They'll be here soon and they'll be wanting the files.
The shredder moans it's complaint, but keeps firmly on it's task and I have only a couple of hours before
they come for them.
Fifty four-years, my how the time has flown by. This office has served me since I first warily stepped in for
my interview with Edgar and now, with his passing, it is required to serve me once more.
Once more before they come.
Lucy sometimes commented that I was a slave to the Bureau and maybe she's right, but it's the only place
I know where I feel I am really making a difference.
And I've told my sister that, many times.
The shredder belches once more but eats the secrets, the words that can be never revealed to the outside
world. Reams and reams of esoteric proof and countless sentences of abstruse.
Christ, how Edgar could carry the burden of the truth, I can only imagine.
The covert operations, the underground investigations and the buggings, obscure duties with a backbone of
strong belief we're doing right. Oh, Edgar, I miss your face.
If these cartons of information ever fell into the wrong hands then this country... nay, this thing we call civilisation,
would come a-crumbling down. It was smart of Mr. Tolson to ring me when he did.
They'll be here soon Helen, get a move on girl.
The cabinet in his office is empty now and the room that I've occasionally heard others whisper as the 'inner-sanctum'
waits with it's shadows and pulled-down blinds. The pot of coffee and the single cup stand as a reminder of the lonely
man that resided there.
Somewhere among the piles of rabbit bedding that the shredder has disgorged from it's noisy-mechanical bowels,
most of Mr. Hoover's 'Private Files' lay beside the strips of information of lesser investigations and I'm happy that I've
fulfilled my our final agreement.
"If, Ms. Gantry..." the man in the immaculately-clean shirt and impeccable grey suit said softly from behind his embossed
leather desk, "...If there comes a time that I will not be here, then you will know what to do, won't you?"
Mr. Hoover's eyes moved from mine and alighted on the dark-green filing cabinet that brooded in the corner of the room.
"The world must never know what we have done here" he grunted uncomfortably.
I remember the feeling of pride that rushed through my body as I stood at the doorway between his place and mine,
I remember feeling good. "Yes... Edgar" I dared and for a single moment, we were one.
The small, robust man who never smiled, nodded and murmured "thank you, Helen" and went back to sorting the papers
that I'd placed on that richly-varnished escritoire at 6.25am that very morning.
He had never used my first name before.
When LBJ had honoured the FBI with making Mr. Hoover the Director for life, many had balked at the idea. But even with all
of President Johnson's faults, he -and President Trueman had called it right.
And how the secrets had mounted up.
Communism, Radicals, King, Kennedy and the kid called Lennon, just minor actors on a bigger stage. It was the incident at
New Mexico that had badgered Mr. Hoover in his later years, the file that now I held in my hands in readiness for destruction.
It was my station to collate, re-type and sort all of the paperwork that was destined for that soft-surfaced table in the inner-sanctum
and I know the documents that reported of the experiment in that Southwestern State had not found a usual place into the FBI's
usual filing system.
This case worried him.
The steel teeth of the shredder awaited their next meal and even though I could swear I heard footfalls in the corridor outside,
my hands faltered in their action. Do I keep the paper safe from the gnashing apparatus and reveal how something called 'Boy
In A Dress' came into being or do I send the secret into the metal fangs and beyond discovery?
I truly believe that if the arrival of Patrick Gray and Mark Felt had occurred a minute earlier that it it did, the classified tracts would
be available for all the Bureau to peruse and I would be still weeping.
Eat it shredder... eat it all.
And God bless you Edgar.
The End.
The shredder moans it's complaint, but keeps firmly on it's task and I have only a couple of hours before
they come for them.
Fifty four-years, my how the time has flown by. This office has served me since I first warily stepped in for
my interview with Edgar and now, with his passing, it is required to serve me once more.
Once more before they come.
Lucy sometimes commented that I was a slave to the Bureau and maybe she's right, but it's the only place
I know where I feel I am really making a difference.
And I've told my sister that, many times.
The shredder belches once more but eats the secrets, the words that can be never revealed to the outside
world. Reams and reams of esoteric proof and countless sentences of abstruse.
Christ, how Edgar could carry the burden of the truth, I can only imagine.
The covert operations, the underground investigations and the buggings, obscure duties with a backbone of
strong belief we're doing right. Oh, Edgar, I miss your face.
If these cartons of information ever fell into the wrong hands then this country... nay, this thing we call civilisation,
would come a-crumbling down. It was smart of Mr. Tolson to ring me when he did.
They'll be here soon Helen, get a move on girl.
The cabinet in his office is empty now and the room that I've occasionally heard others whisper as the 'inner-sanctum'
waits with it's shadows and pulled-down blinds. The pot of coffee and the single cup stand as a reminder of the lonely
man that resided there.
Somewhere among the piles of rabbit bedding that the shredder has disgorged from it's noisy-mechanical bowels,
most of Mr. Hoover's 'Private Files' lay beside the strips of information of lesser investigations and I'm happy that I've
fulfilled my our final agreement.
"If, Ms. Gantry..." the man in the immaculately-clean shirt and impeccable grey suit said softly from behind his embossed
leather desk, "...If there comes a time that I will not be here, then you will know what to do, won't you?"
Mr. Hoover's eyes moved from mine and alighted on the dark-green filing cabinet that brooded in the corner of the room.
"The world must never know what we have done here" he grunted uncomfortably.
I remember the feeling of pride that rushed through my body as I stood at the doorway between his place and mine,
I remember feeling good. "Yes... Edgar" I dared and for a single moment, we were one.
The small, robust man who never smiled, nodded and murmured "thank you, Helen" and went back to sorting the papers
that I'd placed on that richly-varnished escritoire at 6.25am that very morning.
He had never used my first name before.
When LBJ had honoured the FBI with making Mr. Hoover the Director for life, many had balked at the idea. But even with all
of President Johnson's faults, he -and President Trueman had called it right.
And how the secrets had mounted up.
Communism, Radicals, King, Kennedy and the kid called Lennon, just minor actors on a bigger stage. It was the incident at
New Mexico that had badgered Mr. Hoover in his later years, the file that now I held in my hands in readiness for destruction.
It was my station to collate, re-type and sort all of the paperwork that was destined for that soft-surfaced table in the inner-sanctum
and I know the documents that reported of the experiment in that Southwestern State had not found a usual place into the FBI's
usual filing system.
This case worried him.
The steel teeth of the shredder awaited their next meal and even though I could swear I heard footfalls in the corridor outside,
my hands faltered in their action. Do I keep the paper safe from the gnashing apparatus and reveal how something called 'Boy
In A Dress' came into being or do I send the secret into the metal fangs and beyond discovery?
I truly believe that if the arrival of Patrick Gray and Mark Felt had occurred a minute earlier that it it did, the classified tracts would
be available for all the Bureau to peruse and I would be still weeping.
Eat it shredder... eat it all.
And God bless you Edgar.
The End.
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.
GREAT!!! 