Serge hung a tri-fold toiletry bag in the bathroom. “What’s happening?”
“Some unconscious guy on a raft is drifting out to sea.”
“Sure it’s not you?”
Coleman looked down at the front of himself. “Pretty sure.” He wandered onto the balcony for a joint break. He raced back in. “Serge! Come quick! There’s so much tits and ass you can’t see the sand!”
“It’s spring break.” Serge organized dental-care products and plugged in his rechargeable razor.
“Something’s going on,” said Coleman. “They’re throwing this little guy around.”
“How little?”
“Pretty little.”
“Is he wearing a crash helmet?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the midget.”
“Midget?”
“High-society tradition that started in Australia.”
“Why do they throw midgets?”
“Sometimes for distance, sometimes style points, like when they’re covered with Velcro and stick to walls.“ Serge joined him on the balcony.”Or greased up for bowling lanes.”
Coleman leaned over the railing. “Looks like they’re just tossing him around the sand.”
“Because the legislature intervened.”
“Legislature? Are you just making up words now to fuck with me?”
“In 1989, we became the first state in the union to ban midget tossing.” Serge uncapped a water bottle. “Bunch of people thought, it’s about time. Finally, Florida’s forward-thinking…”
“Serge, cops are moving in with riot shields.”
“… But those of us who live here know the truth. It wasn’t legal foresight; they were simply forced to extinguish another wildfire weirdness outbreak.”
“What does it have to do with him being out on the beach?”
“Because of that law, he can’t work anymore except on the sly…”
“Ooooooh, the little dude just bounced off a shield.”
“… So he’s forced to strike out on his own in public venues like street musicians.”
“You don’t mean-”
“That’s right.” Serge nodded solemnly. “The Wildcat Midget.”
Down on the shore, a TV correspondent worked quickly with a brush. “How’s my hair?”
Thumbs-up from the cameraman. He gave a silent countdown with his fingers.
“Good afternoon. This is Meg Chambers, reporting live from spring break in Panama City Beach. Homelessness is a difficult life, particularly for dwarfs, who are often driven into the midget-tossing trade for spare change and leftover pizza. As you can see behind me, local police are continuing their crackdown on the controversial sport, which has drawn mixed reactions from the midget-advocate community…” The camera swung left, where a tiny person in a helmet was handcuffed, to loud jeers from students. “It looks like they’ve again arrested local favorite Huggy ‘Crash’ Munchausen… Let’s see if I can get a word…” She stepped forward as police led him by. “Crash, anything to say to our viewers?”
“It’s a victimless crime. Why not legalize and tax it?” Police hustled him into a squad car.
The reporter turned back to the camera. “Victimless crime? You be the judge!… This is Meg Chambers reporting for Eyewitness Close-Up Action News Seven.”
The cameraman signaled they were clear.
She threw the microphone down in the sand. “I got a master’s for this shit?”
The correspondent stormed past Serge and Coleman.
BOSTON
A United 737 from Miami landed in a light dusting of New England snow at Logan International.
Two case agents walked purposefully through the terminal.
“We’re all FBI,” said Ramirez. “Do we not talk to each other anymore?”
“How were they supposed to know who he was?” said his partner.
“What an unbelievable cluster-fuck,” said Ramirez.
A local junior agent met them at baggage claim. He went to shake hands but saw that wasn’t happening. “Awfully sorry. Just want you to know everything’s under control now.”
“Everything was under control.”
Their unmarked sedan sped south to Dorchester and pulled up in front of an older, two-story brick house surrounded by field agents, TV crews and satellite trucks. A sniper stood on the roof behind a chimney.
Ramirez took a deep breath and massaged his forehead. “Is this what goes for ‘under control’ up here?”
Sedan doors opened. An armored van screeched up. G-men sprinted across a brown lawn as TV lights came on. A correspondent broadcast live to lead the six o’clock.
“… Tom, we have yet to learn exactly what’s happening, but something major has developed at the home of hero Patrick McKenna, now swarming with FBI…”
Moments later, the front door flew open. A ring of agents circled a man in a Kevlar vest and rushed him toward the curb.
“… Tom, I think it’s our hero now, but I can’t be sure because of the coat over his head… Let me see if we can get a closer look…”
The feds ran for a dozen government vehicles lining the street, assembling a protective convoy. They shoved Patrick in the van, and a shielding agent jumped on top of him.
“Mr. McKenna, how does it feel to be a hero?…”
The motorcade took off.
Chapter Ten
PANAMA CITY BEACH
Coleman trudged through sand, toting a plastic convenience store bag. “We missed the midget riot.”
“There’ll be others.” Serge’s eyes stayed on the viewfinder as he filmed continuously, the only person on the beach with a cup of coffee.
They reached the advertising. Twenty-foot inflatable suntan lotion bottles and promotional booths for energy drinks. Army recruiters had set up an obstacle course, where drunk students fell from rope ladders. Closer to shore, navigation became tricky with the growing concentration of bodies on blankets.
“Hey, watch it, asshole!”
A Frisbee glanced off Coleman’s head. “Ow.”
“One of nature’s awesome mating spectacles.” Serge stopped and panned. “This shames any salmon run.”
“I hear a loudspeaker.” Coleman turned in a circle. “Where’s it coming from?”
“Over there.” He gazed several hundred yards up the beach at a massive stage with scaffolds and amps. “A free concert from MTV.”
“You mean the channel that doesn’t play music?”
“That’s the one,” said Serge. “MTV has become the pork and beans of television.”
“What do you mean?”
“You buy a can of pork and beans, getting all excited about upcoming pork, and then you open the can and go, ‘What the fuck?’ So you poke around and the only thing you find is a single, nasty-ass slime cube from a liposuction clinic. I wouldn’t even mind that if they’d just be straight and call it what it is on the label.”
“Who would buy ‘nasty-ass slime cube and beans’?”
“Me,” said Serge. “Just to taste truth.”
Coleman peeked back and forth, then furtively popped a can of Schlitz inside his convenience store bag. Another suspicious glance. He raised the bag to his mouth and chugged.
“What are you doing?” asked Serge.
“Not getting arrested.”
“Coleman, look around.”
He did. “Serge, everyone’s drinking openly. How can that be possible?”
“It’s not only possible, it’s encouraged.”
“Don’t tease me.”
“That’s the core history of spring break I was telling you about.” Serge filmed a beer-bong contest. “When I mentioned that communities alternately welcome and reject students, their chief tool is the alcohol-on-the-beach policy: either look the other way or crack down like Tiananmen Square. And right now, Panama City Beach is the most party-friendly town in Florida, maybe the whole United States.”
Coleman stopped and placed a reverent hand over his heart. “I’m never, ever leaving this place.”
“We’ve barely scratched the surface.”
“There’s more?”
“You have no idea.”
Coleman discarded the plastic bag and carried the six-pack by his side. “Wait up.”
Serge approached a group of students tanning beneath a giant Georgia Bulldogs flag.