The Global War on Morris

by Steve Israel

  So there it was. Morris Feldstein, whose lifelong goal was to be the best kept secret in town, now had a new and powerful ally in the pursuit of his goal. The United States government.

  Who knew?

  PART FIVE

  FROM WITH LOVE

  SEPTEMBER 2004–SEPTEMBER 2008

  In his first year of imprisonment, with little else to do with his time, Morris made a mental list of all the interesting places he had visited in his life.

  There was the United Jewish Appeal mission to Israel; the family trips to Disneyworld, Lake George, and the Poconos; the two Caribbean cruises, the condo in Boca, of course; and that camping trip to the Catskills. “Look,” Rona had said of the latter, “you take the kids and I’ll stay home. Sitting in the middle of nowhere covered in bug spray and eating schmutz from a campfire is not my idea of a vacation.”

  And now Guantánamo. Does that count?

  Morris spent the first year of imprisonment in a general state of confusion. Between the shock of what had happened to him and the surety that it would be corrected, by the government or by God.

  He occupied a four-by-six cell with a metal cot, a tiny writing desk, a toilet, and a video camera that peered at him from the ceiling. The only thing they let him hang on the whitewashed cinderblock walls was his Jewish calendar, with COMPLIMENTS OF GUTTERMAN’S FUNERAL HOME printed at the bottom of every month. At the end of each day, he scrawled a large red X.

  Once a day, they would let him out for a walk around the grounds. It was scalding hot, although he enjoyed catching occasional glimpses of his fellow “guests”: all Middle Eastern looking, wearing the same white jumpsuit that he wore. But he kept his distance. How does the second vice president of the Temple Beth Torah Men’s Club strike up a conversation with someone plucked from the battlefields of the global War on Terror?

  He was losing weight. He didn’t enjoy the food slid under his cell door on a tray. Pita, rice, curried eggs, spinach, lamb, more pita and more rice. You couldn’t get a decent bagel and the fruit seemed ladled out of a can, thick and syrupy. He wasn’t comfortable sitting in the communal television room with the other inmates because Arabic-language movies on the DVD player didn’t particularly interest him. So he mostly sat in his cell, staring at the COMPLIMENTS OF GUTTERMAN’S FUNERAL HOME calendar, wondering how long before he could stop marking his days with a big red X.

  They gave him some reading materials, and an occasional letter from home:

  Dear Dad:

  I miss you. They told me you are somewhere in I’m doing okay. I’ve enrolled in a filmmaking course at and maybe one day will do a documentary about what happened to . The working title is .

  xoxoxox

  Caryn.

  And this letter from Rona:

  Dear Morris:

  I don’t think it was your expense account. Anyway, I am doing although my has hurt bad since they it. I am living in a in . Who knew could be so ? My lawyer says that if I cooperate, I can probably go back home in , but I don’t know how I could show my face again in or !!! Talk about shondas! I told them what I knew about , , and even . But they seem to think there’s more to it. Is there anything you haven’t told me? Now would be a good time to mention it. I hope they’re feeding you well. Are there any Chinese restaurants where you are? Where are you?

  Miss you!

  Love, Rona.

  In his second year, there were no more pages to mark in the Gutterman’s Calendar, and no one had thought to send him a new edition for 2005/2006 (or 5765 depending on one’s orientation). Still, he felt optimistic, because it had been a year, and he figured his incarceration couldn’t possibly go on much longer. He’d developed a kind of rapport with his two regular guards—one from Minnesota and one from Texas—and didn’t feel so alone. They debated important issues like baseball’s designated hitter rule and the various strengths and weaknesses of the National versus the American League. For approximately twenty minutes each afternoon, if he craned his neck at just the right angle, he could see out of his cell to the end of the hallway to where a wan sliver of sunlight shone onto the wall. This light was a great relief for reasons that Morris didn’t question. This same sun is on Great Neck, he thought. Warming Rona and the kids. They don’t seem so far away and it can’t be much longer before we are together. Plus, he found himself developing a taste for pita and rice.

  In year three, his spirits sank again, smothered by an isolation that now seemed infinite. His guards had been replaced several times, and the new detachment seemed to enjoy sneering at him. When they led him outside they held his skeletal arms tight, strategically digging their fingers into pressure points that triggered sharp pains but left no marks. They giggled when Morris stumbled, which happened more as he ate less. The Gutterman’s calendar from his first year was still on the wall, every day marked in red, the scenes from Jewish history fading. But Morris’s eyes now focused on what was printed on the bottom of each curling page: COMPLIMENTS OF GUTTERMAN’S FUNERAL HOME. A reminder to Morris that he might as well be dead.

  And, now, in year four, Morris’s emotional state was best described as numb.

  One day, a military officer entered Morris’s cell and sat with him. He had a blond crew cut and a tanned face and his uniform was so stiff it crackled when he sat. He wore aftershave strong enough to saturate the small cell. BRUT, Morris guessed.

  “I’m Lieutenant Colonel Myers,” he said. “I’m here to be your advocate.”

  “You’re my lawyer?” asked Morris.

  “Well, not exactly. You’re not entitled to a lawyer. You do, however, get me. A United States Army officer with the appropriate security clearances, appointed by the military to make sure your rights are protected. Even though you don’t have any rights. As a native enemy noncombatant, I mean.”

  Morris blinked. He was going to ask what the point was of having someone protect his rights if he didn’t have any, but he didn’t want to make waves with his advocate. And he felt now more than ever before that he really needed an advocate.

  “So here’s the drill,” Myers announced. “At some point—I’m not permitted to say when, or even if—you may go before a Special Native Enemy Noncombatant Military Tribunal. It consists of three military judges chosen by the President. Of course, you won’t know who they are nor will you ever see them. They sit in another room. Or another country. I’m not supposed to say. For national security reasons. You will have an opportunity to present your defense. However, you will not be able to see any evidence against you. I will see it. Or whatever my level of security clearance allows me to see. The whole thing should take about a day. Then the sentencing. Or the acquittal. Though an acquittal, well, that would be a first!” He snorted through a laugh.

  Morris didn’t laugh. “I should be acquitted. I mean all I did was cheat on my expense account, take one unauthorized sick day, and have attempted extra-marital relations while married. That’s all.”

  “Mr. Feldsmith, may I give you some advice?”

  “Feldstein. My name is Feldstein.”

  “Feldstein! You sure? Guess it doesn’t matter. Look, take some advice from your advocate. The judges spend all day listening to ‘all I did’: ‘All I did was make a wrong turn on my way to the in-laws in Kabul, and the next thing I know I’m on a mountain near the Pakistani border firing an AK-47.’ ‘All I did was deliver a package of brownies to the Ministry of whatever, and the next thing I know, there was a crater where the Ministry used to be.’ Get my drift?”

  “But all I did—”

  “I don’t think you’re listening here. I’m trying to help you. As your advocate.”

  “Sorry,” Morris mumbled.

  “Look, here’s what I know. There is some scuttlebutt about your case; that maybe the government’s evidence is . . . on the thin side, that maybe the higher-ups in Washington wouldn’t mind this case going away at some point. So y
ou have a choice, Feldstein.”

  “What is it?” Prior to now, Morris would’ve cringed at the thought of choices, of having to decide on one thing over another, for fear of offending someone, anyone.

  “You can insist on your innocence. Fight the government. Go into your hearing and make a scene. You know what that’ll do?”

  “Prove my case.”

  Myers laughed. He laughed so hard his crisp uniform shook. “It will prove you’re an idiot. You’ll piss off the government even more than you’ve already managed to and get yourself sentenced to life in prison in some foreign country with more syllables than vowels. Or rot here for the rest of your life. Not that we do such things to American citizens,” he said. “Or don’t do them. I’m neither confirming nor denying. I am just saying.”

  Morris’s throat tightened. “What’s my other choice?”

  “I might be able to work out an . . . arrangement. Maybe you go to a federal penitentiary somewhere, at some point in the near or far future. It’s not a bad place if you can stand the politicians. Then, when things calm down, they let you go home.”

  “Home, to Rona? How is she?”

  “I’m not permitted to say.”

  “What would I have to do?”

  “You tell the tribunal everything. How you were recruited by terrorists. How they got to you during a moment of weakness. How remorseful you are. Give ’em what they want. Juicy stuff that validates their existence. Proves the government right about the threats we face. Tell ’em how the Abu al-Zarqawi Martyrs of Militancy Brigade operated in Great Neck. How it’s creeping across the nation, from suburb to suburb, infiltrating our schools and our country clubs, taking over our malls and our bowling allies, destroying our town halls and village greens.”

  “But none of that is true. I’d be lying.”

  “Would you?”

  “Yes.”

  Myers blew an exasperated “Okay” and stood up. “Look. It’s up to you. Give them what they want, and I think you get some of your life back. Stick with the ‘all I did’ stuff, and you’ll be living in solitary confinement for, let’s see . . . forever. Totally your decision. It’s your life. Decide what you want to do with it.”

  The door closed with a thud.

  Morris fell onto a paper-thin mattress that stank of urine. He curled both hands at his sides and slumped his head into his chest. He was alone again, except for a video camera poking from a corner ceiling, watching his every move.

  Gottenyu.

  He thought about the Colonel’s proposition. “Such a deal!” Rona would say. All he had to do was admit to terrorist conspiracy against the government of the United States of America and he could go home, to his Mets and his movies, to Rona and his RoyaLounger. He could almost taste the Kung Pao chicken.

  And then it turned sour. The reality of the life he bargained for, leaving a bad taste in his mouth.

  What a homecoming it would be! Maybe a large banner stretched over Soundview Avenue: WELCOME HOME, TRAITOR! Probable impeachment as second vice president of the Men’s Club. Not to mention a lifetime ban from the Beth Torah fantasy football league. Plus, Celfex would take away his sales awards. Along with his sales territory. And his sales job.

  And the neighbors! Standing in sanctimonious judgment in front of his house or when he passed on the street. Clucking their tongues and proclaiming: “Such a shonda!”

  He thought about the shame his presence would bring his family. For them, worse than guilt—guilt by association. Rona’s expulsion from the mahjong club. Revocation of credit at Bloomingdale’s. The gossip and the snickering; the glares contorted by fear and anger, by pity and paranoia.

  They’re better off without me. They should sit shiva, as if I were dead. They should live happily ever after like one of my classic movies.

  Meanwhile, I’ll go to one of those foreign prisons, maybe Siberia.

  He shook his head and his body trembled. His jaw throbbed angrily, forcing his teeth to grind. He stared angrily at the camera and felt an overwhelming urge to scream at it. To say, “Fuck you” to the President or whatever government official sat on the other side, staring at a monitor. Watching.

  Do it! he thought. Stand up and demand your freedom. Shake your fists and scream out loud until they open the damn doors and set you free.

  Why not? They’ve taken everything.

  He lifted himself from the bed, attempting to assume the defiant posture he’d used so haplessly during that argument with Rona so long ago. Reflexively his hands searched for some loose change to jiggle in his pockets, but he was in a white prison jumpsuit. There were no coins or even pockets.

  So he returned to the mattress and glared at the camera.

  OPERATION FAST & FURIOUS

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2008

  It was Yom Kippur. And since Morris was suspected of violating multiple provisions of local, state, and federal law, as well as several international treaties and at least three of the Ten Commandments, he thought it might be a good idea to fast. So when a dinner tray was slid through a small opening in his door the night before, he refused it. He wondered, fleetingly, when he’d last refused anything. When a breakfast tray of pita bread, boiled eggs, milk, and fruit was slid through this morning, Morris slid it back.

  Later, as Jews around the world searched their souls, two Marines searched Morris’s cell. They shoved Morris out of the way while doing so, and then shoved him again a moment later because, after all, the cell was tiny and Morris could never get out of the way. When they were satisfied that it was safe, they escorted in a Rabbi who had been flown to Gitmo from the US military’s Central Command in Tampa (because there wasn’t exactly a huge call for a house rabbi to conduct Yom Kippur worship in a place that housed hundreds of suspected Muslim jihadists).

  The Rabbi wore an army dress uniform with the Jewish chaplain insignia on his chest. He had puffy cheeks and wet lips that barely moved when he introduced himself. His sad eyes dwelled uncomfortably on the video camera. A yarmulke was clipped to a thick tangle of gray hair on his scalp.

  He clutched a beaten leather briefcase and mumbled something about how hard it was to gather a minyan in Guantánamo, but that he would lead Morris in private prayer. Then he slid a metal chair toward Morris’s bed, groaned as he sat, and passed him a High Holy Day prayer book. It had been screened by the prison authorities.

  He began the official Yom Kippur request to God for permission to pray with Morris Feldstein. Transgressor. Traitor. Terrorist. He didn’t use those words, but Morris assumed that God got the idea.

  They prayed. Most of the prayers involved the concept of God forgiving man for wrongdoing, but Morris took the opportunity to request that God answer certain questions of his own on the subject.

  Why are You doing this to me? Morris asked, feeling desperation seep into his inner voice.

  What did I ever do to You, to deserve such a punishment?

  There was no answer from God, but Morris didn’t expect one.

  After the last prayer, the Rabbi packed up his books and shook Morris’s hand again and looked at the video camera as if to say, “May I please go back to Tampa now?”

  He approached the door, scratched his head, turned back to Morris, and said, as if he had read Morris’s mind: “God has forgiven you. And soon the answers will come.”

  Morris asked, “How soon?”

  “Only God knows,” the Rabbi replied with a shrug.

  Which angered Morris even more.

  Later, the guards attempted to serve Morris lunch, which he declined.

  Why would a broken man break a fast? His sins may have been forgiven by God but not by the government. Yom Kippur was all about starting with a clean slate and moving on, but unknown forces had stomped on Morris’s life, leaving broken shards of slate, irreparably destroyed and scattered from Great Neck to Gitmo. He didn’t feel li
ke he was anywhere close to moving on, and so he continued his fast, with nothing to digest but his anger.

  That night, twenty-four hours after his fast began, hunger pains arced across Morris’s belly. His head throbbed. On that thin and rancid mattress, he drifted into a strange and troubled sleep.

  Morris dreamed in black and white, of Caryn, crouching at the foot of the RoyaLounger, watching classic movies with happy endings, of Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai and how realistically he portrayed starving in solitary confinement. Morris dreamed of Rona, and Feldstein family fun, of the sleek condo in Boca with the Emeril Signature kitchen and Arab towel attendants, of the prophet Hillel, and Victoria seducing him on the floral comforter in that room at the Bayview.

  But mostly he dreamed of food: of Chinese takeout and chicken Parmesan and the golden square knishes from The Noshery with those crisp brown ridges, just the way he liked them; of his daily toasted bagel with Swiss, and the smell of fresh coffee in the kitchen. He reached out for that coffee in his empty, dank cell in Guantánamo, his arms weak and trembling, but he felt only the cold cinderblock wall that had defined his world for the past four years.

  He fell back asleep with a groan.

  In and out of sleep.

  Between dreams and nightmares.

  Between resignation and rage.

  BREAKING THE FAST

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2008

  The Colonel plopped a red folder marked SECRET on the Brigadier General’s desk with a brisk “Good morning, sir.”

  It was not a good morning for the General, and it would get worse.

  The sun had already brought Gitmo to a slow boil. The General cursed the low-bid air conditioner that wheezed and rattled from a window. He ran his enormous hands over his bald scalp and shook the sweat from his fingers.

  On a nearby television, Good Morning America was agitating America, breaking the news that the federal government was eavesdropping on the phone calls of American citizens.