FICTION: THE CONFESSION

I am not your friend. You can shut up with the moralizing. You’re here to listen, not to comment. You can agree to that or get out, I’m not paying you a dime more... okay?

Now, let’s get down to it. Any objections? No? Okay.

I grew up in Queens and that’s why I am who I am and I don’t care what lily-livered liberal says or his or her opposite number among the red-necked, bow tie fraternity!

I grew in that fifteen year school of how to. How to screw him for a dollar while he’s figuring out how to screw you. How to knife him before he gets his paws anywhere near his. And all else in between. This was a school of human relations, get me? I studied hard and I learned 90% of what I know and what kept me alive until now.

I killed my first human being at twelve Mr Normal. I gutted that bastard. Was it justice? No. All he’d done was profane the name of my mother. Should he have died for that? No. But did I feel guilty for snuffing that bastard? Again no.

My father was a good teacher. The welts on my back and ass taught me plenty. Once again, I wouldn’t be me without those loving lacerations. I owe that mongrel ape a lot.

If you didn’t lie, cheat and steal growing up then and there you were an outsider, and there were a few, stick kids and sick kids with eyeglasses and big noses who you never saw on the street. They knew what they’d get down there, they’d get what alien progeny like that deserve, bloody faces and busted rib changes. Not for any good reason... we didn’t need any reason, except they were not us. Those not one of us were aliens, you understand. They needed taught that they were not welcome and to not think they were better than us. No intellectuals need apply, understand?

So... my skills served me well as I grew up and grew strong. We tolerated nothing that was dishonest among us, anyone caught cheating, or worse still, snitching in our team was taught a highly appropriate lesson they’d never forget. I was tight with the rest of the team, we formed a squad that could not be broken. It was us against anyone that wasn’t like us.

Naturally we gravitated toward the Mob... because they were like us, they had the same code, the same ethos, the same unrelenting system of justice. They were reliable, predictable and you knew the rules. I began to make big money. Protection was the game at first, then the lottery and a little import-export. Of course things had changed by the time the Sixties came around, the lure of large scale income via drugs was just too tempting. Prostitution had been taken up a decade before but became really big business in the Sixties. I’d a family by that time nearing their twenties and had moved uptown. They are partly why you’re here now.

Money laundering became the big thing. I was earning more than I could safely hide you know? It had to be diverted and we found a way. Any business losing money was taken over. The more money it lost and kept losing the better. Those gaining from those losses compensated us and ultimately we’d torch the business one way or another and bank the insurance, again splitting the proceeds laundering more money along the way to all involved.

There was almost no one we couldn’t reach, no one without a price or a fear factor which couldn’t be leveraged. The number of Scorpios in the NYC police force was always less than a handful and they would soon find themselves included out, offered their price or scared into docility and silence.

I was moving up and everyone around me, legally criminal or illegally criminal was helping me. It was win, win, win all the way.

Now and then problems would arise with politicians. It was always the ones that didn’t know the game, who suffered from the illusion that the myth-telling about America was real, that we were all honestly trying to do good. They were soon disabused of this idiocy and if not they had to be taught different by other, less palatable means than simple, ordinary day to day experience. Slowly we rid ourselves of these do-gooders and used our income streams to find ways to reinforce the very myths we destroyed in others to get ourselves elected.

Property, prostitution, narcotics and gambling were meanwhile paying better than ever. During the Eighties and Nineties our select group of friends was doing just great. Greed was good and this ethos was now establishment...because by now we WERE the establishment. A tipping point was reached in the mid Eighties, early Nineties whereby the fix was well and truly in. We had the best of all worlds. The illicit, so called, and the kosher. We were making fortunes from both.

By this time our reach was at every level. We had people high in politics, in the defense industry, so called and in intelligence. The Military Industrial Complex was the new money spinner and we invested heavily. War was incredibly good for business. And did anyone really care how many gooks, wogs, dagos, nips, wops or paddies we saw off? It was all grist to the mill son, and all it needed was the right message at the right time and time after time.

Our CIA people and those in popular media came up trumps time after time. It was a never ending cycle of money-making made in heaven. And yes, we went to church regularly. The fix was in so tight because we had become the establishment.

So when we gained the presidency itself perfection arrived. The cycle functioned from top to bottom with plenty of insurance laid in and multiple protection points at every level. He provided the talking points that set the cat among the pigeons time after time. All the hysterics created just the kind of distraction we needed to cover any areas on the fringes, you understand? Gaslighting plus greed set incredible new possibilities in motion. Now that our special behaviors had reached the top they would cascade back down again and income flows then became wholly outrageous.

So our beloved Vegas ethos spread everywhere. The tipping point had been reached. The danger of us being looked at askew had altogether ended. The game had been upended in our favor and we ruled. The ethos of the powerful was our ethos and there would be no going back. Those mewling liberals were now an obvious minority and we let rip at them with impunity.

So son, it was all ours. From top to bottom. Save for those who hadn’t grasped this reality yet.

And then this came. This obscenity. This f**king virus. And it caught me in its stinking grip.

Of course it’s not negative for all, many of our boys have hit paydirt once again, many of them because of this thing... as if any of them needed more income. Now they will begin the final program. Ever more money from machines. The artificial intelligence revolution will be the ultimate pay dirt.

We never did like most humans as you’ll remember. Only our team members and the ethos that keeps us tight. The weak, the marks, the clients and all the myriad straight-laced slaves were objects of derision to us.

But for some of us, a power out of our control has arrived. One we couldn’t bribe, beat or extinguish by any means.

My kids know nothing of this son. If they’d grown up in Queens like me they would. But no, they believe many of the myths that get broadcast constantly, all that programming... from kindergarten on up.

So this is for them. This is my final confession... and if I’m honest the only truthful one. It’s partial son, it would take another lifetime to tell it all. But these are my truths.

I did what came naturally Father. I never did anything that I couldn’t swear was the right thing to do in the circumstances. I regret nothing and I did it all for them... all that is that didn’t give me kicks personally along the way.

So, I know the drill Father. I will say the words I must and you will say the words I am paying you for.

This is not all I can remember but we don’t have time. I not sorry for these or all my other so-called sins.

But...

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.

Your penance will be to look deep into your heart and find there a reason to donate more than one thousand times the amount you gave to me, to the Mother Church.

Now repeat after me.

“My God,
I am sorry for my sins with all my heart.
In choosing to do wrong
and failing to do good,
I have sinned against you
whom I should love above all things.
I firmly intend, with your help,
to do penance,
to sin no more,
and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.
Our Savior Jesus Christ
suffered and died for us.
In his name, my God, have mercy.”

Now make the Sign of the Cross and say Amen.

Okay Father, we’re done. Send in the kids on your way out, will you?