I was winding up a pretty busy week this afternoon, but around three, there was a vacant hour in my appointment schedule. At times like that, I like to stretch out on the couch by my office window and read, which I did. There’s some excellent fiction in the latest issue of Harper’s, but for some reason, instead of getting involved in it, I fell asleep. I don’t feel that taking an occasional nap on Friday afternoon is anything to be ashamed of, though, considering all the weekend and late night hours I put in, and being one’s own boss does have its perquisites. There is no rest, however, neither for the weary or the bemused. Proof positive arrived when the ringing of my desk telephone awoke me after scarcely ten minutes of slumber.
“There’s some woman named Dayana Mendoza on Line One,” Gretchen said, “and she sounds pretty upset.”
“Put her through, then,” I declared as I roused myself from the couch to take a seat at my desk, “it’s not like I’m busy or anything. Let’s see what she wants.”
Mendoza: Hello, Mr. Tom Collins?
Tom: At your service, Ms. Mendoza. What can I do for you?
Mendoza: My cousin’s uncle-in-law’s brother, he is at the Venezuelan embassy there in your Washington, DC, and when I told him about how everybody is picking on me, he says I should call you and ask for advice.
Tom: Advice is my stock in trade, madame. I’m a professional consultant.
Mendoza: Okay, then, maybe you can help me with my problem?
Tom: That, of course, depends on what it is. Can you provide me with some background?
Mendoza: Sure, but first, I have to tell you, Mr. Collins, I am just a poor girl and I don’t have very much money.
Tom: That’s okay, Ms. Mendoza. I do a lot of business with the Venezuelan government, and they’ve always paid me quite well. So don’t worry about it. Now, what’s wrong?
Mendoza: Okay, then, you know who I am?
Tom: Well, as I recall, there is a certain Dayana Mendoza who happens to be the reigning Miss Universe. Are you she?
Mendoza: Ai, yi, yi, Señor Collins, you are one clever fellow. That is who I am!
Tom: So, in that case, I assume you’re calling because of the worldwide uproar which followed your Web log post on the Miss Universe Web site.
Mendoza: Oh, si, si, si, Señor Collins, this is what I’m calling to talk about. I make a trip with the USO to the Guantanamo Bay, to put on a show making all the Marines and Army soldiers and Navy sailors happy. And when I get back, I write a blog post about it, and now I get all these e-mails, and they say I am a terrible person!
Tom: Because of what you said in that blog post.
Mendoza: But all I said was, Guantanamo Bay is a calm and beautiful place.
Tom: Well, Miss Mendoza, if the French prison guards and convicted felons had been removed, much the same could have been said for Devil’s Island. Come to think of it, if Fidel Castro – and, I suppose, all of the other Cubans – were removed from the rest of Cuba, it, too, would be a calm and beautiful place. Actually, if you removed all the Floridians, I’m sure Florida would also be a calm and beautiful place. Except for the water moccasins and alligators, of course.
Mendoza: Those beaches, they were just incredible, Mr. Collins – so lovely! And the Marines and sailors were so nice to us. They gave me a tour of their boat, and then we took the boat around the bay, and after that the Army soldiers, they drove me around and around inside the big chain link fence.
Tom: Speaking of that big chain link fence, Miss Mendoza, when you saw that, didn’t it cause you to stop and think for a minute?
Mendoza: Think?
Tom: Yes, think.
Mendoza: I’m so sorry Mr. Collins, but I’m a beauty pageant queen. We don’t think.
Tom: Never?
Mendoza: Well, not much. We don’t have to, so we don’t bother; not usually anyhow. Thinking is so hard. Like when they show you the triangle on the black board and then they start talking about the squares and the hippopotamus and the adding up the x’s and the y’s. It makes my head hurt. I have enough work to do being so beautiful that I am Miss Universe, no?
Tom: Well, you certainly make a persuasive argument for not requiring attractive women to use their brains.
Mendoza: Thank you, Mr. Collins. So anyway, then the nice Marines, they let me play with the military doggies, and I like doggies. The doggies were so friendly and furry and they licked my face and made happy, happy barks. And all the tricks they know! They did the roll over and the shake hands and the speak, speak, speak, and the fetch the stick and the jump through the hoops and the sniff out the bomb and the tear the stuffed man apart and all kinds of cute things! And then the Army soldiers, they take me to see the camp where they keep the Arabs, all dressed up in those cute orange jump suits. You like jump suits, Mr. Collins?
Tom: I don’t wear them myself, but I do realize that they can be a formidable fashion statement under the right circumstances.
Mendoza: One of my old boyfriends, he is, what do you call it – oh yes, the martial arts kung-fu kind of guy, and he looks so sexy in a jumpsuit.
Tom: Certainly, no one can argue that the detainees at Guantanamo aren’t well and suitably dressed for the occasion and the climate.
Mendoza: You are such a sensible person, Mr. Collins. What a pleasure it is to talk to someone like you, instead of all these people yelling awful things at me.
Tom: Well, it’s my job to see both sides of every question.
Mendoza: I’m sure that makes you a much happier person than those mean, nasty e-mailers and bloggers who probably are very ugly and can’t get a boyfriend anyway. Or a girlfriend, maybe, I don’t know. And because of that, when I say I had a good time at Guantanamo, and the Marines and Army soliders and the sailors were all so nice and I didn’t want to leave, these e-mailers and bloggers, they stay up all night – peck, peck, peck at their computers, writing mean things about me.
Tom: In some sense, I’m sure, it’s a big misunderstanding.
Mendoza: That’s what I feel about it, too, Mr. Collins. Here I put in the Miss Universe blog that the prisoners at Guantanamo have games to play, movies to watch, art classes and all kinds of fun things to do, and the e-mailers and the bloggers, they are all complaining about waterboarding.
Tom: Well, you have to realize that waterboarding is a pretty controversial issue.
Mendoza: I will tell you the truth, Mr. Collins, I don’t see what all the fuss is about with waterboarding. I’ve done it plenty of times myself in Venezuela, and it’s always lots of fun for me.
Tom: It is?
Mendoza: Sure. You go to the beach, you paddle out on the water board, you wait for the wave to come, then you ride the wave back to the beach on the board. What’s the big yelling and screaming all about?
Tom: Ah, Miss Mendoza, what you described is an activity called “surfing.” True, surfing is done in the water and involves a board, but the term “waterboarding” involves something else entirely.
Mendoza: It does?
Tom: Yes, I’m afraid so. In waterboarding, the subject is tied to a board, which is then gradually submerged in water; or, alternatively, the board is inclined and water is poured on the subject’s face. Either version produces extreme respiratory distress and a sensation of being drowned while in a helpless state.
Mendoza: But I didn’t see anybody doing anything like that when I was at Guantanamo!
Tom: The United States armed forces at Guantanamo generally reserve that particular aspect of their hospitality for guests of a different nature than yourself.
Mendoza: Why?
Tom: Oh, that. Because the detainees at Guantanamo were, for the most part, captured while actively making war against the free world in general and the United States of America in particular. The were caught with machine guns and rocket propelled grenade launchers in their hands, ready to kill NATO troops in Afghanistan, or building and carrying explosives to kill innocent people in the name of their warped and depraved interpretations of Islam, which, ironically, is a religion of peace and universal harmony. So the soldiers at Guantanamo were ordered to interrogate those evil individuals in order to obtain vital information deemed necessary to prevent further brutal murder and mayhem. And, as part of those interrogations, various controversial techniques, including waterboarding, were employed. However, I would hasten to point out, nobody died. Furthermore, one certainly can’t blame the nice Marines and Army soldiers for following the orders which they were obligated carry out on the basis of their sworn allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. So it’s not like you were entertaining anyone bad when you were down at Guantanamo. But I believe it should be obvious from our discussion that a lot of people who have very strong convictions about what they consider to be torture would be quite upset with how you characterized the place where such controversial acts were perpetrated.
Mendoza: I’m sorry, Mr. Collins, but those were too many words for a beauty pageant queen to hear all at one time.
Tom: Okay, let’s go back to that fence, then. When you saw that the entire installation was surrounded by a fence with armed Americans on one side and armed Cubans on the other, did it occur to you that Guantanamo might not be the same as, say, Cancun?
Mendoza: Oh, sure, Mr. Collins. Cancun has much better nightclubs.
Tom: Right. Look, I think it all comes down to emotional sensitivity. A person such as yourself has certain responsibilities in that regard.
Mendoza: Oh, okay, you mean like when, because I am so beautiful, and other girls, they hate me for all the popularity and the boys chasing after me and me getting money and cars and jewelry and other nice things for just being beautiful, then I should not make fun and say catty things about fat girls with big noses and buck teeth or huge behind ends and bad skin with hair that’s all stringy or looks like the used Brillo pad and looking like pigs and cows and flat chested monkey nipples?
Tom: Yeah, things along that line.
Mendoza: Oh, Mr. Collins, I never do that!
Tom: I’m sure you don’t.
Mendoza: Never!
Tom: Of course.
Mendoza: Never, ever, ever!
Tom: Certainly. So, as I was saying, it’s like that, only bigger and more serious. When you’re Miss Universe, you need to realize that every positive thing you say can be interpreted as an endorsement of what you’re talking about.
Mendoza: So when I say I had a good time on the USO tour visit to Guantanamo and that the Marines and solider boys and sailors were all so nice to me, I’m endorsing them, right? I’m saying that the USO and the Marines and the Army and Navy are all good, no?
Tom: Yes, but since you said those things in the context of Guantanamo, it also looks like you’re saying what has happened there, and what continues to happen there, is good. And, if you think about it, you’ll realize that’s emotionally insensitive.
Mendoza: Mr. Collins?
Tom: Yes?
Mendoza: I am thinking about it.
Tom: Good.
Mendoza: I am thinking, very, very hard.
Tom: Excellent.
Mendoza: Mr. Collins?
Tom: Yes?
Mendoza: I am getting a terrible headache. Really, really bad. I need to take two aspirin and lie down now.
Tom: Okay, no problem, go right ahead.
Mendoza: Thank you. Goodbye.