Admit? Admit to what?
No, I’d never met this man before in my life. No, he’s not my Facebook “friend,” and no, we aren’t secret lovers who plan to overthrow the world.
I don’t know why I was singled out. I still can’t figure it out—and I would love to say that I don’t want to figure it out either and be done with it, but I do of course want to figure it out.
Why me? What does he want with me?
I’d like to think that it’s because I’m so important, so irresistible, and so well read, but, hey, that’s just not true.
So, really, here’s how it went down, and this is all I know myself:
As the reporters scuffled in front of the UN today, my pal, video blogger and Fox 5 reporter Dona Grimm, and I managed to steal some space at the curb. We expected to get a good look at the suspect from that angle. We got the shock of our lives instead.
For reasons I still can’t explain, except for maybe dumb luck or bad luck, the van holding the suspect, Demiel ben Yusef, stopped right in front of us. As you know by now, as he exited the van, shackled hand and foot, we saw him (and this I can positively attest to) nod his head so slightly that it was almost more of a thought than an action.
At that moment, everything stopped for me. The roar of the crowd, the insanity of the mob, the aggression of the reporters, and even the movement of the federal agents turned into slow motion, or maybe sluggish is a better term.
Then I found that even I, intrepid, note-taking reporter, lowered my pad as ben Yusef ambled toward me. He stared at me—and I was shocked to see a depth of feeling in those eyes (and I can’t for sure explain what the feeling was), and then without warning, he leaned into me and kissed me on the mouth!
So what does it feel like to be kissed by an alleged terrorist? I’d like to say that it’s no different from any kiss I’ve ever received, but that would be a lie.
It was, in fact, not like any kiss I’ve ever received. For one thing, the world has never stopped when I was kissed before. I always thought that was just an expression! But in fact, the world did stop; everything seemed so calm and serene in the midst of the madness.
Yes, his mouth was like the mouth of any other man, but then again, not like the mouth of any other man.
And a second later he was gone—pulled away by the federal and UN agents, and suddenly the world around us became filled once more with movement and sound. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why it happened. And for sure I don’t know why it happened to me.
Later, when the tribunal wrapped for the day and the suspect was being escorted back out of the grand hall of the UN General Assembly, Demiel ben Yusef again leaned into me and whispered what sounded like “Annie one rakes lehi.” I have no idea what this means. It sounds like a sports headline for a high school girls’ basketball team. Then he whispered, “Go forth for I am six.”
I’m sure the experts will figure it out. Again, Grimm and every camera crew there recorded it all.
I was, of course, once more stunned. Why me? What does he want? Where is this going? Already, the bloggers are calling for my head, as though I am his co-conspirator. That is probably as unsettling and as awful as everything else that has happened to me today.
You know, today I made some remark to Grimm about “mass murderer” and she brought me up short, saying that I must ascribe to a philosophy of “innocent until proven guilty.”
She was right, and you, bloggers and rumormongers out there in cyberspace, couldn’t be more wrong about me, either. But it made me realize that in the same way that you are rushing to judgment about me, I have rushed to judgment about him.
As Judge Bagayoko wisely warned today, no matter how it looks from the outset and the outside (and that’s you in the blogosphere and all the TV talking heads who don’t know what the heck you’re talking about), “Let us then be guided to find the truth so that justice, not the mindless will of the mob, will prevail.”
Edward Gibbon, the eighteenth-century historian, once said about mob mentality, “Man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow creatures than from the convulsions of the elements.”
I heard that from a priest today—as I was being chased by a crazed mob.
Again: Why me? What does Demiel ben Yusef want from me? Where is this going? Stay tuned.
6
Father Sadowski offered us more coffee and then ordered in Chinese takeout.
“Can I get another cognac?” I asked. Not that I knew one from the next, but the label, “Courvoisier L’Esprit,” sounded calming—and expensive.
Sadowski poured me a generous snifter full, and I downed it like a frat boy chugs a carton of wine cooler, just as the garden-gate bell rang. He checked the video surveillance monitor, and we could all see it was thankfully the delivery guy from Mee takeout.