I had forgotten about that: I was severely pissed at Joe for possibly
provoking the guards into using us for serious entertainment.
"I was for a moment," I admitted, "because I didn't understand our
situation they way he did. It wasn't really dangerous."
"Why not?"
"Holding us was their job, but intimidating a source of national
exposure for their cause was assuming more authority than they had.
Besides, the Iranians hadn't harmed any of the hostages so they weren't
about to hurt us." I shrugged. "Just like it was in Argentina, we were a
warning to the rest of the press corps to play nice." I sniggered, "which
they all soon did." I chuckled.
Bonnie waited for my merriment to pass, which it did quickly in that
vacuum, before I explained, "When we were released, a guard told us that
although LeBlanc had been carrying his camera casually, the lens had
remained relatively steady, and pointing at a restricted building. At the
time, crews were in short supply and there were a lot of places to stake
out, in case they released the hostages, so producers worked all of them
for as long as they could stay awake. The only way anyone got a break
was to walk down the street carrying their ca meras in a casually steady
way." I grinned.
"You spread the word about how to get arrested?" Bonnie said
surprised, instead of laughing as normal people did.
"If you carried a couple of old tapes with you, it could take six or
seven hours for them to clear a crew, who had nothing better to do than
sleep while the pay clock was running."
"You don't think this was dangerous?"
"I just explained why it wasn't. Twice actually," I said, perplexed at
the density of her usually supple mind.
Bonnie nodded as if she finally understood me. "What was your most
nerve wracking job?" she asked me, casually.
"You know it was in El Salvador."
"You must have spent hours howling over that war," she said, levelly.
"As best as I can recall," I said, missing her point, "there was only
one genuinely funny event. These two women," I chortled, "walked into…
Rolling her eyes, Bonnie cut me off by saying, "Set up the ambiance
so that I can separate a tension guffaw brought forward, from your sense
of humour today. If there is a differe nce," she added.
Awkwardly, because I sensed that nothing good could come of telling
this story either, I continued my tale…
During my first hour in El Salvador, Manny Alvarez, a CBS
freelancer, warned me not to discuss politics, or my personal feelings
