Who can kill a general in his bed?
Overthrow dictators if they’re red?
Fucking-a man!
CIA Man!

Who can buy a government so cheap?
Change a cabinet without a squeak.
Fucking-a man!
CIA Man!

Who can train guerillas by the dozens?
Send them out to kill their untrained cousins?
Fucking-a man!
CIA Man!

Who can get a budget that’s so great?
Who will be the 51st state?
Who has got the secretest Service?
The one that makes the other service nervous?
Fucking-a man!
CIA Man!

Who can take the sugar from its sack,
Pour in LSD and put it back?
Fucking-a man!
CIA Man!

Who can mine the habas a’Nicaragua?
Out-hit all the hitmen of Chicagua.
Fucking-a man!
CIA Man!

Who can be so overtly covert?
Sometimes even covertly overt.
Fucking-a man!
CIA Man!

Who’s the agency well known to God?
The one that copped his staff and copped his rod?
Fucking-a man!
CIA Man!
Fucking-a man!
CIA Man!
Fucking-a man!
CIA Man!
CIA Man!
CIA Man!
CIA Man!
CIA Man!
CIA Man!
C
I
A

I don’t know how many of the security cameras disguised as birdhouses around Hviezdoslav Square catch sight of me. Doesn’t matter, really. I also don’t bother with my usual survey of the people around, looking for the undercover secret police and intelligence agents who can sometimes be spotted in the vicinity through careful observation.

Hviezdoslav the bollard, via bratislava-photo.com

I haven’t been to the Embassy since its renovations were completed over a year ago. The visible signs of that renovation included moving the security perimeter of the compound outside the building proper into a small, newly-constructed building dedicated to being an access control choke point. A metal detector was added, supplementing the X-ray machine for visitor baggage. Perimiter fencing was extended to encompass the new man-trap building, and new vehicular denial devices installed at a couple of points. Modifications to the underground parking garage connected with the adjacent Carlton Hotel were performed in order to prevent close access to the Embassy premises by unapproved vehicles. Additionally, a passive cordon consisting of a series of bollards linking areas bounded by long fountains was added to prevent vehicular access from all but approved directions. One of the ironic features of this cordon is that the monumental statue of famed Slovak poet and parliamentarian Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav, the square’s namesake, has been incorporated into the bollard lines, thus making a symbol of Slovak cultural identity part of the American Imperium’s local outpost.

A small line of people wait outside the man-trap security building to speak with the woman behind the bulletproof glass. They are all hoping to pick up visas. They present their paper receipts, the woman looks through a box of documents, and to each one says to come back on Friday. A woman next to me asks me, in Slovak, something about Friday. “Sorry?” I say. “Oh, I mean…” she fumbles, switching to English. “Aj po slovensky,” I tell her, indicating that she can continue in Slovak. She asks me what the woman behind the bulletproof glass was telling the others, and I say that I don’t know, but that it appears the folks here must come back for their business on Friday because the Embassy is closing for the day in a few minutes and tomorrow, Thursday, is Thanksgiving, an American holiday.

I’m at the front of the line in about a minute, show my passport and tell the bulletproof lady I’m here to renounce my citizenship. “Okay,” she says, “but very quickly; we are closing.” She tells me to go to Window 5, and confirms that I know where that is.

At right, US Embassy in Bratislava. At left, the man-trap.

I shuffle around and enter the adjacent door as I am buzzed in, passing inside the man-trap. Backpack off and into the X-ray machine, pocket contents into the plastic tray for X-ray as well, and I pass through the metal detector — much less sensitive than those at airports, as my belt buckle and the studs in my shoes fail to set it off. One of the four guards in the room hands me a visitor’s badge and a receipt token for my mobile phone, which must remain at the security checkpoint until I am ready to leave the premises. I reclaim my backpack and pocket contents.

Through another door and out into the small parking area in front of the embassy, surrounded by high metal hurricane fencing. I enter the first door, turn, and find myself in an unfamiliar place. I take a few steps in, up a couple of stairs, and find myself in a small room with another bulletproof box containing a young United States Marine Corps junior officer. “Your badge, sir?” I show my badge, and he tells me I’m in the wrong place. Go to the next door down. Ah, right, the proles’ entrance. This door for ruling class tools only.

Back outside, and through the door that was always the entrance before. The security checkpoint used to be here, but now I just breeze in, turn right, through the door, up a few steps into a waiting room, turn left and into the sound-muffling, heavily camera-monitored room which is the place where petitioners to the almighty American State come to present their pleas, again to women safely ensconced behind bulletproof windows.

I approach Window 5, pull out my passport and all the documents I’ve brought with me, all pre-filled-in and ready for execution. After a few minutes’ wait, a Slovak woman employed by the Embassy comes to the window and asks how she can be of assistance. “Hello, I’m here to file these documents and take the oath to renounce my citizenship.” She pauses a moment, frozen, and then a sly smile steals across her face. “Are you sure?” she asks. “Yes, quite sure.” “And may I ask why?” she inquires. “Political reasons.” “And have you spoken about this with anyone?” Yes, I tell her, I’ve spoken with a great many people about it. “Ah, but anyone here?” she insists. “No, not yet.” “Very well,” she says, and invites me to pass my passport and documents to her through the narrow slot which presents the only opportunity for contact between the two worlds separated by the bulletproof glass. “Please take a seat in the waiting room, and I will call your name.”

I go back into the waiting room, plop my backpack on a chair and head over to a wall to examine a large poster with attached paper addendum laying out the fee schedule for the various “services” performed by the Embassy. A quick scan of the lists shows that there are no fees given for renouncing one’s citizenship. I sit down and pick up a week-old copy of Nový Čas, a trashy daily tabloid paper, and settle in to read a short editorial celebrating the fact that Slovaks no longer require a pre-arranged visa to visit the US as tourists, but doubting that the young people taking the most advantage of the “privilege” of visa-free travel reciprocity today really have any appreciation of how much the world has changed since the 1988 Candle Demonstration, which took place right outside where I am sitting now on Hviezdoslav Square and which was an important event toward the fall of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

“Mister Gogulski,” comes the woman’s voice over the loudspeaker. I shuffle back into the petitioning chamber.

“So,” the woman behind the translucent barrier tells me, “if you really want to do this, we need you to fill out this form, and contact us to make an appointment to speak to the Consul.” Again, the wry smile: in her eyes, perhaps, I am either insane or stupid — or both.

Form? What form? Oh, damnit. It’s the Questionnaire: Information for Determining Possible Loss of U.S. Citizenship. I forgot about that one. Nuts. Oh well, another day.

“One more thing,” I ask, packing up my things, “are there any fees for this?” “No,” she tells me.

“Thanks. See you on Friday,” I tell the woman, and leave for home.