Miami Manhunt by Johnny Diaz

Author:Johnny Diaz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2008-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

16

Ted

Ahh, Boston. The cobblestoned streets. The snow-caked Storrow Drive. The sculpted college rowers plowing the Charles River, their puffs of cold breath marking their trails. (I can follow those trails to their happy trails.) The towering Prudential and John Hancock buildings rise in the New England sky like glass fingers clawing into the sky, dwarfing all the diminutive Victorian and brick buildings in Back Bay and Fenway. It’s good to be home. Forty degree weather is pleasant here, a chance to wear a nice coat or a cardigan from Lord & Taylor. In Miami, winter means sixty degrees, and it’s unforgiving. It’s at the top of the newscasts, on the front page of the News, and the number one topic at every Cuban café counter. Miamians freak out and buy bundles of logs to fire up their dusty fireplaces. Even the palm trees seem like they’re shivering miserably.

I arrived last night with Ray, and we checked into the Colonnade Hotel on Huntington Avenue where tony Back Bay and the uber-gay South End intersect. Ray visited Boston years ago when I was a reporter for the local Channel 7. But he always got lost in The Hub, so I agreed to drive the rental car last night. Ray’s biggest complaint about Boston: “Oye, the streets go by names. They’re not numerical like Miami. So if you don’t know where one street is, you’re not going to know how to find the other. What were these, cow paths?”

And then there was his other complaint: “Oye, what’s up with these rotaries? They are like the car version of revolving doors. Why don’t they have traffic lights?”

Because we arrived late last night, there wasn’t enough time to go out and hit the scene. We did have dinner at one of my favorite places, Bertucci’s. It’s an Italian chain restaurant in New England, and they serve the best bread rolls ever. After dinner, I returned to my room and collapsed. I knew I had a full schedule for the next two days. I’m supposed to man the Channel 7 booth for the job fair for two hours and rotate with other staffers from our sister station in Boston. I also was booked as a panelist for a discussion called “Off Camera: The Challenges of LGBT TV Anchors and Reporters.”

It’s 11 a.m., and I’m on my way to the session. I walk through the lobby of the Colonnade Hotel to the convention hall where the conference is being staged. About six hundred gay journalists, editors and photographers are expected here. Ray said he would meet up with me later because he wants to drop by the job fair and drop off his resume and clips at The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly booths. I don’t think for one second he would ever leave Miami and his super-clingy Cuban family behind, but I encouraged him to at least get his name out there beyond South Florida. Who knows, he may get an offer that he can’t say no to.

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