The Financial Lives Of the Poets

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 your

self.”

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.”

CHAPTER 20

Stopped by Wood on My Front Lawn

WHOSE 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,