Basket Case

This is a somewhat early effort by Carl Hiaasen, the reporter for the Miami-Herald who has produced a  shelf of books set in South Florida, usually populated with a cast of characters who have been in prison, should be in prison, or are of microscopic intelligence roaming South Florida like the dinosaurs once did.

In more recent novels Carl sets out with a sharp satire of the politics of South Florida and the unchecked real estate development, usually accomplished with some cozy relationships between the developers and the town boards that approve the applications to build.

The main character is Jack Tagger, a middle-age obituary writer for the Union -Register. Jack has been sent to newsroom purgatory, the obituary beat, because he cracked wise at a stock holders meeting for the conglomerate owners of the Union-Register, lead by a polo playing dillettante Race Maggard III.

Carl's anger at the state of newspaper ownership by media conglomerates is channeled through his character Jack. Jack rails against the staff cuts that leave the paper bereft of enough reporters to adequately cover the newspaper within the paper's radius. He believes that without reporters going to the town and county meetings official corruption goes unearthed.

Jack made his bones when he uncovered bribes and official malfeasance with bus contracts. He was a page one reporter until the stockholders meeting sent him to the then dead end job of writing obits.

Obituary writing has become an exulted writing assignment in the time after Carl's 2002 book. The tribute obits written by New York Times and other large city reporters are so numerous and well written that they appear in the online edition and have to wait for space to move up to the print edition. A reporter might have two bylines in a day appear in the print edition. They might be the busiest reporters at the paper.

Jack is 46, and his editor, Emma Cole is 27. Emma had taken up nursing, but didn't like it. Emma of course is expected to fire Jack, "beak her cherry," on firing someone, but doesn't yet have the cause. She and Jack are a bit contentious but we all know where this repartee is going. The bedroom.

When Jack has to write the obit for a once-upon-a-time rock star, Jimmy Stoma, Jack's investigative juices start to flow as he interviews Jimmy's sister Joan and the new wife, Cleo, a wanna be rock star who made a viral video that apparently showed off female genitalia, à la Paris Hilton. Carl describes Cleo down to ger painted toes, white, that he thinks look like paint chips.

Joan is a suitable character herself who dresses in costume as if she's a member of a SWAT team and other authoritative characters, and poses and talk provocatively to subscribers via her podcast living room, setup with klieg lights, the works. She doesn't fully strip. She teases. Hey, everybody got to earn a living.

The story takes off as Jack stars to unfold what happened on the diving accident in the Bahamas that killed Jimmy Stoma, a seasoned diver.

As the story progresses, former members of Jimmy's band start showing up dead, or injured at the hands of Cleo's goons. Emma gets kidnapped by the two murderous henchmen of Cleo that results in a hostage exchange in the middle of Lake Okeechobee with Jack and another reporter, Juan in a Johnboat. There are firearms.

The thugs are in one of those air boats, pictured here,,  they ply the shallow, swampy waters of South Florida. There was once a TV show from 1960-1961, "The Everglades," about Florida police zipping around in an airboat catching the bad guys. The boat was the star.

We're getting near the denouement. Imagine two knuckleheads getting caught in the blades of the airboat, that when revving, sounds like a prop plane on a runway.

Carl describes the resulting carnage with detail, and wit, and leaves you knowing that it was a grisly scene. He tells us Jack is having nightmares over it.

And here's where I'm going with this. After the dust settles from getting Emma back and the two idiots meeting their end, Juan tells Jack: "We're not meant to forget such things—it's the price of survival."

I stopped reading and kept re-reading the line. I had trouble finding it again because it is just a sentence at the end of a paragraph that is broken into two lines.

Live long enough and you'll probably survive something that might have killed you. Carl Hiaasen has the fictional Jack having nightmares over the scene of recovering Emma and dispatching the goons. I have memories of my own survivals

Basket Case was written in 2002. Carl Hiaasen would have his own emotional survival when on June 28, 2008 a disgruntled wacko was so upset about his defamation suit against the Capital-Gazette, a newspaper out of Annapolis Maryland, being thrown out of court that he stormed into the newsroom armed with  pump shotgun, plenty of ammo, smoke bombs, and a means to block exits and took out 5 people and injured 2 more. One of those killed was Carl's brother Rob. The Hiaasens are a multi-generational newspaper family. In a later book. Carl dedicates the book to his brother.   

The gunman, Jarrod Ramos was found hiding under a desk. He received 5 consecutive life sentences. and remains in prison.

But getting back to Basket Case, Jack is having career anxiety and quits his job at the paper, even after being promoted to an investigative team. He's burned out writing obituaries, and can't stop thinking about how long people live before they die. When he reaches his 47th birthday he is somewhat relieved because he has now outlived those who died at 46.

But all is not glum. Jack has met Ike, a 93 year-old former obituary writer who imparts his philosophy about achieving longevity.

Ike is on the pier fishing near the phone booth Jack has to be near to get a call from the kidnappers who've got Emma. Ike knows Jack from reading newspapers. He tells Jack he's has three heart attacks , lost half his stomach, fourteen feet on intestines. And is trusty old prostate is one thing or another. Plus he's had two divorces in community property states. "so there's not much on God's green earth that scares me."

Ike attributes his longevity to "healthy salt air" and having made up his mine not to die of anything but old age. "I stopped smoking because I was afraid of cancer; swore off booze because I was afraid of driving my car into a tree; gave up hunting because I was afraid of blowing my head off; quit chasing trim because I was afraid of being murdered by a jealous husband. I shaved the odds, is what I set out to do."

In the Epilogue, Jack wants Emma to meet Ike, but he's not around, until he is, and surprises Jack with having overheard his conversation about quitting. Jack ask where was he. "Battling an unmannered polyp."

Ike is a spiritual character. Jack meets Ike again on the pier when he's with Emma and he's quit his job at the Union-Register. Ike gives him a gung-ho journalism speech about the profession saving the world looking for truth.

Ike is as salty as the sea air. He leaves Jack with one more piece of advice to achieve longevity.  "Next time you go to the doctor, be sure to have 'em check the plumbing. They stick a camera up your ass, but it's no worse than your average divorce."

I'd pay to hear an ad put it that way.

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