Mesopotamia (26 page)
“Baby, you’ve got to see this!” he shouted behind him.
Also in her glistening birthday suit, covered in a few tiny, tacky tattoos, was the missing child bride who owned the headlines, little Missy Scrubbs. On her slender shoulder, under a shimmering layer of vaseline, I saw her latest ink.
I click-click-clicked every precious moment with my camera as the holy couple focused on that beautiful bird of prey. At one point, as the hawk glided right over, they looked directly at me but didn’t register a thing. Seconds later the raptor was gone, and the nude duo dipped back inside their little love nest. Their entire outing probably lasted no more than a minute, but it would be an eternity on digitalia.
My prison sentence in sunny Mexico was over. I jotted down some reportorial notes for later, when I finally got around to writing the story. Then, slowly extricating myself from those painful bushes, I hiked back down the road to my rendezvous point and made a mental note to make a large donation to the Central American Audubon Society.
As I circled the road, I could see a lone vehicle just sitting there, but it was a new green car, not the older blue one I had arrived in. For a moment I worried that I was being set up. It didn’t matter. I was baked and glazed and couldn’t walk much further.
“Julio sends me to get up,” called out the young stranger who saw me approaching in his rearview.
“He did?” I vaguely recalled that the driver’s name was in fact Julio.
“He say he no can get out of a job,
pero
he sends to me.”
“You’ll do fine,” I replied. My trust in Puerto Vallartan cab drivers was completely restored.
Although there was no air-conditioning, the drive back to town was one of the most wonderful trips I ever took. I spent the time inspecting the twenty-two focused, well-lit nude photos I had snapped of America’s most missingest and trashiest Romeo and Juliet. It was then that Gustavo’s recurrent point jabbed me: of all the vital things that required attention in the world today, this was at the very bottom of the pile; yet since it was the slop that the masses wanted, I was going to charge the price of caviar.
While reviewing the photos on the small camera display, I realized that I had indeed seen Roscoe before. He was one of the pigfuckers who slugged and tried to rape me on that first drunken and frosty night in the Blue Suede parking lot. These pictures would be adequate payback.
When we reached my motel, I popped out the flashcard and asked the driver if he’d wait for me while I went upstairs to get something.
“
Sí
, señora.”
In my room, I carefully wiped down and repacked the state-of-the-art camera and the high-powered lens in their Styrofoam casings. Then, after locating the receipt, I carried it all out to the taxi and headed to the camera store with fifteen minutes to spare. I gave the substitute driver a twenty and thanked him earnestly.
As I filled out the refund form, the balding clerk asked, “Was there anything wrong with the equipment, madam?”
“No, I’m sorry, I went way overboard on the cost,” I said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Perhaps you might consider one of the more affordable models?”
I was going to say no, but then I decided that I had gotten good use of their expensive equipment. I didn’t want to leave them feeling bitter about returning such a large amount, particularly since I couldn’t exactly come back to Mexico to argue with them if my refund didn’t arrive, so I bought the cheapest digital camera they had. The clerk seemed at peace with this as a kind of consolation prize.
When I got back to my motel, I found out that the next plane back to the States was leaving in two hours, so I settled my account and caught another taxi to the Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport. Once there, I began making calls to get the numbers of the editorial offices for the three major U.S. tabloids where I was going to pitch the story. I would wait till I was north of the border to actually call the publications since I didn’t want anyone tracing me back to Mexico, only to have them turn down my offer and send a stampede of staff reporters to take the photos themselves. By nine o’clock I had cleared customs and was on a window seat over the wing of a half-empty plane heading back to the States.
T
he George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, detained me for the next two hours while I awaited my connecting flight to Memphis, ample time to make three big pitches. Cellless, I got a roll of quarters and commandeered an antiquated bank of pay phones in a far-flung corner of the terminal. I had been considering my pitch during the entire flight: Missy Scrubbs is alive and well. She wasn’t kidnapped and her husband didn’t kill her. I have spicy softcore proof.
It was midnight Houston time, one a.m. New York time. Whatever editors were on duty could certainly call their bosses and get immediate approval. I didn’t want to be spiteful, but I decided to only contact Jericho Riggs, asshole editor, as a very last resort. One by one I called the three biggest tabloids—the
Weekly World News
, the
Enquirer
, and the
Star
. When I learned that most of the people who I knew were either not on duty or no longer around, I asked for the ranking editors before finally pitching my scoop: “I got tastefully nude photos of Missy Scrubbs, still alive with her lover/abductor, and I am giving you an exclusive one-hour option to make an offer on this story. At that point I’m going to another paper.” I gave all three periodicals the same message and left different side-by-side pay phone numbers, so that each paper would be calling me back on a separate line.
Over the next half an hour, all three insomniacs on duty checked with their bosses and called back. We loosely had the same Q & A:
They: You worked for us in the past, no?
Me: That’s why I’m giving you the first shot.
They: Where are Missy and her lover?
Me: You’ll find out when you buy the story.
They: Does the couple know you caught them?
Me: No, not yet.
They: Exactly how current is the item?
Me: A few hours old.
They: Who else knows about this story?
Me: Absolutely no one, it is definitely an exclusive.
Only the
Star
asked if the pictures demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was not being held against her will.
Me: Yes.
Each of them wanted more time. Five minutes later the editor at the
Star
called back to say he had learned that I had been fired from an editorial post at the
WWN
.
“True, awhile back, but I had no problems with credibility,” I replied.
Two minutes later the
Enquirer
called to ask, “You’re married to Fox News producer A. Paul O’Hurly, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but we’re separated and he has nothing to do with any of this.” I regretted that his name had to be brought up, but it strengthened my reputation. When he asked me where the notorious lovebirds were, I again said I’d tell him once I had the money. When asked about the content of the photographs, I gave him precise details about the anatomical nature of the naked couple.
“Is there any proof that these photos weren’t taken prior to her being kidnapped?”
“Yes,” I replied. “It appears she has a fresh tattoo.”
“Okay,” he began, “if you can get the photos in here before tomorrow’s deadline and the chief can see them, and they are as you describe them, and you write us a decent two-thousand-word piece about how you found them, and the issue comes out, and it is indeed an exclusive, and proves upon publication not to be fraudulent, then he authorizes me to cut you a check for two hundred thousand dollars. Take it or leave it.”
Another phone had already begun to ring while he was giving his lengthy offer and conditional.
“One second please.” I switched over to the pay telephone I had reserved for the
Enquirer.
An old friend, Joe Fontaine, was their news editor. He also interrogated me for about five minutes, trying to get as much free info as he could before opening negotiations at a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.
“I already have two hundred thousand from someone else.” I didn’t reveal the other paper as I feared them calling each other and reaching a compromise to kill the bidding.
“Show us the photos and we might go to two-twelve.”
I went back to the
Star
and told them another news service had just offered two hundred and twelve thousand dollars.
“We’re authorized to go to a quarter million—
if
we
really
like the pictures.”
I told him to hold on and, switching over to Joe at the
Enquirer
, I said that I just got a quarter-million from the
Enquirer
.
“We’ll go to two hundred and fifty-two,” he quickly replied.
“Hold on.” I went back to the
Star
editor, to whom I boldly said, “I just got offered three.”
“They can have it,” the
Star
said. I had pushed too hard. That was when
WWN
finally deemed it a good time to call and coolly announce that if they really liked what they saw, they would buy the pictures for fifty thousand dollars.
I told them the bidding was up to two-fifty. The editor chuckled, so I went back to Joe at the
Enquirer
and told him that I could be in their office sometime in the middle of the night to show them the pictures.
“Why don’t you just bring them at nine when Barney comes in,” said Joe, referring to his clear-eyed publisher. “You’ll still make our deadline.”
“And you’ll have the check?”
“You bring the photos and story, and if we like them, you’ll sign a contract and get half upon delivery and half upon publication.”
“See you for breakfast, Joe.”
“Actually, you won’t see me. I’m on vacation in France. They asked me to speak to you cause I knew you.” Smart.
Photos like this sold papers, bundles at a time. Grabbing my little knapsack, I raced out past airline security to the front desk and changed my destination. Instead of Nashville, I needed the next flight to New York—the headquarters of the
Enquirer
.
It turned out I had just missed a flight to JFK, but I only had to wait another hour for the next one. Exhausted and fuzzy-headed, I used the time to catnap at the gate. When I finally got on the plane, I began reviewing my notes and eventually wrote out a draft of the story on the back of unused vomit bags I collected from empty seats. It was the only time I recall ever writing a piece in longhand.
It was a hot and muggy night when we landed at JFK. I caught a cab and by six a.m., forty-seven dollars poorer, I was in Park Slope, Brooklyn. There I would be able to rest a few hours at my friend Kara’s apartment.
“Are you parked on Seventh Avenue, cause—”
“My car’s still down in Tennessee,” I cut her off tiredly. Kara was a single mom I had known since college.
She let me flop on her couch and I fell right to sleep. An hour later, Kara’s kid Ajax woke me up. It was seven-thirty. Since all my clothes had been stolen, I was wrinkled with dirt indelibly ground into my once attractive pants and beautiful new shirt. Kara lent me some of her things as well as fragrant toiletries. Then she poured me a cup of freshly ground, freshly brewed, free-trade coffee and asked, “What’s going on, Sandy?”
I promised I’d tell her everything later, but was barely able take a sip before I saw that I was late and had to rush right out the door. I squeezed into a packed F train and headed over to the midtown offices of the
Enquirer
.
When I walked in the door a little after nine, they were all waiting for me, half a dozen men and women dying to see the exposé. It wasn’t all just curiosity; a photo analyzer and computer graphic experts were summoned to assess whether their quarter-million-dollar purchase was the real deal. I felt their cold skepticism blow through me. For the few minutes it took me to open my bag and locate the flashcard, I feared that I might’ve lost it … or had I had left my lens cap on and only imagined I saw them? How was the light? Though they looked good on the tiny monitor, I obviously hadn’t developed any photos from that borrowed camera before. What possibly could’ve gone wrong? Everything.
When they put the little plastic square into the card reader and the photos popped up, they were even better than I thought. One by one, each image flashed to the borders of a monster monitor where they were thoroughly scrutinized. No one doubted for even a second that they were looking at the genuine article.
“Where’s your story?” the editor in chief asked.
When I unfolded the four vomit bags that I had written the story on, he looked at me as though I were insane. He tried making sense of my illegible handwriting.
“Someone stole my laptop. If you have a cubicle, I can copy them out for you.”
“I’d be grateful,” he said, leading me to an available desk.
“Can I see the check first?” I asked, neither forcefully nor timidly.
He handed me a large, crisp manila envelope. Inside was a contract, a blank 1099 tax form to be filled out, and the check for one hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars. Half the agreed upon sum.
