Where the action is

When I was younger -- say, eight or nine years ago -- I decided I wanted to be a columnist.
I'd travel all over the world, go to the places where bullets were flying and people were
disappearing on the street -- Beirut, the Congo, El Salvador -- and file weekly dispatches
that would bring the humanity of it all home to my astonished readers. I'd be a legend. I'd
call the column "Where the Action Is."

Well, I was where the action was tonight. I don't want to be there again.

I got the call this morning -- I was taking my dog to the veterinarian -- asking if I'd cover a
prayer vigil tonight. A nineteen-year-old boy had disappeared last Friday -- I'd seen the
flyers popping up around town -- and his friends and family were getting together at
St. Joseph's Church to show their support and hope he'd return safely. I knew St. Joseph's.
One of my friends had gotten married there. I said "okay."

What I didn't know when I walked into St. Joseph's tonight was that the missing boy in
question was the boyfriend of one of my former students, a nice girl who'd served as news
editor of our school paper. She and all of her friends -- all of my former editors -- were
there tonight. Weeping. Hysterical. And I couldn't blame them.

Because I knew what none of them knew: that, earlier that evening, police had caught up
to the carjacker who had kidnaped their friend. That he'd confessed to killing the kid.
That police were, at that very moment, searching the area the killer had said he'd hidden
the body, and that they'd find it any minute now, probably during the prayer service.

Halfway through the service, the priest got up to make an announcement. I knew what he
was going to say; I'm sure a lot of other people suspected, but it went through the room
like an explosion. My editors -- my kids -- were devastated. I'd never done this before,
but I put my notebook away, didn't ask any questions, and just talked to them. I'm sure
my own editor wasn't thrilled with the story I sent, but that didn't seem to matter: I couldn't
be a reporter tonight.

One of the things I used to love about being a reporter was the sense that I always knew
the inside scoop, the things going on that no one around me knew about. I hated that
feeling tonight. And I hated the idea that if I hadn't been a reporter, if I hadn't been assigned
to the vigil tonight, I might never have known about it, and wouldn't have been there for
my kids.

I told Katy I felt better after talking with her. And I meant it. But I still feel rotten about the
whole thing. A nineteen-year-old boy, a nice kid among nice kids, dies. A talented young
woman has to deal with that for the rest of her life. And there's nothing I can do about it,
nothing I can do to help anyone, except write about it, which probably doesn't help
anyone at all.