The Moment Before

by Jason Makansi

  Stuart told John all this that night in St. Louis, while they were still sober. His new responsibilites, Stuart said, included evaluating the energy and water infrastructure of potential sites for new federal facilities. What kind of facilities? John asked. But Stuart shook his head and said there were security implications and he would have to kill John if he told him.

  “Funny,” John said with an eye roll. “You ought to pick up the next round as penance for a joke that bad.”

  “Cairo, Illinois, now there’s a unique place,” Stuart said.

  “Interesting segue, but I’ll bite.” John laughed. “What’s so interesting about Cairo?”

  “Reminds me of photos of Dresden from World War II.”

  “It can’t be that bad,” John protested, feeling an obligation to defend a downtrodden Illinois town, even though he’d never set foot there.

  “You know it was part of the Underground Railroad, right? My god, man, you can imagine slaves there in shackles underneath those warehouses.” Stuart had a knack for making John feel unenlightened.

  “It can’t be worse than parts of DC … or the Bronx.”

  “There’s at least one reason to go there,” Stuart said with a sly smile. “A bar you’d enjoy. It’s got a big, old neon sign out front. Can’t miss it. It’s the only place on the main drag with a pulse. He paused, as if he was thinking about something else. “I can’t remember the name,” Stuart lied. “But the woman who runs the place is quite entertaining, a platinum blonde ex-stripper with a whip-smart gift for a sarcastic take down. You still like that sort of thing, right?”

  John grinned and tipped his beer glass for an imaginary toast.

  “Anyway, that was the highlight of the trip. Pretty dull otherwise.” Stuart’s site evaluations may have been dull, but the rest of their night in St. Louis had definitely not been dull at all. Pulsating sound. Bodies fractured by strobe lights rotating overhead. Beautiful women dancing with them, all around them. It was a bit of a blur, but now it brought a nostalgic smile to John’s face.

  And then the phone rang and John’s legs flew up off his desk, sending him careening into the back of his chair. Righting himself, he lunged for the receiver.

  “Hello.”

  “Are you ever coming home?”

  Kathy.

  “Hon, I can’t talk now. I’m expecting a call.”

  “I’m not asking you to talk, just when you plan to be home.”

  “Uh, sixish?”

  “Fine. See you then. Love you.”

  Robotically, and not sure whether his next words transmitted through the receiver or hung like a vapor in the air, he said, “Love you, too,” and hung up.

  He checked his watch again. It was well past quitting time in DC. No self-respecting bureaucrat worked this late. Even Stuart Eisenstat. But as soon as he began packing his briefcase, his cell phone rang.

  They exchanged hellos, chatted about the weather, and reminisced about the Bosnian babes. “That night was a turning point in my drinking career,” John said. “Now I limit myself to two drinks a night. Well, it’s a rule of thumb, anyway.”

  “Consider your hangover payback for that lovely ‘scenic route’ you suggested I take to the airport.”

  “I figured the neighborhoods of North St. Louis would make you think twice about the ‘American Dresden’ you discovered in Cairo.”

  “Well, one thing’s for sure, we’re getting old and our escapades aren’t going to save the world or put bread on the table,” Stuart said. “Bottom line, Veranda, the Obama administration wants to close Guantanamo. Deliver on his campaign promise. Even you’ve read about it in the papers out there.” John flinched. Stuart’s barbs, no matter how small, still stung. “And we’ve got to get Americans working again. Keep the unions happy. They turned out the vote, after all. So now DHS is looking for shovel-ready projects.”

  “Shovel ready?” John wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what else Stuart had to say. The only ‘shovel ready’ place he knew was the site of his medical center.

  “You’ve heard the phrase. Permits in place, straight forward transfer of land rights, yada yada, yada. Sites where construction can start as soon as possible, get people in Illinois working again.”

  “So, what does Guantanamo have to do with it?”

  “I think you can figure it out, John.”

  Everything snapped into view. The reason for Stuart’s call. He—the government—wanted his land.

  “Wait a minute. You mean the government wants to house those terrorists? In our fair state? Surely, you’re kidding.”

  Stuart laughed. But it wasn’t an honest laugh. “Oh yes, John, and we have just the spot.”

  “No.” The word came out of its own volition, but John wanted to scream it into the phone.

  “Word is you’ve got the perfect shovel-ready site. And seeing as a permit, or financing for a medical complex won’t be forthcoming anytime soon, I’ve got the perfect solution for you.”

  “It’s not for sale,” John spat. “And how do you know all this? I haven’t told anyone, and the banks are under confidentiality agreements. Besides, financing options might change if you bozos in DC force the banks to lend again.”

  “I’m DHS, John, not Congress, or the Federal Reserve.”

  “Yeah, yeah. But my land is still not for sale.” He was sweating. His hand ached from gripping the phone so hard. Shit. How was he going to tell the town council the medical complex he spent five years developing could become a detention center for Islamic terrorists?

  “Just to be clear, Veranda, this is all still exploratory. I’ll send a team from my firm out for confidential discussions and a look-see.”

  “I thought you worked for DHS.”

  “I’m located in the DHS offices. Actually, I’m with a company called CSIA, a private contractor. Mostly energy and security matters.”

  “Never heard of them. What does CSIA stand for? And when you say ‘security,’ what do you mean? Are they like Blackwater?”

  “Most people haven’t heard of CSIA. We like it that way.”

  “I’m not most people, Stuart, and you’re talking about my family’s land.”

  “Let’s just say, we are one of hundreds of private firms to which the federal government outsources services. That’s the best I can offer.” That seemed to shut the door to further questions.

  “OK. So, in essence you’re telling me that you—and the government—are going to take over my land by force.”

  “Perfectly legal. Besides, it’ll be well worth it.”

  John knew there would be nothing he could do if the officials wanted his land. The best he could hope for would be reasonable compensation. Maybe his medical center wouldn’t be defunct after all. He did own more land. “So, when can I expect you? Should we ‘party down’ again?” John could hear the venom in his voice, but he didn’t care.

  “Unfortunately, no, I won’t be the one coming this time. In fact, we never had this conversation. The administration is keenly sensitive to being accused of playing Washington politics. Obama’s guys do things differently, you know. Plus, DHS activities are, by their nature, low profile, if you catch my drift. I just figured when I saw the file on the stalled hospital project with your name on it, the least I could do was make the connection. See if I could help.”

  “Just out of curiosity, how did you find out about my project?”

  “I’m really not at liberty to answer that.”

  John’s breathing pulsed through the phone. He knew he had no good options “Well, Stuart, as I always like to say, it’s never in one’s professional or fiduciary interest to refuse to talk about an opportunity.”

  “That’s the spirit! But seriously, we didn’t have this conversation. Nothing is to be mentioned to anyone, not even around the dinner table. I remember you—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m a blabbermouth. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it zipped.”

  “Got a pen and paper handy? Write this name down. Sugarman. David
Sugarman. He’s the guy who’ll be contacting you.”

  “Yeah, I got it. I’d say ‘thanks’ but I’m not feeling especially thankful.”

  “Think of it this way, John. You always said you wanted to put Saluki on the map. Well, here’s your chance.”

  John sat a few moments with the phone to his ear after Stuart hung up. He’d never expected this. Obama had pledged to close Guantanamo if he was elected. Ironically, it was one of the reasons John voted for him. Hell, the majority of the detainees weren’t even terrorists, at least according to the latest reports, but criminals rounded up in the earliest paranoid days of the War on Terror. Now with the wars supposedly winding down, the country had few, if any, good options for what to do with them. Their native countries didn’t want them. Wouldn’t take them, in fact. Some didn’t even have a native country. Some were probably American citizens. “Stateless” was the word used in the papers. Now Stuart was suggesting they could be coming to his state, his town, hell, just across the street from where several generations of Verandas had been raised. Holy shit. He sucked in a deep breathe to calm himself and wondered if this was what it felt like to have a coronary.

  After a moment, he got up and walked to a file cabinet at the back of the office, pulled out an accordion legal folder, and reached into the bottom. The old Washington Post newspaper clipping about Jami, which he had protected with Scotch tape, was yellowed with age. Why did he keep it when the words were committed to memory? He had told no one about her. Not Stuart. Not Kathy. No one. There was nothing to tell, really. Maybe it was his way of holding on to the possibility of a different life, of the life that was mean for him—for him and Jami. He felt cheated. He knew there were pivot points in life that changed everything and Stuart’s call about his medical center would probably be one. But that moment in DC, his time with Jami, had absolutely been one. It had put his life on a different trajectory. One he never imagined.

  As if hoping for clues, he traced his finger across the faded grayscales of Jami’s college yearbook photo that accompanied the article. But clues to what, he wasn’t sure.

  3

  Guantanamo, 2006

  Guantanamo. Gitmo. That’s what the prisoners called it. But why had America maintained a military base in a swornenemy country for decades? This question occupied Elias as he pushed food into his mouth surrounded by a sea of men in orange prison-issue zoot suits.

  Elias knew one thing about Cuba. Months before his father had him shepherded out of Syria, the Cuban Missile Crisis was big news all over the world. Nuclear bombs were set to be launched.

  It could be Gitmo, or any of the other places he had been detained for all these years. He had grown numb to the prison routine, shuffling from the mess hall to the exercise yard to the cells.

  Then he heard the phrase that paralyzed hope: indefinite detention. This was new. The indefinite part. Time taken out of the equation. No endpoint. In its place, ambiguity. Not a life sentence, with its finality, but indefinite. Uncertain. Greater torment.

  He would be stripped of human definition … indefinitely. His fellow captives said the American government was debating a formal policy to govern the practice of timeless detention. The American media conspirators, they added, of course, were not covering this debate. American journalists were paid by the government officials, who were elected with Jewish money—funneled directly from Israel—to report only what was sanctioned for official dissemination. So went the opinions of his fellow inmates.

  Elias had tired years ago of hearing about the bogeyman, Israel. He knew about bogeymen, and he knew that his Israeli captors had treated him better than his Syrian, Arab, or American captors.

  Before, when Elias was driving a taxi, he took inmates away from the old prison on the east side of Joliet to the address given to him by a guard, the place the former prisoners were to begin their post-prison lives. At the time, Joliet led the country in the production of barbed wire. Twenty barbed wire manufacturing companies once called Joliet home. He’d made a point to absorb facts like these about town, the prison, the people, so he could make conversation with the passengers and collect higher tips.

  The Joliet train station was his most frequent destination for fare pickups. But the prison held a close second. His dispatcher would get the call from the warden’s office. He’d pick up a prisoner, take him to a halfway house, a home with a room to rent, or an apartment building. Some he took to the train station. Elias felt joy for the person gaining his freedom, but also knew from experience how difficult it was to get re-established. Not once had he ever imagined that he would become a “detainee.” And never would he have imagined he would be detained in Cuba.

  A mere ninety miles from the United States, Cuban exiles reached Florida by small boat all the time. Some brave souls even tried to swim. Ninety miles. Twice the distance from Joliet to Chicago’s North Side where Elias lived for a few month’s under Father Moody’s care when he first arrived in America. Father Moody, a good friend of the Haddad family, was the last person in the chain of people who made sure Elias had safe passage out of Syria and was able to settle in America. Elias had never gotten an adequate explanation for why he had to leave, only that it had become too dangerous to stay, and the family believed he had the best prospects of making it in another country.

  Now, with time removed from the equation, the short distance loomed large. Ninety miles away from his adopted country where his beloved daughter Cheryl Halia was a citizen. This was something good.

  He assumed time stood still for everyone because it stood still for him, that Cheryl Halia was still where he had left her.

  He knew that wasn’t true, but lucid thoughts were a luxury. Too often, his mind separated from his body. To inhabit a body going through the motions of captivity, to obey robotically, was a strange thing for a functioning brain. The body still feels and reels, but the emotions to translate feeling to the brain sometimes shut down. Survival. That had come to be his modus operandi.

  His logic was speaking now. But logic did a person no more good in here than feeling. Two prisoners had hung themselves. First word was that they were tried and sentenced to hanging. Then the story changed. Truth was fluid in captivity. Then came the next wave of rumors. Homicide, not suicide. They were murdered! The US government has run out of options, inmates said. Too many prisoners have no terrorist record, captured under the anxious nationalist pretensions of the post-9/11 fervor. They can’t be transferred to American soil for civilian trials. Military trials would look bad. What’s left? Homicides disguised as suicides. They’d all have to disappear so America could heal.

  Long ago, Elias had let go of his memories of the woman he married in America, and of his family in Syria. But he could not let his thoughts and feelings abandon his beautiful daughter, Cheryl Halia. How much simpler life and death could be if that were so. The four-letter word h-o-p-e, would not leave him completely, would not leave him in peace. Cheryl Halia was the proof. Paragraphs and sentences and phrases and words of reason separated into a pile, laying like the gravel at his feet, Cheryl Halia remained, evenly spaced, in any lettering, or Arabic calligraphy, the image with the name, the embodiment of hope.

  What would she look like at age forty, twice the age of her mother Paulina when he had met her? He did not have to imagine, only remember the daughter who shared so many hours of her young life with him in a cramped taxicab, who helped cook his favorite meals when others refused, who read to him, helped him understand the American pastime called baseball, enjoyed the music they shared together. Sometimes they would sit side by side, lean their heads so their ears would form a funnel, and then, together, listen to the music they loved. They called this a musical caress.

  Here at Gitmo, there was the jihad group and the No-jihad group. Elias was in the latter. They were treated differently. They looked different. One in his group was German. Another Scandinavian. Even two Asians.

  The Jihadists wore white frocks. They knelt down, prayed five times a da
y, like Elias’s neighbors in the adjacent quarter of Aleppo. They bragged about their intelligence value to their captors, how they refuse to break. If their brothers martyred themselves flying planes into buildings, they would die for the cause by refusing to cooperate, speaking in lies, half-truths, truths so profound they are not believed by their naïve captors.

  What value was he, Elias wondered, to these people, to the Israelis, to the Syrians? Tell me, he implored to God, wetting the remaining crumbs of bread with saliva, what is my value as a human being? If zero, why do you keep me alive? All I ask is please end the suffering of my beautiful daughter. Please make my fate a certainty to Cheryl Halia Haddad.

  4

  December, 2008

  Holly pulled the sticky notice off her front door. A package was waiting for her at the post office. She put the note in her purse and headed into town to retrieve it. As she walked through town, she noted the wedding and dress shop, the dollar store, hardware and feed, photography studio, H&R Block, all of them in and among the boarded up store fronts.

  A grizzly, elderly gentleman sat on a bench just off the square. She caught an inkling of something familiar about him, the way he held his cigarette, old-fashioned style, with his hand cupped and the butt cradled between his thumb and forefinger. People only did that in the movies, she thought. Curiosity getting the better of her, she decided that bench would be a good place to have a smoke as well.

  Instinctively, she checked her enormous purse. She knew her pistol was there, but double-checking was always good policy. She slid the straps back up onto her shoulder.

  The man’s arms were extended along the back of the bench, as if claiming his territory. His legs formed a wide V, cowboy boots pointed upwards like sentries guarding the entrance to his space.