I came home from work early today, shortly after the rain from the second named storm of the 2007 hurricane season passed over the DC Metro area. The sky was clearing, the sun peeking through the clouds, the air heavy with moisture – about 95% relative humidity, I’d guess. The lawn and garden man labored on his knees, planting a bed of annuals in my front yard. As soon as he saw me, though, he leapt to his feet and ran over to me as I got out of my car.
“Mr. Collins!,” he breathlessly called out in his lilting Calypso accent, “I must speak with you!”
“Certainly,” I said, beckoning him into the garage so I could close the door, “come in and we’ll talk in the living room.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Collins,” he replied, indicating his overalls, “I wouldn’t want to get your furniture dirty.”
So the garage door closed and the two of us stood there on the concrete floor amid tools and equipment. “Okay, then,” I shrugged, “no problem. What can I do for you?”
“Mr. Collins, I hear the neighbors talk about you,” he began, “and all the time, they’re saying ‘you should ask Collins about that,’ or ‘Collins would know what to do,’ and so I thought maybe you could help me.”
“That depends,” I said, placing my briefcase on the top of my car and leaning against the left rear fender thoughtfully, “on what your problem is, of course, but if I can help you, I’d certainly be glad to.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Collins,” he beamed, “it’s has to do with these men – strange men – for the last two or three months, I think they have been following me.”
“By any chance, are these, ah, white guys – driving Crown Vics, Chevy Suburbans, and GMC vans with tinted windows?”
“Why, now that you mention it, Mr. Collins, that’s right!”
“They wear dark windbreakers or blazers?”
“Yes! Almost all of them!”
“Sunglasses?
“Nearly every one of them!”
“Travel in twos and threes?”
“Again, Mr. Collins, you are completely correct!”
“No beards – either they’re clean shaven or they have that stupid Tom Selleck moustache?”
“Yes, yes, exactly right!”
“You saw maybe one or two women at most. They were white, dress like the men, wore sensible shoes, light makeup, and had medium to short hairstyles?”
“I have seen only one woman in their company, and yes, she was precisely as you describe, Mr. Collins.”
“Always keep their distance?”
“Always, Mr. Collins.”
“Never, ever smile?”
“Absolutely never, Mr. Collins!”
“Well, Ibrahim,” I told him, “it looks like you’re under surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
The lawn and garden man took the news pretty hard. He tottered a bit, then looked around for a place to sit, choosing a box of the synthetic motor oil I use in my imported sports car. Nervously, he dipped in his pocket for a bandana, wiping his face and neck with it.
“Suddenly very hot in here, Mr. Collins,” he finally managed.
“Come with me, then,” I suggested, pointing to the door leading into the house, “we’ll sit out on the deck and talk about this.”
Ibrahim settled into one of the chairs and surveyed the tree tops abstractly as I emerged onto the deck with two highball glasses filled with ice cubes. “Something to drink?” I asked him, nodding toward the dry bar, “I’m having gin and tonic – plain tonic for you, maybe – or would you prefer mineral water? Perhaps some cola?”
“Have any Pepsi?”
“Sure,” I said, pouring him some. He smiled gratefully as I handed it to him.
“Thank you, Mr. Collins.” Ibrahim sipped his Pepsi, then looked at me imploringly. “Why on earth would the FBI be following me around?”
“Interesting question, Ibrahim,” I allowed, squeezing a halved key lime over my ice, followed by a generous tot of Bombay Sapphire, “From your accent, I sense that perhaps you are from the Lesser Antilles,” I topped off my glass with some Schweppes tonic water, then turned to regard him more closely, “or is it one of those countries in Northern South America that have coasts on the Caribbean?”
Ibrahim took a long pull of his Pepsi and stared back at me, obviously impressed. “You are very perceptive, Mr. Collins. I am from Trinidad.”
“So, that’s it,” I announced, sitting down beside him. “The JFK connection!”
“Excuse me, Mr. Collins,” he sheepishly replied, “but I have no connection that I know of with JFK.”
“Oh, no,” I clarified, “not the late president. I meant JFK Airport.”
“What about it?” The remark had my yard man completely mystified. I concluded from his reaction that he either lacks the time or the interest to follow the news.
“Oh, I suppose you must have missed the story,” I responded diplomatically, “I suppose you’re business keeps your attention focused on it pretty intently.”
“Yes, it does,” he agreed, “what story is that?”
“Well, Ibrahim,” I continued, “it just happens that the FBI has recently developed an interest in Moslems who hail from the Caribbean. It seems that, a couple of days ago, several of them were – allegedly, of course – caught plotting to blow up JFK airport.”
“Blow up an airport?” Ibrahim genuinely seemed shocked and frightened by the idea. “That is complete and utter madness, Mr. Collins! Those men must be a coven of absolute lunatics!”
“Ah, well, actually, the FBI is maintaining that they were a bunch of Islamic extremists who hate America. The feds called them ‘al Qaeda wannabes.’”
Ibrahim downed the rest of his glass while thinking about what I had just said, and nodded eagerly when I offered a re-fill. “What happened?”
“This fellow from Guyana, Russell Defreitas, he and some of his buddies were in something called the Jamaat Al Muslimeen. One of Defreitas’ buddies was even a former member of the Guyanese parliament – a guy named Abdul Kadir.”
Ibrahim shook his head violently. “No! I have never heard of those men!”
“And I don’t suppose you know a guy from Guyana named Abdel Nur, either?” “No!” Ibrahim was adamant. “I have nothing to do with any of those people!”
“Okay,” I continued, “Then there was a fellow from Trinidad…” Ibrahim’s face froze as I spoke the name of his native country. “Kareem Ibrahim. Not any relation, I hope?”
Ibrahim set his glass down on the deck, leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “Oh, my God,” he muttered softly, “Kareem Ibrahim is my second cousin…” he looked up at me hopelessly, “on my father’s side of the family!”
“Trinidad’s a small place, eh,” I offered.
“Too small!” Ibrahim lamented, “Too damn small! And too poor!”
“So you came to America,” I lead on, “to get away from a tiny, impoverished society where everybody knew everybody else and knew everybody else’s business, to boot.”
“Yes, Mr. Collins! Those are exactly the reasons! And I love it here in America, and I’m very proud to be a citizen!”
“Of course you are,” I agreed, “and I’m sure you must be very shocked to learn that one of your relatives – even a rather distant one, is, allegedly, anyway, mixed up in some harebrained airport bombing plot. But at least now, you know why the FBI has been following you around.”
“What were the conspirators planning to do?” Having gotten over the initial shock, Ibrahim was now understandably curious.
“Oh, that,” I said, rolling my eyes heavenward, “it was totally absurd and impractical. First, the whole plan depended on the ridiculous assumption they could propagate explosions through the pipelines connecting fuel storage tanks, starting with the one at which they planned to ignite an initial explosion. Then, on top of that, they didn’t even know enough about mechanical engineering to realize that any reasonably sized dynamite charge that they could possibly hope to get near a fuel storage tank wouldn’t blow through the tank liner. And of course, they had no access to any type of explosives – like C4 or PETN, that could actually blow through a fuel storage tank liner, either.”
“So it’s just like I said, Mr. Collins – they are fools – and crazy fools at that. Those Jamaat Al Muslimeen are all madmen. In 1990, they tried a Trinidad and Tobago government coup. It killed more than twenty people.”
“They were full crap,” I concurred, “and I doubt they could have really pulled off anything very destructive. They were mostly just incompetent windbags, talking about what they would like to do to America. As far as I can tell, that’s about the extent of the Government’s evidence against them, too; it’s mostly statements they made to an informant they started yakking to about their fantasies. But,” I observed, “one of them actually did work at JFK airport as a baggage handler. I’m sure the feds think that fact ought to play well with the jury.”
At this point, Ibrahim was pretty much beside himself with woe. “Tell me, please, Mr. Collins, what can someone like myself do in such a situation?”
“Well,” I mused, leaning back in my deck chair and contemplating the clouds, “you really and truly, honestly and without reservation, knew nothing about what those idiots were up to, had no contact with any of them regarding such a project, and know one of them only because he’s your second cousin from Trinidad?”
“Yes, Mr. Collins,” Ibrahim declared emphatically, “I swear it!”
“In that case,” I said, sitting up and looking him in the eye, “what you need to do is make sure that you are like Caesar’s wife – above reproach. You need to be more American than John Q. Public himself.”
“Who is this John Q. Public?” Ibrahim was confused.
“Just a figure of speech, like ‘the man in the street,’ or ‘Joe Sixpack.’ You have to be more American than apple pie and baseball.”
“Baseball I can do! Everybody plays it in Trinidad!”
“Great. Your kid in Little League?”
“Ah, no, Mr. Collins – he’s in a soccer league.”
“Soccer says ‘foreign influence,’ my friend. It’s okay if your family is a bunch of native-born upper-class, picket-fence, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. But you, Ibrahim, you should get your kids into Little League Baseball.”
He nodded encouragement, adding “I’ll certainly try to, Mr. Collins. What else?”
“What kind of car you drive?”
“Toyota.”
“Lose the Toyota. Start driving a Ford or a Chevy.”
“Okay, Ford or a Chevy.”
“Football. Start going to Washington Redskins games. Buy passes from season ticket holders off the Internet. Wear Redskins jerseys – you, the wife and the kids. And Nationals baseball hats.”
“Okay, Redskins, Nationals, jerseys, hats…” Ibrahim nodded, taking mental notes.
“You got Independence Day coming up. On the Fourth of July, I want you out in your back yard at noon, cooking up halal ground round and all-beef hot dogs. Invite everyone in the neighborhood. Be ready to make cheese burgers – with American cheese. Chop up yellow onions and put them in the raw burger meat. Use yellow ball park mustard and green pickle relish; iceberg lettuce sliced tomatoes. You gotta have at least two, preferably four or five full-size American flags on your front lawn. Everybody plays basketball afterwards…”
“We don’t have a basketball hoop…” Ibrahim interjected.
“Put one up! Right over the center of the garage door. And learn how to play half court, losers-outs style. That’s the way they play it in the suburbs. Then, around four thirty or so, I want to see your entire family on its way down to the Mall for the fireworks.”
“But, but… we never go down there… what… what about the danger of a terrorist attack?”
“Ibrahim, my man, I want you down on the Mall this July Fourth precisely because of that! That’s what all those thousands of Americans are doing down there every year – thumbing their patriotic noses at terrorist trash! You join them!”
“All right, Mr. Collins, I see what you mean,” Ibrahim agreed, “it’s worth the risk to demonstrate my loyalty.”
“Now you’re getting the idea, my friend,” I affirmed, and was pleasantly surprised to see my guest smile. “I think I could enjoy this,” he volunteered.
“Great! Now, what kind of stuff do the clerics talk about at your mosque?”
Ibrahim’s buoyant mood suddenly sank. “I’m afraid that they’re rather critical of American society, Mr. Collins.”
“Again, having a holy man (or woman, I suppose) stand up there on your weekly holy day and criticize American materialism, loose American morals, American militarism and cowboy American foreign policy is just fine if you’re a white Episcopalian with a graduate degree. As a matter of fact, they just love the periodic verbal flagellations – it nurtures their highly refined sense of upper class liberal guilt. But no way should you, my friend, assume that such lectures are appropriate for your family. I want you to find a nice, wimpy, peace-and-love Moslem mosque with a clerical staff who regularly condemn every act of terrorism reported by the American media!”
Ibrahim gazed around thoughtfully, scratching his head in deliberation. “Ah! I think I know just the place. It’s a bit of a drive from where I live, but the clerics there – they are exactly what I thought of when you described what mosque I should attend.”
“Good. It will be well worth it, my friend, because every mosque in this country with a loudmouth mullah saying bad stuff about America now has at least one and probably several FBI informants attending it, and the feds pay those guys to produce results – you know, like maybe a bunch of terrorist wannabe cretins spinning tall tales about what kind of truly awesome operation they want to pull off and show Uncle Sam a thing or two…”
“Oh, no!” Ibrahim slapped his forehead. “I know exactly what you are talking about, too! The mosque I attend now is full of prattling morons like that!”
“Lose them, my friend,” I advised, “the sooner the better. It’s only a matter of time before some genuine Al Qaeda pull off another 9/11. Then the backlash is going to be like that tsunami hitting Ko Pipi Island.”
“Anything else?” Ibrahim looked at me expectantly.
“When you’re dressed up in the Redskins jerseys and Nationals caps, I want you to drag the entire family down to the local cineplex and stand in line with your neighbors to see whatever piece of pathetic Hollywood garbage it is they are watching. Make sure you do that at least three times a month.”
“Okay, Mr. Collins,” Ibrahim nodded, “I get the idea. Find out what everybody is watching and be seen watching it, too.”
“What paper you read?”
“We get the Sunday Post, that’s all.”
“But the FBI are all a bunch of conservative whack-offs, so I want you to subscribe to the Washington Times. Again, it’s all right for a white Christian family to subscribe to the Washington Post, but if you do it, the FBI will consider it evidence that you hate America.”
“Got it,” Ibrahim said, “Cancel the Post, get the Washington Times.”
“Just to be safe, subscribe seven days a week,” I added.
“Now,” I went on, “let’s talk about the public library. Who in your family has a card?”
“Just my daughter,” Ibrahim shrugged, “my son is not a very big reader.”
“Right. Good buddy, just realize this – if there’s one thing every Moslem in America can be absolutely certain of, it’s that the federal government is monitoring everything you check out of any public library. So, you turn that around on them – I want you, your wife and all your kids to get public library cards. Then I want all of you to go, one, two or three at a time, pretty much at random, to the nearest two or three public library branches every week and check out books. But not just any books – I want you to be checking out the Federalist Papers, Locke’s Two Treaties of Government, the collected works of Thomas Paine, Patterson’s Dereliction of Duty, Hobbes’ Leviathan, Malkin’s In Defense of Internment, Medved’s Right Turns, The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Reagan, Bradford’s Founding Fathers, stuff by Ayn Rand, Pat Buchanan, Bill Bennett, Barry Goldwater…”
“Then… do we read those books, Mr. Collins?”
“Screw reading them, Ibrahim. Just check them out, take them home and return them within two weeks. Tell you what,” I offered, “I have your latest lawn and gardening bill on the desk in my study. When I send it to you, I’ll enclose a list of about two hundred rock-solid conservative, right-wing, jingoist American books. You just start checking them out and returning them on time. When you’re done, let me know and I’ll send you another list.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Collins!” Ibrahim exclaimed excitedly. It was obvious that I had done my part to lift a great burden from this poor working man’s shoulders. “Is there anything else?”
“Yeah,” I said, pointing at his soda, “lose the Pepsi. It’s okay for white, native born Americans to drink Pepsi if they want to – but Pepsi is, or, in some cases was, the cola that Moslems in general and Arabs in particular drink the world over. So you must switch to Coke.”
Ibrahim stared at his Pepsi, then back at me. “What in the world for?”
“Because the reason Arabs everywhere drink Pepsi is that Israelis drink Coke. So to out-patriot ordinary white Christian Americans, Ibrahim, you gotta go all the way and start drinking nothing but that Jewish Coca Cola. Actually, some white-on-red T-shirts that say ‘Coca Cola’ in Hebrew might be nice to wear when you take the family to the beach.”
“But not to the mosque,” Ibrahim objected.
“Well, not in the mosque,” I bantered back, “but maybe to the mosque Memorial Day picnic.”
“I don’t think my current mosque, or the other one, even, has a Memorial Day picnic.”
“Every problem is an opportunity,” I told him, “when you join that new mosque, why don’t you organize one?”
“With grilled beef hot dogs and yellow mustard?”
“And plenty of American flags.”
“And Redskins jerseys and Nationals caps!”
“And get everybody to sing ‘God Bless America,’ and ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee.’”
“Brilliant! And I’ll pass out sheets with the music and words on them!”
“And everybody plays half-court basketball!”
“Yes, Mr. Collins, yes! I’m so happy! Oh, Allah be praised!
“Peace be Upon Him and His Prophet Mohammed, and Peace be Upon him, also!”
“Afterwards, everyone in the mosque will watch heroic American war movies on a big-screen HDTV!”
“Now you’ve got the idea! And don’t forget to bring about twenty cases of Coca Cola.”