News Day

Marco sat in the newsstand with his eyes closed and a hand holding his chin. He started work at 5:00 am with the same three hours of sleep he gets every night.

After closing around midnight he rides the D train to Tremont Avenue. Sometimes he stops for something to eat or maybe a drink, but it’s usually straight to bed because morning comes early around here.

“Saturdays are the worst,” Marco says. “It’s really two days in one. It starts slowly because there aren’t as many people going to work, but business is pretty steady through the morning.”

Then it begins again.

“Sunday sections start coming in the afternoon,” Marco says. “We usually have everything to assemble the Early Editions between 6:00 and 7:00 pm.

“People want them as soon as they’re ready,” he continues. “There’s always a line. I’m a little surprised by the rush for newspapers because there really isn’t anything good: bombings and dead soldiers and cops killing kids for nothing and homes getting foreclosed on and people losing their jobs.”

And there aren’t even box scores on these winter days.

“Baseball helps break up the bad stuff,” Marco says. “But the newspaper columnists’ all-consuming quest to smear players is getting kinda old.

“I’m glad Spring Training starts soon,” he continues. “Printing a newspaper without any baseball scores is a waste of time as far as I’m concerned, but I gotta sell all of them.”

And soon there will be a line for the Early Editions.

“I gotta get to work.”