Based on a true story of a brave and dedicated newspaperman, C.A. Moore who passed away on Nov 9. Any infringements of the story are much apologised.
This story is written from Alfred's POV.
His Final Headline
By Alfred F. Jones
A true newspaperman can tell when a story is about to end.
At least, that's what he had always told me.
At the age of 85, Arthur Kirkland was thin and diminutive at less than 170 cm. However, he was still at that time as alert as a quotation mark, even if his shoulders had started to curve with his old age. Wrinkles were sprinkled sparsely over his face where his freckles used to be, his hands were dry and worn. He looked extremely frail in that white hospital bed, stirring the incredible urge inside me to hug him and never let go.
"Don't you think we need to talk?" he asked me recently from his hospital bed. Even after six decades of being together, his emerald eyes sparkled as he spoke.
For nearly seventy years, he knew no other life than newspapering. As a young boy of 15 or so, Arthur would toss fresh newspapers as he rode on his rickety bicycle to all the residents of our humble town. He did this at the crack of dawn every day without fail before heading off to school in a sweaty mess.
Arthur and his family hailed from New England, but moved to the States when he was younger so as to accommodate his father's new job. Moving to an unknown place at the tender age of 10 was stressful and frightening for the young Arthur and the rest of his older siblings. Even with the new job, the financial stability of his family was constantly threatened with the failing economy. Being responsible, the Kirkland siblings went out into the world to look for jobs which could offer them comfort.
Scott, the eldest who now has the position of state councilman, used to work as a bartender as soon as he hit 19 years of age. Rhye, a current neurotic surgeon and Rosaline, a spokeswoman for human rights, once worked at the local convenience store. Arthur himself, as you may have guessed, went about delivering newspapers.
We met in high school as a jock and a nerd, but I have never regretted our meeting. Society has attained a broader view on same-sex marriages and gay relationships, rather then the narrow-minded view which being gay was an act against god in olden times. Seeing it that way, one could imagine that it was difficult for us to keep a steady relationship. Amazingly, by some miracle we did and are bound together even until today.
After high school, Arthur became a typesetter, a photographer, a writer. When thirty-two years ago, Kiku Honda decided to start a newspaper alongside his successful all-advertising penny shopper, he went to his friend Arthur Kirkland and handed him the keys and editorial control.
For three decades, with his camera draped constantly around his neck, Arthur was the sole and omnipresent reporter, the sole editor, the sole photographer and even a page designer of The Butler's Newspaper of Butler, some 60 miles south of Kansas City, Missouri. Twenty pages or more of the copy is published every week, and nearly every comma had clacked from Arthur's keyboard.
In effect, The Butler's Newspaper and Arthur were one.
"What do you want to talk about?" I asked him. To be frank, I'm no longer young at the age of 81. I'm just as wrinkled and old as any senior you'd come across on the street. We got together as kids, him at 19 and myself at 15. I remember at Butler High School, Arthur would sit at the piano to play while I always listened off at the sidelines.
"What will happen if I don't survive?" asked Arthur, because he knew the prognosis.
Pain in his hip had sent him to a radiologist. The radiologist found an abdominal aneurysm, a blood vessel on the verge of erupting. Even if the doctors could contain it, which they did, Arthur's chances of surviving the surgery and weeks of recovery were no better than 40%.
So as we laughed and cried, Arthur penned down his obituary and funeral plans. He still wrote elegantly at his old age and the verge of death. "Nothing long and flowery." I reminded him, because that was not his true style. Dry and sarcastic humour was. At the end of the plans, he added a note: "I know that the two of you and the others will put all of this together," he wrote to the funeral director and a co-worker. "Unfortunately, I'll probably sleep through the whole thing."
Arthur Kirkland died on Sunday. He began every morning and ended every night of his working life – which was pretty much every day of his adult life – in the same manner. He would drive around Butler's square, the wide brick streets where stores and his newspaper office surround the tall oaks that shadow the historic Bates Country Courthouse.
At Arthur's request, he took one last spin around the square at his funeral procession in the town of about 4.200. Arthur's favourite semi-punk band music played over the loud speakers. As beloved as Butler was to Arthur, so was he to this community. Almost every civilian turned up to see him one last time before he was buried six feet under.
So dedicated was he to gathering the news here that when it came to choosing a date for the funeral, there was no question in mine or my childrens' minds when it could not take place.
"We know we can't have the funeral on Thursday." Ludwig Beilschmidt, 73, the paper company's manager said. "That's press day." Meaning, that's the day and often night, when Arthur set the front page photo and story, the biggest news of the week, and put the paper to bed so it could be printed for Saturday's mail.
The story of Arthur Kirkland, the ones who knew him best, is that he was never a nutcracker or a "gotcha" journalist out to ensnare or embarrass anyone.
"Arthur always loved the story that shed positive light on the community," said the current sheriff, Matthew Williams. "He was always fair."
Before he died, he was toying with a playful headline about the beleaguered Butler Beavers, the high school football team that last year went 12-0 but that this year, before his death, so far possessed a sad record of one win and ten losses. Instead of focusing on losing, Arthur was playing up the one win: "Beaver's moxie plays off!"
"That sounds like him," said Vash Mierdot. "You know, I've known him all my life. I went to school here. Played here. When I came back here to be head coach, he's always tried to find something good."
Arthur also had a philosophy about those who feared becoming part of the small-town rumour mill based on what was in the paper. "he said if you don't print it, the rumours run wild. The best way to quell those rumours is to get the story straight and verified. Then print it. Then it goes away a lot faster." mentioned Gilbert Beilschmidt, the current typesetter for The Butler's Newspaper.
At The Butler's, Arthur used to joke with Ludwig that he couldn't take the chance of going away for vacation. "There may be a big train crash," he would say. "and I don't think I would like to miss it."
The crash never came. It didn't matter. His daughters know it is clichéd, but "ink in his veins" fit their dad.
"Unlike the many newspaper people who have a love/hate relationship with their jobs, daddy's was all love." Amelia, our younger daughter remarked.
Elizabeth, the oldest, chipped in. "Father always had a saying. 'Stay tense.' Be ready, for the news is always out there."
"I've been asked for years, 'What are you guys going to do when something happens to Arthur?'" Francis Bonnefoy, current editor of the newspaper said. "My response has always been 'I don't know. It will take Gilbert, Antonio and myself, three people to fo his one job."
Francis and the others are trying to figure out the future, their own and the paper's. What they do know is that the front page story above the fold on the day after the funeral would be about our beloved Arthur.
The black banner headline: "In memory of Arthur Kirkland", would be capped by the phrase 'The one who got ink stuck in his veins."
We'll miss you, Arthur.
R.I.P. C.A. Moore. Any requests can be made by sending me a PM or by messaging me on FB at: . ?id=100007051068687
Thank you all for reading this story.