It's way past Gin o'clock and I should not be attempting to write anything. The neighborhood is restless. Its a warm night in November and down the street I keep hearing neighbors yelling about who knows what. I was at an auto parts store today looking for some part for the car - when I left and pulled out of the parking lot I passed a Police Officer in an SUV - he pulled into the car park as I was leaving. In fact it looked like he did a double take and in one of those last minute decisions he turned to pull in where I was leaving just because he saw me. I thought he might do a U-turn but he never came into view in my rear view mirror. I then drove a few blocks North to another auto parts store looking for this part - and once inside I noticed the Officer pulled in and came into the store. He walked right into the section I was just in looking for this elusive part. I debated on talking to this Officer. In such a situation is being friendly to an Officer of the law a good idea or not? No one talked to him who worked there, no one offered to help. So I thought if I were him doing his job what would be nice? In the end I decided to just look at his badges and not bother. Incidentally he left before me. Perhaps this was all just a coincidence - we were both looking for replacement rotary waxing pads? I guess I want to live under the radar. I really don't know. I try to think he's just this guy doing his job and wanting to get home when his shift is over. On the other hand I just don't want to be seen - recognized or engaged. I imagine its a lonely job but these days everything is just so unpredictable so when in doubt I keep to myself. I sometimes wish I lived in a smaller city.
From all the times I met with these mystery Agents about all I got out of it, and only that, was the verbal equivalent of a pat on the head, which was to be told on more than one occasion that I was "a good egg". As opposed to what? ...A "bad egg"? OK, well, I could have told you that without running up any bills. The Agent I liked - respected in fact - was who, sort of, almost (but a significant degree from) affectionate - called me a good egg on more than one occasion. I don't think it was necessarily nice - but perhaps also to put me in my place. What is an egg after all something female in limited supply - something waiting to be hatched or eaten. Something all too easily broken. Used. Except I wasn't a bad egg and I wasn't used. The closest I ever came to a job was just to be strung along - baited for one that never was going to materialize.
I suppose there have been good folks - better educated - better traveled - more experienced - capable - not having the built in mental health concern of major depression. People who knew languages - had University degrees - as in plural. People who were married with family. People who knew how to pay their bills and manage money. In short real people unlike me. And yet here I am with no family - no binds, unemployed. If I ended up in a dumpster when things went t*ts up well not much would be any different. Which if nothing else then in my book that makes me useful. Except I am not. In that I am not used. Will not be used. Won't be a part of anything. Anyway I never had any training. Unless you call an Arts academy education within a state University training. I don't.
What still gnaws at the back of my mind is who were these people? And where did they come from - where did they go - what did they want - and what changed in the pipeline that ended up with my being shelved to obscurity? I am not even worthy of explanation - true or false - truth or lies. If I ended up homeless - or dead - I wouldn't even be a foot note to a file. And yet I live with daily consequences from Spooks. They broadsided my life with their might and I was derailed in the process.
As they said if I talk about it I will just look crazy. If I spoke of it they would make my life miserable. So I write. And yet for all their meticulous examining of me I think they failed to see how miserable my existence really is. A few times I went online and tried to request my file - it seems to be some service out there in the depths of the inner webs where you can send off 30 dollars and get a copy of your FBI file. I assume a heavily redacted one at that if anything. I requested more information but didn't feel the site was worth risking losing 30 dollars over in case it was some fake site - or that perhaps the Agents I thought were Federal were Agents of who knows what. 30 dollars can buy some much needed groceries. Even if at check out 35$ doesn't seem to buy as much as you think it should.
It's still a file I'd like to see if there actually is one - To read my assessment. To confront all their callous views and hope that I could handle it and take it like a man and be a better person. Well it won't happen. I will die with the compelling mystery gnawing away at me. I'm not even worthy of answers. And yet I still respect these guys. The one guy I liked disappointed me on more than a few occasions - when I admirably tried to invest in some very cheap real estate - like as a bottom feeder of the real estate market - buy houses for used - used car prices at the peak of the real estate crisis when houses in the rust belt were preposterously cheap - he bluntly accused me of going on a house buying spree. I thought I was making a business - they saw it at as a frivolous spree. But was their attitude about this or mine changing the infrastructure of a social wasteland of a low to no income neighborhood even if only on a micro level? That spree comment. Its one of the few things he said that cut deep at the time. Perhaps still does. Now it just makes me wonder why I admire him. Still.
I have a few theories as to what it was all about but everyone still needs secrets. I keep more than a few. I can only piece together things in some checkerboard fashion. Some squares make sense and others are blank but when I look at the few squares of info I have kept, if I stand back far enough, I get a few ideas. A better picture - a suggestion of the bigger picture, nothing more. Of course nothing for certain. The illumination only extends so far on each square that isn't blank. The only certainty was that I did not matter. What I had self published as abhorrent and high risk as it was - was enough for them to consider my life irrelevant yet worthy enough to look into. So whatever effect they had on my life that was negative doesn't matter to them. Had I had some success I am sure they would have shown up demanding their cut of the profit.
People in general must not write anymore because these laptops with the mouse pad where the base of your thumbs rest seem to wreck havoc on typing. And the F/9 key seems oblivious to its command to disable the flipping pad when I want to engage it. Consequently, I lose entire paragraphs while typing. I wish I had an epic tale for you dear reader. But I don't. My mundane life had some extraordinary things happen in it and some mundane Agents from god knows where came out of nowhere and broadsided me just because they could. They then moved on. They were perhaps too lazy to help steer my life into a more usable way for their purposes or my own. In short everything about them reminded me how utterly expendable I am. In their world I'm one of the people who do not matter. Such is life.
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