I’m a newspaper reporter for a midsize daily paper in an economically depressed Massachusetts city. While I’m not on the “crime beat,” the paper has a small enough staff that everyone does a little bit of everything.
I like doing a little of everything. I’m also my paper’s columnist, and I write this column, and you can’t learn how to write a column by sitting in an office, absorbing the air conditioning.
I went to a stabbing this morning, in a shaky neighborhood. It was a pretty cheap stabbing, too. Two guys were beating up another guy, and one of them pulled a knife and cut him on the hand.
A woman standing across the street from the fight yelled, “Noooo!” That caused all three men to run away. In bad neighborhoods, victims run away, too, if they can. You handle it yourself or you don’t, but you don’t talk to the cops.
“Rat!” one of the men yelled at the woman as he ran away.
That is a serious thing. “Rat,” passes from mouth to mouth, and being known as one comes with its own trouble.
“I yelled ‘Nooo!’” she told me. “’Just hit him!’”
She wasn’t directing the violence, either, just urging the men to have a little caution. People who live with violence all the time are apt to see its varieties very clearly.
I lit a cigarette. I usually smoke a pipe, but the morning was too hot for a pipe. If you light a cigarette in a poor neighborhood, someone will ask you for one. Be generous. Tobacco makes people talk.
If the victim is dead and you have to talk to a relative or friend, start by saying, “I’m sorry.” If one of your co-workers told you his son was dead, wouldn’t you say, “I’m sorry”?
I talked to the cops, but not too much. Cops have a very limited range of information they can give you, and they’re scared to death of being misquoted. Sometimes they’ll tell you more if you don’t ask questions. Listen when they talk into their radios and smartphones. If you’ve known one of the cops long enough to consider him a friend, don’t give him too much of a greeting. He may not want the other cops to know he’s your friend.
By the time I’d finished one cigarette and given away three more, I had a notebook full of quotes and enough information to write.
Don’t leave a crime scene too fast. Put your notebook in your pocket and stand around a while. If there’s a corner store around, go in and buy something, a bottle of soda maybe.
Do it because it’s a tough place to do business and the store owner is at least trying.