stupidity of Puerto Ricans because they were forever making his
life dangerous and difficult, and even, for some reason I never understood, the hundreds
of stray dogs that he saw in San Juan.
Not much of what he said was original. What made him unique was the fact that he had no
sense of detachment at all. He was like the fanatical football fan who runs onto the field
and tackles a player. He saw life as the Big Game, and the whole of mankind was divided
into two teams -- Sala's Boys, and The Others. The stakes were fantastic and every play
was vital -- and although he watched with a nearly obsessive interest, he was very much
the fan, shouting unheard advice in a crowd of unheard advisors and knowing all the while
that nobody was paying any attention to him because he was not running the team and never
would be. And like all fans he was frustrated by the knowledge that the best he could do,
even in a pinch, would be to run onto the field and cause some kind of illegal trouble,
then be hauled off by guards while the crowd laughed.
We never got to the university because Sala had an epileptic fit and we had to turn
around. I was rattled, but he shook it off and refused to let me drive.
On the way back to the paper I asked him how he'd managed to keep his job as long as a
year.
He laughed. “Who else can they get? I'm the only pro on the island.”
We crept along in a huge traffic jam and finally he got so nervous that I had to drive.
When we got to the paper the vicious bums had disappeared, but the newsroom was in
turmoil. Tyrrell, the workhorse, had just quit, and Moberg had been beaten half to death
by the union goons. They had seized him outside the building and avenged their loss to
Yeamon.
Lotterman was sitting on a chair in the middle of the newsroom, groaning and jabbering
while two cops tried to talk to him. A few feet away, Tyrrell sat calmly at his desk,
going about his business. He had given a week's notice.
The Rum Diary
Four
As I expected, my talk with Segarra turned out to be wasted time. We sat at his desk for
almost an hour, trading inanities and chuckling at each other's jokes. Although he spoke
perfect English there was still a language barrier, and I sensed immediately that no
real meaning would ever pass between us. I got the impression that he knew what was going
on in Puerto Rico, but he seemed to know nothing about journalism. When he talked like a
politician he made sense, but it was difficult to see him as the editor of a newspaper.
He seemed to think that as long as he knew the score, that was enough. The idea that he
should pass on what he knew to anyone else, especially to the public at large, would have
struck him as dangerous heresy. At one point he gave me a jolt when he mentioned that he
and Sanderson had been classmates at Columbia.
It took me a long time to understand Segarra's function at the
News.
They called him The Editor, but he was really a pimp and I paid no attention to him.
Perhaps that's why I didn't make many friends in Puerto Rico -- at least not the kind of
friends I might have made -- because, as Sanderson very gently explained to me one day,
Segarra came from one of the wealthiest and most influential families on the island and
his father was a former attorney general. When Nick became editor of the
Daily News,
the paper made a lot of valuable friends.
I had not given Lotterman credit for this kind of devious thinking, but as time went by
I saw that he used Segarra solely as a front man, a sleek, well-oiled figurehead to
convince the literate public that the
News
was not a
yanqui
mouthpiece, but a fine local institution like rum and sugarballs.
After our first talk, Segarra and I exchanged an average of about thirty words a week.
Once in a while he would leave a note in my typewriter, but he
life dangerous and difficult, and even, for some reason I never understood, the hundreds
of stray dogs that he saw in San Juan.
Not much of what he said was original. What made him unique was the fact that he had no
sense of detachment at all. He was like the fanatical football fan who runs onto the field
and tackles a player. He saw life as the Big Game, and the whole of mankind was divided
into two teams -- Sala's Boys, and The Others. The stakes were fantastic and every play
was vital -- and although he watched with a nearly obsessive interest, he was very much
the fan, shouting unheard advice in a crowd of unheard advisors and knowing all the while
that nobody was paying any attention to him because he was not running the team and never
would be. And like all fans he was frustrated by the knowledge that the best he could do,
even in a pinch, would be to run onto the field and cause some kind of illegal trouble,
then be hauled off by guards while the crowd laughed.
We never got to the university because Sala had an epileptic fit and we had to turn
around. I was rattled, but he shook it off and refused to let me drive.
On the way back to the paper I asked him how he'd managed to keep his job as long as a
year.
He laughed. “Who else can they get? I'm the only pro on the island.”
We crept along in a huge traffic jam and finally he got so nervous that I had to drive.
When we got to the paper the vicious bums had disappeared, but the newsroom was in
turmoil. Tyrrell, the workhorse, had just quit, and Moberg had been beaten half to death
by the union goons. They had seized him outside the building and avenged their loss to
Yeamon.
Lotterman was sitting on a chair in the middle of the newsroom, groaning and jabbering
while two cops tried to talk to him. A few feet away, Tyrrell sat calmly at his desk,
going about his business. He had given a week's notice.
The Rum Diary
Four
As I expected, my talk with Segarra turned out to be wasted time. We sat at his desk for
almost an hour, trading inanities and chuckling at each other's jokes. Although he spoke
perfect English there was still a language barrier, and I sensed immediately that no
real meaning would ever pass between us. I got the impression that he knew what was going
on in Puerto Rico, but he seemed to know nothing about journalism. When he talked like a
politician he made sense, but it was difficult to see him as the editor of a newspaper.
He seemed to think that as long as he knew the score, that was enough. The idea that he
should pass on what he knew to anyone else, especially to the public at large, would have
struck him as dangerous heresy. At one point he gave me a jolt when he mentioned that he
and Sanderson had been classmates at Columbia.
It took me a long time to understand Segarra's function at the
News.
They called him The Editor, but he was really a pimp and I paid no attention to him.
Perhaps that's why I didn't make many friends in Puerto Rico -- at least not the kind of
friends I might have made -- because, as Sanderson very gently explained to me one day,
Segarra came from one of the wealthiest and most influential families on the island and
his father was a former attorney general. When Nick became editor of the
Daily News,
the paper made a lot of valuable friends.
I had not given Lotterman credit for this kind of devious thinking, but as time went by
I saw that he used Segarra solely as a front man, a sleek, well-oiled figurehead to
convince the literate public that the
News
was not a
yanqui
mouthpiece, but a fine local institution like rum and sugarballs.
After our first talk, Segarra and I exchanged an average of about thirty words a week.
Once in a while he would leave a note in my typewriter, but he
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