<poem> Black Operations By Christopher J. Bradley completed for WWW on October 25 2001
There was a war in Nineteen Ninety Six. The month was January. It was the first year That I ran for President.
I had known it was coming Because Jinx D. Cooley Had dropped me the line After a ride with a crack addict.
We drove in my Dodge Shadow All over Buffalo And that was Nineteen Ninety Five He wouldn’t get out of the car.
We didn’t know who he was When he ended up in the car We had walked away from an addict He had been with us and Jinx had invited him.
We found out when he told us That his wife had kicked him Out of his house He was ex-army and hi-strung.
Jinx puked on the East Side In the house where he visited his brother While his “friend” who we’d also let in Watched me ouside the house.
I thought he had a gun. The simple fact was that he was bigger And he was black. A Black Operative.
He made us drive a long way And we stopped at many businesses That were closing In the darkness of three past midnight.
It was a Wednesday in the summer And I didn’t have to work that day. I was the Iron Cow And they liked my sweatshirt.
The told Jinx to marry me And she said she couldn’t Because of her "friends" That was before I slammed his finger in the trunk.
The last stop had been Kentucky Fried Chicken Where another of his "friends" Had left a bag of garbage with fresh food in it After loading the back I smashed his finger.
I learned that he wasn’t violent Toward me at that instant. He yelled a lot And then got in the car again.
We dropped him at his wife’s And his "friend" carried their fourty-ounce And Jinx and I Had sex in the basement that night.
She explained to me about the "friends" And in Nineteen Ninety Five I thought that she was crazy. The "friends" protected her she said.
She told me that she wanted To teach me how to survive On the street without a car. I told her that I already knew.
All of this happened before Boston. I went to Boston. I took an Irish "friend" He picked our appartment.
We met an MIT Graduate She was a scientist Who told us about apartments In a coffee shop.
The Irishman sorted through the list And picked our residence Correctly the first time. The old man we lived with was a schematic artist.
The old man was a "friend" He knew the owners of a bar And we went there exactly one time And played scrabble and learned linguistics.
I used my computer knowledge Of Operating System 2 And Microsoft technology And Voicemail and Facscimile.
I obtained a job And used the bus Subway and Taxi All for work.
The Irishman was frugal He despised the money problem And didn’t like the nighttime In a city that closed at two.
He chose our landlord For a loss And set us up To have to leave.
In nineteen ninety five The winds of war swept Buffalo And Bill Gates Owned the year.
I worked for him for a while On his supposed project And when it apparently fell through I went to school. And met the literalists.
At first I was disturbed When I saw Billy Graham Say that a powerful force Had driven the man across the Falls on a tightrope.
Billy Graham was convinced That it was time for us to walk the tightrope again. Billy Graham had let me know In a simple three minutes that the tightrope was mine.
Billy Graham was the savior Of the supposed right
And the left well they aren’t really "friends." Be aware of your behaviors he said.
I won’t tell you how he knew about Niagara And I won’t tell you what sorts would alert him That we were here And alive And waiting to be brought to Jesus.
I was learning how to write And Jinx was on my mind a lot While I went to school But how is it that you can write about Jinx?
Jinx was a little edgy For a "friend" of Seventeen years She was into bikers And seventies punks I’d just met her the second time before the Cracker.
She was the Irishman’s fault Both times we saw each other He had been out of sight In the background Somewhere close.
A once a year sex freak She spent our time in the basement Both times in June. And she showed me her copper bound knife.
Jinx was going to Florida She’d done it the year before With her boyfriend A biker without a bike.
She was still seeing him But she had needed to see me Before she left the second time Because she missed me.
She said she’d had an abortion And she didn’t know whose it was But that she hoped it wasn’t John’s And that maybe it was well maybe not mine.
I will assume his name Was John Smith But there was never any reason For concern about him He was a nice guy.
I dropped her off that summer On a long road In Sanborn The same place she’d called me from.
As I said I was learning to write. I was the jungle-man And described the Twenty Third Chapter Of The Book Of Revelation.
I managed not to Damn my soul By not claiming my words were truth. And as you can see Nothing has been added to the Book of Life.
And the war started in heavens In "The Prophecy" And there was no room For a second demon in the conclusion.
Eric Stoltz was Simon at Gabriel’s right In a war between Gabriel and Michael Over whether humans should Bathe in the glory of God.
I saw the film after the war And I knew that it was history Otherwise the story would never Never have been told in proper form.
The man from Washington He was my Uncle And he rode into Washington In a Jeep from the Navy.
I knew that I’d seen him before When he was hip in the seventies And he danced in a nightclub And wore bell-bottoms in Florida.
He complained about his ex-wife And checks up on his kid At least once a month. His ex-wife is a Catherine.
We stepped into a Tops And talked about Grandma’s House And all of the fixing it needed. He was my hero because he saved her.
Grandma was an Alzheimer’s case. I sat with her all night in November When she called on the phone And her voice shook with the jitter of Coke.
Grandma only drank Coca-Cola She only wore big-wool coats And managed her life From the telephone And a taxi-cab.
Grandma was a Black Operative And she knew all the people On the street in the Falls And the Banks.
She was always looking out for me And introducing me to the older ones And keeping me out of trouble By tucking a one dollar bill into my hand.
She said to keep them in the bed Hide them under the mattress Because that way the crooks would Never take it away.
Now she’s in a good place Where they bring her decent food And she talks to people Rather than bank tellers.
We talked about connections At the grocery store And how the mob closed The bar I used to work for.
And my uncle He picked up a pack of Jumbo Pop And bought me a Wall Street Journal Because he said that reading was great to be into.
I was in a Big Green coat that day And he knew I was more than green In fact The Jumbo Pop was in a blue package And he paid for it with a fifty.
The assistant manager was notified And he checked the bill While I noticed my sister had a "friend" Working at another register.
While we drove back For Thanksgiving dinner I kept thinking he’s going to save Grandma And fix up her house.
My uncle did more than that He took me to an Al Pacino film Before he left for Washington And I told him About my theory on Oklahoma City.
The American Irish Republican Army
A fat blond chess player Alcoholic and Scotch whiskey drinker This other Irishman Called Black Fourty Seven Who had a Long Shoreman’s card
Told me at the cafe’ Within a day after the bomb That I ought to know who I was speaking with When I made comments about the military.
It would seem fitting That we would discover That McNicols was from Sanborn. I thought better than to re-approach the idea there.
They hassled me all summer He and a "friend" In ninety-five While I drank coffee About my car How they needed to borrow it.
And they kept trying to bet me a nickel On a game of pinball And they weren’t talking about Mary Jane or her sisters And they wouldn’t agree on the term of "five-cents."
The two of them were interesting that summer Before Jinx had come back And before Boston Because they got me cheap beer and places to crash.
On the way to Boston I dropped off my headset And a printed letter To each department head.
I was quitting Sony And telling Michael Eisner to find another sucker to screw. Disney Interactive designed the worst software on earth In Nineteen Ninety Four.
My job had been to fix it For a hundredth of what it had been worth. I liked the people I talked to. Michael Eisner had fucked the company.
There is no way To get ahead On fourteen hours of work per week And Michael Eisner I handed you the bucket of brains you wasted.
I made sure my own weren’t in there And I know that Takahashi was smart enough To know that we were smart enough To take the dive Moving to the Atlantic.
Next Time I’ll be looking for Ed Asner And Fred Astaire And someone young Like Val Kilmer Who knows the Score.
Black Fourty Seven drove me home In my car I was too drunk to walk And the party was at his place.
He wanted to make sure I didn’t kill anyone While driving the Eisenhower thruway And the party was atomic With The Jesus And Mary Chain.
We drank more there With Chaos A ripped nightclub security And Lady Japan and her Chip.
I went to lay down after a round On Black Fourty Seven’s bed And soon made my way To the bathroom.
The toilet had slimy rounded edges And when I looked up after At the shower I could tell that the place was no paradise.
Black Fourty Seven got a bottle of Jack That I delivered to his brother Another Clive Barker The next afternoon.
Chip sucked his thumb a lot He was the "friend" after the car His front tooth was chipped And he was a Cafe’ clerk.
Chip said he owed a black man money And he wanted the Shadow To make Three Thousand In two days.
I had to start inking out the line. The car didn’t belong to me It was my dad’s And he’s ex-Navy.
I made my dad out for them He was a dick and he didn’t like people and I was lucky he liked me.
He was actually his Brother The man from Washington Except a little more reserved. He almost went to Viet Nam on a boat.
He said the chances were lower Of getting shot On a boat. And since he didn’t go He must have been right.
There are three others total Including Uncle Jumbo Pop One is an Army historian The other retired Airforce.
My Dad is very stable And I remembered when I lied to Chip That he was a teacher For Naval Fire School.
During the summer The green statue on Ellis Island Waves the torch Above the harbor.
She was copper once A gift from the French And now Iacocca Has repaired her.
I bought my dad his first Iacocca The book about the Chrysler turn around And I think he read the second one When I left it in the bathroom.
We talked in the snow In December Just before the war About Ellis Island And the Olympic Games.
In Boston I was on the subway I was reading Windows Ninety Five For Dummies. As we headed downtown at seven in the morning Two Japanese Stepped onto my car.
I looked up at a Gucci watch They were getting off at Harvard I knew they had a briefcase full of job offers. The ride was to an interview.
I got off at City Hall And walked across the cement patio To the steps to South Market And waited to see a woman.
She was from Buffalo And she set me up with a job After a typing test And fifteen minutes of talk.
On the ride back I saw the poster Of a watch on a fence link-chain An Official Sponsor of the Olympic Games.
When I got back to Niagara I bought two And an extra battery From a nice older jewelry saleswoman.
I tried to sell one A week later To Black Fourty Seven’s friend But Chip wanted it too cheap.
One was silver and grey-faced And another Black and silver cut. You can see the gears inside The six-point star and hear it ticking.
I had one with copper cuttings At the beginning of Chicago It was purchased in a Mall In Toledo Because I’d left the Timex.
I left Chicago the year I arrived In December while snow grew from the sidewalk. It took time to pack the car.
I could have stayed My fiancé drew me back I couldn’t not know my future wife But her Mother wrecked her when I’d gone.
My part of Chicago was cold The buildings were all Albany grey And the floors all black tiled Squeeked with wet sneakers all season.
I was a fraternal freshman And our house the largest was amazing. We had water wars And beach volleyball.
We were rocking scientists Listening to the Killer-B And making Nirvanah Smell like teen spirit.
We had three rectangled floors And a basement. We had a Halloween party And learned to practice safe sex.
We were Dr. Seuss fraternity With one named Larry Who Re-Wrote the classic And called it "Drunk-Man I Am."
And Drunk Man I was With a mouthful of Whiskey Sour In a motorcycler’s room Every other night.
We carried each other to tests a lot I remember crossing the busy street At eight forty five And getting a seventy in Calculus.
The first time I shaved my head I was sober. I was an Industrial Musician Convening with the likes of Jourgenson.
I went to Wax Trax once with a Plastic Man. His art was Plexiglass And tissue paper And he and Morrison Spent time On The Other Side.
My designer roomate Had suspended my bed from the ceiling With a single concrete screw And a thin wood bar.
It came crashing down The day after her visit. His weak design almost killed us both When the wood sunk into his designer mattress.
I finished my time there In a private room In a cubby hole under the raised floor And dreamed of her at night.
Larry is an Italian Architect now. He made it out And continued through graduate school. They made him an officer of the house.
Larry and I talked about Celtic Prose And he explained why he hated his real name And taught me about Archetypes And Greek Jesters in his Literature.
Larry and I went to Medusa’s An art club With music and noise And Front 242 from Germany Fueled the open theater.
The Plastic Man is a music collector. He had gone to art school. He insisted that the next big band Was called Smashing Pumpkins.
I didn’t believe him. I told him that I didn’t like Haloween And I explained the story Clearly About the suggested murder of a turtle.
He ordered lots of compact disks as Benjamin Franklin From Columbia House And BMG and every other club. They delivered them regularly to the non-existant fourth floor.
She pulled me inside her Naked on her sister’s bed. In her mother’s room And under the shower curtain.
Those were our first times On the first day That her mother left for Ohio. There was a twist.
We’d been playing for a month And I hadn’t expected her To let me hug her chest to chest Watching cartoons.
The summer before Chicago We knew I would be leaving But we had to know our Prom meant something Two hundred dollars worth of gold and diamond.
My living room floor was quite healthy A light blue rug and a nice comforter And of course the television We never slept there was no reason for her leaving.
And then it crashed when I came back And I wasn’t a smart boy anymore With a shaved head and plans for Buffalo Another idiot concert freak.
Thank you dear Mother-In-Law I’ve learned that sex can be better And you knew all along That she was a Burger King girl Because you made her.
The Onyx Pickups started showing up in December. They appeared first on Television Launching through mid-air. And next I saw them following me.
Dodge was moving them Faster than lightning Propelling them over snowy hills Coated with micro-fine-print lease rates.
I determined through a series of assumptions And past envisionments created by film That they were driven By Agents of the Government.
The Onyx Pickups weren’t inexpensive. It could only benefit the economy To effectively protect The Nation’s Future Leader.
I watched them fall into line one night Driving down Main Street Pulling out from different perpendicular streets Ahead of me And behind me.
I was giving them a test run By wearing my sunglasses To pick up a copy of the Journal At the Supermarket.
The agents in the trucks spoke without words. They didn’t need cell-phones. They didn’t need CB’s. They would listen for Alice In Chains on FM radio.
The idea wasn’t very complex. They had been watching me since Chicago. All they had to do to find out my station Was flip to the ones that didn’t static out on their custom tuners.
Whenever I put my sunglasses on Alice and Chains would play. And if I put on my readers The Onyx Pickups would be gone within minutes.
In this way I tested them A couple of times over vacation Only at night. Sometimes Police Cars joined them.
There are several types of agents Agents of the Government In my realm of perception. Some you see Others Just exist.
You easily spot the secret service They jog with the President In red white and blue With thin light grey lenses.
Others have darker sunglasses And they wear black suits And run alongside his limousine And look hyper-pro in the sunlight.
Others just show their eyes Wiggling them up and down fast in their sockets They’re Mercs And they instantly assess miles of terrain.
The Mercs deserve a special note They do a sweep on request Of a building entered by the important. Many have grey hair but look younger than twenty.
The "friends" do not get mention here. They are non-existant. Try to pin a "friend" down And a "friend" will vanish to even the air.
Each of these has a secret horror to cope with. Each of these has an undefinable cost And Each of these Agents of the Government Has sculpted talent for service. In all of it’s gruesome form.
The Warlord was huge She was an old Communist Driving in a big dusty A black Buick Skylark Limited Edition.
I met with her council On the bridge once Sitting in a circle And they had Old General’s Eyes And wore heavy coats.
I told them I’d be running for president But I didn’t tell them when. They looked at me in the green coat And thought to themselves.
We went to Rite Aid one afternoon A new building on Military And the new signs inside Reminded me of an airport terminal.
The Warlord showed me her cafe’ And I had a Diablo Omlette. We paid the Sweetheart Waitress And I smiled at her and arranged her marriage.
This girl knew what the profession was about. She smiled at me three times And I knew that she was Catholic A red guard with a hard philosophy.
She had medium long black hair And brown eyes that looked down her nose She wore no glasses And I could see her bra.
It showed lightly through the white shirt At the pancake house I knew that it was her style Not some strange accident.
That was the first time she smiled. On the second She leaned over to hand me my eggs. She knew that The Warlord was watching us.
We were flirting like teenagers Something we wouldn’t have done If The Warlord hadn’t been there. And she kept my coffee hot.
It was a war-torn smile she had When she came back for refills With the sweat of the kitchen on her brow And she asked "Don’t we know each other?" without saying a word.
I went with the Warlord To the Big English Church To start the Holy War On Christmas.
I’d been to three churches that day At each There’d been a different note played Of the same Ancient hymn That we heard on the Pipes that evening.
The stain glassed windows Showed their colors only in shades of grey And their shapes were no longer biblical I pictured the crusades in their fuzzy night-time look.
There was an Operative there In a long Red Jacket With black lips And purple under her eyes.
She looked degenerate And I was sad to say I knew her. She was one of the people who harassed Grandma Because I heard her talk about her once.
The red coat or Jacket Was worn by a blond woman She was twenty And gruesome.
I could picture her lying nude On a bed of Pointsettias Spreading to get anyone To drink their juice.
She was an unregistered lethal weapon Of X culture Armed with bayonets for fingernails And poison lipstick.
I met her with a younger one Who was far from thin And there had been Mary Jane in the ashtray.
There wasn’t any reason to talk After I’d heard the story about the cat-lady That crazy old grandmother And her boyfriend The Hipster.
Now she’s a Black Widow Everyone knows it And maybe she’ll quit the free agency And start understanding the messages Start getting with the program.
The hipster had a big white ghetto sled He dropped Grandma off once A while ago. I was busy working problems.
I told him thank you And she gave him five dollars And he smiled at me through his long hair And lit up a cigarette.
When he pulled out of the driveway I remembered him in a Tesla shirt One of the rockers at High School And how I’d never known him To do anything in particular.
Tigger threw a new year’s party With red candles And Blue and White Dresses At his cottage under the escarpment.
We ate shrimp with sauce And vegetables And Played Taboo And a lot of people showed.
Nickel Lucy Babbage Stacey And The Forester And Nikita and Case Ghandi’s Daugther and her cousin.
Lucy and Tigger get it on. They like Stacy Babbage and The Forester. They all gave each other Christmas presents At the last Party.
They did me the favor Of picking up some wine with no kick Because I’d straightened out And I was proud of it.
I told them about the postcard From Mr. Ohio And they said they’d gotten them too And we talked about Henry Rollins.
After the others left Lucy and Tigger got me a nice blanket And I wrapped myself into the folding couch Before the fire of the television.
When I woke up There were Bannanas In Pajamas Playing on the beach With Teddy Bears.
Mr. Ohio is a "friend" He has a brother also But I’ll get to him soon enough.
The postcard arrived Mail-marked from Costa Rica On the same day That Kennedy rescued a Hispanic.
She pulled him out of the fields Of a work commune And put him on the back Of her moped.
Mr. Ohio is a Kung Fu expert He ripped the card off of a cereal box And mailed it back to the U.S. To me And I got the message.
Mr. Ohio was coming back. And "Yeeeeeeeeahhhh Boyee" He was coming back. We were going to party Mr. Ohio and I.
The night after the biker war Tick walked into the cafe’ And asked to borrow the table That I’d been sitting at.
It was post-Christmas. He set down his helmet And pulled his black Jacket back To reach into the inner pocket.
His face was all scarred up And his leather was coated with old punk The torn T-shirt near the pocket Had the skull of The Exploited spiking out.
I caught his night glow Timex Just like Uncle Jumbo Pop’s And I knew why he was there With a chemical liquid in a balloon.
He making sure it had held It hadn’t broken under his arm. He was saving it for the set up scene Where at least sixty death certificates Would be issued.
"They were all my friends and they died."
posted by Christopher at 5:45 AM ~ Saturday, April 03, 2004