Today's writing

This is how I lead: with anger. I don’t compromise or communicate. I bolt and batter, knocking at whichever wall blocks me from what I want. I’d sought to make the leap into professional journalism and so I have. I’m working as the wire editor at the North Platte Telegraph, a 12,000-circulation daily newspaper covering something on the order of twenty counties. Rumor has it that in one of those counties, if you call information and ask for Buck, you won’t have to give a last name.

I’ve come to this flat place in the middle of winter because I wanted to get a jump on – what? Something. I wanted to move forward in my life. At 22, I wanted to make the kind of move I would never consider years later. I was brought here by a charismatic editor who promised adventure. He quit two weeks after I arrived and hightailed it back to Montana.

Now I’m left to make sense of what I’ve found here off Interstate 80: a small city with a cobblestone downtown. An airport that closes for lunch. A bar called Doris’ Tavern that features pictures of hometown soldier boys and accepts checks as payment for its two-dollar drinks. We rush there after putting the paper to bed each night, skidding on icy roads past farms and churches.