Earth vs. Everybody

by John Swartzwelder

  “Scarface here was thrown off the most wanted list because of some nice thing he did,” I was told when I was introduced to one man.

  “Say it ain’t so, Scarface,” I said.

  “I ain’t saying nuttin’.”

  I turned to the criminal next to Scarface. “I guess they must call you ‘Gorilla Face’, eh?”

  “No…”

  “They don’t? Why not? Haven’t they seen your face?”

  “Let’s go,” said my guide, nervously.

  “Okay. So long, Gorilla Face. You too, Pig Eyes. Catch you later, Shit-For-Looks.”

  I enjoyed meeting and chatting with the men. I felt I was getting a rare insight into the inner workings of the criminal mind. Criminals, I discovered, don’t think like we do. They’re greedy. And selfish. Always looking out for themselves instead of the other guy. They’re not like us at all.

  The more I saw of the operation, the more impressed I was. This was Organized Crime at its most organized. Everything was done quickly and efficiently, to a timetable that never varied, the criminals were always impeccably dressed, and the building was kept spotless at all times. There were even recycling cans on every floor, with the legs sticking out of them positioned “just so”. I could tell I was going to fit in well here. I’m pretty organized myself.

  After my orientation tour was completed, I was taken to the office of my new supervisor—Mr. Knuckles. He handed me a blueprint of a large building and told me to memorize it. He said that would be my first assignment. I was to take 20 men and rob the 1st National Bank of Central City.

  “No sweat,” I said, sweating.

  I glanced at the complicated blueprint, then asked if I could study it later, when no one was watching me, and he said that would be okay—that was when everyone around here did their studying. I felt I was going to like this job. These were my kind of people. All I had to do now was rob that bank.

  “This is a robbery!” I announced menacingly the next morning, as all the children and clowns screamed and lined up against the wall of the nursery. “Esto es un robo! Dies ist ein Bankraub! Il s’agit d’un vol de banque! Put all the money in… is this 425 Wells Street?”

  It wasn’t, of course. I know that now. Along with the layout to the bank, somebody should have given me a map. I guess we must have busted into a dozen different places that morning—including the Federal Prison twice—before we finally got the right address. And I suppose I’ll have to take a lot of the blame for that, because I was the one who kept saying: “This is it, everybody, let’s go.”

  When we did finally get to the 1st National, it didn’t go well at all. We didn’t get any money, for one thing. The only thing that was in the money bags we brought back were a couple members of the gang who had gotten stuffed in there somehow during all the excitement. And our getaway car had been stolen, so we had to hitchhike back. And I had forgotten to do the first thing I was supposed to do when we entered the bank, which was to disable the security cameras. So the police had about 22,000 pictures of us.

  Even though the robbery had been a failure, I felt that the important thing was that no one had gotten hurt, and everyone had had a good time, and no banks had been robbed. My supervisor didn’t agree. He read me the riot act when he found out how badly I had botched the job, and warned me that I’d better shape up and fly right if I wanted to succeed in a demanding business like this one. Blah blah blah. The usual stuff. Why do all employers talk the same? Always giving the same boring speech. When he had finally calmed down a little bit he said he guessed that everyone was entitled to one mistake.

  “Does this count as my mistake?”

  “Yes.”

  “Crap.”

  Over the next few weeks I made at least a dozen more attempts to rob the 1st National Bank. But something always went wrong. Sometimes we forgot our guns. Sometimes we remembered our guns but forgot what we wanted. Sometimes the bank tellers couldn’t read my holdup note. Sometimes they wouldn’t read it—said they were busy. Sometimes I got the wrong address and we were at that kid’s birthday party again. It was always something.

  The people who worked at the 1st National got to know me real well after awhile. “Hands up everybody, here comes Frank,” someone would say as I came around the corner and started heading for the door. “Hi, Stan,” I would say as I entered, waving my gun around dangerously, and hoping this robbery would turn out better than the others. But it never did.

  After a month of this, the bank decided to reduce the number of guards they employed from six to two, through early retirement and buyouts. They knew now that they didn’t need so many.

  Eventually, my superiors at CrimeCo came to the conclusion that the 1st National might be too tough a nut for me to crack, so they assigned me easier banks to rob. First the 2nd National, then the 3rd, and so on down the line. Each one was easier in one way or another—quieter alarms, sleepier guards, money closer to the door, there was always something easier about them. But I never managed to rob any of them either. I had high hopes for the 20th National, that’s the one I was waiting for, but we never got that far.

  I was arrested a number of times during this stretch. You can’t make as many blunders as I was making without getting arrested. But the Organization’s crack legal team always managed to get me out fast. Always on some technicality that they knew about but the cops didn’t. You’d think society would teach policemen what the laws are, but I guess they never think of it. Or maybe there isn’t time. Even with the legal trickery I had going for me, I still should have been locked up for good after awhile, because I got caught so many times. But I was saved by the city’s controversial “3 Strikes And You’re Free” law.

  Finally I was informed that I was being demoted from bank robber to thug. My superiors were a little embarrassed about it. They blamed themselves for starting me up too high on the ladder in the first place. They felt it was their mistake that I couldn’t succeed at such a high level right away, not mine. I agreed. C’mon, everybody, I thought, let’s get our acts together here. I can’t run this place by myself.

  They started me off, as usual, at the highest tier—1st Thug. And, as usual, this was a mistake.

  The 1st Thug is the guy who stands closest to the boss at all times. He’s the one who says things like: “You better listen to what the boss is saying” and “You’re just not getting it, are you, pal?” That part of the job was no problem for me. I can stand next to people. Easy. And I can talk tough with the best of them. But a 1st Thug also has to know when to act—when the time for talking is over and the time for action has arrived. I couldn’t tell the difference. Still can’t. So I would suddenly start hitting the guy the boss was talking to while the boss was still talking to him. Or I’d hit the guy when he had just agreed to do what we wanted. Or I’d hit the wrong person, like the boss.

  Because of this inability to think on my feet, I was quickly demoted to 2nd and then 3rd, or Buck, Thug. The 3rd Thug is the one who piles on after the first two classes of thugs have already gone to work and it’s certain that this is the guy to hit, and this is the time to hit him. No thinking required for us 3rd thugs. And you never have to decide when to stop pounding on the guy either. The boss will tell you that. “Okay, that’s enough,” he’ll say, or “hey, knock it off stupid, he’s dead”, something like that. That’s when you stop.

  When you’re not actually pounding on somebody, 3rd Thugs are supposed to stand in the back looking tough and kind of chewing something. Gum, most guys used. Sometimes I forgot my gum, so I’d just chew my shirt tail. That worked just as well, though I guess it didn’t look as professional.

  I thought I was basically doing a pretty good job, but one morning when I showed up for work I was told to report to the boss’s office to meet with the higher-ups. I knew what that meant. There weren’t any jobs in the Organization lower than the one I had now. And evidently I had blown it again. I was going to be fired.

  I had learned from being fired from other
jobs that times like this are your last chance to stand up for yourself and have some self respect. Show some backbone. As soon as you find another job somewhere else people will start walking all over you again. The only time a person ever gets a chance to have any self-respect is when he’s being fired. That’s when you can stand tall and be a man. That few seconds there. So from the moment I walked into the boss’s office I was my own man again.

  “Take a seat, Mr. Burly,” said one of the bosses.

  “Take it yourself, asshole.”

  I leaned up against the water cooler and glared at everybody.

  “This meeting…” began the personnel manager…

  “Shove this meeting up your ass.”

  “Er… yes… would you like some coffee, Burly?”

  “In your ass I would. Along with the meeting and the chair.”

  My supervisor, Mr. Knuckles, cleared his throat. “I think we’re straying from the point of this meeting. Perhaps if Mr. Burly would stop telling us what to shove up our asses, we could…”

  “Screw you, boss.”

  “Hey look, Burly…”

  “No, you look! I’ve been taking crap from you big-shots for weeks now. And now it’s my turn to tell you a thing or two.” I pointed to each in turn: “You’re incompetent, you’re stupid, you don’t like fingers being pointed at you, and you two I don’t know.”

  While I paused to catch my breath and try to think of a few more choice things to say—maybe tell them what I thought of their so-called scheduling abilities. Why hadn’t I gotten my God damned vacation yet?—Mr. Knuckles managed to get a word in.

  “We’re promoting you,” he said. “We’re making you a bodyguard. It will mean a raise in pay, better hours, and a bigger locker.”

  “Like I said before,” I said, “like I’ve been saying all meeting, thank you, boss.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Well, I was as surprised as you are. More, probably, because I know me better than you do. It’s not very often Frank Burly gets a promotion. All my life it’s just been down down down. But not this time.

  My employers had discovered that I had a hidden talent they hadn’t known about. Ever since I joined the Organization everyone in the gang had been instinctively ducking down behind me the moment trouble started, because I was so big and so slow to react. I was like a parked car with a brain. Plus, it took a lot to knock me over. It was so hard to knock me over, sometimes it was easier just to wait until I fell over on my own. Because of these natural abilities, my employers felt I would make a perfect bodyguard.

  I don’t know that I’d say I was perfect—nothing in this world is perfect, except, okay, maybe me—but I was pretty good at it. I never got any complaints from the people crouched down behind me, that’s for sure. They were safe back there. And they knew it. And after I’d been doing it for a little while, I realized I liked being a bodyguard. It was a nice restful job. Most of the time I just had to stand there being big. I can do that. I don’t have to do anything to be big. I am big. So the main part of my job was already done.

  Of course I had to take my lumps from time to time. All bodyguards get hit occasionally with fists, clubs, knives, even bullets. It’s part of the job. I didn’t mind. I’ve been getting knocked around like that all my life for nothing. Now I was getting paid good money for it. Life doesn’t get any better than that. Not for me, anyway.

  On the rare occasions when I did get seriously hurt, the Organization took good care of me. Made sure I got the best of everything. Why, I remember one time, when it looked like I might die, they had a famous baseball player visit me in the hospital to cheer me up. I asked him to hit a home run for me. He said you got it, just get better, Phil. Frank, I said. Huh, he said. The dying patient’s name is Frank, I said. Phil, Frank, what’s the difference, he said. Right, I said. He didn’t hit the homer, despite what he had promised. Struck out three times then got thrown out at home trying to stretch a triple into an inside the park home run. They had to carry him off the field on a stretcher he tried so hard. He ended up in the hospital bed next to mine. When they got the tubes out of his mouth, he said he was sorry he didn’t hit the homer for me. And I said I was sorry too because I lost a two thousand dollar bet.

  Even with all the beatings I had to take, I was pretty happy with my new job. I was good at it, and everyone could see I was good at it. So I rapidly climbed the ladder of success, guarding more and more important people. Each move upward gave me more prestige, nicer working conditions, and more money.

  I was making a name for myself too. Younger bodyguards started coming up to me for advice. Just be yourself, I told them. This is always good advice, because it’s so easy to do, and so easy to say. But it would usually make their faces fall when I told them that. They didn’t want to be themselves. They wanted to be me. But they couldn’t be me. I was me. I was taken. They had to be them. They said okay they would, but I could tell they didn’t like it. I could tell they thought it was bullshit.

  Then one day I was told I was moving up again. From now on, they said, I would be guarding the top man in the Organization. I was told to report to his office immediately. I was a little nervous about this. I’d never met the Big Boss before. Didn’t even know who he was.

  When I opened the door to his office and went in, I was stunned. It was Larry Laffman, The Million Laff Boy, the funniest man in show business. When he saw me he said: “Howareya!” I laughed so hard I had to sit down and he had to give me some water.

  “You’re the mastermind who runs organized crime in Central City?” I asked, when I could get my breath.

  “That’s me! Hey hey!” He made his eyes go around and his front teeth stick out straight. “Wocka wocka! Boing!” His pants spun around, his hair jumped up and down on his head, and his right eye shot out and rang a small bell on his desk. This made me laugh even more.

  He did his famous spit-take when I told him I was his new bodyguard, another when we shook hands, and two more when I sat down. I couldn’t stop laughing.

  “How are YOUUUUU feeling now?” he asked, giving me another glass of water, and rolling his eyes in all kinds of hilarious directions.

  “Stop it, you’re killing me,” I protested, holding my sides.

  I was dazzled to meet the one and only Larry Laffman in person. I knew all about him, of course. He was the master—some say the originator—of all forms of comedy. He could make one eye go around like a phonograph record. And he could make his ears flap like crazy. And satirical? How about that eye going around? If that isn’t satire, I don’t know what is.

  He had dozens of stock laugh lines that were funny every time he said them, like: “Why are you dooooing this to me?”, “That doesn’t sound like my mother”, “I don’t like yewwww at all”, and so many more. Sometimes he’d add “asshole” at the end, if he needed an extra big laugh, or if he happened to be talking to an asshole.

  And he could imitate anybody. He did an imitation of me that had me rolling in the aisles for almost an hour. In fact we were both rolling in the aisles because he was still imitating me then.

  I asked him what he was doing here in the world of crime. I always thought he was strictly a show business guy.

  “My agent, Sid, set up this deal for me,” he explained. “The Crime Industry is a great tax dodge. You’d be surprised how much you can write off of your income tax if you’re a big crook. And it’s an investment, too. You’ve got to do something with your money, Sid says. You’ve got to plan for the future when you’re not as hilarious anymore. When your eyes only go part way around, and it’s not as funny because old age is making them go around, not you.”

  “But why not put your money in a business you’re more familiar with, like Organized Entertainment?” I asked. “I’ve heard that’s pretty crooked too. Couldn’t you make just as much of a profit there?”

  “Don’t ask me. Ask Sid. He knows all the financial angles. Me, I do the jokes. Boinnngg!”

  Guarding someone as impor
tant as Larry Laffman was quite a responsibility for me because he was such a great man, but it was a million laughs too because there’s nobody funnier than Larry. No, sir. You could always tell he was coming from several blocks away, because you could hear me next to him busting a gut. I thought he was the greatest. And he liked me too, because he didn’t have to be “on” all the time when he was around me—I laughed at everything he did. He even cleared his throat funny. Ah-hnnn! Hilarious. Top that, Shakespeare! Give it up, Wordsworth!

  After I got to know him better I discovered he had his serious side, too. The first time he started talking real serious about injustice, I laughed my head off for a full minute, then said: “Wait a minute. What’s so funny about that?”

  “It’s not funny,” he said. “This is my serious side you’re seeing now. Boing!”

  “Wow, you’ve got two sides?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let me see that serious side again.”

  He made a face and pointed at it with his finger. “Check it out.”

  And you wouldn’t believe how serious his face looked at that moment. I hardly laughed at all.

  And he didn’t just look serious when his face was all screwed up like that, he acted serious too. Sometimes he’d spend a whole afternoon fighting injustice. Fighting it like mad. This confused me a little bit at first, because I always thought another comedian, Jokey Johnson, was the one who fought injustice. Larry shook his head. “No, I traded him starving children for that last month.”

  “I guess starving children are important too,” I hazarded.

  He shook his head. “Not to me. Not anymore. I fight injustice now. Every other Thursday afternoon.”

  “God bless you, Larry Laffman.”

  “Wocka.”

  I figured I could learn a lot of inside stuff about show business from Larry. And I was right. He told me all about the money and the women and the drugs and the credit grabbing and the whining. I found out show business is just like we think it is: all play and no work. Which is why their work is so bad, I guess. It all made sense to me now.