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David Harrison was born in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England but spent half his life in London and South East England before moving to Sydney, Australia in 1981 and becoming an Australian citizen.After retiring from a career in scientific research which entailed writing and publishing many scientific papers and reports, David decided he'd like to try his hand at creative writing and took a course with the poet Kate Llewellyn. With Kate's encouragement he started writing poetry. He was a member of the Central Coast Poets from 2004 until moving to Canberra in 2022 and had poems published in their anthologies, as well as in Five Bells and Quadrant magazine. His poem "Poor Man Hiro" was awarded second prize in the Henry Kendal Poetry Award 2012 and his poem "In Praise of Grey" was awarded first prize in the Free Verse Category competition of the University of the Third Age, Sunshine Coast. His first book of poems, "Songs of the Exile" was published with Ginninderra Press in 2017.

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AFTERMATH

By DAVID HARRISON

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 David Harrison
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-7600-9

Chapter One

Since my divorce, in the late winter of the previous year, I had been living in a furnished efficiency near Gramercy Park, on East Fifteenth, between Third and Lexington. The building was old, and a little run down, but the apartment was inexpensive and suited my needs. There were plenty of restaurants and bars within easy walking distance, but more often than not, after work, I would stop in at Pete's Tavern for the daily special or the prime rib. Pete's had become a haven of sorts in my transition from married life. It was lively, the people entertaining, but there was a downside too; as I spent more time there, I began to recognize in the clientele the same untethered quality I was beginning to see in myself, as if heading down a strange road into a life not my own. But it was more than that too; the divorce had turned messy and malicious, even more than I imagined it might. Of course I was not blameless in the matter, nor could I deny that I had seen it coming; the changes in Marti, the disengagement and contention, my own failure to change course, the qualities of a dissolving marriage, impossible to ignore. But in my endless capacity for self-deception and devotion to my work, I had been careless, refusing to read the signs. Marti and I had always weathered the storms of life, and I had come to view our long history together as something elemental and unshakable, foolishly ignoring how quickly all of that could change. In hindsight, it was a simple matter of opening my eyes to obvious forewarnings. But in fairness, at the time, regardless of what I may have known to be true, I could not have foreseen the tumultuous ride that lay ahead. The divorce, I would quickly learn, was only a prelude; the first in a series of events that would change the course of my life more profoundly then I could have imagined.

My name is John Parrish. I am a newspaper man. And having spent my days climbing the ranks of the New York Sentinel, while Marti taught at the Manhattan International School, we had managed to pay off our Upper East Side apartment, which she had kept, and the Long Island house, which I had kept. Over the years, I suppose I had convinced myself that the traveling and sheer number of hours required by my job were not a strain on our marriage. And though Marti had always assured me in her immutable way that they were not, it wasn't until much later that I began to detect the false note, the spiteful small reproach in her voice that I had foolishly relegated to a level of apathy in the daily rush of our lives.

But regardless of hindsight or of how I may have chosen to view it now, the simple truth was that my life had suddenly altered—priorities had changed. Aside from having to reinvent myself in mid-life, my concern was now for our daughter, Christi, who was living with her mother in the city, and already in her last year of high school. The realization that she would be starting at Yale in the fall, compelled me to feel my age more than I cared to admit.

It seemed only a short time ago that I myself had begun my own studies on that same campus, a campus which had changed little over the years—the stone Gothic buildings, the spires, the vast impersonal quality of it. I was afraid then, with a looming certainty, that my time at Yale would prove to be the highpoint of life—that afterwards, everything would smack of anticlimax. It hadn't turned out that way, but neither had my success been meteoric. For a time, I felt as if I were standing on the sidelines, envious of those who had catapulted themselves ahead early on—it wasn't until much later that I began to question the seeming advantages of early success. I had seen too many of my triumphal classmates lose their way to drugs and alcohol and aborted marriages. But even with what I have come to view as an amended, patient approach to life, existence, as I knew it, had, with a resounding roar, blown up in my face. At age forty-five, my world had come undone—I was certain of nothing.

I had started with the Sentinel as a green reporter, straight from Yale, having climbed the management ranks to Senior Editor of World News, a position I had held for just over five years by the time the rumors began to swirl. It seemed that consortiums and various corporate entities had begun to take notice of our industry's apparently high profit margins. There were suddenly all manner of enterprising groups with the high intensions of streamlining target news organizations—of transforming staid business models into efficient, honed machines, from which to extract ever greater profits. And the Sentinel, being unprotected by family ownership, or majority voting rights, as some of our competitors were, had been particularly vulnerable. So when finally it happened—when the Sentinel was bought out by a consortium of local businessmen, I found myself suddenly on the hit list—expendable—the last of a vanishing breed. The new owners, all five of them, previous captains of industry, who had apparently tired of retirement and country club life, arrived with a business plan in hand calling for the immediate reduction of eighty employees, with the clear implication of more to follow.

In short, the handwriting was on the wall, and it came as no surprise when, on a Thursday afternoon in early May, I was called into the office of my good friend and Executive Editor, Jack Turnbull, and asked to quietly accept a voluntary severance package. It was a significant package. More than I might have expected. And though the inevitability of it was predictable enough; still, in the prime of my career, it wasn't how I had envisioned leaving the paper.

Jack's words and resounding baritone voice still echoed in my ears: "Of course you understand, John, this is nothing personal," he began. "I'm afraid it's the unfortunate reality of the corporate world. I'm sorry as hell—not to mention the short notice."

I sat there looking back at my old friend from across the desk. It wasn't Jack's fault, he was simply reacting to the pressures from above. Nevertheless, I wanted to believe it would have been different, if the tables had been turned, if I were in his shoes—but I wasn't at all sure of that. I wanted to be angry, but couldn't.

Finally, I said, "Don't worry about it, Jack. We've both seen this coming; I've been making plans."

"What the hell can I say?" Jack continued on, pacing now behind the large walnut desk, devoid of all clutter, stopping and turning momentarily to look out the window as if at nothing at all. "This is not only embarrassing; it's the goddamndest thing I could have imagined." He paused a moment, and then said, "I never thought it would play out like this."

My eyes wandered to a framed photograph on the wall behind him of Jack smiling broadly and shaking hands with President Clinton in happier times. Jack appeared much younger then, his hair not as gray, or as wispy, not parted as low on the left side, and he hadn't yet been relegated to wearing the round rimless glasses that had become, in a way, his persona.

"I'm afraid I haven't any choice in the matter," Jack said as he paced now with his hands in his pockets, "I never thought they'd start at the top like this. I'm at a loss. It's the goddamnest thing." Jack stopped and slowly shook his head, looking off again into the distance, the light silhouetting his face, his lips moving almost imperceptibly, as though...