Fraud 101
There's this school. Institution. Academy, whatever you want to call it. Government funded. Tuition-free. The classes aren't like other schools though, not at all. Pretty Co-eds don't bound out of bed in the morning to skip on over to psych class or some biology lab. There aren't even morning classes to begin with. Middle of the night tutorials, yeah all the time but mornings are for sleeping off the hangover. Because the teachers won't be caught dead out of bed before noon either. Sounds good right?
I thought so.
I thought I had caught a lucky break when the judge told me about this place. I was just another punk kid on the road to nowhere. Nowhere fast. That is, until I was given this once in a lifetime opportunity. Government funded no less. My parents were overjoyed. Their flunk out, irresponsible, delinquent son was getting a second chance. I was perfect. And I had never been perfect for anything besides the new crop of weed my girlfriend's uncle was growing in his walk in closet. How could I say no when I was perfect?
I was shipped off the next day in one of those white prison busses they use to take criminals to the penitentiary. I wasn't impressed. I was a college kid now! I didn't deserve to be treated like some kind of third-rate citizen. I might have done some breaking and entering in the past but that was all over now.
The bus driver was packing heat. And the kid in front of me was hand cuffed to the seat. I wondered if I was in some sort of danger. I started to stand up but the beefy guard from the back of the bus clamped a massive hand on my shoulder and lowered me with his upper body strength. I resisted out of habit, out of spite maybe but I'll admit it, I'm scrawny, and that guard could have crushed me without even breaking a sweat.
Other kids were picked up, escorted to the bus and instructed not to talk. Ordered
to behave. So it looked like I was headed to some kind of kindergarten boot camp. I wondered if there would be naptime and an afternoon snack of baby carrots and chocolate milk.
The bus lumbered down dirt roads and through woods that probably had bodies buried in them until coming to a sputtering stop in from of a set of huge wrought iron gates. Great. I had been tricked. I was going to the pen after all. I heard other "students" mumbling under their breath the same things that I was thinking. I was like a toddler bribed to go to the dentist with a bright sugary lollipop. The parentals were going to pay for this. An enormous man resembling Frankenstein mounted the bus steps and stood before us. The Warden, his nametag introduced him as. Original.
"Welcome to the Maple Lane Preparation Center," he bellowed. Not a very prisony title. Not to worry though, a name is only a name.
"This will be your home until we decide you are ready to graduate." So it was a school? What was going on?
"Here we teach you the essentials of common crime." Silence. "How to pick a lock, how to pickpocket, how to shoplift. Those are just some of the beginning classes. If you are lucky you will make it to the bank robbery and identity theft seminars before you are released." The Warden smiled. It was like seeing a shark smile right before it took a chunk out of your thigh.
We were unloaded off the bus and in a single file line we walked through the front gates. The grounds resembled an army base. Boot camp for blooming criminals. We needed to develop our primary, essential skills before we could amount to anything, is what my shoplifting teacher told us. We sat in tiny wooden desks staring up at the tattooed professor. We were supposed to call him Carey. I thought he looked more like a Spike or a Shredder. Again, a name is only a name.
I wondered briefly if my parents knew I wasn't learning the life skills that they had found useful in their cushy life. Like how to call the housekeeper or how to communicate effectively with the French chef that cooked their meals. But I only wondered for a few seconds before I realized I didn't care.
My schedule was "Shoplifting: The Basics" from noon until two, "How to Bluff, Lie and Cheat Like A Pro" from two fifteen until four, "A Beginner's Guide to Spying" from four thirty until six and "The Art of the Quick Getaway" from ten until midnight.
My favourite was the class on lying. The textbook was genius. Written by a career criminal and graduate of the center, Mick Turner. A hero really. A real top dog. He lied on the stand and he made up alibis and forged evidence all the time but his specialty was fraud. I couldn't wait until the fraud class because there was a rumor going around that he would be teaching it.
I settled into the rhythm of class pretty easily. The judge was right, this place was perfect for me. Naturally, the first thing we were taught in every class was that the center didn't exist. Crime was random and unpredictable. "Making it Look Real 101" was another required class for beginners. The general public was never supposed to know or even suspect that any sort of crime committed was premeditated to this degree. We were being asked to preserve the order of society by deviating from it. What could be better?
Not everyone took to the subject matter like I did though. A few people wanted to live the good life. Make a change. Do a total one-eighty. But once you entered Maple Lane the only way to leave was to graduate with a degree in Theft, Fraud or Basic Petty Crime to name a few. There were a few lifers, or martyrs, as I liked to call them. They had decided to stay trapped in crime school forever rather than get out and commit a felony or two. Who did they think they were helping by confining themselves in the center? It was made clear that society would not function without certain disorder. A certain level of deviance. This was the government's way of controlling it and keeping crime under their thumb.
So it wasn't really what I had been expecting but I knew finally that I was always meant for a life of crime. Whether my parents cared or not, by the time I left the centre I would be able to steal the identity of the Dalai Lama and use Prince William's credit card number online without ever being traced. And on weekends I could raid the malls, shoplifting and pulling the fire alarm so I could wander through the parking lot swiping nervous shoppers' wallets.
Taught by the best, that was for sure. Every professor was a graduate of the center and they all had some kind of street experience that made front page news in its time. Some of my classmates speculated that every presidential assassination had been orchestrated by the center. It was the perfect example of the government turning on itself. But these rumors could never be confirmed because if anyone was good at covering their tracks it was someone with a degree straight from the center.
"Fraud 101" taught by Mick Turner was officially my favourite class. He was a role model and I totally looked up to him. Maybe I was a bit of teacher's pet but I knew I was meant to be a con artist. It was my calling. He took to me right away, joked with me, told me his stories. He was such an inspiration. He even told me things he didn't tell the rest of the class. Secrets he had picked up on the street. His own little gems of wisdom. I was his protégée. The guys begged me for information but I wasn't about to reveal the secrets that would make me stand out from the crowd. Or should I say blend into the crowd seamlessly.
There was only one problem I had with the graduate program at Maple Lane. As soon as you got that diploma and were taken out into the world to survive, you were put into the system. So the government could keep tabs on you. Make sure you were doing your job. But also make sure you didn't do your job too well. You were on a permanent leash for the rest of your life. Because you were helping society supposedly but you were also doing the big guys' dirty work. Put that company out of business. Hijack that CEO's car and steal his briefcase. Pickpocket compromising pictures of the Senator out of his mistress' purse and blackmail her without mercy.
I wasn't interested in being anyone's lap dog. I wasn't an impressionable youth learning to be an expert delinquent so the "important people" could hide their own indiscretions. Mick Turner was nothing more than a slave. He was good at what he did but he only did it when he was told. He was a nobody, but a nobody with everyone's identity in the palm of his hand. He taught me everything he knew. Probably too much but he wouldn't realize that until it was too late.
I found Mick in his office late one night after an "Intimidation For Dummies" lab. He was leaning back in his chair drinking straight from a bottle of Jack Daniels. He already looked more sloshed than an entire wedding party taking advantage of an open bar.
"How'sssss my lil' projay toni?" he slurred. He offered me the Jack Daniels and I took a swig. I was glad he was drunk. He was always willing to share even more when alcohol was leaking from his pores.
"I'm great Mick. Awesome. Never been better," I told him, smirking.
He grunted some unintelligible answer and choked a little whiskey up and onto his chin. Classy. So the center didn't breed class and manners traditionally but I for one had learned a little something called grace. My parents would be proud.
"I need to get outta here Mick," I complained.
"There's the door!" he said and collapsed in a fit of giggles before lying still on his desk, face down.
"C'mon Mick, don't pass out on me now," I muttered and threw the Jack Daniels bottle cap at him. He bolted upright and grunted.
"I mean I need to get back out into the world," I clarified.
"Yeah yeah, grad…" he trailed off.
"Actually, I was hoping you could take me on a little… field trip. So I could practice some of the things you taught me," I suggested.
"That's not allowed," he said.
"Please? For me? I won't tell anyone. For your favourite student."
He shook his head enigmatically.
"Fuck Mick, for a professional criminal you sure like to follow the damn rules," I said. That was when I knew I had him. There was nothing like telling a criminal he was a goody good to get him to wreak a little havoc.
I hid in the trunk of Mick's car while he drove out of the compound. He swerved dangerously and went onto the dirt shoulder multiple times. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn't swerve into oncoming traffic and kill us both.
Finally the trunk was popped and Mick stumbled around the car. He had parked in a 24-hour Wal-Mart parking lot. I hadn't seen a Wal-Mart in months; it was mesmerizing.
Mick tumbled to the ground without persuasion, out cold. This was going to be easier that I thought. I figured I would have had to knock him out with something but good old Jack Daniels always came through in a crunch.
I dug through Mick's pockets and found his wallet. His entire identity. People didn't realize that they are carrying the key to their life around in their back pocket. All you need is someone's wallet and their life and everything worthwhile in it is as good as yours. All I left in Mick's pocket was a pack of gum and a Blockbuster membership card. I shoved him in the backseat and got in the car.
Mick informed me he had dumped at least three bodies in a sinkhole in the next town. It was a weird phenomenon the sinkhole but ideal when something unpleasant needed to be disposed of.
I drove the car to the edge of the sinkhole and as fast as I could I deposited Mick's dead weight into the driver's seat. The ground slowly swallowed up the green Buick probably registered to a John Casey or Peter Drummond. I wondered if the person who Mick was currently pretending to be was in that sinkhole waiting for him.
I stood there on the edge of the throat of the Earth as the sun came up and realized I had done it. I had gotten all the training with none of the sacrifice. I was free. With Mick's identity in my pocket I could be anyone tomorrow. I could be your psych teacher. The guy that pumps your gas. Your next-door neighbour. Hell, I could even be you.