Apologies to My Censor by Mitch Moxley Read Free Book Online Page B

slow, sweltering weeks of summer I settled into a
lovely routine in my new career as a wallflower. Sometimes, out of sheer
boredom, I would offer to edit a story, but mostly my days looked like this:
    9:30—Wake up. Press
snooze button.
    10:15—Walk to nearby
café.
    10:30—Arrive at
office.
    10:30–11:00—Check
e-mail.
    11:00–noon—Surf
Internet.
    Noon–1:30—Lunch with
colleagues. Having grown weary of the canteen’s food, several of us often
split a cab to a deli fifteen minutes away from the offices, where we
relaxed over coffee long after we were expected back at work.
    1:30–4:15—Sporadic
checking of e-mail, chatting on MSN, surfing Internet. Flirt with
Lois.
    4:15–4:45—Coffee with
other members of the foreign staff.
    4:45–6:00—Work. Mostly
researching potential freelance stories that had nothing to do with China Daily .
    6:00—Home.
    China Daily and I had
come to a happy truce. In September, after a lazy four months on the job, I
walked into Mr. Wang’s office and asked for a raise.
    I got it.

4
    Young Turks, Old Hacks
    I t was my colleague Potter’s birthday. We got drunk.
    I didn’t know how old Potter was. He was probably in his late fifties or early sixties, though it was hard to tell since he was a heavy smoker and drinker, a lifetime of which was taking its toll. His cheeks were sunken and the bags under his eyes were large and black, as if he never slept, which was entirely possible. Potter was half Indian, half Welsh, Hong Kong–born and raised, a tiny man with a thin goatee and bald head except for a horseshoe of jet-black hair that wrapped around the back of his skull. He was cigarette slim; in the year I knew him I don’t think I ever saw him eat. He dressed immaculately in white or black collarless shirts, with black pressed trousers and polished black shoes.
    His birthday party was on a hot weeknight in midsummer. Everybody met after the late shift at the Goose & Duck, a sports bar with a Filipino cover band next to a park on Beijing’s east side. When Rob and I arrived around 11:30 p.m., the party was already in full swing.
    Potter sat in the middle of a long table beside Filipino David, a Beijing-based photographer and Potter’s good friend from back in the day in Bangkok. David had a bushy black mustache and wore a faded denim jacket even in the heat. His laugh was contagious and he came across as the friendliest guy you’d ever met. Some of the other expat staff were there along with others I didn’t know, mostly Filipinos, including a man known as the Ambassador, short for “Maggie’s Ambassador,” a name he earned due to the frequency with which he visited Beijing’s most notorious nightlife establishment, Maggie’s, a club known as a pickup joint specializing in Mongolian prostitutes.
    Rob and I pulled up chairs at the table, where everybody was eating Filipino food. Potter was drinking a bottle of Carlsberg and sipping from a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label that David had brought. When Potter’s glass was empty, David filled it, his arm resting over his old buddy’s shoulders.
    â€œAny birthday resolutions, Potter?” Rob asked. “Anything you’re going to do different in the next three hundred and sixty-five days?”
    Potter smiled. He looked like he was thinking of something witty to say, but nothing came.
    â€œBe a better propagandist?” Rob suggested.
    Potter laughed, a throaty chuckle that seemed to rattle his rib cage. “Yes, yes. That’s it.”
    T his was my crew: a gang of misfits from around the globe—nomads, drinkers, aging journalists with young girlfriends. Wanderers with no place else to go. Runners from reality.
    In The Rum Diary , Hunter S. Thompson describes the staff of the fictional San Juan Daily News as either “wild young Turks” or “beer-bellied old hacks” barely able to write a