Once the hose was fed through the hole, Shabiha Ali would pull himself up on top of the bathroom like a gymnast. Someone would hand him the hose, and when it was in position, Obeida would yell out to the street. The water shot from the hose in a powerful blast that filled the tank—which probably held about twenty-five gallons—in a matter of seconds, and Shabiha Ali would then move the hose out of the way while Obeida yelled out to the truck to stop the water. This time, though, instead of yelling outside, he yelled to us, wearing his big smile:
“Whoever needs a shower, go!”
Right away a bunch of the men grabbed the blankets to keep them from getting soaked while the rest stripped down to their underwear and ran beneath the icy water. I did the same except for my green tee shirt, which I left on to cover my tattoos. The Palestinians were on squeegee duty and worked vigorously to get all the water out through the thin floor-level gap in the cinder blocks that had been placed there for that purpose.
When I ran into the jet and that cold water hit my skin it nearly knocked the wind out of me, but once I had gotten used to it I completely forgot that I was in jail. For the next five minutes, as we passed the soap back and forth, danced, and sang beneath the water we were all children again, kickin’ the can.
Over the next few weeks Theo’s treachery evolved into a willingness to help the Moroccan plot against me. By now Abdelatif and I were constantly at each other’s throats and I was no longer trying to keep the peace, but welcoming the confrontations—many times even starting them. Theo would act as an interpreter on a daily basis for one of the Shabiha that Abdelatif was trying to sic on me, translating his threats while standing at his side. I cannot remember who I laughed harder at.
One morning the Moroccan even decreed to the entire room that Theo was his property, and that anyone who messed with Theo would have him to deal with. Strategically, I figured that since things between me and the Moroccan had deteriorated so drastically, I should reconcile with Theo and try my hardest to keep that peace, so that he would stop siding with al-Qaeda against me. To avoid drawing attention from his master, I asked Theo if he wanted to play chess and as we played I tried to explain how he had become a pawn himself; when that failed to get through to him I moved on to honor.
“Theo, do you wanna go home someone you can be proud of, or someone who has to lie about everything that happened over here?” I asked.
“I really don’t think I’ve done anything to compromise my dignity,” he said in a tone that made it clear that even he didn’t believe what he was saying.
I brought up the massages for the hundredth time, and how by giving them he was disgracing our country in a room full of soldiers.
“Oh, come on, the guy’s hurt.”
“The guy’s the biggest enemy our country has ever faced! Stop giving him massages!”
To try to penetrate his denial and pathetic rationalizations, I began to detail his actions and how they constituted treason. I tried to make him imagine returning home and how he was going to live with himself for the rest of his life. And for a minute I seemed to get through to him. He just put his head down and didn’t say a word. But I was wasting my breath.
“I’d rather fight with you than hear it from him,” he said finally.
This was the reason he gave for siding with the Moroccan against me. For the rest of the game we discussed other things, and after all that we ended on a positive note: Theo and I shook hands and made a pact between countrymen, agreeing that we would both try harder to get along and, moving forward, work together as Americans.
A few hours after the chess game was over I was lying on the floor with my head on a pillow, just zoning out, when the Moroccan crawled up next to me. After a little small talk he got right to the point.
“Did you tell Theo that I was using him against you and to stop giving me massages?”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Theo had shaken my hand while promising to work with me for our mutual benefit moving forward—then he’d gotten up, run over to my greatest enemy, and told him every negative thing I’d said about him, including that I wanted Theo working with me instead.
“No, I didn’t say that,” I said to the Moroccan. “He’s just trying to start a fight between us.”
Naturally, he believed me, and just ended up getting mad at Theo. The next morning, I sat across from Theo and promised to tell the world what he’d done. He had officially earned a nickname of his own: The Benedict Arnold of Journalism.
June nineteenth started out like any other night. I was sitting in the rear of the cell playing chess when we heard the door being unlocked. We swept the chessboard aside so it wouldn’t be seen just as Obeida and the Wolfman entered and summoned the Moroccan, Theo, and me over to them. The Wolfman looked me over, confused—I was wearing my jeans inside out.
“So the bedbugs can’t hide under the seams,” I explained.
Then the Wolfman told the three of us to change: we were going to be released, after first being taken to Jabhat al-Nusra’s main headquarters in Aleppo to do some paperwork. The Moroccan and I rejoiced, while Theo showed virtually no emotion. To celebrate the occasion Obeida
