The staff didn’t think it could get worse.
Reevis came to work one day, and they had eliminated news.
Too expensive, they said. We’ll just use stories from the wire services. Reevis was yanked off the city hall beat to cover civic luncheons where newspaper publishers received plaques.
Then they sold the land under the building.
Enter Florida Cable News. Shoestring low-budget operation. So low, in fact, that they could scarcely compete with the well-established networks and their soup-to-nuts team coverage of the most sensational stories. FCN was forced to subsist on the leftover material that was beneath the dignity of the big outfits. Reevis was assigned to cover actual news.
A TV cameraman snapped his fingers in front of Reevis’s face. “You okay?”
Reevis blinked and returned to the present. “Just another flashback.”
The cameraman was named Rock. Rock Blister. He muscularly trotted back to the satellite van as if the weighty camera and battery belt were helium balloons. “We’re rolling!”
Reevis jumped in the passenger side a half second after the vehicle had started to move. He grabbed a clipboard off the dash and scanned a grid of time blocks. “Where to now?”
“Convenience store on Biscayne,” said Rock, his short sleeves rolled all the way up to reveal tattoos of the Chinese symbols for love and hate. Except the tattoo artist had been coming off a mule-kick hangover, and the designs ended up saying love and storage unit. “The lottery jackpot rolled over again for the third time and crowds are out the door.”
“Wonderful,” intoned Reevis. “I have to act cheerful again interviewing poor people tragically wasting their money.”
The van arrived at an ethnic bodega on the edge of Miami Gardens. A line of farmworkers ran along the front of the store, giving off a pesticide funk and waiting for air-conditioning. Inside, two automated machines burped out losing tickets at a stunning rate.
A camera light came on. Reevis raised his microphone and faked a smile. “Sir, why are you buying lottery tickets today?”
“So I can afford a divorce.”
Reevis moved along the line to collect more insight: “I saw it in a dream,” “I’ll give it to the church,” “I play my grandchildren’s birthdays,” “I’m wearing my lucky copper bracelet,” “These are my husband’s ashes” . . .
Rock turned off his camera. An Asian couple behind the counter covered their mouths with the giggles. The journalists headed back to the van. The clipboard’s next time block: a water-main break under a high school. Reevis’s cell phone rang.
“Hello? . . . Sure thing, right after we get back from the flooded cafeteria . . . Well, if it’s that important.” He hung up.
“What’s going on?” asked Rock.
“Looks like the home of the Fighting Stone Crabs won’t be seen tonight.”
“We’re going back to the office?”
Reevis checked his phone for texts. “Apparently it’s something that won’t wait.”
“Can I ask you a question?” said Rock. “That couple at the counter in the convenience store . . .”
“What about them?”
“Why are Chinese people always laughing at me?”
The satellite truck pulled into a parking garage at the headquarters of Florida Cable News, located in beautiful downtown Coconut Creek. Reevis and Rock crossed the newsroom and stuck their heads in the office of the assignment editor.
“You wanted to see us?”
“Come inside and close the door.”
They weren’t alone.
“Who are these guys?” asked Reevis.
“We’ll get to that,” said Shug. “We’re doing a major lineup overhaul, and I wanted to tell you first before the rumor mill gathered steam. You know how journalists can get.”
“Right,” said Reevis. “We’re supposed to be aggressively curious about everything except malfeasance in our own company.”
“And sarcastic,” said Shug. But he was old school, too, and liked that about Reevis.
“What kind of overhaul?” asked the young reporter.
“Nothing to worry about.” Shug leaned back in the leather chair and folded his arms. “Remember when CNN was all news, all the time?”
“Sure. They cast the mold.”
“Then ratings began to slip, so they began filling prime time with reality shows. People working weird jobs, celebrity psychiatrists, Anthony Bourdain drunk in the Alps.”
“I’m familiar,” said Reevis.
“It’s these crazy times,” said Shug. “We’re forced to evolve or perish.”
“But what’s all this got to do with me?”
From the side of the room: “We believe you have what it takes.”
Reevis turned. “Who are you?”
A British man in a blue blazer and ascot stepped forward. “Nigel Welks.”
The assignment editor cleared his throat. “Reevis, this is a production company that just flew in from Los Angeles. They’re here to develop your new show.”
“L.A.?” asked the reporter.
Shug’s chair swiveled. “We’re not remotely equipped to develop the type of shows we need to stay competitive, so corporate brought in some outside help.”
Reevis’s eyes moved back and forth. “Exactly what kind of show are we talking about?”
Nigel placed his palms together in front of his chest and smiled proudly. “This show will have all the elements: journalistic dilemmas, violent confrontation, betrayal, sex . . .”
“Sex?” said Reevis.
“Are you allergic to latex?” asked Nigel.
“What?”
“Never mind. Just keep doing what you do best and we’ll keep the cameras rolling.”
“This is starting to sound like a reality show,” said the reporter.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” said Nigel. “And we would know the difference. We specialize in reality shows. You’ve probably seen our latest project, Full Boil, about these gourmet chefs who get into adventures.”
“What kind?”
“They solve crimes,” said Nigel. “Then there’s Deadliest Dig, a true-life look at the outrageously harrowing world of worm-grunters in the Apalachicola Forest.”
“What are worm-grunters?”
“They trudge miles across the muck to catch earthworms for fishing-bait stores.”
“Doesn’t sound dangerous.”
“They also solve crime.”
Reevis hung his head. “Shug, I really appreciate the opportunity you gave me to do serious reporting again, but isn’t there anything you can do?”
“Just hear them out,” said the supervisor.
Nigel undid one of his blazer’s brass buttons. “I completely understand your skepticism, so I saved the best for last. We already have a full lineup of shows where people solve crime, like the ones I already mentioned, plus Seminole blackjack dealers, retired circus people, glassblowers who don’t trust outsiders, Jell-O shot waitresses, the Wives of Jiffy Lube . . .”
“Where is this going?” asked Reevis.
“Don’t you see? That’s the beauty of it. That’s the whole genius!” said Nigel. “These other people didn’t know anything about detective work before we came along. But you actually have extensive experience investigating crime for a living. It’s so crazy it just might work!”
“Okay,” Reevis said with a sigh. “How is this show supposed to start?”
“You were fired from your last newspaper job, right?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
Nigel held his hands apart like brackets, framing Reevis’s face. “A disgraced reporter fights to clear his name in Florida’s sun-scorched mean streets.”
“But that’s not what happened.”
“How about unfairly disgraced?” said Nigel. “There, we’re all on the same page. Kumbaya.”