JOURNAL ENTRY
Ervin, Michael
JOURNAL ENTRY Michael Ervin Missing Papers Idecided to write to the FBI: Dear FBI, How are you? Fine I hope. Please send me the contents of any files you have on me. Thanks. Have a nice...
...You know that movie Coming Home...
...That ought to be worth something...
...He sees all the wild things I 4o when my wife's away that I can't do while she's there—smoking cigars, having garlic dressing on my salad, listening to Dwight Yoakam, eating pea soup...
...But it was a thin envelope...
...Who needs a wimpy FBI file...
...That explains it...
...We keep it in the bottom of our video cassette bin in case the FBI ever raids our apartment...
...The party really started cooking then...
...The only one who took proper pity was my friend Pat, in from Washington, D.C., who sat with me in a corner of the kitchen as I watched my wife across the room having a grand old time with Dr...
...I moaned...
...So that would probably be the CIA...
...I went to Cuba last year and spent ninety minutes chatting with Fidel Castro...
...If they want to see Fidel, they say, "Got any Rockne...
...John and Roberto...
...The party was a drag...
...She can't even look at pea soup ever since she saw The Exorcist...
...I know this because I often see the same man parked outside my apartment in a plain, unmarked car...
...He suggested I come visit him in Washington and moon the FBI building...
...He's always sound asleep, which is a sure sign he was sent by the FBI to spy on me...
...The timing was perfect...
...That night I would be at a party with some of my elite leftist friends—Dr...
...I'd been arrested in eight cities for civil disobedience over the issue of disability rights...
...likes of them and compare notes on our FBI files...
...My next envelope from the FBI came a few weeks later...
...Humbly, Mike I figured I must have qualified for somebody's blacklist by now...
...they're a waste of time for me...
...She found it amusing...
...The man at the currency exchange studied it closely before giving it his official stamp...
...Nothing...
...What would people think of me...
...You don't have a file...
...Maybe you shouldn't...
...I'm not going to any stupid party...
...Our close encounter with Fidel was even featured in the Chicago Tribune...
...We have the whole ninety minutes on video...
...Now I could hobnob with the Michael Ervin is a free-lance writer in Chicago...
...Or that I get another VCR and tape the movies I get from the video store...
...Oh well, it was probably a request for payment of thousands of dollars to cover the cost of copying my massive file and renting a dump truck to deliver it...
...They'll investigate you for that...
...Wait'll I tell John and Roberto," she said...
...I'd just taken part in my second overnight protest sit-in at a Federal building, this one lasting forty-eight hours...
...it says so at the beginning of every video...
...As an extra precaution, my wife labeled it Knute Rockne: Ail-American, Starring Ronald Reagan...
...Well, as for Fidel," Pat said, "that's international...
...I've got a CIA file...
...she asked...
...There we were, my wife and I and the members of our delegation, with the commandante standing behind us holding our friend's three-year-old daughter in his arms...
...All that guy did was chain his wheelchair to one little Marine Corps base fence and the FBI bugged his bedroom...
...But spend ninety minutes with Fidel and they don't even care," I said...
...John, who operates a clinic in Nicaragua, and Roberto, who used to be a bodyguard for Cesar Chavez...
...I'm not a waste of time for the FBI...
...That's when my humiliation turned to euphoria...
...What's a guy gotta do...
...People offered me their condolences and walked away snickering...
...Only our most trusted friends know the secret code...
...Probing the secret details of my life, he can't help but fall asleep...
...Pat tried to console me...
...Have a nice day...
...I also wrote to the FBI because I was being followed...
...It would be so embarrassing to be seen in public with a man who doesn't even have an FBI file...
...A few weeks after I sent off my request, the FBI sent me a Freedom of Information Act form to have notarized...
...That would be good enough credentials for tonight...
...My wife must have seen the disappointment on my face...
...I was quivering with suspense as I tore open the fateful envelope...
Vol. 54 • September 1991 • No. 9
