THE STORY I HELD BACK FROM TELLING UNTIL NOW

I had one of them there epiphanies the other day and, as usual, it didn’t fill me with anything resembling positive feelings. I realized, with no small measure of reluctance, that I often overlook a person’s glaringly obvious negative traits if I think they are reasonably intelligent. If they are pleasing to the eye, even more so.

This was something I honestly didn’t know about myself, although upon reflection I see now I’ve always done this. I know this isn’t a rare thing but it bothers me nonetheless.

The sad reality of the situation is that these people, Oh let’s just say women since they aren’t men, always let me down in some way. IN some recent cases, the letting down occurs on regular basis in-between intervals of likeability.

It’s amazing what a little time and distance can achieve. Had you asked me about this same individual a year ago, I would have said nearly all the opposite things of what’s in this post. In fact, I might have grown defensive and hostile if you’d even broached the subject, so convinced was I that I was right. But things changed from 2007 to 2008.

I wish I could go into more details but I am already running the risk of “saying” too much. You’ll have to be satisfied with the vague references I make, I’m afraid.

Let’s just say that someone I know asked me to assist in something that isn’t necessarily considered legal. Let’s also say that person was required to advance a certain sum to insure it would actually take place. I felt pressured into arranging this and the only reason I agreed to it was because while not strictly legal, it wasn’t for anything nefarious and because, frankly, I had a hard time saying no to this person.

What resulted from that bout of sheer stupidity and a desire to please on my part was a tension-filled nightmare that lasted for five months and sent me into weird mood swings. Basically my contact was a middleman whose contact couldn’t say no to the money. Sadly, he is a small-timer and didn’t have ready access to the materials, and so had to enlist my contact’s aid in jetting around half the state acquiring it in small quantities.

In the process, they wound up getting into a car accident. My contact has terrible night vision and the other one is paralyzed from the neck down. Supposedly he had a bag filled with the materials when the accident occurred. The car was towed away from the scene and both of them wound up in the hospital.

At this point it had been about a month and a half since this arrangement was supposed to bear fruit. In that time, my contacts son became deathly ill and she had to leave Michigan for a few weeks at a time. The subject of this piece only saw the fact that one-hundred dollars was now floating around out there. Instead of seeing this as the cost of doing business – shady business at that where there are no guarantees – they started asking em repeatedly what was going on. I had no idea; I was one of two middlemen in this and wasn’t getting anything out of it except trying to help a friend.

As time went on, this person began to hear dissenting viewpoints on my sincerity. One person said he knew I wasn’t involved in some type of scam while another whose “profession” mirrored the paralyzed guy’s was sure I was scamming. At this point the person started demanding info on my contact, including name, residence, etc. Keep in mind, this was someone who was doing me a favor. Someone I’ve known for years.

So now my good intentions were biting me in the ass. Because I’d been begged, literally begged, to find a way to make this happen, I was now enduring periodic demands to know what was going on. Perfectly understandable. I’d be pissed if my 100 bucks vanished, too, but I’m also in possession of enough class and maturity to realize that sometimes the underworld doesn’t honor its commitments. Go figure. Somebody who deals in illegal goods might not be on the up and up.

Where I come from, and please correct me if I’m wrong, we practice the old you gets what you pays for philosophy. In other words, unless some crook stole from you while you weren’t doing anything against the law, you take your lumps and learn from your mistake unless you wanna become a crook, too. And in all truthfulness, this person seemed to feel that way in the beginning. However, like I said, other voices intruded upon common sense. Loud voices.

Suddenly there was another contact who could get what was needed sooner and without all the fuss. Suddenly the loud voice was yelling, “Oh, you gonna get your money back!”
The result of this statement and this moment was a surrealist’s foray into bad moviemaking. Now that the loud voice and its equally attitudinal shady comrade were involved, threats of violence and house fires started.

As if that weren't psychotic and street rabblish enough, the warning was delivered to me with a deadpan facial expression and a slightly amused, "I won't be able to stop it" attitude. In other words, they were OK with it.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't there an inequity involved in torching someone's house over a hundred bucks? When you add to that the fact this person has nothing and in fact lives in a house that could be condemned at any moment because they have nowhere else to do, does that sound like a rational or intelligent response to you? Me neither.

What really offended me was the other contact's assertions that I was somehow involved. And when the friend finally had to inform their significant other, he questioned my judgment as far as friends, wondering if I knew she was this "kind of person."

What the fuck does that even mean? Isn't it pretty much a foregone conclusion that if you know someone who can help you do some illegal shit they probably aren't exactly in line to be the next Dalai Lama?

Since that experience, my eyes have opened and, more recently, a good friend opened them even wider with an off-hand comment that resonated inside me like a small calibre bullet pinging off my bones.

"You were hoping she was a woman of substance," he said.

Yeah, I was. 'Cause I'm a dumb ass.

Now, who still thinks I think I'm the smartest guy in the room?