H
e a r t S o n s & H e a r t D a u g h t e r s of A l l e n G i n s
b e r g
N
a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 4 : A r c h i
v e s E d i t i o n
ELIOT KATZ
One Satellite
One Vote
When a satellite exploded over the Ukraine, it
seemed to affect only the life of one person
on Earth, Chris Yenko,
of Chicago.
Everyone else went about their
normal daily lives. When 21-year-old Chris Yenko was
stopped by the police
for running a red light, the police computer check showed that the
car he was driving was stolen from a garage
in Mexico, that he had five outstanding
warrants for bank
robberies in Portugal, and that he was under investigation in the
country of Georgia for
ordering a mob hit on a prominent journalist.
Chris Yenko had never
stepped foot outside the state of Illinois.
Nonetheless, he spent two years in a immigrant detention facility, most of the time in
shackles and solitary
confinement, until the government managed to send up another
satellite to replace the
one that had exploded and that new satellite successfully cleared
Chris's name. It was another
three years before the immigration authorities released him
from detention, but when they did they gave
him a very sincere apology.
[Originally
published in NHS 2010, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs10/index.html.]