A Fine Time to Leave (III)

Joe recounted wild stories from his youth. All the ingredients for a damned adulthood were there: dad wasn’t around, started smoking and drinking at 12, derelict older boys giving props for petty crimes. It’s always the same story: “I started hanging out with the wrong crowd,” and it’s usually in 6th grade.

Joe told me about growing up in a Jacksonville trailer park. He talked about growing up hearing the lore of the “Monster of Mayport.” He told stories that led me to believe that he used to take pride in coming up in such an adversarial environment. I find that point of identity common among people I get to meet in my line of work. They idealize their upbringing and identify with it. It’s like that for me too; I like to garner credibility by casually mentioning growing up hood-adjacent around Milwaukee. This was a little different, as Joe continually spoke about his criminal accolades and harsh upbringing with contempt and shame. There was a level of contrition there that I don’t recall ever seeing before. As he was telling me the truth, Joe was repenting.

“O wretched state! O bosom black as death! // O limed soul that, struggling to be free, art more engaged! // Help, angels! Make assay! Bow, stubborn knees! // and, heart with strings of steel, be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!” ~Hamlet 3/3~

He remarked that he was surprised the first time he got away with charging someone else’s account. Joe told me that the first store account he used was HCH Construction. They subcontracted with him several years ago. 

Joe said, “They stiffed me on thousands of dollars. I only ever got paid a few hundred dollars. I was there for two whole weeks, like 90-100 hours. I remembered that I picked up the materials that I needed from Home Depot. When they sent me to do the job, they said to put it on their account and have them call Jeff if they had any questions. So, when I checked out, I just told them what company I was with, and they didn’t even blink. They typed something in the computer, scanned my tools, and gave me a receipt. So, all these years later, I thought I’d check if it still worked, and it did.”

So, he did it again in a different store, and again got away with it. He tried a third store in a different jurisdiction. Same result: he just walked right out. Each time, he got approximately four or five hundred dollars worth of merchandise, until he felt that he reclaimed his pound of flesh. After three or four charges, he thought his luck could run out if he kept going this way. He decided to try a slightly different strategy. He picked a few other businesses he had worked with in the past and felt disgruntled about. Again, no one even checked his ID. He always justified his actions as retribution for some perceived infraction, typically associated with a blow to his ego. Then there came a point where he got his payback and restored his own sense of cosmic justice.

But it wasn’t enough. Joe tasted a forbidden fruit. Every time I asked him “Why,” he couldn’t give me a good reason. He would talk about how easy it was or mention that it started to become funny between him and his friend. My theory: I think there’s a pride that washes over you when you feel like the one who pulled the wool over someone else’s eyes. Trust me, I dabble with that feeling professionally. It’s wicked, but it’s there. It’s a sin I have to flirt with when I’m living among the wolves. I justify it by Jesus’ admonition to his disciples to “be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” Never mind the harmless part.

Eventually, Joe got to the point where he was so brazen with this practice that he left Home Depot, looked around the parking lot, and saw a company truck for Anderson Builders. Joe looked up the business on the phone and found the name of a vice president: Philip Dehabey. The next time Joe went to Home Depot, that’s who he was, Mr. Dehabey. For Joe, this was his ultimate unraveling, as he was unaware of the 64-year-old hawkish bookkeeper, Brenda Walsh, who happened to be Mr. Dehabey’s mother-in-law.

Joe looked again at my overstuffed folder.

“So, how much do you have me for?”

“A lot, from what I can gather…” I waited a second and pretended to do some quick math in my head. In truth, I only have him caught on a three hundred fifty-six dollar charge for Anderson Builders. He thinks I have evidence of dozens of three- to five-hundred-dollar transactions. As I later found out, the most ironic thing is that HCH Construction sold their business a few years ago, but the accounts stayed open and unsettled. Joe could have gotten away with the ruse in perpetuity if he had simply stuck to the business that wronged him. I noticed my little pause was taking too long and spat out a figure, “Just under twelve thousand.” Truly, from what I could gather, that’s about what it seemed like. He didn’t know that I had done the gathering from him and not from my own investigation.

He looked defeated. He touched his right pocket.

“We have a fan in here.” I retrieved a lighter from my own pocket and raised it toward his face.

Joe retrieved his Lucky Strikes and let me light his cigarette. I didn’t turn on the fan right away. I motioned with my hand for him to give me one. He obliged. We sat and took a few drags before I turned on the noisy fan.

“Joe, I can’t say I’d have done anything different. I love a little street justice, and I’ve been known to count cards or tell lies when it suits me.” I cleared my throat. “I mean when it suits an investigation.”

We both quietly jeered at my pseudo-correction.

“But this is the important part: the turning. This is the time where we move forward together, resolving to tell the truth, or at the very least, only unleash the wolf when we do it to keep the balance.”

Joe nodded in agreement. He went on to tell me about what happened after he took the tools, and this is where the story pivoted from a moral quandary to a dangerous entanglement.