Pressing Issues - short story

“Pressing Issues”

The manager at Ace Printing Company was wary of the little man who now sat before him. The mans beady eyes, flannel shirt, and untrimmed mop made him resemble a serial murderer who the police had just brought to justice. This man was a killer who had a good job and a nice family, a regular well to do fellow who turned into a monster after the sun set. Nevertheless, he decided that he would exercise his best behavior. At least with his initial greeting.
“Howdy-doo, mister….Closoff? Am I pronouncing that correctly?”
“Yes sir, just like the things you and I are wearing. Please, though, call me Oliver.”
“Very well, Oliver. My name is Roger Bernard’, with a slight sneer ‘mister Bernard to everyone except my wife. Let me start this off by asking what brings you to my beloved printing company?”
Oliver hesitated a moment, seeming to ponder his next lines to a point, Bernard thought, that bordered on excessive.
“Well, sir,’ after what seemed like a long time, ‘I have been a farmer for my entire life. Planting, seeding, slaughtering, plowing, and other such activities have been my daily routine for as long as I can recall. The other day, I had what people call an epiphany. I just looked down at my field and felt like I can’t spend my whole life doing this stuff. There is too much out there to do instead of waiting for the corn to grow.”
He gave a nervous laugh.
“Spending a life time at this’, he continued ‘is no life in our world of technological advancement. I had a buddy who ran an underground funny pages of sorts who let me play around with his press from time to time and I always enjoyed it very much, even got to be quite good, as they tell me. So, to put the pig in the pot, as we say back home, I was wondering if you could offer me a job?”
Before Bernard could even think of a way to let this man down easily, which was surprising because of his repertoire of ways to do this, the little man piped up.
“Just give me a chance, sir. I sold my farm and most of my favorite things to move out here to ask you for a job. I won’t let you down.”
Somewhere, deep down in Roger Bernard’s cold, bitter heart, a pinprick of pity made its way through.
“Ah, hell,’ he thought ‘I guess I could give this guy a shot. What harm could it bring, anyway? If he sucks, I could have the pleasure of kicking him out the door.”
Bernard chuckled to himself a bit.
“Alright,’ Bernard said ‘This is what is going to happen. I’m going to give you a little job to run. If you can do it, in a respectable time, you have a job. Bear in mind, boy. My father built this company from the ground up, and entrusted it to me in 1920. I‘ve been running this thing for 15 years and from that day to this I have been dedicated to excellence so as to do my father proud. If you can‘t cut it, you‘re out.”
“You won’t regret this, mister Bernard.” Oliver exclaimed, enthusiastically.
“You’re damn right, I won’t,’ thought Bernard. He turned to his intercom and said,
“Lucius, it’s your time to shine.”
“Lucius ‘Bernard explained to Oliver ‘is our head printer here at Ace, He’ll give you that little job I spoke of.”
At that moment, an enormous fellow strode into the room. He was the biggest, meanest looking black man that Oliver had ever seen.
“This guy looks more like a boxer than a printer”, Oliver thought. “He looks like he would crush the press before he got any prints out of it.”
A little thought came into his head of this man pressing the buttons on the machine to start the printing process but instead of starting the job, the machine collapses under the sheer stress of this mans finger and explodes in a mess of screws and levers.
“Lucius’ Bernard said ‘this is Oliver, your new fresh meat, I mean, fresh face.”
Lucius’ giant hand grasped Oliver’s and shook until the little mans bones and sinews threatened to snap.
“Nice to meet you, Oliver” Lucius said, in a deep, throaty voice that reminded Oliver of the way a snake might greet a mouse.
“Care if we get started, Mr. Bernard?”
“Go right ahead. Good luck, Oliver”, Bernard said.
“This is quite a group of fellows, here’ Oliver thought. “Maybe I shouldn’t have left my farm.”

Lucius showed Oliver all around the press room. They went to the paper room, the ink storage, the cutting and collating room, and the dark room. Oliver marveled at all these things, having never been off his farm, much less into the hustle-and-bustle of a real, live, functioning printing company. Oliver was just a small town, country boy after all and wasn’t used to this much activity in such a small space.
After the tour, Lucius led Oliver over to a small corner of the building where a large pile of rusty junk sat in the corner, collecting dust and spider webs. Oliver was used to old presses for the one his friend had was not exactly in good working shape.
“This printing company ‘ Lucius explained ‘is responsible for printing our local paper as well as the papers for several surrounding counties. The reason being is that we are the best. Therefore, we need the best to keep our business running smooth. So, do this job well and you will be spared the pain of me throwing you out the door.”
The job Oliver was given required quite an amount of skill and labor to complete. Oliver worked hard and worked fast and finished the job quickly.
“How can you be done so fast, boy? That should have taken you twice as long.” Lucius’ face turned bright red and Oliver thought he could see smoke coming out of his ears.
Lucius was continuing his rant about the impossibility and the “goddamn nerve of you to be such a cocky bastard” when Bernard came by.
“How are we doing, Oliver?” asked Bernard, hoping to be answered with the desperation of hopeless defeat. Bernard noticed the neatly stacked piles of perfectly printed paper.
“Wow, Oliver. Top rate job. You’re definitely the right man. Just stupendous! Better watch yourself, Lucius. I think you have a rival for best pressman.”
With this, Bernard walked off. Lucius gave Oliver a very cold stare and felt the rage in his throat.

The time passed quickly for Oliver. He gained great respect from his fellow coworkers for being such a gifted pressman. All around the printing floor, they were saying things like,
“Hey did you hear that guy once ran the entire Sunday edition, blindfolded, with his hands tied behind his back, in half as much time as that asshole, Lucius?”
Oliver being compared to Lucius was how all these stories ended. For Lucius, this was more than he could stand to hear. He began to think of the implications here. Lucius had worked hard, and been hard, to get where he was today.
“I’m not going to lose all that I have’ Lucius kept thinking ‘not when I can do something about it.”
But what could be done? Lucius had done evil things to get where he was. He was not afraid to do them again.
“It’s a ghastly business, but if taking this boy out is what’s necessary, that’s what I’m going to do.”

It was late and Oliver was busy. He had lately been allowed to stay by himself after hours, due to Bernard’s ever-increasing respect for such a talent. Bernard had asked and Oliver gratefully obliged. It was Oliver’s pleasure.
“I love the satisfaction of being able to get the important stuff out to the public.”, Oliver had said, and thought to himself now, as he busily bustled back and forth, his hands moving as efficiently as any machine’s, without a single movement wasted.
“This is a gift, to be able to contribute my services to advance the people’s knowledge of our world. I am able to expand their world. It is a true blessing.” He heaved a sigh of utter contentment. “One that I would not trade for anything. One that I would fight for.”
A rustling sound made Oliver twirl. He had a brief moment to see something large, dark, and bald hurtling toward him at tremendous speed before he was hit in the chest with an overwhelming force and tossed against the press. In his daze, Oliver struggled to make out the figure of his assailant.
“Not so confident now, are you, boy?’ came a growl that could only have belonged to Lucius.
“You know, ’Lucius went on ’I’ve been head pressman for here for over 20 years and I am not, repeat, not going to let you prissy foot your way in here and take away what I worked so hard for.”
Oliver saw the light catch a blade as it was removed from its sheath.
“It’s all over for you, boy.” Lucius growled and darted towards Oliver.
All Oliver could do was take one step back but one was enough. Oliver tripped and fell backwards, avoiding the serrated bringer of pain that Lucius was slicing erratically through the air. He knocked his head on the concrete and blacked out. Lucius, forced forward by his own momentum, with nothing to stop him, sped uncontrollably into the large press and hit his head on the press feeder with a terrible crunching sound. The machine was in full printing mode and the grabbing gears tangled Lucius’ clothes and skin together with the print job. Such a large obstruction did not slow this machine. Instead, it continued on its merry printing way. The local daily, however, was now being spit out the other end, printed in a brilliant red.

Oliver awoke several hours later, wondering why his clock hadn’t gone off. He had this horrible dream that Lucius came after him. Just a dream.
He started to lift himself. But he wasn’t in bed. His head ached and he remembered and screamed out loud. He looked around. The first thing he noticed was that the printer was still running, and a steady drip of red ink was being produced from the corner of the machine and pooling on the ground.
“I don’t use red ink.”
Oliver got to his feet and limped over to the press. His chest hurt. Something broken.
The press was fairly clean. It seemed that all of Lucius had been mixed together and had turned into this beautiful, bright red ink that had been used to print this mornings edition.
Oliver glanced at the clock on the wall. The edition was supposed to go out in one hour and the only versions Oliver had were red copies. There was no way he could print the whole edition again in that time.
“I guess I could send these out. Would it make a difference anyway? It would make a difference if there was nothing to go out. I won’t compromise my job because of this.”
When the local distributors came to pick up the neatly collated stacks of the morning edition, Oliver hid himself in the corner and crossed his fingers.
This news broadcast aired on the AM evening news.
“This mornings readers got a shock when they received their morning edition printed in red ink. The real news here, though, is the discovery that the red ink is nearly unsusceptible to wear. Mr. Ely Kensington noticed his child scrub the edition vigorously. Kensington noted that the paper was worn away but the ink had not faded in the slightest. His discovery prompted an immediate call to the press.
According to Roger Bernard, owner and general manager of Ace printing company, a pressman named Oliver Closoff ran this job. Closoff has been unreachable as of yet to shed any light on the ingredients of this newly dubbed “Super Ink”. This station will keep you up to date on this breaking news event.”

The next morning, Oliver arrived for work and was greeted by a small army of newsmen.
“Oliver, what is your “super ink” made of. Is it your own invention. I have been told that you are very skilled at working with ink. Have you been experimenting with new combinations?” a particularly beefy reporter who had muscled his way to the front asked.
“Well folks,’ Oliver said, thinking quickly ‘Right before my father died, he called me over to him and said ‘Ollie’ (he liked to call me Ollie), I have to let you in on a secret. This secret has never made its out of this family. Your grandfather was used to be a pressman and one day he came across a way to make ink that would never fade. He used this ink often but never gave away the recipe except to me, his only son. I never used it. You are my only son, and a pressman that would make your grandfather proud, so I will pass this recipe on to you. Your grandfather said never to give up the recipe, on his deathbed he made me promise him.’ And so, on my fathers death bed, I promised him that I would never give up the recipe. You’ll understand, surely, why I am not going to share it with you. Now excuse me, I have work to do.”
Oliver breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his forehead as he walked away from the mass of newsmen who had erupted in a cacophony of questions and yells of dissatisfaction.
“I’ve got myself in pretty deep, here.” Oliver thought.
He tried to get himself off his troubles by immersing himself in his work. He was just starting to feel a bit better when Roger Bernard raced into the press room.
“Oliver, where have you been. I’ve been looking for you all over.”
“Yesterday was my day off.” Oliver replied.
“It was? Are you sure? Well, never mind. I need you to print tomorrow mornings edition so make up a new batch of that “super ink” of yours. I was going to ask Lucius but he hasn’t been seen for a few days. Hit the road, finally. I was going to fire him anyway. He scared me. Oh, by the way, I don’t know what made you think it was alright to print in another color without asking me. Lucky for you your ink is amazing.” Bernard’s voice rose and fell as he spoke as if he was in a battle with himself over whether to get mad or not.
Oliver’s mind reeled and raced.
“Sir, this stuff doesn’t just pop out. I’m going to need time to make a new batch.”
Bernard’s face grew stern.
“You have until tonight or else you’re fired. I’ll let you do whatever you need to but get it done.”

Oliver was stressed. He paced the floor of his dirty apartment and spoke loudly to himself.
“What am I going to do? I can’t just say the stuff is made of blood. I won’t be able to prove that I didn’t just throw Lucius into the press. He was the one and only person that was keeping me from being the top pressman. I would get locked up and they would throw away that key. I guess I only have one choice.”
He was out on the street now. His eyes darted one way and then the other and then back. He spoke to himself in a low whisper.
“I don’t have another choice. I gave everything up to get where I am now and it will be a dark day in hell before I give it up. Besides, killing isn’t so bad.”
Oliver thought back to his days on the farm when he would have to slaughter pigs, cows, and chickens. He remembered even enjoying it.
“Why should people be any different?”
Oliver had been walking very quickly, with his head down, because he was in a very dangerous part of town. He did not notice the only other person on the street until he walked right into him.
“What the fuck?’ the little Italian with the ratty mustache said ’why don’t you look where you’re going, dumbass? I’m the only person on the sidewalk and you walk smack into me. HAHA, you dummy! Get out of here before I teach you a thing or 2 about how we handle dummies around here”
Oliver fumed at being dubbed a dummy.
“Better get it over with now ’ he thought and lunged. The little Italians screams were muffled by a gloved hand.

“I guess it’s all done, Mister Bernard.” Oliver said. He flipped through the stack of newspaper, the brilliant red ink catching the light and refracting it around the room.
“God bless you, Oliver. They’re beautiful. Just beautiful. A little lighter than the last batch, wouldn’t you say?”
“My ingredients were a tad bit lighter than that of my first,” Oliver explained. “It’s nearly impossible to get it right every time.”
“You have to let me in on this little secret one day, my boy,” Bernard said ‘perhaps I could help balance it out.”
Oliver chuckled.
“I could tell you but I would have to kill you.”
They both laughed.

So, dear reader, as they usually do, this story will come to an end. Oliver became the famous press man he always wanted. He patented his “O. C.’s never-fade” ink and made a nice fortune for himself. The police never caught on to his frightening escapades and actually pinned him a hero when he spent countless hours and gallons of his famous ink printing missing person posters for the people that seemed to be disappearing quite rapidly from the lower east side slums. Then Oliver, very proud and fulfilled by his efforts aiding the common work-a-day folks in getting their daily news, retired to a modest little place where he lives to this day. Despite now being at a very ripe old age, he still runs a little underground newspaper, printed with his gorgeous, glistening red “ink”.