THE INFORMANT'S MASS - A poem for the machine made in 1955

THE INFORMANT'S MASS

A poem for the machine made in 1955

I. THE OFFER

They came to the boy in the holding cell,

the one with the thin mattress and the cold floor and the fear,

and they said:

We can make this go away.

And they held out a paper like a communion wafer,

and the paper said cooperate,

and the boy was seventeen and the boy was scared

and the boy said yes

because every seventeen-year-old boy who has ever been scared

has said yes to a man with a badge and a paper and a promise.

And the man with the badge wrote down a name.

Not his own.

Somebody else's.

And that is the first transaction.

That is the first coin in the machine.

And the machine was built in 1955

and it has been running ever since

and it runs on names.

II. THE COIN

And here is the arithmetic they don't put in the brochure:

A name is worth a sentence.

A sentence is worth a case.

A case is worth a headline.

A headline is worth a budget.

A budget is worth a building.

A building is worth a man in a suit who says

we are winning the war on drugs.

And the war is not on drugs.

The war is on the boy in the holding cell,

and the boy he named,

and the boy that boy named,

and the woman at the corner store who sold a phone card to the wrong man,

and the brother who was in the car,

and the cousin who answered the door.

The war is on the arithmetic.

The arithmetic is the war.

III. THE REVIEW

The Inspector General opened the book and found:

That the policy had drifted from the law it was supposed to follow.

That the high-risk ones—the traffickers, the lawyers, the doctors, the journalists—

were used without the review that was required.

That the long-term sources were reviewed in less than one minute.

One minute.

Sixty seconds.

The time it takes to make a sandwich.

The time it takes to decide a man's whole life.

That sources continued in unauthorized illegal activity for six years

without the Department intervening.

That the payments were not tracked.

That the benefits were given without a process to check who deserved them.

That the whole thing ran on an honor system

in the dark,

with a badge on it,

and a budget.

And nobody went to prison for that.

Nobody ever goes to prison for that.

IV. THE POWDER

They said we are fighting the poison.

And they held up a bag of white powder

and they called it the enemy

and they called it the scourge

and they called it the plague upon our children

and they asked for money and they got it

and they built the cages and they hired the guards

and they bought the cameras and they bought the dogs.

And the powder came in anyway.

The powder always comes in.

The powder comes in because the powder pays.

And the boy who was caught with the powder

went to prison for a decade,

and the man who made the phone call

that put the boy in the car

that carried the powder

went home

because his name was on a paper.

And the paper said cooperate.

V. THE GAVEL

And the judge came out in the powdered wig,

the white hair of the law,

the costume of a country that was born in a century it keeps trying to get back to,

and the judge said I sentence you

and the judge said I have no discretion

and the judge said the mandatory minimum applies

and the judge went to lunch.

And in the hallway, the prosecutor and the defense attorney

shook hands and made a deal

and the deal was a name

and the name was a boy

and the boy was not in the room.

And the gavel came down like a hammer on a nail in a coffin

and the coffin was made of a form

and the form had a box

and the box had a signature

and the signature was the whole of the law.

And the law was built in 1955.

VI. THE COLLAR

They sold us the collar and they called it a leash for our own good.

They sold us the powder and they called it medicine.

They sold us the brochure with the white lamb on the lawn

and the picket fence and the father who knows best

and the mother who stays home

and the boy who is straight

and the girl who is quiet

and the dog who is approved

and the God who is on the coin.

And they said this is the American dream.

And they said this is what we are fighting for.

And they said if you don't fit it, we will help you fit it,

and the help was a diagnosis,

and the help was a cage,

and the help was a needle,

and the help was a file with a number on it.

They are the gingerbread bakers.

We are the dough.

VII. THE ONES WHO HOLD THE PAPERS

Let the record name them.

The one who holds the collar.

The one who holds the boot.

The one who holds the gavel.

The one who holds the paper of ownership,

the deed to a man's life,

signed in a hallway,

witnessed by a clerk,

filed in a drawer.

The one who bargained with the devil

and called it a deal.

The one who traded a boy for a case

and called it justice.

The one who fed the machine

and called it public service.

The one who built the thing in 1955

and called it tradition.

Every one of them had a lawn.

Every one of them had a sprinkler.

Every one of them had a door that locked from the inside.

Every one of them went home to supper.

VIII. THE OVERDOSE

And here is the part they will not say out loud,

so I will say it for them:

Every time a boy was traded for a case,

the case became a number,

and the number became a budget,

and the budget became a reason

to trade another boy.

And every boy who was traded

was a boy who could have been lifted up

and was instead locked away,

and the locking away was the point,

and the point was the machine,

and the machine was the war,

and the war was the powder,

and the powder was the money,

and the money was the collar,

and the collar was the leash,

and the leash was the law,

and the law was the gavel,

and the gavel was the wig,

and the wig was the white hair of 1955.

And when the boy died in the cell,

or on the street,

or in the room with the number on the door,

they said:

Tragic. Another one lost to the scourge.

And the scourge was them.

The scourge was always them.

IX. THE RECKONING

So here is the question, and it is not a polite question:

If a man builds a machine that eats the poor,

and the machine has a budget,

and the budget has a signature,

and the signature has a name,

and the name has a lawn,

and the lawn has a sprinkler—

is he innocent because he never touched the boy?

Is he innocent because he only signed the paper?

Is he innocent because he only made the call?

Is he innocent because he only bought the camera?

Is he innocent because he only sold the collar?

Is he innocent because he only said not my house?

No.

And here is the verdict, in the daylight, with their names on it:

You built it.

You fed it.

You called it kindness.

You called it 1955.

You called it the American dream.

And it ate us.

X. THE FIRE

And the fire on the old stone altar

that never asked for a signature,

that the animals knew by,

that the boys knelt down at before the county ever had a form—

it is still burning.

It is burning in the drawer where the record is.

It is burning in the mouth of the one who says it out loud.

It is burning in the hands of the ones who will not hold the collar.

It is burning in the names of the ones they traded

and the names of the ones they will trade

and the names of the ones who will not be traded again.

You could not put it out in 1955.

You cannot put it out now.

"Let the facts be submitted to a candid world."

And we mutually pledge—

to each other—

our lives, our fortunes,

and our sacred honor.

We are not your dough.

We are not your collar.

We are not your coin.

And your machine has a name, and we have written it down.

- Rev. Dustin Irish-Webb