Questions. Historians are all about the God damn questions. Where to begin? How to end? What’s important? What’s not? They’re like manic depressant hamsters running back and forth in their cages until they’re finally so tired they just say ‘fuck it’ and start writing something down.
Sometimes they even stumble on the truth.
They face a desire to embellish or coat the facts in a more enticing format that ultimately makes them deceiving. The masses rely on the integrity of the author but if you’re naïve enough to think that someone’s being honest with their writing, you should stick to picture books and reality TV.
Can you learn from history? Maybe. Who the fuck knows? Did I? Nope. Did any of the people I’ve had dealings with? Nope. Do the cops? Rarely. Do Politicians? Tell me another joke. No one fucking learns their lesson. Even under the penalty of messy death, people make promises and praises that they forget in a few days of safety.
And yet here I sit pondering all these questions to try and convey a story that hasn’t finished yet. Well, that’s history. I guess that it’s more of an autobiography but that’s semantic. My life falls outside the mainstay of what society would consider ‘typical’. I’m referring to an unscrupulous lifestyle that has elevated me to a position that very few can claim. Most wouldn’t want to of course… it’s a singular sort of personality that can do what I do. And to like it? Well, that makes me the poster child for social disease now doesn’t it?
Precarious teen years… high school… college… adulthood. My life has as much in common with wholesome as a crack addicted whore has in common with a fucking Nun. Everything leads us along a path. I just chose to make my rocky, bumpy road as opportunistic as I could without falling off the cliff yawning just to the left.
Is it really that bad? Not from my point of view. Even when I say it out loud, it sounds worse than I’m making it out to be. Still, I break down that cliché bullshit about crime not paying into footnote of propaganda derived from a failed system I can’t even joke about without feeling bad.
I dip my dirty fingers into their shit on a daily basis and I do it with style. My operation has grown from simple thugs and fucked up drug runners to a near corporate enterprise employing more of the city’s scum than you think are actually there. No, we don’t have dental. Feel free to call the better business bureau on that. You’ll find that Hank over there gets a discount on blow jobs. Long story, no time to explain.
I’ve built this up with all the typical sweat and blood though definitely more of the latter and I can’t allow it to go by with a shoddy description. Reputations are hard to come by and since I can’t exactly advertise in the yellow pages or throw up some bill board ads, I have to take advantage of any exposure I can get.
Arrogant as I may seem, I never thought I’d be able to do this for so long. When I first started, I figured that if I wasn’t in jail by the time I was twenty-five then I’d have to get out. Pushing one’s luck is stupid (ask any gambler).
What I would do I didn’t know but hey, without a plan, you’re fucked. Maybe I’d have the cash to retire… that would be great. If not, a day job really sounded lame. “Hi, I’m Vince. I used to be a big drug lord. Do you want fries with that?”
I had too much faith in the judicial/law enforcement system and things flowered as if we were nothing more than a budding catering business peddling our wares under the noses of Jenny Craig rejects hanging out in a patisserie. We didn’t so much as have a raised brow in our direction.
Credit goes where credit is due I’m afraid. As resourceful and intelligent as I’ve proven to be over the years, I admit that I had little to do with my current status. I owe most everything at this point in my life to just one person… my benefactor or my savior from the cruelties of life so to speak.
