Moxley Post #2

What Jack does for Willie Talos has been a mystery ever since page 1 of All the King's Men. We learned that Jack met Willie while working for a newspaper fairly early on in the book, but between various flashbacks and reflections, we haven't been able to discern exactly what it is Jack does for Willie Talos. We know that Jack is college educated, studied history, and has a background in investigative journalism, but he has never explicitly described how those skills would ever be useful to Willie Talos as Governor of Louisiana. Based on small hints throughout the chapter and upon discovering Willie's conniving dark side, I have come to the conclusion that Jack must be some sort of information collector so that Willie can know everything about everyone and use it against them. First, on page 172, Ms. Dumonde asks Jack if he is in politics. He replies ""No, I'm not in politics," I said. "I've just got a job." "Tell me about your job, Mr. Burden" "I'm an office boy," I said." (pg. 172) Jack is obviously not an office boy, and the fact that he used something as simple as an office boy to lie about gives me the impression that he could do something similarly basic in a political context, more behind the scenes work than upfront political finagling. The next clue is when Jack and his mother are arguing about money on page 180, and Jack's mother is telling him not to take kickbacks or graft from his political escapades ""All I said was I could reach out and knock off ten thousand. And not graft. Information. Information is money."" (pg. 180) This suggests that Jack does have something is do with information, and the fact that he was an investigative journalist combined with the quote about his assignment from Willie (""What am I supposed to do?" "Get over to Harmonville tomorrow and see if you can beat some sense into Sam Harmon's head." "That all?"... "All, except get me together all you have on Al Coyle before you leave town."" (pg. 192)) are what make me think that Jack is specifically performing investigative information gathering tasks for Willie, as he is utilizing the skills that he had shown when he first met Willie, which probably contributed to Willie hiring him as he already knew what Jack was capable of.