by Yari Stern
“So what’s this about a straight business?”
Yari had agreed to meet Cherry Hill Fats after the big man heard about the new plans from Ed.
Yari looked around the home set in the New Jersey suburbs. It was thick with carpet and rich in dark wood; polished brass lamps and heavy velvet drapes that over-whelmed the living room. Garish marble statues of Greek origin adorned the front entrance and filled the gap between bay windows.
Something caught his eye: three books on the coffee table: “Dante’s Inferno,” “Patton,” and “The King James Bible.”
He thought of asking Sylvan about the books, but decided against it.
“I got wiped out in the riots. They burned the warehouse where I had all the merchandise stored. There’s nothing else left to do but to try the used car business I told you about.”
“So you think the solution is going legit?” Sylvan motioned for Yari to sit down on the white leather sofa but warily eyed his dungarees, like he was debating what might rub off onto the furniture. “It ain’t. Ya gotta work smart, not hard. It’s the only way you can make it.”
“Hard work never killed anyone.”
“Yeah? Do you know who said that?” Sylvan asked, then abruptly answered in a long drawn out sneer of a voice, “Some dead guy. Listen, the straight world is a nightmare worse than anything you can imagine.
“I wasn’t always on this side. I had a big linen place on City Line Avenue. It took me five years to build it up. I worked sixteen-hour days; sometimes even slept there.”
“I never heard that from Ed. What happened?”
“My landlord got jealous. He saw the business I was doing and started foaming at the mouth. When my lease came up for renewal, he raised the rent from $2,000 to $10,000 a month.”
“Was that legal?”
“I had a verbal agreement with him, no more than a twenty-five percent increase for the second five years. But when I brought that up he said, ‘I don’t remember.’”
“And that was it?”
“Yeah. I was out and his nephew was in. There wasn’t a location big enough or visible enough on City Line within three miles. My customers were too lazy to drive more than five minutes out of their way.”
“Was that your last straight venture?” Yari moved closer to the edge of the sofa, anxious to learn the events that contributed to Sylvan’s destiny.
“My dad was dying of emphysema. He had no coverage and I needed money fast. Any thought I had of starting again was gone.”
As they spoke, numerous phone calls and individuals interrupted their conversation. Huge amounts of money exchanged hands between Sylvan and his henchmen, funds dispensed by a god to his disciples. Every ceremony proceeded deliberately, time for humility to seep into the pores of each recipient. Deals were cut, lives decided; power was delegated by Cherry Hill Fats to his designates. Nothing was covert. It was as if orchestrated by a consummate maestro for a novice fourth-string violin player.
I’m a fuckin’ idiot for sitting here and exposing myself to this, Yari concluded. Now he’ll never let me out of his grip, at least not while I’m alive.
Yari flailed for a defense, like a swimmer going against the tide. “It can’t be like that all the time, with everyone,” he insisted, trying to rally the forces of right his mother had inspired. “There’s laws to protect people from that kind of action.”
“The law is what a few men say it is at any given moment,” Sylvan explained. “When the politicians determine there needs to be a change, they get the newspapers and TV to play on people’s emotions. Then public opinion gets all revved up and goes along with the new program.”
Sylvan adjusted his ponderous frame - tugging at sticky pant legs, pulling on a stubborn jacket - and continued. “Let me tell you how it really is. You always hear that an act is legal or illegal, moral or immoral. You think they’re set in stone?” Sylvan didn’t wait for an answer. “They’re not. Big business has the government and the law on their side. They’re able to get statutes passed or interpreted as they need, to gain support for any new routine that works better for them.”
“They can’t just do whatever they want; someone or some group will always be willing to confront them.” Yari couldn’t help but espouse the logic he heard so eloquently advocated at Drexel.
“But when they’re insulated by secretaries and closeted behind locked doors on the sixtieth floor, presiding over other people’s lives from a thousand miles away, the most anyone can do to threaten them is to place a foul-mouthed phone call, write a nasty letter, or file a lawsuit. If that happens, they get an attorney who files a wheelbarrow full of interrogatories in a court that won’t even look at it for a couple years. Civil suits and liens become tissue to blow their noses with.
“All those corporate clowns, knowing that the legal system is a piece of clay to be manipulated by the most creative hands, ream, steam, and dry clean everyone beneath them economically, or different from them socially. They haven’t even broken the law because the politicians and legislators they support interpret the laws in their favor. Plus it’s all civil action, which gets buried or settled before trial because it takes so long to get there and costs so much that any award to the plaintiffs would be eaten up by the legal expenses.”
The doorbell rang.
Sylvan walked over and opened it. Two massive men stood at the entrance, blocking out almost all of the sunlight. One of the men leaned in and whispered in Sylvan’s ear. Sylvan’s face turned crimson red. “Cut off his fuckin’ arms and legs and send them to his parents,” he screamed. “Maybe they’ll pay the debt.”
He slammed the door shut and returned to the conversation with Yari without skipping a beat. “So, a straight-shooter walks into that playground believing that if he gives his loyalty to the government and dedication to his employer, he’ll be rewarded for his contributions.
“Instead, they suck him dry like a Transylvanian virgin. The government keeps taxing wage earners more to pay for its favorite programs, and then grants additional loop-holes as a reward to big contributors, while businesses squeeze more out of the little guy for less compensation.” Sylvan got up, brought two Seven-ups over, and sat back down.
“They take away his self-confidence, and his ability to ever get ahead, and turn him into a junkie who’s totally dependent. But he hangs in there because he believes in the system and has three kids in college and a mortgage that hangs over him like the sword of Damocles.
“Finally, when he turns fifty, the number crunchers says he’ll take every sick day and start thinking more about his family than the job. They make a twenty-six-year-old kid his boss who tortures him till he quits; or they give him an office in a closet with no windows and have him count rubber bands until he loses his fuckin’ mind.”
Yari felt himself being drawn in, even while searching along the way for flaws in Sylvan’s logic, errors in correlation. He found none.
“The pricks sit in board rooms,” Sylvan went on, “collaborating with their legislative buddies to enact tougher laws against criminals like us who treat people with respect and give them their due, in order to throw suspicion and the spotlight off themselves, while they steal more money in one year than we can make in a lifetime. Ethics and contracts become toilet paper for them to use in the executive washrooms.
“There’s your morality, legality, and the difference between us and so-called legit society,” Sylvan said, pointing at Yari as if it were a warning.
“I’ll remember, Sylvan. But I’ve got to go, or I’ll be late for class,” Yari said, as he walked to the front door. He opened it himself when Sylvan didn’t take the hint.
Sylvan got up and stopped Yari at the door. “You try your little venture,” Sylvan said as he shooed Yari down the driveway. He then stepped onto the porch and called out as Yari walked toward his car, “but just remember, I’m you’re partner, in every fuckin’ thing you do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Drexel University. Sociol
ogy class. Phila. Pa.
“Let’s start a lively discussion, shall we?” Professor Williams suggested. “How do you respond to the following…’People say that poor folks are lazy or unintelligent, that they are somehow deserving of their poverty. However, if you begin to look at the sociological literature on poverty, a more complex picture emerges. Poverty and unemployment are part and parcel of our economic order. Without them, capitalism would cease to function effectively, and in order to continue to function, the system itself must produce poverty and an army of underemployed or unemployed people’.”
A young woman raised her hand and offered, “Charles S. Weinblatt said, ‘Only when we learn to value the differences among us can we achieve the true spirit of humanity.’”
Very good, Michel. Now, how would you respond to Peter Berger who said, ‘We see the puppets dancing on their miniature stage, moving up and down as the strings pull them around, following the prescribed course of their various little parts. We learn to understand the logic of this theater and we find ourselves in its motions. We locate ourselves in society and thus recognize our own position as we hang from its subtle strings. For a moment we see ourselves as puppets indeed. But then we grasp a decisive difference between the puppet theater and our own drama. Unlike the puppets, we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first step toward freedom. And in this same act we find the conclusive justification of sociology as a humanistic discipline’?”
A male student raised his hand and was recognized. “Neil Postman said, ‘Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death’.”
There was a lull of response in the room. The professor waited, then said, “Mr. Stern, we have not heard from you today. That is out of character. Do you have more vital matters on your mind…or are we just boring you?”
“Erin McCarthy said, ‘I am successful because of my brains and my guts, put together. I don't need some fancy-ass degree from a bunch of sweater-vest-wearing pricks who haven't gotten laid since Truman was president. Do you know who studies sociology? People who would rather observe life than live it’.”
Murmurs arose from the class. Faces wondered how the professor would respond.
Professor Williams smiled and said, “Prison relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism. Being closer to that inevitability than any of us here, do you find that to be true?”
“Havelock Ellis said, ‘Every society has the criminals that it deserves’,” Yari responded.
“Then we should be grateful for your efforts?”
“Most definitely. Noam Chomsky said, ‘The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
“All social interactions require some loss of freedom,” the professor countered.
“In today's society conformity is more of a necessity than an option’,” Yari offered. “In 1938, Jung said, ‘Any large company composed of wholly admirable persons has the morality and intelligence of an unwieldy, stupid, and violent animal. The bigger the organization, the more unavoidable is its immorality and blind stupidity. Each of these systems promotes itself by pointing out the moral failings of the other, but these moral failings are actually failings brought about by people acting within the context of large organizations’.”
“Then fix it!” the professor insisted. “What is needed is to create a structure for human beings that provides for the organized group the same capacity and propensity for moral behavior that is possessed by individuals.”
“Steven Pressfield said, ‘Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it’,” Yari countered.
“We are a society of laws and structure so that none are left behind, Mr. Stern. Your lack of respect for those institutions shows a lack of respect for your fellow man.”
Yari nodded, as if to agree with the professor, but then said, “Myles Horton suggested that, ‘When people criticize me for not having any respect for existing structures and institutions, I protest. I say I give institutions and structures and traditions all the respect that I think they deserve. That's usually mighty little. There are things that I do respect, but they have to earn that respect. They have to earn it by serving people. They don't earn it just by age or legality or tradition’.”
“A great man is different from an eminent one in that he is ready to be the servant of the society,” the professor argued.
“And who is it that decides what is great or eminent?” Yari asked.
“The answer lies in the study of sociology,” Professor Williams replied.
“Richard Russo said, ‘Even at its most perceptive, sociology deals in abstractions’,” Yari challenged.
“Sociology is essential for a society to function. Even if it limits the selfish thoughts and actions of some,” the professor retaliated.
“Charles Horton Cooley said, ‘Unless a capacity for thinking is accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior mind exists in torture’,” Yari argued.
“Sociology insures continuity. There is strength in the status quo,” the professor rebutted.
“Niccolò Machiavelli said, ‘I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it’.”
That response brought clapping from the other member s of the class.
“And so you condone doing whatever pleases you…at the expense of society and its institutions?”
“Robert A. Heinlein said, “I used to think I was serving humanity…and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases myself.”
“Your distain for laws is risky on a personal basis and dangerous on a social basis,” the professor warned.
“Tom Robbins said, “Laws are for the protection of the people. It's unfortunate that there are no statistics on the number of lives that are clobbered yearly as a result of laws: outmoded laws; laws that found their way onto the books as a result of ignorance, hysteria or political haymaking; anti-life laws; biased laws; laws that pretend that reality is fixed and nature is definable; laws that deny people the right to refuse protection. A survey such as that could keep a dozen dull sociologists out of mischief for months.”
“I hope going against the grain of humanity and defying social norms does not come back to haunt you, Mr. Stern.”
“Sulak Sivaraksa said, “The use of market values and technology as a social barometer has devalued the worth of individuals, rendered irrelevant the quality of their lives, and stunted their creativity’,” Yari quoted.
“Yes, well, you may be wise to study Raegan Butcher who said, Being in prison for seven years is like being in an army that never drilled, never deployed and only fights itself.”
“Touché,” Yari replied.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Ardmore, Pa.
Yari stopped home to change for his next meeting. Going to meet the head of a motorcycle gang in Chinos and a white shirt was not going to cut it. He needed to dress grunge and put on a look that said, “I don’t give a fuck if you are bigger and badder. I’ve got nothing to lose, so do what you gotta do.”
He pulled up in his Ford Thunderbird convertible and parked next to his Dodge Polara station wagon. When he got out he saw a note stuck under one of th
e windshield wipers.
He knew it wasn’t an invitation to the Noble Prize ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. He carefully peeled the note away form the windshield and read it.
“Come to the club tomorrow night at 11:00 p.m. If you miss the appointment, we’ll chop you up and use your limbs as bait for the fishermen at Sheeps Head Bay Carlo.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Nolan’s Biker Bar. Chester. Pa
Yari swung his station wagon into an empty spot close to the front door of the bar. There he was met by a gnarly-looking biker with broken yellow teeth, scars on his forehead and cheek, a Bowie knife sticking out of his belt and a Colt .45 in his side pocket.
He put an arm out like a railroad trestle. “You got business here, boy?”
“Why don’t you go in there and tell Zee that you’re breaking the balls of the guy who’s bringing the gang brand new machine guns?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
A minute later, a very big man with a very big gut, sporting tattoos up and down his arms and around his neck, came out on the porch of the bar. He had long, scraggly hair, a cigarette tucked in his ear and one dangling from his lips. His “colors” said, “Live free or die.” Sons of Insurrection MC: Phila. Chapter.”
“Well, it’s the little kid with the big guns. Whatsha got, Jeff?”
“How about eight M1 carbine, Zee; used by the South Vietnamese.”
“Not good enough for Americans. I don’t want them.”
“One M 21 Sniper Weapon System.”
“Better.”
“M16.”
“Unreliable due to jamming; replaced by the M16A1.”
“I’ve got four of the newer model.”
“Good. What else?”
“Heckler & Koch G3; used by Navy SEALs.”