The Old Rollback
Brew saw Bob Graham at the book fair Saturday, selling Intelligence Matters.
Brew didn't have any new product to sell. All he had was old shopworn pamphlets.
Past glory, Brew. What have you done for me lately?
* * *
When Brew worked for the Department of Commerce, as an information developer,
his job was clipping articles for the governor.
Every weekday morning he
would read seven newspapers from around the state and mark items of interest to the
governor, then the department secretary would cut them out, paste them up, and copy
them, making a copy for the governor, the Secretary of Commerce, and his department
heads: Employment Security, Unemployment Compensation, Economic Development, and
Tourism.
Reuben Askew was governor.
Brew loved his job.
After
he did the clips, he would have coffee with Manfred, in the cafeteria of the Leroy
Collins Building, then write on his book the rest of the day.
Sometimes he
would to go the library, on the 5th floor, and read library books, or Florida
Trend magazine.
Two books he remembered reading up there were Alex Shoumatoff's
Florida Ramble and Gloria Jahoda's bicentennial history, which contained a
chapter on the Second Seminole War.
He thought some day he'd drive around
the state and write a book like Florida Ramble.
* * *
Doing the clips was a fine practical education in how the news is manufactured,
as product.
Brew saw how a story was born, senesced, and died, to be revived,
on an anniversary, if it had enough crime, sex, sports, and astrology. Celebrity
tell-all biography.
He saw how one paper would run a story on the front page,
one would bury it in the back, and one would not cover it at all.
He got
so he knew who would say what about what, so if you wanted to slant a story a certain
way, you could get a quote from them.
* * *
Manfred gave two weeks notice, Brew's boss hired a replacement for him, Manfred's
new job downstate fell through, he rescinded his notice and asked for his old job
back, which his boss gave to him.
But his replacement had given notice at
her job, and her boss had hired a replacement for her.
Brew's boss had three
people and two slots.
Brew was on probation. He could be let go for no reason.
He was two weeks shy of completing his probation.
His boss called him in
and told him he was sorry, he was going to have to let Brew go. His performance
hadn't measured up.
Brew asked why he hadn't said something before, but his
boss said he had been too busy, and now he had three employees and two slots, and
this was the easiest for all concerned.
Brew said it wasn't the easiest for
him.
He didn't quit his job in Fort Walton Beach and move to Tallahassee
at his own expense for six months' work and then the sack. He'd be damaged goods,
if they did that to him. He'd never get a permanent job with the state.
Besides, Brew said, which is it? I didn't work out or it's easiest for you because
you have a staffing problem?
I didn't cause your staffing problem, Brew said,
you did, by not following the prescribed procedures, for advertising the job, interviewing
the highest five scorers on the state civil service register, etc.
Brew threatened
to file a grievance.
His bossman told him a probationary employee couldn't
file a grievance. No one would hear it.
Brew filed one anyway, giving it
to his boss on the way out the door, his boss's boss, and the Secretary of Commerce.
The old rollback got Brew. Then the old omertà. By not keeping silent Brew violated
the unwritten code.
Writer-in-Residence
Brew got a job on an archeological dig, out of town, at Andersonville Prison,
looking for a field hospital where the National Park Service wanted to put a new
parking lot.
The job was a 180-day appointment.
But it was 180 working
days, and that stretched to from nine months to a year.
Brew would spend
three months in the field and six months to nine months back in the lab, writing
a report comparing Civil War prisons, North and South.
Brew was a report
writer.
He called himself a writer-in-residence.
He had an office
in the lab and an electric typewriter and a library card to the FSU library as an
Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, attached to the Southeastern Archeological Center
of the National Park Service, as a courtesy.
Brew wrote on his book about
the Second Seminole War and did research on the paper he would write about the prisons.
In his book, he compared himself to Osceloa, who was captured under a flag of truce,.
shipped to a stockade in South Carolina, allowed to die, and then had his skull stuck
on the prison doctor's bedstead. Like Bush's grandfather stealing Geronimo's skull
for the Skull and Bones Society, at Yale.
Osceola is from Asi Yaholo,
or Crier of the Black Drink, an emetic tea drunk by Seminole Indians before going
into battle, made from the narcotic holly Ilex vomitoria.
Osceola
was a war chief, not a hereditary chief. He earned his badge by being hadjo,
or recklessly valorous.
At Fort Payne, he jabbed his Bowie knife through
the parchment and said, "This is the only treaty I will make."
That was the only treaty Brew would make with the Department of Commerce, or with
the publishers in New York.
He was fixing to have his head handed to him
on a stick.