Theo seemed overjoyed by these arguments, and would come out from under the covers to watch, wearing a nauseating, smug expression on his face. The fact that he was universally despised while I was not was hard for him to understand, and I think he hoped that the rift opening up between Abdelatif and me would give him an ally at last. To build this alliance, Theo began offering the Moroccan his services.
“You want to do some physical therapy?” he asked.
When they began these sessions, Abdelatif could barely bend his leg or put any weight on it at all. Theo would lift the injured leg up and down in stretches and usually end with a massage. I thought the whole routine was bullshit considering Theo had no experience in the field and the guy still had a bullet in his broken thigh, but one day at a time the Moroccan’s ability to walk and bend his leg improved—all thanks to Dr. Curtis.
Unfortunately, like all of Theo’s plans, attempting to ally himself with Abdelatif would backfire. Soon he was helping the Moroccan with everything, including disrobing on bathroom trips, where his injured leg forced him to shit in a bucket because he could not hold himself in a squat to use the toilet. It became common to find Theo clenching our cellmate’s soiled underwear in his bare hands as he waited for him to finish, and while one might expect a ritual like this to bring two captives closer together, it didn’t. Instead, it only brought Theo further under the Moroccan’s thumb, until he was Abdelatif’s own personal prison bitch.
The Moroccan liked to make rules, and one he was especially adamant about was that no one could eat off his side of the bowl that we all shared—he said that even his mother did not eat off the same side as him. This was fine with me because it worked both ways; Theo, of course, didn’t pay attention to rules or requests, whether they were about bedbugs or bowls. Abdelatif must have warned him close to dozen times not to eat from his side, but as soon as the next meal was dropped it was as if these conversations had never taken place. Theo would rip off a piece of bread, reach right over his portion of the food, and scoop some from the Moroccan’s side of the bowl. One morning, the camel’s back finally broke.
“Theo, what did I tell you?” the Moroccan shouted, picking up a plate of olives and throwing it aside.
“What the fuck!” I yelled.
Abdelatif may have had a busted leg, but you would have never known it from the way he pounced on Theo, gripping him by the throat with one hand and pinning him to the ground, throttling him with a fist cocked above his face. True to form, Theo didn’t make a sound or fight back at all. He didn’t moan, he didn’t squirm; he didn’t even grab the wrist of the man strangling him to death.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” the Moroccan screamed over and over, and Theo just lay there, arms outstretched, waiting as always to die or be rescued.
Being that Theo had provoked this reaction by ignoring the man’s reasonable request, I let it continue for a few moments so that he could learn from his mistake, but once he started turning blue I had to step in. Did I hate his guts? Yes! Did he ask for this? Yes! But I was sticking to my code, and Americans back each other up on the battlefield, whether they get along or not.
“Come on, man, get off him,” I said.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” Abdelatif was still screaming, spit flying out of his mouth.
Seeing that my words were having no effect, I stood up and gave the Moroccan a stern tap on the shoulder and repeated myself. Finally, I grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him off.
“He can’t breathe!” I yelled. “Get off him!”
When Abdelatif turned to me, his eyes were filled with such intense rage that it became instantly clear: if I hadn’t been there, he really would have killed him.
“You okay?” I asked Theo.
“Yeah,” he croaked in a hoarse voice.
After placing the rinsed olives back on the plate we all sat down and ate, like the dysfunctional family we had become. Nothing more was said, but Theo stuck to his side of the bowl, this time and every time after.
Despite what had happened, within an hour or two Abdelatif was lounging on the floor with his wounded leg on Theo’s shoulder as he kneeled before him, massaging away like a slave. I was truly embarrassed for him, and half surprised he didn’t offer to finish his master off with a happy ending.
Because Abdelatif was an Arab and a Sunni, we all thought he had the best chance of being released. Seeing that this was an opportunity to get word of our fate to the outside world I pounced on it like a cheetah. Convincing a self-proclaimed jihadi and member of Jabhat al-Nusra to walk into a US embassy was going to take a little finessing; to overcome this challenge I had to get inside the crazy fuck’s head and exploit the one thing he wanted more than anything in the world: to be reunited with his wife and kids in America. I got to work on it, and eventually had him convinced that if he presented himself at the US embassy in Turkey and told them everything he knew
