Five Things That Never Happened to Lewis Young

Rookie

"Forget all those notions you may have of making some kind of name for yourself, kid," Walter Baylor said, as he slowed for traffic that was backing up at Queen and Wineva. "This job is nothing like what you see on TV and movies. No-thing!"

Lewis Young merely nodded politely in reply. Walt seemed content to do all the talking, and Lou wasn't about to contradict him. First day on the job, and Lou found himself saddled with the twelve-year veteran, so obviously the guy had seen a lot in his time, and presumably knew what he was talking about.

"Get used to the mundane. You'll see the same crap, over and over. Drunks. Fights. B and Es. Domestic calls. Traffic accidents. And drunks, drunks and more drunks."

Lou nodded again.

The traffic became unclogged, and Walt pressed on the gas pedal.

"Then you got your everyday traffic violations, noise complaints, Peeping Tom complaints...Major crimes like hostage-takings, murders, et cetera – now that's what most of us live for – but those can actually be pretty rare."

Lou was starting to wonder if Walt treated every rookie to the same, boring introductory speech. If so, Walt was a very poor spokesman for the profession.

"You know what pisses me off the most?"

"What?" Lou finally spoke.

"How absolutely stupid people are."

"What do you mean?" Lou asked.

"Well, take for instance a theft call I covered one time," Walt said, keeping his eye on the road. "This lady says someone's been stealing the flowers from her front yard. She's all bonkers about it, until it was pointed out to her that it was the middle of February."

Lou bit his cheek to keep from smiling, imagining some irate woman standing in her garden in minus ten Celsius weather, complaining about missing flowers. But Walt wasn't laughing, and seemingly hadn't intended the anecdote to be humorous.

"Wow," was all Lou could muster.

"I got hundreds of 'stupid' stories," Walt droned on. "You rack 'em up when you've been on the job 'long as I have."

"I'll bet you do," Lou said wearily. If this is how his first day was going to go, with Walt relating 'stupid' stories interspersed with private rants about the nature of job, Lou wondered how long he'd be able to cope being Walt's shadow.

A rookie was supposed to learn from the veterans, but Lou figured if he let Walt's world view affect his own, he'd never get anywhere in the world of ambulance-chasing, police-scanner-monitoring, crime-scene reporting for the Toronto Star.

As Walt nattered on, Lou slowly started to tune out, imagining what the topic of his first by-line might be.

Something like 'Veteran Reporter Strangled by Annoyed Cub Reporter', Lou thought. That'll surely sell.