The whole business with Edward Snowden and surveillance did
not come as a surprise to me. I have always assumed that someone, somewhere was
watching.
No, I’m not paranoid. You see I was raised Irish and
Catholic and, when I was a kid, my mother had eyes in the back of her head and could
see across all four, if not five, dimensions. And she had the ability to read
my thoughts—even before I thought them. “Don’t even think about it?” she’d warn
and I’d stand there, stunned and struggling to blank my mind before I did
anything to add to my guilt.
As well as being my mother, she was also a teacher. In other
words, she was the complete and perfect dictator, benign when it suited and
draconian when the situation called for it.
The outside world was no better, the women of the
neighborhood were everywhere, watching, filing and disseminating all that went
on back up the grapevine. Passing comments, too, to let you know that they were
there and you were never beyond their range.
School was even worse, run by nuns who were trained and
skilled in the dark arts of espionage. They could turn any lesson into a data
gathering exercise. They could find out what we had for breakfast in several
languages. The ‘How I spent my vacation,’ essays were nothing less than written
statements full of incriminations about ourselves and our families. And, if any
of us resisted or showed any reticence, there was always Confession.
Dark and confined, we would kneel and give up all that the
data-gatherers had missed, fearful that the dark shape on the other side of the
grill would reach out like the Spanish Inquisition and thumb-screw all sin from
us. And afterwards, as an example to others, we had to kneel outside where the
whole parish could see and say our penance while keeping an eye on everybody
around you. Nobody wanted to be the last one—the one who got more than all the
rest. It was like when the Pope used to make errant kings sit on the steps of
St. Peter’s in sack cloth and ashes.
And then there was God, the ultimate eye-in-the-sky. Nothing
that you had done, did, or might do escaped him. He knew before you did and had
probably already consigned you to Purgatory or Hell.
Not surprising that I became a rebel and moved my life into
the underground but even there safety was not assured. Informers and spies were
everywhere. Kids that you shared a cigarette with would give you up to save
their own skin. Girls that you had tried to steal a kiss from would turn on you
when you moved on to their friends, ratting you out to the nuns, who’d pass it
on to the priest, who was sure to tell your mother while God looked on in
dismay that was sure to become vengeful fury. It was no wonder that when I was
old enough, I sought refuge in the only place where men could be themselves.
Pubs. They were the last places where subversives could
huddle and scoff at all the sheep who bleated that they were indeed free. We
were the only truly free, even if only for as long as our money lasted.
Poets, politicos, paramilitaries and folk-singers, we
gathered in clusters and whispered about the revolution that was just around
the corner. And it was in a pub that I met Joe who always smiled like a Yogi because
he said it would drive the ever-present watchers mad wondering what he was up
to.
So now, many years removed from all that was, I write what I
think and feel so that there can be no mistake: I am, always was, and always
will be me, like it or lump it.
And my advice to you: fear nought and dance like somebody is
always watching. Twerk if you must and frolic like a pagan. You can blame it
all on Social Media. Break wind loudly and often to startle eavesdroppers. You
can always blame it on the dog because he knows: freedom is just a state of
mind.
Reproduced from Part of the Story - the free quarterly for the The Story Plant
