storefront on Atlantic Avenue in downtown Brooklyn, near the old Ex-
Lax factory. The owner, publisher, and editor in chief was Mike
Armstrong. He saw himself as a muckraking gadfly and had mortgaged
his brownstone five times to keep The Phoenix going. The staff all used
Underwood manual typewriters with threadbare ribbons and yellowed
keys. The E on mine was broken, so I used the @ in its place. We never
had copy paper and instead wrote on discarded press releases we dug out
of the trash. At least once a month, someone's paycheck bounced.
Reporters were always quitting in disgust. In the spring, when Mr.
Armstrong was interviewing a journalism school graduate for a job
opening, a mouse ran over her foot, and she screamed. After she'd left,
Mr. Armstrong looked at me. The Brooklyn zoning board was meeting
that afternoon and he had no one to cover it. "If you start calling me
Mike instead of Mr. Armstrong," he said. "you can have the job."
I had just turned eighteen. I quit my job at the hamburger joint the next
day and became a full-time reporter for The Phoenix. I'd never been
happier in my life. I worked ninety-hour weeks, my telephone rang
constantly, I was always hurrying off to interviews and checking the ten-
dollar Rolex I'd bought on the street to make sure I wasn't running late,
rushing back to file my copy, and staying up until four a.m. to set type
when the typesetter quit. And I was bringing home $125 a week. If the
check cleared. I wrote Brian long letters describing the sweet life in
New York City. He wrote back saying things in Welch were still going
downhill. Dad was drunk all the time except when he was in jail; Mom
had completely withdrawn into her own world; and Maureen was more
or less living with neighbors. The ceiling in the bedroom had collapsed,
and Brian had moved his bed onto the porch. He made walls by nailing
boards along the railings, but it leaked pretty badly out there, too, so he
still slept under the inflatable raft.
I told Lori that Brian should come live with us in New York, and she
agreed. But I was afraid Brian would want to stay in Welch. He seemed
more of a country boy than a city kid. He was always wandering through