Boy, could I tell you some stories! You probably wouldn’t believe them, even though they’re all true. See, when you’ve lived a life as crazy as mine, people think the stories you tell are pure fiction.
Nobody believes me when I talk about the time Hempster and I went scuba diving off the Great Barrier Reef. A great white shark got Hempster by the leg and almost dragged him to his death, but I stabbed the bastard in the eye with a piece of coral and it let him go. The reason Hempster limps now is that his left leg is shorter than his right, thanks to the surgery after the shark attack.
And people assume I made up my story about pissing on Pablo Escobar while he was sleeping off a bottle of single malt Scotch, but it’s absolutely true. See, Jesus Trujillo and I were in Medellín, hoping to make a deal with Escobar to take over rural distribution of cocaine in the Texas panhandle. Well, with Escobar you didn’t just make your case and get his answer. No, he had to know who he was dealing with before he made any commitments. So he kept us close for a week or so, just sizing us up. Every night, we’d party. I mean big time. Booze, weed, music, girls. It was wild! One night, Escobar broke his own rules and drank like a fish. That night, we all did. He passed out and I got the idea in my head that peeing all over him while he slept would be cool. Fortunately for me, Trujillo got us out of there before Escobar woke up. Obviously, we didn’t get distribution rights for the Texas panhandle. And I’m still alive, so Escobar didn’t find me. But he had to know it was me. And that gives me a little bit of satisfaction.
After our little foray into cocaine distribution, Trujillo and I got mixed up with a couple of guys who stole company checks and made counterfeit copies. They were into a fairly elaborate ruse in which fake checks were sent to people who were told the money was the prize for a contest they had entered. Before they received the checks, though, the guys called and said a mistake had been made; the checks were for double the proper amount. They were asked to cash them and wire half the money back to the company. About half the idiots did it. Anyway, Trujillo decided we’d be better at this scam than these guys, so one night he breaks in to their place and steals everything they had: checks, address lists, databases. Everything. Two days later, the Feds bust the guys. Because we figure the Feds know what they’re looking for, we ditch everything Trujillo stole. We never did take over the game, but now these guys are looking for us, assuming they got out of jail.
Then, there was the time a girlfriend, Mary, and I took a train from New York to Nova Scotia. We made love, right there in our seats, between every stop. You know about the ‘mile high club,’ right? Well, we formed the ‘riding the rails club.’ Nobody said a word, but I’m pretty sure everybody knew exactly what was going on. The reason I think so is that, when we got up to get off the train in Halifax, the whole car we were riding in stood and gave us a standing ovation.
Those times are all gone now, though. And what do I have to show for them? Not a damn thing. Nothing. Hempster is dying and Trujillo is dead. So is Escobar. I don’t know about Mary, but even if she’s alive she’d want nothing to do with me now. A lifetime of thrills with nothing to show for it but memories. And my memories are the kind that people look at with disdain. Contempt.
I could tell you more stories, but what’s the point? They all paint the same picture. They all tell the same tale. You know, if I could live my life over again, I might do it differently. I probably would, in fact. But you can’t un-do things you’ve done. You can’t un-be the person you’ve been.
