Article: 261463 of talk.bizarre
From: hamilton@cdfsga.fnal.gov (Rowan T. Hamilton)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: Bar Room Stories #4
Date: 1 Dec 1995 21:12:02 -0600
Organization: FERMILAB, Batavia, IL
Lines: 82
Message-ID: <49og62$5bq@cdfsga.fnal.gov>
Summary: snap shot of a possible life
Keywords: con-men, heroin, and anal rape
Status: O
X-Status: 



So in the mid-80's I lived over the Hollywood Adult Book Store in North 
Oakland, and there was this guy, Oskar, who hung out with the bike 
messengers upstairs from me.

Oskar was a con-man. (And a part time bike messenger.) I first met him
at a party at a previous house I'd lived in. We dosed a bunch of MDA and 
then went on a high speed motorcycle ride through downtown Oakland.
It was a blast and we lost the cops so we didn't get busted. To my young
and naive mind, Oskar appeared to be a very smart and charming guy, and
he became a good buddy of mine.

A few months went by and I slowly learned that Oskar was also a pathological
liar. And a con-man. So I distanced myself from him, but still I watched
while he thoroughly corrupted a woman named Aimee, a nice jewish girl from
LA. It was pretty nauseating to watch.

Oskar liked heroin. He liked it a lot. He wasn't a junky, but he made Aimee
one. Aimee eventually disappeared, and to this day I have no idea what 
happened to her. The last I heard she'd cleaned up from IV drug use, and
turned to crack.

Now for a bit of background. Oskar changed identities frequently. He had a 
bunch of copies of birth certificates from the year he was born, and instead 
of paying traffic tickets, he just changed his driver's license every 
year or so. Needless to say, 'Oskar' was not his original name.

Oskar had been a teen-aged runaway. At the age of 17, I'm told, he talked
the Red Chinese Consulate in LA into handing him gold bullion to sell on
legitimate markets. He sold the gold on the black market in LA, and  spent part 
of the proceeds on a Harley. The FBI caught him as he was pulling out of the
Harley lot. He did a few years time, and got out on parole. He immediately
moved to SF and changed identities.

After being in the Bay Area for awhile, Oskar, always in search of cash,
decides to rob a heroin safe house - i.e. a house where people are 
safe to buy and use heroin, without fear of being rolled. Oskar robs
the place in front of a crowd of people who know him, and is essentially
black-listed by the Bay Area drug community.

So when I knew him in the Bay Area, Oskar's current scam was to get the 
Feds to loan him money to pay tuition and living expenses while he went
to college. He enrolled at FJC, and then never went to a single class.
He spent his loans on food, beer, and heroin. One day his roommate came
home and found Oskar OD'd on Tarballs on the bathroom floor. Roommate
wasn't hip to how to deal with an OD, so he called 911, and didn't hide
the works or the jones. Oskar is revived with narcocaine, but with a bunch
of cops in the room who immediately print him. They run his prints, and
find he's wanted in LA for jumping parole, and Oskar goes to the State
Pen.

A few weeks later I hear Oskar was released on a 'medical'. (I don't really
know what this means.) After a few days, Oskar shows up at my apartment
one night. I'm in the middle of a physics problem set, so I try to get 
him to leave. He won't, he sits down to have a beer. After his beer he
excuses himself to the bathroom, and then he leaves. A while later, I go 
to the bathroom for a piss. I lift the lid, and find the bowl is full of 
turds and blood. Thanks, Oskar. I never see him again.

Years go by, and I graduate college and move on to futile grad school.
One day I get email from a person using a username we'll call The_Thang.
The_Thang clearly knew me back in Berkeley, but is obsessed with 
anonymity. The_Thang hides his identity, but provides copious details
about his current life. It takes a while, but finally I figure out that 
The_Thang is, in fact, Oskar.

He's living in a state that shall remain unnamed. He's set himself up as 
an Internet Service Provider, and he's making righteous bucks setting up
Linux and Windows systems for local businesses.

I'm finishing my PhD in a dying field, and I'm competing for a shrinking 
number of jobs.

But I'm not bitter, nosiree...


-- 
Rowan T. Hamilton                         "To dig this is to groove on
hamilton@huhepl.harvard.edu                   hella shit."
hamilton@fnald.fnal.gov                   - casey@wackenhut.com
http://hahn.fnal.gov/Hamilton.html