Ruthless, Worthless, and Clueless.....The Vagina Monologues

Say the word criminal and ask people to describe a mental image of what a criminal looks like, most likely they will come up with a cross between the Hamburglar and Tupac, in other words a stereotypical male figure will emerge as the culprit. While it's true that most career criminals are male, their female counterparts are often far more successful and less likely to get caught. Today I'm going to talk about some of the Femme Felons I've known. From strippers to seemingly upright well educated pillars of the community, women criminals are often far more devious and ruthless than their male counterparts.

Barbara was one of the first women I ever recognized as a really proficient crook. She ran fat girls back in the 70's and 80's. No, she wasn't a physical trainer, and the fat girls didn't actually run, since this would have been counterproductive, since the girls being fat was an intricate part of Barbara's hustle. Clear as mud? Before you could order up drugs over the Internet from some shady "Doctor", there was a big market for pharmaceutical amphetamines, pain pills and Valium. There was only a few ways to get your hands on these narcotics, crooked doctors, crooked pharmacists, burglary or robbery of pharmacies, or in the case of amphetamines, being fat. Barb ran a herd of fat chicks. Once a month she would round up about a half dozen fat girls, load them in a conversion van, and run a route from Kansas City to as far as Colorado. She paid the girls for their time, and covered expenses for the 4 or 5 days they were on the road. The food bill must have been enormous. Sounds like a lot of running around for little pay off, I know, but it wasn't. Barb retired in the mid 80's, comfortably.

In my case, the one that put me away, my partner was a woman. Before I get carried away, I need to preface this with a few disclaimers and cover my ass. In my case there was no co defendant, she was never charged, and never under much scrutiny, at least not from federal prosecutors. The secret Service agents and Postal Inspectors who eventually built their case around me, knew she was as dirty as a pig in shit, but the grand jury didn't buy it, so I took the full brunt and remained mute. Before you think I tried to assassinate the president, the Secret Service handles paper and fraud related crimes, which is what my case was. So to avoid being sued for slander, which could result in losing my vast midtown empire, a half a pack of Marlboro's, 3 joints and a Yorkie, the names, places and some details have been changed to protect the not so innocent.

Jan was a news anchor when I met her, she also had several business ventures that were failing to one degree or another. This was in large part due to her husbands mismanagement, poor business practices and his nasty coke habit. I was in sales at the time, legit sales, and met Jan through friends of friends. She needed somebody who could sell , I needed a job, match made in heaven. So I sold, and sold, they spent and spent, we got nowhere fast. At some point there was some inappropriate work place shenanigans of an adulterous nature. To be honest, I never saw it coming, at the time I just assumed that I was irresistible, which just goes to show how out of touch I was. Jan was hotter than donut grease, had a masters in journalism, was the top rated news anchor in the area we were in, had turned down offers from big news agencies, and was as far out of my league as humanly possible. In short, she took one for the team and hustled the hustler.

To make a long story a little shorter, the business was going under, the end was inevitable, so we did what all greedy people do, we stole as much as we could before there was nothing left. the business was incorporated and international, we had a Taiwanese investor/partner, we had government grants and loans, and Jan convinced me that it would be a good idea if I became CEO of the corporation. My ego and penis agreed with her wholeheartedly, and a sucker was born. We moved money around, we set up shill companies to funnel it off, and when the house of cards finally came tumbling down, she was so far removed from it all, that the guy with a criminal record and dubious past, me, was left to take the rap.

In hindsight it's all too clear that I got played, dont get me wrong, I was a full participant, knew what we were doing was illegal, I even came up with the more creative ways of moving the money around, so it's not like I didn't know what the score was. What I didn't know, what I was totally unaware of, was that Jan knew I would be the perfect partner in crime. I wouldn't talk, I'd take the fall, she would avoid being indicted. Well played, hats off. Today Jan works for a news station in a small city, she makes good money, lives a good life, and is none the worse for wear.

Don't feel bad for me, I was a bad guy back then, if it hadn't been that case, there would have been another, so no harm no foul, that's just part of the life I chose. So here you have two women, as far removed from the other as humanely possible. One slung dope obtained from exploiting fat girls, one who lined her pockets while keeping her hands clean, by stroking the ego, heh, of a guy who thought he was slicker the WD 40. On the surface they are miles apart, but in reality not as different as they first appear.

Special thanks to KC Best Blogger Meesha V. for the awesome header picture that accompanies this post.

Fast Eddie Friday..New Begining, or the begining of the end.

As we all wait for impending doom, anyone with an Internet connection and half assed vocabulary will be waxing philosophic on the 9/11 anniversary. Despite meeting those qualifications, I won't be one of them. The last thing anyone wants to hear is some middle age prick go all Juan Williams on the Muslims. Hey, if I'd been around during the Spanish inquisition I wouldn't trust Spaniards, catholics, or anyone with a red hot set of pincers.  So I'll continue to harbor suspicion toward anyone that remotely looks middle
eastern-ish including the guy who moved in to the house behind mine. He looks Syrian, or Hispanic, hard to tell.  I've rigged up trip lines with empty cans to alert me if he tries to overrun my Independence compound. Just. In. Case.

With my racial profiling out of the way, we can get on to more pressing matters. I've  got my own anniversary on the horizon. This bloggy endeavor will be 4 years old next month. It pains me to admit it, but this thing has gone to seed, untended, and largely ignored for the last 6 or 8 months. So, I'm going to make one last run at getting my creative juices flowing. If I can't get back to posting with a semblance of regularity, I'm gonna pull the plug on this blog like the life support system on Sunny Von Bulow. So stick around. Over the next few weeks you rubes are either going to witness the slow death spiral of this once promising blog, or the rebirth of same.

Nothing says, deluded douche bag blogger playing writer, like a blog series. Who can forget my ground breaking Urban Blight, Prison for Dummies, or Ruthless Worthless, and Clueless series?  While the links remain in the side bar, they have long since quit working, you'll just have to take my word for it or search the archives. So without further ado, I give you my latest series................
The Route

Monday through Friday I drive the same tired ass route. Passing through the small towns and corn fields of northwest Missouri. If it sounds boring, that's because it is. But at least once a week I encounter that special brand of country crazy that you just don't find here in the city. In the days and weeks to come, you lucky readers will marvel at the oddities, eccentricities, and plum fucking nutty shit that I see from my cracked windshield.  Either that, or I'll abandon this series in one or two posts, like the last few times I've started something.

That's one big dog. My first thought at seeing some knucklehead driving down a 2 lane blacktop with a Mule in the back of his pickup. The mule took up the entire truck bed. No tailgate. Wasn't tied in. Just standing there catching the wind like a big ass dog. The road to Trenton Missouri is pockmarked with a few small dying towns, Amish dudes in buggies, and slow moving dust covered pickup trucks. And at least one Mule that prefers to ride rather than be rode, or ridden, whatever. See ya next week.

Fast Eddie Friday.....The way we were

Mmm. Mmm.
Memories, light the corners of my mind
Misty watercolor memories of the way we were........

The words above are the opening lines to the Babs Streisand tune, The way we were. If you are thinking, " Damn M M listens to that shit", you are wrong. Although I will admit that I like watching her sing because she has that one crazy cock eye thing going. While I find Babs singing to be an aberration, I can't look away when she sings. Chalk it up to the train wreck hypothesis , or whatever. Actually the reason I robbed those opening lines from the Marvin Hamlisch tune was to highlight this installment of Fast Eddie Friday, it's a trip down memory lane. I'm going to take you rubes and hoopleheads back, way back. I've been writing some somber shit this week, and frankly it's time to lighten things up a little. The last thing I want is to throw all of you in to some kind of depressed funk. So let's lighten up, take a walk down my memory lane. Just watch where you step, you don't want to get any of that on your shoes......................

If you are a long time reader, or if you had the good judgement to search through my vast archives, you may recall a guy who went by Bird Dog, or Bird for short. He garnered some mention in chapter one of my non award winning series Ruthless, Worthless, and Clueless. Bird was as crazy as the proverbial Arizona Road Lizard. He was also kind of dangerous, but crazy is funny, and funny trumps dangerous any day of the week. Bird owned a salvage yard which is just criminal code meaning he fenced stolen cars. Bird was a big guy, 6' 5" or so, probably tipped the scales around three fiddy . He had one of those white boy fro's that were popular back in the late 70's. The 3 biggest mistakes of the 70's were, the Vietnam war, Watergate, and the White Guy Afro. Birds fro was about the circumference of a small umbrella, or a large pizza. So now you've got a mental image of this walking train wreck, let's move on.

Bird was legend for the crazy shit he had done. He lived in Waldo, for all I know he still may. Waldo being a fairly quiet neighborhood back then, people didn't really take kindly to the late night shenanigans of the Bird. All night parties, working on cars and motorcycles all hours of the night, and an overall lack of consideration for folks within earshot, meant that the cops were called on Bird Dog on a fairly regular basis. Criminals, especially criminals who are bullies with a mean streak, do not take kindly to having the police called on them. So one night in a drunken stupor, Bird staggered up and down his block firing a pistol in the air, and probably yelling some generic threats. The cops were called. A police Sargent in the Waldo area at the time whose last name was Schultz, and a major prick in his own right, showed up to the scene. The official report stated they told Bird to put down his weapon, Bird later claimed they just started shooting. Whatever the case, Bird ended up with a couple of new holes and one less lung in his body.


A few years later Bird managed to get shot in waldo once again. The same guy getting shot in Waldo twice has got to be some kind of record. Being shot one time in the Waldo Neighborhood is as rare as a black guy at a hockey game, getting shot twice in Waldo is unheard of. I covered this story in the earlier mentioned post, but I'll give you a brief rundown. Bird was shooting craps after hours at a bar called Ronnies Rabbit Hutch on prospect. Also in that game was a guy we will call Joe. Joe killed people for a living, collected debts for other nefarious characters, and was a card carrying member of the "Not to be fucked with" club. In other words, you didn't want to piss him off. Bird had been on a hot roll, and at some point Joe called him out as a cheater. Bird beat the cowboy shit out of Joe. A few weeks later Joe came calling. This is where the story gets a little strange, and downright hard to believe, but it's true, at least most of it is verifiable, and some of the finer details, I just had to take as true from word of mouth.


Bird was banging the married lady who lived next door to him. Said lady was confined to a wheel chair. Fact. Her husband worked nights. Every now and then Bird would wheel her over to his place, do whatever unthinkable shit they did together, then wheel her back home. He called her Wheels, it was a pet lovers type name, like snookums, or hunny bunny. According to Bird they were in the throes of sexual nirvana in his bedroom, when he hears a click. The click was Joe's pistol either misfiring or hitting on an empty cylinder. Whatever the case, Bird says he grabbed the woman mid coitus, and started to roll. He claims he was trying to protect her, but knowing Bird, I'd say she was a human shield. Long story short, bird picked up three new lead body ornaments, miraculously the crippled woman escaped being shot.


Bird Dog recovered from the shooting, but he was never right in the head, not that he was really right in the head to begin with. Case in point, the night Bird dog pissed in Crazy George's ear.
There were about a dozen of us standing out front of a now defunct Wornall road strip joint called A B's. A B's was famous for exceptionally ugly peelers. Seriously, the women in this joint would make a freight train take a dirt road, we're talkin mud fence ugly. There was one exception, and as with all exceptions, there was a rub. The rub in this case? The girl, while hotter than donut grease, was stone deaf. True story. She looked like Selma Hayek, and talked like Patty Duke in the old Helen Keller flick from the 60's. Oh, and because I know you are curious, she danced like an epileptic on crack. But that's a politically incorrect train wreck for another time, I just want to give you a feel for the place. So, we are all standing around outside when Crazy George pulls up. George was sort of , kind of a friend of mine, despite his name he was mostly harmless because he was mostly too drunk to ever be dangerous. He drove drunk, but he only drove about 20 miles an hour, so the occasional slow pedestrian or dog aside, George didn't pose much threat to anyone.


A couple of us are talking to George through his car window when Bird Dog staggers up. He doesn't say a word. He unzips, whips it out, and pees through the open window of Georges car. He peed first into Georges ear, George in shock turns to look at the source of urine, mouth agape, and I'll leave you to your imagination as to how things went from there. George was crazy, but he wasn't stupid. When he gathered his wits, he put his car in reverse and got the hell out of there. When I asked Bird why he pissed in Georges ear, he looked at me like I had three heads. Then he said, "who is George?" Long story short, Bird was so drunk he thought George was Joe, the guy who had shot him while banging the cripple lady. Never mind George drove a 55 chevy, and had long hair, while Joe was bald, 20 years older, and drove a caddy.


Last I heard the Bird Dog was still alive, not sure if he is still in the salvage business, or if he still lives in Waldo. After I get this overly long sentimental stroll down memory lane posted, I'm going to take a drive through the old hood. Every now and again I like to just drive through the old spots even though most everything has changed. A B's is long gone, the building now houses a sign business or something like that. Most of the guy's I ran with are dead and buried, in prison, or playing in their pudding at some nursing home. Time marches on. In retrospect it's a wonder I'm not as fucked up as a soup sandwich myself.

So there it is kids. A light hearted romp through what once passed for my life. If that don't cheer you up, make you feel good about your own past, I don't know what will.
Have a safe weekend. See ya Monday.

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.

Ruthless, Worthless, and Clueless......ch 2... Dude looks like a lady.

Some people are born crazy, and I dont mean clinically depressed or a little bi polar, I mean bat shit crazy. Dave would fall under that category. I wasn't close friends with Dave, I dated his sister, knew people he knew, we crossed paths and that's it. Dave was an opportunistic thief, dope dealer, forger, whatever. If he saw a way to slide in , turn a buck, get out, then that's what he did. In some circles, this type of non specific criminal is called a sneak thief or a shit heel, I have no idea why, but Ive used that term myself. Just consider criminal slang a form of Yiddish for felons. Anyway, the guy was a shit heel, but a mostly harmless one, or so everyone thought.

The first sign that Dave was more than a little crazy was when he shot his wife, a school teacher, paralyzed her from the waist down. The thing is he claimed it was an accident, and his wife said the same. The story goes that he is in the kitchen cleaning a pistol, a semi auto 9mm, the gun goes off, twice, hits the wife, twice. Later his sister told me that it wasn't an accident, who knows?

Now might be a good time to mention that Dave had a drug problem, a meth problem to be exact. Meth can take an already wacky person and turn them in to a walking cartoon, one of those really violent cartoons from the 30's. He would go on long binges, steal shit from his sister and mother, a real nice piece of work, our Davey. Every now and again the sister would tell me he was "back on that shit", this proclamation usually followed by a story about him stealing something from someone. I stayed clear of her family in general and her brother especially, so I had never witnessed his finer moments first hand. All of that changed one morning when I get a call from the sister, blubbering about Dave stealing her car and would I take her to go get it. He was holed up in a hotel off 71 near Grandview. I said Id take her, but I wasn't getting involved, other than to make sure he didn't chloroform her and eat her face.

The sister told me that Dave was bugged out and in what he referred to as Ninja Mode. The way she explained it to me, was that Dave would get all crazy from too many sleepless nights of happy dust. The lack of sleep, his already unstable state of mind, and copious amounts of dope had Dave convinced that "They" were looking for or following him. "They", being the cops I suppose. Having heard her describe what ninja mode meant, I knew what to expect when Dave opened the door, and I wasn't disappointed. Dave was kind of fat, balding, had a perpetual blue shadow always on his face. He was one of those guys that look like they need a shave five minutes after shaving. He reminded me of a balding Barney rubble, but fat. So Dave opens the door, in a dress. Yes, you heard me right , a dress. and not just any dress, he had on one of those grandma sundress/house dress things.

Before you jump to conclusions, thinking maybe the guy gets off dressing like Aunt Bea, that just isn't the case here. He dressed like that because he believed whoever was looking for him wouldn't recognize him as the drag equivalent of an 80 year old Russian woman. While I highly doubt anyone was after him, I'm sure in his drug addled mind it was all too real, and his response was not only logical, but crafty to boot. So there he stood in the doorway of his hotel room, sheepishly grinning as he handed his sister her car keys. a 6 foot tall, 220 pound, bald headed , generic, grandma. It was both frightening and breath taking in its weirdness.

About a month or so after the hotel incident, Dave pulled a feat that was the epitome of insanity. He painted the front of his house, black, flat black. He lived on a dead end street on the east edge of Independence. Trees lined both sides of his house so all you could see from the street at night, was the front of the house. Dave painted it black so you couldn't see it at night. Makes perfect sense, if the cops cant see the house, they wont find him. Ive never ceased to be amazed when confronted by the thought process of dope fiends. Dave was an extreme case to be sure, but the people I have known who boarded the crazy meth train, have all ended up brain damaged to one degree or another.

I'm not sure what ever became of Dave, I stopped seeing his sister a few months after the house painting incident. I imagine he either ended up dead, in jail, or the nut house. It's been 15 years or better, he probably is dead. I can only imagine what the casual reader must think when I start describing or writing about some of the people Ive known or encountered. Believe me if I hadn't seen some of it with my own eyes, Id have trouble swallowing it as well. Most people live normal lives, in normal neighborhoods. The closest they come to calling someone crazy, is when they talk about the old hippie neighbor , who bought one of those ugly ass Pontiac Aztec SUV's, or the funny looking Goth kids that hang out at the house across the street. In other words, most people are more normal and less odd than you might first think, at least compared to some of the real crazy's that occupy the under belly of society, that most never encounter or come in contact with.

Ruthless, Worthless, and Clueless.........Swimming with Sharks

Not everyone is cut out for a life of crime. Thankfully, most of you fall in that category. You have that tiny voice, the one that shames you for even thinking about stealing, or cheating to get ahead. Criminals can rationalize away guilt, quell conscience, silence the voice that doles out shame. I had that ability, probably still do. I don't make that statement with any pride or smugness, it is what it is. I choose to not use this criminal super power, like Gary Cooper hanging up his pistols for a plow, I've closed the door on that chapter, although I leave it slightly ajar to share it with all of you. Truth be told, there is a part of me that misses that life, I suppose writing about it calms the itch, keeps my powder dry. There is a small cross section of society that falls somewhere in the middle. Somewhere between John Q Citizen and career criminal. They can't excel in the square world, and they don't have the stomach for the underbelly, and every now and again they wander over to the wrong side of the tracks, never to return. That's what this latest installment is about, people I've known who got in over their heads and paid the ultimate price.

Gina was one of those girls who made men do a double take when she walked by. I knew her and her two brothers since elementary school. They had devoutly religious, overly strict parents, Jehovah Witnesses, I think. The boys were finally given some freedom by Jr. high, and they turned out okay. Gina on the other hand was kept under ever stricter control, the more she matured, the tighter the rein. I've no doubt her father believed his gorgeous daughter was at great peril form the hordes of testosterone amped boys, who looked at her lustfully. so she was driven to and from school, not allowed to date, not allowed friends outside the family's religious circle. The day Gina turned 18 she left home and moved in with a car thief named Darren.

Gina didn't stay with Darren for long, as soon as she learned how easily she could manipulate men, she found a bigger and better crook, she got herself a dope dealer. She also got herself a first rate drug problem, cocaine. Coke affects women differently than men, it takes a heavier toll on her looks, it kills that thing that makes a woman really something special, it extinguishes that spark in her eye. I watched Gina go through that same slow death like process for about a year and a half. She was still something to see, still drop dead gorgeous, but the light had left her eyes, replaced by a harder, colder something. I cant explain it, you would just have to see it for yourself. If you or someone you have been close to ever got on that end, then you know what I'm talking about, if not, be thankful and hope you never see it first hand.

There are people who like to rub elbows with criminals, like groupies almost, or hanger on types. These same people will begin to think they belong, that they have the same character defects and moral ambiguity that it takes to break the law for a living. More often than not, they don't, and they end up totally out of their element, in way over their heads. I can't say with absolute certainty that is what happened with Gina, but my gut says that was the case. At some point she started an on again off again game with the coke dealer. When it was in the Off phase, I'd see her around, usually selling small amounts of powder to the bar crowd, hustling one guy or another, playing at something she wasn't really suited for. I heard from other people that the coke guy smacked her around, which would lead to a black eye, and a brief off again period. But she would always go back, that's where the dope was.

Sometimes the people who need help the most never get it, nobody offers, even though in many cases, it might actually work were it offered. When you are close to it, when you see someone in trouble, you have to look the other way. You can't save the Charlies and the Gina's, not when you are living dirty yourself. It's a cover your own ass kind of world, as callous as that may be. So you maybe offer up a quick line like" you can do better", or, "who needs that shit", then you go back to worrying about yourself.

It came as no big surprise when I heard Gina had turned up dead. They found her body near a boat ramp on the Missouri river. Her head caved in by a rock. There were never any charges, and probably not much of an investigation. Everyone assumed the boyfriend did it, but who knows. Toward the end she played a lot of games with a lot of different people, so there's no telling who it might have been. I wish I could say that the news of her death had an impact on me at the time, but it didn't. Sure it was sad news, tragic even, but I didn't give the news more than a cursory acknowledgement and obligatory " That's a shame".

All of this took place around 25 years ago, maybe a little longer. Looking back on it now disturbs me more than when it all happened. Maybe it's guilt talking, or some morbid nostalgia. I've drug this thing out a whole lot longer than I intended. It's tough to make someone like Gina sound sympathetic. Of course its tragic when anyone is killed, but when that person isn't living right, is putting their self out there, there is a " you get what you ask for" mentality, sometimes unspoken, but it's there. The thing is, I remember Gina from grade school, when she was just an over protected kid. I watched her grow up, insulated from all of the Boogie Men, imagined by her over bearing father, only to fall prey to a real one.

Ruthless, Worthless and Clueless....chapter 1....You say Sociopath like it's a bad thing.

About 40 minutes south of Kansas City, a tiny lake, a big pond really, is surrounded by a dozen homes. We ain't exactly talkin Lake Tahoe, or even lake Quivira for that matter. Imagine a lower income , white trash village, add a few trailer houses, some tiny slapped together shacks, and a few 40 year old starter ranch houses, and that's a pretty good description of the place I'm talking about. The police , or sheriff's deputies are no stranger to this place. Meth labs, a little weed cultivation, domestic disputes, and stolen property recoveries, are a few of the reasons the cops are so familiar with Lake Whiskey Tango. Kansas City detectives and Federal authorities are more familiar with the area because it is home to a guy that was at one time one of the city's most violent career criminals. Lets call him Joe.

He was a regular at my uncles restaurant, back when I was in my teens. He was also a regular at the many after hours crap games that once took place along the far south end of Prospect. Bars like Ronnie's Rabbit Hutch , the Three Moods, and Zorba the Greek, at one time or another in the 1970's were host to illegal crap games. My Uncle loved craps, won often, and more than once I was summoned to one of these bars to drive some losers car home, either for keeps or collateral. One night Joe lost money in a crap game to a guy known as Bird Dog. Joe tried to renege on paying, and was summarily beat down by the afore mentioned Bird Dog.

This would be a good time to give a brief overview of Bird Dog. For starters he was a big guy, I mean linebacker big, but gone to fat. Picture a 30 something white guy who stands 6'4 , 6'5, weighs about 300, 350, looks like he spent his day in a junkyard, he owned one, and he has one of those hideous fucking white guy Afros, made so popular in the late 70's. Now give that mental picture the maturity and thought process of a 14 year old juvenile delinquent, and you have a good picture of Bird Dog. I once saw him piss through an open car window in front of a bar, while the guy was sitting behind the wheel. He took a new dodge challenger for a test drive and rolled it about 6 times. He would spit in a skillet when he was cooking to see if it was hot enough yet. He was shot by a KCPD police sargent, 3 or 4 times. Not only did he survive, he would taunt the cop and flip him off every time he saw the guy.

One unflattering overview deserves another, so here you go. Joe the Killer, was not a big imposing guy like Bird was. He stood 5'8 tops, and he was fat, in that swollen, bloated, red faced way from years of hard drinking. He always wore one of those, golf caps, the kind favored by the old Irish guys here and across the pond. What Joe lacked in stature, he made up for in spades, by being more than a little crazy. Joe shot and killed a guy over a comment the now dead guy made regarding Joe's girlfriend. The victim was drunk, ran his mouth at a party, so Joe shot him, on the spot. Witnesses claimed it was self defense, a knife from the kitchen was placed in the guys hand, and that was that. Truth be told, the guy killed was a bully and a loud mouth, but he was smart enough to know that showing up for a gun fight with a knife was a big faux pas. Why all of the witnesses lied to the police is simple, nobody wanted to be next in line to get ventilated.

Back to the night that the lights went out in Waldo. What I know to be fact, is this; Joe nursed his grudge for a couple of weeks. Late one night he crept in to Birds house, found him in bed, and shot him three times. Bird survived, he had practice at getting shot, and he had luck on his side. I ran across Bird Dog about 6 months after the shooting, and this is the story as he relayed it to me. As for the veracity of his version, who knows, people like Bird Dog have a tendency to ad lib when it comes to the truth. While I took it with a grain of salt, I want to believe his version, because it sounds so good. Bird claimed he was in bed with his next door neighbor, her husband away at work. I would be remiss if I failed to mention that the lady in question was crippled, wheel chair bound from injuries suffered in a car crash. I do know she was crippled, and I know she was friends with Bird. Anyway, Bird was doing the nasty with the crippled lady, when he hears her gasp, and immediately hears a metallic click. He looks over his shoulder and Joe is thumbing the hammer back for a second try. More luck for the Bird dog, maybe it was a bad round, or maybe even sociopaths practice gun safety and keep an empty chamber, either way, if true, it saved Birds life. He told me he grabbed the crippled lady in a bear hug, and started to roll. He claims he was trying to keep her from getting shot too, but I think he was using her as a shield. To make a long story a little shorter, Joe emptied his pistol, hitting Bird 3 times. One in the thigh, one in the ass, and one in the shoulder.

Fast forward to the present. Joe retired to his White Trash "Lake" community. Over the years I never saw Joe come to my Uncles restaurant, or anywhere in the old neighborhood, but from time to time, I would hear about one crazy escapade or another. There were charges of meth manufacturing, which didn't stick, there were a few raids over some weed being grown in the woods surrounding the lake. Finally, a couple of years ago, I saw Joe on the local news. One of his neighbors was accusing him of torching their house. Joe was on the TV rambling on about how he was innocent, the victims set fire to their place for insurance, like any self respecting criminal, Deny,Deny, Deny. He had lost the Irish golf cap, he had lost a bunch of weight, and his hair hung to his shoulders in twin braids ala Willie Nelson. The reporter, was being more than a little condescending, poking fun of this pigtail wearing hillbilly. It struck me that the reporter didn't know who he was dealing with. They were standing a short distance from the the small lake, near the burned out remains of the house that had been torched. I wondered if that reporter would be standing there , poking fun of this old guy in braids if he knew his history. People aren't always as they seem.