I have a lot of friends.
Or, I should say I have a lot of different kinds of friends – the numerical count probably isn’t that impressive. But I’ve always viewed most of the people I know as acquaintances – you know, the type of people you’d probably give a lift to the airport but you’d never lend money to.
Incidentally, I wouldn’t recommend lending money to your friends either but that’s another story for another day.
So anyway as I said I have many different kinds of friends from all over the social spectrum and this weekend I had some friends of the jet-setter variety come into town. I have spent most of the last few days (enjoyably) socializing with fairly well off forty-somethings who spend a lot of time traveling to exotic global destinations and eating at classy restaurants where they serve things I often can’t pronounce and certainly can’t afford more than once a month.
So this morning at brunch - yes, it turns out that once you pass a certain income level there is a magical land where people go to art shows, travel overseas at will, drive cars that park themselves and have discovered an ancient long lost extra meal called 'brunch' - we were having a conversation about crime – specifically career hoodlums like gypsies, confidence men and racketeers. It was pointed out that more often than not these types of people are extremely intelligent and in some cases downright gifted.
Why, it was suggested, could such people not use their talents for goodness instead of badness?
I pointed out that I once had a similar discussion with a friend who was a law enforcement officer and he explained that many such people insist it’s simply easier than going straight. One of my friends replied:
“Why would you want to spend your life looking over your shoulder?”
Another replied: “Sure, they don’t have to pay taxes.”
Well, last time I checked everyone has something waiting for them over their shoulder. Without exception, everyone on the planet has a wake up call coming sooner or later – a nasty surprise of the cosmic bitch-slap variety that will turn your life in a different direction, turn it upside down or maybe just plain end it.
I am not saying you need to run around in a panic about the fact that one day your parents will die, you’ll wreck your car or your appendix might explode suddenly. I am just saying you need to be aware that negative shit doesn’t just happen to other people whose lives you happen to disapprove of.
Then again, a great Jedi once said that what we consider to be the truth often depends on our perspective – in this case globe trotting upper middle class white guys without an apparent care in the world. I’m not trying to sound like a bleeding heart liberal but let’s see YOU just wake up tomorrow and just change careers at the drop of a hat. Let’s be honest – many career criminals sort of end up that way through happenstance, environment or just dumb luck and they aren’t thinking about convenient ways to get out of paying taxes – sometimes when you’re born into a world of shit and that’s just how it is.
I am not saying that life isn’t about choices, and of course if you’re a criminal you do have at any time the choice to ‘just say no’ and walk away from your life of crime and you know, just go legit right? Maybe, maybe not. I suppose I could just wake up tomorrow morning and decide to be a jet pilot, but I have a feeling it simply isn’t that easy.
It’s cake for a 45 year old investment banker who already owns two houses and drives a Lexus to say to a career criminal: “Why don’t you just take your skills as a mob accountant and use them for something else instead?”
Ok, I’ll tell you what. I will play the part here of fictional hood Jimmy 'Fingers' Vineroni, who has just been busted running a numbers racket in Las Vegas.
“Hey you bet, mister GQ! Great idea! I’ll go legit! I’ll just quit tomorrow and go straight to a bank for a small business loan, or better yet to a fortune 500 company like yours for an interview. I can see it now; they ask me ‘So, Jimmy Fingers, what skills do you think you can bring to the investment firm of Goldstein, Goldberg and Goldman?’ And I’ll say to them: ‘Well, I have an extensive background in graft, extortion, racketeering and fraud so I’m good with people and I know how to make large sums of money disappear for long periods of time. I can guarantee you a reasonable rate of return on your investment in me.”
As you can probably guess, this is why many people like this find it easier and more dignifying to just do what they do until they get caught or killed, rather than go out into the cruel world and end up wearing the blue vest at Wal-Mart. When all you’ve ever done is swindle little old ladies out of their life savings, you may or may not hate what you do but you also aren’t likely to find a legitimate gig outside the French fry making or gas-pumping industries, so why clean up your act? Besides, if and when you're caught you do a little time, find another racket on the inside and when you get out go right back to what you were doing.
It's not the way I
personally would want to live but like anything, I imagine you get used to it.
Needless to say you should have seen the way these people looked at me. I’m not sticking up for criminals; I’m just saying that the longer you are exposed to only one point of view the harder it is to accept that there are others. You also have to understand that while these people are my friends they're almost all considerably older and better off than I am so I barely fit in with them.
The most far away place I've been in the last few years is Madison, Wisconsin, my car does not have a number for a name and although I like a four star joint as much as the next guy, my usual idea of fine dining is an evening at ESPN Zone with the type of girl who is more likely to be able to belch the National Anthem than she is to know Gucci from Prada.
I guess I just am used to looking at the world from multiple perspectives, and ready to accept the possibility that mine may not be the right one. It seems to me that's the best way to even
begin to understand this planet.
Or, in the words of Jimmy Fingers, “That’s easy for you to say.”
Now if you’ll excuse me it’s late – I have some money to print.
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Wednesday, April 16, 2008
