Saturday commute xcvii: Gérard goes underground

  Not since his all-nighter 

  in the loading dock of the 

  Pierre Hotel has Gérard so 

  mystified us, as when he ac-

  cepted a chum's invitation 

  to spend Christmas at Guan-

  tánamo, that exclusive thumb

  of Cuba where our very most         distinguished guests are dom-

  iciled, their distance from 

  our shores renewed in this 

  week's shining Budget Deal, 

  hailed far and wide as the 

  very model, given the alter-

  native, of how to govern.

  And we thought Cromwell's

  New Model Army was austere.

  Probably ours is hiring?

But now, already Gérard succumbs to a whiff of good cop/bad cop conster-nation, such as can beset the best of us, subjected to any instrumentality of protection by our State, whence now and then he ventures to the infir-mary, taking counsel with Abdulaziz, who'd just graduated from Riyadh when we brought him to our beach.

That was 12 years ago.
Here is what he told Gérard:

  Praise God, who placed

  a garden and an orchard

  in my bosom

  so they will be with me

  always.

Abdulaziz

I Shall Not Complain

Marc Falkoff, editor

Poems from Guantánamo

  The Detainees Speak

op. cit.