One reporter is having a loud phone conversation while sitting at his desk in a corner of the city room of the Detroit Free Press. Like most city rooms, the Freep's is a jumble of desks and chairs from various eras. The furniture and the people are a mix. Some scruffy, some neat --- but all purposeful. The desks are thrown together. There are no walls, just little islands of activity.
For some reason, the paper's police reporter sits next to the religion writer. Maybe management thought they both dealt with morality. Or maybe, they thought it would be fun to watch the gritty, tough talking, profane Irish police reporter embarrass the squeamish religion guy.
It was probably the latter. One night last week, I went up to the paper to see Brian Flannagan, because I was working on a documentary about the Police Car. While I waited for Brian to get off of the phone, I saw how his presence affected his office mate.
Brian is on the phone and is his normal practice he is yelling and swearing, pounding the desk and threatening to take all manner of harmful actions against the person on the other end of the line.
I know this is just Brian's charming way of convincing a potential source to cooperate. No harm is meant and usually no offense is taken. And it is effective. He's gotten more exclusives than any other reporter on the paper.
While I'm sitting there I overhear the religion guy talking quietly into the phone. He's saying, "Yes Cardinal, that would be very nice, we would love to cover the ceremony . . . blah, blah, blah."
At that moment, Brian's voice rose to a crescendo, " I'm going to jam my fist into your mouth, rip your heart out and shit down your throat," as he hung up the phone.
The religion writer's shoulders winced and he quickly said good-bye to his caller. He turned, got up, went over to Brian's desk and said, "That's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard."
"I was only talking to my mother," Brian replied.
Brian motioned to me and we left.
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