Aground on St. Thomas (4 page)

The Bishop of St. Thomas

AS THE MINUTES
ticked by, the agents behind the check-in counter doubled and then tripled in number. While they waited for confirmation from the flight crew that the plane was ready to board, a great amount of effort went into fussing about the computers, scanning passenger printout lists, and speaking into an antiquated plastic phone—anything, it seemed, to avoid making eye contact with the crush of antsy passengers who had transformed the departure lounge into a three-ring travel circus.

It was a typical preflight scene, a mix of travelers in mental states from crazed to dazed and everything in between—with one isolated spot of serenity. For the first time in almost an hour, the Mojito Man sat peacefully in his wheelchair, quietly sipping his favorite drink.

With the help of a generous tip, the author had cajoled a waitress at an Irish pub into mixing up the cocktail and pouring it into a foam cup.

The only downside to the resulting silence, she reflected, was that the area around her seat had grown far more crowded than before. Fellow travelers stood within arm’s length in every direction.

Most members of the encroaching mass were new arrivals, blissfully unaware of the earlier mojito siege. The author gazed up at them as she munched on her breakfast sandwich, envious of their ignorance but happy to have a chair.

The group included a number of curious characters, the most notable being a Miami socialite with a carry-on-sized lapdog. The woman and the tiny canine wore matching outfits: the owner a sparkling tank top, necklace, and sandals, the pet a shiny collar and vest.

With a smile, the author wrapped the remains of her breakfast, wiped her hands on a napkin, and reached for a small notepad she carried in her backpack. This was the type of detail that might come in handy for a future work of fiction. She scribbled a brief description, looked up to confirm her observations, and did a blinking double take. She had missed an item on the list of human/canine similarities.

The woman and the dog also sported matching pedicures.

After adding a bemused notation to the notebook, the author shifted her attention to a priest who had walked into her periphery.

His was a less obvious oddity, but it was still one that drew her interest.

The man was dressed from head to toe in a brown cassock—a monk’s garb, if she had to guess.

That conclusion, however, didn’t jibe with the rest of his outfit. Beneath the pious outer layer, he wore hand-stitched leather shoes. An expensive watch glinted on his wrist, a ruby ring garnished his index finger, and a gold chain hung from his neck. Even the simple brown cassock, she now realized, had been tailored with an elegant drape.

The author tapped her pen against the paper, trying to sort out the man’s religious denomination. She hadn’t met many monks in her life, so she had few comparisons in her memory banks, but she couldn’t reconcile him into that category. His wealth, while discreet, was far from subtle.

No, she thought, intrigued as the jeweled hand reached into one of the cassock’s hidden pockets and pulled out a high-end cell phone. This guy’s in an entirely different income bracket.

She leaned forward in her seat, continuing to study the religious figure.

His hair had been shaved close to his head, accenting the round curves of his skull, and a pair of fashionable rimless eyeglasses rested on his nose. A goatee sprouted from his chin, the gray hair a contrast against his satin brown skin.

There was something grand and powerful about his appearance, an intangible quality that commanded respect.

Seeing the author’s fascination, the Mojito Man gummed his straw, bent toward her, and whispered loudly in her ear.

“Bishop of St. Thomas,” he said informatively.

“I doubt it.” Her brow furrowed. “Wrong costume.”

She glanced over at the check-in counter. The plastic phone was at last being put to good use. The settings had been adjusted to broadcast across the departure lounge. Anyone who needed assistance or extra time to traverse the gangway was now invited to board.

The author looked at her wheelchair-bound companion, expectantly raising her eyebrows. At first, he seemed not to have heard the announcement—or to comprehend that the preboard invitation applied to him.

“Oh, right,” he finally said after the agent repeated the message.

The author waved a relieved good-bye as he rolled his chair toward the counter.

Slipping her pen and notepad into the backpack, she muttered wearily, “I hope he’s seated on the opposite end of the plane.”

The Middle Seat

A HALF HOUR
later, the author found herself in the plane’s packed coach section, staring up at the ceiling. The Mojito Man sat beside her, hogging the armrest.

She groaned, anticipating the flight ahead. She was certain the assigned seating was not as he had insisted.

Midway through the boarding process, right after the author had taken her seat, her friend from the departure lounge had appeared in the adjacent aisle. He’d apparently stopped in one of the plane’s tiny restrooms, negating his preboard advantage. He stood wavering in the narrow walkway, loudly proclaiming that he held a ticket for the middle spot in her row.

Out of necessity, she had offered him her aisle position, which was easier for him to access. His wheelchair had been left at the end of the gangway, and the walk through the plane had worn him out. His spindly legs shook as if they were about to collapse beneath him.

It took several seconds for the author to shift to the next spot over. The man moaned loudly throughout the wait, finishing with a painful grunt as he dropped onto the seat’s flat cushion.

In the shuffling process, she’d glimpsed the number printed on his boarding pass. It was for the other side of the plane, one row back. She glanced across the aisle at the passenger who had silently slid into the open seat. He shrugged apologetically, but did not offer to switch.

Her unwelcome companion beamed with delight. “What luck,” he said cheerfully. Instantly cured of his aches, he curved in his seat to face the author. “We get to spend more time together.” He bent the straw from his cup, which he had miraculously managed to carry with him, and slurped the last sip of the drink.

“Stewardess,” he hollered, pressing the call light over his head.

“Mojito, please!”

•

FOR THE DESPONDENT
author, claustrophobia had already set in by the time the passenger doors closed and the plane pulled away from the gate.

Bumping and creaking along the tarmac, the aircraft began a slow roll toward the runway. The writer tilted her head, craning to look out the nearest window. Planes were lined up, for as far as she could see, waiting to take off. An on-time departure appeared unlikely.

It was going to be a long flight.

“My mother, rest her soul. She died a painful death.”

The author did her best to manage a sympathetic smile.

“Cancer. That’s what did her in. It was a horrible thing to watch. No one should have to go through that.”

Her seatmate motioned toward his wasting limbs. “That’s why, when my time comes, I’m going to finish things off real quick.” Swinging his arm upward, he pointed two bony fingers at his temple. “Maybe I’ll do it Hemingway-style with a gunshot to the head. I’m telling you, Hem knew what he was doing. Not like my poor mother, rest her soul.”

The author shuffled her feet, trying to figure out what she’d done to provoke this unsolicited barrage of information—and whether there was any way of stopping it.

The answer to the second question appeared to be no.

“I can see it coming—death—like the headlights of a car that’s about to run me over. It’s driving straight for me. I need to get in front of this thing. Take control, so that I go out on my own terms.”

He tapped the armrest.

“What do you think? How should I do it? What’s your preferred method of suicide?”

•

AFTER A TWENTY-MINUTE
crawl across the tarmac, the plane approached the front of the takeoff line. The pilot announced that he had reached the number-two slot in the order and that the craft would be in the air momentarily.

The passengers in the coach compartment let out a sigh of relief, particularly those seated within the vicinity of 26D. The Mojito Man had been chattering nonstop throughout the excruciating taxi from the gate.

The pilot completed his final preflight check and revved the engines. At last, the plane began picking up speed on the open runway.

Then, suddenly, the aircraft slowed. The engines dropped down to an idle, and the plane turned off the marked route. After a crackle of static, the captain’s voice came over the intercom.

“I’m sorry, folks,” he said in a strange voice. “There’ve been some issues on the ground in St. Thomas. Our departure’s been delayed . . . I’m not sure for how long. They’ve asked us to pull off to the side here for a moment. I expect we’ll be headed back to the gate. I’ll give you an update as soon as I have more information.”

There was a confused pause in the cabin as the passengers exchanged puzzled stares.

Then a call light flicked on over row 26, and a plaintive voice summoned the stewardess.

“Ma’am? A mojito, please!”

The woman seated beside him looked up in despair.

“Make that two.”

•

THE PLANE COASTED
to a stop on an empty stretch of tarmac, a no-man’s-land amid acres of painted concrete. Murmurs of concern floated down the center aisle as the passengers speculated about what sort of “issues” could have led to the aborted takeoff and the captain’s cryptic message.

The author winced at a sharp elbow poke aimed at the side of her stomach. Having garnered her attention, the Mojito Man pointed at a passenger seated a few rows ahead. The religious figure they’d seen in the waiting area removed a cell phone from his cassock and made a short whispered call.

“The Bishop will get us in the air.”

“I’m quite certain that’s not a bishop,” the woman replied wearily. “And even if he is, I doubt he has that kind of pull.”

But a minute later, the pilot returned to the intercom. “Good news, folks. It seems we’ve been given the green light again. Flight attendants, please prepare for takeoff.”

“Told you.” Her seatmate nodded, as if the sequence of events proved his earlier assertion.

“He’s the Bishop of St. Thomas.”

Charlotte Amalie

St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands

I Smell a Rat

“HEY-HO, FELLOW ISLANDERS.
This is Dread Fred and the Whaler. If you’ve picked us up, you’re listening to KRAT, the
only
radio station currently broadcasting here on the Rock—that’s St. Thomas, for all the G-men listening in.”

A fake police siren flooded the transmission before the DJ resumed speaking.

“But, hey. This is no joke. We have some serious
cock-a-doodle-do-dah
going on down here this mornin’.” He paused, his chair squeaking as he turned to address his fellow broadcaster.

“Whale-man, can we say that on the radio?”

“You can today, my friend.”

Dread Fred grunted his agreement. “It looks like we’ve been paid a visit by the pasty boys from up north.”

Whaler cut in. “Our brothers from another mother.”

“Yeah, and a different father too,” Dread added dryly.

“They came in their finest black-tie attire,” Whaler sang out.

“Ya-hmph.”
Dread smacked the table. “But they forgot to wear their ties.”

•

KRAT’S DREAD FRED
and Whaler were St. Thomas’s most beloved radio celebrities. Caricatured images of the DJs could be seen throughout the island, on billboards, public benches, and bumper stickers. T-shirts bearing their slogans were top sellers in the local shops.

The pair’s broadcasts were widely followed. As a result, DF&W endorsements were highly sought after, and sponsors vigorously competed for the show’s advertising spots.

But while the men’s voices were well known on the Rock—and often imitated, even parodied by their fans—the duo had taken great care to maintain the anonymity of their physical appearances. Their real-life identities were closely guarded secrets.

It was a necessary precaution.

Although much of the daily broadcast was devoted to jocular back-and-forth between Dread Fred and Whaler, the dialogue frequently touched on sensitive political topics. In the year since the show’s debut, they had poked fun at several high-level government officials, the board of elections, the chief of police, and all fifteen senators in the USVI Legislature.

This explained the DJs’ popularity and their security concerns. The same playful taunts that thrilled their fans peeved the island’s power brokers.

•

AS A MEANS
of self-preservation, the KRAT radio stars performed their shows in secret. Subterfuge was part of their regular routine.

While the station had a small brick-and-mortar studio in Charlotte Amalie’s waterfront Frenchtown district, DF&W typically broadcast from less formal—less identifiable—locations throughout the city.

In addition, the men took care to devise on-air personalities who conveyed distinctly different traits from those they actually possessed.

Dread Fred, aka Dreadlocks, was, in fact, bald as a billiard ball. A light-skinned Puerto Rican, he came from a prominent St. Thomas family whose landholdings dated back to before the Danish transfer. While on the radio Dread frequently complained about the high prices of food, gas, and electricity, his alter ego was independently wealthy, having inherited a small fortune from his grandfather.

Cohost Whaler was the one with the voluminous hair, although he kept his Afro mane flowing freely, untamed by combs, braids, or dreadlocks. It was a beautiful shaggy mop, about which the DJ had become quite vain. Whaler’s frequent on-air admiration of Dread’s fictitious locks was a thinly veiled commentary on his own wild coif.

“Say there, Dread. That’s a mighty fine ’do you’re sporting today. Man, I wish I could sprout a hat like that.”

Dread Fred ran a hand over his bald crown. “Why, thank you, Whaler.” After a short pause, he added with a grimace, “There’s nothing wrong with your short crop, you know.” He cleared his throat. “A lot less maintenance.”

Whaler nodded his head, throwing his thick mane back and forth. “Yeah, I s’pose.” He gave his cohost a smug grin. “But it seems like I’m always worryin’ about the sun crisping my head.”

•

MUCH AS WHALER
loved his bountiful hairstyle, even he had to admit it had a downside. All that extra insulation caused him to quickly overheat.

Mobile KRAT had set up that morning inside an unused cistern (in the fervent hopes that it didn’t rain). Whaler had already worked up a thick layer of sweat in the windowless concrete room.

He picked up a towel and wiped it across his damp forehead. The cistern’s poor ventilation was a necessary drawback to the benefits of its hidden location. Given the subject of the day’s broadcast, they were likely to ruffle more than the usual amount of feathers.

The current discussion topic was the US government’s invasion of Charlotte Amalie.

After less than five minutes on the air, Dread had already nicknamed the black-clad federal agents the “pasty boys.”

•

DREAD TOOK A
sip from a can of generic diet soda before resuming his commentary. Even with his bald head, he was feeling flushed in the stuffy cistern. The tank’s dank mildew smell wasn’t helping matters.

“Friends and neighbors. If you’ve got any information about the pasty boys—what they’ve been up to, where they’ve been doing it, and to whom—send us a report. The cell towers on the island have been jammed, so you’re going to have to go old-school. Bust out those carrier pigeons . . .”

Whaler cut in from across the room. He stood on a metal ladder attached to an open hatch in the cistern’s roof where he had threaded the KRAT transmission lines. Holding his cell phone up to the hole, he confirmed his findings. “Switch your settings over to the BVI tower. Their signal’s still working.”

“A thanks to our brothers on Tortola,” Dread intoned deeply. “They’re the ones relaying our transmission.”

Whaler returned to the fold-out table where the portable broadcasting gear had been set up. “Now, those brothers are from the
same
mother.”

“Truth,” Dread replied and then whispered a loud aside into the microphone. “We’re keeping it mobile today in case the pasty boys get too close. Whaler’s got his trainers on, ready to do a runner. If we go dark, stay tuned to this channel. We’ll be back on as soon as we can.”

He pushed a button, triggering a recording of their signature tune, a reggae cover of the classic blues hit “I Smell a Rat.”

Dread bent over his laptop, checking their Internet feed for any updates, while Whaler returned to the ladder. Climbing up, he poked his head through the hatch to look around. “Coast is clear,” he reported uneasily. “So far, anyway.”

Whaler’s cell phone buzzed in his hand, signaling an incoming message. He squinted at the display and read the text aloud. “Legislature shut down. Senators arrested.”

Dread took another drink, this time gulping down the soda. “This is big, Whaler. Bigger than anything we’ve ever covered.”

The two exchanged glances.

They were operating in direct violation of the court order that had been circulated to all of the territory’s radio stations that morning. Their list of potential enemies was about to expand well beyond local politicians—and this time, they were breaking federal law.

The stakes of getting caught had increased dramatically.

•

THE “I SMELL
a Rat” jingle was but a short intermission. As the tune wrapped up, Dread brought the microphone to his mouth.

“This just in from one of our listeners: the pasty boys have taken the Legislature . . .”

Whaler hopped down from the ladder. He scooted across the cistern and waved a hand in front of Dread’s face, indicating he had a caller on the line. He had pinned a separate antenna for the cell phone to the edge of the hatch. A jerry-rigged cable connected the phone to the broadcasting equipment on the table.

Flicking a switch for an audio setting, Dread merged the cell phone audio into the live transmission.

A static-scratched voice came through the line.

“Hey, Dread, I’m watching the feds move into Government House right now. I’ve got my camera ready. I’ll send you a pic of the Guv in handcuffs when they lead him out.”

A second caller was soon brought into the conversation.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for this, Dread. Dem crooks are goin’ to get what’s comin’ to them.”

Dread smiled ruefully. A small but vocal segment of the listening base had been convinced of the Governor’s guilt from the moment he was first elected into office. The accusation was one of global culpability—as to the specific nature of the alleged crime, the accusers typically failed to elaborate.

“Let’s keep it going, folks. Give us a ring and tell us what you think. Better yet, tell us what you’re seeing out there on the street.”

Before he could switch to the next caller, a sizeable
thump
sounded against the roof of the cistern.

The DJs froze, staring at each other.

Whaler stood from his chair by the folding table and crept toward the hatch.

Dread pushed the button to start what he feared might be their last music break.

“I smell a rat, baby
.
”