Day Seven: Afternoon
I don’t know much about the tropics. I supposed that it would always be hot, but up until today it was pleasant enough. The breezes have stalled completely and I feel like I’m being cooked slowly.
Didn’t write at all yesterday, I hopped around the island trying to decide what the Hell I was going to do. I didn’t want to run into my friendly neighborhood maniac and I felt like the more I moved the less likely that would be. Now I’m not so sure. It’s a big place and maybe if I lie very still he could walk right past and I’d never notice. By the same token though he could do the same. Damn I’m beginning to freak myself out.
Well I have to pass the time or I will go crazy. That’s why I’m writing in this stupid journal isn’t it?
So why did I become a criminal? I’m lazy I guess. My dad (and no I’m not gonna put the rap on my parents) used to tell me that I would never amount to anything. And he should know because he was a drunk bastard that worked a dead end factory job. If anyone knew something about being nothing that was Joey. I’m lazy not in the sense that I hate to work hard. You can’t steal from Le Louvre without hard work. I’m lazy in the sense that no way was I going to work twelve hour shifts for some pinhead from Pittsburgh making just enough to buy a six pack of Iron City and go home to beat the kids and fuck the wife.
I was pretty good at getting my way in school and could talk myself out of any situation that I got myself into. Eventually I learned that if I planned carefully enough I didn’t even have to get into a bad situation and I could still have the run of the place. My guidance counselor predicted that I would be state senator, if I didn’t rot in jail for embezzlement. I decided not to go either route. Politics was for people who felt the need to be seen and in order to be really effective at embezzling you still ended up working for the aforementioned pinhead.
So that my dears is why I became a crook, sheer desire to make a great deal of money while owing the least bit of allegiance to anyone. I am my own man and that’s the way I intend to die.
My first take was petty enough now that I look back on it. I really did it just to test the waters so to speak. High school graduation was in my near future and I needed enough money to go off and get a good start, someplace with sun and beautiful women. Seed money was what I or any other good businessman needed and I knew where to get it.
I was a good honest-looking kid and I knew that I could work that to my advantage. I went from door to door in the richer neighborhoods collecting money for orphans to earn my Eagle Scout badge. It never bothered me that I hadn’t seen the inside of a Scout Lodge (if there is such a thing) or that I had never met an orphan. I have never been burdened by a conscience when it comes to money that belongs to rich people. Most of them didn’t earn it and they usually put it to poor uses.
The old ladies that lived in the neighborhoods I worked were more than glad to help a clean cut white boy out. A few of them were also glad to invite me in and give me the grand tour of their bedrooms. The less said about that the better as most of these ladies were old enough to be my grandmother, but suffice to say that one such encounter led me to the combination on a safe and that safe gave me more than enough money to get well lost on. So bless those ladies and their lust and greed. They served me more than any college education ever has.
My nineteenth birthday found me in Vegas. I had committed grand larceny a number of times, started learning the art of forgery, discovered that I didn’t have the taste for killing or second story work, and was well on my way to being one of the world’s top ten con-men. And all of that landed me here of all places. Don’t get me wrong, when I leave it’s back to the life I love, but I’ll make sure that I burn a few bridges to see that it doesn’t happen again.
Before any of that happens though I have to deal with Mr. Happy and my thoughts have lead me to a merry little place that has helped me decide how. I’d tell you but it could be that Mr. Happy will get an opportunity to read this and I can’t take that chance.
Didn’t write at all yesterday, I hopped around the island trying to decide what the Hell I was going to do. I didn’t want to run into my friendly neighborhood maniac and I felt like the more I moved the less likely that would be. Now I’m not so sure. It’s a big place and maybe if I lie very still he could walk right past and I’d never notice. By the same token though he could do the same. Damn I’m beginning to freak myself out.
Well I have to pass the time or I will go crazy. That’s why I’m writing in this stupid journal isn’t it?
So why did I become a criminal? I’m lazy I guess. My dad (and no I’m not gonna put the rap on my parents) used to tell me that I would never amount to anything. And he should know because he was a drunk bastard that worked a dead end factory job. If anyone knew something about being nothing that was Joey. I’m lazy not in the sense that I hate to work hard. You can’t steal from Le Louvre without hard work. I’m lazy in the sense that no way was I going to work twelve hour shifts for some pinhead from Pittsburgh making just enough to buy a six pack of Iron City and go home to beat the kids and fuck the wife.
I was pretty good at getting my way in school and could talk myself out of any situation that I got myself into. Eventually I learned that if I planned carefully enough I didn’t even have to get into a bad situation and I could still have the run of the place. My guidance counselor predicted that I would be state senator, if I didn’t rot in jail for embezzlement. I decided not to go either route. Politics was for people who felt the need to be seen and in order to be really effective at embezzling you still ended up working for the aforementioned pinhead.
So that my dears is why I became a crook, sheer desire to make a great deal of money while owing the least bit of allegiance to anyone. I am my own man and that’s the way I intend to die.
My first take was petty enough now that I look back on it. I really did it just to test the waters so to speak. High school graduation was in my near future and I needed enough money to go off and get a good start, someplace with sun and beautiful women. Seed money was what I or any other good businessman needed and I knew where to get it.
I was a good honest-looking kid and I knew that I could work that to my advantage. I went from door to door in the richer neighborhoods collecting money for orphans to earn my Eagle Scout badge. It never bothered me that I hadn’t seen the inside of a Scout Lodge (if there is such a thing) or that I had never met an orphan. I have never been burdened by a conscience when it comes to money that belongs to rich people. Most of them didn’t earn it and they usually put it to poor uses.
The old ladies that lived in the neighborhoods I worked were more than glad to help a clean cut white boy out. A few of them were also glad to invite me in and give me the grand tour of their bedrooms. The less said about that the better as most of these ladies were old enough to be my grandmother, but suffice to say that one such encounter led me to the combination on a safe and that safe gave me more than enough money to get well lost on. So bless those ladies and their lust and greed. They served me more than any college education ever has.
My nineteenth birthday found me in Vegas. I had committed grand larceny a number of times, started learning the art of forgery, discovered that I didn’t have the taste for killing or second story work, and was well on my way to being one of the world’s top ten con-men. And all of that landed me here of all places. Don’t get me wrong, when I leave it’s back to the life I love, but I’ll make sure that I burn a few bridges to see that it doesn’t happen again.
Before any of that happens though I have to deal with Mr. Happy and my thoughts have lead me to a merry little place that has helped me decide how. I’d tell you but it could be that Mr. Happy will get an opportunity to read this and I can’t take that chance.
© 2004 by Scott Roche
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