Skipping Towards Gomorrah (38 page)

I told Emily that I would be wearing what I've been wearing all of my life—jeans, a T-shirt, tennis shoes, and a jeans jacket.

“I'll dress down,” she said. “See you in the lobby bar at six.”

I almost fainted when Emily walked into the lobby two hours later.

The hotel's bar was, surprisingly enough, overrun with businessmen and hipsters, and I decided to wait for Emily in the lobby instead. I was sitting in a ridiculous oversize chair just outside the bar when she came through the doors. She was a stunningly beautiful woman—the pictures on her Web site didn't do her justice—with nary a track mark in sight. Emily's legs were longer than the Oscars. She was wearing jeans and a tasteful little top held up by spaghetti straps, and carrying a metallic silver jeans jacket. The jacket sounds trashy on the page, but in person it was just the right amount of flash. She looked like Cameron Diaz on her way to a club, which is to say, Emily was a total fucking knockout—a steal at five hundred dollars an hour.

I didn't wait for the ten minutes to pass; I handed her the envelope with fifteen one-hundred-dollar bills in it, which she tucked into the pocket of her jeans jacket, which I had to compliment her on.

Talk about your New York miracles—I'd been in town for less than four hours, and a beautiful woman had just been delivered to my hotel. If I were straight, this would have been the night of my life.

“Let's get a drink,” Emily said, strolling into the bar.

 

I
didn't go to New York City simply to sin and to defy Osama bin Laden and his Islamo-fascist pals. I was also in New York because Jerry Falwell pisses me off.

Falwell's comments after the terrorist attacks made me angry, and I wasn't alone; Falwell caught hell for his remarks, even from good ol' Diane Sawyer on
Good Morning America
. On some level, though, I was secretly thrilled by Falwell's remarks. By attempting to pin the blame for the attacks of September 11 on the American Civil Liberties Union, abortion-rights groups, pagans, gay men and lesbians, and federal judges, Falwell not only exposed himself for what he was (hateful, divisive, mean-spirited), but he also exposed Christian fundamentalism for what it is (hateful, divisive, mean-spirited). Thanks to Falwell, millions of Americans realized that Christian fundamentalists hate all the same things about the United States that the Islamic fundamentalists hate: liberated women, sexual freedom, secular culture, fundamental human rights. After Falwell opened his fat trap on the
700 Club,
people in the political center had to admit that the Falwells and Robertsons were, as John McCain dubbed them during the Republican primaries in 2000, “agents of intolerance.” (McCain was slammed by the media for that bit of straight talk.)

After September 11, reasonable Americans could no longer pretend that all men of faith were harmless do-gooders. The nineteen hijackers were men of faith, and in their own twisted minds, they meant well—they thought they were doing God's work, just as Falwell thinks he's doing God's work. Osama bin Laden, if he's still alive somewhere, is a man of faith. John Walker, aka the American Taliban, is a man of faith.

Maddeningly, right-wing pundits have attempted to paint Walker, a religious conservative, as a hot-tubbing Marin County, California, liberal. “We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors.” That comment by psychoconservative writer, commentator, and supposed “babe” Ann Coulter was greeted with cheers at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., in February of 2002.

Fascist isn't a word that I toss around lightly—I can't stand lefties who cry fascist every time a Republican or a police officer enters the room—but that's the only word that accurately describes Coulter's politics. What's revealing about her comments and the comments of so many other right-wing pundits is their burning desire to convince us that Walker is some sort of liberal. Excuse me, but Walker didn't embrace the Marin County's live-and-let-live liberalism. Walker rejected Marin County's liberal ethos in favor of an intolerant, ranting, raving “faith.” What's more, Walker and his coreligionists hate all the same things Falwell hates: liberated women, secular culture, homosexuals, religious freedom.

In the case of both Walker and Falwell—and in the case of September 11—faith wasn't the solution to the problem, faith was and is the problem. “If we believe absurdities,” Voltaire said, “we will commit atrocities.” On September 11, Islamo-fascists, heads stuffed with absurdities, committed the most appalling atrocities. It was religious fanaticism that brought down the World Trade Center, not secularism, and a murderous intolerance inflamed by hate-mongering clerics. Falwell did a real public service by reminding Americans immediately after the attacks that the Islamic world doesn't have a monopoly on religious hatred and fanaticism, nor does the Islamic world have a monopoly on hateful clerics.

It isn't just religious fanaticism that drives young Islamic males to become suicide bombers. It's also sex—or the want of it.

“In the sight of Allah, the ones who died are the lucky ones,” a Pakistani Muslim told the
New York Times
in reference to the September 11 terrorists. “They have gone to paradise now, with all the pleasures they have been promised in the Koran. Now they will have girls, and wine, and music, and all the things forbidden to them here on earth. Now they will be happy, as we who remain can never be on earth.”

One of the unexamined aspects of the September 11 attacks was the role that sexual deprivation played in turning young men into mass murderers. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers on September 11 came from Saudi Arabia, “a theocratic kingdom that bans dating, cinemas, concert halls, discotheques, clubs, theaters, and political organizations,” the
New York Times
reported. In Saudi Arabia, “religion and tradition prohibit unmarried men and women from mixing.” Is it any wonder that a certain number of young men in places like Saudi Arabia—where all educational system is all Islam, all the time—will resent people who enjoy all the things that their religion and government forbid?

Like the puritan haunted by the fear that somewhere, someone is happy, the Islamo-fascist is haunted by the fear that somewhere, someone is enjoying the lap dances and the dates and the discos and everything else that his religion forbids him—at least until he gets to heaven. Once he gets to heaven,
then
he can have all the lap dances and dates and black-eyed virgins he can handle, on just one little condition: He has to die a martyr, which he can do by blowing himself up in an Israeli pizza parlor or flying a plane into the World Trade Center.

“The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings,” Salman Rushdie wrote in
The Washington Post
on October 2, 2001. “Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult sufferage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. . . .” The Islamic fundamentalists, Rushdie continued, don't think Westerners believe in anything. “To prove him wrong, we must first know he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreements, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons.”

Reading Rushdie's comments after September 11 inspired me. Fuck Falwell, fuck Coulter, fuck bin Laden, fuck Walker, fuck fundamentalism, fuck Islamo-Fascism, and fuck plain ol' Fascism. Committing the sin of anger in New York City would be easy—much easier than it had been in Texas. Blasting away at paper targets at the Bullet Trap in Plano didn't make me feel angry; if I committed a single sin at the Bullet Trap it was probably the sin of pride. I couldn't wait to get home and show my friends what a good shot I was, or to indulge my newfound skill at a slightly closer-to-home shooting range. (Have I mentioned what a good shot Paul, my instructor, thought I was?) In New York City, however, I had anger down.

“Why, I wondered, were not more of us angry [after the attacks on September 11]?” William Bennett asked in his quickie post-9/11 book,
Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism.
“Why did so many, especially the county's elite, seem to back away from any hint of righteous anger?”

Huh? Why weren't more of us angry? Everyone I knew was angry, and everywhere I went I met angry people. But according to Bennett, only a small number of right-thinking conservatives could see that the War on Terrorism was necessary and just. In the same essay in which he dubbed Bennett, Bork, and Buchanan “scolds,” Andrew Sullivan expressed frustration with the right's inability to take yes for an answer. “As the country becomes more conservative,” Sullivan wrote, “the right sees liberalism everywhere.”

In
Why We Fight,
William J. Bennett can't bring himself to take yes for an answer. There's a reason peace rallies after September 11 were sparsely attended. The overwhelming majority of Americans agreed with Bill Bennett. We said yes. But Bennett and his fellow scolds could only see a resolve-sapping pacifism stoked by leftie cultural critics. Admittedly, some of what the left pumped out immediately after September 11 was idiotic, just as the comments of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were idiotic. Americans were not, however, led down the primrose path by Susan Sontag, Katha Pollitt, and Edward Said. Thoughtful, angry lefties were marching in lockstep with Christopher Hitchens, not Noam Chomsky. We wanted to bomb bin Laden with bombs, and not, as Toni Morrison suggested, love.

“Little schoolchildren in our country are routinely taught to believe that America represents but one of many cultures [and] that there is no such thing as a better or worse society,” Bennett fumes at the end of
Why We Fight.
Even Americans who believe Western society and culture is superior to that of, say, Saudi Arabia are afraid to speak up, “[because] saying so can get you into trouble.”

Hell, Bill, I'll speak up: Western culture—liberal democracy, representative government, universal human rights—is superior to Saudi culture. Far superior. Personally, I would rather live in a country where I can buy a drink, kiss a guy, and rent a hooker without risking a public beheading—and like the overwhelming majority of Americans after September 11, I was angry at the people who wanted to take those things away from me, be they Bennett's enemy bin Laden or Bennett's buddy Jerry Falwell.

 

I
had never been out on an adult-style date with a woman before. When I was growing up in Chicago, I dated some girls under duress, but those dates didn't take place in hipster bars and expensive restaurants. We were teenagers on the north side of Chicago in the mid-eighties, so our dates took place in bowling alleys and fast-food restaurants. I felt awkward on those teenage dates because I was dating them only so I could tell my friends and family that I had been on a date with a girl. With Emily I felt awkward because I wasn't worthy. Even if I had played her particular sport, she was still way out of my league.

It was a little after six o'clock when we arrived at the bar, in a short lull between after-work drinkers and the early evening partiers. Emily and I found a couple of seats together at the bar. There were a lot of men in the bar around my age, and these men looked at me—me in my jeans and T-shirt and tennis shoes—and quickly concluded that I wasn't worthy. What was an incredibly beautiful woman like Emily doing out on a date with a schmo like me? If I were a few decades older, and wearing a suit, like most of Emily's customers, they would have assumed she was attracted to older, more powerful men (or attracted to their money), and therefore not a woman they had any chance of getting for themselves. But since she was with me, a poorly dressed guy around their age, the men in the bar assumed they all had a shot. Not only did they have a shot, but I had a woman I clearly didn't deserve, and they would be doing her a favor by taking her from me.

I could sense the envy emanating from the clumps of youngish men in their business suits, ties loosened or hanging out of their suit jacket pockets. It was fun to be envied, but there was an undercurrent of—well, of violence. Here and there in the bar the men were glaring at me, as if I had something that belonged to them, which in a way I did.

Emily and I were talking about New York—about the attacks, what else?—when one of the other men in the bar decided to do something about his envy. He strolled up to us and stood right behind our bar stools until we turned and looked at him.

“How are you guys doing tonight?” he asked. He was a good-looking guy, bigger than I was. He had a big smile but very small teeth, and his smile exposed two parallel lines of healthy, bright pink gums. He introduced himself and then asked me who I was.

“Are you this lovely lady's big brother?” Jim said. “Or are you her coworker?”

Jim laughed. Loud. The big brother/coworker question was supposed to be a joke, I guess. Emily laughed, but her laugh began after his did and ended before. She was being polite, deferential, upbeat.

“No, we're on a date,” she said, gesturing towards me but—hey!—beaming at Jim!

Jim looked me up and down; then he looked back at Emily. “Where you from?” he said, turning to me.

“Seattle,” I said.

“Shit, I thought all the dot-com boys had gone broke!” He laughed and put his hand on the bar between me and Emily, separating us. Then he turned his back to me. “Those guys didn't know how to run a business, and they never knew how to dress,” he said, laughing his loud, mean laugh.