Done!
I can't believe it took me so long. In some way, I romanced myself (take that as you will) with the business of writing this thing up, with my attachment to the project - to such an extent that I didn't realize there would be other people fighting against the plant who would be happy to get information I could give them, who know other people, who had some idea what to do about it.
Today I just walked in to the office, call it office, of the Alliance for Survival. They're in an old house with the pillarpost porch just west and south of downtown. I made the requisite trip by bike without event. I didn't bother with the stupid tie or jacket; I didn't have to strap the stupid bookbag on the frame between my legs.
And I rode back with an empty pack, playing with traffic.
So, home free.
The kid behind the desk at the Alliance -- sneakers, T-shirt, all that -- said they had a lawsuit in progress about the very plant, seemed pleased. I left him the number at my dad's and an email, said I'd answer questions if there were any and apologised that the docs were pretty scattered and disordered since there didn't seem to be any one special way to order them, and walked out the door.
So, in net, I had earned a little over three thousand bucks. Voltage had called before I got back. I called Moneypenney, who seemed pained. Apparently LISA had called with the complaint that I had "simply not done the work." I pointed out that they might have noticed a complete absence of work before four months, particularly given that they had laid off over 90% of the people who started with me before they dropped me. She mentioned that LISA was "strange," and not for the first time, but seemed incompletely convinced.
I could read her reaction, and LISA's, in a lot of ways, I guess, but I doubt I'll need either. I'll pedal down the river to Seal Beach tomorrow, then call Carl and Colin and see who's renting out on the Westside. Rolling into summer Patrick will will have work on the trucks, so the next few months I can find money without temping. And whatever the Alliance finds to do with those docs, LISA isn't likely to have more on me than whatever they have now.
And if they do, I'm relieved to have nothing whatever that I can do but sleep.
Showing posts with label LISA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LISA. Show all posts
Monday, August 20, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
------------->
Did it!
Foom! Fired!
Released, anyway. It's all the same thing.
Bill and Terry's supervisor, a little Hispanic woman, slipped over very quietly and told me I need not return. I tried to catch my breath and torture my smile to make it polite.
Fired!
Terry Lynn looked pleased. Were it not for keeping my head down to look despondent, I'd have blown her a kiss.
My deskmates passed around email addresses - Earl's idea, and it surprised me - the first time we'd done so, at least that I've noticed. I considered forgery, but why would LISA need my email to follow me? I wrote it out well and firmly a half-dozen times.
My batch was done by three-thirty. With no chance of photocopying anything, the work felt light. I took a special luxury in having it before me and dawdled til 4:45.
As I walked out to the bike, Earl asked for the phone number as well. "We may all need connection soon," he said, though I think he appreciated that job hunting was furthest from my mind.
Free.
And I didn't get caught -- which I suppose amounts to one and the same thing. I go. I call a news service. I let them hash this stuff together. Au revoir et adieu.
Foom! Fired!
Released, anyway. It's all the same thing.
Bill and Terry's supervisor, a little Hispanic woman, slipped over very quietly and told me I need not return. I tried to catch my breath and torture my smile to make it polite.
Fired!
Terry Lynn looked pleased. Were it not for keeping my head down to look despondent, I'd have blown her a kiss.
My deskmates passed around email addresses - Earl's idea, and it surprised me - the first time we'd done so, at least that I've noticed. I considered forgery, but why would LISA need my email to follow me? I wrote it out well and firmly a half-dozen times.
johnhenryhancock@shootme.org
My batch was done by three-thirty. With no chance of photocopying anything, the work felt light. I took a special luxury in having it before me and dawdled til 4:45.
As I walked out to the bike, Earl asked for the phone number as well. "We may all need connection soon," he said, though I think he appreciated that job hunting was furthest from my mind.
Free.
And I didn't get caught -- which I suppose amounts to one and the same thing. I go. I call a news service. I let them hash this stuff together. Au revoir et adieu.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Objectors, Conscientious & Otherwise
"They can force me to shoot; they just can't force me to shoot well."
One of Earl's better moments, I think. Earl sits across from me at Ecorp. His formulations sound better as LISA smells worse. When 50,000 guys stand in two lines facing each other, let's bless everyone who shoots badly.
"I went into the National Guard," he starts, as he has a couple of times.
Vietnam-era guy -- he figures avoiding the draft gave him some special training for corporate life.
"Where there's a job, I'm a nonparticipant. Any of you like what we're doing? "
"You get your batches done on time." Edna signs she's on to him. Branley smiles, what could be solidarity. Earl continues.
"Oh, I acknowledge authority, no question. They can force me to do things."
"Well, alright, but all of us --"
"But I volunteer no extra. I don't want much: a little land -- in Africa, for all I care. I'd prefer somewhere people speak English -- I'm not a polyglot like Jack here. But English, that's not hard; the Brits spread it like syphilis and tobacco. I don't want much -- just house, someone to staff it, enough to live."
"That's all any of us do."
"I figure."
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Class Inaction
If LISA offered to hire me on permanent, what would I do? I need to exit somehow. It's like Fabienne talking about her attempted lawsuit. The way she put it herself,
Sometimes I even wish LISA would catch me, just so the fear would end. That scares me. Maybe Carl's take makes more sense. Stealing from LISA is like the drunkard's walk. (You may know this. The drunkard walks north with a street at his right and a wall at his left? There's a 50% chance he stumbles left, 50% chance he stumbles right. Where does he end up?
Answer: He always ends at the wall, of course. In my case, that means I leave without being caught or when LISA catches me. The hour basketball game may be just the thing. It's more a gesture anyway, best because it's pointless, as though we had no idea whom we were flipping off. Which I suppose I don't.
"I tried a class action suit. I thought it would work, you know, many people die, no one cares. I had been a small role in a movie. I am young enough men will feel sorry for me.
"But I spoke to a lawyer, no? He said my chance of leukemia was a few percentage points higher for the background radiation of the plant. There might be some chance, perhaps, a class action suit. Who wants to live in court with cameras?"
Sometimes I even wish LISA would catch me, just so the fear would end. That scares me. Maybe Carl's take makes more sense. Stealing from LISA is like the drunkard's walk. (You may know this. The drunkard walks north with a street at his right and a wall at his left? There's a 50% chance he stumbles left, 50% chance he stumbles right. Where does he end up?
Answer: He always ends at the wall, of course. In my case, that means I leave without being caught or when LISA catches me. The hour basketball game may be just the thing. It's more a gesture anyway, best because it's pointless, as though we had no idea whom we were flipping off. Which I suppose I don't.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Basketball for Lunch
The game was fun in its way -- the basketball -- ties pulling on and off, hustling back to the office, shirts too sweaty, oddly tight. I'm too bullnecked for the clip-on ties, so I'm half-standing in the back of Cliff's mustang, trying to get my neck in his rear-view and get the damned noose tied while he careens around the downtown alleys he seems to know. The guys laugh and swear at my stumbling. "Five minutes" Cliff keeps promising. I'm thrilled to worry about getting in to work late: piss-all, maybe they'll lay me off. I might be lucky that way. Rudy's on about a class-action suit, but all he means is that LISA doesn't have the right to take back our work.
If LISA offered to hire me on permanently, what would I do? I do feel some responsibility to stay on, to get as much as I can. But then I even wish LISA would catch me, just so the fear would end. That scares me: you know that feeling when you watch someone at the side of the road and the car starts to track off?
I will exit somehow. It's like Fabienne talking about her own considerations when the doctors diagnosed her leukemia. As she put it,
Maybe Carl makes the most sense. Stealing from LISA is a drunkard's walk.
In my case, that means I leave without being caught or LISA catches me. I can never know it's too late until it is. I can never feel I've got enough on ECorp: no information will shut it down. The hour basketball game may be just the thing. It's more a gesture anyway, best because it's pointless, as though we had no idea whom we were flipping off. Which I suppose one never does.
"We're temps, Rood." Could there be a case?
"We still have rights. No one does this."
If LISA offered to hire me on permanently, what would I do? I do feel some responsibility to stay on, to get as much as I can. But then I even wish LISA would catch me, just so the fear would end. That scares me: you know that feeling when you watch someone at the side of the road and the car starts to track off?
I will exit somehow. It's like Fabienne talking about her own considerations when the doctors diagnosed her leukemia. As she put it,
"I tried a class action suit. I thought it would work, you know, many people die, no one cares. I had been a small role in a movie. I am young enough men will feel sorry for me.
"But I spoke to a lawyer, no? He said my chance of leukemia was a few percentage points higher for the background radiation of the plant. There might be some chance, perhaps, a class action suit. Who wants to live in court with cameras?"
Maybe Carl makes the most sense. Stealing from LISA is a drunkard's walk.
In my case, that means I leave without being caught or LISA catches me. I can never know it's too late until it is. I can never feel I've got enough on ECorp: no information will shut it down. The hour basketball game may be just the thing. It's more a gesture anyway, best because it's pointless, as though we had no idea whom we were flipping off. Which I suppose one never does.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Filing Stolen Papers
So,
someone analyzes my responses to see I'm too stupid to be an engineer. I don't suppose I'll confuse them. They dumped over a hundred temps that trained with me, all but eight or nine. We repeat that the others read too slow -- nervously, I suppose, though I wish as often I were laid off. The supers nod, but I can't make those numbers work. For what Ecorp spent to train that room, the slowboats can't have cost too much.
What might LISA check? We each get documents, fresh stacks, each the size of a novel in printed type. We each wade through a couple stacks or so a day. We read, we classify each doc by site, date, topic, activity, personnel -- a set of numbers, a couple words. The supers get a batch, record hour and minute, hand out another batch. They spot-check everything, revise nothing. They send it back. The slowest get laid off, they say, plus Jim.
But I have to photocopy at lunch or evening. I skim ahead, hang onto docs overtime. I can't photocopy at LISA, of course. A guard actually stands at the machine. Branley told me, laughing, and I actually walked back down the hall with him to say hello to the guard. We annoyed him, I suspect, but mildly; and it seemed like the least suspicious thing to do at the time.
So I copy the docs at the library, Alambres Public Library, just across the street and about a half a block down. But that means I have to skim thru the docs and look for copy, then hang onto the docs til lunch or 5 oclock. If I copy at noon, I leave the copies in a copy of Sartre's Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr -- something no one's apt to disturb.
The irony of which makes this work better as fiction, doesn't it? Assuming there's no dead body turns up, or none with a name on it.
someone analyzes my responses to see I'm too stupid to be an engineer. I don't suppose I'll confuse them. They dumped over a hundred temps that trained with me, all but eight or nine. We repeat that the others read too slow -- nervously, I suppose, though I wish as often I were laid off. The supers nod, but I can't make those numbers work. For what Ecorp spent to train that room, the slowboats can't have cost too much.
What might LISA check? We each get documents, fresh stacks, each the size of a novel in printed type. We each wade through a couple stacks or so a day. We read, we classify each doc by site, date, topic, activity, personnel -- a set of numbers, a couple words. The supers get a batch, record hour and minute, hand out another batch. They spot-check everything, revise nothing. They send it back. The slowest get laid off, they say, plus Jim.
But I have to photocopy at lunch or evening. I skim ahead, hang onto docs overtime. I can't photocopy at LISA, of course. A guard actually stands at the machine. Branley told me, laughing, and I actually walked back down the hall with him to say hello to the guard. We annoyed him, I suspect, but mildly; and it seemed like the least suspicious thing to do at the time.
So I copy the docs at the library, Alambres Public Library, just across the street and about a half a block down. But that means I have to skim thru the docs and look for copy, then hang onto the docs til lunch or 5 oclock. If I copy at noon, I leave the copies in a copy of Sartre's Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr -- something no one's apt to disturb.
The irony of which makes this work better as fiction, doesn't it? Assuming there's no dead body turns up, or none with a name on it.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Orwell Rockin in the Free World ~or~ A Little Bit of Hairy in the Night.
Pity Orwell in his grave. Someone's going to have to dig him up and install a rotisserie spit.
LISA caught Jim today, assuming he's guilty or that his guilt matches their accusations. Something in his responses said Westinghouse, so SuitMan the PR Pro didst regale us, trailing a litany of consequentia. Suit:
If you don't know squat but you're trying to think, maybe that's easier: they haven't caught me, so far as I know. They'd bust immediately were they certain. Why wait until after a leak?
On the other hand, one person might lead to another.
I worked with Jim for a couple months w/o camaradery -- dumb luck, or a strategy of his. I took him for stupid -- a misstep that starts to look like a pattern. Now I want to know what he had for breakfast.
I can draw his face back. A bit. He sat, so, hung his face so: Muuaoouuw
-- hopelessly corporeal meatpuppet with the rest of us caught in the geometric tines of LISA's will.
Mostly his mouth would go slack.
Pray he's guilty; maybe he'll get off. At least Westinghouse might spring for a lawyer with claws, something more feral than the Rex Todd thing that David Keogh got in Britain.
You may not know: The NY Times put Keogh and O'Connor's story wa-a-ay down on A-12 today. Had Bettina not double-folded the paper in front of that white blouse at break I might have missed it: "British Court Convicts 2 of Leaking Secret Memo on Bush-Blair Conversation." Seems George II spoke to Blair about blowing up Al Jazeera News in Qatar. Of course, the prosecutor's paid to play Pilate:
Even the attorney for the defense characterized the defendent's action as "misguided" and done "in a way that was likely to cause damage." The defendent had pleaded innocent, BTW.
First the Il Deuce-style crotch-shot on the aircraft carrier, now this. Bush's handlers must miss their jobs at the Washington Zoo.
Maybe I could grant delicacy to the diplomacy behind MSNBC's decision to can top-rated Donahue -- delicacy in an Alberto Gonzalez kind of way: they had the sagacity to lie about it. Their sagacity makes me wish I'd watched the program, but I guess we won't get reruns right away. But no, a Patriot Missile right across the desk of the Late Edition. That's escalating discourse.
LISA caught Jim today, assuming he's guilty or that his guilt matches their accusations. Something in his responses said Westinghouse, so SuitMan the PR Pro didst regale us, trailing a litany of consequentia. Suit:
"When you know something, it's hard to hide."
If you don't know squat but you're trying to think, maybe that's easier: they haven't caught me, so far as I know. They'd bust immediately were they certain. Why wait until after a leak?
On the other hand, one person might lead to another.
I worked with Jim for a couple months w/o camaradery -- dumb luck, or a strategy of his. I took him for stupid -- a misstep that starts to look like a pattern. Now I want to know what he had for breakfast.
I can draw his face back. A bit. He sat, so, hung his face so: Muuaoouuw
-- I turn from the keyboard to practice the gesture. He stroked his thin whiskers, stared frontwards during training
-- hopelessly corporeal meatpuppet with the rest of us caught in the geometric tines of LISA's will.
Mostly his mouth would go slack.
Pray he's guilty; maybe he'll get off. At least Westinghouse might spring for a lawyer with claws, something more feral than the Rex Todd thing that David Keogh got in Britain.
You may not know: The NY Times put Keogh and O'Connor's story wa-a-ay down on A-12 today. Had Bettina not double-folded the paper in front of that white blouse at break I might have missed it: "British Court Convicts 2 of Leaking Secret Memo on Bush-Blair Conversation." Seems George II spoke to Blair about blowing up Al Jazeera News in Qatar. Of course, the prosecutor's paid to play Pilate:
Diplomacy is a delicate and sensitive act, and it cannot properly be carried out in our interest when what one government says to another cannot be kept secret or confidential.
Even the attorney for the defense characterized the defendent's action as "misguided" and done "in a way that was likely to cause damage." The defendent had pleaded innocent, BTW.
Why, do turn your pretty blue eyes, Scarlett. How one does blush to see the delicate diplomacy of a Patriot missile exposed!
First the Il Deuce-style crotch-shot on the aircraft carrier, now this. Bush's handlers must miss their jobs at the Washington Zoo.
Maybe I could grant delicacy to the diplomacy behind MSNBC's decision to can top-rated Donahue -- delicacy in an Alberto Gonzalez kind of way: they had the sagacity to lie about it. Their sagacity makes me wish I'd watched the program, but I guess we won't get reruns right away. But no, a Patriot Missile right across the desk of the Late Edition. That's escalating discourse.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Orwell's Grave
"Four verbs," Aetna says -- Edna. Edna -- Aetna -- is from The Far Side, roughly pyramidal, sits beside me or across the table in the War Room at LISA M-F 8-5 and jokes with the dozen or so of us who've survived the recent eighty-some percent attrition rate.
The supers kicked back my Friday batch of documents today; I must have looked perplexed.
"They'd really like everything that happens in these documents to fit under four verbs," she continued. I'd really like that, too. LISA gets the documents from ECorp, her only customer after five years of happy corporate marriage. ECorp seems to get them from all over. They're from the NRC, Zzptech, Westinghouse, Bechtel: resumes, discussions of steam generator corrosion, redundant signatures for shipments coming & going -- it's hard to tell which.
Four verbs. The super actually walked over to my desk to mention that the word accident did not exist for LISA: "We call that an incident. No. Accident, if there ever were an accident, I'm not a highly enough placed official to chew you out about it." Then, walking away: "And that's not to imply that there is such a thing."
Does this sound like something I was supposed to have known?
So imagine, George Orwell writes a book, calls it 1984. He gets it published, even read, read so much his folks incorporate his words into daily English. I'd call that time for brews and congratulations. But no, the people he would burlesque use his piece as a guidebook -- to the extent that no one in charge anywhere at any time during six weeks of training could say or would say, "Yo! Asshole! four verbs."
So why write why move? Hey, go ahead, buy a place in Seaside or San Anselmo and let the wind blow when Zztech opens the pressurizer and "blows it out" for cleaning. I'll go write loveletters to carp.
Aetna took it better. She does:
She must have meant to be comforting: she near-swallowd the guffaw when my eyes bugged. Like me? Am I unzipped? Should I shave my whiskers, or does that look like I'm trying to hide?
I barely talk at LISA. I try not to look long at anyone or swing my shoulders as I walk. Maybe she saw the bicycle I lock to a phone pole outside the office lot. I had not taken Aetna to be perceptive. So clearly she has perceived more than I and is willing to be generous.
"No, really," she went on, "What is it you do?"
Eat, sleep, move when poked. Until five seconds ago I smuggled documents out of the information service of a nuclear energy facility.
"I mean, do you paint, do you write?"
I flatter myself -- but, well, you see.
"You're not invisible, you know."
"No." I don't have a third eye either. Is this something everybody sees?
"Oh, Jack, you're fine. But all this regularity has to just bug you, this business of having to classify things just the way we-all do, of having the supervisors review each little thing and send things back when you would normally classify everything some way no one even imagines."
No one even imagines?
She talks on to smooth my nerves, but the gestures hint broadly that she knows nothing of what would make me nervous, then:
"People know things about you, Jack, just like you know things about them. Sometimes we find it easier to not speak. Don't we?"
Do we?
I need to be misunderstood. I need someone who doesn't care:
The supers kicked back my Friday batch of documents today; I must have looked perplexed.
"They'd really like everything that happens in these documents to fit under four verbs," she continued. I'd really like that, too. LISA gets the documents from ECorp, her only customer after five years of happy corporate marriage. ECorp seems to get them from all over. They're from the NRC, Zzptech, Westinghouse, Bechtel: resumes, discussions of steam generator corrosion, redundant signatures for shipments coming & going -- it's hard to tell which.
Four verbs. The super actually walked over to my desk to mention that the word accident did not exist for LISA: "We call that an incident. No. Accident, if there ever were an accident, I'm not a highly enough placed official to chew you out about it." Then, walking away: "And that's not to imply that there is such a thing."
Does this sound like something I was supposed to have known?
So imagine, George Orwell writes a book, calls it 1984. He gets it published, even read, read so much his folks incorporate his words into daily English. I'd call that time for brews and congratulations. But no, the people he would burlesque use his piece as a guidebook -- to the extent that no one in charge anywhere at any time during six weeks of training could say or would say, "Yo! Asshole! four verbs."
So why write why move? Hey, go ahead, buy a place in Seaside or San Anselmo and let the wind blow when Zztech opens the pressurizer and "blows it out" for cleaning. I'll go write loveletters to carp.
Aetna took it better. She does:
"Don't worry. This sort of work is hard for people like you."
She must have meant to be comforting: she near-swallowd the guffaw when my eyes bugged. Like me? Am I unzipped? Should I shave my whiskers, or does that look like I'm trying to hide?
I barely talk at LISA. I try not to look long at anyone or swing my shoulders as I walk. Maybe she saw the bicycle I lock to a phone pole outside the office lot. I had not taken Aetna to be perceptive. So clearly she has perceived more than I and is willing to be generous.
"No, really," she went on, "What is it you do?"
Eat, sleep, move when poked. Until five seconds ago I smuggled documents out of the information service of a nuclear energy facility.
"I mean, do you paint, do you write?"
I flatter myself -- but, well, you see.
"You're not invisible, you know."
"No." I don't have a third eye either. Is this something everybody sees?
"Oh, Jack, you're fine. But all this regularity has to just bug you, this business of having to classify things just the way we-all do, of having the supervisors review each little thing and send things back when you would normally classify everything some way no one even imagines."
No one even imagines?
She talks on to smooth my nerves, but the gestures hint broadly that she knows nothing of what would make me nervous, then:
"People know things about you, Jack, just like you know things about them. Sometimes we find it easier to not speak. Don't we?"
Do we?
I need to be misunderstood. I need someone who doesn't care:
O gentle reader, do not leave!
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Day Off
Bronzediamond carp grouts
At the shore
At the work the work the root the reed ~*
Did I ever think a trout was finer
Push at colors
Ever the work obrar filtrar the slow
consumation
.done ~*
So wd I work
& work@ LISA
So who's LISA?
Legal Information Service Associates
And who is LISA to me?
Better sleep with the fishies.
At the shore
At the work the work the root the reed ~*
Did I ever think a trout was finer
the grandeur of the colors on the side
the colors of the carp against mud the floating algae
the tan and green and yellow reed
colors of a person I recall at nightPush that the seen bend
colors of a person I might see in her child in her aunt in her cousin
Push at colors
Ever the work obrar filtrar the slow
consumation
.done ~*
So wd I work
& work@ LISA
So who's LISA?
Legal Information Service Associates
And who is LISA to me?
Better sleep with the fishies.
Friday, May 4, 2007
snoitisnarT
Sorry to leave abruptly. There's a rhythm to this; I'll get it. I imagine a You: When I don't write, You get pissed. When I get pretentious, you feel shame; you don't forward the site. You stay away, but only for a bit.
So go ahead, pretend I'm real.
I'm staying with my father, have for months since I got back from Paris broke and 40-some hours awake, startled at the width of suburban streets.
I explain for myself if not you.
I don't mean to present this as romantic or deliberate or other-than-fuckupped. I came, I wrote, I floundered. I had some idea that I could write truth, so no one read to say I sucked. I sat ripping pages out of Writer's Market, nothing to smoke them with. Phillipe loaned me a couple grand to relocate: "Come to Paris." Whyever not? About the time the money left I left my address book and passport on a car in the Rue de francs bourgeois long enough to get a couple car-lengths away and turn -- oops.
The Embassy folk Place Concord felt I'd behaved badly. The Embassy must be a fun place to work. "You meet the strangest people," as an elegant ancient man with a curling handlebar moustache told my aunt Monica one time on a bus in Culver City as she leaned over and glanced at his sketchbook to verify that he was, indeed, Salvador Dali.
The embassy does filter the people entering. But then, I qualified -- a blue-eyes-no-Qu'ran thing, I suppose: as an American citizen, I had a right to know why I couldn't return home.
Now I wish I were back at le Beaubourg, thankful again at the grey rain slanting outside, proud owner of a chair with a view of two library stacks. Do I miss it? Or does seeing the rainwater jet through the handcarved gargoyle mouths on Rue Saint Denis give me a way to avoid being in my father's home in Lakewood CA speaking Aeromilitary with you --
-- and dealing with my job for ECorp, at LISA, where I classify the documents of said industry in a language which contains just four verbs, none of which involve leak, break down, irradiate, brainfart or fuck up.
No no no: moi, je suis poete: so I've just got to find what rhymes with incident.
So go ahead, pretend I'm real.
I'm staying with my father, have for months since I got back from Paris broke and 40-some hours awake, startled at the width of suburban streets.
I explain for myself if not you.
I don't mean to present this as romantic or deliberate or other-than-fuckupped. I came, I wrote, I floundered. I had some idea that I could write truth, so no one read to say I sucked. I sat ripping pages out of Writer's Market, nothing to smoke them with. Phillipe loaned me a couple grand to relocate: "Come to Paris." Whyever not? About the time the money left I left my address book and passport on a car in the Rue de francs bourgeois long enough to get a couple car-lengths away and turn -- oops.
The Embassy folk Place Concord felt I'd behaved badly. The Embassy must be a fun place to work. "You meet the strangest people," as an elegant ancient man with a curling handlebar moustache told my aunt Monica one time on a bus in Culver City as she leaned over and glanced at his sketchbook to verify that he was, indeed, Salvador Dali.
The embassy does filter the people entering. But then, I qualified -- a blue-eyes-no-Qu'ran thing, I suppose: as an American citizen, I had a right to know why I couldn't return home.
"All you have to do is bring in five Americans who do have ID's to vouch for you."
"Can I get them to come into some office in Los Angeles?"
"Don't you know anyone?"
"I'm American."
"The United States Government will not issue a passport with no way of
identifying you."
"Can I get a dozen Frenchmen to say I'm not French?"
"American citizens with identification. Do your best."
Now I wish I were back at le Beaubourg, thankful again at the grey rain slanting outside, proud owner of a chair with a view of two library stacks. Do I miss it? Or does seeing the rainwater jet through the handcarved gargoyle mouths on Rue Saint Denis give me a way to avoid being in my father's home in Lakewood CA speaking Aeromilitary with you --
-- and dealing with my job for ECorp, at LISA, where I classify the documents of said industry in a language which contains just four verbs, none of which involve leak, break down, irradiate, brainfart or fuck up.
No no no: moi, je suis poete: so I've just got to find what rhymes with incident.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Mayday
"You work for ECorp."I'd thrown my bicycle in the back of his pickup where he pulled over on that long stretch near Walker Narrows -- an act of faith, but an innocent one -- thrown it in and jumped into the cab grateful enough. Then I got the novelistic long moment, his head framed in the window of the pickup, the eyes the ears the nose the line of the hair no one I knew: no one from Voltage Temps, no one I'd passed in LISA's corridors sneaking to the john. And I considering how fast the truck might be going, how the asphalt would rasp and tear were I to jump, where or whether a point might come in which I could snag the bike from the back, snag it and have a few feet down some road before he might turn.
The pops of the shotguns just off at El Cuello Rojo Trap and Skeet spoke
Time
Time
Time .12 gauge, 20 gauge -- For years my father reloaded shells from a huge tin of slow-burning Unique powder someone had special-ordered and abandoned. They'd flash a good foot out of a 25-inch barrel and roar; I listened for his roar.
Time.
"Yes," I answer, answer the driver who has pulled over. If he knows, what can I tell him?
"Ha! Look at yourself, man - no, your eyes: look in the mirror. You fool! Like I can't spot an engineer so close to ECorp, nothing else for fucking miles."Nothing else. Voltage Temps signs my checks; I work for LISA, at the office there in Alambres, so of course I work for ECorp:
"Don't we all?"
"Who else but an engineer would peddle through the middle of nowhere on a bicycle with his shirt open and his tie flapping in the air like a goddamn dog's tongue."
I don't know any engineers: what I'll write comes without expertise.
"You headed down the bike trail, down the river?"
"Sure." A little out of my way, but I'd ride with no traffic, and that would do.So I sat and looked at the ducks on the river. I decided to write you, to write this, to actually post it.
Just don't believe a word.
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