The Eavesdropper – How I Think I Might Have Taken Down A Media Empire

ALL CHARACTERS AND EVENTS IN THIS STORY ARE FICTITIOUS

This morning I woke up at 5 to the sound of the garbage truck, police and ambulance sirens echoing through the alley.  I stumbled out of bed and into the kitchen half brain dead still, one thing on my mind.  Coffee.

Monday morning blues.  I switched on the stove and put the kettle on to boil.  I stood at the window looking down at downtown Manhattan life in the early morning, wondering if I’d blown it forever.  This time two days ago I was standing in the same place, at the same time of day, dreaming of my future.

Now this.  The kettle boiled and whistled.  It was one of those old ones; I had picked it up along with an old French percolator – the kind with a small glass bubble at the top - at a garage sale when I first moved to New York with a few dollars to my name, the clothes on my back, and a head and heart full of dreams.

I put coffee grounds into the French percolator, added boiling water, and stuck it on the hot stove.  It started bubbling straightaway and filled my kitchen with the sweet scent of Columbian dark roast.  Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad.  And if they did turn out to be disastrous maybe I could find a way out.  Find a way back.  The smell of coffee always gets my imagination going.

You know when somebody dies too soon and you didn’t get to say what you wanted to say to them?  You play their death over and over again in your head, trying to turn it around, change the inevitable, just so that you can have one more chance.  Well that’s what I did as I poured a cup of coffee and went back to my bedroom to sit by the window.  If only…

If only I hadn’t fallen in love with New York, if only I’d listened to my father who said mind your own business, if only I didn’t have such a wild and unruly imagination.  If only I hadn’t wanted to be a journalist.  If only I hadn’t broken the promise I made to myself that I would never ever…

But I did fall in love with New York and who can blame me?  I grew up in a small dusty town in the middle of nowhere in South Africa.  My imagination is what saved me, and the idea that I could be a journalist and travel the world kept me alive until I could get the hell out.  Plus, being a journalist means you have to mind everybody else’s business, don’t you?

It doesn’t mean you have to break promises to yourself, though.  I know that, and I’m not really kidding myself any differently.  But that day I just sort of closed my eyes, crossed my fingers and said to myself just this once.  I know, don’t laugh at me, that’s what everybody says.  Well, some get caught with their pants down and some don’t.  Trust my luck.

When I was a kid I read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and it scared the hell out of me.  Thanks to my father’s unerring sense of justice and the true nobility of his heart, I had somewhere deep inside me a line that I knew I must never cross.  The thing is, I wasn’t good like my father and it bothered me a bit.  I wanted to cross that line, but I knew, - especially after I read that book - that if I did, I would have to come clean and take my punishment.

I finished my coffee and gazed out of the window.  Across the way, I could see lights coming on in windows, people waking up, starting their day.  I wondered if any of them ever watched me and wondered what my life was like.  Police sirens went wailing past in the street below.  Appropriate.

Here’s the thing.  Without meaning to I took down a media empire.  Sometimes catastrophic events are triggered by the most trivial things.  I know when I tell you, you aren’t going to believe me.  I was sitting on a bench in Central Park yesterday, and actually I was minding my own business for once.  Thinking about an article I wanted to write on George Clooney, wondering how I could get an interview.

More fantasy than anything else, really.  A red-haired woman came strolling past, talking on her mobile.  I recognized her – or I thought I did - and something made me get up and follow her.  I don’t know why, but I suddenly had this compulsion to hear what she was saying.  It was as if fate thrust its hand at me and directed me.  I was helpless to resist.

She was engrossed in her conversation and didn’t notice me; there were a lot of people around anyway.  I pretended to be an absent-minded tourist, ambling along.  Truth is, I couldn’t really hear her very well, so I had to use my imagination a bit.  She never said the name of the person she was speaking to, but I was pretty sure she said something like “it’s fine, just don’t get caught”.

Caught doing what, I wondered, and the next few words out of her mouth settled it for me.  “Listen hon, do what you have to do.  It’s the age of information.  People talk on their mobiles, other people find ways to listen in.”  She stopped, while she listened to something the other person said – probably something like “well somebody could be listening to us”.  She laughed, and disconnected.

I couldn’t believe it.  Was she who I thought she was?  I took a photo, meaning to Google her when I got home.  But then my wanna-be journalist brain went into overdrive.  If I could break this story I’d be famous.  I had just gotten a Twitter account, and I was tweeting things just for fun.  I didn’t even know if anybody was following me.

I tweeted my ill-gotten knowledge and I wasn’t going to mention her name but – and here’s where I broke my promise, which was to always back up stories and make sure I was telling the truth – I thought what the hell, nobody would read it anyway.  I wouldn’t send any emails or anything until I’d checked Google.

I told myself nobody was going to read my tweet, but my heart was pounding, I broke into a sweat as I pressed “tweet”.  No wonder journalists go so crazy for stories, it’s a real high, I tell you.  Then I chickened out, and cancelled my Twitter account, I don’t know what came over me.   I caught the subway home and dashed upstairs, switched my laptop on.  And typed that now-famous name into Google.  By then I had convinced myself that my suspicions would be confirmed.

But they weren’t.  The woman wasn’t who I thought she was.  I was hugely disappointed, and shocked to see how big the fantasy I had created around fame and fortune had grown in an hour.  But as the evening wore on, and reality took a firm hold again, I laughed it off.  It would make an entertaining paragraph in my bio one day, when I am rich and famous.

The next day the news broke.  “Anonymous tweeter exposes illegal phone hacking by ---- International”.  I didn’t mean to do it, I swear.  I don’t even know if it’s the truth.  I don’t know what to do.  I don’t want to turn myself in; that would be suicide.  Thank God I cancelled my Twitter account, otherwise I’d be sued into the ground.  Ground into the dust.

I poured myself another cup of coffee and went back to my cushion by the window.  And I thought, imagine if it is true, wouldn’t that be the weirdest coincidence?  And I wouldn’t be able to claim that I was the first to know, because I cancelled my Twitter account.  Now there’s justice for you or something.  Well, if it’s true, I wasn’t the first to know, was I?  I was the first to imagine it could happen, I suppose.  I’ll have to settle for that.

If it’s not true, I guess it will blow over.  In any case, nobody knows about me, it’s not as if I’ve got a job to lose or anything.  It’s just me and my head full of dreams, the clothes on my back, a kettle and a French percolator.  Will I mind my own business next time?  I want to say yes but I know it would be a lie.  Next time I’ll confirm my story before I open my big mouth, though.