The Financial Lives of the Poets (19 page)

Randy takes my hand and pushes my thumb down on the desk between us, and I imagine this is some bizarre rite of initiation, but of course he’s just fingerprinting me. “Just in case,” he says, and he winks, and I think,
just in case,
what? Just in case I decide not to cooperate, or I do it wrong and they have to prosecute me, or just in case they need to identify the hands that Eddie-Dave the legalistic and brutal drug lord has whacked off after discovering that I’m a snitch? “And let’s keep your pending salvation between us,” Randy says, and he winks.

Then Lt. Reese comes back in with another round of paperwork for us to fill out; these appear to be more like employment contracts. All in all, they are extremely efficient, smiley righteous Randy and shit-heel Reese. This whole scare-the-poor-bastard-into-working-for-us (and-save-his-soul-while-we’re-at-it) process has taken just over an hour, less time than it took me to buy my car, or my house, less time than it took to meet with Drug Dealer Eddie-Dave the first time. And not once has anyone tried to look up my ass.

My shattered nerves begin to calm. Maybe this is one of those classic good news-bad news situations. Good news: I have a job! I am a confidential informant. Lt. Reese explains that there are two kinds of CIs—(1) lifelong criminals who get arrested and charged and who cooperate to eventually lessen their own long sentences (these CIs tend to make imperfect witnesses because of their long criminal records and penchant for lying) and (2) basic non-criminals like me, who tend to make better witnesses because they tend not to have…oh, for instance, killed someone. Some CIs even get a taste for it and work as paid contract agents, like professional undercovers. “You can even get paid,” Lt. Reese says.

“How much?” I ask, a little too eagerly.

Lt. Reese admits that it’s not much—there are federal guidelines governing it—but that agencies are allowed to award bonuses after successful prosecution. My new handlers explain that as long as I’m honest with them, do what they say, follow the rules—I’ll be the latter sort of CI. They’ll try to get me paid and no one need ever know how my employment came about.

And the bad news? Lt. Reese holds up the file that was, until a few minutes ago, safely in the garbage can. “Fuck around on us one time, you shit-sack, and we’ll charge you with possession with intent to deliver.” During this part, I notice, Randy won’t meet my eyes.

Then Lt. Reese explains that the paperwork I’ve just signed stipulates that I have agreed to: (A) work as a CI, infiltrating domestic grow operations by posing as the point man for a consortium planning to purchase and run said grow-ops (B) continue purchasing and selling marijuana in this grow-operation for a period of two (2) years as a part of the task force’s program, Operation Homeland (C) meet once a week with my handlers, Randy and Reese, advising them of what I’ve learned and any new targets of the investigation, including all of my unsuspecting bud-buying friends, or as Lt. Reese calls them, “fat-fuck hypocrites like yourself.”

So tired. My head bobs. “So I’ll be wearing a wire?”

Randy and Lt. Reese make eye contact. “Yes,” Randy says. “We’ll eventually put a trap-and-trace on your phone, maybe a wire in your car.” And then he proceeds to lecture me about something official-sounding, but I’m having trouble following it, and pick up only snippets, random phrases: “Title Three…Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act…wiretap warrants…our mandate…the transportation of narcotics over international borders…wiggle room under The Patriot Act…” And then Randy holds out a box. “In the meantime—”

I take the box. Open it: wristwatch. “Retirement gift?”

Stern look. And I think of something Lisa said once—“It’s not that you’re not funny but your timing is so awful”—after my sister got divorced and I asked for the wedding present back.

“This is a self-contained unit,” Randy says, “safer than a body wire. Has one gig of memory, twelve hours of recording time. It’s voice activated, so that when it’s on, it kicks in as soon as someone speaks. When it’s recording, this backlight is on. See? When it’s not, it’s dark. Easy. You know how I remember?” He holds up the dark watch. “Darkness…” Then he presses the button so that the faint backlight comes on. “…and light.”

Lt. Reese looks at the ceiling.

“Most of the time it should be off,” Randy says, “so just hold the knob down for two seconds and it’ll go dark.” I put my wrist out and Randy slides the watch on me. “It has a wireless transmitter, but we haven’t figured out how to use that yet, so for the time being you’ll need to drop it off and we’ll download the files and reset it.”

He slides a business card to me: R. Thomas—Clinical Social Worker/Therapist, MSS, LICSW. “You tell your friends and family you’re seeing a therapist every Tuesday afternoon. If it’s an emergency, you call this number, you’ll get a voice saying this is Dr. Thomas’s office. You say you need an appointment. Got any questions?”

I have so many…. “When do I start?”

“Wake up, fuck-chop,” Lt. Reese says. “You started the second you unzipped that backpack. Now get out there and buy us that grow-house.”

Randy nods apologetically. “The number we’re assigning you is OH-2. On all reports, all contacts with us, you use that number, CI OH-2. Can you remember or should I write it down?”

“CI…OH-2.”

“Good. From now on, you only use
our money.
We’ll requisition the cash and you bring back whatever you have left. On Tuesdays, we’ll inventory whatever cash and drugs you’ve got, take your reports, and send you back out for the week. The most important part of this job, like most jobs, is record keeping.”

Lt. Reese steps in again. “And listen, jack-stick, if we catch you with more pot or more money than you’ve recorded…you’re goin’ to jail. Mess up my record keeping, leave anything out, steal five cents, misplace one fuckin’ bud, you’re going to jail.”

“Okay.”

“And no more smoking that stuff,” Randy says quietly.

Ouch. I nod. Stand. Sigh.

The detectives lean back in their chairs, big men after a big meal.

“Right now, this must be hard to stomach, but I hope you feel proud,” says my grinning born-again handler Randy, kindly assuager of hurt feelings. “You’re working for the good guys now, helping to protect kids like yours—”

Then Lt. Reese, sensei of hard reality, interrupts: “—from drug dealers like you.”

W
HOSE WOOD THIS IS
I think I know

Blocking the path to my front porch

Sent by the asshole stealing my wife

Sure it is, of course, of course.

Oh, I’m done. I slump against the steering wheel. The world looked so clear this morning, so warm. But it’s the same cold, hard world. I pull out the card Randy gave me. I know there is some debate over the effectiveness of various types of therapy, but I’m not a fan of my psychologist, Dr. Thomas’s methods so far. I suppose I’m not really in a position to bargain, but I wish I could get a little real therapy from my phony therapist.

I feel feverish. Sick. Tired. Think I’m losing my mind. What do you do when you can’t even put your various soul-crushing crises in any rational order? Is it: 1. I’m now a drug-dealing snitch sent out to entrap my friends? 2. My marriage is crumbling, my wife about to have an affair, (2a. And my lame response is to order the material for a tree fort from her boyfriend.) 3. I’m unemployed, broke, and even with the short reprieve on my house, deep in debt. Or is the order: marriage crumbling, drug dealing, going broke. Or broke, drugs, marriage.

I suppose it’s a judgment call. And now, paralysis seems to have set in. Where would a complete physical breakdown fit in with my various crises? I sit in my car, arms dead at my side, leaning against the wheel, mouth slack, staring at the eleven hundred dollars in lumber on my front yard. It looks small from here; amazing how little wood you get for a grand these days.

Maybe I should go inside and see if I can smoke myself to death on three ounces of marijuana. Can you OD on pot? Maybe I can get so high I choke to death on a Dorito. I picture Lt. Reese showing my corpse photo to the next poor sap they arrest.
It ain’t a bag of leaves.

My cell rings. It arrives at my face in a quivering hand. Amber Philips. Here we go. Amber must want her weed. I put my thumb on the answer button. But it makes me sick, getting poor Amber in trouble like this. Is this really what I’ve become? I look from my phone to my dark super-spy watch. Okay, undercover operative—what now? I try to remember…Randy said something about protocols…warrants…cell phone traps. Do I answer the call? I suddenly feel so unprepared. Wish I’d paid more attention.

And then, through the windshield, I see the front door of my house open. And out comes my senile old father, staring suspiciously at the pile of wood. These days, Dad doesn’t like any change in his physical environment. He edges over nervously. He’s wearing his pajama bottoms and a Go Army sweatshirt. He has his battle-ready remote control in his hand.

I set my buzzing phone down and climb out of the car. It’s cold outside; steam leaks from my nose and mouth. “Hey, this all goes back, Dad. This lumber, it was a big mistake.”

Dad says nothing, simply pulls the work invoice from the top of the pile, where it’s been stapled. It’s in a plastic envelope, along with the folded plans for the tree fort. I gently take the invoice from him. There’s a signature from the delivery driver, but it’s not LumberChuck’s. Great. I didn’t even get Chuck to deliver my tree-fort wood so that he could see the home he’s wrecking. Christ, what’s a mad genius to do when none of his mad plans works?

I look up at my father, who has his own mad-genius thing going—wild, gray hair, vacant eyes. I think of asking his advice, but even when he was sharp, Dad wasn’t exactly an expert in the advice department. He almost always deferred to my mother for pep talks, lectures and philosophical discussions. He’d probably be the first to admit that cheering up his children wasn’t a particular parental strength for him—like when I was thirteen and got cut from the eighth grade baseball team. It’s okay, I remember my mom saying; over and over she said this:
it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.

“But it’s not
fair,”
I cried.

“Damn straight!” I heard a gruff voice, and looked over at the table, where my dad had set down his newspaper. “What do you say we go kick the ass of whatever sorry son-of-a-bitch told you it would be?”

My father did pass on plenty of wisdom, of course, a lot of it incidental, like other men from his generation, hints and clues glimpsed through his unfailing work ethic and his refusal to ever complain about anything. No matter what happened, the man soldiered on—got up every day and put on that tie and went to a job he knew was beneath his abilities—and anyone who thinks there’s anything more profoundly inspiring than that is fooling himself. I wouldn’t mind talking to that old clear-eyed Sears tie-and-coverall father of mine again. Or better, I wish I was five again, that he’d take my little hand and pull me up on his lap. But we stopped hugging at the time Prior men have presumably stopped hugging for hundreds of years, right around ten or eleven. Teddy, for instance, is out of the embrace business. Franklin: still in for another year or two. I wonder why I can’t hold Teddy, why my father and I can’t hug.

My dad used to be bigger than me but I’m standing next to him and I’m looking down on that wild hair. His shoulders are thin and drawn in.

“Dad,” my voice cracks. “I need…help. I’m falling apart here.” And my dad turns and looks at me—and I hear his clear old deep voice,
Damn straight
—and a kind of epiphany begins to form in my mind—

It’s all connected, these crises—marriage, finances, weed dealing—they are interrelated, like the physical and mental decline of my dad, and my own decline, like the housing market and the stock market and the credit market. We can try to separate them, but these are interrelated systems, reliant upon one another, broken, fucked-up, ruined systems.

It’s the same world, the same clear, cool place I woke up to—both sunny and cold.

And just like that…

A plan. “Hey Dad?”

He turns.

I laugh, probably a little crazily. “Think it’s too late to go get the sons-of-a-bitches who told me the world would be fair?”

Dad shows me his remote. “Can we do it after
The Rockford Files?”

C
HUCK TAKES A STEP
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