From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant: A Novel (26 page)

I have never been a depressed person. That was my father’s disposition, not mine. Me, I thought I could handle anything, which has proved true for the most part. Look at how far I’ve come. I made it all the way to New York City, a little
pinoy
from Marlboro Street. And look at where I am now—the edge of the world, the rim around America’s rectum, and I haven’t fallen in yet.

This morning, as Spyro promised, a visit from the psych tech. She had blond hair tied back into a bun. No makeup. Her accent was familiar, the Northeast. Massachusetts or Rhode Island. We talked through the mesh grate of my cell. She made notations on her clipboard each time I answered a question.

“Do you know who you are?”

“Two-two-seven.”

“I mean your name. What’s your name?”

“Boy.”

“What’s your full name?”

“Boyet Hernandez.”

“What’s your mother’s maiden name?”

“Reyes.”

“What’s her mother’s maiden name?”

“Araneta.”

“What do you do, Boy?”

“What do you mean, what do I do? I’m a prisoner. I do nothing.”

“You’re not a prisoner. You’re being held here indefinitely until we can establish whether you are an enemy or a nonenemy. This is not to be looked at as the end, Boy. This is only a stop at the beginning of a long journey.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Can I ask you a few more questions. Is that okay?”

“Do what you must.”

“Are you eating?”

“If you call this food, then I am eating.”

“Are you sleeping?”

“Hardly.”

“Are you?”

“It’s impossible to sleep more than an hour here. There’s always commotion on the block. I hear noises.”

She stopped writing on her clipboard. “And these noises—what do you hear?”

“Are you asking me if I hear noises in my head like some psychotic? These are real, believe me. Go ask the others. There are noises that keep us up at night. The guards. And the men being taken from their cells. And bombs. You can hear bombs being set off in the night.”

“Bombs.”

“Yes, bombs. Explosions.”

“Do you have nightmares, Boy?”

“If I can sleep, I dream nightmares.”

“Are you feeling despair?”

I started to laugh. It was a nervous laughter that I knew would produce tears. After a few breaths I couldn’t hold it in. I began to
sob. I turned away from the psych tech. And wouldn’t you know it, she continued to ask me questions, even though it was obvious I was too broken to answer. And when I didn’t answer, she waited just a short moment before moving on to her next question. She was in a hurry! It was quite obvious she was working from a script. She didn’t even ask about the incident with Khush.

“Do you want to harm anyone, including yourself?”

How can a man be expected to answer that from in here? Yes, I’d like to kill you and your entire family, if I could. And then I’d love to do myself, but only under the condition that I am still in here.

Then the young woman from Rhode Island or someplace like it explained to me the benefit of image therapy. “Picture,” she said, “your happiest moment. Close your eyes and begin to breathe deeply. In through your nostrils and out through the mouth. In. Out. Take a second to look around in this happiest of moments. Who’s there? Why are they there? Why are you so happy? What is it about this moment in your life that makes you want to go back to it?”

I closed my eyes and pictured my white tent in Bryant Park. The catwalk, the collections, my bildungsroman. Backstage. Olya, Dasha, Kasha, Vajda. Thongs, asses, hair, makeup. Oh, but it was no use! What happened to my white tent during this silly exercise? I saw a spatter of red across its canvas surface. Khush’s vein carved open with a dull plastic Bic.

I could not lift the razor’s edge from my thoughts.

The psych tech took pity and placed me on antidepressants, to be administered daily. Small comfort. The meds don’t kick in for weeks, and I don’t have weeks. My November 17 tribunal is just ten days away, according to the president’s letter.

After she left, I was fed my lunch and then taken away for another reservation with Special Agent Spyro. He had transcripts of my phone conversations in the days that followed Ahmed’s arrest, courtesy of those turncoats at Herizon Wireless. Privacy, my ass. There’s no such thing as a private phone call these days. He knew the times the calls were made, what was said. I ask you, who would not look bad when listened in on? I’m almost certain that if the circumstances were reversed, and the American people got to snoop on the calls made between the president and his vice commandant, there would be riots on Pennsylvania Avenue. A coup d’état. My point is that when things are spoken behind closed doors they are said with the belief that no one, with the exception of the parties involved, will hear them. Here’s a little piece of truth about human nature: Sometimes, we just don’t think about what we say before we say it. Once in bed, I called Michelle a whore after she pulled my pubis. “You whore,” I said. Of course there was no exchange of currency, though I did end up paying for it in the proverbial sense, with her fucking play.

Apropos of my teletranscripts, those bums at Herizon have taken all of the humor and inflection out of my phone conversations. What we are left with is language without voice. Just words on a page. Even I had difficulty deciphering these words during today’s reservation. However, Spyro has allowed me to keep the transcripts, and so I have gone ahead and reestablished the tone of the calls, using Herizon’s documents as an aide-mémoire.

Here is what was said between me and the various parties on May 27, 2006.

At 0900 I received an incoming call from Ben Laden.

“Page two of today’s
Post
. Do you have it?”

I did. Alarmed by the urgency in his voice, I ran to get the paper, no questions asked. I turned to George Lipnicki’s article on page two. I read over the phone: “ ‘Ahmed Qureshi, a former fabric salesman, was arrested on Friday at the Sheraton Hotel near Newark International Airport.… According to the criminal complaint, Qureshi has been accused of selling and transporting ammonium nitrate fertilizer, a key ingredient in homemade explosives.… The Canadian salesman…’ Huh…he’s really Canadian. I wondered. ‘The Canadian salesman was caught red-handed in an FBI sting operation where Qureshi allegedly praised Osama bin Laden to an FBI informant.’ ”

“He praised Osama bin Laden,” Ben said. “Can you believe that?”

I read on: “ ‘He’s a great man, bin Laden. He did a good thing.…’ ” These were not my words. You see, I was reading the article from the paper. Words taken out of context can go over very badly, especially if they are to be used as evidence in one’s tribunal.

“My namesake is back in the paper,” said Ben. “Just when I thought I was in the clear.
Allah akhbar
my ass.”

“This is bad, Ben.”

“When I talked to George he had no idea about Ahmed’s connections with the label. And I didn’t tell him. I don’t think anything will lead back to you. All the information he has is from the feds. He won’t be doing any snooping when a story like this gets dropped in his lap. It looks like they got their man, and everybody’s happy. The new story is justice—what happens to Ahmed now? That sort. What can I say? I think we dodged the bullet.”

“This is crazy. I don’t understand.”

“He was a psycho. You can’t understand psychos. Why try? They’re fucked in the head.”

“Yes, but I don’t believe he would want to hurt anybody. I know him, Ben. He’s not capable.”

“Do me a favor: Go on with your life. There’s nothing you can do until you’re called in for questioning. And that’s not a definite. You may never hear of this again.”

After I spoke to Ben, I made some breakfast. A strange thing to do after receiving such news, considering my reaction on the day prior in the restroom of El Baño. But I would challenge you to name one man who has shown consistency in the face of surprise. Again, I must invoke the president himself in my analogy. Two out of three of the most shocking events of his term thus far brought the same reaction: paralysis and denial. Very consistent. However, consider how he handled the news when his own right-wingman
¹
gunned down a fellow septuagenarian, mistaking him for a quail: “I am satisfied,” said the president with such outward calm. And what composure! But I am sure that inside the president’s own soul he was deeply shocked and disturbed when he uttered those words.
²
Inwardly, I admit, I was a basket case, while outwardly I soft-boiled two eggs for five minutes. Then I ate at my worktable in order to go over some sketches. I cracked the little tops of the shells, salted the eggs, and opened their soft outer whites with a teaspoon. When I was no longer hungry, for I rarely finished two eggs, I turned my attention to the blank page and began to sketch a silk dress, crêpe de chine with sequined details.

At approximately 10:05 as I continued work on my sketch, I was interrupted by a second phone call.

“Guess who, Tenderfoot. It’s Horseradish.” Damn. It was that Indian gangster, Hajji, from the Gansevoort. I had told him to call me on Monday. But with Ahmed in jail I thought I could shake him on my own.

“Right,” I answered. “Hey, listen, I’m glad you called. Turns out, I’m not going to need your help anymore. What do you know? I found a manufacturer right here in Brooklyn! Can you believe my luck? Anyway, it’s better this way, so—”

“You see the papers?”

“The papers?”

“C’mon. Today’s paper. Extra, extra, read all about it. You’ll be interested to know our friend got pinched.”

“Why, I don’t know what you mean. Listen, I really have to be going.”

“Lucky lucky, rubber ducky. They didn’t even mention you. Not a peep.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Google this, Tenderfoot! U R fucked dot com! See what I mean? Now, how’d you like to stay out of the papers?”

“I don’t follow.” I was stalling. I realized what was happening. This bastard was blackmailing me.

“Keep things honky dory,” he said.

I said nothing.

“Terror’s bad for business, don’t you think?”

“Can I call you back?”

“You do what you have to do. While you’re doing it, think of a
number between one and two hundred thousand. And I’ll call
you
back.”

“Two hundred thousand! Are you crazy?”

“Certifiably,” he said, and hung up. Two hundred thousand dollars. This was the going price for Hajji’s silence. Not knowing what to do next, I called Ben.

“Great news,” I said. “I’m being blackmailed by an Indian gangster.”

“Who? Don
Curryone?
Take an antacid, that’s what I’d do. Ha!”

“That’s not even funny. Racist, actually.”

“Hey, no one’s experienced the blunt end of the bigot’s stick like the Irish. Tack my last name on the end of it, and you’ll have a portrait of a man who knows something about racial prejudice.”

“Seriously. I just got off the phone with one of Ahmed’s associates. A man named Hajji. He’s this little fucker who followed me the other night. Says he wants two hundred thousand dollars or else he’ll go to the press and link me to Ahmed. What the hell am I suppose to do?”

“Let’s go to the police.”

“And tell them what?”

“It’s extortion.”

“What a mess. We go to the police, and then I have to tell them about this, that, and the other.”

“This Hajji threatened you explicitly, right?”

“Well, not explicitly. It was implied.”

“Let me have his number. I know just what to say to people looking for handouts.”

“He’s a pretty nasty guy. Bad dye job, long fingernails, the
whole bit. He followed me to Philip’s party the other night. He must know where I live.”

“What’s his number?”

I gave it to him.

“Listen, go take a nap, and I’ll call you when it’s finished. I’m going to make it clear to this asshole that he’s messing with the wrong fashion designer. Ciao.”

“If you say it just like that, I’m a dead man.”

Midafternoon, Ben called me back. I hadn’t left the apartment all day. I was crippled with worry, and so I’d locked myself in.

“The good news is I talked him down to 175, but you have to tailor him two suits now. The bad news is I got him very angry, and I think we should definitely go to the authorities.”

“What happened?”

“Things were said. Threats were made—”

I had another call from another unidentifiable number. 555.

“Great, I think he’s phoning me now,” I said.

“Yeah, don’t pick up. Let him leave a message. Maybe he’ll say something stupid that we can hand over to the police.”

“Jesus.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

“Wait. Let me think.”

“What’s to think about?”

“I’m not up to this. Not today. I’m exhausted.”

“Boy, this guy seems pretty dangerous. You said yourself.”

“Yes, but I think we should do the right thing here.”

“Which is?”

“I think you should call your friend George and make the
whole thing public. There’s no point in hiding. If we say that Ahmed was involved with the label, then Hajji has nothing, and I don’t have to be bothered with the police. It’s bound to come out sooner or later. Better it comes from us.”

“Good point. Qureshi’s an
alleged
arms dealer, remember. You’ll be connected to a suspect now rather than a convicted terrorist later.… If, god forbid, this thing is true. It’s the lesser of two evils. And the quicker it’ll blow over.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“I’ll handle it,” said Ben. “And I’ll prepare a statement. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and end up having a laugh over the whole fucking mess.”

Truly, we intended to come forth with the truth. Ben was to handle everything. Perhaps it was foolish to think that I could skirt around talking to the authorities by going directly to the press. Anyhow, it didn’t matter. I was already out of time.