Last Flight of José Luis Balboa

by Gonzalo Barr

  “Trip, I know you and Marty have discussed this umpteen times—”

  “Who’s idea was it to cover the Haitian who washed up on South Beach? Marty said I couldn’t show the body. He wanted to do on-cameras with INS guys; a bunch of talking heads in polyester uniforms. I mean, you say, A Haitian refugee was found dead on South Beach this afternoon by shocked German and Italian tourists, and nobody gives a fuck, except maybe the hotels and the chamber of commerce.”

  “Don’t forget the tourists.”

  “Yeah, right. But I showed the body. We had everybody talking about it. About us too. CNN even did that story—’Has the Media Gone Too Far?’—with that lesbo grilling me about journalistic ethics. What ethics? This is ratings, man. This is market share. Am I out of line here?”

  “I know, Trip,” Reggio says. “I know all about it. I was there, remember?”

  Trip leans back. He says, “Even our Web site went ballistic. And all we did was show a body puffed up and rotting on the beach.”

  “We were famous there, for a while. That’s for sure.”

  “Face it, more people watch us now than any other news show in Miami. This Virgin Mary story’s got the public by their—”

  “Coe-hoe-neeze.”

  “Exactly.”

  Trip takes a sheaf of papers from his desk. He says, “You picking up a little Spanish?”

  “Poe-kee-toe.”

  “Still dating that Cuban girl?”

  “Seeh.”

  “Best meat in town.”

  Later that day, Trip Perez and his team sit on the set ready to broadcast. The NewsNow! logo flies across the monitors. The studio is filled with a swoosh sound, followed by urgent music. A man’s voice announces the 5:00 news. Trip stretches his neck and swallows. A technician behind a camera waves three fingers. Two. One.

  TRIP: Hello, everyone. This is NewsNow! Five o’clock edition. I’m Trip Perez. We told you we’d be the first to bring you a live picture of the apparition that’s the buzz all over Miami, and here it is: What you’re looking at are the windows of an office building on Brickell Avenue and Tenth Street. Now look closely. Appearing on the windows of this building, at least five stories high, the image of a woman wearing a shawl. Some people see the Virgin Mary. Others not so sure. One thing’s certain, NewsNow!’s Jennifer McCue is there live right now. Jenny?

  JENNIFER: That’s right, Trip. It happened before rush hour. One moment this was just another office building. The next, the figure of a woman appears, drawing people on foot, slowing down rush-hour traffic. NewsNow! has brought you exclusive interviews with the two people, the only two, who’ve seen this apparition. Now here’s a tape of the image itself as it materializes. Let’s watch.

  NewsNow! replays the tape several times before the end of the day. On Saturday, ABC and NBC air their own tapes. CNN and Fox send reporters to interview the crowd that has gathered in the parking lot next to the building. People hold rosaries, sit on plastic coolers, watch portable TVs, and listen to radios. A man sells tee shirts bearing a picture of the Virgin Mary. Someone unrolls a banner that reads PHAY THE ROSARY FOR PEACE ON EARTH. The sky darkens and a light rain falls.

  2.

  It is late Saturday afternoon. Trip’s driving home. The top of his car is down. His cell phone rings. Caller ID says it’s his father. Trip thinks, Don’t answer, but he presses Send anyway and puts the phone to his ear.

  “Did you change your mind about the live-in nurse?”

  “I thought I made myself clear. There is a saying in Spanish that goes, Better to be alone than in bad company.”

  “I would never accuse you of needing anyone.”

  “I am having the time of my life. I do not have to shave or answer the door. I can stay in my pajamas the entire week if I want to. In any case, that is not why I called. I wanted to talk to you about that news report, the one about the Virgin Mary. I do not think it is right what you are doing.”

  “We report the facts. That’s all.”

  “You are doing a lot more than that.”

  “We did not make up the fact that some people think they see the Virgin Mary when they look at the windows of an office building in downtown Miami. I think it’s ludicrous. You may think it’s ludicrous, but these people believe it.”

  “I can hear it in your voice. It is not right to ridicule people like that.” Trip’s father coughs heavily.

  “Are you OK?”

  “Sí, coño.” His father laughs. It sounds phlegmy. Trip hears the sound of ice cubes in a glass. His father says, “Why don’t you stop? If not for me, at least do it for the memory of your mother.”

  A jeep cuts in front of Trip. He slams on his brakes and blows the horn hard. He speeds up and swerves around the jeep. “The memory of my mother? I remember my mother suddenly dead.” He turns a corner sharply and shifts down.

  “There is nothing we can do about that now. You can stop these reports of yours.”

  “I’m not going to do that.” Trip changes gears again and accelerates.

  “You should stop being so hardheaded. Your mother—”

  Trip presses End and throws the phone against the passenger-side floor. When he looks up, he is coming up fast on a car that is stopped in his lane, lights blinking. He presses the brakes, but the road is wet and his car slides. He releases the brakes and turns sharply to the right. His car runs onto the grass and comes to a stop inches from the trunk of a royal palm.

  Later, at home, Trip’s housekeeper helps the caterers set up. Trip walks into his bedroom. The bed is unmade and Jennifer McCue lies under the sheets reading a magazine. The TV is on mute.

  “What happened to you? Honey?” Jennifer gets up and hugs him. She is naked.

  “I’ll tell you about it later.”

  It is 8:00 now. Most of the guests have arrived. In a corner of the living room is a refrigerated plexiglass case containing Ecce Homo. A few guests stand around it, holding drinks, talking. The waterfall in the pool is running. A cellist and a pianist play Bach. A bartender mixes drinks in a shaker shaped like a mortar shell. Jennifer walks out the double doors that lead to the bedrooms without drawing any attention. Trip talks with Tonya, the twenty-nine-year-old wife of Sol Meyersohn, the seventy-three-year-old owner of the station. Next to Tonya is her friend Nikki. Trip looks at Tonya’s breasts.

  “Tonya, the word is you got those last year.”

  “He’s trying to say that you have implants,” Nikki says.

  “I know what he’s trying to say. Of course I have implants. Doesn’t everybody?”

  “Sol doesn’t have implants,” Trip says.

  “Says who? He’s got a pacemaker. He’s had a hair transplant. And he’s got one of those things in his stomach that he presses to make his penis pop up like a jack-in-the-box.”

  Trip reddens.

  “This is a first. Trip Perez blushing. Did I make you blush, baby? How else do you think he and I, you know?”

  Sol Meyersohn walks up behind the girls and takes their arms. He wears large gold-rimmed sunglasses with peach-tinted lenses.

  “You keeping my girls company, Trip?”

  “Yes, sir. Just trying to be a good host.”

  “Well, you’re the best. Lovely music. A bartender that’s generous with the drinks. And the view. Have you seen the view?”

  “You’re not supposed to be looking at the girls, Sol,” Tonya says.

  “Say, what’s the scoop on the Virgin Mary story?” Sol says. “You’ve got Marty real worried.”

  “Sol, you promised,” Tonya says. “No business tonight.”

  “This isn’t business. It’s current affairs. You might learn something. Trip?”

  “I’m getting another drink,” Tonya says. “Nikki, you coming with me?”

  “Aren’t you going to offer to get anything for young Trip and me?”

  “Young Trip and old Sol can get their own drinks.”

  “Must be that time,” Sol says. “You know, there’s a lot to be said for po
stmenopausal women. You were saying, Trip?”

  “It’s Marty’s job to be cautious,” Trip says. “It’s mine to be audacious.”

  “Fancy word there. I hate dictionaries.”

  “Risk taker, courageous, brash.”

  “I’ve never been afraid of a little controversy. Hell, we make our living pissing people off, but the archbishop just gave an interview to CNN. You know that, right?”

  Trip shakes his head.

  “Yeah, he gave the interview to that woman—?”

  “It’s not the first time she’s had it in for me. Calls me a living example of everything that can go wrong with television news.”

  “Her I don’t care about. Well, actually I do. The more she rants about our little operation here, the more people are interested in it. That’s why we recognized your contribution and gave you a significant raise when your contract came up for negotiation. I thought I saw your lawyer walking around here.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Don’t mention it. I’m not supposed to tell you this, but poor Walt over there is making less this time around. Not his fault, I suppose. Unless there’s a hurricane bearing down on us, people don’t much care whether it’s going to be partly cloudy or partly sunny. Hell, Trip, I know you work hard. I just don’t like the archbishop going on national television and telling the world that he thinks you made up this story for the ratings.”

  “The archbishop does not run anything.”

  “You’re absolutely right. But guess who’ll answer the phone when the archbishop decides to put in a call to someone who has some real power. This is me talking, that’s all.”

  “If the archbishop’s so mad at us, why didn’t he talk to me first? We’re not the only ones covering the story.”

  “That’s true, technically, but look at how everybody else is covering it. To them it’s a story about the way we cover stories. Like saying, They’re crazy down there in Miami. That’s not responsible broadcast journalism. That’s what that woman said. She even ran the Haitian tape.”

  “You won’t be so upset about this when our ratings shoot through the roof.”

  “You know, if you weren’t you I’d fire your ass for saying that. I don’t want you to get us into something that has the potential of spinning out of control. Don’t forget the mayor’s a devout Catholic. Took a goddamn pilgrimage last year. Didn’t know people still did that sort of thing. Sounds medieval to me, but what do I know.”

  “I hope the mayor does jump in, like Giuliani and the elephant crap painting. All they’ll do is breathe a few more days of life into this story. In fact, I’ll call him for an interview.”

  “Fine by me. Better yet, why don’t you give Kharma a part of this? She could use the exposure. Her show’s not doing too good.”

  “Then can you please get Marty off my back?”

  “Trip, I just own the station. I don’t get involved with the newsroom. Wouldn’t look right. Say, I heard you bought a sculpture. Where is it?”

  They walk to the corner and stand before the plexiglass case.

  Tonya and Nikki meet them with drinks for everybody.

  “We decided to be nice and get you drinks, after all,” Tonya says.

  Walter walks up. In his broadcast voice he says, “Trip, you keeping a corpse?” Then to the girls he says, “Oh-lah. Hel-lo.”

  Tonya and Nikki ignore him.

  Trip says, “Tonya, Nikki, you know Walt? Walt, Nikki. Tonya is Mrs. Meyersohn.”

  “Jeez, I didn’t know it was possible. Sorry, Mr. Meyersohn, I meant—”

  “You don’t have to explain a thing, Walter the Weatherman,” Sol says. “So what do you think of young Trip’s audacious purchase?”

  “This thing here? I’m a landscape man myself,” Walt says.

  “I always thought of you as someone who looks at the big picture,” Sol says.

  “That’s what weather is. By the way, I was, well, wondering if we could talk about the coming year. I have some ideas.”

  “I hate talking business when I’m enjoying myself. Right, Trip?”

  “Right you are, Sol.”

  “By the way, what’s the deal with Fay?” Sol asks.

  Walt looks relieved. “Storm’s strengthening. Made landfall in western Cuba. Could be veering our way. We should be under a hurricane watch by now.”

  “So what can we expect tomorrow?”

  “Overcast skies with occasional wind gusts, precipitation, even some thunderstorm activity later in the day.”

  “Some what?”

  “Rain.”

  “Why didn’t you just say so?”

  “A lot depends on whether the storm veers our way or heads north into the Gulf.”

  “What about all those people waiting for the Virgin Mary to reappear?” Tonya asks.

  “They’re gonna get wet. Gee, I need a refill,” Walt says. “Anybody coming with me?”

  The rest of the evening, Trip’s guests talk about the storm and the crowd waiting for the next apparition. The crowd is estimated to be several thousand. A few guests make it to Trip’s media room and switch on the wall-sized TV screen. Others follow. An old man announces on Spanish-language cable television that he will lead the rosary at noon tomorrow, Sunday. Trip tells his guests that Kharma Dayes of his team will report it live. Jennifer McCue suffers a coughing fit. A woman pats Jennifer on the back until she recovers, red-faced.

  It is almost 1:00 in the morning when the maid and the caterers finish cleaning. Jennifer and Trip are in the bedroom. She is screaming at Trip about letting Kharma follow up on the story. Trip tries to embrace her, but she runs to the bathroom and locks the door. Trip stands outside the door. “Jen,” he calls out. “Don’t be like that.” “Go away!” Jennifer shouts. “You’re fucking her, aren’t you?” she says. “How can you say that?” Trip says. He undresses and lies in bed. “Jen,” he calls out from the bed. He draws a pillow over his eyes. Outside, the gusts become stronger. The sound of raindrops hitting the windowpanes is the last thing he hears before falling asleep.

  3.

  Sheets of rain rap against the bedroom windows. A tree branch snaps and hits the roof, waking Trip.

  He slips out of bed and walks to the bathroom, where he splashes water on his face and looks in the mirror at the corner of his eyes and at his neck. Several times he smiles, pulling tight the muscles of his face and neck, before relaxing them. Then he walks out of the bathroom, down the hall, into the living room, through the sliding glass door, and out to the pool. The surface of the water is rippled by rain and gusts of wind. The trees above him sway like underwater plants.

  On his way back to the bedroom, the door to the study is open. Jennifer lies on the sofa, eyes closed. Trip kneels next to her.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “I thought you were asleep.” He tries to kiss her.

  “Don’t,” she says.

  “Jenny, please. You know how I feel about you.”

  She yawns and rubs her eyes. “As a matter of fact,” she says, “I don’t know how you feel about me. ”

  “How can you say that?” Trip says. He strokes her face, but she stops him. “Giving it to Kharma was old man Meyersohn’s idea,” he says. “Her show’s not doing too well. It’s just for today.” He kisses Jennifer’s cheek. “It’s still your story,” he says.

  Jennifer takes his face in both hands and pushes him back.

  “Tell me that you love me,” she says. “I want to hear you say it.”

  Trip smiles. He caresses her cheek with his fingers. And he nods, once.

  Trip and Jennifer watch the noon report lying in bed. Kharma Dayes wears a blue windbreaker with the NewsNow! logo. Her blond hair is pinned away from her face. Her teeth are resplendent in the television lights. The camera turns a few degrees and zooms in on the crowd behind her. Thousands of people wait under umbrellas. They wave homemade banners and pictures of the Virgin Mary. The camera pans slowly. A temporary stage slides into view. T
he stage is at the base of the glass wall where the apparitions were seen. Spotlights shine on a small old man dressed in black who stands in the center of the stage in front of a microphone. Two young men with matching black tee shirts use both hands to steady umbrellas over the old man. His voice echoes in the open space, against the surrounding buildings, but Kharma does not stop talking so it is impossible to understand him.

  The camera pans past the stage. Barricades block the street. People fill the screen as far as the camera can see. Kharma describes the crowd as this multitude, this teeming sea of humanity. Trip groans and changes the channel.

  “Come on,” Jennifer says, “I wanna see her make an ass of herself.”

  Trip changes the channel back to NewsNow! Kharma has stopped talking.

  “Good,” Trip says, “she shut up.”

  Tight shot on the old man. The frame shakes. He leads the crowd in praying the rosary. The crowd’s response sounds like bees buzzing. Trip tries to make out the words, but he cannot.

  Just as at his mother’s wake, twenty-one years before, when a man wearing street clothes walked into the room, shook his father’s hand, and said he was the priest. Trip had never seen a priest out of uniform or one who looked so young. He thought his father should ask to see some identification, but his father had already told him not to say anything. He was never to tell anyone what had happened.

  The priest knelt in front of the open casket. No one moved or spoke until he stood and made the sign of the cross in the air in front of him. He led the group in prayers that Trip recognized from grade school. Then the priest announced that he would lead everyone in saying the rosary. And as Trip listened to the priest say the words, then the women repeat them, he stared at his mother’s face, hoping for a reaction. Something had to happen, he thought, with this many people praying for one thing, like a magnifying glass focusing the rays of the sun on a dried leaf. Hold the piercing white dot of light long enough and the leaf would smolder, fold over, and catch fire.