The Global War on Morris (27 page)

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

I
t 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 like he was anywhere close to moving on, and so he continued his fast, with nothing to digest but his anger.

T
hat 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

T
he 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.

“Big fuckin' deal,” the General mumbled. He thought that if you had nothing to hide, you shouldn't mind Uncle Sam cupping his ear to your gossip about the office, or your plans for tomorrow's
carpool, or your argument with “Brad” or “Megan” in India about a discrepancy on your credit card bill.

And now this! The report that the Colonel had dropped on him like a bunker buster bomb, destroying the General's day and maybe even blowing up his career.

“Hunger strike,” the General read aloud. His stomach gurgled.

Hunger
and
strike
were the only two words that rattled the medals on the General's tree stump chest. Hunger strikes attracted celebrities, candlelight vigils, speeches at the United Nations, and questions from the President. Hunger strikes meant lawyers from the Pentagon and the Justice Department breathing down the General's thick, stiff neck. Worse, the Department of Defense's Public Affairs Office would dispatch those annoying little gnats called “public information specialists.” The General could tolerate jihadists at Gitmo, but not the public information specialists.

Altogether, a hunger strike meant the one star on the General's collar might never get company. He'd be pushed into retirement, landing as a consultant to some defense-lobbying firm on Capitol Hill. Worse than getting shot at by terrorists was getting shaken down by congressmen.

All because of an enemy of the state who decided to go on a no-calorie diet.

This fast had to be stopped, and fast.

“Who is this . . . Feldstein?” he asked.

“High-value detainee, sir. Hasn't accepted a meal. Refuses to cooperate.”

The General rolled back his squeaky chair and stood, towering over his desk. “Let's get Mr. Feldstein something to eat,” he said.

I
n what he thought was a dream, Morris heard, from the depths of his nutrient-starved oblivion, an explosion followed by angry voices barking his name. His eyes opened onto a small army bursting into his cell. They surrounded his bed and shook it. They barked
commands and spat sharp pellets of saliva. Then, dozens of rough hands locked under his arms and pinned him against the wall.

A face approached. Oversized, red, and snorting like a bull. With thick lips and hot breath that stank of chewing tobacco.

By way of introduction, the General screamed at Morris: “You wanna starve yourself, Feldstein?”

Morris groaned weakly.

“I'm giving you two options. Option A: I drag the scrawny remnant of your ass to the clinic. I strap you in a chair. I stick a feeding tube so far up your nose it hurts your brain. I pump fucking blueberry Pop-Tarts up that tube. And I keep you strapped there so you can't try to puke anything back out. Not exactly a picnic, Feldstein.”

Morris's mind locked only on the word
picnic
.

“Here's option B, Feldstein. You cooperate and I'll give you a more pleasant dining experience. How about a nice pastrami on rye? We can fly it in from Miami. With sides.”

This tempted Morris.

“What do you say, Feldstein? You gonna cooperate or you gonna give me trouble?”

Morris struggled to straighten his back, which involved stiffening a spine rarely used.

He lifted a limp, bony hand. He wriggled a finger, inviting the General to come closer. The General put his ear to Morris's dry lips, so close that Morris could see the soft nicks and stubble on his scalp.

Morris searched for whatever strength was left in his malnourished body. He felt something swelling in his otherwise empty belly.

Morris croaked into the ear of the Brigadier General:

“Fuck the pastrami.”

There was a time in his life when Morris couldn't muster the courage to send back a lukewarm cup of coffee at the diner, much less tell a Brigadier General to perform a sexual act with his favorite cold cut.

But, as Hillel might have said, if not now, when?

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION

JANUARY–MAY 2009

T
he world premiere of Caryn's feature documentary film took place in the Feldsteins' den on Soundview Avenue. The audience was Caryn and Rona. Jeffrey was in Chicago, and Morris was—well, no one really knew where Morris was.

Caryn fed a disc into the DVD player and joined Rona on the couch.

The RoyaLounger was empty, like a riderless horse at a funeral.

“I hope you like my film,” Caryn said. “I wish Daddy could see it.”

The film was Caryn's final exam at a New York University adult education course called Documentary Filmmaking. Her professor was best known for the not-so-blockbuster exposé:
Chase Lounge: Inside
the Patio Furniture Industry
. It took third place at the Lackawana Independent Low-Budget Film Festival.

The professor had coached his students to use their lenses to search for justice.

Caryn, of course, had the perfect subject: her missing father. So she pointed her digital video camera at the strange life and the alleged crimes of Morris Feldstein. A documentary in black and white but mostly gray, with occasional splashes of faded color: the Betamax footage of long-ago trips to Disney, and the station wagon rides upstate. She interviewed the people who had major and bit roles in Morris's life. Here on the screen was Rona, whose shoulders now slumped and who sighed constantly, not to convey guilt but because she was miserable without “My Morris,” as she said on camera. Here were the Soundview Avenue neighbors and the people behind the take-out counters that lined Middle Neck Road. The members of the Men's Club. All nodding their heads and saying, “It couldn't be” and “He couldn't have,” except for Colonel McCord who said, “I knew it!”

She interviewed Victoria, who said, “I've dated some real sleaze balls in my life, and was married to Jerry, the king of all sleaze balls, but never have I dated a terrorist.”

Caryn even managed to get an interview with a Senator from New York, a man physiologically incapable of declining any request that involved a camera. He had a ravenous appetite for publicity; and even when he consumed massive amounts, he still felt malnourished.

Publicity made his heart beat. And a documentary about a constituent from Great Neck—an area he had won with a less than overwhelming margin—made it beat even faster.

Caryn set up her camera in the Senator's Manhattan office. He entered with outstretched arms, bear-hugging her as if they were friends for life. Caryn noticed a thin veneer of makeup on his cheeks, either from a prior interview or for this one. The Senator was perpetually pancaked.

She trained the camera on him.

“Senator, some say that my father, Morris Feldstein, is an
innocent victim in the War on Terror. That he was falsely accused and unjustly imprisoned.”

The Senator nodded empathetically. He had mastered empathy on demand.

He responded with a brief but salient history of the tension between civil liberties and national security. And concluded with: “I take no backseat to keeping us safe from terrorists who would do us harm. At the same time, we must be vigilant in protecting our own precious freedoms. And I vow to do both.”

Caryn continued. “But, specifically regarding Morris Feldstein, is he to spend the rest of his life in detention without even a trial? Isn't that a massive injustice, Senator?”

The Senator proclaimed, “Justice must be done. And I pledge to look into this issue and get back to you. Forthwith!”

“When?”

“Forthwith!”

“There are reports that this may extend beyond Morris Feldstein. That the government may be secretly spying on innocent Americans. Are you aware of such a program? Are you willing to call for oversight hearings?”

The Senator loved the sound of “oversight hearings.” The clack of the gavel, the glare of the television lights, the condemnatory questions fired at witnesses who cocked their heads toward lawyers who whispered responses. An oversight hearing meant elevating this story from the
Great Neck Record
to the
Washington Post
; from an obscure film hardly anyone would watch to gavel-to-gavel coverage on CNN!

“You read my mind,” said the Senator, imagining the headlines as he spoke.

W
hen the film was over, Rona wiped tears from her eyes and sighed. She said, “Morris loved watching his television. Now he's on it! If only more people could see this beautiful movie.”

“They will,” Caryn promised.

H
er NYU professor was well connected in the documentary film industry. He knew someone who knew someone else who once worked at HBO and still had a connection with an executive there who might be able to arrange for Caryn to pitch her film to another executive.

Her hopes were high.

They were quickly dashed.

In filmmaking terms, things didn't pan out.

HBO passed on the film before Caryn could get past the door to their Manhattan office. The Independent Film Channel also declined, along with the Sundance Channel, Current TV, Al Jazeera, the Jewish Television Network, and so on, up and down the cable channel lineup, from basic to the premium package and back.

But finally, after weeks of effort, Caryn landed a deal.

A one-week airing on the Public Access channel of Great Neck, wedged between
High School Sports Review
and
Great Neck Restaurant Recap
.

And a commitment for a one-night screening at the Great Neck Cinema.

It was a very limited engagement.

T
he White House Counsel in the newly installed Obama Administration disliked two particular words:
oversight
and
hearing
. Put together, the words made him tremble. When an unhappy aide reported that the Senator from New York was preparing to investigate the case of Morris Feldstein, the counsel acted quickly.

First he planned a strategy to prevent the hearing.

Second, he asked: “Who is Morris Feldstein?”

He called the new Attorney General, who checked with the Secretary of Defense, who referred the inquiry to the new Secretary of Homeland Security. Her staff identified an official who
survived the transition from the Bush Administration by burying himself deep in something called the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, Division of Intermunicipal Affairs, Bureau on State, Local Cooperation, Region Three (which the new Administration didn't even know existed, much less in multiple regions).

His name was Jon Pruitt.

Pruitt wrote a report to the Secretary of DHS, who shared it with the Department of Justice, which referred the matter of Morris Feldstein back to the White House Counsel, who called the White House Chief of Staff.

Said Chief of Staff, enraged that he had been pulled out of a strategy meeting on something called Obamacare, ordered that “this fucking problem be fucking taken care of right fucking now!”

In so many “fucking” words.

O
ne night soon thereafter, the Brigadier General at Guantánamo received a phone call. It was from one of the Defense Department lawyers he loathed. After listening to a quick question he asked, “Feldstein? The guy with a tube up his nose?”

T
he White House Counsel called the Senator to talk him out of the hearing. He knew exactly what to do.

“Senator,” he purred into a phone. “I have good news. We have reviewed the case of Morris Feldstein. And we believe it's time for him to be reunited with his family.”

“That is good news,” said the Senator, emphasizing the word
news
. “But I still have some concerns about how my constituent ended up imprisoned in . . . wherever he's imprisoned. And about whether there's a secret surveillance program that's spying on innocent Americans.”

“Well, first, I can assure you that there is no such program. But of course, it's your prerogative to convene hearings. No need for subpoenas. We'll cooperate.”

“Good.”

“Or—”

“Or?”

“Perhaps, rather than the Administration announcing your constituent's release, you could do it. You know, reunite him with his loved ones. At some kind of press event.”

“Let's talk,” said the Senator.