MR. MUSTACHIO'S CAR stopped on the side of a bustling main street. A crowd of hundreds waited outside a building. In the sky, I saw minarets—it was a mosque, built into a crowded residential block. The engine stopped and I moved to open the door. Mr. Mustachio motioned for me to wait. The crowd ringed the car. A bullhorn sounded. I popped three Valiums and washed them down with water.

As the bullhorn quieted down, the crowd began to queue at the mosque's doorstep. Those who didn't line up, mostly young boys, felt the wrath of a belt or a shoe as two sheiks carved a path to the car to extract us. They kissed me on each cheek, shook my hands, and called me habibi—"my friend." Children grabbed at me. Whack—a sandal to the head from a sheik. Undeterred, they kept clawing. Right about then I remembered who I was: a hungover Jew, high on drugs, standing outside a mosque in a dangerous part of Baghdad.

Mr. Mustachio and the sheiks started unloading aid boxes. We climbed a dark staircase packed with children. Old women, their faces and hands tattooed with henna, softly grabbed at me. The stairway led to a dark, musty room lit by a single naked bulb. Everybody was yelling. A sheik stepped up to act as my bodyguard. I dropped behind him.

The boxes were ripped open, and a line formed as free clothing was pulled out. A New England Patriots souvenir jersey was handed to a boy. A pair of shoes went to a little girl, a pair of tiny jeans to another. The crowd got excited; a twisting mosh pit formed. I saw a little girl crying as she was crushed against a wall. A sheik stood on a desk and shouted in Arabic. Calm resumed, and everyone started laughing. The first box was empty.

Then the lull ended and another scrum started. A baby girl, maybe two years old, was hoisted above the jostling people. Wearing a dirty pink jumper, she was screaming, and her red-faced tantrum made her the strangest of crowd surfers. Hennaed hands held the child up.

This went on for another 20 minutes, until all the boxes were empty. We walked out as we'd come in, with a sheik bouncer creating a trail to Mr. Mustachio's car. By now it was around noon, the sun was cutting straight down through the dusty air, and the frenzied crowd was cheering and saluting. Mr. Mustachio looked to me for approval. I nodded and smiled, and we shook hands.

"Habibi," he said. After that we beat it back to the Green Zone.