Bionic Me vs. A. Sharon

When the story of my life is finally told by someone other than myself, I hope my biographer's research includes interviews about the events of the week just concluded, which has been one of the most extraordinary in my long and decorated career as a field reporter. Indeed, as I stare at the ceiling of this military field hospital, desperately wanting to scratch my left leg but somehow prevented by the full-body cast that is now my prison, I both moan at and exult in the extremes of human behavior that I have beheld.

Acts of ultimate kindness have been blotted out by ones of unspeakable cruelty. Twin demons have risen in the east, baffling all nations with their obdurate unwillingness to find peace, and to end mindless slaughter. Then there's also that West Bank situation. What a mess, but what a reportorial gold mine! In that direction, since it is impossible for me to visit a place without first smelling it and then writing about it, my narrative now turns.

I was in Madison, WI, a couple of weeks ago, on a book tour, when I first became aware of the current Israeli-Palestinian war. A student rally was going on at the end of State St. I immediately canceled my scheduled reading, disappointing more than 200 students, including the luscious Kappa Kappa Gamma book club, so I could attend. Politics, after all, is more important than literature, and the two should never mix.

A young man approached me on the quad. He wore a Leonard Peltier for President t-shirt, and a lovely pair of acid-washed Che Guevara for Men jeans.

"Hey," he said. "Are you Noam Chomsky?"

"No," I said. "I just look like him."

"Oh, that's cool. Well, do you support Palestinian liberation?"

"I dunno," I said. "What's in it for me?"

"Nothing. You just should."

"Why?"

"Because Israel," he said, "is stupid."

I thought about his penetrating statement. The last time I'd visited Israel, Amos Oz and I had taken ecstasy at a disco in Haifa and had met these three Spanish architecture students and we had a crazy gang-bang on the beach until dawn. The next day, I interviewed Yitzak Rabin, which also went pretty well. But that was nearly 10 years ago. What if Israel had become stupid since then? What a story!

I whipped out my cell and called The New Yorker.

"Remnick!" I said. "Send me to Israel!"

"I've already been there," he said, "and I wrote a piece that got me on The Daily Show."

"Fuck you, Remnick! You goddamn byline hog! Editing The New Yorker's not good enough for you?"

"Hush. We need someone to write a profile of PJ Harvey. Are you interested?"

"Another one?"

"Yeah," he said. "That first one really sucked."

"Eat shit," I said. "And Happy Passover!"

The kid was still standing next to me.

"You could write for my paper," he said.

?

Two days later, I was a correspondent for the People's Liberation Speak-Out Gazette of Greater Wisconsin, and also several Indymedia websites. Before I left, I received an e-mail from Indymedia's "truth minister," Subcomandante G. "Always write the truth," she said. "But submit it to us for approval first."

Their per diem sucked, and I had to give half my fee to Food Not Bombs, but I had arrived in Israel, and no one was going to keep me from my story.

"Take me to Ramallah!" I ordered my cab driver.

"No way!" he said.

Goddamn stuckup Israelis, I thought. Fine, then. I'd just walk to the West Bank. It was a nice spring day, and besides, all the other cars seemed to be on fire.

Soon, in the town of Jenin, I came upon the worst devastation I had ever seen. Great gushes of sewage erupted from streets that were no longer streets. Buildings had collapsed onto other buildings, and the air was filled with a finely ground dust, faintly redolent of human flesh. Rag-clad children roamed the streets, their eyes wide, bloodshot and desperate. Everywhere I heard moans and weeping women. Groups of soldiers darted among the ruins, shooting at anything that moved.

"God," I said. "This is not funny."

A soldier appeared in front of me.

"Leave this area immediately," he said. "Or I will kill you."

"You can't kill me," I said. "I'm a reporter."

The soldier cocked his gun and shouted, "FIRE!"

I felt bullets enter me in both kneecaps, and in my neck, but I could still feel my hands, and I figured that was something. Then my spine, or what was once my spine, shattered, and I fell. As I lost consciousness for the last time, I heard an Israeli soldier's voice:

"Let's go kill some more people," he said. "It'll be fun."

?

I remember a blur in a surgical mask, and the smell of ether. "He's awake," said a voice. Then I remember another blur in a surgical mask, and the smell of stronger ether.

"He's awake again," the voice said. "Bring in the mega-morphine."

Then I had a dream that the actress Rachel Weisz and I were having sex under a waterfall, and then I saw another blur in a surgical mask.

"Is there no drug that can knock this guy out?" said the voice.

"Special K," I croaked.

"What?"

"Horse tranquilizers?"

"Where the hell do I get those?"

I rasped out an address.

Three days later I awoke, here, in this hospital room, my body in its plaster prison. A man in a very dated chocolate-brown suit was by my side.

"You've had quite a scare, son," he said. "My name is Oscar Goldman."

"I thought I was dead."

"You were dead," he said, "but the American government has brought you back to life."

"What?"

"It is the fervent belief of the U.S. military that a free press is vital to a democratic society," he said. "Our every action hinges on that principle."

"Yes," I said, "I know. But what does that have to do with me?"

"We're very distressed about the Israeli military's media lockdown in the West Bank. Few of our reporters have broken through to file real stories, and those who have are usually from The New York Times, which the President refuses to read. So the government has undertaken a project: To create a super-reporter using modern bionic science, one who can withstand bullets and also jump really high and run really fast while still taking notes with his bionic hand. Also, you can see through closed doors and we have installed a tape recorder in your groin area, which is the only place it would fit."

"This is nuts!" I said.

"We have rebuilt you," said my new mentor. "We have the technology. Also, we are plotting to overthrow the President of Venezuela. Please don't tell anyone."

?

Three days later, I have returned to Israel, wearing a bright-red two-piece jogging suit, which the government has given me so I can look, in their words, "inconspicuous." I am ambivalent about my role, and haunted by my injuries. The government should create a bionic reporter woman, preferably one of those CNN financial reporters, so I can have a tragic affair with one of my kind.

When I run, it feels like I'm moving in slow motion, but I get places very quickly, and save lots of money on cab fare. After dodging many bullets and bending many pens with my bare hands, I find myself at the gates of a heavily fortified compound in Jerusalem. I ring the doorbell.

A soldier answers.

"Is Prime Minister Sharon home?" I ask.

"No," he says.

I use my bionic eye. Upstairs, Ariel Sharon is in a tub full of bubbles, strangling a rubber Yasir Arafat Bathtime Fun Doll.

"You're mine now!" he says. "At last!"

I slip away from the soldier, sproing onto the roof of the house and crash through the skylight.

"I'm here to interview you!" I say.

"Damn!" says Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also in the bathroom, massaging Sharon's right wing with a loofah.

The Prime Minister of Israel lurches from the tub. His bloated, ancient form reminds me of Norman Mailer's. His hands move toward my neck. Netanyahu tries to sweep me away with a leg kick. They are strong, but I am stronger. I wrestle them down.

"Israel will not relent until all the Palestinians are exterminated!" Sharon says.

"Please repeat that," I say, "and this time, talk into my pants."

"What?"

"Talk into my pants, Prime Minister Sharon! Into my pants!"

"You are a crazy man!"

"No," I say. "I am the greatest living bionic reporter, and I have won again!"