True Story© A Weekend In Guantanamo

True Story©  

                The date was March 20, 2003…

If you’re keeping proper score, you know I this date as the first day of of the fraudulent war in Iraq.  If you know me, you also know I was in school for aviation maintenance at the time as well.  The whole of the 18 months between 9/11 and this date, we had been watching the news in class breaks, as the “airplanes” side of this situation led to a special bit of attention from us.  Also of note is the fact that the aviation campus was on the northwest end of the air strip, so we were often greeted with additional security, especially during the TWO times president Bush came to Greensboro while I was there.

                Anyway…  Me being the asshole I am, decided that I would make a spectacle of the day that began the war with the help of Outkast and their song Bombs Over Baghdad.  From the minute the first strikes took place clear on through the rest of the day – class breaks, lunch, home to walk the dog, on the way to work, home from work – that was the ONLY song blasting from my car on this warmish day.  People in gas stations thought it was funny after asking me about it and getting my explanation.

You know who DIDN’T find that shit funny though?  The feds doing a routine walk-through of the airport who gave me the stink eye when I pulled up for class the following morning, still being an asshole.  I turned it down a little, but kept playing it.  They kept making ill faces in my general direction.  I came out on break from class, we threw my football on the lawn and they were STILL staring me down.  Lunch, same thing.  On the way BACK from lunch, I changed to The Gap Band.  Surely some old-school funk music would be benign enough for them to leave me the fuck alone, no?

Album: Gap Band IV
Track Number 6: You Dropped a Bomb On Me

Fuck.
My.
Life.

Seated in my car, minding my business, eating a giant chicken sandwich from Carter Brothers…

“Sir, could you turn that music down?” is apparently what was said, but I didn’t hear him.

At this point, I wish I had, because all of a sudden when I took the keys out to go in and pee before headed back to my physics class, there were 5 black Suburbans and 17 agents around me, all with guns drawn and pointed at me.
I peed in my pants, because I was pretty sure I was about to become a hashtag about 4 years and 4 months before a “hashtag” would become an actual thing.

                They say that when you reach a certain level of terror, you completely black out and have no real recollection of your surroundings, especially when both fight AND flight are futile as responses.  With that in mind, I came to my senses in the back of one of those blacked-out Suburbans, handcuffed and shackled with 4 agents standing over and staring at me.

                “He’s awake,” the one closest to my left says.

                “well see what he knows,” comes from the driver’s seat.

I look and realize that we aren’t DRIVING anywhere, but are in the back of a fucking airplane.  I accurately imagined it at the time to be.  So I asked…

“where are y’all taking me?  I have to work at 2:30”

“we’ll be asking the questions here.  We got some complaints about someone obsessed with bombs in the vicinity of the airport this week and here we find you needling us.”

“w—what?”

“look, you made your bed asshole, now you have to lay in it”

“dude…”

“I’m not your dude…  Now just be good and tell us what we need to know and this will be comfortable for all of us”

“Wait…  Bombs?  I think y’all are a bit mistaken, here.”

“We’re the federal fucking government, we’re NEVER mistaken.”

“Funny…  What was the cause of the war that started yesterday?”

“GAG THIS MOTHERFUCKER!!!”

And like that, I was silenced and left to only yes/no answers.  I tried to rebel and not nod or anything, but it was just then that the plane descended to our destination, Guantanamo Bay Cuba.

                I don’t care what Obama tells you about Cuba now and its location in the Caribbean, this place is HELL!!!
Three days, these motherfuckers beat on me, shocked me, put me through interectogestion, waterboarded me and at least three other enhanced interrogation techniques that they apparently learned watching South Park.  My answer never changed, I listened to Bombs Over Baghdad because I thought it was funny and HAPPENED upon that Gap Band song.  I saw them in the morning and was just as scared of finding myself in a shitty situation due to being black in America as they were bothered by my perceived teasing of them.

Finally, the big man in charge comes in and looks at me, looks at them and…

            “the fuck did y’all DO to him”

“he won’t break, sir”

“Of course he won’t break, he hasn’t done anything”

“but sir…”

“you can’t beat information out of someone when said information does not exist, dumbass”

“has ANYONE checked his background file?”

“but sir--…”

“DID YOU CHECK THE GODDAMNED BACKGROUND FILE?!!?”

*looks down and away* “… no sir”

“This man is a great many things, but not a terrorist.”

“Sir, the music…  The beard--…”

“You’re done speaking, but I wasn't.  Shut up.”

“This man is an asshole, true indeed.  He might even be an alcoholic, we have him on surveillance cameras buying the same two beers every night for years.  He is, however, an American with no criminal record or even suspected involvement in even any MINOR disturbances.  Take this man home, contact his employer and OWN this mistake, you dumb fuck.”

Back in the Suburban, this time without the shackles and cuffs.

                “Is anyone going to feed me through my mouth and not my asshole today?”

                “shut the fuck up, Evans…  we’ll feed you when we feel like it”

Back onto the C130, a couple of hours later, we were at Piedmont Triad again, my car still (or perhaps back) in the GTCC Aviation parking lot.

                “Hey, Agent…  um, what was your name again?”

                “Agent fuck you, pal”

                “Aight, agent fuck you pal.  Do I get to discuss this with my lawyer?”

                “Discuss what?  Nothing happened here”

                “Oh, but something absolutely did--…  shit…  I will just get in that blue car over there and try to explain this off to my family.  No one’s gonn--…”

                “No one’s gonna believe you, that’s right.  Here’s 8 bucks, go get you some lunch.”

And with that, I was out of the Suburban and walking toward my car with a story that I am still convinced now almost 14 years later that none of you would actually believe.