Beating Around the Bush by Art Buchwald Read Free Book Online Page B

were killed and how many were injured.
    At that time, no one knew who the terrorists were and no one had an answer for how four airplanes could be hijacked at the same time.
    I didn’t know where Afghanistan was, and I had never heard of al Qaeda or the Taliban.
    For the first time, Osama bin Laden came into my life as the super-villain of 9/11. He filled me with rage. The television screen showed old photos of him and kept switching back to the World Trade Center.
    I was sure we would find him and kill him.
    That was the Special Forces’ job.
    If they want war, we’ll give them war. We’ll bomb them in the cities and in the caves. That is what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was saying when he came on the screen.

    I thought about what Attorney General John Ashcroft would do to protect us from the enemy. How many constitutional rights would he have to take away from us to guarantee our safety?
    The president said we were at war.
    This wasn’t a movie.
    First we grieved for the victims of 9/11. Then a wave of patriotism swept the country. We were told to go about our business but to remain vigilant and alert.
    As the year went by, things happened. I had lost my center, but Wall Street had lost its moral compass.
    We couldn’t trust anybody anymore.
    The major institutions that I believed in were found to be driven by greed. We no longer believe accountants, brokers, banks and what the CEOs told us.
    People’s pensions were wiped out. Executives were arrested. Coming on the heels of 9/11, I didn’t know whom to trust anymore.
    We carpet-bombed Afghanistan, but we never found bin Laden.
    We won the war, but the peace is still to come.
    I tried to go about my business as I had before, but it wasn’t the same and never would be.
    I tried to make plans for the future, but my heart wasn’t in it.
    I was told by the president we have to invade Iraq, but he didn’t tell me how to do it.
    For the first time, I knew there was somebody out there who wanted to kill me.
    In the past, I thought terrorists were people far away. After 9/11, I felt they were right next door. My world was no longer what I wanted it to be. It was not a movie.

Games Children Play
    THE ALLEGED SNIPERS were caught and it is now safe to go out in the streets. I paid a visit to the Folsoms to see if they were all right.
    The reason I was so concerned is that Carla Folsom was hysterical during the past several weeks.
    She said, “I can’t understand how anybody could do what they did.”
    “It’s hard to figure out.”
    Just then Jimmy, the Folsoms’ twelve-year-old, came into the room. He said, “Do you want to play a video game?”
    Carla said to me, “Go ahead. He’s been cooped up for three weeks.”
    We went to the rec room.
    “What do you want to play?”
    “I don’t care.”
    “How about ‘Hitman 2: Silent Assassin’?”
    “What else do you have?”
    “Here’s one. ‘Splinter Cell.’ You have the right to spy, steal, destroy and assassinate to protect American freedoms. If captured, your government will disavow any knowledge of your existence.”
    “Is that all you’ve got?”
    Jimmy kept going through his collection. He read from a cover. “It’s time for a little urban renewal. Take command of 120 fully armed, fully loaded Meganites and stop the apocalyptic Volgara invasion through our cities. It means you have to knock down buildings and crush some pedestrians. We didn’t say it would be easy but, hey, nothing is.”
    I picked up another game and read, “Give peace a chance. The
lines of good and evil have been drawn. Your weapon is a walking death machine and your mission is to destroy everything on the planet.”
    Carla came down to the basement. “How are you guys doing?”
    I said, “We’re having a problem picking the most frightening one.”
    “Jimmy has one of the best collections in the neighborhood.”
    “The violence for a twelve-year-old boy doesn’t bother you?”
    “It’s just a video game. By the