Tapped

Sometime in the eighties I work in Tony Serra's law office.  (It's not on my resume).  Serra's firm is a gaggle of leftie lawyers.  That moment is similar to the moment in which I find myself now:  dedicating myself to giving up my routined life for the uncertainties of being the poet, performance artist.  I have part-time jobs mostly and fill in the budget deficit with odd jobs such as work as transcriber for Serra.

Their big case is an assignment from the federal government.  (The same government that recently jails him on the ruse of tax evasion.)  It's a spy case covered in the papers because it's a big deal.  The man supposedly sells secrets to the Russians.  The FBI goes into his home and steals, excuse me, appropriates all of his anything:  files of credit and utility bills, correspondence and tapes. The man and his wife correspond by tape.  It's my job to transcribe those many, many tapes.

There isn't often anything of much importance to the case.  This is correspondence typical of married couples distanced from each other including mundane daily details: I'm gonna be home on this date; I got the leaking faucet fixed.  Every once in awhile there's mention of kugerands which are gold coins.  This is subject matter due attention along with even seemingly insignificant dates because chronology is important too.

Even though it's for his defense, I feel disrespectful because I'm eavesdropping on private conversation.  Sometimes my mind wanders as I listen and type mechanically, shutting off any emotion I feel about the current circumstance of these people's lives.  Aside from some heartfelt political conversations, usually spoken on the porch or in the parking lot, I necessarily make it pretty humdrum work.

The humdrum is disturbed during a meeting even I attend.  It's a warning meeting to alert us to be careful of our conversations.  Some of the lawyers have met with the fed prosecutors who alarmingly exactly quote back to our lawyers, privileged and private conversations we think we're having with ourselves. It's apparent from these quotes that the feds have wiretapped our offices.

I sit there and all the chill and madness from experience with the FBI COINTELPRO action of the seventies returns.  Perhaps they assign this case to Serra as an excuse to get into Serra's offices.  Their true interest may not be a spy's defense; it may be an offense to spy on lefties.  It's hard to sit in my seat; I want to run.

After that meeting, I have an earnest conversation with one of the lawyers…in the parking lot although we're aware of the feds' capability of listening with electronic devices from parked vans.  I speak of the prickliness that comes from the heat of personal experience with government mad dogs.  I say that I'm not ready to give myself up, to have them jail me on extenuating circumstances, in-passing associations.  I don't return to work after that.

What the feds do now with the Patriot Act is what they do in the seventies; only then it's illegal, now it isn't.  If I'm ever arrested by the feds, I want to be sure it's clear why they're arresting me: because I'm a poet witness and they're afraid of what I know, what I say after I say what I know to a whole lot of people.  I hold to the seventies motto: we can't really stop them; we can make it as difficult for them as possible; work publicly so a lot of people know we act in good faith exercising our inalienable rights.  They can silence us individually.  Yet the sheer weight of collective poet witnesses' words will accumulate until our voices' vibrations change the tune and bring down the system.

I am a poet; for that I'm prepared to be arrested.  From that point let the six degrees of separation be created as I make it as difficult as possible for them to commit their crimes; I'm watching and saying what I see them do.  Whatever each of us chooses as our part:  choose it, do it.  Make it difficult for them until they're removed from their offices or even their offices are removed.