Sprayed By A Skunk

He was an idiotic and moronic guy, only he didn't know it. Not because, in my opinion,  something was wrong with his brain. Something was wrong with his character. I think he was idiotic and moronic by decision, more than default.
At first impression,  he seemed fully capable and very intelligent to people he met, including me... way back when I shook his hand for both the first and last time.

We met just once over lunch at fancy hotel in downtown Seattle. It was on one of those Emerald City summer days, the sun glowed, the whole city was a sparkling green jewel. We were on a patio overlooking Elliott Bay.

He achieved a rather high position for someone so young in a political party.... though his was not my party of choice at the time. But that didn't matter to me. I was a mercenary then.

"Like your suit" I said, and noted how quickly his smiled broadened.
"Armani's newest collection" he said.
"Whoa" I replied, "and you're how old? 21?"
"24..., but who's counting? " he laughed.

Now I don't drink on the job.  This guy did quite a bit.
On his second round, I watched his personality do a Jekyll and Hyde.
I recall most of that conversation to this day just as vividly as I recall him stirring the lime and ice cubes in his drink with the little red sword that skewered three green olives.
The more he talked, the more I nodded and that made him talk more.
The more questions I asked, the more he disclosed.

He spoke rapidly and in a hushed tone.
He told me who.... and what.. he wanted investigated on "behalf of his employer, a political candidate."
When I asked "Why investigate these particular people?"
He said these words.
"I want to destroy their character and careers."


He said money was no object, with one stipulation. We'd have to work on a cash only basis.

"No green paper trails," he confided with a sly smile.

When I asked who'd pay the cash, "the candidate" or him, he said he would. He also said there would be no record of our ever having met.

While I found his lubricated monologue and drunken revelations entertaining in a sick, crane-your neck-at-a-car accident kind of way, I decided not to join his team and passed on his recruitment offer. And just to up the drama quotient, I told him I wasn't in... right there at lunch. He was almost through his third drink.

He was seriously p.o'.ed.
I knew it was not a good move to say "No" to a drunk. Especially a 23 year old drunk in an Armani who thinks he's John Gotti.
It would've been an easier out just to say, "Lemme' think it over and get back to you."
However,  I just wanted to see what would happen if someone just said "No" to him.

 He stared at me like he didn't understand, then he glared at me when he did. He sucked down the last of his drink.
The only words he said were, "Fine, you'll be shlorry."
He got up, walked away from the table and he left the bill for me to pay.

His drinks were more expensive than my enitre meal.
I paid by credit card, happy to have the record of our encounter, wrote his name on the bill for tax deduction and "other" potential purposes. Then I watched him stumble back through the hotel and no doubt back to his room for some drying out... or liquoring up.

Now, that was one idiotic and moronic man.
Fortunately, he made no threats against anyone I felt compelled by law to report.
He just got filed away in my short term  memory bank...
because the very next time I heard about the guy was after he was fired from the candidate's campaign. I didn't hear about him because he was fired.
I heard about him because he was arrested.
For bank robbery.
Apparently he'd been robbing banks in his spare time.
Including the time he was working for the election.

I thought of lunch with him on the fancy hotel patio in his bank-financed Armani suit, drunk as a skunk.
And when I said no to Pepe Le Pew, he "sprayed" me with the bill.

Last I heard, he's still behind bars. Appears robbing banks in multiple states is a serious Federal Offense.

To me, he was both brilliant and moronic, a genius and an idiot.
Jekyll and Hyde.
There's a little bit of all of that in each of us.
Alcohol fuels the fires of alter egos, drugs do the same. Utlimately both incinerate the character and soul with continued use.
Add an obsessive lust, or just a practical need, for money to the volatile equation.... and you have combustion.