Sunday, August 29, 2010

Protege

Time for a quick refresher course on Conspiracy Theory, my "radical revolutionary" college boyfriend – who just happened to be old enough to be my dad. When we left off, Conspiracy Theory and I had shared our first night together in his friendly, platonic bed. Despite the silent betrayal that I never dared voice, our relationship progressed pretty quickly after that.

In a matter of days or weeks, but definitely not months, I moved into Conspiracy's apartment on the outskirts of the Yale campus. It was the nicest place I'd ever lived in, with its beautiful hardwood floors, sunlit living room and general air of cleanliness.

And, at first, our relationship went well.

I was the fresh, clean sponge, and he was the bucket filled to overflowing with knowledge, drama and pain that he needed to share.

And boy, did he share.

In painstaking detail.

The night he was almost killed by fellow members of his revolutionary group, because he was "bad jacketed" as a spy. How the FBI's COINTELPRO program destroyed lives, pitting husband against wife, friend against friend, radical group against radical group, until nobody felt safe trusting anybody and his revolutionary party imploded from the inside.

There were the never-ending ramblings regarding which party leaders were government agents sent to destroy the party. All the young pretty women who later went on to get college degrees, have great careers or marry white men were the prime suspects, followed closely by any of the men who later achieved mainstream success.

Because the real revolutionaries like him had suffered and weren't allowed to have great lives. "They" – the government and the military-industrial complex and the New World Order – had seen to that.

Conspiracy had experienced prison time and notoriety from a historic, well-publicized criminal trial. His relationship with his wife, a fellow party member, grew strained and eventually ended in divorce. Then he'd immersed himself in a long-term relationship with a white woman who shared his left-wing political views, but he now suspected that she was a spy sent by the government to infiltrate him.

Conspiracy poured all of his bitterness into me in the name of education. He declared that I was his protege, the empty vessel that could absorb all of his knowledge and help him make sense of the past.

At first, I found his monologues exceedingly interesting. But over time, as our relationship dragged endlessly on, his long diatribes made both my stomach and my head hurt.

Conspiracy Diaries Part 4 of 25 (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25)
Conspiracy Lessons Learned 1-4 (1 2 3 4)


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