The Ways of a Righteous Dude (Part Six) TBC

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 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 one’s idea of a genius.

 

But look, chief, there’s a bunch of things that are not widely known about guys like me. The Gardener knows them, but anyone else who can make a 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 manipulate the better angels of others, particularly if the victim is a practicing do-gooder or lifelong scaredy-cat. 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 �" Maybe even do another crime on his behalf.

 

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.