Sometimes I write for therapy, to help me move past something. Actually, I mostly write for that. Sometimes it works, a lot of times it doesn't and it simply becomes part of a larger festering. That is what happened with my Rolando post, where I mused upon a long lost criminal acquaintance of mine and the path he took in life. Talking about it only made it worse. I couldn't escape the sound of his voice in my head calling me a sucker for leading a life of drudgery and slow death.
It kept eating on me. I was grasping, looking around everywhere for an argument that would hold up on my not taking what I wanted on this planet of takers. I remembered the nights we drove around listening to old Eagles songs and how the streets came alive with the thought of living outside the rule of law made by phonies and hypocrites. "There just has to be more to life..." I got more and more frustrated thinking back on that until I started opening myself up to the possibility of criminal behavior. After all, Rolando is still going strong.
Ask and ye shall receive. I'll be godammed if that is not true. It's a rare event when I actually open myself up to something but somehow the universe orients itself to any vacuum it finds. I really thought there was no chance of ever having an opportunity to commit a rip-off but then again I was never looking. Maybe that in itself is part of the key: where we direct our energy. So I was thinking, The stars are aligning for me. This is what I should do. It seemed I was being guided by God.
I'm not someone who'd be tempted by a few thousand dollars. If I found that on the street I'd spend it on high living in fancy hotels with lavish meals and, uh, other assorted entertainment. Those memories would mean more to me than anything I could buy. I always said I'd only do a rip off if it made a "material difference" in my life. I never really bothered to define that because I never figured I'd really need to. Then all of a sudden I have three days to determine the fate of my future as I discovered an opportunity. Damn!
I kept going back and forth. Part of me having this great lethargic inertia just do nothing because nothing good can be done. The other part of me pleading with me to get out of this hell and that to do nothing is to die. Both seemed right and both seemed wrong. What put me over the edge was that this was a once in a lifetime chance that fell into my lap and all this just can't be a coincidence. I am destined for this and it's about time I got some real compensation for a lifetime of misery (regardless of how much might be self-inflicted).
So I let things play out. If even a hint of something wrong came up, I was out. And, frankly, if that had happened I'd been relieved. So hard for me to get my head around what is the right call! I've so often managed to avoid success in the past I have little trust left in my decision-making. But I knew I had to try something! There was certainly no hope on the path I was on, I couldn't debate that. So that means I must try something else. What I failed to do, however, is to finish the sentence: try something else - but should it be this?
The briefcase was in the room where it was supposed to be. I played my role to a T, just a nobody doin' nothin'. No rocks were thrown in my path to trip me up as I exited. My narrative of divine blessing held up all the way through! Un-fricking-believable! I kept expecting some wild happenstance of bad luck to occur so I would get "justice" like in the movies. But there really is no justice in this world. It's as empty and corrupt as I always thought it was. Doing bad things doesn't mean bad things happen to you. You can even become President.
One thing I never thought about was living with success. Since when does that happen to me?? Driving back on I-30 in the dying rays of the early evening sun, a million uncaged thoughts flooded my mind, the lights and shadows turning surreal, showing my fellow travelers in a new dimension. No longer were they the sure and certain souls of purpose I'd previously assumed them to be but dodgy criminals like me, making it any way they can. The world, it seemed, had tilted on its axis.
Back in my dingy apartment, I couldn't shake the feeling. It's true: I'd been holding on to a false honor. There's no honesty or integrity to be upheld in the our system. Just as Rolando had said, I was letting myself be played. Be a good boy, hold down your crap job, don't make the bad people feel bad. This false sense of responsibility was ripped away forever as I'd been running away from life like all good soldiers do. I needed something to make me feel better. I opened the stolen briefcase.
Seventy eight thousand dollars. On the high end of what I'd hoped. But never had paper looked so meaningless, such a mutual con we wallow in. This is what I risked my life for. No wonder God let me "win", it was just to show what a loser I was. So this is it: the capitalist bribe to turn a blind eye. I tried to think of what all I could do with the money, checking out used Corvette Stingrays and even Maseratis. I'd see how the other half lives! But what had seemed certain paradise on the outside was an empty shell on the inside. What's wrong with me??
The money is dirty - and that made me dirty. It owned me. I'm too weak to give it back even though part of me yearns to be free of it (like always). (And if I still had a person of strength in my life I could see myself giving it back, she being worth so much more.) But that wasn't what was really bothering me. It was something deeper, more earth shattering. I understood the vast inertia to do nothing I'd had before: that way your beliefs are never challenged. Then I heard my inner voice within.
Your life didn't have to be this way. You could have had it all without stealing. My thievery reveals my true inner desperation. I'd outted myself on the wrongfulness of my path in life. It's not that I don't deserve to live well but that I'd made that a false cross on this guilty crucifying planet. I was never supposed to be in this position in the first place. No wonder standing pat or swiping the money both seemed wrong. My true worth lays elsewhere, an echo in space.
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