Batman Works for the CIA

Mother recently told me about a childhood friend,

A boy I’d played Caped Crusader with

Nearly everyday after kindergarten.

I was Robin to his Batman.

At his house we wore towels for capes, and

Were actually permitted to jump from

Sofa to coffee table to chair in pursuit of

The Joker or, my favorite, the Penguin.

At mine, our capes were mimed as a

Backyard plum tree provided the obstacle

To climb, dodge, and drop from as we narrowly

Escaped injury in time for PB&Js dunked in milk.

Our mothers kept in touch through the years

As we moved about the country,

She and her husband still in that cozy northern

Ohio home a block or two from our first house.

“Apparently he works for the CIA now,” Mother said.

Since learning this news, I’ve envied him. At first for

Becoming what I’d only ever dreamed of. But as I grow older,

I am jealous he can return home to a place he knows well.

My family continued to move, finally depositing me

In a New England college town like sediment left  

Behind by an iceberg on its travels; the rest 

Eventually migrated to Southern California.

In the year before he grew ill, Dad was accompanied

Everywhere he went by a new security guard. Mother

Would complain that the guard was eating with them

Again and sleeping in their guest room again.

The guard even traveled with Dad to his new

Destination of China and places around the region.

We wondered why Mother was no longer invited

To journey with him as she had so many times while

He visited the English plants that he managed from

This side of the pond, the German manufacturers with

Which he often did business, and his Italian relatives

With whom he was pleased to finally become acquainted.

None of us knew why he was suddenly sending us selfies 

From the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square, yet saying 

Little about his new Far East adventures other than they 

Were equipment-purchasing forays from retired mills.  

In an office desk drawer, which Mother thought

Was jammed as, upon his death she cleaned out

His personal effects, and which my brother

Successfully jimmied open, was a handgun.

“He was a decent shot,” said the guard who

Suddenly darkened the threshold, there

To retrieve the weapon. But we knew

Dad could not possibly have been. After all,

We’d seen him shoot his 22, balancing the butt of

The gun in his armpit as he used a hand to cover

His eye and the other to pull the trigger because

He couldn’t blink. How could he possibly sight a pistol?

Apparently he’d been trained to work around his

Odd handicap. He’d had to learn for his own

Protection. Not even an undercover CIA operative

Posing as the new head of security could protect

My father twenty-four-seven from the 

Hit that had been placed upon his head 

By a foreign government. Perhaps all his

Training had been for naught after all.

When he suddenly fell ill with stage-four 

Cancer—dying five months later—he often 

Said cryptically that it probably wasn’t 

Natural causes that got him in the end.

Dad had been spying for Congress. Foreign steel had

Flooded the marketplace, purchased illegally by unscrupulous

Businessmen who dared blame their shady dealings on legal

Loopholes that allowed them the luxury to shun domestic steel.

A contingent from a country south of north had allegedly taken a

Contract out on my father. Either they or natural causes—

Or perhaps all those chemicals he’d been exposed to over

The years—got him before he could deliver his expert testimony.

He’d spent many more than Malcolm Gladwell’s ten

Thousand hours earning his reputation for greatness

In the wire mills of the world, and could easily identify shifty

From legal, frugal from dangerous, and strong from fragile.

He also knew how to recognize working mills from

Reportedly retired ones, which may have been the

Final nail in his coffin—

Or cancerous tumor in his spine.

My father had worked undercover with the CIA

As a super-secret agent for our government,

Giving me yet another reason to admire him.

I wondered if he and my kindergarten Batman

Ever worked together, feeling a sudden pang of

Jealousy if they had. But as time continues on,

What I most envy is that my childhood friend is 

Still able to return home and visit with his father.

  

  

-->