Criminal That I Am (2 page)

I say nothing.

Burly Man and Lady Agent make their way to the door. The relief I thought I would feel at this moment does not come. Instead, I quickly realize that their departure marks what Churchill might have called—if
Churchill ever cared to describe this juncture of my criminal case—the end of the beginning. Now that prosecutors have made me aware of the investigation, I know that the next steps will likely be swift and harsh.

“Wait,” I say.

They both turn around.

“Would it be possible to call my parents? I mean, without the call being recorded?”

I don't ask this out of any calculated legal strategy. I ask about being able to talk to my parents because it is all I want to do. Actually, to be more exact, all I want to do is go to my parents' house. Live there, so I no longer have a door for federal agents to pound. Be a child again, so I am able to avoid the series of poor decisions that have led me to this moment.

Lady Agent and Burly Man exchange looks. “Let's say, hypothetically, we are recording your calls,” Burly Man says. “If we hear that you are speaking to your family, we know that call is not of interest to us.”

“So you won't listen?”

I'm not certain, but I think I see a look of pity in Burly Man's eyes. “No, we won't listen.”

And with that, the two federal agents are finished with me for the day. I watch them make their way to the elevator. Out of habit, I wave good-bye as though they are departing dinner guests. I wait for the sound of the elevator. Then I close my front door, sit down on the floor in front of it, and place my head in my hands.

W
hen I finally lift my head, I have to squint to adjust to the daylight. The glare bathes my living room, as though even the sun has placed me under heightened scrutiny.

I know I can't sit here forever. I make my way to the desk where my telephone is located and sit down. Without dialing, I push my ear to the receiver in order to listen for any surveillance. I'm not sure what this would sound like. I decide I should just assume they are there.

I take a deep breath and dial my parents' number. Before it begins to ring, I realize that I have no idea of what I'm going to say. I hang up.

Have you ever had to call your parents to tell them that you are the
target of a criminal investigation? If so, you know that this is a task that requires some forethought. The news will likely be disturbing. Also, it would be a mistake to tell them something that the government does not yet know. This would technically make them witnesses to my crime, a thought so terrifying that I consider whether I should call them at all.

I decide that I am too far gone where the government is concerned, that there is no sense in hiding anything from my parents. I make two small caveats. First, there is no reason to worry both of my parents. I will tell either my mom or my dad, but not both. Second, I will not give this parent the full story until after I have consulted with a lawyer.

The only decision that remains is which parent to tell. The issue is a complicated one given that my needs are contradictory. On the one hand, I am in need of a steady hand, one that is guided by common sense, to help me figure this out. On the other hand, I am in need of sympathy, of someone who might understand why I did the things I did.

Logic and common sense are qualities epitomized by my dad. A civil engineer by trade, he has spent a lifetime considering the science of structure, a pursuit made possible only through the avid use of rational thinking. My dad is a man who approaches every issue with an analysis that is as measured as it is detached, the type of person who not only reads the instruction manual that accompanies an electronic device, but enthusiastically highlights it for future reference. The type of person who keeps this manual in a clearly labeled file contained in an elaborate filing system located in the basement. The type of person who maintains a filing system containing four decades' worth of such documents with a level of order akin to that of the National Archives. The type of person who retains a file labeled “Children's Artwork.” A file labeled “Greeting Cards.” A file labeled “Blank Paper.”

That my father leads with logic is probably a product of his upbringing. He was born in an old holy city ninety miles south of Baghdad in an era of Iraqi politics rendered unstable by unsavory influences. Regimes would come and go and then come back again, each time bringing a new set of uncertainties and fears. Nothing was predictable, until the Baathists took over, and then the only thing that was assured was misery. My dad has seen the very worst of what a lack of order can bring,
and so it's my hypothesis that this is why he has dedicated himself to a life guided by reason.

I should mention that I have visited the city of my father's beginnings, yet was unable to picture him anywhere near it. The city has a rich religious history, but because reason and religion do not always mix, I can't imagine my father was much taken with this. The air was hazy with smoke wafting from open food stalls, the smell of spiced lamb ubiquitous. My dad invariably smells of Old Spice and refuses to eat anything out of paper or plastic. The dusty streets were teeming with local children running among religious pilgrims, their smiling faces smudged with dirt and their movements carefree. As a parent, my father admonished my siblings and me to sit still and implemented bath time as a non-negotiable demand.

My father's measured approach strikes me as appealing. But when I consider the other side of the coin, I hesitate. For while my father will probably have the most sensible answer as to what I should do next, he will never be able to understand why I did what I did. In my father's universe there is no justifiable reason to disobey the rules. If there is a good enough reason to break a rule, he often says, the rule would not exist in the first place.

How can one argue with this? What I learned over the course of my childhood is that one can't. I thus received no leniency in tenth grade when I was sent to the principal's office because I refused to throw away an apple I was illicitly eating during class. Already condemned by the school to a week of lunchtime detention, in facing my family tribunal I took the adamant position that there were starving people in the world, and to require me to waste a perfectly good apple was unjust, even immoral. My father, unmoved, grounded me for a month. When I protested that this harsh punishment was not unlike those meted out by the oppressive government he had fled, I bought myself an additional two weeks for cultural insensitivity and general smart-assedness.

Remembering my father's unwavering adherence to the rules makes me rethink bringing him into today's conversation. I shift my consideration to my mother. If “logic” is my father's guiding light, then “tradition” is my mother's. To my mom, there isn't any problem that cannot be solved by adhering to the time-tested standards of the ancients. Of these, she is
very familiar. Raised in an elegant Baghdad neighborhood in a home that was a stone's throw from the Tigris, my mother was brought up in a sea of adages that can be traced back to the birth of civilization.

The most stringent of my mother's standards regard the conduct of women. A woman is supposed to act in a certain way. When we watched one of the preeminent women on
The Real Housewives of New Jersey
proclaim that “a wife should be a cook in the kitchen, a lady in the parlor, and a whore in the bedroom,” my mother's eyes widened. “Listen to her,” she ordered me. “This is very true.” The conviction in her voice was so cringe-worthy that I was unable to finish my ice cream sandwich.

But even these qualities are not enough. Women must also be academically accomplished. My childhood was replete not only with admonishments to study but also the pervasive sense that I was never doing quite good enough. It was not uncommon for a ninety-six percent on a math test to be met with an inquiry as to the whereabouts of the remaining four percent.

In order to enforce her impossible standards, my mother ran a very tight ship. I am of the opinion that because she lived under Baathist rule longer than my father, she was better versed in its more effective methods of control. There were no individual rights in our household. My mother kept a mental list of all of our significant schoolwork so that she could interrogate us about completion. Personal choices of any kind were subject to her approval. Book bags were routinely inspected. Time in front of the television and on the telephone was regulated and monitored. The closest I have ever come to a fear-induced heart attack—and I include the aforementioned visit by the feds—was when my sister and I snuck out of the house and returned in the middle of the night to find our mother standing out front in her coat, waiting for our arrival. She was always one step ahead, making our efforts to live outside her lines futile.

My mother's traditionalist views make me hesitate again. After all, good girls do not break the law. And there is a romantic relationship mixed in with my case, something of which my mother will certainly not approve.

But I also think about the fact that, like most traditionalists, my
mother is a sizable hypocrite. When I visited Baghdad for the first time, I learned that she was a very different daughter than what she expected me to be. She was uniformly described to me as someone with too many friends and social engagements, and with propensities not in academic achievement but in fashion and dance. Although her sisters pursued degrees in medicine and science, little mention was made of my mother's scholastic work ethic. I later discovered that this was because it mostly didn't exist.

When I learned of my mother's double standard, I thought about all of the times in childhood I had to account for missing percentage points. In a brief moment of postmodern thought, I resentfully pondered what kind of punishment my mother would have doled out on her younger self had she been a member of our household. I wondered, too, if her younger self might have served as an effective lookout that night when my sister and I tried to sneak back into the house.

Still, over time I've come to see that my mother's hypocrisy comes from a good place. Her role as parent-slash-dictator is likely an outgrowth of her belief that her children deserve more than what was made available to her. And for all of her insistence on perfection, she is a big believer in throwing caution to the wind. In a vivid memory from childhood, she permitted my brother and sister and me to convert her green metallic Buick Skylark into an imaginary General Lee, the iconic vehicle from
The Dukes of Hazard
, each of us hanging from its windows Bo-and-Luke-Duke-style while she drove us to the day care at her Jazzercise class. In my memory, with my torso extended and my arms outstretched, I felt as though I was flying. I remember looking at my mother in the driver's seat; she was intently observing the road, undisturbed by her children's whoops and hollers. My mother understands that there are times to set aside logic—and child-safety laws—and just be.

So while my mother talks tough, her heart is soft. Even in matters of criminal justice, she cannot bear the suffering of others. She takes the abstract position that crime must always be met with unfettered punishment, yet she will openly weep whenever she watches Sean Penn make the slow march to the death chamber in
Dead Man Walking
. When she served as a juror in a federal drug matter, she could not bring herself to find the young defendant guilty because she did not
want to ruin his life. Though she will never say so, my mother believes that everyone deserves second chances, the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of being good.

It is this good place in my mother's heart, and her ability to see virtue where reason can't, where I believe my salvation can be found. She is the parent who wins the unfortunate prize. She will get why I did it, I think. She will understand.

I
dial my parents' number. It's still early in the morning, but my father picks up after the first ring. As I expected, he is already preparing himself for the day.

“Hi, sweetheart!” he says. He does not express surprise that I am calling him so early on a weekday. He is possibly hoping that I have finally adopted the sleep schedule he has futilely encouraged since I was young. He does not know that were it not for my rude awakening by federal agents, I would still be asleep.

I ask if I can speak to my mom. “She's still sleeping,” he says.

“Can you please wake her up?”

He pauses for a moment. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” I lie. “I just wanted to tell her something and this is probably my only chance today to call.”

I soon hear my mother's groggy voice on the line. “Hi,” she says. I can tell that she is still supine, under the covers.

I'm not certain how to begin, so I start with the obvious. “Mom, some agents came to my door this morning.”

“Some what?”

“Agents,” I say. “From the Department of Justice.”

“What are agents?”

“They're like the police,” I say. I do not add: but they are much worse.

I hear my mother sit up. “The police? What do they want?”

“They said I broke the law.”

My mother lets out a long exhale. “Well, that's ridiculous. There must be some mistake. Just tell them, Jennie, that they made a mistake. They'll sort it out.”

Her relief is making this worse. I take a deep breath. “It's actually not a mistake,” I say.

There is a long, painful pause.

“How can it not be a mistake?” And then, cautiously: “Did you do something wrong?”

“Yes,” I say.

“What do you mean? What did you do?”

“I can't tell you,” I say.

“What? Why can't you tell me?”

“Because I don't want anyone from the government to question you.” I don't want to say it, but I have to. “Also, my phone might be tapped.”

There is silence on the other line. My mother knows from tapped phones, having grown up under a paranoid dictatorship. Hers is a learned response, one that is based in fear.