The Dossier
-PEOPLE Magazine Headquarters, New York, NY-
The New York main offices of PEOPLE were in a word, extraordinary. Considering its level of prestige and recognizability, you would imagine that the office space would have been grandiose, and boy, you would have been right.
Located on the seventh floor of the Meredith Corporate Times office building on Liberty Street, the multi-level building was sleek, elegant, and the epitome of New York swag. It was central close to Lower East Manhattan and the East River right in the hub of the greatest city on Earth, and for millions and millions of people, New York was the place they called home sweet home.
Damian was one of many folks in the Big Apple trying to irk out a living and make his dreams come true and even walking through the busy office dedicated to the magazine's inner workings, all he could say was that he aspired.
It was his dream, his dragon he had been chasing since Middle School, and the time, as they said, was nigh.
"Steve," Damian almost tripped over his own feet darting around an intern's desk, trailing the man like a frantic puppy through his arena dedicated to gossip, news, and celebrity reporting. "Let me do this. I'm tired of just running fluff pieces and I'm better for this gig than fucking James Bottleman!" He couldn't keep the derision out of his voice.
Steve was moving swiftly; busy man, busy feet as he always said. Frankly, Damian hated the stupid saying but then again, he supposed Steve was the Editor-in-chief for a reason.
Steve didn't even bother to glance back while he waved a hand over his shoulder with disgruntled agitation. "Damian." He sounded clipped. "We like your fluff pieces. That's why we have you on call as a contributor." He paused so abruptly Damian almost collided with the man's broad back.
Damian grit his teeth with annoyance before flexing an unamused smile at a petite little blonde named Cindy who, unlike himself, was actually trying to do her job in the office today and not beg for scraps on the floor at Steve's feet.
For the record, in New York aspiring and begging at times were one and the same.
Steve impatiently rifled through her stack of outgoing correspondences the mail clerk had yet to pick up before he found a neatly clipped-together stack and gave her a flat-eyed look of annoyance. "I needed these yesterday." He almost snapped her head off.
Cindy just smiled brightly, little bob-cut swaying when she spread her tiny bejeweled hands like she really didn't give a shit. "Mark just gave me the finished article today, Chief, but I'll make sure I have him whipped through the town square later, kay?"
Steve didn't look amused and just mumbled something under his breath over the tiny New Yorker's sassy shit before starting back for his office with a fast stride.
"Yeah, but man, you don't understand." Damian started right back up, almost on the man's heels. He couldn't afford to lose ground or worse, Steve's attention today.
They made it to the man's office with Steve's name placard over the double wooden doorway and Damian slipped in with him before he could slam him out. He continued hopefully, "I know the snow and the sport...well kind of...fuck, but I at least know the kind of guys out there who do the sport! They're not going to want to talk about it to some slob like Jimmy, you know?"
He slammed the door shut and smacked his knuckles into a palm, eyes imploring on this industry titan that he kind of wanted to punch in the head right then. "They already have an uphill battle with people saying snowboarding isn't a real sport. It's fringe right now, kind of grunge." Damian exhaled it out and tried to smile. "At least I'm around the same age as most of these guys. Jimmy will be like their damn grandpa strolling in and won't even know what to talk to them about."
Steve flopped down behind his massive mahogany desk and laced his large fingers behind his head before he just pinned him with heavily lazy blue eyes.
Steve was positively a powerhouse, no two ways about it. He was forty but had "spank-me-daddy" energy all day long. Steel gray lanced through his thick dark mane of shorter clipped hair and graced the man like a sexy mane. Today it looked mused, fiddled with, and stress fucked all to hell and back and it was an equally good look.
He was the only man Damian knew his age who had replaced his early nineties-era mullet with the far more stylish long sheet of bangs that brushed his high cheekbones. He always kept it flipped to the left and otherwise paired it with a shaggier short cut at the sides and nape that faded seamlessly with that curtain of flirty top length.
Damian would never admit it out loud but he had a super crush on Steve Walman and not because of the man's non-existent shiny positive attitude. More in the way that Steve hit his buttons as an older man in a seat of power who looked like he would take those big hands and rip him out of his button-up at any given time of the day...preferably in a fit of rage-inspired mania but that was neither here nor there today.
No. Today, Damian wanted the man only for what he could actually provide him in this life and that was a chance to really beef up his resume and get himself consideration away from being a measly Contributor and toward his real future as an all-important on-staff writer.
With this convergence of industry titans headed for the October snowfall in Colorado, this piece had his name all over it, and he at least, at least wanted the inclusion. You never knew whose piece would get picked after all, but he was willing to bet if it was between him and Jimmy?
It would be his article hands down and with it, maybe a shot through the door to a permanent position. It surely couldn't hurt was all he was saying about it.
Plus if they only sent Jim out there, these dudes would laugh in his face once they realized he was some overweight, prior Floridian who knew about zero things about snowboarding in general. In his opinion, it was a waste of time and more, a waste of an opportunity for himself to shine. At the very least he could create a compelling piece with some backstory to the sport and scene, and maybe get a few of these guys to chat with him, get some quotes and real-time stories of experiences they had had.
The truth of it was, was that Damian was twenty-four years old as of last month, had done his stint as an English Major in college for four years with a degree focusing on media, and beyond that, he had been in the game since middle school.
He, in other words, had wanted this since he had been twelve years old and first put eyes on the cover of People's sexiest man alive, Mark Harmon in '86. Ever since then, he had been gone for the publication. It had inspired him to create his own one-off version of it for their weekly school paper and yearbook in High School back in the day, had been a huge hunk of his Senior project, and driven him to pursue the life of a journalist. Damian just...he needed this break to happen for him.
Damian felt strongly that his time had come.
Steve, however, exhaled his impatience, and just raked his hair back, eyes creasing at him with feigned goodwill. "Damian. Look, this sport just came up in the Olympics. I get it, but you're just an on-call contributor. I need an experienced travel writer to go out to the war fields, you know what I mean?" He rubbed his temple like he had a migraine before he pulled his top left drawer and sure enough, pulled out a bottle of Tylenol. "This isn't personal. I just need someone out there that's more experienced if we're sending someone out on the papers dime."
Damian threw his arms wide, flustered beyond flustered at this point. It was like beating his head into a wall. "Dude, I'm telling you, I am the guy for this. I grew up in Northern California where this shit got big. I used to go to Silver Springs where these guys hopped around on their little fucking boards and made the scene as big as it was..."
Steve stopped him with a hand up and leaned forward, eyes suddenly bright on him. "Wait. What town are you from out there, Damian?"
Damian paused, a little thrown by the man's sudden downshift and small curious smile. It made him nervous actually. "Um...Colfax."
"Really."
Damian really didn't like the sudden predatory sheen in Steve's eyes and less when the man twisted in his little rolly chair and spidered his way over to his file cabinet.
Damian shifted nervously foot to foot while he watched him pluck out a file.
"Well, that's very interesting because I actually have a man from out there that we're trying to interview but he's...well, a little notoriously unruly for folks in our industry. No one can really get a good interview from the asshole."
Damian exhaled and crossed his arms, eyeing the man up when he whipped around and flashed a bright smile, file in hand. "I don't like that look on your face, Steve."
Steve chuckled and rolled his ass back to his desk before he flopped the file out his way. "You shouldn't because no one else wants to take this one but..." He flashed a shark smile, "I'll tell you what I know. This guy is also from Colfax, isn't that a coincidence? He's coming up fast in the scene and got back from getting a gold medal in Japan in February. Guy's getting ready to head out to the FIS World cup this November. He's got that," Steve waffled a hand and looked almost evil when Damian plucked up the damn file. "-bad boy appeal I guess that makes the ladies cream their fucking panties, right? In other words, he'll sell our magazine but he keeps fucking around on us. Either cancels, reschedules months out past a publication date, is traveling, or giving us bullshit answers in interviews we can't use. So, I'll tell you what."
Steve leaned forward and clasped his fingers together like he was praying. "I'll give you this chance to go out and meet with this guy. He'll be in Colorado practicing his...whatever...craft out there this month. I dunno, maybe schmooze him as an old community member and fellow Colfax alumn...frankly, I don't give a shit how you do it. Get me a good interview with the guy and we'll put it as a center story and..." He beamed at Damian's surprised expression. "...I'll move you to full-time Writer here. Deal?"
Damian's heart began to pound, excitement rocked him, and he actually got clammy-palmed while he let that offer roll over him in full. Still, he wasn't that easy to fool and eyed the guy up suspiciously. "I mean, what if I can't get it?"
Steve shrugged. "Well, then you're one of a dozen who leaves the place flustered as hell after an interview with him. Guy's a showboater and likes his head pet pretty, so I'll contact his manager and arrange something like a resort setting, something that will wet his willy and get him out to an interview scene with bells on." Steve checked his watch pointedly before he grabbed his painkillers and chinned Damian for the door. "Otherwise, you can slug it out as a contributor and earn your way in like everyone else does..." He flexed an unsympathetic smile. "Or not."
He shrugged, cracked the lid, and popped two Tylenol dry on the spot before crushing them between his teeth. "Consider this your way in the door before you're thirty, get it? I'll call you with a flight plan and location this week. Get ready for something early after Monday."
Damian almost felt like he was floating, gripped the file in nearly white-knuckled hands, and just nodded. Admittedly he was cautious but couldn't help his sudden starry-eyed reaction, feeling so elated he couldn't do anything but shake his head, then nod, and almost fluttered for the door. "Sure. No, I'll get it, Steve."
"Yeah-huh." Steve was already flipping on his Dell and Damian heard him muttering something about the new install for Windows 98 he couldn't figure out on his way to the door.
Damian slipped out before the man could stop him and ask him about it. Dealing with Steve trying to navigate a computer was akin to torture. In that regard, the guy was a dinosaur and was still rolling with a beeper and a 96 Motorolla StarTAC.
It was close to obscene but hey, not everyone was in their early twenties during the renaissance of mobile tech, right?
Damian shut the door and moved himself off a few yards in the busy crush of writers, sub-editor jockeys, and staff, thrumming with the sudden opportunity at hand, and thought to himself, how difficult could one guy really be...
He got that far before he flipped the file and found himself staring at a name written at the top that almost iced him over.
Damian blinked at it, and couldn't help the sudden, robust, "Fuck!" that left his lips while his stomach dropped. His heart began to pound for a whole other goddamn reason that afternoon.
Shit.
The name staring back at him in neatly typed Times New Roman font was one, Colin McKinnley, aged twenty-four, living in Wyoming currently but originally, you bet your sweet ass he had lived in fucking Colfax, California.
Damian had gone to school with the arrogant son of a bitch, and just seeing his name jotted down there was almost like a gut punch of memory he hadn't thought about in what...six years?
Since freshman year of college at least. Immediately he understood why, oh why, Colin McKinnley had given the media a run for their money.
Shit. He thought it again and almost, almost turned around to go back into Steve's office and turn the job down. Almost.
However, Damian hesitated and flipped idly through the rest of the dossier on the guy while he thought it over with a more open mind.
Surely, Colin had to have changed a little bit over the last six years right?
They were adults now, and more importantly, all Damian had to do was sit in a room with the guy for what, two hours max and ask him some questions about what he was up to lately, shit like that? Keep it neutral while talking about snowboarding, his gold in the Olympics, and his upcoming World Tourny.
Sounded easy enough, and if he did that successfully, Damian would land his ass right into his dream position for the one job he had been striving for, for the last twelve years of his life.
The chance for that was literally right there in his hands.
Damian exhaled, braced his spine, manned up, and tucked the file under his arm before heading for the office's lofty exit doors.
He could do this. A few hours in exchange for his whole life ahead of him sounded like a great deal and one he would have been an idiot not to at least shoot for.
Damian thought that but even while he told himself he and Colin could sit in the same space without wanting to strangle each other again, he withered internally thinking about the guy.
It was sure to be the longest two-hour block of time in his recent life and he wasn't looking forward to it.
He headed for the elevators and exhaled deeply, stepped in, and hit the button for the bottom level.
Staff Writer. Staff Writer. Staff Writer.
It was now his mantra while he contemplated this sudden upset in his day and was one he was sure to need to desperately in his very near future.
Fuck but who was he kidding?
It was sure to be the greatest crash and burn travesty of 1998.
