Was thinking how people turn out to be who they are -- especially those who live outside the mores of society. Thought I'd tackle the subject with a character I made up...
What Makes A Man A Criminal
It being the waning years of Prohibition and my time in this business about to reach its end, I thought I’d answer this question I get asked a lot from both the people close to me and the people I’ve run into over the years. What makes a man choose a life of crime? First off, a man doesn’t choose. So let’s just throw away that thought right out the window.
A man chooses crime cuz he’s got no choice. He grows up in a place where everyone he knows is pullin’ some hustle. His earliest memories are a drunk father laying it on a depressed mother, then later spreading the gift of welts to youngin’ present. It’s a relief when said patriarch vacates the neighborhood for good. Other lowlifes zoom in and out of your mother’s life, some of them flash fatherly resemblance.
Soon your older brother by two years gets sick. A doctor checks up on him, and your mother works overtime to pay the bill. Your brother gets sicker but your mother can’t afford more doctor bills. The medicine helps, but it’s expensive. Your brother’s condition worsens. You are forced to care for him. When it gets real bad, your mother calls off work. She’d tried to get other women on the street to help out, but they all had mouths to feed including their husbands who often don’t eat much to spread the scraps around the table.
Your brother dies. You’d said goodnight, he’d replied. You said good morning, he didn’t. From then on, you grew up fast.
Before you know it your working two jobs—a busser at a local diner and a warehouse stock boy. Long hours. The wealthy oil men and family money-mongers treat you worse than low at the diner. Just so happens said restaurant is next to their monopoly’s big headquarters. They all come to get lunch and complain to the employees. Young money make fun of your wretched meager job, order you about with their requests for cleaner silverware, glasses, tablecloths, you name it.
You get home one night after straining your back at the warehouse and making one cent in tips after your second eight-hour shift at the diner. Your ma has lost her job. The factory she worked at was downsizing. Nothin’ else to be had.
That same week the girl you’re seeing gets swooped up by one of the youngbloods with family money. It’s the same thing that happened to three of your buddies who live on the same block. Their girls wooed by the sons of factory owners, politicians and oil tycoons.
One night after work at the warehouse you get kicked out of a bar for boozin’ it up too much and gettin’ lippy with the bartender. You’re downin’ your flask in the alley and this man offers you a new sort of job. One that pays. I mean, really pays. You first think it’s a gag, but think why not.
Next day, you make a run, deliver some goods with a few new acquaintances. A big wad of cash gets shoved in your hand, and you think “this I could get used to.” The money comes at the right time because your mother starts to get sick, and you fear she may suffer the same fate as your brother. You pay the doctor. In fact you’re making so much more money the doctor can see your mother any time. Soon you’re rolling in it and you get your mother in a nice facility where she recovers.
Pretty soon, you move out into a new place. You go out on the town with your new friends. Friends whose influence rubbed off on you. They got your back, just like your brother had… before he got sick. No more getting bloody noses from the bullies cuz you’re brother wasn’t there anymore. No more women fleeing for them tailored dandies. No more men coming around to bully your ma. No more coughing and groaning in the middle of night from the woman who gave all she had just so you could eat. No more limping home in mind and body from warehouse and those goody two-shoes at the diner.
That’s right. With a gun in my hand I was somebody.
It wasn’t a choice. It was survival. And there’s plenty more like me who’d say the same.
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