SI.01.02-The-Boston-Myth

Original title: The Boston Myth: Or How I got Sent to Prison
Supplemental Inclusion: SI.02.02
Author: S.F. Riley Wiseman
Rev History
Original Zine Release, rev .00 - 12/17/2007
Reprint version for Anthology, rev .01 - 07/04/2014
Digital Reprint, rev .02 - 03/09/2022


Editor’s Note: I found this chapbook, printed by the Black Unicorn Press in the year 2007, but it could have been printed earlier. The author is not Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett, but he is a character in it, and it tells a indeterminately fictionalized account of the infamous “Kirksville four.” I have no idea how to get a hold of S.F Riley Wiseman and no one from the Black Unicorn Press has returned any of my requests for permission to reprint this story in this collection. I assume that if there was no problem when I published the print copy of this book in 2014, there will be no issue with me reprinting it here, but I guess we will find out. 
It is important to point out that this entry was not submitted by Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garrett, so its veracity and relevance to the tale he was intending to weave in sending me his documents is suspect at best.

The Boston Myth: Or How I got sent to Prison

By S.F. Riley Wiseman

Most folks’ll tell ya that Boston is either a late 70’s rock band or a city in the state of Massachusetts. .

Not me. 

I say Boston is a massive governmental conspiracy and can support my hypothesis with three irrefutable articles of evidence: 

• Article 1. The Red Sox could never have beaten the unstoppable St. Louis Cardinals in the 2004 World Series.  
• Article 2. No one I trust has ever been to the city of Boston and can confirm that they were in fact in the city of Boston and not some Hollywood hoax.  
• Article 3. Three times, I myself have undertaken expeditions to confirm or disprove the existence of Boston, and three times I have been turned aside by covert operations on behalf of the United States Government.

This is not a joke. 

Whatever the Feds are hiding on the Eastern coast of Massachusetts, they have gone to great lengths to keep a secret. It is thus with no regard for my own safety that I, Riley Wise Man, for the first time, reveal this tale—of my failed Bostonian adventures–and the terrible consequences that await anyone that gets too close to the truth.

The first time I set off to find the fabled city of Boston was in the final days of February, 2004.  I was a nearly-straight man “hot”¹ for dykes and in love with my two best friends. To escape the pain of seeing the two of them glued to each other’s face in the small town of Kirksville Missouri, I decided to throw my life away bumming across America.  

I called up a gender-queer associate by the name of Finn and we took off on a cross country run-away make-out tour. We intended to be gone for years. We intended to circumnavigate the United states of America and possibly the world. We made it neither to the East Coast nor the West. We were gone for less than a month, and, predictably, neither one of us sucked a single face during the three weeks of our hitch-hiking-hobo-holiday. Instead, we nearly died every other day, as we got bogged down in the frozen rain-soaked deserts of the American Southwest.

***

Crimes Committed: 

Felonious: fraud, counterfeiting, breaking and entering;

Misdemeanor: arson, petty theft, solicitation, and treason.

U.S. agencies overcome: Department of National Security, the Sheriff’s Department of Van Buren county Arkansas, and the Red Cross.

U.S. agencies undercome: Arizona State Highway Patrol, AAA, and the Men in Black.

Evidence for or against the existence of Boston as a city in the state of Massachusetts: None.

***

 My next Bostonian expedition occurred a brief four months later. This time I was a gender-fucked Anarchist trying to sell copies of the novel I had written about my first beautiful Boston debacle entitled: The Adventures of Ratley and Finn. As fate would have it, there was a series of radical book fairs that summer being hosted in consecutive cities between St. Louis and Boston. With only my novel as currency, I set off to strike it rich completing the journey I never made in the first place. 

At least that was the plan. 

I got as far as an anarchist bookfair in Madison Wisconsin, without selling a single copy of my book, before distraction struck and I fell in love with America. 

America was a hoT-T (that’s hot with two Ts, both Capital, in Wisconsin’s Capitol). Xe, America, was also a gender-fucked Anarchist with a funny haircut. Serendipity struck again as it turned out that xe too was trying to continue on to North East, and looking for a partner in this daring crime. After laughing and crying over the preparation of 50 pounds of potato-onion soup, I left xyr with a note to meet me at the train tracks the following morning and ran off to take a dump in an alleyway.² Little did I then realize, searching Madison for a suitably dark corner to defecate in, that the America I was now madly in love with would be one that I would never lay eyes upon again. 

One day my broken heart might stand to hear the story retold in full, but for now, suffice it to say that I got lost on the isthmus that never runs “straight” and summer romance could not find me before Summer Romans. Who is Summer Romans? Alright, damn it, 

 Proof that I am a paternalistic white asshole of the most self-defeating kind in 125 words: 

Summer Romans was a 16 year old Anarchist hitch-hiking from Madison, WI, home to Columbia, Missouri, even if it killed her. Unfortunately, as a seasoned Hitch-hiker who has had knives, guns, and erect penises pulled upon me, I knew that death was only one of the more likely scenarios young Summer faced on her homeward voyage. Instead of tying Ms. Romans up and tossing her in the trunk of a friend’s car headed through Columbia on its way to Kansas City, or leaving her to her fate in hopes that her lessons learned would have neither life lasting or ending consequences, I threw away my chance at love, death, and the adventure of a lifetime, in order to see a friend safely home. 

This is the story I should have told the FBI a month and a half later, after being tricked into accepting legal immunity before the grand jury. Had I ranted on about America, the Beautiful, and how I loved thee, instead of exercising my right to remain silent, they might have believed that I was just a crazy love-drunk youth and sent me stumbling upon my way. Instead, my silence exposed me as a legitimate threat to Boston’s secret non-existence, and therefore I had to be neutralized without validating my cause. That my friends, is how I became a home-grown American domestic terrorist. 

On July 27th, 2004, the Democratic National Convention was scheduled to take place in the alleged city of Boston, Massachusetts. Concurrently, one of the least competent terrorist organizations ever organized was planning to disrupt said convention, by any and every means necessary. The name of the clandestine network that nearly brought the American Democratic Party to its knees was the GPLA, a laborious acronym for the Glaciated Plains Liberation Army. I will not now reveal the size, “member”ship, or responsibilities of any individual within the GPLA, including any actual or inferred role I may have played within said organization. I will however conjure up a completely <fictitious> and hypothetical plan to incite governmental crushing chaos that would never have been suggested by anyone, within or without the GPLA or as an associate thereof. 

***

THE TERRORIST PLOT

 Codename—Hell comes to Beantown:  

A swarm of Glaciated-Plains dwelling Anarchists invade the hypothetical city of Boston Massachusetts – centering their convergence upon the Democratic convention. In order to evade detection, the miscreants disguise themselves as outstanding young college democrats looking to party, while <uncertain> members of individual affinity cells carry Molotov Cocktails, also disguised, in six-packs of bottled Budlight^TM. These delicious beverages could hypothetically be used in any number of social <negotiation> efforts with the police and the media covering the event – grabbing attention away from a collection of jackasses in funny suits and towards a collection of assjackets with bad tattoos. 

***

The true details of Operation: Hell Comes to Beantown were a tightly guarded secret, revealed only on a needs-to-know basis to those who “needed-to-know.” Those who “needed-to-know” told only those who would not sleep with them if they were not also told, or to those who “needed-to-be-told” in order for those who were “in-the-know” to show how much they “knew.” Thus, while the exact details of the plot will forever remain a mystery–the plan, as it may-or-may-not have resembled my above hypothesis– had large numbers of Glaciated Plains-dwelling Anarchists “<fired up>” and ready for action. It also had a lot of Anarchists talking (always a bad idea) and the catchphrase [We are going to bring the heat north and east] was just enough vaguely militaristic jargon to catch the attention of every domestic surveillance system employed by the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the Patriot Act. 

Fortunately, for both the Democratic Party and everyone involved in the terrorists plot, all the hype and chest thumping turned out to be just that. Instead of assembling resources, adequately testing the appropriate technologies, and performing vitally necessary reconnaissance, the operatives of the GPLA got wrapped up in all the usual summer of Anarchy distractions: bumming across the country, playing in heavy metal bands and falling in love with anything sporting a funny haircut.  As July approached, the GPLA’s plan, just like my improvisational book tour, fell apart under <cold feet>, lack of resources, unsolicited “council”, and all around poor organizational skills.

Unfortunately, for every anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist dwelling upon plains once glaciated, an UC FBI agent within the GPLA had missed the OPM and following EMo in which Opp: HC2B was twinkled down.³  Therefore the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force was anticipating an attack upon American <Democracy> that was never going to materialize. The JTTF, still assuming the worst, turned its full attention upon the only group of anarchists left in the Glaciated Plains region that had done the most minimal amount of coordinating to still be going on to Boston to protest the convention. This group  of unfortunately organized anarchist willingly, if unwittingly, leaping into the open jaws of America’s post-9/11 Terrorist-mashing machine, was, of course, our very own Kirksville Cadre.

The first time I failed to go to Boston, I was side-tracked by a life-changing adventure that only delayed confessions of love which led to ruin, as all confessions inevitably do. 

The second time I attempted to go to Boston and failed, it cost me the opportunity to move on with my life in a brand new America, and possibly get over the hurts that haunt me still. 

Stepping up to the plate facing an 0-2 count, I, a Transmasculine Jew, could expect only the wickedest pitch in the American Institutional playbook, and unfortunately for me, I didn’t even know that I was playing baseball.

***

I left Kirksville a few days before the rest of my protest companions so that I could spend a little extra time “getting to know” a new friend. I had met Andi while playing heavy metal music with my band, Murder: the Police, at a May Day show in Columbia Missouri. The early tensions and excitements of the summer had finally started to recede, and there is nothing like embarking upon a twice failed expedition by making out for 18 hours, straight or “otherwise.” At least that is what I thought I was doing as I set out south on highway 63 with my thumb in the air, but by the time I had arrived at in Columbia, the world in which I had previously inhabited had officially ended. 

As I caught rides south with right-wing screw-looses preaching about the lord, the FBI arrived in force at the Jambernackle (our collective house in Kirksville). They were looking to question one Benjamin C. Roy Cory G.______, one Ashleigh S._____, one Sarah Fey W.______, and one Michal Oak Flanagan [R.I.P.]. Three of these individuals were all home hosting secret <banner making parties>, and fixing up the old Butter-Butter, our van, for its Boston voyage. FBI Agent Herman Glass handed each of them a summons to appear before the grand jury in St. Louis MO, on the date of july 26th, 2004: the exact day the democratic national convention was scheduled to begin. The summons was in regards to federal law Title 18 US Code 1708, in regards to mail fraud and tampering. 

Agent Glass also wanted to interrogate each of them individually over the following three questions: 

1. Are you aware of any plans to disrupt either the Democratic or Republican National Conventions? 
2. Do you know anyone planning on disrupting either the Democratic or Republican national Conventions? 
3. Are you aware that it is a federal offense not to report any potentially violent or illegal disruptions of the Democratic or Republican National Conventions, and, should any such disruption occur, that you could be found guilty of conspiracy for withholding evidence and sentenced for up to fifteen years in Federal “Pound-you-in-the-ass” Prison? 

When my absence was noted, Agent Glass also asked each of them how to get a hold of Sarah Fey Riley Wiseman. 

My three compatriots in Kirksville responded identically to all four questions with the phrase: 

[I do not have to answer your questions]

walked back inside,      

and proceeded to freak the fuck out. 

***

I arrived in Columbia completely unaware of the trans-man hunt in progress and hoping to “forget” the troubles of the summer. Instead, troubles found me the likes of which I had not even imagined possible. Through an elaborate system of blankets left out to dry upon fence posts, the songs of traveling minstrels, and the internet, a warning message had arrived south before me. When I knocked on the door of the House Divine, expecting a warm hug, I was shocked to find myself pulled violently inside the door and informed of the situation.  I had to leave Columbia immediately. It was only a matter of time before the FBI expanded their web to include know anarchist sympathizers with whom I might take up refuge in surrounding cities. I had to get to St. Louis where I knew a house full of videogame-playing produce-stackers that would be under the Fed’s radar.  

Andi drove me to the outskirts of Columbia and wished me well with a goodbye kiss. (S)/he “offered” to take me all the way to STL instead, but I had to her hi(er)m down. It was a kind gesture, but I knew that both Andi and I were safer if I traveled with complete strangers than in any car that the Feds might have on file. My hunch proved correct, as the Fes were knocking on anarchists doors in Columbia within an hour, and I made it to St. Louis in hitch-hiking record time, and without any legal intrusions. Only once did my conscience remind me of the terrible position I was forcing on all of my kind hosts; that these generous bystanders were unknowingly aiding a suspected terrorist evade the FBI.⁴

***

I was dropped off a few miles from the St. Louis airport by a man we’ll call Bob. The first thing I did when I got off the highway was track down a payphone to get in touch with my contact, The Shadow, or T.S. as his friends affectionately called him. 

Riley: Hey, T.S., how’s it going?

TS: (whispered)…Sarah Fey, I got two hot chicks over right now, I am like (pause to measure) knee deep in pussy right now, can I call you back later?

Riley: Oh God. No, not really, I am sort of in trouble…

TS: Aw shit, is your ass in jail?

Riley: Not yet. Do me a favor, go to yr window and look  outside.

TS: I can’t believe you are player-hating me like this, it better be good…(spoken away from the phone to his  “hot chicks”)…Just a second, ladies… what am I  looking for?

Riley: Are there any cars parked on yr street still running  with middle-aged white men sitting in them?

TS: Fuck no there aren’t any creeps sitting in cars around my block, can I go now?

Riley: Not yet. Alright, listen. I will be at yr house in about 45 minutes, I can chill downstairs if y’re busy, just leave the door unlocked so I can come right inside…I think the FBI is out to get me.

TS: Are you fucking kidding me? Alright, I’ll leave the door unlocked. Do you need me to come get you? 

Are they going to follow you here? What the fuck have you been doing…wait, don’t tell me. Just tell me  you’re alright. Damn it girl, you know I’m going to have to tell my lady friends to go home now.

Riley: Firstly, I’m sorry to cause ya such a hassle. Secondly, don’t come get me, it will be safer if I ride the Metro in from where I’m at. I’ll call ya again when I get close to make sure everything is still in the clear. Thirdly, Thanks. And, Fourthly, the name is Riley now, I don’t know how many times I have to tell ya that, fuckface. 

***

Bevo Mills, St. Louis: 

July 24th, 3:52pm – 32.5 hours after leaving Kirksville – 

News from the grapevine:  

    – The Jambernackle is being watched by FBI agents 24 hours a day, three unmarked cars are parked outside the house and Benjamin, Ashleigh and Michael, are followed wherever they go. 

   – Agents have come knocking on the doors of Glaciated Plains dwelling Anarchists in three other unnamed cities, asking the same questions, but leaving when their questions are left unanswered. 

   – The Feds have found the home of Sarah Fey Riley Wisman’s parents and were harassing them hourly for her location, telling them that their daughter was in great danger. 

My mother was being driven hysterical by the diabolic agents of the FBI and she was only going to be hurt worse if she didn’t find out that I was still alive soon. It was at this critical juncture that I made the greatest mistake of my entire life: 

I called home. 

I called from a pay phone across town and tried to be non-specific in the details I gave her. I told her that I was alive, that I was with friends, that this was all a big misunderstanding, that it would clear up within a couple of days. Unfortunately for me, she also heard in the background, the voice of TS on his cell phone trying to explain to one of his girlfriends why he hadn’t been calling her and that it didn’t have to do with another girl, because, technically, I was now a man. My cover was blown.

***

My mother is a hippy from way back when, and between me and the FBI there is no choice to be made. If it was between her and them she would have gone to jail herself before giving me away. Unfortunately, Manny, my coked-up father’s blood runs red, WHITE and 

Fuckyouyoutransfannyshitfucker,youaintnodaughter…

    …son…

        …whatthefuckeverofmine…

      …andasfarasIcanthrowashit…

  …yourcommieasscanrotinhellforeverbitch. 

It wouldn’t take him long to realize that my mother had calmed down for a reason, and it wouldn’t have taken him long to beat it out of her. The FBI showed up at TS’ house 45 minutes later with a subpoena for me to appear before the grand jury with all of my associates. The FBI agent who served me my subpoena also brought along a battalion of SUV’s, vans and fellow agents to watch my every move. 

***

The next few days passed in a foggy haze of regret, anger, and desperate plans to flee the country. I tried to find a lawyer, but I had no money and no one was willing to take the case pro bono – since technically it wasn’t yet a court case, and secondly, because I was now a suspected terrorist. Benjamin, Ashliegh, and Michael Oak Flannagan had no better luck and drove down in the butter-butter to attend our hearing. Grand Jury day arrived, and we were without either legal consultation or any clue what we were supposed to do. 

The Shadow drove us to the Federal Courthouse in downtown St. Louis, where the hearing was to take place upon the 17th floor. My hearing was scheduled to take place a half an hour before the hearing for the rest of our affinity group, which was all scheduled for the same time. We had no idea why. 

We sat in a small lobby, like we were waiting for the dentist. The district attorney came out in the lobby and asked for Sarah Fey.  I realized he was talking about me, even if that felt like someone else entirely, and I walked into a room full of plush sofas and chairs housing 19 jurors. The prosecuting attorney took his place behind a microphone at the front of the room. Next to him sat a cyborg woman-o-bot whose lower face had been replaced by bizarre and frightening machinery – tubes connecting her former mouth into the large electrical contraption that should have been a desk.⁵ There was a lone microphone, standing by its lonesome, a few feet in front of all-alone-me.

Prosecuting Attorney (PA): Please step up to the microphone.

(I step up to the microphone.)

PA: Please state your name.

Me: Under protection of the 5th Amendment to the United States Constitution I exercise my right to remain silent…

The Grand Jury: hahahahah…(The laughter is accompanied by condescending smirks back and forth across the room.)

PA: Sarah Wiseman, your name cannot be used against you in a criminal case. You have to answer my question or be held in contempt of court. If you are held in contempt of court, you will be immediately taken to prison and held there until you agree to testify or the fate of this case has been decided, the proceedings of which could take years to resolve.

Me: My name is Riley Wiseman.

PA: Sarah Fey Riley Wiseman.

Me:…yes.

PA: Sarah, We believe that you have information regarding a terrorist plot aimed at the Democratic National Convention currently underway. We do not believe you are responsible for this plot; however you apparently have some secret you fear may incriminate you. This Jury can grant you immunity, so that nothing you say can be used against you, nor can any evidence retrieved due to information you now give us. Do you understand?

Me: …

PA: Answer the question.

Me: …

PA: Sarah, if you continue to remain silent, you will be held in contempt of court, do you understand?

Me: yes.

PA: Excellent, since you have accepted immunity from this Grand Jury, nothing you say can be used against you. That means that the 5th Amendment is no longer relevant to your testimony and failure to answer any questions we ask, or answering any question untruth fully will result in you being charged with contempt of court or even more seriously, perjury. Do you understand Ms. Wiseman?

Me: What, no! I do not want your immunity…

PA: It is too late Ms. Wiseman, you have accepted immunity, now answer my questions, or go to jail the choice is entirely up to you.

***

End Notes

1.   Symbols

There is a long winded explanation for why I use the symbols that I use when I use them. A discussion of the philosophy behind the symbolism of punctuation in this work of short non-fiction would be just as lengthy as the text itself, and unnecessary for either its enjoyment or comprehension. Instead, of justifying its use, I will instead simply explain it, so that you, my dear reader, can have a less difficult time reading my work than I had writing it.

“ ” – signifies a hidden and sexual meaning to the words quotationally demarcated, as has become commonly understood in colloquial communication. If someone asks if you want to “go to hardees” with them, you know exactly what they mean.

< > – People used to use quotation marks to imply an additional message behind a “statement,” but not necessarily to imply a message of a sexual nature. This is entirely too confusing in the sexually charged nuances of post-modern America and would be better represented by a different symbol and gesture entirely. I use the symbols < > to imply a hidden but non sexual message, because they are not quotation marks, look like a nose, and draw attention to the word so <embraced> (note the nonsexual connotation of the word embraced and how incredibly different a meaning is derived than if I had I said “embraced”). In verbal communication, this is represented by touching a finger to your nose.

[ ] – While I personally detest the necessity of giving <credit> where credit is due and think that the concept of plagiarism is nothing more than an effort to force capitalism into the depths of our consciousness, there are times when claiming a statement was made by some other person can be especially rewarding or entertaining. Therefore, I use brackets to signify a voice other than my own. I also use brackets to draw attention to a word as a word and not as a reference to what the word typically refers. 

2.  Defecation

Anarchist convergence centers are renown the world over for their absolute lack of operable plumbing and sanitation. It is one of the greatest paradoxes of our time: A counter-culture that revels in the location, preparation, and consummation of proper feasts to feed the masses, lacks any dedicated plan for later covering their asses…beyond directions to the nearest public library. After hours defecation often becomes an involuntary exercise in breaking the law, because the easiest way to discourage vagrancy is to criminalize the most basic of human functions.

3.  Acronyms

FBI – the Federal Bureau of Investigation;

UC – Undercover

GPLA – Glaciate Plains Liberation Army;

OPM – Organizational Planning meeting

EMO – Encrypted Memo;

Twinkled down – consensually vetoed by the entire membership of an OPM .

Opp:HC2B – Operation: Hell Comes to Beantown;

4. Hitch Hikers

 I apologize now to every legitimate bum on the side of the road that gets passed up because some drive has read this story and thinks twice about the possibility that you too might be a fugitive of the FBI. Especially if you are.

5.  Cyborg Woman-o-bots

This is 100% REAL. The US government is currently developing an advanced cybernetics program in the guise of stenography. I have seen it with my own, still human eyes. The Government is test-running its Wo-man-achines in its secret closed court cases, such as that as the Grand Jury hearing rooms, and one day soon every cop, judge, and Stenographer in America will be 33% Machine of Destruction, if they are not already.