In the Time of Plague: I Got Re-educated, and Everything's All Right

In the Time of Plague

OCTOBER 16, 2001 ? This morning, I lolled about in bed, French-kissing Karen (my Williamsburg-based installation artist sex partner of the night before), and ruminating about everything I've accomplished in the month since the world changed forever. It had been a productive 30 days, even for me?two articles for the Times Magazine, one for Harper's, a "Breakfast Table" exchange with Garrison Keillor on Slate, a found "prose poem" for All Things Considered. I spent an hour volunteering in a food line for relief workers, wrote the experience up for a respected quarterly and made $3000, which I promptly spent on high-grade marijuana and several expensive dinners at beleaguered Tribeca restaurants.

But my proudest and most humble accomplishment, I think, was reading at The New Yorker's Oct. 11 event to benefit the September 11 Fund. What a tragic excuse to have such a delightful time! My choice of material was impeccable. I read from King Herod's really long letter to his wife the night before the siege of Heraclea. "Dear Wife," it began. "I may not return from this struggle, but I want you and the children to spin the dreidel in my absence..." My well-researched acknowledgment of life's eternal verities gave solace to the $100-a-ticket crowd, and when the reading was broadcast on NPR the next day all good-thinking, sensible Americans took solace as well.

I was thinking of this, and helping Karen put on her vinyl Wonder Woman costume for a little morning play, when the buzzer rang at my Brooklyn loft.

Still in my bathrobe, I took the elevator down seven flights. Waiting for me was a man who can only be described as Arab in appearance. He was holding an envelope.

"Salaam Aleikum, my brother!" I said.

"Hey," he said.

"Who's this from?" I asked. "Can't be too careful these days, you know!"

"Yeah," he said.

"Is it from a magazine?"

"Yeah."

"A prominent magazine?"

"Yeah."

He looked nervous. Poor guy.

"Hey, listen," I said. "I know you people are suffering all kinds of discrimination these days. I just wanted to let you know I'm sympathetic. Here's five bucks for your trouble."

He gave me the envelope, took my money and sprinted down the block. That was strange, but then, our life is so rife with strangeness these days that nothing really seems strange anymore. I went upstairs, ready for Karen to tie me to my leather writer's chair with her magic lasso.

The buzzer rang again.

"Yes?" I said, as a tone of frustration began to seep into my well-known voice.

"Office of Homeland Security," said the intercom.

A few minutes later, two men wearing all-gray uniforms, black boots and little pointy hats were in my house.

"Are you Neal Pollack?" one of them asked me.

"Yes."

"The greatest living American writer?"

"Of course."

"Did you write an article for The Washington Post, on Sept. 21, 2001, called 'Maybe the Terrorists Have A Point'?"

"Yes, yes I did."

"In that article, did you refer to people who favor a war on terrorism as 'imperialist sympathizers'?"

"I suppose so," I said. "I've written so many articles since then, you know."

"You'll have to come with us. You've been designated for Ideological Readjustment by the Office of Homeland Security."

At long last, I thought. It's happened. The fascists have won. There was no opportunity for me to resist.

"I'll come with you," I said. "But first let me see what's in this envelope, postmarked Trenton, NJ, on which my address has been hastily scribbled."

I opened my morning's package.

Oh, shit.

"Nasal swabs are in the pantry, boys," I said.

OCTOBER 18, 2001 ? The Office of Homeland Security's Ideological Re-education Camp is located in a secluded wooded area about 30 miles northwest of Arlington, VA. I sort of wondered why they'd told me this in my introductory "delousing," but who was I, just another citizen now, to question their methods? They drove me into camp in a van with HOMELAND SECURITY written on the side in big red letters. The wan, formerly dissenting faces of the other prisoners?Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Ann Coulter, Michael Moore, the Backstreet Boys, the cartoonist Aaron McGruder and anyone who's posted on antiglobalization bulletin boards on the Internet since Sept. 11?peered out at me from behind their tiny plexiglas windows.

They put me in a three-bunk cell and told me to await further instruction. My vegetarian food packet would be arriving shortly, they said. So would my complimentary Freedom Collection set of American flag memorabilia.

My cellmates, Bill Maher and Susan Sontag, were familiar to me. I've been a frequent guest on Politically Incorrect. From about 1965 to 1985, I was a frequent guest in Ms. Sontag's bed as well.

"Hello, you two," I said.

Sontag stared ahead, imperturbable, not speaking. Maher grabbed my pants leg. He was sweating and desperate.

"Oh, God," he said. "It's horrible here!"

An hour or so passed. Into our cell walked "Guy," our Homeland Security Retraining Specialist, with a cart bearing a tv, VCR and patriotism flashcards.

"You're a monster!" Maher shrieked.

"Now, Bill, you know that's not the right way to talk," Guy said.

Maher whimpered.

"Okay," he said. "You're a Monster-American."

"That's better."

Our lesson began. Guy strapped us to our bunks and propped open our eyes with eye-propping apparatus. The room was filled with low, soothing light. We watched "America: A Tribute to Heroes," the "What's Going On" video and Diana Ross' rendition of "God Bless America." Mayor Giuliani moved across the screen in slow motion, with firefighters, while a soothing female voice said, "He is a good man, a patriot, a good man, a patriot..." The same words played over and over as George W. Bush delivered his speech to Congress.

"Now, then," Guy asked. "Who here condemns the Taliban?"

None of us answered.

"Okay," he said. "You asked for it."

The room filled with the sounds of Mariah Carey singing "America the Beautiful." It got louder, and louder, and louder! On the tv, we saw Ralph Nader giving a speech, intercut with shots of dead babies, and rats eating human flesh, and such foul and hideous murders as you've never seen. My throat was dry, my memory fading, but then Maher broke the silence with a scream.

"Turn off the television! I admit the deed! Terrorists are cowards! They are! They are! I love my country! Oh, God, yes, I do. Please let me have my show back. Please!"

Guy seemed satisfied. He gave Bill Maher a long, manly hug, and bestowed upon him an FDNY hat.

"You're free to go," he said. "God bless America."

He looked at Susan Sontag and me.

"You two," he said. "I'll deal with later."

We'd had some times, Sontag and I, especially during the late 60s and early 70s, when Renata Adler would invite us over for wild three-ways. Once in a while, Joan Didion would fly in from the other coast, and we'd have ourselves real orgies, followed by incredibly intelligent conversations. Those ladies were insatiable. They all sure liked to fuck! But eventually they all got older, and therefore less appealing to me. Besides, it's exhausting to have an affair with one iconoclastic female social critic who has brilliant research skills and an original prose style, much less three! Four, if you count Camille Paglia, who joined us in the final years.

"Do you remember the fun we used to have, Neal?" Sontag said.

"Sure I do," I said. "But those days are done now."

She moved toward my bunk.

"Please comfort me," she said. "It's so lonely to have radical opinions in a time of national crisis."

I put my arm around her, weakly.

She tore open her shirt, and bore down, breasts bared.

"Make love to me," she said.

"I don't feel like it," I said. "I tested positive for anthrax."

"So did I," she said. "Isn't that beautiful?"

"No!"

"The spores are inside me, Neal, and they're wonderful. Don't you know? They're the ones who are doing all this."

"What are you talking about?"

"They're in charge. They're taking over. The world belongs to the spores now. Give in to them. It's so beautiful if you do. So easy. Humans are foolish. They can't beat us. We're going to infect everyone?everyone."

"Guard!" I shouted. "Guard!"

Susan Sontag, or the thing that used to be Susan Sontag, moved toward me, tongue extended. I raced for the door and banged on it frantically.

"Terrorists are cowards!" I shouted. "George W. Bush is a man transformed! Irony is dead! Oh, please let me out!"

In my next conscious moment, I was in bed again in Brooklyn. Karen lay beside me, dressed as an Amazon princess. My God. Had it all been some sort of terrible dream? It seemed so real!

I looked around. How strange. There was an American flag hanging off my balcony. All my coffee table copies of Dissent magazine had been replaced with issues of Consent magazine, and my Entertainment Weeklys had all disappeared. Over the door hung a portrait of Tom Ridge, director of the Office of Homeland Security.

Strangely, I found all those things comforting. Why, I didn't have a contrary opinion in my brain, for the first time ever.

Look at that, I thought. They left two bottles of Cipro on my nightstand. My government really will take care of me. The public health apparatus is prepared to deal with germ warfare after all. I was wrong, and I'll never write a critical word again.

Karen stirred.

"Baby, we haven't had sex in nearly two hours," she said.

I popped a Cipro and took Karen in my tanned, hairy, muscular arms. The television, tuned to the Homeland Security Channel, soothed us with its relentless, lovely drone.

All was right in America.