SOMETHING SMELLS IN ARUBA...AND IT'S NOT THE KITTY LITTER BOX

By Richard, Aruban Boycott Blogger

There's a famous child's verse that goes roughly as follows:

"I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.

The reason why, I cannot tell.

But this I know, and know full well;

I do not like thee, Dr. Fell."

Were I to make it apply to contemporary matters, it might go like this:

"I do not like thee, van der Sloot.

Which one? I do not give a hoot.

When all do lie, 'tis but astute

To look askance at van der Sloot."

No improvement on the original, but you get the idea.

Just in time for an ABC Primetime special, a "special source" gives ... well, maybe sells is a better word ... an "exclusive" video from a hotel casino that was filmed nearly nine months ago. Casinos routinely film the goings-on at the tables, and we are told that the police have reviewed this video. Yet we are also told that Beth Twitty was shown only the part that involved Joran, not Natalee. And nine months later, somehow ABC comes out crowing about its "exclusive" achievement.

Do I smell something amiss? Was ABC taken for a ride? Or is someone in the casino somehow removing evidentiary tapes from their archives (as if a casino would normally keep such a tape for so long) and using them in an attempt to give Joran a chance to come up for air?

I mean, who's kidding who? We know that the van der Sloot men (well, using the term loosely) had been seen in the casino drinking and gambling, contrary to law in Joran's case because of his age. (I guess the law doesn't apply to lawyers or their families in Aruba.) We also know that Joran had been hanging around the fringes of Natalee's tour group for at least two days.

We also know that the business ties between the Mr. Posner who owns the casino and Paulus van der Sloot have been a matter of interest to the police. So who needs three guesses to figure out who the "exclusive source" of the video probably was, and why (besides mercenary reasons) it was handed over?

Joran is in his own debased way a literary archetype, an incarnation of the wily Odysseus or the trickster myth. Every time he speaks, the past is erased and a new story emerges. He had sex when Natalee was drifting in and out of consciousness ... uh, no, sorry, we never had sex at all. We went to the beach ... ah, no, we went to my apartment. Daddy picked me up ... uh, no, Deepak picked me up ... wait, I think Satish picked me up. Well, anyway, we brought Natalee back to the hotel ... sorry, I mean to say we left her on the beach.

Like Odysseus, his goal is survival. But unlike Odysseus, the monsters with which he contends are not gigantic one-eyed Cyclops or the pallid Lotos-Eaters. They are those of us whose stomachs are turned at the cover-up and at the apparent willingness of the Aruban government to believe that we will swallow anything we are told. We won't. And even the natives are restless, or so hearsay has it.

One eyewitness said that Natalee left Carlos 'n' Charlies at the same time as the others, but that there was a large crowd waiting for taxis back to their hotels. She suddenly turned back into the casino and emerged (if I remember aright) some ten or fifteen minutes later on the arm of a Kalpoe.

In the confusion and turmoil of the group departure, who would have been watching what the trio might have been putting in any drinks? Had they indeed said they would give her a ride to her hotel? Since Joran had been staying on the fringes of her group for at least two days, isn't it plausible that she trusted him? And did they test out their knowledge of English idioms, saying "One more for the road"?

I hope we know someday. But whatever happened then, the events that followed have been presented in so many ways that one might almost wonder if Joran is indeed in touch with reality. But given his ability to come up with a new story of the week, every week, the question is how long his babbling can go on for until, like the narrator of Pincher Martin, the voice finally dwindles into babbling, then mute silence.

And, like that narrator again, who becomes unaware of anything but the black lightning and the claws tearing apart the world in their quest to destroy him, Joran can but wait as the clouds begin to gather. It would be Greek tragedy in a way, except that Greek tragedy requires a noble character with a fatal flaw. Trash cannot feature in an epic, except perhaps in our times.

And I expect trash to be front and center in the ABC Primetime show.