The Torturer Explains

Because I had no choice. Because I couldn't very well be unemployed Slurping at the public trough with all my rearing null and void. Because as a father, I would have set my kids a bad example, Laying about on chair or couch like a seamstress' sample— I took the torturer's job, but only as a stopgap measure. Yet once you have that kind of clearance, you're a national treasure. And you don't expect to leave and live, having squeezed So many secrets out of iron men whose mouths just barely wheezed The answers. . .My friends of course don't know a thing. For them I'm an upscale file clerk or at most an interview transcriber—some crime Lab gofer running around, too dumb to put two and two together— yes, a little synapse in the Big Brain that keeps our country in clover. . . . So—go along and get along. Because after all to each his own talent.. All gifts are heaven-sent, and only God decides who must repent.