Emergency

by Neil Strauss

  Though few people know it, America was founded with the apocalypse in mind. Christopher Columbus wasn’t just searching for gold or spices or a new trade route to Asia when he discovered the continent. He believed the world was about to end, and his mission was to save as many souls as he could before the clock ran out.

  In his letters to the king and queen of Spain soliciting funds for his next and final expedition, Columbus wrote that “only 155 years remain of the 7,000 years in which … the world must come to an end.” According to his interpretation of biblical prophecy, his voyages to the New World were the first step toward the liberation of the holy land of Jerusalem from Muslim domination—which would be followed, he wrote, by “the end of the religion of Mohammad and the coming of the Antichrist.”

  So from the day it was discovered, North America was a portent of doom—a catalyst for a coming apocalyptic war pitting Christians against Muslims. Two centuries later, John Winthrop led the Puritans to America not just for religious freedom but because he was running from a supposed apocalypse. In his case, he believed God was going to destroy England.

  Thus, our founders were actually cut from the same cloth as zealots like Yisrayl Hawkins and Bob Rutz. Even more disturbing, this zealotry still dominates the country today. According to a recent CNN poll, 57 percent of Christians in America believe that the prophecies in the Book of Revelations will literally come true—and one in five of those believes it will happen in their lifetime.

  As I thought about America’s unceasing obsession with fire and brimstone, I wandered out of the backstage area, awkward around the politicians, stars, and sycophants, to watch the stage crew. Several workers were in the process of hurling curses at an artificial sun that refused to illuminate. They’d evidently spent three weeks and $3 million in taxpayer money building it. Onstage, Will Smith rehearsed the song he’d written to exploit the millennium:

  What’s gonna happen? Don’t nobody know.

  We’ll see when the clock gets to 12-0-0.

  Chaos, the cops gonna block the street.

  Man, who the hell cares? Just don’t stop the beat.

  The Secret Service, however, wanted to stop the beat. When I returned backstage, Yearwood was in a heated argument with several dark-suited men. She had planned to open the show with a snippet of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” but they told her the song was inappropriate and refused to explain why. Later, I asked one of the show’s producers about it.

  “They thought the lyrics were a bomb reference,” he explained.

  Only in Washington would a song that had been the anthem of the peace movement for thirty years be interpreted as a terrorist plot.

  The closer we moved toward the millennial moment, the more ridiculous people seemed to be getting. But this was politics after all. And with great power comes great fear of losing it.

  The next morning was December 31, the big day. I turned on the TV as soon as I awoke.

  Midnight had already passed uneventfully in Australia. I looked across the street to the Washington Post building, pulled out my binoculars (I knew they’d come in handy), and peered into the windows. There didn’t seem to be any commotion. Everything—the streets, the hotel, the air—seemed quiet and still, reassuring yet eerie.

  To kill time before the concert, Bianca and I went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Looking back on the man-made atrocities that had occurred just fifty-five years ago made the Y2K bug seem benign. All the predictions of the extremists paled in comparison to the concentration camps, mobile death squads, and bloody reprisals of the Nazis and their vision of a new world order.

  One of the most unsettling things about Adolf Hitler is that he wasn’t necessarily an imperialist, like Napoleon or William McKinley. He wasn’t just trying to subjugate other countries. His goal was to cleanse them, to wipe out the so-called weak races and speed the evolution of the human species through the propagation of the Aryan race. And for seven years, he got away with it. Few of the most brutal periods in medieval history—from the sack of Rome to the early Inquisition—were as coldly barbaric as what happened in our supposedly enlightened modern Western civilization.

  And though I left the museum with the reassuring message that the world stood up and said “never again” to genocide, it only took a minute of reflection to realize that it happened again—immediately. In the USSR, Stalin continued to deport, starve, and send to work camps millions of minorities. As the bloody years rolled on, genocides occurred in Bangladesh in 1971, Cambodia in 1975, Rwanda in 1994, and in Bosnia in the mid-1990s.

  All these genocides occurred in ordinary worlds where ordinary people went about ordinary business. The Jews were integrated into every aspect of the German social and professional strata before the Holocaust. The entire educated class in Cambodia—teachers, doctors, lawyers, anyone who simply wore glasses—was sent to death camps. And as Philip Gourevitch wrote in his book on the Rwanda massacre, “Neighbors hacked neighbors to death in their homes, and colleagues hacked colleagues to death in their workplaces. Doctors killed their patients, and schoolteachers killed their pupils.”

  This sudden snapping of the social contract had always fascinated and terrified me—not just genocides, but also much smaller-scale instances of group violence, such as the riots in the United States triggered by Martin Luther King’s assassination, the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention, and the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. At its root, most people’s fear of the millennium had less to do with the loss of electricity than with the snap that could follow if the system broke down.

  So what I ultimately learned at the Holocaust Museum was not “never again,” but “again and again and again.” Maybe even tonight.

  After leaving the museum, Bianca and I met Trisha Yearwood in the hotel lobby to take special buses, which had been swept for bombs by the Secret Service, to the Lincoln Memorial. Police escorts raced us through the streets, lights flashing, sirens Dopplering. When we arrived at the concert, we went through a battery of metal detectors, security questions, and bag searches. I wondered if the extremists had won, making us—the so-called normal people—just as paranoid as they were.

  “Under Clinton’s seat,” McCain’s assistant told me, “there’s a trapdoor and a staircase, which leads to a limousine that always has its engine on, in case there’s trouble.”

  McCain was assigned a seat directly behind Clinton, but rather than seeing this as a choice seat in the emergency exit aisle, his assistant feared it would be a Republican catastrophe. “I have to get him moved,” he said. “If their photo is taken together, it could reflect badly on Senator McCain’s campaign.”

  This was why only the uptight, small-minded kids in school got involved in politics, I thought. It’s not about changing the world. It’s still about what lunch table you sit at.

  We shuffled to the greenroom to join the performers, politicians, and undercover agents. China had made it past midnight without a glitch—and in a celebration so beautiful it seemed like the ruling culture of this next century would once more be the East. Other than the millennium clock shutting down on the Eiffel Tower, Europe was clear as well.

  Across the world, political situations seemed to be resolving. One hundred and fifty-five hostages on an Indian Air jet hijacked to Afghanistan were freed. Boris Yeltsin stepped down as Russia’s president. The NASDAQ hit a record high. More good omens for a new millennium. I could feel a collective sigh of relief around me. It looked like we were going to be okay. Not just today, but forevermore.

  Compared to China’s costumed and colorful blowout, America’s millennium concert seemed bland and unfocused. At 11:45, as I stood in front of the stage trying to think of something special to do for the great anticlimax, Bianca ran over with a plastic cup of champagne.

  “Trish wants us to join her backstage,” she said. “She’s s’posed to sing ‘America the Beautiful’ at 12:05.”

  We rounded the scaffolding, showed our passes, and walked through the rigg
ing to arrive stage right. Trisha, flanked by Quincy Jones and Kris Kristofferson, stretched out a boyfriend-less hand and grimly accepted a cup from Bianca. Several men in black suits stood directly in front of us. I looked at their backs and noticed that just ahead of them—less than twenty feet away—President Clinton stood, waffling into the microphone.

  He was saying something about the unique responsibility we had to lead the world. “The sun will always rise in America as long as each new generation lights the fire of freedom,” he concluded. It sounded good. But, really, when you think about it, what the fuck does that mean?

  Before any of us had time to think about it, the countdown began.

  5-4-3-2-1. Snap.

  I took a photograph in Clinton’s general direction that looked like this. The Secret Service men didn’t even turn their heads:

  The lights didn’t go out. The power didn’t shut down. The world didn’t end. Overhead, the artificial sun flickered and sputtered to life, much to the relief of many stagehands. We were all still here, shouting and hugging, engaged in the same annual ritual of forced festivity.

  Atop the Lincoln Memorial, I saw a line of Secret Service men with night-vision goggles, aiming rifles into the crowd. And I remembered my pledge to avoid spending New Year someplace with guns. I guess I’d broken my promise.

  I wondered what Bob Rutz and his band of psalm-quoting survivalists were thinking at their last skate. Had they wasted their time and money building their Arkansas compound?

  I was glad I hadn’t fallen for the survivalists’ panic. For a moment, they’d almost had me scared. But at least I was in good company. Judging by the conversations I’d had here, they’d almost had everyone scared.

  When the concert ended, we boarded a bus to the White House. At various checkpoints, we were sniffed by dogs; our IDs and social security numbers were examined; and we were frisked by a blond, mustachioed man, who was hopefully part of the White House security team and not just some random pervert.

  The first person we saw when we entered the building was Muhammad Ali, perhaps a perfect symbol for the decade to come—a former powerhouse battling a degenerative disease. Next to him Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, and Robert De Niro were talking in a huddle. To me, these were famous people, embodiments of the American dream. But to Bianca, emboldened by alcohol, they were bowling pins. She threw me against the wall, breath reeking of champagne, and drawled, “You’re my guest. Don’cha run away from me.”

  So I walked away.

  It was my first time in the White House, and the middle two floors of the building were almost completely open for guests to wander through. The first illegal act I committed was stealing this hand towel from the bathroom, solely because it had a presidential seal on it:

  In truth, the White House never held much mystique for me. The kids who were interested in politics, who formed the Young Republicans Club, who volunteered to work in local elections, were the boring ones. Powerless at the playground and parties, they were only able to feel self-important in a controlled environment like politics with specific rules and prestigious titles.

  I know because I was one of those uncool kids. I was in student council. I volunteered to staff polling places on election days. I even joined the Young Republicans Club. I didn’t really know the difference between Democrats and Republicans. I just wanted to belong to something and to bond with the slightly cooler uncool kids I so self-respectlessly followed.

  As I listened to Barney Frank, the only openly gay congressman, urge a nearby gay couple to get on the dance floor to send a message to his fellow politicians, I felt a large claw grab my shoulder. “We’re going home,” Bianca hissed in my ear, upset that I’d slipped away from her.

  An hour later, we were back on the private plane, leaving as suddenly as we’d arrived. As everyone else tried to sleep, Bianca—more drunk and aggressive than I’d ever seen her—kept turning my swivel chair to face hers and talking dirty. “I want you to, y’know, cum in my face. I’ve never done that before. What does it taste like?”

  I told her it was kind of like eating lychee nuts. I’m not sure why that image came to mind.

  As the New Year’s sun rose behind the plane, Bianca thrust across the seat, lowered her dress, and stuck her breasts in my face. This, I thought, was an uncomfortable way to begin a new millennium. I just wanted to escape.

  When I finally made it home, I checked my e-mail before going to sleep. There was a message from one of my new doomsdayer friends: “Hi, Neil Strauss, it’s Tim Chase. This new president Putin in Russia? Interesting that he became the Russian president as the millennium changed. He could be the one, the Prince of Darkness.”

  And I knew then that I’d made the right choice. There will only be one millennium party at the White House. But there will always be another apocalypse.

  When I was twelve, I used to wonder if I would live to see the year 2000. It seemed so far away. I’d sit in class and count on my fingers, trying to calculate how old I would be. In my head, I’d beseech God, “Please don’t kill me before the year 2000. I want to see what it’s like.”

  And he spared me.

  When I was fifteen, I used to wonder when I’d lose my virginity. I used to lie in bed, thinking about what it would be like to finally feel the naked flesh of a girl. And I’d beseech God, “Please don’t kill me before I experience sex. I want to see what it’s like.”

  And he spared me.

  When I was nineteen, I used to wonder what Europe was like. I’d sit in the college library, daydreaming about the cathedral of Notre Dame, the canals of Venice, the Eurorail, and Swedish women. And I’d beseech God, “Please don’t kill me before I go to Europe. I want to see what it’s like.”

  And he spared me.

  Today, I wonder what it will be like to become a father. Every night, when the nagging drone of unfinished work dies in my temples, I hope and pray that I don’t die in some sort of accident before I get to bring life into this world and watch that small, helpless being grow into adulthood.

  Yet on every highway, there’s a drunk driver hurtling at 80 miles an hour in two tons of steel. In every neighborhood, there’s a thief armed with a deadly weapon. In every city, there’s a terrorist with a bloody agenda. In every nuclear country, there’s a government employee sitting in front of a button. In every cell in our body, there’s the potential to mutate into cancer. They are all trying to kill us. And they don’t even know us. They don’t care that if they succeed, we will never know what tomorrow holds for us.

  The tragedy of life—robbing it of its fullness and brilliance—is the knowledge that we might die at any moment. And though we schedule our lives so precisely, with calendars and day planners and mobile phones and personal information management software, that moment is completely beyond our control.

  Death is a guillotine blade hanging over our heads, reminding us every second of every day that this life we treasure so much is no more important to the universe than those of the two hundred thousand insects each of us kills with the front of our car every year.

  Nature knows no tragedies or catastrophes. It knows no good or evil. It knows only creation and destruction. And one can never truly be happy and free, in the way we were as children before learning of our mortality, without at some point confronting our destruction. And all we can ask for, all we can hope for, all we can beseech God for, is to win a few battles in a war we will ultimately lose.

  STEP 2: SEPTEMBER 22, 2000

  The postcard depicted a bearded soldier with his pants around his ankles. Bent over like a football center in front of him was Mickey Mouse. It was clear from the pained expression on Mickey’s face that he was being forcibly entered.

  Above the pair in red, white, and blue lettering were the words FUCK THE USA.

  It wasn’t the kind of image I expected to see on a postcard rack in the tourist center of Belgrade, Serbia. So I bought it:

  I moved on to another vendor selling T-shirts, ceramics, and
tourist paraphernalia. On his rack was a similarly illustrated postcard of a Serbian soldier. This one was urinating on an American flag. The caption: U CAN’T BEAT THE FEELING!

  So I bought that too, along with these ten other postcards attacking America and NATO:

  In the month before Y2K, I’d learned about threats to America from within. Now I was learning about threats from the outside. But I didn’t take them seriously, any more than I did the survivalists. In my naïveté, I was actually excited to add these items to my growing anti-American propaganda collection.

  I’d started the collection nine months into the new millennium while traveling in Iran with my brother and father, who was studying the Silk Road, the ancient trading route connecting Asia to Europe and North Africa.

  Driving into Tehran from the airport, we passed a building with an American flag painted on the side. The stars had been replaced by skulls and the stripes were trails from falling bombs. Emblazoned in large letters over the flag were the words DOWN WITH THE U.S.A.

  It was the first time I’d been in the presence of such a striking display of hatred toward my own country. But instead of feeling fear or shock or outrage, as I would have expected, I was struck by an emotion I couldn’t pinpoint. Because it had been painted many years ago and then abandoned to the elements, the mural seemed like a page from an outdated history book I wasn’t supposed to see:

  As we entered Tehran, we passed a brick wall topped by a black fence. Along the wall was more faded anti-American propaganda, including graffiti of the Statue of Liberty, her green feminine face replaced by an evil, grinning skull. Struck by the brutality of the image, I took this photo from the car: