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One boy's family. She Knows Things. She Says Things.By Rick Horowitz
So how long before Marisleysis gets her own talk show? Six months? Three months? The day after tomorrow? You don't think there's a cable programmer out there already salivating at the prospect? Don't be ridiculous. This one's a cinch. She sure can talk, Marisleysis. Next to sobbing or collapsing, it's the thing she does best. Put the whole package together -- the talking plus the sobbing plus the collapsing -- and she's absolutely made for TV. Mothering her little cousin is something else again. I've been trying hard these past few weeks -- really I have -- to work up a good head of sympathy for "the Miami relatives." I just can't do it. I couldn't do it when they were holding onto young Elian long past the time law and common sense dictated they return him to his father, and I can't do it now, now that the decision -- and the boy -- have finally been taken out of their hands. Mostly I shake my head. Occasionally, I smile a tight little smile at the way the worm has turned. For weeks, Marisleysis and her father couldn't bestir themselves to leave Florida to try to make any custody transfer a little less painful. Then the government swoops in and rescues the boy, and suddenly Washington looks like a perfectly lovely destination; within hours, they're on their way to Capitol Hill and Andrews Air Force Base, to angry press conferences and unsuccessful drive-bys. For weeks, they dragged their feet and let the boy's father cool his heels a thousand miles from the son he helped raise. Now the boy is back with his father, and every day Marisleysis and her father can't get to him is painful, frustrating, agonizing. Perfect. She's foamingly furious that the government showed up armed and dangerous at her door; she gives no sign of remembering that it was her own father who said they'd have to take the boy by force. And what about her own reported statement, just days before the rescue mission, that the family was ready for any attempt to reclaim the boy, that there were more than just cameras in the house? Was she talking about stereo components? The authorities came prepared for the worst. And they got the kid out of there, with a show of force and with a minimum of violence, and they reunited him with his father. "I will not leave until I see this boy," Marisleysis declares. "I know he's not OK." Marisleysis knows he's not OK, and never mind the smiling pictures of father and son, of half-brother and half-brother. The pictures are doctored, Marisleysis announces. "That is not Elian," she declares. "That hair is not Elian's. This is not Elian smiling." She knows this, just as she knows the United States government has drugged the boy to make him look happy. Quick rule of thumb? People who "know" these kinds of things make excellent cult members -- but lousy negotiating partners. Marisleysis isn't through. She wants Bill Clinton and Janet Reno -- the president of the United States and the attorney general of the United States -- to come before her to explain their actions, their betrayal. Explain themselves to her. She calls on the American people to rise up in indignation and stand with her. With her. Along the way, she takes an extra slap at Janet Reno, who isn't a mother and wouldn't understand what Elian has been going through. Not like Marisleysis. Marisleysis the babysitter understands. "I have to see this boy," she insists. And you have to wonder, as you've wondered more and more during this whole sorry saga, whether there isn't something just a bit...off, a bit troubling about this 21-year-old, largely self-appointed "surrogate mother" clinging so tightly to the 6-year-old child the fates temporarily tossed her way. "I have to see this boy," Marisleysis insists, and you have to wonder: Who's the needier one here -- the miracle child or the serial fainter? But she'll sure get the ratings. Posted 4/25/00. And
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Rick Horowitz