Gitmo 52: Babble

“I’m getting phone calls. Honest to the Lord fucking Christ phone calls. Somehow, my highly restricted direct line has made it onto jerkoff websites so that jerkoff phone-callers can jerkoff phone-call me.”

“I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying,” I told him.

“I’m saying you built yourself a tower, son. One time before, man tried to build himself a tower, a tower to unite the world and to touch God. And that ended in fucking tragedy and turmoil. I’m saying you got your tower, and if you don’t do something real smart real quick, you’re going to get your stupid ass smited.”

“Smitten?”

“That can’t be right, cause it confuses the thing. Smoted, maybe. But grammar ain’t the point. The smiting was.”

“Letting them have this, this small, symbolic thing, it ended the hunger strike. It’s saving people, and if your PR people weren’t colossally stupid, this would be a huge win. But they can’t spin that, so instead they’re being outspun on the nonstory of some boards and a plaque.”

“Wasting tax-payer money on this, shrine”

“I paid for it. We used cast-off wood and bent-nails, but anything we needed new I bought, out of pocket- which is principally just the plaque. It guaranteed that I could control the wording, and the language, so it wasn’t some secret wink-wink, nudge-nudge jihad forever kind of thing.”

“And if this hadn’t leaked to the press, I could have given a flying fuck, but it did.”

“We don’t have any press here. It ‘leaked’ because you leaked it, you cynical shit. You’re trying to get the public to do your damned dirty work. People died- not in self-inflicted violence, but in protest. I can’t think of an American reason to say no to that.”

“This ain’t about America, son.”

“It goddamned should be.”

“They ain’t Americans.”

“I guess I missed the part of the Constitution that says, ‘only for citizens, though; all others beware.’”

“You can play cute. But it doesn’t end well. You have to know that.”

“Are you threatening me, Colonel?”

“This is the Army, son; we don’t threaten. We do. And I’m telling you, the order that will be working it’s way down the pike, is for this to get done. You can effect a righteous stance, you can waggle your finger at the sky if it makes you feel any better. But I’m telling you how it’ll be. And that’s as a courtesy.”