Two Nights Ago at Vic's

From Sokushinbutsu

I always sleep with a window cracked. I like the fresh air.

If I'm well, I enjoy the sensation of cold on my skin when I get into bed. I wrap the comforter around me and curl up and become warm and then drift off to sleep.

I could hear people outside my house in the dry grass of the back yard. I think they were trying to be quiet. They weren't talking to each other.

I got up and turned on a light and went to the back door. There were four uniformed police men out in the yard.

I turned on the outside light over the door and they all kinda broke out of their stalking and stood up.

I opened the back door.

I said, "Are you guys here to carry out a warrant?"

One of ‘em said, yes. Another one was on the radio calling off the goons headed to my front door with a big metal door banger.

They brought it in when I opened the front door for them a minute later.

I said, "If you guys come in I can get some shoes on for the ride downtown. Let's do this civilized. I'll come with yous, I just gotta put some shoes on. You all can come on in."

I held the front door open for them and they filed past me quietly. They were deflated.

Before I was taken away there were two guys in the front room with their battering ram reading magazines on the couches and four guys in the kitchen with me while I put on a pair of black sneakers.

Two of them were going through the cupboards, opening jars and boxes and looking inside. The other two were just watching me put on my shoes.

This is out of order, but I have to say, about discovering cocaine in a period of your life wherein you have the time, money and energy to enjoy cocaine on a regular basis. I respectfully suggest against it. It ain't gonna kill you, but it helps.

When I traded, it was uncommon, but certainly conceivable that the police would show up. Someone with whom you were competing for clientele or some passing controlling interest would send in the dogs. A partner would be arrested, or agents would raid or shut down your office or a building inspection would make part of your infrastructure inoperable.

It's like inter-office hazing.

Futures trading is volatile. People change investment strategies and change brokers. It's all the same pool of money and the brokers are circling it and swimming through it like sharks through a shoal of jack tuna. If another shark wants the food in your mouth, anything can happen.

Dirty tricks are normal. It's money.

This arresting force waiting for me to get shoed up had a gamer swatting feel to it.

I wasn’t dragging my feet, but the sheer amount of attention being paid me made time telescope. The seconds it took for me to put on and tie my second black sneaker felt almost eternal.

As I walked out to a squad car that had been parked, lights flashing since I had let the officers into my house, I noticed the windows in all my neighbors’ homes lit. The four houses across Bjaysville Lane from mine were awake and curious.

There were human shapes in those windows. This was going to take some explaining.

They didn't cuff me.

A thing to note is that I realize I can be an unpleasant piece of shit to be around.

There are situations when you try your best to be a good guy. When there’s a bunch of guys with guns around, you try your best. Even if it’s cops.

When you’re meeting someone you don’t know, you try your best to seem like a genuinely nice guy. There are things about everyone that no one should know and a way to avoid them becoming an issue is to just be nice.

You don’t have to be a nice person to know how to be nice. There are people who don't know how. I may have been raised by people who don’t. The point is, even the fakest cordiality is a better play than daggers. If you have relationships to maintain or situations to navigate, cordiality rules.

Down at the station, I kindly answered all of the questions that were asked of me. The answer to most of them was legitimately, “I don’t know.” which didn’t play so well.

The truth hurts if you walk in with a plan and no facts. I didn't mention this to the officers, but it seemed apparent enough.