I shook my head no, wanting to smack the Bastard for insinuating that I'd been a bad seed from the start. But all I said was, “I was a good kid, a straight-A student, just like I said.” I thought for a moment. “And so was the rest of my family. My oldest two first cousins both went to Harvard and graduated at the top of their classes. They're both doctors now. And my older brother—I think you know, Joel—he's one of the most well-respected health-care lawyers in the country. He used to play poker with some of your friends in the U.S. Attorney's Office, although he left the game once my investigation started heating up. I guess it was too uncomfortable for him.”
The Bastard nodded deferentially. “I never met your brother, but I've heard only the best things about him. It's amazing you two are even related.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, “it's a total f**king miracle. But we are related, and I was just like him when we were younger. Maybe our personalities were different—I mean, I was the outgoing one and he was the introvert—but I was just as good a student as him. Probably even better. School came ridiculously easy to me. Even after I started smoking pot—back in the sixth grade—I was still getting straight A's. It wasn't until tenth grade that the drugs started catching up with me.”
OCD recoiled visibly. “You started smoking pot in sixth grade?” he asked.
I nodded with a twisted sense of pride. “Yeah, Greg, when I was eleven. My friend's older brother was a pot dealer, and one night Alan and I slept over our friend's house and his brother turned us on.” I paused, smiling at the utter insanity of having smoked pot at the age of eleven. “Anyway, pot wasn't as strong back then, so I only caught a minor buzz. I didn't end up bouncing off the walls, like I did as an adult.” I let out a tiny chuckle. “Anyway, I continued dabbling with pot for a couple more years, but it never caused me a problem. My parents still thought everything was okay.”
I paused and took a moment to study everyone's expressions, which were at various stages of incredulity. I continued my story: “I think the first time they noticed something was wrong was when I was in eighth grade, when I got a ninety-two on a math test. My mother was devastated. Before that, I'd never gotten anything below a ninety-eight, and even that would cause a raised eyebrow from her. I remember her saying something like, ‘Is everything okay, honey? Were you sick? Was something bothering you?’” I shook my head at the memory. “Of course, I didn't tell her that I'd smoked two fat joints of Colombian Gold before the test and that I was finding it difficult to add two plus two that afternoon.” I shrugged innocently. “But I do remember her being very concerned about that test, as if, somehow, getting a ninety-two would reduce my chances of getting into Harvard Medical School.” I shrugged again. “But that was how my mother was; she was an overachiever who held us to a very high standard.” I lit up. “In fact, just a few years ago, she became the oldest woman in New York State to pass the bar. She practices law on Long Island now, doing everything pro bono.” Ah, a way to redeem myself with the Witch! I thought. “She defends battered women, ones who can't afford a lawyer,” and I looked into the Witch's beady eyes, hoping to win her over with my mother's fabulous deeds.
Alas, the Witch remained impassive, entirely unmoved. She was a tough son of a bitch. I decided to kick it up a notch. “You know, back in the day, Michele, my mother was a successful CPA, when there were very few professional women in the workplace.” I raised my eyebrows and nodded my head quickly, as if to say, “Pretty impressive, eh?” Then I stared at her, waiting for her expression to soften. Still nothing. She just kept staring back at me, shooting daggers. After a few moments, I looked away. She was so poisonous that I now found myself looking to the Bastard for salvation, hoping he would approve of my mother, in spite of the Witch's insolence. I said to the Bastard, “She's a genius, my mother. A truly wonderful lady.”
The Bastard nodded, apparently buying into the righteousness of my mother, although there was also a hint of “Who gives a fuck?” in his body language. But then, with great sincerity, he said, “Well, it sounds like she's a really great lady,” and he nodded his head some more.
“Yeah, she really is great,” I said. “And then there's my father, who I'm sure you're all familiar with.” I smiled ruefully. “He's also a CPA, and a genius in his own right, althoughhhh…” I paused, trying to find the right words to classify my father, Max, whose Stratton nickname was Mad Max, due to his wildly ferocious temper.
Mad Max was a serial chain-smoker, a great advocate of premium Russian vodka, a human ticking time bomb, and a surprisingly dapper dresser. Mad Max played no favorites; he hated everyone equally. “Well,” I said with a mischievous smile, “let's just say that he's not as benevolent a creature as my mother.”
With a hint of a smile, OCD asked, “Is it true he used to smash brokers’ car windows if they parked in his spot?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah,” I said, “and if he was in a bad mood he would go to work on your body and fenders too. Then he'd have your car towed.” I shrugged. “But the brokers still parked in his spot anyway. It became just one more way of proving your loyalty to the firm: Suck up a beating from Mad Max and then you're truly a Strattonite.”
There were a few moments of silence, then the Bastard said, “So when did you first start breaking the law? How old were you?”
I shrugged. “That depends on how you define breaking the law. If you consider the consumption of dangerous recreational drugs breaking the law, then I was a criminal at age eleven. Or if it's cutting school, then I was an archcriminal at age sixteen, because I cut most of the tenth grade.
“But if you want to know the first time I did something that I considered illegal—something that I was doing day in and day out—I would say that it was when I started selling ices on Jones Beach.”
“How old were you?” asked the Bastard.
“Almost seventeen.” I thought for a moment, back to my beach days. “What I would do was walk around the beach with a Styrofoam cooler, selling ices, blanket to blanket. I'd walk around screaming, ‘Italian ices, Chipwiches, Fudgsicles, frozen fruit bars-Milky Ways and Snickers,’ and I'd go on and on, all day. It was the greatest job ever, the absolute greatest! In the morning—like at six a.m.—I would go down to this Greek distributor where all the Good Humor trucks went, in Howard Beach, Queens, and I'd load up on ices and ice cream. Then I'd pack the coolers in dry ice and head to the beach.” I paused, relishing the memory. “And I made a bloody fortune doing it. On a good day, I'd clear more than five hundred dollars. Even on a slow day I'd still clear two-fifty, which was ten times what my friends were making.
“That's where I first met Elliot Loewenstern; we hustled ices together on the beach.” I motioned to my villains, thieves, and scoundrels list. “I'm sure you're all familiar with Elliot. He's on there somewhere, pretty close to the top.” I shrugged, not the least bit concerned about implicating Elliot Loewenstern. After all, I knew that Elliot, whose nickname was the Penguin—due to his long, thin nose, his compact potbelly, and his slightly bowed legs, which caused him to waddle around like a migrating penguin-would cooperate if he were facing anything more than a few hours in jail. In fact, I'd seen him crack under police questioning when the stakes were considerably lower. It was during our ice-hustling days, and he was facing only a fifty-dollar fine for vending without a license. But rather than paying the fine and keeping his mouth shut, he ratted out every other vendor on the beach, including me. So, yes: If OCD and the Bastard secured an indictment against the Penguin, he would be singing on Court Street with the relish of Celine Dion.
I was about to continue with my tale, when the Bastard said, “I find it a bit odd that after everything you've done you still consider selling ices breaking the law.” He shrugged his bastardly shoulders. “Most people would consider it an honest way for a kid to make a buck.”
Interesting, I thought. The Bastard had raised a very profound issue—namely, what constitutes breaking the law? Back in the day, virtually everyone I knew (both peers and adults alike) had considered my ices-hustling to be completely righteous. In fact, I'd received accolades from one and all. Yet, the simple fact was that it was illegal, because I was vending without a license.
But was it really illegal? Weren't some laws not really meant to be enforced? After all, we were just trying to make an honest buck, weren't we? In fact, we were enhancing the beachgoing experience for thousands of New Yorkers, who otherwise would have had to walk all the way up to the boardwalk (which was full of splinters) and wait in line at the concession stand, which was manned by a grim-faced adolescent who probably spit on their food the moment they turned their backs. So one could definitely make the case that Elliot and I had been doing “good,” despite the fact that, technically speaking, we were breaking the law.
“Well, the short answer,” I said to the Bastard, “is that we were breaking the law. We were vending without a license, which, for better or worse, is a Class B misdemeanor in New York State. And to take it one step further, we were also guilty of income-tax evasion, because we were making twenty grand a summer and not declaring a dime of it. And to take it even further, when I turned eighteen, I started selling puka-shell necklaces as a side item. I figured, hey, as long as I'm walking around the beach selling ices, why not take advantage of the underserved costume-jewelry market?” I shrugged a capitalist's shrug. “So I went down to the jewelry exchange in Manhattan's Chelsea district and bought a couple of thousand puka necklaces and then hired junior high school kids to walk around the beach with them. I had three kids working for me, and they charged four dollars a necklace. Meanwhile, my cost was only fifty cents apiece, so even after I paid the kids fifty bucks a day, I was still netting two hundred for myself. And that was on top of my ices money!
“But, of course, I hadn't taken out workman's comp, nor was I taking out taxes for them. Not to mention the fact that I had them vending without a license. So now it wasn't only me who was breaking the law, but I was corrupting a bunch of innocent fourteen-year-olds as well.
“I even got my mother into the act. I had her waking up at five a.m. to butter bagels, which I sold between the hours of nine and eleven, before the sun was high enough to stimulate ices demand. And then there were all the sanitary laws we were violating by preparing food in an uninspected plant, although my mother did keep a very clean household, and she was kosher. So I don't think anyone ever got sick.
“But, hey, it was all in the name of good old-fashioned capitalism, so I wasn't really breaking the law, was I? It was all very harmless, all very commendable.” I looked at the Bastard and smiled. “Like you said, Joel, it was a very honest way for a kid to make a buck.” I paused, letting my words sink in. “Anyway, I could go on and on here, but I think you get the point: Everyone, including my own law-abiding parents, thought selling ices was the greatest thing on earth. The act of a budding entrepreneur!
“But is there really any such a thing as a righteous crime? When did I cross the line with the ices? In the very beginning, when I chose to vend without a license? Or was it when I recruited the junior high school kids? Or was it with my mother? Or choosing not to pay taxes…”
I took a deep breath and said, “Understand: You don't start out on the dark side of the force, unless, of course, you're a sociopath, which I hope you all know I'm not.” Everyone nodded. In a dead-serious tone, I said, “The problem is that you become desensitized to things; you cross over the line a tiny bit and nothing bad happens, so you figure it's okay to step over again, except this time you step a bit further. It's human nature to do that; whether you're an action junkie or adrenaline junkie, or even if you're not a junkie at all, and you're simply dipping your foot into a piping hot bathtub. At first you can't keep your toe in, because the water's too hot. And then, a minute later, your whole body is submerged, and the water feels just fine.
“When I went off to American University, all these things were reinforced. I started dating a girl from a very wealthy family, whose father was in the bookbinding business. His name was David Russell, and he was worth millions. Not surprisingly, he thought what I was doing on the beach was the greatest thing ever. In fact, one day he had this big party at his house, and he paraded me around, saying, ‘This is the kid I was telling you about!’ Then he made me tell everyone the story of how I would go down to the Greek distributor at six o'clock in the morning and load up coolers full of Italian ices and then walk around the beach hawking my ices from blanket to blanket, running from the cops when they chased after me for vending without a license. And, of course, every last one of his guests thought it was the best thing they ever heard. They even made a toast to me. ‘Here's to the millionaire of tomorrow!’ they all said.”
I smiled at the memory. “I was only a junior in college back then, but I knew they were right. I knew that I'd be rich one day, and so did all my friends. Even when I worked at the beach, I always made twice as much as any other vendor. And I'm not even talking about the buttered bagels or the puka-shell necklaces. I just worked longer and harder than anyone else—even Elliot, who was a hard worker in his own right. But at the end of the day, when Elliot and I would sit down, I'd always outgrossed him by fifty percent.”
I paused to catch my breath, and I took a moment to gauge the temperature of my captors. What were they thinking? I wondered. Could they possibly relate to someone like me? I was a breed apart from them. In the Witch's case, I was a species apart. Either way, they all looked dumbfounded. They were just staring at me, as if I had a screw loose or something.
I plunged forward into my first years of adulthood. “Anyway, after I graduated from college, I decided to go to dental school, because I wanted to make lots of money. It's funny how ridiculous that seems now—that I thought dentistry would be a path to wealth—but I guess all that malarkey my mother had whispered in my ear when I was growing up had had an impact on me.” I shrugged. “In fact, I thought my only other option was to go to medical school, but becoming a doctor seemed like an insanely long haul. Between internship, residency, fellowship, it just seemed too far out of reach. And then I overslept for the MCATs, which pretty much sealed the deal. I mean, how was I supposed to tell my mother that I'd overslept for a test that she'd been waiting for the results from since I'd emerged from her womb? She would've been heartbroken!
“So I figured, as a good son, it was my obligation to lie to her, and I told her that I'd decided not to take the MCATs because being a doctor wasn't for me. I told her that dentistry was my calling.” I shook my head slowly, amazed at how I sealed my fate all those years back. “Anyway, we're now at the part of the story where the true insanity begins: my first day of dental school.” I smiled cynically. “You ever hear that old expression about all roads leading to Rome?”
Everyone nodded.
“Right—well, in my case, all roads led to Stratton, and I stepped onto the road on day one, which was orientation. We were sitting in the school's auditorium, a hundred and ten dental students, waiting to hear the first words of wisdom from the dean of the school. I remember this like it was yesterday. I was looking around the auditorium, trying to size up my competition, trying to figure out if everyone was as money-hungry as I was or if some of them were just there for the true love of dentistry, like to serve their fellow man or something.” I shook my head, as if my last few words defied logic.
“The room was packed—about half men, half women. The dean was standing up front, behind a cheap wooden podium. He looked like a decent-enough guy, in his mid-fifties and reasonably well dressed. He had a full head of gray hair that made him look successful, respectable, and very dental, at least to my way of thinking. But he did have this sort of grim expression on his face, like he could've been moonlighting as a warden in a state penitentiary.” Like you, Joel, you mangy bastard! “But, in spite of that, he still looked like a basically okay guy. So when he grabbed the mike off the podium, I leaned forward in my seat to listen.
“In a surprisingly deep voice, he said, ‘I want to welcome everyone to the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. You all deserve to be very proud of yourselves today. You've been accepted into one of the finest dental programs in the country.’ And he paused, letting his words hang in the air. So far, so good, I thought. Then he said, ‘What you're going to learn over the next four years will assure you an esteemed place in society, as well as a life of reasonable comfort. So, please, give yourselves a warm round of applause, everyone. You sure as hell deserve it. Welcome, everyone! Welcome!’ and he lifted his mike in the air and everyone started clapping, right on cue.
“Everyone except me, that is. I was devastated. In fact, I knew it right then that I'd made a huge mistake.” I rolled my neck, trying not to let the memory upset me. “It was the way he'd used the word reasonable. It was a f**king hedge word, for Chrissake! That bastard knew—he f**king knew—that the golden age of dentistry was over, so he couldn't bring himself to say that we'd have absolute comfort. Instead, he'd hedged and said reasonable comfort, which is an entirely different thing.
“Yet, to my utter shock, when I looked around the room, no one else seemed worried. Everyone else was fine and dandy; they were all clapping their hands merrily—la-de-fuck-in-da!—and they all had these expectant looks on their faces. The Dentists of Tomorrow! I'll never forget it, or at least I'll never forget the irony of it, because while they were busy clapping, I was on the verge of slitting my wrists.” I paused and let out a deep sigh. With a hint of sadness in my tone, I said, “The truth is that I knew I'd made a mistake long before that. I knew it even as a kid.
“I mean, who was I kidding? I didn't have the patience to go through that much schooling!” I shook my head in resignation. “I was born with only half the equation: I was smart as a whip and had the gift of gab, but I lacked patience. I wanted to get rich quick; I wanted everything now. That was my downfall. And after making so much money on the beach all those summers, I had the taste of blood on my lips. I was like an accident waiting to happen. Like a high-performance race car zooming down the highway at two hundred miles an hour: Either I'd win the race or I'd crash and burn like the space shuttle. It could've gone either way.”