I Can't Believe a Word I'm Writing

The diaries of Private First Class Ricky Gonzalez

VECEMBER 22, '02 (BORDER OF AFGHANISTAN)

This is it. The hunt for Osama bin Laden starts @ 0400 tomorrow. Cause what we're doing here is historical, I will write down everything that happens so I can show it to my kids after they are bom so when they are old enough to have history class, they can take it there and show it off.

These are historical times. President Bush told us. He gave us special-forces guys a talk through a satellite hookup. He said:

"Good evening evilfighters. I say, 'Good evening' cause it's nighttime where y'all are, even though where I am, it's daytime. Do y'all understand how that deal works? Cause I don't. That deal where it can be bedtime in one place and then in some other place the sun is so bright, you have to pull down the venereal blinds? But one thing I learned when I stopped drinking is that some stuff is so hard to figure out, you wish you were still drinking.

"Anyway, tomorrow morning y'all will begin what we are predicating will be a very long search for a man whose name is anonymous with evil: Osama bin Laden. After you catch him, we will hold that merchant of badness actionable for his accounts. But enough words. I'm not a word guy. I'm a 'Do it!' guy. I'm a guy who says, 'Let's do it!' and then I wait to hear if somebody did it.

"Like I said before this previously, this war will not be easy or short. It's going to be the opposite. It's going to be hard and tall. So I wanted you to know that the eyes of a gracious nation are crossed for you. This is a historical day. Even though for y'all it's night."

DECEMBER 23. '02, 9:50 A.M. (INSIDE AFGHANISTAN)

One hour, 34 minutes into the hunt. First cave, me and Dewitt see this towelhead in the comer and I realize how hard it's going to be to find bin Laden cause of how all these guys look like bin Laden. Which I say to Dewitt in front of the towelhead and didn't me and Dewitt nearly fall over when the Towel says in perfect English, "Has it occurred to you cretins that the reason I look like Osama bin Laden is because I am Osama bin Laden?"

I say to him, "Right. In the first cave we check." But then Dewitt points to a pole on wheels with a box on it that's got a tube going into the Towel's body. Lights start flashing and the box starts beeping. And Dewitt says, "It's gonna blow! It's a suicide machine!"

But before we could evacuate, Towel says, almost yawning, "If I wanted to kill you I'd've done so long before I let you find me in the first cave over the Afghan border. This is my dialysis machine. The battery's failing."

Which is when the thought hit me: What Arabian terrorist would have a dialysis machine in his cave? Only one. Me and Dewitt really did catch Osama bin Laden!

1:25 P.M.

So like everyone goes crazy when I radio Captain about catching Osama. Cave surrounded, all that junk. You figure on that. Here's what you don't figure on: a special black van pulled up with a satellite dish and they made me and Dewitt get in the back of it.

Inside was a big TV screen and I could see Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld in the Oval Office. I thought it was a news show but then Captain says, "Mr. President, this here's Ricky Gonzalez and Eddie Dewitt." And President Bush looks dead at us and goes, "u the men who caught Osama?"

I got so excited. Maybe he was going to give us a medal!

So he goes, "Are you sure it's him? Maybe he's a decal."

And I go, "He's hooked up to dialysis."

Cheney groaned. "Catching him the first day takes away our No. 1 reason for the war! Now we'll only get one day of bombing."

Rumsfeld got red and goes, "Don't say that!"

Cheney says, "We'll only get one day to try out our new stuff."

Rumsfeld uncrossed his legs and then crossed them the other way. "Heavens, I wanted to try out that stuff!"

The President said, "Gonzalez, mon amigo, was Saddam Hussein of Iraq anywhere in that cave?"

And I go, "No, sir. Just bin Laden."

Him: "Well, was Osama on the phone talking to Saddam about the weapons or faxing him some kind of thank-you note about his help with 9/11?"

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Me: "Uh, well, no, sir."

Him: "Did you notice any crates with 'W.M.D.' stamped on them or some kind of sign saying, 'Store here till farther notice'?"

I could tell from the way he was almost crying that he wanted me to say yes, but my answer was no.

Cheney said, "Now we won't get the defense money we want! Now the air of terror that has practically killed the A.C.L.U. will be gone! Now people will have nothing to think about but the economy."

President Bush slapped his hands together and kind of yelped. That's when they made the big decision.

Which is what I meant when I said this is weird.

Which is so unbelievable I can hardly believe I heard it right. Which is that they told us to leave bin Laden in his cave.

2:50 P.M.

O.K., so Captain pulls the guys guarding Osama off duty. Captain says, "We're moving on."

Hayes from C.I.A. says, "Moving on to what?"

Captain says, "The search for bin Laden."

Everybody stares at him like he's crazy. So he barks, "I said we're moving out! Let's move out!"

So we move out. We just started driving off when I see Osama come hobbling out of the cave, his dialysis pole bouncing up and down on the rocks behind him. "Hey, wait for me!"

I'm writing this in my room in W.'s ranch house, which is right next to 0. s room, which used to be Jeb's.

Hayes from C.I.A. tells me to stop and says, "Captain, why are we leaving him? That is definitely Osama bin Laden."

Captain chewed his cheek. "We need to continue the hunt."

So Hayes goes, "You're saying we need to leave Osama bin Laden so that we can continue the search for Osama bin Laden?" Captain chewed his cheek a little more. "Those are the orders."

And that would have been that, except for Osama. He comes up panting and all out of breath and says, "What is the matter with you people? Did you forget me?"

Captain squints. "You want us to take you?"

And O. goes, "My dialysis is failing. You think I want to spend winter in an Afghan cave? I'm a terrorist, not an idiot."

Dewitt, who still couldn't believe we weren't killing him, said, "No, you're an evildoer like Satan."

So O. goes, "By Satan, are you referring to President Bush?"

Well, that got everybody going. Everybody jumped out of the jeep and Dewitt pulled his rifle back like he was going to hit Osama with it. But I blocked him. I don't know the Bible as good as I should, but I know Jesus is against hitting people on dialysis.

Then O. goes, "So take me with you or I'm calling the press."

Nobody said even one word. "You don't believe me?" He reached into the pocket of that thing they wear, that blankety poncho thing, and pulled out his cell phone. "I have Charlie Rose on speed dial," he said. "Furthermore, one of my men is videotaping the whole thing. Including your departure without me." He pointed to the hills. We didn't see anyone, but we believed him. So then he goes, "If there are no further questions, I'd be grateful if you'd tell me in which vehicle I'll be riding."

Well, I have to hand it to him. Every single one of us was flatout stumped about what to do, even the captain, who went to college and is really smart.

So back in the van with the TV screen. Because my kids are going to take this to school, I'm trying to keep swear words out of it, but I don't know another word for "apeshit" which is what the White House went when we told them Osama refused to let us leave him.

Cheney goes, "Can't you people do anything? Do you need me to come over there?"

Captain didn't like that. He said, "Please. Join us on the front line."

Cheney shifted in his seat like something bit him, and he said, "No can do. My student deferment is still in effect."

Really fast, Bush goes, "Mine too!"

Cheney says, "All I meant was: He's bluffing about someone taping you. Just leave."

So Captain goes, "O.K. If you want to take that risk. I'm not an expert like you, sir, but what do you think the appetite would be from the worldwide media for a tape of the U.S. military capturing and then releasing Osama bin Laden?"

So me and Dewitt are driving Osama to the airport. Capture will be kept secret so the war can continue. Me and Dewitt will guard him in the secret hiding place which is so secret even we don't know it yet.

JANUARY 3, 02 (CRAWFORD, TEXAS)

O. hates it here. He says it's uglier than Afghanistan. Personally, I was thrilled when I saw where we were. The chopper landed right on the ranch and then we were put in a car with black windows and drove into a barn and we couldn't get out till they closed the bam doors.

When we got out, President Bush was sitting on a bale of hay. I have met a living president! He said to O., "Welcome to your new home: this barn?' He snorted.

But O. says, "I will not keep quarters in this barn. The heat is intolerable."

And W. goes, "Well, you'll just have to tolerbate it. Cause you don't hold any cards in this deal."

O. smiled like he kind of did. "I left word with my associates in Afghanistan that if I didn't phone within five days they should release the tape of your men driving off without me. If you don't move me at once to cooler quarters, I shall refuse to call them."

Say what you want, but the guy sure knows how to shut people up. Which is how come I'm writing this in my room in W.'s ranch house. Me and Dewitt share it and we're right next to O.'s room, which used to be Jeb's.

MARCH 6, 02

President George H. W. Bush (#1) and Mrs. Bush (Barbara) came to the ranch today. Boy, did their eyes pop when they saw O. sitting in the kitchen where he does his dialysis. President # 1 slapped O. on the back and sang, "O-sama-enchanted evening!"

That kind of threw me, but not as bad as when O. said, "May I offer thanks for your help getting my family out of this country on September the 13th?"

Mrs. B. said, "Our pleasure. How's your mother, dear?"

O. bowed. "She's well, thank you, spending the month at the Canyon Ranch in Cairo. May I offer apologies for any inconvenience my staying here will cause? I would prefer it otherwise, but the heat in the barn was hellish."

W. said, "That's why I put you there: perfect place for the devil." He snickered, but no one else laughed. He looked a little sad and said, "Isn't anyone going to say 'touch'?"

Mrs. B. sighed. "It's 'touche,' dear."

She and #1 and O. all looked at each other sympathetically. Then they went into the living room to have cocktails.

AUGUST 17, '02

I wonder if other people who do journals have this problem: I can't believe a word I'm writing.

Like, here's a normal day for us now. In the mornings, O. plays tennis with President Bush #1, then eats lunch in front of All My Children with Mrs. B. Then O. spends time on the computer where he Googles himself. Then cocktails, dinner, games, especially Trivial Pursuit. (The Bushes high-five each other if they are one of the answers.) A lot of times the big guys are here: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Rove. They all talk to O., reminisce about the Shah, tell Qaddafi jokes.

Every month or so, they make O. make a new tape urging holy war. It's either when the economy dips or when it seems like people are forgetting about the War on Terror. Mr. Rove always says, "Let's rev 'em back up!" So we take O. outside (it's amazing how much the ranch looks like Afghanistan), and I do the camera and Dewitt holds the microphone. Then someone from C.I.A. flies it over to A1 Jazeera.

I gotta say the whole thing makes me feel—I don't even know the right word. Sad? Ashamed? I know. Disillusioned. Like tonight I was keeping guard on the porch and as I looked through the window into the living room, #1 and O. were making a prank call to the Saudi royal family. (Once they have that third Tom Collins, there's no controlling them.)

And I thought: Isn't O. our enemy? Looking at him laughing with the Bushes, I was so confused, it made me want to cry. I didn't, of course, cause if Dewitt saw me, I'd never hear the end of it, though when I think how he was snuffling at the end of Maid in Manhattan, I know it wasn't hay fever like he said.

As I was thinking about this, I heard a noise. I swung into position, but it was just W. "Buenas noches, amigo, " he said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

We looked through the window together. He goes, "I see what you're seeing, Gonzalez, and I know how you feel. Misillusioned— am I right?"

I couldn't help it—I nodded. He said, "Your concerns is something I understand. But don't worry. I and my top advisers and me have come up with a plan." He whispered the next part. "We're going into Iraq."

He told me the details of how it will work and it sounds great. "So don't you worry about old Osama," he said. "At the right time, we'll fly him back to Afghanistan and 'catch' him. Maybe during the Democratic convention! Rover"—he means Mr. Rove—"Rover always says Dad's big slipup was winning his war too early. Well, that's a mistake I won't make!"

I started to relax a little. Through the window, we could see O., Mrs. B., #1, the V.P., and Dr. Rice starting to play charades. "\bu a man of faith, Gonzalez?" he asked. "Is God your man?" I nodded. He smiled and said, "I'm a faither, too. Faith has really helped me in the area of beliefs. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm bragging, but I think my presidentry has inspired people to be more religious. The poll guys told me recently that since I turned president lots more people are praying. They say when people are driving home and hear me on the radio doing a speech, or during one of the two or three press conferences I've holden, a lot of people pull over and start praying right there.

"My only true adviser is Jesus. I ask His advice on everything. In fact, when we were getting revved up on this deal to take over Iraq, I thought I'd better check in. So I prayed to Jesus. I said, 'What should I do?' And I swear Gonzalez, He appeared before me. We didn't shake hands or anything, but it was definitely Him, long girly hair and all.

"I said, 'Lord, you know what I want to do. Is there anything you want to say to me?' His answer was as clear as a belt. He said, 'Go to hell.' I said, 'What, Lord?,' and He said it again. He said, 'I know what you want to do and I say go to hell.'

"Gonzalez, I tell you, I jumped up off my knees and ran to Cheney. I said, 'Boss, you won't believe the good news. Jesus just confirmed our plans to go to Iraq!'"

Well, that relaxed me. Plus he brought me a Tom Collins. At first it was disgusting but then it grew on me a little. And, I'm so psyched about going into Iraq.

No one's ever thrown flowers at me before,

DOUGLAS MCGRATH

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