by Mark Perez
But here’s the thing: I’d done all of that mundane nonsense already. In fact, I’d mastered it all, to one degree or another. And I wasn’t doing it for the money anymore. There’s a reason the word artist is in the title of my chosen profession. Because this is more than just a vocation. It’s a calling. Imagine if Jackie Robinson stayed in the Negro leagues for job security. Or if Abe Lincoln decided that being a representative from Illinois was good enough for him. (That’s right, I’m comparing myself to President Abraham Lincoln. So what?) As far as I’m concerned, you should never, ever let “good enough” be good enough, especially in this business. (My old man taught me that one, too, along with how to steal all the UNICEF tins from every 7-Eleven in our neighborhood.) So let’s get right to it. This is how you’re going to scam an entire town…
MAKING A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION WHEN YOU’RE ACTUALLY A PRICK
Without fail, this is a must. When you, a “city boy,” move to a small town, people there will tend to regard you with a bit of trepidation. And it’s your job to assuage all the fears they will inevitably have. Concerns that you’re a fucking creep (which you are). Anxiety that you’re trouble (which you also are). You need to immediately put them at ease by doing something amazing or engaging or so benevolent, that they can never again question your motives or actions. Such as…
THE FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
Everyone has heard of the Florence Nightingale effect, named after that nutty nurse who picked up a lot of overtime shifts during wartime. Basically, it’s when a caregiver has romantic feelings for a patient. The same can be applied to, say, a mysterious stranger. When you first arrive in town, find a way to hurt yourself, as in getting hit by a car or falling off a bridge. Whatever it is, just make sure it happens in public. Ideally with plenty of witnesses. Preferably choose something that won’t accidentally kill you in the process. Then, what customarily happens in these small towns is that somebody will take you in and care for you. Help you recover. And that’s when you’ve got ‘em good.
A friendly stranger enters town.
This friendly stranger purposely gets injured on Main Street.
The guilty driver takes in the friendly stranger knowing nothing of his spending felonies.
The friendly stranger then gets extra friendly with said vulnerable hausfrau.
THE ANONYMOUS HERO
The next confidence trick is very similar to the “beat up the bully” scam previously discussed. Much like how Shakespeare once said there were only seven types of stories, Pops always said there are only seven types of cons…just with multiple variations. This particular variation isn’t going to make you a high-school hero. It will help you manipulate a town of twenty-five thousand or so people into taking you under their collective wing. And much like the bully gag, you’ll need a roper for this one, too. The bit goes something like this: the roper picks a shill (remember—old lady, puppy, young kid) and does something terrible to the innocent victim (stealing a purse, kicking the dog, abducting the child—hey, get creative!). That’s where you come in. The courageous stranger risking life and limb in defense of Grandma, Lassie, or some pain-in-the-ass baby. And boom! You’re in like Flintstone. And the more you resist the gratitude and reciprocation, the more it will come your way.
Scummy mugger attacks a very frail old woman.
Courageous stranger comes out of nowhere to fight off said crackhead.
Elderly victim thanks courageous stranger, not knowing he actually paid to have her beaten up.
Local paper lauds unknown hero because local papers have never heard the phrase “vetting your sources.”
THE PHILANTHROPIST RECLUSE
And finally, the most difficult but most effectual variation is certainly the philanthropist recluse. Now, this one takes some doing, and it’s not as easy as the aforementioned, but the chance of this one sticking in the long run is well worth the very detailed and seemingly extraneous setup. Trust me. There is a basic rule of the world that makes absolutely no sense: Rich people are given free shit while poor people starve. Why do you think famous athletes eat for free and Hollywood stars are constantly being given clothing and jewelry? Because they need it? Hell no, it’s because they don’t. If people don’t think you want anything from them, that’s the perfect front for robbing them blind. And this is the angle I chose for my visit to Honest, Indiana.
Same lazy local newspaper reporter is tipped off to rich stranger moving to town.
Rich stranger looks for a home to rent, wearing a Rolex and all the while spouting that annoying “giving back” bullshit.
Rich stranger makes a large donation to the local Kiwanis Club for god knows whatever the hell the Kiwanis Club does.
Town fetes rich stranger because the lives of these people are boring and empty and sad.
And that’s literally what happened. The yokels of this town immediately made me an honorary Kiwanis member. Let me into their inner sanctum of tripe. And they didn’t even fucking know me. Can you believe that? Yeah, me either. But you’ve gotta understand that in these little indistinguishable, flyover towns, being accepted quickly into an organization of that relative magnitude is equivalent to joining the fucking Illuminati. It doesn’t get any bigger or more connected.
And in a place like Honest, Indiana, it was on par with getting the key to the goddamned city. Those rubes were already fucking cooked, and they didn’t even know the oven was on.
There are a few other things necessary to get in good with the local townspeople. One of the most often forgotten, yet utterly important, is making the “town treasure” fall in love with you. Yes, I know it sounds clichéd and a bit absurd. And I know you’ve seen it in a million terrible movies. But the reason it’s so familiar is because it’s true. It’s almost essential to success, or, at least, the impression of it. If the community darling fancies you, you are immunized against the rest of the residents who would normally like you less. It’s almost like she’s vetting you for them.
And, in my case, she would end up surprising me more than I ever thought possible.
HOW TO GET A “10” WHEN YOU’RE BARELY A “2 1/2”
This is one of the all-time-great questions asked by every man since they discovered fire and realized they had dicks. Novels, plays, movies—all have been dedicated to this one very specific topic. But what I’m going to do is pare it down to one small chapter of a picture book. I think that’s the point, and it’s part of why I’m writing this thing in the first place. Nothing, and I repeat, nothing in life is worth more than these few pages of your time. Teachers, priests, bosses—they’ll try to intimidate you, try to convince you that all the things you want in life are difficult to attain and therefore demand all your time and effort. Again, this is just so you don’t start a populist revolution and topple the powers that be or, at the very least, quit consistently stopping at red lights. Most importantly, teachers, priests, and bosses are perpetually full of shit—and ultimately the biggest con artists of them all. So please, if you do nothing else, always keep that in mind.
There are a few time-tested ways to con a woman into liking you. And don’t kid yourself: whether you’re nine or ninety, if you have a woman by your side, a con of some sort has certainly occurred. On your first date, when you didn’t tell her about your sporadic bouts with E.D., con occurred. On your second date, when she didn’t tell you she had four children from three different fathers, con occurred. On you. By you. Probably both. It happens. Now, I’m not going to write about the kinds of ways to get a girl interested in you that you might read in an online self-improvement blog. Ridiculous ones like “be confident” and “act bold/be bold”—or my personal favorite, “just ignore her.” I don’t know about you, but every time I’ve tried to ignore a woman in order to get her to like me, she just ignored me right back. No, the following are tangible, real-world ways to…Get. The. Girl. All for the means of working a longer con, of course (or in my case, something more).
DONATE TIME TO A CHARITY
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Once you’ve settled into your new surroundings, you’ll want to figure out what sort of charities the local “intelligentsia” support. Maybe it’s farmers in need, if you’re somewhere in Nebraska, or maybe it’s an indigenous animal sanctuary, if you happen to be near the Everglades. Whatever it may be, find it. Pretend to give two shits about said cause. And more likely than not, this is where you’ll come face to face with the local beauty queen. Because in every single one of these tiny enclaves, there’s a town sweetheart that’s the apple of everyone’s eye. And nine times out of ten, she’s volunteering at a shelter, handing out sandwiches to gross bums.
BE A WIDOWER
I don’t care if you’ve got money, or a great job, or a girthy member—nothing turns a girl on more than a dead wife. Being a widower tells a woman, “Hey, I was married once, and through no fault of my own, that marriage has been rendered null and void.” For a girl you’ve just met, you’ve already been vetted by another, formerly living, woman. Obviously you weren’t afraid of commitment. And depending on the contrived illness you give your made-up dearly departed spouse, you have shown your loyalty without ever having to do a damn thing. Mazel!
SAVE HER LIFE
This one is a derivative of some of the scams discussed earlier, but beneficial nonetheless. Again, you’ll need a roper to play the attacker. Other than that, it’s pretty simple. Now that you’ve established who the neighborhood sweetheart is (and again, I promise you, there’s always a neighborhood sweetheart!), you wait for her to walk home from her job at the Ol’ Steel Mill (or whatever terrible employment she’s feigning contentment with), and just as the “assailant” jumps her, you pop out of nowhere, and with the karate you don’t actually know, you beat the hell out of this hooligan and save her life. By the middle of the week, you’ll be in her heart. By the middle of the month, you’ll be in her pants.
PRETEND YOU’RE DYING
Chicks love this one, too. I call this the Fault in Our Stars syndrome. Women want the fairy tale, and more specifically the fairy tale where the guy dies at the end. Here’s another secret nobody tells you: love is a scam, too. A big one. You see, people don’t care about you when you’re alive, but they’ll cry their goddamned eyes out and put flowers on your grave when you’re gone. Do you know why? Because we are born to be annoyed by each other. Because it’s easier to like the revised memory of a wife or husband rather than the actual person that lived on Earth with you. The one who nagged you to be more romantic like the handsome guy from the movie, or the one who wished you made more money for the family like her ex on Facebook does. It’s the same reason women marry men doing thirty to life behind bars. It’s the perfect relationship for them, marrying the fantasy and not the felon. You don’t believe me? Google these four words…
“Charles. Manson’s. Hot. Girlfriend.”
GET SOMEBODY TO VOUCH FOR YOU
Another instance where you will need a roper, but the most efficacious of the bunch, in my opinion. Choose somebody unassuming and trustworthy (cop, clergy, EMT) and get them to talk you up. Because when you do it, it’s bragging, but when an elderly nun does it, it’s charming. Get them to tell this girl how you saved a bunch of Russian orphans from an electrical fire in the flophouse they lived at. Or how you once raised $30K for a prosthetic limb so some one-legged kid in Botswana could finally play soccer with his thirty-five cousins. Next thing you know, she’ll be approaching you.
And that’s exactly what happened between me and Grace (not her name). She was actually the one who sought me out, believe it or not. I guess I had done so well exuding such great character in the town that she got fished up into my net of bullshit, too. And from the jump, I just knew that there was something special about this particular girl. She was smart, and funny, and had a sort of sneakiness of her own. The way she would get out of parking tickets with a coy smile. Or not pay for a refill at the movies by pretending she was deaf. All things she probably thought I didn’t notice, but I did. And for a mark, I instantly had a connection with her. Not one that would get in the way of the con, mind you, but a connection nonetheless. Now, if I was a normal person with a heart and soul or any type of morals, I might even have considered dating her in the real world. Trust me, sometimes you can get stuck befriending some real unlikable assholes for the benefit of the con. But not with Samantha (not her name). She was beautiful. And funny. And smart. No, this was gonna be fun.
(Note: While this book might admittedly read a bit “straight man–centric,” I want you all to know that women, gays, and even hermaphrodites can pull off these rips, too. Unlike most professions in our purported “country of meritocracy,” conning is always an equal-opportunity employer.)
USING PEOPLE FROM YOUR PAST IN SHAMEFUL WAYS
You remember my dumb dad, right? The guy from the earlier chapters who used me in all of his flimflams and gave me exactly zero hugs total in my life? The one I keep talking about, even though I don’t mean to? The one person with whom I ever had a “real” relationship in my life? Well, Pops finally got out of prison, and guess what? The ol’ bastard decided to look me up. How he found me, I’ll never know. But he did. And as it turned out, he hadn’t changed a bit. He was his normal degenerate self. “Hey, sorry I missed your high-school graduation, dipshit. You know, the one that occurred over twenty years ago. That was my bad, bro.” And he just happened to pop back into my life, NOT WHEN I NEEDED HIM, but rather right when I was about to pull off the rook of a lifetime. The one I’d been unwittingly planning from the minute he left me and told me he’d be back in a week or so.
You remember what I told you about synchronicity? Well, being the person that he was (a deep-down, straight-to-his-marrow creeper), the old prickstain wanted in. So I decided to use this new burden to my benefit. Suddenly, I became the “recluse philanthropist taking care of his aged father.” (A disabled Grenada veteran. I know, so ridiculous. His idea.)
Now, at the time, I told myself I would allow him to stick around because I could take advantage of his advancing years. I could finally use him like he had used me as a child so many times before. But if I’m being really honest (which I almost never am), maybe…just maybe, I was happy to have the old fart around.
Anyway, as big of a pain in the ass as the old man could be, he actually proved to be quite helpful in setting the table to take this town for a ride. After all those years of being in the slammer, the old man wasn’t rusty or tired or off his game even one bit. In fact, he was ready and raring to go. So the team was back together again. Me and Pops. And we’d attack this fleecing as a sort-of dynamic duo. Just like the old days. Hell, it’s the least the jerk could do for me, right? After painting my childhood memories, not with playful times, but with prison time. And even with all the anger and resentment I’d managed to collect since the last time we’d seen each other, I couldn’t help but enjoy, just a little, the thought of us working together again. Like when the Eagles reunited for one more tour. Or when Hitler reunited with Mussolini in Vienna.
You know, come to think of it, maybe those childhood memories I had with my father weren’t all bad ones.
You know, just most of them.
Pops made me wear those fucking bandages for a month.
PRETENDING TO LOVE YOUR FAMILY WHEN YOU REALLY DON’T
I know what you’re thinking: “Jesus, how long is this long con gonna go on for?” The answer is, it goes on as long as it needs to go on. And starting a family is the next step in the plan. There are tons of ways to do this that don’t include raising an actual family. Remember, when this is over, you’ll be on the road, spinning hot dust on any and all people that were in your life just a few hours before, including your own children. And, much like getting the girl, having a family insulates you from the ever-peering gaze of collective distrust. People with families don’t rob banks. A person with a wife and kids would never steal from the United Way’s gimp fund. And most importantly, a man with a home full of loved ones would never even consider hoodwinki
ng his entire community.
So, to start your instant family, pick one of the following…
MEET A WOMAN WHO ALREADY HAS CHILDREN
There is no creature more vulnerable on this earth than the single mother. And only a total fucking cad would take advantage of such a person in such a situation. That’s how you know it’s a quality hustle: only a disgusting, completely despicable person would actually lack the empathy to pull it off. And don’t forget, you’re not trying to be their new dad. Some of these little turds can be pretty resentful at first. Your move is to be the cool parent, and since you couldn’t give two shits about their well-being or their prospective futures or any of that nonsense, this part should be easy. For example, you will let her little boy watch hardcore porno on your iPad. You will let her preteen girl dress like a Craigslist prostitute when she goes out at night to the mall. Shit, you’ll even let them both burn doobies in the house (just as long as they share said doobies with you, of course).
For any shrewd con artist, this is child’s play (literally). All in, it should only take you about a month or so to get these rug rats on your side. By letting them do whatever they want, you will get what you want: to have the kids on your team and to be known in the community as that wonderful fella who married Jane Smith and is acting like a father to her two bastard children. Taking these young tykes under your wing as if they were your own is the quintessential cover.
