do you know where your children are?

i was a small time criminal in my youth. the stout middleman smiling as you passed the goods off and willing to fill in the awkward silence before a delivery with relevant chit chat. there is a swell of pride in my chest when i think about how easy it is for me to engage even the dodgiest of scamps in conversations. glad to say that it's served me well over the years and on into my more domesticated corporate incarnation.
"that's a resume builder," Steak always said. "it'll come in handy beyond talking a cop out of arresting you."

i still get the willies when i hear the metallic whir and click of handcuffs being secured. funnier still to watch me induce a panic attack in a back seat of a car if my legs are too cramped. i once hopped into a cab in the morning going to work and immediately started sweating. after the third pull on an already loosened collar the cabbie said i looked about three shades closer to death than when i got into the cab. this is a heavy-handed statement since i'm so bloody pale.
"I just don't know... i just feel sick all of a sudden you know?"
his voice crackled with smokers cough and chuckled. "you been in trouble before?"
Indignant scoff. "Well, HARDLY anything of note."
"this is an old cop car from an auction. the seats' welded back and yer choking on your own breath trying to get comfortable. and i ask you again, ya been in trouble with the law before?!"
my legs were already propped up on the back seat and stretched out. i patted my forehead with a kleenex and willed my red face into being tame.
"god bless the young offenders act that's all i gotta say."

if i was a timid criminal, my friend Maggie was a bold bitch. while i was jostling change in my pockets waiting for a trade off in a parking lot, she was driving her fathers lexus to toronto to do much more sinister dealings.
Sweetie Maggie-pie was immersed in rich girl fixins, but her rebellion laid in the company she kept. hard living blue collar types wafted around her circle of friends and we were never surprised when a new hard as fuck boyfriend clomped over to shake some faggot hands. even those guys were laughing by the time i was done with them. sure i drink tea with a pinkie raised, but i'm more than competent in the arena of butch boy talk.

the hardest motherfucker of them all was Huu... who won extra points from me having "Phuoc Huu" tattooed across his shoulders. Originally i thought it was pun on "fuck you" but it turns out it actually means something along the lines of "one who deserves to be lucky". who knew? regardless he talked even less than Maggie - if that was possible - but once he got rolling he never shut up.

they waltzed in one night after a trek down to visit some of his relatives in toronto and asked me to come bring some bags in. "great, it's a fucking dead body and i'll have to call my lawyer. i'm going to put his kids through university and grad school. ugh."

The bags were way too light though... i thought they were taking the piss out of me when Huu opened one up for me to take a peek. weed. garbage bags filled to the tits with weed.

"wow." i signed wow for Maggie to join in on my surprise.
"i know... my cousin [it was always a fucking cousin... how many can a man have?!] got me a good deal on this."
"So you drove in a Lexus from Toronto to here with 3 garbage bags full of weed. wow."
"it's great stuff too!"

I assumed that the sensation i was feeling was akin to a stroke. i could sit in a bathtub full of this stuff in one bag. [cue herb alpert music with me lolling around in this like a dog on a dead fish]

I signed "wow" again and shook my head. "Well let's move it in before the neighbors think that it's a body."

Huu guffawed loudly and smacked me on the back. "Body! give me a break. I wouldn't bring you a corpse. you don't even have a shovel here do you?"
"No. Definitely no shovel." Note to self: hide shovel in garage.

i turned out just fine. JUST FINE thank you very much. There's nothing to worry about, but you can get a laugh watching me fidget when a cop is walking past me. that's my gift to you.