So Much, So Little Sunday

My introduction to a life of crime was merely an accident. Not in the way that a person finds themselves on their arse after tripping over a pipe but much rather akin to a drunk arsehole falling over a cable wire and electrocuting themselves; they certainly meant to get drunk but they certainly didn't mean to get into such a spot of bother. And this is how my criminal roots began, as someone who wanted something but found himself with a whole lot of something else. While it is safe to say I did actually premeditate my actions the overall result of my fraudulent ways was never expected. This would be a juvenile act of defiance that would forever dwarf any of its kind. Had I known what I know now would I do it all over again? While the result was never pleasant the process was well worth the loss, allow me to explain exactly what I mean.

The common tale follows as such; at an early age my mother and father divorced and moved onto separate lives. While I remained the constant between them they both began to see me as the mistake and weight in their lives that they didn't need. In fact I was often forgotten and left at home alone while they both enjoyed themselves with other people and their newfound families. Socially I was perfectly charming, so it begs the question why I became such an outcast in my own family. Surprisingly this didn't affect me as much as it could've since I led a secret life at school. This would remain my only source of sanity, to be someone else entirely outside my front door. I'd lie to everyone I met and remained proud of the simplicity of webs I'd weave. This course of social interaction catapulted me from a young boy in the school yard to the most popular kid in the whole place. However this would not last and life came to a screeching halt the day I was asked to take an IQ test by one of my teachers.

I was told that for my age I was incredibly smart. So smart that I needed to be removed from my class and sent to a school an hour and a half away from where I lived. Not even a teenager yet and I was travelling three hours a day, back and forth, on my own to a place I came to despise almost immediately. I wasn't smart I just used common sense and logic where others didn't. I wasn't smart I just found a broad interest in things that others didn't. I wasn't smart and because I knew this I felt so small and insignificant in a class of true intelligence and athletic ability. The program was simply a way to harvest elite students to balance the higher school system by systematically placing one in failing average grade schools so that funding would remain at a certain level.

My rebellion took many faces, from outright defiance to shadowy destruction of property. As I grew older I discovered things such as girls becoming of sexual interest, that cause and effect was a wonderful equation when dealing with fire and most importantly that my lies suddenly fell on deaf ears. From my family to the school yard nobody believed anything I said anymore, I'd tarnished my integrity so badly that crying wolf would never be an option no matter how harsh the accusation. Although my grades remained high enough to be offered a placement within a selective high school my mother no longer cared how important education was to me, according to her I didn't take it serious enough to warrant a better chance at academic achievement, and so I found myself in a ghetto-like local high school where my life of crime elevated to an uncontrollable height.

Being placed outside a classroom to avoid further disruption during lessons was common; it was something I was proud of. Side by side with the schools behavioral programs and social experimenting I failed at each one of them until I was branded a problem child. It sure took them a while but they eventually saw that there was no helping me. By this point home life had become so disruptive that I could no longer concentrate or find enough reason to care about anything more than computer games and women’s breasts. Yes, puberty did indeed play a vital role in my desire to single handedly commit the most elaborate accident I'd ever come to know, an act authorities would also label an astonishing feat for a child, so amazing in fact that the national media took interest.

While sitting at a desk outside of class one cheery Friday afternoon a day before the six week summer holidays I flicked through a computer magazine. Back then the gaming scene was still for minors and didn't offer much in the way it does now, however there was one thing that was for adults only and that was using a credit card to buy gaming consoles and their accompanying software. At first I disregarded the idea since I'd never seen a credit card in my life. Then after boredom got the better of me I found myself snooping through the teacher’s office, which is where I came in contact with only ever actual credit card I would ever use. As I awaited the arrival of a train to take me to my father’s where I would spend the school holidays I made a call to the number in the magazine. I told them what I wanted from their list and gave them the credit card details. Three days later everything I'd ordered arrived. So much fun for so little effort. And so I did it again. And again. And again. That was until the credit card was cancelled. But it was too late, I had been given a taste of things to come and I liked it very much. The sweet taste of crime was just enough to keep me interested in one thing, something every other person had ever failed at in their attempts to normalise me.

From that point I knew I only ever needed a credit card number, the actual card was useless to me, so I began trawling the local mail boxes for bank statements and bills. I'd hit the jackpot. I recall once needing a box to carry my pilfered loot back home with me where I uncovered enough statements to carry me over the summer months. When the law eventually caught up with me it was the theft of mail that was more heavily frowned upon than anything else. But that wasn't something I had to worry about for another eight months. Before I'd have a detectives badge flashed in my face a sum passed the amount of the fifty thousand dollar mark would be put on my criminal tab. An impressive feat for someone who knew what he was doing was wrong but not wrong enough to know it was against the law.

I was charged twenty seven separate times. The amount I was caught for was about thirty thousand dollars. The truth is there was so much more I could've been accused of had the detectives played their cards a little better. You see, to this day I have yet to tell anyone this but a great deal of those credit card numbers where used to access international sex hotlines. I'd only just discovered the smut filled world of pornography and each magazine, much like the gaming one, gave explicit instructions on how a credit card was all I ever needed. And so three hundred dollars would buy me thirty minutes of a woman talking as dirty as possible to me. I wouldn't have to say a word, I'd just listen. So while the latest gaming consoles sat at my feet waiting to be turned into cash through a nearby second hand shop I'd lay on the ground partially aroused though mostly enthralled by the depravity of the world of sleaze.

And my punishment for my long list of crimes? 100 hours of community service, half an hour of which I completed. What a country! The true cost was my entire life; my family disowned me, a criminal record followed me and the school system finally gave up on me. If given the chance would I do it all over again? Hell yes. Those were the best days of my life. Living and breathing games, porn and money over a eight month period to a thirteen year old who had no one to turn to, no one to look up to, no one to validate his place in the world is allot like having a closeness to heaven. Suddenly I didn't need anyone’s permission to have fun. I did what I want when I wanted. Would I recommend other children do the same? Hell no. This was my unique niche and although it cost my life it gave me my future. It lead to the person I am today and that isn't something I would proudly exchange. Don't know if the same could be said by the teenager before he found his hands on that unfortunate teacher’s credit card all those years back.