Confessions and Lies (9)

Confessions and Lies, Neil Oldman for Daydream Misfit, Ideogram with Gimp

I had a friend who I thought did delivery driving as a way to make extra money. One night we were sitting at our local bar sharing a pitcher, and he confided something to me. “I run drugs, dude.” I scoffed at him and told him he was full of it. “No man, it’s true,” he said. “One day I was delivering this guy his chimichangas, and when we met at the door, there was like a wall of weed smoke, and I joked that it smelled good in there, and he was like ‘come on in and hit this’ and I said ‘okay’, and we got to talking. Dude was an operator, and he sized up that he could trust me, and he told me to come back the next day if I wanted to earn some money. That’s how I got started. Turns out that ‘delivery driving’ is the BEST cover. As long as you’re carrying a big red pizza bag, literally no one questions what you’re doing or where you’re going. I’ve delivered pizza-boxes full of weed next door to houses with police cruisers parked in the driveway, and the cop’s over there watering his plants and waving hello to me and telling me to be safe on the road. I’ve walked into the retirement home carrying packages to hand off to the janitor, and everyone’s like ‘down the hall to the right’ with a helpful, cheery smile on their faces, not knowing why their patients’ blood pressures keep going through the roof or why Miss Betty’s rolling like a maniac. No one’s ever unhappy to see the delivery guy because everybody likes getting deliveries. It’s like the ‘Wells Fargo Wagon’ song in Music Man. People are singing out loud because they’re excited they might be the next to get a delivery. You’ve never seen that? It’s got Opie in it. You don’t know what you’re missing. Anyway, you put a stupid DorkDash hat on, people let you go wherever. Military base, the projects, the mall, the boonies, guards at the jail, they treat you like Switzerland. You’ve got no enemies. No one ever doubts your uniform. Gate’s always open.” So of course I wanted to know how I could get in on that action. And that would turn out to be the first step in forming what would become a criminal empire.

https://www.daydreammisfit.com/confessions-and-lies

Neil Oldman https://www.buymeacoffee.com/NeilOldman