The Global War on Morris by Steve Israel

olive-skinned finger to the large sign above him
that said: TOWEL LIMIT: 2 TOWELS PER GUEST.
THANK YOU .
    â€œIt’s faw my wife. She’ll be down in a minute. C’mon dude, gimme a
break.”
    â€œI’m sorry. Two towels per guest. When she comes—”
    â€œI’m paying four hundred freakin’ dolluhs a day and you won’tgive me a freakin’ towel? Aw you freakin’ kiddin’ me? Lemme see
yaw supervisa, moron.”
    â€œHer name isn’t moron. It’s Clareesha—”
    â€œNo, she’s not the moron. Yaw the freakin’ moron. Why can’t you freakin’
people learn how to speak freakin’ English!”
    â€œI’m sorry sir. Only two towels per guest.”
    The tourist stormed away, his belly undulating with every step, his
multiple gold necklaces clanking violently around his neck.
    Hassan squinted after him. Even in the late afternoon, as shadows extended
their reach across the beach, the sun seemed strong. The chlorine tingled his
nostrils and irritated his eyes. And he could feel that familiar pain building in
his groin. The longer the summer, the worse the pain. He would try the tricks they
had taught him in training camp. Focus on the mission, Hassan. Think only of the
seventy-two virgins that await you in Paradise, Hassan. Before you know it, your
cell will be activated, your mission complete, and you will join those seventy-two
virgins and the pain will go away. Forever.
    Forever. That’s how long it seemed since he had been placed in America.
Without a word from the home office in Tora Bora. Abandoned to the infidels, to the
hordes of tourists with their incessant demands for more towels, to the temptations
of the flesh.
    Waterboarding is not
torture, Hassan thought. Waiting is torture.
    How much longer? How many more
towels and arguments over towels?
    That morning, Hassan had sent yet another coded e-mail to his control
officer. Just to remind him that he was there. With the others. Ready to strike.
Waiting for the seventy-two virgins in Paradise.
    â€œCan we get tix to the concert?” said the e-mail.
    The answer was the same as all the others he had received for years. “Not
tonite.”
    Don’t call us, we’ll call you. Meanwhile, wait. The seventy-two virgins
aren’t going anywhere.

THE BLIND DATE
    WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2004
    V ictoria D’Amico had a theory about men. A theory that was formulated, tested, and validated by eighteen years with Jerry. Men were either good for nothing, or too good to be true. There was nothing in between. Nothing.
    She brought that theory into the dark-mahogany interior of Murphy’s Steakhouse in Manhasset, on the first blind date of her brand-new life without Jerry. And dared Ricardo Xavier Montoyez to disprove it.
    He wouldn’t.
    In the first place, Murphy’s Steakhouse was a little too good to be true. Not exactly the finest dining—filled with loud Long Islanders bellowing at each other as they chewed their steaks and gulped their wines—but at least two or three stars above Jerry’s favorite pizza place. Whenever a decision had to be made on whereto eat, where to vacation, where to shop, Jerry would groan. When she suggested a trip to Paris, they ended up at Carlsbad Caverns. When she asked about “someplace exotic, like a Caribbean island,” he reminded her about the horrible sunburn he had contracted at the local beach. Instead they spent a week with his mother in Utica. And when they would go someplace that appealed to Victoria, like the annual Financial Planning Conference in Orlando, Jerry would crane his neck at every passing woman half his age, and flirt with the waitresses at restaurants. If only they knew, Victoria would think, that his favorite game at home was shooting spit-saturated, teeth-crushed pistachio shells from his lips into an ashtray, and letting her clean up “the missed three-point shots.”
    And then