LBFMs

The Perseid Meteor Shower made the top of the list in my little black notebook, clouds permitting. I wanted to get up early and watch them streak across the Arlington sky. The dry-cleaning made the list, and the arrangements for the trips I need to make for new Jersey and the place out west. I suddenly remembered the gray fall suit I found on clearance at the Joe Banks store over in Clarendon.

I sighed. I should have picked it up weeks ago, but things have been busy.

Soy sauce went on the list, too. I forgot to buy it at the Commissary the last time I went. Something happened that morning, I’m not sure what. There was a commotion in the Oriental food aisle, and I could not get the cart down there.

When I had presented myself that morning at the metal detector at the lobby they asked me why I was there, and I said “I’m here to see the Wizard.” The guard seemed to understand, and directed me to the waiting room. He confiscated a CD that was in my bag, giving me a little manila ticket to reclaim it. He missed another one, and the memory-stick with the company briefings on it.

I didn’t mean to bring them. It is complex going from real places to ones that don’t officially exist.

They were waiting for me, and they asked for me by my first name only. That was not the way it went down he first time. They asked for my true name, which is a violation of many things. No one that works here has a true name that they use as part of their daily business. That is part of the game.

My interrogator led me to the cubical and told me I could walk around if my knee hurt. He came back while I was scribbling. He asked if I was writing something for him, and I said, no, not unless he wanted to pick up by dry-cleaning for me.

When the chest tubes and the finger monitors were affixed, we went over the questions again. They are pretty simple, which is why I found the whole process a little baffling. I thought we had about talked the matter to death.

I’m retired, for God’s sake, and am only taking the poly so I can work on a little contract. Shoot, I used to make policy at the place. Why the third degree now?

I have given up wondering why people do what they do, particularly these people. We are at war, after all, even if it doesn’t look that way, and sooner or later the Bad Guys are going to blow something up here, and I am resolutely opposed to that.

Which brings me around to the reason I was sitting in this square uncomfortable seat again. These particular people are intimating that I am a terrorist, or that I have received the favors of ladies of the evening.

That is what struck me as insulting. They were very interested in my acquaintances. One in particular. He is still a Somebody in his south Asian country, not a Once Was as I am in mine. He is interested in restoring democracy to it, and I have sympathy for his cause. Not a burning one, mind you, just a general feeling of being against corruption and in favor of democracy. The last time I was in that particular country was a quarter century ago.

I was single at the time, and there was an acronym we used at the time for one of the uncommonly wonderful attractions there. LBFM. I need not explain it. If you were there, you know. If you weren’t, it is a time and place very far away now, and bears no more relation to current affairs than an old William Powell Thin Man movie.

So you can imagine how my eyes bugged out when the young man suggested that my friend was attempting to suborn my loyalties to my nation, and using the oldest tricks in the book to do it.

Normally I would get mad about it, but an interrogation is not one of those places where it does any good. Still, anger is something that comes naturally to old Naval Officers, derived from that imperious sense of authority unique to the Sea Service. I like to think that I have pretty much gotten over it.

But apparently not entirely. I was reprimanded for the way I was breathing. It looked to my interrogator like an attempt to control my respiration, which of course it was, since I had been told to remain absolutely still. I complied, as best I could. I know it isn’t in the Bill of Rights, but I think breathing is important .

I was informed that breathing is one of the ways people are trained to defeat the polygraph, so I abandoned breathing, and hoped that I would live anyway.

The interrogator looked exactly like the State trooper who have me the ticket last month said this was all confidential as we shook hands when the session was over. He is married to one of the other interrogators, go figure. That must lead to some interesting times at the Breakfast table. We met all together outside the elevator in the anonymous facility in some state where I might or might not live.

I was intrigued that it was the guy who did me the last time, weeks ago. I had told them that the women who did the first interview had a remarkable resemblance to my ex-wife’s attorney.

Now that was an imposing woman. If she could fit it on her calendar, I am confident she could wrap up the Global War/Struggle on Terror/violent extremism, lickety-split.

We had a long preparatory conversation in the little room. I was as prepared as it is possible to be. I had my medical documentation, including a note from my physician that a recent encephalogram indicated that I was probably able to withstand the rigors of the interrogation.

We spent most of the first two hours chatting and the last hour on the box. My knee hurt like hell, and there was barely enough space to get up and walk around the square uncomfortable chair to get to my briefcase. I knew I was being not only recorded, but watched.

When my young interrogator got up to “get a reading” on something, or to “consult with the Doctor,” I knew they were watching to see how I reacted. I got out a little pad and tired to figure out what had been forgotten in the crush of activity.

What we talked about is something that I am very comfortable with, though apparently the people questioning me have a problem with me. I don’t claim to understand.

This was my third time in a shabby office in the building. I now know it pretty well. When we had completed the run through a couple times, the young man went away and I went back to my list. Soy Sauce. Meteors, Gray Suit. Dry-cleaning. LBFMs? I wrote a question mark after it, and then two lines under it for emphasis. Now those were the days.

The young man came back and told me there was some ambiguity that they were concerned about. There would probably be another session required.

I told him I was OK with that. The weather forecast suggested that cloud cover would blank out the meteor show, and there is little enough else to do for entertainment in Washington , in the summer.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

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