Keys To Your House

I tutor guys at the local library to help them earn their GED's.  All of them are convicted felons arrested for various crimes such as drug use, general thugery, sex offenders and thieves.  Either their parole officers are making them do this or they hope to turn their lives around and get a job.  Until our society "bans the box" that won't likely happen, the economy notwithstanding. 

One of my guys said that his food stamps have been cut (thanks Schumer), he has three children and no income to put food on the table.  I asked him how he provides for them and he said that he "does what it takes."  He said that one of the things he USED to do was go to theater parking lots and look for cars with both a GPS and garage door opener.  He knew the  owner would be at the show for at least two hours and he would break into the car, stealing both the GPS and the door opening.  He would then activate the GPS and if it wasn't locked, would tell it to "go home."  The GPS would lead him straight to the former owner's home and he would park his own car in the garage where he would have about an hour to load it up in the privacy of the garage.  He said he would avoid vehicles with car seats because the generally meant the kids were home with a babysitter.   Although, car seats are valuable on the black market.   He would use Facebook much the same way, to find out when an acquaintance would be out and for how long.

So, things you can do to prevent being a victim of crime:
Write your lawmaker demanding to ban the box.
Write your lawmaker and demand they re-establish the food stamp program.
Ask your employer to give someone a second chance the next time they are hiring.

OR . . .
Don't leave your electronic devices visible in your car.
Enable the lock on your GPS.
Don't set "home" on your GPS to your real home.  Set if for half a mile away or so.
Install an IP camera in your home so that when it detects movement in your house it will email a picture to your phone (although you probably silenced it while in the theater).
Encourage your neighbors to be nosy.
Don't go to the theater.
Have kids but don't take them anywhere.

Stone and the GED

Stone was another convicted felon I tutored for the procurement of the elusive GED.  He actually graduated from high school but illegally managed to change his name and identity so he consequently had no record of receiving his diploma.  He was of high rank within a formidable gang and for whatever reason, wanted his GED.  Most likely it would simply serve as another form of identification which he could use down the road with one of his many identities.  He was also a very funny guy with a big heart and I loved spending time with him and hearing his stories.   His body was riddled with tattoos, most likely to obfuscate the important ones which delineated rank and meaning within the gang culture.  Despite having endured horrors as a child, his current estate was happy, fun loving and very respectful.

Stone told me about how he was in collusion with a jewelry store owner and Stone was to rob the owner's store.  Stone would get the goods, the store owner would get the insurance money, then five years later, Stone would sell the jewelry back to the owner at a discount and the shop owner would resell the merchandise under the table.  Stone of course would get a commission.  The plan went off without a hitch except Stone was arrested on some unrelated and fake charge because the police knew they didn't have any evidence regarding the jewelry store robbery but, they wanted him off the street at any cost, even if they had to arrest him on a fake charge with phony evidence planted on him.  He was sentenced to prison for ten years.  He chuckled and said that nobody believed him when he professed to be innocent. 

After two years, he was granted parole but he suspected that it was because the police were hoping that he would lead them to the stolen merchandise. Stone said that he could patiently wait out the eight years of parole or have someone else retrieve the booty from its hiding spot.  He then jokingly asked me if I wanted to make twenty thousand.  I held my fingers up in a cross formation and said “Get behind me, Satan.”  Despite having millions of dollars at his disposal, he patiently took advantage of all the social services, shelters, welfare stamps and food pantries he could in order to keep up the appearance that he had no money. 

A somewhat humorous story that Stone told me was about another big heist they made.  Their getaway van had the shocks removed so that the vehicle would ride low to the ground.  They also took out a small section of the floor.  They were being chased by the police when they stopped the van in the middle of the road.  The police surrounded the van and barked instructions through a bullhorn to give up and step out of the vehicle.  Little did the police know, the van was parked over a manhole and Stone's gang removed the cover from inside the van and escaped through the sewers.  A few years later some mob type movie used the exact same scenario for the antagonist's escape plot.  Taking full credit, Stone was ecstatic that his idea made it into a movie.  He bought out a movie theater and invited all his friends to attend a showing.  At the aforementioned escape scene, the theater erupted into thunderous applause.  The few people who were actual patrons to the showing were probably very confused. 

Stone aced the GED on his first try. 

"B" and the GED

I am regularly asked by a local community action program to tutor people who are looking to obtain their GED.  I am not the brightest ornament on the tree but, I am a very good teacher capable of finding ways to get a point across or teach a concept through real world application.  All of these students are high school dropouts for one reason or another.  Some were punitively expelled while others quit.  Some were forced out of school due to the economic situation at home, were arrested for youthful indiscretions or succumbed to the downward spiral of drugs and alcohol. 

“B,” his gang name, was about ten years old when he witnessed both his parents murdered in a drug deal gone bad.  The person doing the shooting was a police officer.  “B” remembers the uniform and badge in his mind's eye as clearly as if it happened yesterday.  Having been raised on the street, he was taught not to trust the police, or the “po-po” as he called them and that night he forever kept what he saw to himself.

His grandmother took him in and it wasn't long before he realized that she didn't have the means to support both him and her.  He grew up fast and big.  He lifted weights on the streets with friends and consumed copious amounts of food.  He began selling drugs to procure money which he promptly turned over to his “Nah-ni.”  It greatly annoyed him that she gave a large portion of it to the local pastor who began making weekly home visits since she started to come into the money however, “B” kept his mouth shut.  He loved Nah-ni and was eternally grateful for all she had done for him so, he resigned to the truth that she could do anything she wanted with the money he gave her.  He just wished that she did more for herself than for giving it to others.  Her selfless sacrifice and continued need only increased the desire within him to make more money.  

“B” quickly realized that going to school was cutting into his business and it wasn't like he was learning anything anyway.  Many of his teachers didn't express much interest in the well being of the students and a few of them were even his customers.  Ironically, this did not garner much respect for them in his eyes.

“B” eventually moved out of his grandmother's house and joined a gang but kept giving money to his Nah-ni.  He refused to talk about the gang or their activities with me but I surmise that he was part of the Bloods. He had been arrested a few times for possession and they were only misdemeanors but an arrest is an arrest.  It was now part of his permanent record which he will never be able to atone for in the eyes of our predominantly unforgiving society.  “B” eventually did do three or four years in prison for a felony and when he got out, he saw the affect it had on Nah-ni. The greatest good that came out of his long term incarceration, "B" said, was that the leech pastor stopped coming by. 

“B” was going to go straight and forsake criminal activity but not because of any punitive measures or the vicissitude of incarceration.  Prison was fun for "B," a temporary relief from work, an opportunity to make new criminal contacts and it was somewhat of a badge of honor in the gang community. “B” was proud and respected but he wanted most to make his Nah-ni proud.  He was going to get his GED and get a real job.  The money would not be as good but it will be honest and that is what Nah-ni wanted all along.  Love conquers all.

“B” was a wiz at math.  He knew the metric system better than I did.  All those years dealing drugs made him quite adept at crunching numbers in his head.  While in prison he learned a considerable amount of math from a Chinese man who was in on a sex offense charge.  As good as that teacher was, "B" had a problem with comprehension and application.  Finding the area, volume or square feet of something didn't make sense to him until I brought in carpet tiles and we calculated how many we needed to carpet our little study room. He soon began to wake up to the possibilities. Calculating travel time and distances all made sense when it was broken down into drug measurements, planning a drop or calculating time off for good behavior. Suddenly, math had practical application in his life.  It always did, he just didn't know it. 

Now that you know where “B” came from, I can tell my part of the story.  I was doing work for a theater company a few blocks from this community action center.  While parked in the theater parking lot earlier one day, someone broke into my car and stole my iPod which I foolishly left displayed in all its glory on my back seat.  The thieves shot my rear passenger window out from a distance using a slingshot and broken pieces of a spark plug.  The plug part was on my seat amidst small shards of glass.  I noticed that there were several glistening piles of broken glass peppered throughout the parking lot.  I was obviously not the first.  I later found out that car break-ins were common at the theater.  I called the police THREE TIMES and they finally arrived two and a half hours later.

I was perturbed as I met with “B” later that evening for his lesson.  He was concerned and told me that he thought he knew who did it. His fists clenched as a look of anger washed over his face.  He asked me if I wanted him to take care of them.  I told him no and to leave it alone. He wanted to know all about the theater, when and what I was doing there.  We then calculated repair costs for my car and of course, how much coke, meth or weed the repair was equal to.

The next day, I pulled into the theater parking lot and a black Escalade quickly pulled up behind me.  The window rolled down and inside were two scary looking guys with gold and silver bling hanging from the rear view mirror, around their huge necks and in their teeth.  They ask if I was Kogut.  I said yes.  They told me that “B” asked them to watch out for me and my car for the next few weeks.  I told them that it wasn't necessary but they said “B” asked them so they were going to do it.  I said thanks and went inside.  Every day that I was at the theater, that black Escalade was parked either in the parking lot or across the street.  I had a warm and fuzzy chuckle inside when I overheard the director commenting about the theater's string of luck and how nobody's car had been broken into lately.   For sure, our good fortune was not due to the diligent work of the po-po. 

“B” failed the GED test twice and ironically it was always the math section that did him in.  “B” had a reading comprehension problem and it was the way the questions were worded that always confounded him.  If someone could read the questions to him, he would get it.  My heart weeps for "B." What was done to him created him.  He is an inevitable reaction to an action.  His story is not over, he still has Nah-ni.