Criminal History (Part Two)

A Story by Paris Hlad

Here I Stand, Sort of

(At Least for Now)

So, here I stand …

Bobby …

“Bingo” …

Casanova …

A bad-a*s lowlife

Come to school the kids,

Because for the first time

In their stupid piss-yellow lives,

The daffodils got something right -

I am in hell - Maybe for keeps �" Even though

I do seem to be working my way

Into the Nothingness -

Or so, the morons

Like to think anyway.

-2-

I'm supposed to write

This phony plea to the Gardener

To put my lights out for good

Because the Nothingness is thought to be

A better deal than hell in some way.

But I got news for you, s**t-face,

Some of us don’t think so.

Some of us like the vibe here

And don’t get too excited about

Writing love letters to grandma

Or kissing her gigantic butt

Because she thinks we should.

No way! I like the way hell rolls.

I do a few off-the-wall hygiene duties

For a guy who happens to be

About the most righteous

Son-of-a-b***h lowlife

There’s ever been -

And whatever

I want to do

In my free time.

I mean, hell is as good or better

Than anything I’ve ever known

You might say,

What the place lacks

In family-friendly, TV sitcoms

And memorable white Christmases,

It exceeds in brainless, nasty b*****s

Who turn tricks at the drop of a hat

And party like there’s no tomorrow.

It may not be perfect, but overall

The Old Slow Fry is all aces,

As far as I’m concerned.

And these will go away into eternal punishment

But the righteous into eternal life �" Matthew 25:46

You can get any kind of drug you want here; I mean, you're expected to be high every moment because the Worm prefers playing with your head when you're wasted, especially if he's in the mood to get personal and chase your a*s through the flames and s**t. He's a crazy, sick son-of-a-b***h; but believe me, he does try to please �" And so do I, come to think of it. In fact, sometimes the getting personal part is my idea, which can really get his juices flowing; and then, things get massively destructive on both ends. Sometimes it's me chasing him or even everybody chasing us, or us chasing everybody else. It's beyond awesome because like the Worm, I'm a participant, not a bystander, so it’s ideal for a worm-maker like me.

Now, it probably blows your mind a little that I'm okay with the Worm. So maybe I should clue you into some things that may surprise you about hell. For one thing, there's no capital punishment here; and for some, there’s no punishment at all. You get your brand-new personal universe just like you do in paradise, only for a lowlife like me, it comes with some attractive comps. I mean, it's basically the same pitiful circus of violence, cruelty, and despair that I came to love when I was on the outside; but in hell, there's no interference with getting “the extra” out of things. I can knock around anyone I want �" for as long as I want! Honestly, hell is everything I hoped it would be, so the thought of begging some old lady gardener to whack me doesn't have a lot of appeal. It pisses me off a little when I think about it. Say sorry? I don't think so.

I think you'd be surprised by the number of A-list celebrities who hang their hats here: You might not like hearing it, but there are even a dozen or so former popes, and pretty much every liberal TV news personality there’s ever been. Not too many famous bugs like me really, but a whole crapload of NFL game announcers and maybe like a million Hollywood types and country-club Republicans. Surprisingly, those groups combined out-number your basic street felon to the tune of 6 to 1 in hell’s current inmate population.

Have you ever heard the name, Danny Dolo? No? Maybe? Well, I know that blind son-of-a-b***h; and I can guarantee you, there isn’t a guy who knows more about robbing the dopes than he does; and, I mean, talk about taking care of his crew! That guy practically invented it. At one time, he was sort of like the alpha stud of the biggest theft operation in the Garden and had connections all over the place. He was the bad boy that worked it out with a whole army of worm-makers, so he could rob what was thought to be about the richest beehive there ever was. In fact, Danny did such a bad-a*s job as a robber, everybody wanted him to take over the entire Ruins Hill syndicate, but he had to let the offer slide because he was like 90 years old at the time and had always been more into the actual robbing and s**t. But no kidding chief, a pretty good slice of the Garden was made unbelievably attractive because of his legacy, and even the holy rollers felt obliged to entomb his lousy body at St. Sophia’s, which is about the most beautiful cathedral in the whole damn Garden.

Anyway, Danny’s a very interesting guy, and I do know him. He's a very funny guy, too: He sometimes sings this crazy-a*s song he calls “Rockin’ Robber” just to amuse the s**t out of us. I guess you'd have to be there because Danny has a very high-pitched voice and crosses his gigantic dead eyeballs in this hilariously stupid way when he does that shtick. He's the kind of loud-mouthed insect I’ve always sort of looked up to. I'm a little surprised you never heard of him, though. I mean, the son-of-a-b***h is a real legend, at least down here, and that’s where a reputation like his matters the most.

Now, another thing I think is sweet about hell is that luck or chance or whatever isn't too much of an influence on things; I mean, I don't have an ax to grind against chance or anything, because back in my Garden days I was just about the luckiest lowlife you were ever going to know. My luck was what you might call uncanny. For example, I could always pick winners at the races, and I almost never got the blame from a boss when I screwed up something. I know that more than chance is involved in that one, but luck still has a lot to do with who gets hurt and who doesn’t. You know those church bingo deals they sometimes do to feed the retards or whatever? I won a big one once; something like the biggest of all time as far as the Ruins Hill parish is concerned. I mean, I didn’t really win it, I sort of just took it, but to me, it was better than winning it, even though I got apprehended and did some hard time, too.

Looking back on that fiasco, it might have been a major turning point in my life because the whole thing was totally unnecessary and pretty stupid. Like I mentioned, I am phenomenally lucky and probably could have come out on top that evening without going bad-a*s and s**t. Still, I do like things to be a little in my favor, so things started out as just a normal evening of cheating the dopes. But everything suddenly morphed into like the biggest damn lollapalooza heist I ever did. You see, there was this messed-up cockroach named Father Judas Divine who worked it out, so I could be the caller that evening. You get the picture.

But things just spun out of control right away because I got so crazy impatient and just grabbed what cash I could and sort of ran out the door; and, I mean, I ran like a bad-a*s football guy plowing through a line of flimsy card tables. I guess this one old b***h ended up with a nasty head injury because she couldn’t get the hell out of the way - Completely unintentional on my part, and yet I got charged for that, too! That’s pretty messed up when you consider that Father Divine got off scot-free, even though everybody knew he was crooked and had molested maybe a million Catholic schoolboys in Ruins Hill. And, believe me, everything that dingus ever did was intentional. But I guess you can't always choose who you work with.

But the point I was trying to make before I got all side-tracked is that chance plays a much smaller role in hell than it does in the Garden. I say that because there are no odds about whether I'm going to get high and stay high every damn day. No question about whether I'm going to do any of the crazy things I do here. Everything about my life is an absolute sure thing. Am I going to bully my entourage? Yes! Am I going to intimidate the newbies? For sure! Am I going to do some brainless bag-over-her-head hell chick? Absolutely. I mean, nothing gets in my way: No distractions, no unforeseen circumstances. I am free to do what I want to do whenever I want to do it!

Still, I need to break away a little here because I feel that a certain point needs to be made. I mean, maybe to your mind I come across in some incredibly bad colors, like there isn’t one damn thing that’s good about me. And honest to God, I don’t like anyone having a wrong impression of me. I actually have done things in my life that a lot of holy roller types might call good, maybe even really good in some ways. In fact, I’ve always been sort of known for my sense of right and wrong, and I’ve always stood up for my friends when somebody pisses me off or interferes in one of my relationships. For example, when I was a punk kid, I had this friend named Richie Darby, a little piss ant kind of guy who really looked up to me and was always willing to do the kind of things I liked doing when there was nothing to do. Well, Richie lived right across the alley from me, so most every day, I’d pop over so we could crawl together to school and s**t. But Richie’s mom was about the meanest and maybe the craziest b***h I ever knew, because every day (and I swear to God this is true), Richie’s mom would hand him his bag lunch, kiss him on the forehead, and then, for no reason in the world, give Richie a pretty good slug in the stomach - Not too hard you know because Richie could still get out the door and whatnot, but hard enough to double up the little guy and make him cry a little, too. I mean, at my young age it was the craziest thing I ever saw, and I really didn’t know if maybe I should do something about it because Richie was my friend, not hers. But righteous young stud that I was, it just stayed in my head and sort of made me feel like she was punching me in the stomach and that made things decidedly personal �" Almost like that b***h was giving me the finger.

So, one day, I cut class early and paid Richie’s mom a visit. I told her that I didn’t like her punching Richie in the stomach, and if she didn’t want me to punch her in the stomach, she needed to lay off Richie. That got her all messed-up yelling at me and s**t, and I really had no choice but to back up my threat. But here’s the thing, when I finally hauled off and punched her in the stomach, I used the thick end of this baseball bat I sometimes carried around for the hell of it; and I guess I also hit her pretty good in the teeth too because I found out later, they had to call an ambulance, and the b***h ended up having to wear dentures. She’s probably somewhere around here now, maybe slugging some other poor soul in the stomach. People like her don’t change even if you knock their teeth out. They’re a lost cause, so to speak.

Anyway, I remember when I told my little sister Cupcake about that incident. She told me that I was a hero and hoped I didn’t get in any trouble. I mean, what would she know, given that she was just a little kid, but that meant a lot to me, even though Richie never knew it was me who took down his mom. I mean, that rotten b***h didn’t tell a soul because I definitely would have hurt her a little more had she snitched. Anyway, you’d think the Gardener would take things like that into consideration when she sends a guy like me to hell - You know, the good stuff. But, one of the things I learned very early in life is just how much others are willing to mess with you to make themselves somehow look good. I mean almost everything that anyone has ever said about me is a lie in some way, and I've got some pretty good examples right here. You see these papers? These are the notes that my rehab counselor made when I was doing that hard-time for the bingo heist. Maybe you’d like to hear some of the crap she wrote about me and then maybe I can set the record straight. I’m not a moron, so I know that the whole point of a counselor writing down stuff like this is because some other wise-a*s is probably going to read it. So, they try to look like a genius by throwing in a bunch of smarty-pants lies to make things more interesting. But I’m what they call a stickler for the truth, and I absolutely hate liars. I mean, if you can’t tell the truth about someone, then maybe you got a bunch of lies about yourself that you hide from everybody else because you’re such a weak moron. Here’s my first example.

Curiously, Bobby continues to believe that he is more of an existential victim than a “justice-involved person.” He refers to a time when he was a student at the Ruins Hill Parochial School and supplied several boxes of stolen, days-old donuts as gifts to friends who assisted him in a poorly planned attempt to incinerate their sixth-grade classroom. In an interview conducted by the school’s psychologist, Bobby lamented the fact that, although he considered himself to be well-liked, he did not feel as though others were willing “to go the extra mile” with him and hoped to eventually get even. He was permanently expelled from the school a few days later when he tried to "call in his favors” �" This time with the intention of murdering one of the nuns. He stubbornly maintains that his intentions should have been viewed more favorably because he “actually would’ve done” what the other children were “probably too chicken-s**t to do.”

First, I didn't try to burn down the classroom. I set off a few firecrackers in a waste bin and the small amount of fire it caused sort of spread to some curtains and loose-leaf paper and s**t. It was a harmless joke and not really a big deal since some of the kids found the whole thing funnier than hell and started running around doing some crazy things themselves. Second, I never “lamented” that others didn't back me up. I said that I was going to get even with the little dumbbells that ratted me out. I mean, honestly, I think my classmates had a very good understanding of me, at least more than that idiot psychologist at Ruins Hill or the counselor I had in the joint. Oh, and by the way, the donuts were fresh, not days-old like that b***h said. What a liar! Anyway, here's another example of the bullshit I’m talking about.

One of the more mystifying aspects of Bobby’s interaction with others is his inability to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate methods of winning their friendship. By the third grade, Bobby was regularly throwing children to the ground, climbing on top of them, and pounding on their chests until they renounced their religious faith and prayed to him for mercy. As one teacher noted, "Bobby's violent behavior is a desperate cry for help. He is a kid who needs love and perhaps is willing to kill for it."

This is entirely bullshit! Giving some little dope the “99” was not exactly my idea of winning friends, at least in any normal way. I mean, the whole purpose of climbing on top of someone, and pounding on his stupid chest is to let him know who the boss is. I mean, yes, it's fun as hell, and yes, it's pretty humorous sometimes, even a little sexual in some ways; but that's not the point. The point is the rush you get from seeing a buttercup’s recognition that there's no escape from you. I mean, for a punk centipede, I was built like a brick s**t house, and I've got about a million fists to pound with, so giving some little dope the old "99" came easy and sort of natural to me. I mean, didn’t someone famous once say that “anatomy is destiny?” But sometimes the dudes who analyze a lowlife will lie to themselves because maybe they’re too afraid to acknowledge the reality they face in dealing with a guy like me. It’s an understandable lie, but, really, it’s the worst kind of dishonesty there is. I mean, my rehab counselor probably knew that I made kids pray to me because I truly enjoy observing the helpless suffering of others. But it was probably less of a head-trip for her to believe that I was expressing a need for love because that was something she could safely internalize. Why? Well, because that’s the only kind of fake world she was capable of living in. Here’s my last example.

Bobby rose to the zenith of his lowlife career when he convinced all but a handful of vendors at an illegal flea market to triple the protection money they were paying at the time. One of those vendors, a small-time drug dealer and the nephew of a high-ranking crime boss, volunteered to do day-to-day operations for an eventual cut of the action and Bobby's promise to murder the vendor's uncle, when "things came together." Bobby agreed, but several weeks later, the mutilated and decapitated remains of the ambitious vendor were found under a bird feeder near the Ruins Hill koi pond. Though a criminal act was initially suspected, the presiding coroner, in deference to the wishes of the decedent’s uncle, determined that the vendor’s death had been a suicide. This paved the way for Bobby to take over the vendor’s lucrative snail shell business and resume doing the day-to-day operations of a racket he came to love.

Here, again, my counselor lies her a*s off to make herself look like she’s all about details. I didn’t convince anyone to pay “triple” the protection fee. I suggested that holding out on me was probably a bad strategy. Second, there was no “nephew” of a crime boss involved. My partner was some lowlife’s stepson named “Johnny Hands,” a completely useless earthworm who was so strung out on drugs that you really couldn’t count on him for anything. And third, Johnny probably did commit suicide, even though some smart-a*s district attorney wanted to pin a homicide charge anywhere he could. I mean, you may not know that an earthworm like this vendor dude can be ripped to shreds before he dies. But it’s true, so, I mean, really, what’s the surprise that his body was sliced into about a million pieces? I mean, Johnny was no f*****g genius.

-P-

But look, chief, there’s a bunch of things that are not widely known about guys like me. The Gardener knows them, but anyone who can make a real difference in a worm-maker’s life doesn’t, and if he did, he’d be like a little kid who gets lost at some creepy weekend carnival when it comes to figuring out a fabricant de vers. First, we don't ever walk around feeling sorry about the things we do. I mean sometimes on an intellectual level we might wonder why we don't feel sorry, but even then, we mostly wonder why others do, because to us feeling sorry is basically a f****t thing that can’t really apply to us. It’s like a phenomenon that we know does happen but has never really been a part of our personal experience.

I remember back in my confirmation class days; I didn’t understand the part about how the Gardener’s son was so obsessed with getting every dingus in the world to feel sorry for his crimes when he was like Superman and could make them feel anything he wanted them to feel. It just didn’t make sense to me unless he had some angle no one knew about, which could have been because the guy was supposed to be a pretty big brain and all. Anyway, it’s fascinating to me and leads into the second thing most religious dopes don't understand about worm-makers. Almost all of us have an uncanny ability to elicit the better angels of others. That can be very helpful in getting the upper hand in a lot of situations because if a lowlife can get people to think he’s some kind of deep, misunderstood anti-hero, he can get quite a few dopes to help him expand his horizons �" And if he’s skillful, he can even get some of them to help him do the s**t-work.

The third thing, and I would have to say the most important thing that the average bystander doesn’t understand about us is that a worm-maker is about as fearless as any hero the Gardener could ever invent. Don't think so? Ask yourself if it takes courage to rob a bank, sneak into someone's house at night, or whack some guy you don’t know just because some boss tells you to. I can tell you that it does; and you better understand that, because if you don’t, a lowlife’s going to own your a*s a lot sooner than you think, and then all you can do is hope you have guys on your side who are as fearless as he is. Some good guys are lions. - You just can’t spook them because, like us, they recognize that everybody’s on death row and figure they might as well fight since the bigger calamities of life are pretty much a question of when not if.

Still, morons like you tend to betray your heroes because you think it will keep us off your case. But that’s not really the way things go down. I mean, I guess you know that, but don’t really have the balls to stand behind a hero, figuring if he goes down, you’ll go down double. That’s why they say that fear makes a guy irrational since there really isn’t much difference between going down once or going down double. My boy Danny explains it this way: You fear the Worm about a thousand times more than you fear the Gardener because most of the things you experience in life suggest that the Worm is much stronger, and way more actively involved in things than she is. It’s funny in a way because so many dopes run around telling guys like me how the Gardener rules the roost and s**t. But, like I said, it all makes things much easier for us and in a lot of ways, a much bigger turn-on.

I won’t lie to you, chief. I've met maybe only a handful of guys here who have the same take on things that I do. Everybody else seems to want out, even my Garden chums. But I always knew they were weak and not really that into things either. One of them, Frenchie Costello, (a guy I’ve known since grade school) has been working on his plea, even though he’s not officially dead yet, but just sort of languishing near the Empty Place. And from what I hear, the Worm is actually lending him a hand in getting it done! But I think Worm-Boy looks at Frenchie as a potential long-term downer who could mess up the vibe for thousands of years. And I sort of get that because, again, hell has no death penalty and even corporal punishment is bound to lose its sting over the course of an eternity. So, even though Frenchie technically qualifies for the flames, the Worm probably figures that his “oh-I’m-so-sorry” attitude has got to go.

I, myself, disagree because there's really a lot of cool stuff that could be done to, or even with Frenchie. I mean, he may, in fact, be redeemable in some way - So, what's the hurry? Still, I do understand the Worm’s problem. It’s kind of like the way the Gardener can’t tolerate a lowlife like me to be in her presence, so she sends us to hell, where she figures we’ll have to think things over. Well, there seems to be something about the sight of a penitent face that messes with the Worm’s mind in a similar way. He can’t stand to look at it, and he has to get rid of it, so he won’t go mental. I mean, there really isn’t anything the poor son-of-a-b***h can do when the Gardener jumps inside some dope, given that Worm-Boy is basically an all-or-nothing guy.

-P-

But even for guys like me, hell isn't all perfect or anything. One of the things I don't like about the Worm is that he can mess with my head in a way that makes me wonder if we're really on the same page. Every so often, when Worm-Boy chases me around and s**t, I find myself totally lost in this very weird area they call the Empty Place. I mean there's nothing but fumes and these eerie-looking vapors that swirl around all over. The next thing I know, Worm-Boy disappears and I'm left there by myself for like this ridiculously long period of time. It scares the crap out of me; so, I start screaming for help or whatnot, trying to figure out what to do; but eventually, I just hear Worm-Boy laughing his a*s off and telling me that it's time for him to “do his business.” It's as if the son-of-a-b***h is Grandma Herself, like maybe I’ve been betrayed and he’s about to drop something on me that I don’t know yet. It really messes with my head; and like I mentioned, it makes me wonder if me and the Worm are seeing things eye-to-eye. I mean, what do I really know about Worm-Boy? Every time the crazy b*****d chases me, he leaves me alone in the Empty Place a little longer than the time before. Who knows? Maybe Worm-Boy’s got some crazy deal with the Gardener about me, and then maybe I get hurt out of nowhere. I don't like that too much, and it makes me think that maybe the Worm might have to get a surprise like that before I do. Anyway, for now, I like the way things are, but things change, and it’s always better not to trust anyone too much, especially a lowlife like Worm-Boy.

There’s even a bigger thing I don’t love about hell. I’m a little reluctant to bring it up though, since Worm-Boy is thin-skinned about certain topics. But I say, he can blow it out his scaly butt-hole because it's something that really rubs me the wrong way and could potentially ruin everything. You know how everyone's led to believe that a worm-maker is all business or whatnot, that nothing's personal or whatever? Well, that's true in certain business situations, but everything else we do is just about as personal as a thing can get; and that goes double for the things we do to ourselves. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it's the things we do to ourselves that make the things we do to others that much more personal. I mean, when you really think of it, just about everything that anyone does is personal in some crazy way.

-P-

The Problem with Just-as-Goods

But here's the catch: When a lowlife’s in hell, he has no genuinely satisfying outlet to express his hatred, because pretty much everyone who could piss him off isn’t around. For example, if the Daffodils were here, I would happily whack them �" Also, that stupid rose who dropped the dime on me and that crazy Myrina just for being a b***h. There's absolutely no question in my mind about that. But they're not here, so really, what can I do to even the score? Not a thing. I mean, yes, I can do all the things I already mentioned that I do, and I can even pretend I'm doing those things to the dopes I hate, but I'm not doing them to the dopes I hate, but only to some dopes I don't hate. I mean, it has its upside, but it's not the same turn-on; and, over time, it can grate on a guy like me. Say, for example, I rob, maybe pistol whip, or even whack some sweetie-pie down here. Well, sometimes I can feel cheated because the sweetie-pie I take down really isn’t a sweetie-pie but more like a doll or stupid puppet who doesn’t give a s**t what I do to him. Worm-Boy calls them just-as-goods and laughed his a*s off when I shared my thoughts on the subject. He just kind of looked away from me, took a toke from his stupid joint, and said, "You don't know s**t, Bobby, so why think about it?" I mean, I couldn’t believe the horned little dick had the stones to blow me off right to my face like he had no respect for me at all and didn’t care if I knew it either.

Naturally, that stuck in my mind quite a bit - because really, who does he think he is? The only big thing he ever did is sweet-talk a brainless lady into biting his rotten apple �" And that was like a million years ago! I mean, the crazy a*****e tried to whack the Gardener once and ended up face down in a junkyard, dreaming of revenge - So, who is he to tell me I don't know s**t? Maybe it’s Worm-Boy who doesn't know s**t. And what he said to me was way too personal to ignore because he's here, and he's real, just like me, and maybe he has some hidden ax to grind that I don't know about. But here’s the problem: If things do hit the fan between us, we’re both screwed because neither of us can whack the other guy but only ourselves.

In other words, the only way the devil can be whacked is if he whacks himself, and the only way that can happen is if guys like me whack ourselves, - You know, write pleas, and s**t. That way, he wouldn't have us to f**k around with on a personal basis but only his s**t-faced just-as-goods who aren't really something he can hate, but only something he invented to frustrate lowlifes like me. Maybe grandma’s a clever old b***h. It’s a gigantic irony, though, and sort of humorous, too! I mean, go figure, without guys like me, Worm-Boy goes mental, maybe gets chased by his just-as-goods into the Empty Place, screaming for help like a baby and not getting any; maybe even writing his own dumb-a*s plea, which could be what hell is all about anyway. Maybe the next time I see him, I'll mention it to him. I mean, what's he going to do, kill me? Take a toke from his stupid joint? Nothing, that’s what!

Danny Puts a Bow on It

Shortly after submitting the statement above, Bobby spoke briefly with several new arrivals about some ideas he had for opening a chain of bingo joints in the Empty Place, wrote a brief letter of apology to the universe, and violently disappeared into the Nothingness. Beelzebub, who was not in attendance, later remarked, “Bobby had a big mouth, and maybe he was a little paranoid, but he was pretty entertaining for a lowlife psychopath, and I’ll remember that little t**d every time I take a dump.”

For what it’s worth, you should know that neither Bobby nor his crazy sister “Cupcake” had much of a chance for happiness in your world. Their mother’s on-again-off-again relationship with their ape-s**t father fell apart when the kids were little and the old lady took to the bottle big time. It was none too pretty, as she eventually sent the kids packing, and a new useless dude moved in as lord of the manor. You may think things like that don’t happen much, but I can tell you that they happen way more than you could ever care about. In any case, here’s something “Cupcake” wrote. Paris thought it should be included because he regrets not having given her a bigger role in the story.

Out of Nowhere

I came out of nowhere, and from what I can tell,

The place is pretty much nowhere, too.

It's amazing, though �" All the fanfare

And serious drama that unfolds,

With all its shock and tears,

And no one seems to know a thing about it.

There was this nasty b***h who said she was my mother

And this other useless dude who seemed to wish I wasn’t there.

And then, there was this funny boy who grabbed me by the ears and said,

“I’m your brother, Bobby.” He made me smile like crazy - Almost too much!

But then, I got sent to a hospital because I had a nose infection