Psst - They are watching you!

Before I get into my experiences in Rolla, I want to relate an incident that happened not long before I left Paducah.  It illustrates to stress that was maintained by constant surveillance by various elements.

It was the middle of the week and I decided to stop in the Executive Inn Lounge to have a drink and talk with my guitar playing friend Stanley.  The place was pretty empty, but I did spot a woman I knew and she motioned for me to come over to her table and have a seat.  As soon as I sat down, I looked up to see two young men in suits come hustling in and take a table about 30 feet from where I was.  These two men stood out like a black man at a KKK rally!  First they both had suits on; second they were fifteen to twenty years younger than the average Executive lounge patron and third one of the men was a black man.  In all the times I had been in that lounge I had probably seen a man wearing a suit about ten times and  I had seen maybe two or three black men or women in the place.  These two men were very noticeable.

I motioned to the woman sitting with me and said, "See those two men over there?  They are federal agents following me, probably FBI."

"Really" she replied.

"I'll prove that they are following me.  When I get up and leave in a little while, I'll bet withing a minute of my leaving, they will get up and follow me out of the door."

She said, "OK, I'll watch when you leave.  Then stop by my store tomorrow and I'll let you know what happened.  I should be at the store by ten."

I sat at the table about another twenty minutes and then decided to leave.  As I got up to go, I reminded my friend to watch and told her I would stop by her store in the morning.  With that I walked past the two men in suits and exited the lounge unescorted.

The next morning, I drove to downtown Paducah and located my friend's store.  As I entered, my friend was at the other end of the store behind the counter.  When she saw me, she came running towards me.

"You wouldn't believe it!  About thirty seconds after you walked out of the lounge, those two men got up and rushed towards the exit.  They definitely were following you."

"Yeah, I know.  They were probably FBI."  I replied.  "They watch everything I do."

Now if I try and be nice - but I had learned that you never give fascist scumbags the benefit of the doubt - it is possible that these men were making their presence so visible to discourage the drug dealers who had been following me.  It really didn't matter to me, because all their presence did was create and maintain a high level of stress.  An remember I had never committed any crime - unless you consider knowing the truth about the fascist state a crime.