Ruthless, Worthless, and Clueless.......All bad things must come to an end.

A reoccurring theme throughout this series has been drugs, people who sold them or fell under their spell, losing much, often losing their lives. You might wonder how it is I never got tangled up in it all, or wonder if I'm not being totally forthcoming. I came up in the mid 70's, so I brushed up close to the flame, I dabbled, but I never fully committed. I didn't sell dope, even though that's where the easy money was. I didn't come to that decision out of some fictitious Hollywood ideal of the "moral criminal". You know what I mean, the movies tell us that the old "Mustache Pete's", forbid their people to sell dope, or the movie crook who is like some latter day Robin Hood, goes around doing good, swaying the young from getting mixed up in crime, especially drugs. While those images are appealing, it's pure unadulterated bullshit. There is no such thing as Robin Hood. It's about greed and taking the quick and easy means to an end. I avoided the drug trade because there are too many people waiting to roll over on you, simple as that. No Robin Hood bullshit, no fictious criminal code, just self preservation.

Most young boys have idols, it's usually some sports figure, maybe an actor, occasionally it's their own father, although I think that is sadly a rarity. The guy I grew up idolizing happened to be a criminal, my Willie Mays , the guy I wanted to be like, let's call him Hoyt. A distant cousin through marriage, he lived in the same neighborhood as me, he was a legend to young impressionable guys like me. When I was a kid, I'd see him at my Uncles restaurant. He always joked around with me, slipped me a couple of bucks for busing his table, included me in whatever small talk might be going on at his table. He was the guy with the ever changing fast cars, the revolving door of women, the obscenely huge roll of bills wrapped with a rubber band.

Hoyt was a thief, a burglar of a higher sort, he peeled safes, he gambled, and he stole trailer loads of assorted goods including the 40 foot trailer they were contained in. He owned two houses on the end of a cul de sac, one he lived in, the other was a warehouse. He went to prison more times than I can count, he always served short bits due to good lawyers and fat bribes. Over the years he bribed cops, judges and parole board members. In the late 80's, he changed, he got in the drug trade. At some point he started using heroin and coke. He still made tons of money, but he wasn't the same guy, he wasn't Willie Mays, he was just a tired looking, albeit rich junky.

I was about six months out of the joint the last time I saw Hoyt. If you serve more than a couple of years, which I did, when you come back out in to the world it takes a good year to adjust. Everything seems foreign, surreal, you have to keep reassuring yourself that you aren't dreaming, that you really are in the free world. That's where I was when I ran in to Hoyt at a little diner in Grandview. He was 15 years my senior but he looked twice that. He mumbled when he spoke to the waitress, his words all running together in that sleepy, lazy speech pattern that is common in long time heroin addicts. I knew he was not long out of the joint himself, and word was he might be heading back, at 60 he was still in it, still playing the game, still losing more than he could ever hope to win.

To be honest, the day I walked out of prison I was not entirely resolute in my decision to live within the limits of the law. There was a part of me that wasn't ready to let it go. A small voice still promised me I could hit it big, my time was coming, I'd hit the jackpot if I just hustled a little longer. If there was a tipping point, a minute in time where I made a decision to go straight, it probably occurred in that little diner. I sat in a booth a few feet from Hoyt, a guy I'd known since I was 12, and he didn't recognize me. He was busy mumbling in to his cellphone, smoking one cigarette after another, looking old and tired.

My decision to end my criminal career came in a little nondescript diner, sitting unrecognized, just feet away from a guy I had known and admired most of my life. I realized, I didn't want to be that guy. It was really as simple and uneventful as that. I think this is a fitting way to end this series. Nothing earth shattering , exciting, or glamorous. No big revelation to be found here. In the end it came down to the realization that I didn't want to be like the guy I had most admired, most of my life. I left my tip on the table, paid on my way out, never speaking to or acknowledging the guy I'd most wanted to be.