UP IN THE AIR
On the second day I visited Balloon Boy’s father, he was standing in the back of a pickup truck, inflating balloons and letting the family dog bite them. That, perhaps, was the least bizarre part of my visit. During my time with Richard Heene, his wife, and their three sons, I was shown a video of the kids’ heavy metal band, the Heene Boyz; I got a demonstration of Richard’s back-scratcher, which he was selling online for $24.99; and I held a battery-operated fan encased in a small plastic box that men could shove down their pants to cool their genitals. “I want to sell that one to Tractor Supply,” Richard tells me. “Farmers sweat a lot.” He calls it the BlowJab.
It’s roughly two hours from Manhattan, but New Hampton, New York, might as well be on the other end of the earth. It’s not quite Upstate, and it’s definitely not the city. The Heenes, who came here in May, exist in a geographic limbo, which is a fitting metaphor for their lives today, 10 years after their helium-filled balloon took off from their Fort Collins backyard and crashed into America’s pop culture consciousness.
Today, the Heenes live in a camper trailer parked on the side of a twisting country road. A 160-year-old farmhouse slumps just a few yards away, a spray of mold running up the white siding. The house is a renovation project the Heenes are working on for an investor in Florida, where the family had been living since Richard pleaded guilty to one felony charge of attempting to influence a public servant in relation to what came to be known as the Balloon Boy Hoax. Richard served 30 days in jail and 60 nights of work release, and in August 2010 he moved his family 1,900 miles from Colorado to Florida. Now in the New York countryside for the summer and fall, the Heenes were, in all likelihood, the most famous people in their zip code.
Not that they were advertising that fact. Their trailer was parked between two homes; one neighbor had already called the police because one of the boys and a friend were trespassing on private farmland. The officers pulled up to the trailer. Richard apologized and explained that the family was new to town and the boys were just doing a little exploring. The officers heard the family dog, Zinc, an enormous and energetic Belgian Malinois, barking. The officers told Richard to get the dog under control. “You can’t win with cops, man,” Richard says, recalling the visit, but not really talking about that particular interaction with the police. “We just want to be left alone. Like, please leave us alone.” There was, however, one positive takeaway from the encounter. At least for now, it seemed no one recognized the names Richard and Mayumi Heene or those of their sons: Bradford, 20; Ryo, 18; and Falcon, aka Balloon Boy, 16.
Richard is 58 now. He’s let his thinning, graying hair grow out, and it’s pulled into a ponytail that runs toward the middle of his back. The corners of his eyes are creased and cracked. He prefers jean shorts and sleeveless T-shirts that show off his Gulf Coast tan. He’s managed to retain enough of his energy to still seem youthful—if not in body then at least in spirit. It’s something he credits to raising three boys,
