sympathy. It was incipient anger, and I knew why: ever since my first pay cut, seven years ago, she’d been pushing me to consider a career makeover. She’d read the memo, and she had been trying to explain it to me.

  “That’s why you’ve been quiet,” she said. “How long have you known?”

  “Four weeks.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  I shook my head. “I had this stupid idea that I’d find a new job and then tell you about getting fired and getting hired at the same time. To ease the blow.”

  “That was a stupid idea. You want to know how stupid? They called me about the CBS-Radford job two days ago to check in before giving it to someone else. If you’d told me you’d been fired, I could’ve taken the job.”

  “No sympathy, huh?” I smiled wanly.

  Her face softened, and she came over and sat down by me. “I’m sorry,” she said, then gave me a peck on my cheek. “You know I’m sorry.”

  “Adapt or die,” I said. It was what she’d been telling me for seven years. “Looks like you were right.”

  “I’m not killing you off yet.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But I did tell you to start adapting sooner.”

  “I tried.”

  “Really?” She looked me in the eye.

  “No. Not really.”

  “The writing was on the wall,” she said. “I remember the first time we talked about it. Jake was just starting middle school.”

  “I wasn’t ready to give up and start a new career back then.”