Today the Florida most of you know—and created, in fact—is a suburban tundra purged of all primeval wonder save for the sacred solar orb. For all you care, this could be Scottsdale, Arizona, with beaches.
Let me fill you in on what’s been going on the last few years: the Glades have begun to dry up and die; the fresh water supply is being poisoned with unpotable toxic scum; up near Orlando they actually tried to straighten a bloody river; in Miami the beachfront hotels are pumping raw sewage into the Gulf Stream; statewide there is a murder every seven hours; the panther is nearly extinct; grotesque three-headed nuclear trout are being caught in Biscayne Bay; and Dade County’s gone totally Republican.
This is terrible, you say, but what can we do?
Well, for starters, you can get out. And since you won’t, I will.
It’s been pure agony to watch the violent taking of my homeland, and impossible not to act in resistance. Perhaps, in resisting, certain events happened that should not have, and for these I’m sorry. Unfortunately, extremism seldom lends itself to discipline.
At any rate, my pals and I certainly got your attention, didn’t we?
By the time this is published—if it’s published—I certainly won’t be where I am now, so I don’t mind revealing the location: a palm-shaded porch of an old hotel on a mountainside overlooking the sad city of Port-au-Prince. Above my head is a wooden paddle fan that hasn’t turned since the days of Papa Doc. It’s humid here, but no worse than SW Eighth Street in July, and I’m just fine. I’m sitting on a wicker chaise, sipping a polyester-colored rum drink and listening to last year’s NBA All-Star game on French radio. Upstairs in my hotel room are three counterfeit passports and $4,000 U.S. cash. I’ve got a good idea of where I’ve got to go and what I’ve got to do.
Evidently this will be my last column, but whatever you do, please don’t phone up and cancel your subscription to the paper. The Sun is run by mostly decent and semi-talented journalists who deserve your attention. Besides, if you quit reading it now, you’ll miss the best part.
Historically, the function of deranged radicals is to put in motion what only others can finish; to illuminate by excess; to stir the conscience and fade away in exile. To this end, the Nights of December leaves a worthy legacy.
Welcome to the Revolution.
For the first time in nearly half a century, the front page of the Miami Sun on New Year’s Day did not lead with a story or photograph of the Orange Bowl Parade. Instead, the paper was dominated by uncommon pieces of journalism.
The farewell column of Skip Wiley appeared in a vertical slot along the left-hand gutter, beneath Wiley’s signature photo. Stripped across the top of the newspaper, under the masthead, was a surprisingly self-critical article about why the Sun had failed to connect Wiley to Las Noches de Diciembre even after his involvement became known to a certain high-ranking editor. This piece was written, and written well, by Cab Mulcahy himself. Therein shocked Miami readers learned that Wiley’s cryptic “Where I’ve got to go, and what I’ve got to do” referred to the planned, but unconsummated, kidnapping of the Orange Bowl queen during the previous night’s parade.
The other key element of the front page was a dramatic but incomplete account of the killing of fugitive terrorist Jesus Bernal on a limestone spit in North Key Largo. This story carried no byline because it was produced by several reporters, one of whom had confirmed the fact that private investigator Brian Keyes had fired the fatal shots from a nine-millimeter Browning handgun, which he was duly licensed to carry. Keyes’s presence at the remote jetty was unexplained, although the newspaper noted that he recently had been hired as part of a covert Orange Bowl security force. The only other witness to the Bernal shooting, Metro-Dade Police Sergeant Alberto Garcia, was recovering from surgery and unavailable for comment.
When Brian Keyes woke up in the dinginess of his office, Jenna sat at the desk, reading the morning paper.