For The Juice.....

Everyone knows a Quinn. That person in your group of friends and associates who has a perpetual smile affixed to his mug. In a normal circle of friends, a guy who smiles a lot, never gets in trouble with the law, graduates and goes on to a square world career, is the rule rather than the exception. In my world, Quinn was the exception to the rule. Most of the people I came up with, went on to become criminals, addicts, strippers, hookers, dope dealers, so success stories were few and far between. That's not to say that Quinn was the only person I knew who wasn't a complete detriment to society, but he was definitely in a minority.


Southwest High School, I'm fresh out of Boonville Missouri state training school for boys, I'm 15, 16 years old, well on my way to becoming a major league detriment to society. In my mind there was only one road worth taking, the wrong one. At this point, I'm already done with school, had a GED which I picked up in between fights, trips to the hole, and the infirmary, Booneville being a Gladiator School in the juvenile justice system. When I came back out into the world, I had a mindset that would stay with me for 25 years or better. In the afternoons when classes would let out, there was a group of 20 or so who would meet up along the street that ran along the north end of the high school. We would bullshit, pose, smoke dope, and wait for the few people we knew who were actually still in school. Girlfriends, a few guys who were either smart enough, or had parents strict enough, to keep them in school. Quinn was one of those, and he would always come out of those doors with that big grin stuck to his mug. He was one of us, even though he couldn't have been any less like the majority of us.


Most of us had known one another since grade school, although our group dwindled over the 8 or 10 years of school up to that point. The kids who matured and took the normal path fell to the wayside, either rejected by the group, or smart enough to stay away. But a few still maintained ties, refusing to move on to more sensible friends. Quinn was in that group. As the years gave way, school was replaced by jobs for some, criminal careers for others, we would slowly loose that close knit bond. Still we crossed paths on a fairly regular basis, parties, bars, going about our daily business, even though most were of an illicit nature. I moved to Midtown, most of the guys I knew moved there as well. But Quinn stayed home, in the same house he had grown up in, went to college, or some kind of school, became a paramedic. That was a big deal in our circle, Quinn was a big deal in our eyes.


You have to understand that most of us, this loose knit circle, were already lost, already deep in to whatever vice, habit, lifestyle, criminal career, give it a name. We had all started down our chosen paths, and the majority of those journeys wouldn't end well. Now that's not to say that any one of us couldn't have changed direction, most just chose not to. That mindset is a hard one for most square world people to grasp, the logic is twisted, and reasoning is absent from the equation. The ignorance of youth aside, I think most of us knew things would end badly, or abruptly, prematurely. The conclusion foregone, a given. So we held Quinn, and maybe a couple of others, to a higher standard. I guess he was like a symbol, a saving grace, proof any one of us could have been better if we had wanted to be. I doubt that sentiment was something we were conscious of, and since 30 years have come and gone, maybe I'm just choosing to dress shit up, soften the edges, but that's how I remember it today.


So I'd see Quinn around from time to time, we weren't close, but we had that history of our youth, and it was always good to see that he was still staying clean, doing some good, being a responsible person. It also annoyed me, to be honest, at the time I just assumed we had so little left in common that a few minutes of small talk was all I could stand. Truth be told I was probably a little jealous, or envious, or maybe his success and security, made my life seem shallow and lacking. Whatever the case, by the time I was 20, we seldom crossed paths, and the conversations were short.


I've written about how some people like to rub elbows, brush up against the darker, seedier side of life. They aren't criminals, they work jobs, lead otherwise productive lives, but every now and then they like to play the part. You might recall the story about Gina, who I wrote about here. Her story was different than Quinn's, she did what she did for different reasons than his. But they were similar in one respect, they were drawn, or attracted to the seamier side of life. They weren't alone, square people who associate with criminals are a dime a dozen. It's hard to really explain it, this often fatal attraction, but I'll try.


There are really only two kinds of career criminals, and the difference is in their motive, the reason they do what they do. Call it the Juice, the thing that makes them tick. For me, the money was the juice. The criminal act was just a means to an end, there was no thrill in the commission, or at least it wasn't what drove me, the reward was the payday. The other type of career criminal, the payoff is the act. Most bank robbers and arsonists are a good example. There are easier and more profitable ways to make your money than robbing banks or burning down shit for hire. The juice for them is the crime itself, the money is secondary, almost an after thought. It's the rush, the risk, that's what makes em tick. The act itself is the juice. Square people who dance around the edge, rub elbows with criminals, do it for the rush. That's their juice. It also rarely ends well.


Like I said, I only saw Quinn every once in awhile. We were never really close, we didn't go out of our way. I ran into him at a mutual acquaintances house one day, hadn't seen him in probably a year. He was gaunt, nervous, hyper, eyes bright in the same way a persons eyes are bright when they have a high fever, or are a little crazy. He was leaving as I came in, we exchanged a hey, a whats up, and he was gone. The guy told me Quinn was on that end, coked up. Lost his job, his medical license or whatever paramedics have. He was there to borrow money, that's what this particular guy did. He loaned money, fenced shit. We both gave the head shake and sigh, maybe threw in a shoulder shrug and a "what can you do?", and that was the last I thought about it for another 6 or 8 months.


I don't recall if someone told me, or I first heard about it on the news, or in the paper. Quinn left a bar in Waldo one night, his last night. I later heard he had a good size chunk of cash on him at the time, but that could have just been talk. What is certain, his body was found rolled up under a bush in Loose park, partly covered in the snow. A jogger or someone walking their dog found him, just as still, and just as dead as he could be. There was a coroners inquest, he died of a cocaine over dose. I heard a lot of talk afterwards. He was robbed, he died in someones home from doing too much dope, somebody intentionally gave him a hot shot to steal whatever he had. You tend to hear plenty of rumor and conjecture when someone dies like that, so who knows what the truth was. They say his mother was inconsolable, and I heard she did what more than a few parents do when they lose a child, she left his room untouched, like a shrine, and went slightly mad. I didn't go to the funeral, and to be honest, much as the case was with Gina, I didn't give it much thought over the years. Quinn's story wasn't unique at that time and place, neither was Gina's. I knew plenty of Quinn's and Gina's.


Time runs on a loop. You reach a certain age, you start remembering things, reminiscing. Reruns of the mind . Lately I find myself replaying shit in my head, thinking about people and places in time I'd long since put behind me. The Quinns, the Troys, the Ginas , the only traces of them left behind are enshrined childhood bedrooms, broken hearted family members, grave markers, and mental reruns.


You can't help but feel a little guilt. You wonder why some people had their tickets punched early, while you managed to make it through mostly in one piece. I used to think it was just luck of the draw, the right place at the wrong time. But now I think it comes down to being out of your element, in over your head. Some people are so attracted to certain things, they get tunnel vision, they lose sight of the risk. They gotta have the juice, even if it kills them. Sometimes it does.