Secret Agent Me

Ever been to a college career fair? Ever noticed the remarkable similarity between these fairs and traveling roadside carnivals run by toothless hicks? The only difference really is that the carnies wear suits and instead ripping you off for a couple of bucks, they rip you off for several years of your life. About a month before I was to graduate college, I decided it was time to sign up for my real life and off I went to UT’s Big Honkin’ Career Fair. The joke, I suppose, is my liberal arts degree, and like the unwitting carnival-goer with no grasp of statistics, I actually thought I had a chance of beating the odds and walking home with something. In all fairness though, I had other things on my mind, important things like the dissolution of the relationship I really thought would work, and the fact that my feet were bleeding. Weeks earlier I had unwittingly purchased Italian leather death traps masquerading as shoes. Today, when it would perhaps behoove me not to limp, growl, and cuss as I approach a potential employer, I'm doing just that. So here I am, wandering between cunningly disguised carnival booths, handing out my fully recyclable resume, and slowly coming to terms with the fact that I am suddenly single and losing my feet to gangrene.

And then I see it: the State Department booth--Diplomatic Security. There was a picture of two agents creeping behind a car carrying guns. I was struck by a flash of inspiration/pain/desperation. I limped over and made eye contact. From there on out all I had to do was nod and provide one word answers as the recruiting agent filled out form after form of qualifying information. Was I a U.S. citizen? Was I twenty-one or older? Would I be earning a B.A. in May? What was my G.P.A? Did I have a problem carrying a 9 mm firearm or living in a foreign country? Are you kidding me? I'm at a point of utter desperation and you're offering me a gun and a ticket out of the country? Sign me up. So they did-- for an interview the next day.

At noon on Friday I walked into a room full of nervous men in suits-- the other interviewees. Several were Austin cops, as in, real people, and everybody else seemed to have some experience standing in a line and shouting, "Sir, yes sir!" And then there's me, winded and sleepy-eyed with bandaged feet. The interview process was surreal and unnerving. I was thrown into a room with an essay prompt and told to write for forty-five minutes. OK fine, this is what my undergraduate years have been about anyway-- something was due half an hour ago, you've had a month to work on it, now go! Unfortunately, the prompt was about a particular point of government policy I have a problem with, so I allotted seven pages to ripping Uncle Sam a new one. Surely this will get me thrown out, I'm thinking, and I won't have to actually tell them the utterly irresponsible reasons I'm here. But no. They step up the pace. I'm filling out questions about the expected time car A will arrive at checkpoint A given that there is heavy traffic and six miles to go. They're not flinching-- it's me and the government playing chicken. I've got a sense of humor and bad feet and they've got 200 years of global supremacy, a stockpile of nukes, and my permanent record from the day I was born. Shit.

So now I'm in a room with two actual field agents answering questions about the proper use of firearms. I've fired my dad's 16 gauge shotgun once, it bruised me, I cried. They're giving me scenarios when I might use my weapon-- airports, highways, shifty characters darting behind buildings, and I'm thinking of recent scenes from my life where a pistol would have been an interesting negotiating tool, (What do you mean my car needs a $70 hose?) Still, I say no to every scenario, my last ditch effort to prove myself unsuitable without actually having to say it. No dice, they're shaking my hand and smiling. They know, I think in panic, and they're still going to hire me! Finally I flinch-- I tell that I'm an English major for God's sake, that I always get "Most Cowardly" in Bond and Perfect Dark, and that real people out there want real jobs and my heart's just not in this. And really, truth be told, I was going through this interview as an elaborate practical joke–- something to write about, something to distract me from the fact that my life is falling apart. In all probability I will graduate and join the ranks of clichéd Austin slackers who listen to shitty indie rock and drink caffeinated drinks no one can pronounce.

Strangely enough, they seem genuinely surprised and disappointed. Really, I want to ask, what use could I have been? Why didn’t you kick me out for being a fraud hours ago? As I’m driving back home I try to imagine what it would be like to suddenly yank the wheel and peel out of traffic, up on two wheels with a frightened diplomat in the backseat and a black van (terrorists always drive black vans) thundering after me. Why were they so interested? Why did I clear the hurdles when I know at least two of the cops got eliminated? At home in front of the mirror practicing all the official sneers I would have used as I pulled my gun, I come to an easy conclusion. I flatter myself with the notion that somewhere my abnormally high IQ has been recorded, my social security number flagged, that I have been set aside in a special file. This file is for individuals whose raw talents are such that they can only be classified as either a valuable and sophisticated government tool or as a national threat. I flaked out on the role of tool, so now I have no option but to be a threat.

© Rachel Starnes 2001