by Mark Perez
CHILDREN
There is nothing, and I repeat, not one thing that works better at getting close to people than the sights and sounds of an innocent child. Me, personally, I hate kids. Always have. (Really they’re just shorter, more selfish versions of adults. And as you will clearly see, I already despise adults.) But I will stomach using a kid for an afternoon because the results are usually well worth it. When you’re entering the sting phase (the final stages of a con), no matter what the cheat is, carrying a baby on your arm works as a sort of shield. A vomiting, poopy-diaper-producing precautionary measure that can help you achieve your goals. And if you want to tweak those results? Make it a Filipino or a black baby. And if you really wanna go for broke, put some of those Forrest Gump–style polio crutches on that little fucker. People will be falling over themselves to help you steal money from them. And that’s exactly how my old man used me, God rest his soul.
I don’t really remember every aspect of the scam that day, back when I helped my degenerate father steal a car. But I do remember the car: a 1984 Pontiac Fiero. Believe it or not, that was a very desirable car that year. (Note: Never name a car “Fiero” when it has a predilection for catching fire for absolutely no reason.) Anyway, I do recall my dad’s reaction after I helped him—pure elation. And I remember what he told me that day. He said, “Son, you just witnessed a very valuable lesson here today. People are really fucking stupid. Which means you only need to be just slightly less stupid than the rest of society in order to take advantage of it. Now, get your goddamned gimp braces off the dashboard, dipshit. This is a brand new car.”
Some kids think of their first hit in T-ball as the primary step into boyhood, while others think of their First Communion as a major spiritual milestone. As for me, I think of my first grift as a sort of scammer’s bar mitzvah (again, this was grand theft auto, age three, in case you forgot). While I’m sure many of you reading this are suddenly feeling sorry for me, that feeling…that pinch in your gut that tells you it’s all wrong…that is why all of the information I gave you above works. People like to feel sorry for others. Not because they give half a shit about you or me, not even a little. Rather, they enjoy feeling superior. And that’s because human beings are innate narcissists. Take this as a truism about the world, and then use it to your advantage.
HOW TO USE A BABY TO STEAL A CAR
Find or make-your-own handicapped baby.
Always choose a two-seater car.
Insist on having your gimp son ride shotgun during the test drive, because of his tendency towards violent grand mal seizures.
Test drive the car all the way home and don’t forget to change the plates.
Always keep this in mind when performing a shell game (any deceit, swindle, or fraud). When you can keep it simple, keep it simple. Don’t get all complicated for complicated’s sake. Because things will usually go sideways on their own, and you’ll be better off not having a laundry list of shit to keep straight in your head.
As I grew older, I became a more willing participant in my dad’s “career,” like being a batboy for the Yankees when your dad plays right field, or a stagehand when your father sits first violin in the New York Philharmonic. Being around the best may not make you the best, but it will certainly give you a head start. (Ten thousand hours of practice to make a true genius, as they say.) And that’s exactly what I got: a head start. I took the things my dad gave me (you know, in lieu of love and security and any emotional connection whatsoever) and used them to get me through that awful, terrible, miserable human experience we romantically refer to as “growing up.” You see, everything I learned was taught to me by my father, C. F. Frost. (Sound familiar? That’s the dummy name they put on sample Amex cards, and not actually my dad’s name.) C. F. gave me an in-depth tutorial in how to get over on civilians, from grade school teachers to college deans, from Health and Human Services employees to schoolyard bullies. It wasn’t necessarily a Hallmark-type childhood. But who are we kidding—what childhood really is? The majority of kids are either being molested by their “cool uncle” or beaten up for having a Jewy-sounding last name. And that’s because being young isn’t all Star Wars–themed birthday parties and memorable summer camp shenanigans. It fucking sucks for the most part. So better to grasp that early in life, rather than trying in vain to live some impossible Disneyesque fantasy.
Now, as for me, when your mom dies before you turn two, and the only secure adult figure in your life is carrying around more felonies than disposable diapers, you tend to end up just a wee bit screwed up. But I’m not here to cry for myself. My dad could have very easily dropped me off at an orphanage (like I would have done, by the way). Instead, he decided to teach me (and use me in) all of his con games. And I guess, looking back, that was the only thing he knew how to do. What else could he pass on to me? His love of stamp collecting? His passion for Civil War reenacting? Zzzzzzz. All of that shit sounds pretty fucking terrible anyway, if you ask me. So Pops may not have been big on hugs. Or outward affection. Or being my actual father. But the old bastard was passionate about The Game. And that’s something he passed down to me with fervor. Which is a lot more than you can say about most dads. So I guess, at the very least, I’m grateful to him for that.
Anyway, Dad and I moved around a lot—the result of stealing money from almost every human being we came into contact with. Believe it or not, I attended over one hundred different schools. Let me restate that numerically so it’s very clear: 100 different schools. And along the way I acquired a few lessons that may or may not be helpful to you. School for me was more than a place to study geometry, chemistry, and all the other shit you will never use again in your fucking life. No, to me it was a testing ground for my bullshit, a control group on which to hone my craft, an ideal place to perfect some tangible real-world skills, like charm, cunning, and the ability to read body language. Mastering how to manipulate the unwitting and make them do my personal bidding. Discovering the best ways to cheat the less clever out of positions and possessions that I, in turn, wanted for myself. So in that regard, those one hundred various “workshops” I enrolled in really were “schools” after all. From which I received a unique type of education. The kind that would actually benefit me in the future. All pieces in the puzzle that would (unknown to me at the time) eventually lead me to a CON FOR THE AGES. And all this shit can be plenty helpful to you, too, in what I can only assume is your own boring, average life. So, as Pops would say, “Pay attention here, dipshit. This part’s important.”
FELONIES FOR GRADE SCHOOLERS, AGES 6 AND UP
My dad always used to say something else to me that was rather poetic: “Son, you’re never too young to start taking advantage of those less fortunate than you.” And I used it as a mantra throughout the years between kindergarten and the sixth grade. I always knew that I wasn’t going to be at any one school for more than a couple of weeks, so I could pull off things that the poor schmucks who had to stay for the duration of their scholastic careers could never get away with themselves. That being said, here are a few musts for you youngsters out there who want to follow in my footsteps:
BE HELD BACK
When enrolling at a new school, always hold yourself back at least three years. I know that seems counterintuitive to the main tenets of the pathetic helicopter parenting of today, with kids being pushed forward a grade or two by overzealous mothers and fathers insecure about their own limited abilities and shortcomings. But in the world of grift, being smarter, bigger, and wiser than your peers is a table you will always try to set, no matter how old you are. I enrolled in the sixth grade thirty-seven times. Given this, it’s reasonable to conclude that each time I got bigger, smarter, and better at the sixth grade, right? Of course I did! And that’s because all the other kids feared me. All the teachers were impressed by me. And I was always the first pick at recess. Every. Fucking. Time. And that’s why this move is a no-brainer.
BE BLIND
Don’t listen to those sens
itive Marys who will tell you otherwise; there are a lot of benefits to being severely disabled in grade school. The faculty feels sorry for you, so your workload is next to nil. They usually assign some poor sap to carry your books and buy your lunch. This is tantamount to having a young slave, which is always nice. But most importantly, when your dad has you sneaking into the teachers’ lounge and rooting around in their lockers for cash and other valuables, you always have an airtight alibi: “Hey asshole, can’t you see that I’m fucking blind? I am a totally blind child! With two dead eyes!!” You will win that argument every time, sight unseen (thank you, please tip your waitress).
BE A MINORITY
Now this one is a little tricky. You go to the wrong school with this particular hustle, and you may find a large pride of toothless parents picketing outside for you to be bused back to where you done come’d from. But if you choose the right school, like Dear Old Dad always did, there are a lot of rewards to being an oppressed minority. You see, here are the statistical facts: About half the country is racist. And the other half feels guilty about the previous half. So if you go to a school in a neighborhood that feels guilty…for some reason, magically, your lunch gets paid for. Don’t ask me why, but it just does. Also, you can kind of do no wrong there. Everyone automatically assumes that you’re from a broken home, or that your dad regularly hits you with a switch, or any other cliché they’ve seen on basic cable. So you’re afforded some extra leniency to do whatever your little ethnic heart desires, which is most likely something illegal.
DIE
Almost every time I left a school, I died. I was either run over by a drunk driver or drowned in a cousin’s aboveground pool. I was even hit by lightning (twice, ironically). And don’t believe what they say about a short life; there are a lot of benefits to dying young. For one thing, people will send you food. Well, not you—your father. And I’m talking a lot of food. We would eat for a month afterward on the offerings of others. Good food, too. Also, in lieu of flowers, the sad mourners are admonished to donate in your name to a specific charity—one that just happens to run its funds through your father’s many personal bank accounts. An ironic thing about the world: People generally treat you like total shit while you’re alive, but the minute you’re dead, their generosity toward you knows no bounds. It’s one of the great mysteries of the universe. So again, capitalize on that shit.
A key element to running a successful operation is to be light and mobile. To always be on to the next thing before the present thing is on to you. And if you’re a relatively smart ripper, the only way you’ll get pinched is if you stick around the scene of the crime like some creepy serial killer peeking over the police tape at his latest triple homicide. My father and I traversed the entire continental US. We worked our racket in literally every one of the contiguous United States, as well as Alaska. And I learned that as big a country as America is, there’s a different class of people everywhere you look. Think about it: the United States is equal in size to all of Western Europe. So you can imagine that in it there would be as distinct and disparate a set of cultures as you would find in, say, France, Germany, or England. And within said cultures, there are a few basic principles that will help you to blend into the local customs and consuetudes.
For example…
If we’re ever lucky enough to see an actual end-of-days reckoning like they keep promising us, Montana is where a new dystopian civilization will rise from the ashes like a retarded phoenix. There are more neoconservative, ultra-right-wing, concealed-carrying, nuclear-bunker-owning residents in Big Sky Country than there are snow-topped mountain peaks. So if you want to get in good with the local community, have a visceral distrust of the Federal Government and wear that paranoia on your sleeve (of the ridiculous militia uniform your very weird neighbor just made you). That kind of thing will get you far in the Treasure State.
Florida is a bit complex when it comes to culture (or lack thereof). The state is equally split into three terrible parts: the Panhandle, or as those in the know like to call it, the Redneck Riviera (not the best moniker), located in the northern part of the state yet considered part of the Deep South. Caution: beware here if your skin is of a tinted hue. Then there’s Central Florida. Obviously located in the center of Florida, it is filled with so many overweight fanny-packers, you might as well be in Ohio. Aside from Cape Canaveral, we should just give this entire section back to Spain. And speaking of Spain, if you want to work an angle in South Florida, you’d better start working on your Spanish first, because you’re going to need it down there, señor.
We’ll call these “the Friendly States.” Most of the people that live here are simple. And by simple, I mean dumb. You don’t live in Iowa or Minnesota because you’re “chasing a dream” or because you plan to “light the world on fire” with your revolutionary thinking. No, you live there because you’re too much of an idiot to know that some states have a beach. Have you ever been to Minnesota? It’s cold three hundred days a year up in that flat icebox. If I lived there, the first time it snowed in September, I’d move. I don’t care if my entire family had lived there for three hundred fifty years. I’d move that day. The September snow day. As far as I’m concerned, this is the Motherland of Cons. All those rubes packed into the welcoming plains of Middle America like wounded deer in a canned hunting pen. Just waiting to be whacked. This area of the map is a great place to run a country send (when you roll a rube for everything he’s got, and then just a little bit more—because you can). This is the only reason you would ever catch me there.
I like to call this area “Hickistan” or “the United States of Racism.” The millions of crackers who populate this area are still pissed off that they lost the war. And by war, I don’t mean Vietnam. I mean Civil. (Confederate Memorial Day is an actual holiday that they celebrate here. Where state employees get the day off. You know, in memoriam of that little “Let’s Save Slavery” conflict that they lost.) So don’t feel bad when you take from these proud Hickistani assholes. Just remember two things: Be smarter than they are, which isn’t too difficult. And also be super white.
It’s necessary to keep all these things in mind when you’re starting your new life, alone at a very young age, much like I was about to do. You see, as weird as my upbringing with my father was, you have to remember that up to this point, he was my only real connection to anybody. Every other human being that I had ever come into contact with was objectified in my mind as a mark, a dupe, or a sucker. My old man, as socially perverse and fucked up as he was, was my only grounded connection to reality. He was the alpha and the omega in my life. Oh, and he was also a tremendous fucking dumbass. Always way too greedy. Often way too careless. Always doing something more-than-questionable that would affect me in the short term, as you will soon see. But on this occasion, he did something that would also teach me a grand lesson in the long run.
And that lesson is: never get too attached to anybody in your life. Your wife. Your dog. Your dad. Because in this life, the only guarantee you get is that someday, they will all leave you. Your wife will run off with her masseuse. Your dog will get hit by a car. And your dad…My dad…Well, let’s just say someway, somehow, one day you will look up, and that “important person” in your life will be gone. And there is nothing you can do about it. And that’s a fact of life that can never be altered, abridged, or avoided. And those are God’s rules, not mine. So take it up with him.
GETTING YOUR VARSITY LETTER IN FLEECING
High school was a strange time for me. But who am I kidding? It’s a strange time for everyone, right? I just mean it was even stranger than most. You see, around that time, my dad got pinched by the Feds. And subsequently, he got slapped with a good chunk of time for running a badge play. (That’s when you impersonate a cop, generally by writing phony tickets, eating for free, etc. But Pops, in his ultimate wisdom, had decided to make a major drug bust. Which was then picked up by the local papers. Which then put him up for a commendation. The only pr
oblem was that…he wasn’t an actual fucking cop! So Pops got popped.) I never forgave him for disappearing from my life that day. But, as it turns out, I made the best of it. You see, the greatest lessons in life often seem the most cruel. From that point on, I was forced to stay at the same school for longer than usual. Which was completely foreign to me. For the first time, I was compelled to use my skills on the same people. With no exit strategy. No getaway plan. No degenerate dad to help cover my ass. I couldn’t just pick up and run if it got too hot. My old man told me to hang tight until he figured a way out of his mess, which, as it turned out, would take much more time than either of us expected. So there I was. Alone. Stuck. Totally unmoored. And of all the things my dad had done to me…all the shams he used me in…all the precarious spots he’d put me in…this was the one I would never forgive him for.
Anyway, my sophomore year I attended Central Valley High in Sunnytown, California (not the real name of either, FYI). There I gathered quite a bit of knowledge on how to game the system while being inside the system: how to get perfect grades without ever cracking open a book, how to make varsity teams in spite of having no athletic ability whatsoever, and how to rob freshman girls of their virginities while never once having to use force (I’m staunchly against rape, also an FYI). And lucky for you, I’m about to share how. So let’s start with…
