RUDIMENTS, pt. 377
(crime-waves; just don't wave back)
I probably could have been
an arch-criminal; though I
never wanted to be one really.
Stealing money was easy;
goods and things a little
harder. Breaking and
entering was a lark. It's
so easy too - all you
have to do is 'pretend' that
you honor the law, and then
break it. No one ever suspects.
It's an easy game, and one
that politicians have honed
to a science - except they
compound it a little by always
having to first create 'deniability.'
A real criminal never cares
about that. (But then again
a real criminal stays outside
the law and operates freely,
in an anarchic fashion. The
others are too fearful to do
that, they just 'make' new laws
that cover their cowardice).
I used to enjoy, first, reading
'A Clockwork Orange,' by
Anthony Burgess. In the '68
Studio School basement, on
those Winter overnights of
just passing time while mostly
sitting up, I'd read and re-read
that little, cheap, paperwork
copy of it I had. I can't remember,
but I think it was a one-color,
maybe bright yellow or ochre,
and all it said, very generic,
was 'A Clockwork Orange.'
It was pretty cool stuff, and
then somewhere along the line,
maybe in the '70's (I forget that
too) it was a film - graphic,
shocking, and right to the point.
I'm not a film guy by any means,
but I managed to see that once
or twice. Why not? It was like
a school for crime, and all their
methods of removing crime from
this main character guy Alex's
psyche were laughable.
-
Some were the times that I could
have killed and/or stole with no
looking back or even thinking
twice about it. But, like with
most everything else, my efforts
fell short and I just never stayed
with it. Jail-time, prison-time,
and all those butt-busting jail
guys I always heard about just
never were my style. Cutting my
hand open one time, on a shard
of the window I'd just quietly
broken, ended my biggest caper,
because of the blood I was leaving
everywhere. I might as well have
just dialed 911 and said 'Come get
me, I'm here in the Arnot Museum.'
Stealing treasured relics and stuff
is stupid anyway. Where can you
go with it? I mean, really, safely?
Every buyer out there for that
sort of hot stuff is worse than
you are as thief of that hot stuff.
They'd sell you over to the next
high bidder in an instant, for some
more money, and your nice little
career is over, like that!, out on
some pier or wharf or warehouse
loading dock 'accident.' Now
damn, how'd he get in the way
of that fork lift?
-
Ben Johnson, a long time ago
wrote, 'How near to good is
what is fair!' I used to say, 'How
near to good is what is wild!'
Well, I never said that, and I
was never really 'wild' in that
sense, heck, I was never wild
in any sense. It was just cool
to think like that. Where I came
from, there wasn't really any
sub-level of subversive efforts
to beget crime. Or, as a kid
anyway, I never saw much of
it. Avenel was sedate; calm,
and boring too. There's just
so much you can do with
Little League and flag football.
Each of those were fairly
pathetic attempts at keeping
kids in line. I never minded
much of either, though I much
preferred tackle, for football.
The other one, which I referred
to as fag-football instead, was
a bunch of sissies running
around for safety with a stupid
plastic belt around their waist
and two little plastic strips, (the
'flags') velcro'd on, one per side,
and instead of tackling and
mauling you for fun, the
opponent had to be satisfied
with yanking off (no pun,
Wilkinson) one of those flags
on your waistband. Yeah, tell
me that wasn't a joy-boy's idea
of paradise. Like going shopping
for handbags, I'm sure.
-
New York City, by contrast, was
filled with crime. You could sit
down somewhere, and, if not careful,
lose within two minutes, probably
your shoes, whatever was in your
pockets, your watch, and - probably -
the account number off your bank
book, if you had one; if not the
book itself and the heck with the
numbers. In countless little offices,
guys' jobs centered around crime :
extortion, bribery, stock fraud,
illicit contracts, insider trading,
freight and cargo hijacking,
covering up other crimes, like
leakages of poisons into the
Gowanus, or the East River,
drainings of fuels and ballast,
commonly called pollution.
No one really cared, and it
was all a living. Now it's all
different; things have expanded
so much that crime has come
to us. Mob guys and Russian
racketeers, Israeli swindlers,
even terror operations operate
openly, and now in suburbia;
well what used to be that
anyway. There's nothing
suburban anymore about
Woodbridge or the surrounding
county areas. Except maybe
lawns, and schools - if you
can count as suburban any
school at which a cop car
is constantly present. Or
perhaps it's learning itself
that has become a crime
and that's what they're
guarding against. (Let's
ask Clockwork Alex, as they
pin his eyes open and make
him watch endless porno to
break him of the habit).
-
It's funny really, how all those
years in the seminary, say, with
all that proto-holy stuff and the
rest, the one thing they never
really talked about or touched
upon (I dislike saying that in
the context of Catholic men
and boys cloisters) was the
base part of human nature
that's within all of us. They
simply turned it into a version,
conceptual, of their own concept
of 'original sin' and the fall of
Mankind. Which was a cop-out
as I saw it - easy to blame any
shortfall or mistake, or whatever
on that. Too easy, all that 'fallen
nature' stuff. It got so bad, along
the way somewhere, that they'd
engrained it right into their
basic church doctrine. Of
course, half the time, they
were the biggest offenders -
so we're right back to the
politician thing I made
mention earlier. Anyway,
nothing they ever taught ever
covered the propensities of
humans for being lousy beings.
Swindlers and crooks, even
murderers and liars too. They
somehow, and for some reason,
always acted as if the whole
world was happy, sweet and
gay (frolicsome) in all its
aspects - I always saw
that as a great shortcoming.
I guess they just saw it as
coming. Well, I guess that's
my church joke for this chapter.
Next chapter I'll tell you all
about the heist I did once
at the old Thelma's Bakery.
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