Cheatin' the Reaper (eBook)

Chapter 2

The First Ten Years or So: Crime and the Boy Scouts

Way back in 1949, my mama pushed me out into this world. I grew up in an apartment complex that was actually nice at one time. By the time I was five years old, I already had two concussions. One when I was two years old and I fell on the sidewalk. The second one was when I smashed my face into a wall while ridin my little black choo-choo train. That’s right, that’s what it was called when I was four years old. A kid, who I’m guessing was my friend at the time, helped push me down a hill but the building helped me to stop. A few days later, I was playin pirates with the same kid and he had a stick with two nails in it. By the time we were done sword fighting, that stick was attached to my little back. I remember my father was out there with us so he ran over and just pulled the stick out. Got lucky that day too. The nails just missed my spine on both sides. He made me come home to clean out the little holes the nails made. On the way home, I remember I smashed the kid in the head with a rock. I think that made us even.

The best thing about livin in Queens was that we were right near my grandparents and we’d go over to see them almost every weekend. Sundays were great because they had a nice backyard to play in. Grandma was out there every single day planting and taking care of her giant rose garden. There were flowers in every direction. It was a real Garden of Eden. One of my favorite memories was when my grandfather walked me out to the garage where he had his spotless, waxed-weekly, black-on-black 1957 Buick Roadmaster. Next to it was the thing that would set the course of my life – a big, beautiful motorcycle. My first ride was on his 1928 Indian Chief motorcycle. I was five and I still remember the rush I felt ridin on it with him now. I remember sittin on the tank and being held with his knees. I felt like I was flying. If it wasn’t for that ride, I might have ended up an accountant or some kind of geek workin in an office somewhere today. Thanks, Gramps, for starting me on the right path because now I’m right where I should be.

Unfortunately, that didn’t last long because before my sixth birthday we moved to Nassau County, Long Island. The town of Levittown was built in 1947 so we got in while it was still pretty new. I gotta admit it was a lot sweeter than the apartments. I had a nice big backyard and when you’re five years old a half acre looks like a whole countryside. This is when my crime spree started I think. I was about seven and my sister was four and one night my parents took us to Gertz department store. I remember because you always remember your first bust.

I was in the pet section because I’ve loved animals for as long as I can remember. This night I was lookin at the newts. You remember those little slimy brown lizards with a green or yellow stripe on its sides? They live in water more than on dry land. I was wearin an almost see-through yellow shirt that felt like a freakin napkin or something because my mother liked to dress me like a clown. I remember watchin the newts swimming around while I looked to see where the workers were. The coast looked clear so now was the time. When I took the lizard outta the water and put him in my pocket, you could see him right through it. I didn’t know it at the time but the manager did. I don’t know why he didn’t say anything to me that night but the next morning my mom got a call from him and he told her what I did. My parents shopped there a lot and I guess the manager knew them. Just after the call I came runnin into the house with the little guy in my hands and said, “Mom, look what I found in the backyard!” She said, “Really, you found it in the back yard?” I could tell that she had her doubts with me as usual so I ran back outside. She chased me into the back yard with her bare feet but before she got to me she stepped in a huge pile of fresh soft dog shit and it went right between her toes. Being the asshole I was, I laughed. This just went from bad to worse so after she caught me she just dragged me all the way back inside by the ear. The worst part was I had to go back to the store and apologize to the manager and return the freakin lizard that night after my dad got home from work.

I admit I was a brat for a while but shoplifting was exciting. Soon after, I stole my first Silly Putty too but I got away with that. The manager of the store saw me put the Silly Putty egg in my pocket and stopped me and my mother by the front door just before we were home free. He took us to his office where he explained to my mom what I did. My mother looked in all my pockets while the manager watched but she couldn’t find anything. Was it because I was innocent and wrongly accused? Nope, it was because I took the silly putty out of the plastic egg it came in and had it squashed flat in the palm of my hand. I’d like to blame the beginning of my childhood crime spree on the influence of a bad friend or something, but it was all me.

Since I was getting in trouble on a regular basis, I guess my parents thought I had too much time to waste so they decided to get me involved in some community shit. When I was seven or eight years old, I was inducted into the Cub Scouts. That’s right, I had my little blue uniform with the bright yellow neckerchief with all my merit badges. I was in something they called a den and my mother was the den mother. The den was kinda like a squad that was part of a bigger group like a battalion. We had weekly or monthly meetings at our house with about 10 kids and she was so proud to be involved. We had one kid in our den that I never liked and his dad was the den master. He was the big cheese and his kid was a fckn den douche bag. He always thought he was better than all of us so my mother kept us separated at the meetings. Well this kid lived directly behind us and our backyards were connected. One day I decided to hop over the backyard fence to play cowboys and Indians with this douche Danny Shoemocker. Yes, I still remember his name because I had a powerful dislike for him. Since I was ready to play the cowboy this day, I was dressed up in the outfit that my mom bought me and it came complete with a cowboy hat, a black and white cowprint vest and chaps, boots and two guns with a belt and holsters. I was John freakin Wayne for a day. Unfortunately for Danny I came with the John Wayne attitude too. I walk over to the shmuck’s house and knocked on the door with my gun like it was a hammer. I’m not sure why I used my gun but it worked out pretty good for me. His father answered the door and I asked if Danny could come out and play. As soon as Danny the douche came to the door, I said, “I DON’T LIKE YOU,” and hit him in the head with my six shooter. That was the end of my Cub Scout involvement. My mom was so humiliated at the next meeting because we were kicked out of the scouts in front of everybody. It was worth it though because I never looked good in blue and yellow anyway. I was also the catcher on a baseball team so the Cub Scouts were easy to leave behind.

My father was the catcher on his company softball team for years so he taught me how to catch, and I loved it. Being the catcher, you get to talk smack to all the batters while they’re up at bat and I could talk some shit. During the games I’d talk about their ugly face or stupid sister or how they swing like a girl. Anything I could think of to piss them off while they were trying to hit the ball, and I was pretty good at it.

Well one day the umpire, who heard all the shit I was talkin because he was always right behind me, got tired of my crap and decided to start calling balls that were really strikes. I told my dad what he was doing but being the little scrawny kid that I was, I couldn’t do much. My dad, on the other hand, was a pretty tough guy and the next time the umpire did this, my dad called a time out and tried talking to this hump of an ump to no avail. The ump dismissed my dad and called “PLAY BALL,” so we resumed play and he went right back to his bogus calls. My father called one more time out the next inning to talk one more time but this time Dad got fckn devious. While he was talking calmly to the prick, my dad offered him a couple of Chiclets. My dad was chewing gum at the time so it looked good for this situation. But on this day the Chiclets he had in his pocket were a candy-coated laxative called Feen-a-Mint and that’s what he offered to this sorry-ass umpire. He took at least two – maybe more. Play ball was once again yelled out and we got back to the game, but the rest of the innings were a little different for that prick ump. I think he called four or five time-outs while running to the bathroom which was inside the school very far away. Hahaha. The next inning we had a stand-in ump because I’m pretty sure the other one crapped himself. I liked Dad a lot more that day because he didn’t take shit from anybody – no pun intended. It’s funny how many different ways there are to bond. By the way, we came in first place that year and I got the trophy to prove it.

I was still doing stupid things in spite of having a pretty cool kid’s life. I remember getting suspended from school when I was about 10 or 11 because I got caught stealing bicycles from the bicycle rack on the school grounds. I remember I would skip a class and once everybody was inside, I would go to the bike rack and take a bike that wasn’t chained to it. Ya gotta remember that in...