Not Simply Bad: . . . Plainly Evil

Prologue

Criminally sinister, they’re violent, toxic, and lethal.

Real Bastards …

We all know about ’em, we just don’t know what to do about ’em.

The one described herein was especially vicious.

Also, unpredictable, unaccountable, and inhuman.

—There’s no telling how bad times and bad events impact people.

Some people don’t manage to overcome difficult circumstances or incidents.

When misfortune becomes fortune, ugly situations can multiply.

If trouble multiplies for people …

It can do so arithmetically or geometrically or exponentially.

So, the bigger the trouble, the greater the peril generated for people—

By people who are warped.

So where there is no responsive person emerging, Watch out!

When an entity becomes a nonentity, anger can result.

Anger can be hot or cold.

Cold anger is the worst.

Because cold anger is the most difficult to detect.

Savages with cold anger create terror.

They don’t care about anyone/They want revenge on everyone… .

They are, in the vernacular,

Real Bastards.

INAUGURAL

Chapter 1

Me. The key. To the cartels gloomy destiny.

Now you see me, now you don’t. This dreaded killer, who had always been cagey and close-mouthed, never knew what hit him when I blew in on a fortuitous wind. There I was, in plain sight, but he couldn’t see me for what I was: His nemesis.

I probably helped to expose the butcherman to critical scrutiny more than anyone else by facilitating his disclosure of personal perfidy as well as the raw elements of mob rule and retribution. Some of his unveiling was unintentional, some incidental, some accidental. So he wasn’t near as clever as he thought. —In the process, I benefited people and society/and myself.

It wasn’t really my intention to get into the snake pit, but you’ll learn I was incentivized by some real pros. Things happened. I was wooed, and I succumbed; that’s the long and short of it. I didn’t want to be a part of the sting because I was afraid for my life, but I was greedy. And, I didn’t necessarily want to see this snake taken out by the caustic forces of the cartels but, by exposing his underside, I knew it was a possibility, maybe a probability, even a likelihood. But that didn’t stop me from doing what I did, which was, by almost any standard, the right thing, that is, proper and just. It certainly was the right thing for me; I got notoriety as well as social satisfaction and financial benefits.

How I got involved in this undertaking is both an unusual and convoluted story. The local, state, and federal authorities were making very little progress in getting this particular villain to open up about his involvement with one cartel in particular and, by implication and inference, his clandestine involvement in the various and sundry unlawful activities of several other criminal enterprises. —A big hitter was needed, a victor in the rough, and I was on deck.

Legal authorities had been looking for a new angle/not a key but a lever. What they didn’t know at the time was that I was the pry bar they were hoping to find/and needed—in order to take the lid off, and thereby provide entry into the lion’s den …

I have to go back to my roots—I do a lot of going back and forth, but I’ll do my best to keep you in the loop—in order to explain how I became invested in this project/mission. And you talk about happenstance, this was the epitome of a chance circumstance becoming a game winner/for a lot of people. No one could have guessed how this would come about. Unpredictability said it all.

Kismet or destiny or fate or karma or by whatever name unforeseeable fortune lands on the doorstep of inevitability, I happened to be writing a piece on prison culture—culture being a misnomer or an oxymoron for anything civilized going on in prison. To begin with, my agent thought there might be a book in the offing. But my former publisher, a guy who had done two worst-sellers in my name, didn’t think so; he told me to stick to writing articles for periodicals. And, at the time, I was disposed to thinking he was right. But I wrote out of conviction, so I thought there was always the possibility that I would succeed in presenting my conviction in a way that would appeal to the socially conscious, if not the masses.

After I shared some of my ideas about uncommon career criminals at one of those book fairs, I was approached by one of the conferees who had some questions. As it turned out, this man was an agent of the FBI. He’d read an article of mine and said he found some of it applicable to his project. He told me that the FBI wanted to find people with ideas about the workings of criminal minds in order to access their myriad mentally-stored case files of illegal activity. To me, his aim sounded somewhat high-minded/and elusive.

So your project is to identify characteristics of criminals. When he hesitated to agree with my portrayal of his work, I guessed, There’s more to it than that, isn’t there? It was a rhetorical question, and he assumed as much, because he didn’t see the need to answer.

I was groping for a way to clarify what he was doing as well as what I could do to help with his project. So I more or less stumbled along until he insinuated that there might be an inroad to criminal minds that would allow government agents to access those minds and rummage around. He said, It might be something like sodium pentothal/thiopental sodium, or hypnotism, but those avenues have been unreliable. So, we’re still looking.

I’m not into chemistry. But I know, to begin with, you need a guy who has the kind of information you want. One thing led to another before I brought up a recent news event, This guy I read about, JB, were you involved in that one? I had to ask.

Indirectly. As I said, I’m one of the investigators attempting to put a composite together that will provide agents with a profile of the career criminal, one that has some substance to it. We need to get a leg up on how these guys think, translate that for implementation, put a plan of action in place, and go from there … the agent explained.

That’ll be a trick. But I certainly can understand why that would be an invaluable tool. In other words, you’re looking for a way to get inside information.

That’s the reason I’m here trying to pick your brain.

Slim pickings, I’m afraid. Although I’ve got some ideas about guys like JB.

Do you know anything about this JB-guy?

Well, I know something about the type, like the genotype and phenotype.

I’m not into biology. —Like you’re not into chemistry.

"I just mean he’s not one of a kind. He’s different, as any of us are different from one another, but he shares some common features with—what I would call—his genre/birds of a feather, so to speak. —But as for JB—I went to elementary school with him for a few years."

Are you kidding?

Would I kid you?

Lemme get back to you on that.

And a few weeks later that happened. But it wasn’t my recent acquaintance that got back to me. It was his boss … It was headquarters … It was the FBI …

—But before getting into the inspiration for all of this interest in the origins of certain criminal species it’s useful, if not important, to know what and who is involved, and why. So when the question arises: What’s all this to-do with criminality about anyway? Well, you’ll see it’s not about bad apples, or even rotten apples. It’s about real bastards …

Is this story about the etiology of real bad guys? Somewhat. So, it’s about their nature and nurture? Somewhat. Well, what else is it about them? —You’ll see. And, then you’ll decide.

You won’t have much of a say in whether or not you become subject to the whims of this kind of miscreant. So, if violated, you’re going to be an innocent victim with little recourse, because the determination of justice is prescribed by law, and, on that, you have limited influence. Of course, while you may have a lot to say about injustice, you haven’t much say in determining what the law should be in curbing it.

Don’t get me wrong, you could be a factor in changing laws, but if you’re like most people, you don’t get involved; you just complain about the law and then hope others will take up your cause—until you’re the subject of great indignity and the object of an awful crime.

—So, what’s this about again? Read on …

PART I

Chapter 2

There was a little boy. He became a bad little boy who grew up to be a very big bad man. It’s not difficult to see how he became a bad man. Perhaps even less difficult is to understand why he became a bad man, but what is difficult to understand: Why him and not others like him? That is difficult to comprehend.

Perhaps you can figure out how and why such badness happened to him but not to others like him. When I tell you his story, you may find reason—or be driven—to explore ‘the nature of the beast.’ —As you might surmise from the aforementioned, it’s not a very nice story. However, there is mystery and drama and obscenity swirling around this character/this type, which can deceive you into thinking you’ve heard worse. And that’s the catch—you’ve become inured. You begin to think this guy is just another bad guy, but that’s the whole point, he’s not simply bad.

—First, though, I want to provide a foundation for examining if not understanding this guy and guys like him. Then, I’ll share the gory details of his ways and means/but not all of them and not fully. Again, all that follows is an introduction to obscene infamy …

This is a story about good turning bad, early and often, and trying to make sense of it. Still, it’s not a tale in search of a moral lesson. We can gain by considering the nature and nurture of the bearers of infamy, but not from teaching or preaching; we have to learn about these matters by examining the ways and means of RBs, not by their morality but by their acts.

Like most people, the guy in this tale went through the same developmental stages any individual goes through, but he did so unsuccessfully. He never gained personhood because his development became skewed and convoluted. He veered off course and rotted instead of ripening. And he did more than stink; he became noxious/and infectious.

Not just reprehensible in behavior, he wore this grimace early in his life. The grimace came in varying nuances. Gradually, on fearsome occasions, the grimace subsumed a distinctive scowl, epitomized by a gritting of the teeth, a deep frown, and a flaring of the nostrils. (I know this sounds melodramatic, but it was what it was.) So, when he snarled, it was a warning that often metastasized into tragedy and/or doom for anyone in the wake of it.

While you want to be able to escape his venom, I’m reasonably sure that, in spite of his toxicity, you’re curious about him, that is, you wonder what makes a guy like this homicidal megalomaniac tick. You may know something about this kind of guy. Still, you probably don’t know just how bad he can get. You will. And, yet, you may not fully believe that anyone can possibly get as bad as he is/or was.

If you stay the course, you’ll get to know (not understand) him. You won’t like what you get to know about him. But you’re going to hope that you can find something redeeming about this guy, and coincidentally, this type of guy. I can’t promise that you will find anything good about this bad guy. You can get some insights that might be enlightening/but more likely distressing. The more frustrating part will be trying to determine what to do about him.

OK, this is a terribly bad guy, and it won’t take much imagination to determine that fact. So you don’t have to be a sleuth to see the obvious in the insidious. Even so, you might imagine that he wasn’t entirely to blame for the circumstances that led to his badness. However, that fact, like some others, won’t provide much comfort/or understanding. Why not? Because comfort and understanding in themselves don’t provide any clear avenue to reconciliation, to remediation, or to resolution.

This is a bastard, a sinister bastard. (Pardon the expletive, but it is apt.) It’s a shame you can’t think of him in more hopeful terms, but you won’t be able to. This is not just a bad guy. And you aren’t the only one who knows that. Everyone knows it. He’s sinister, and being sinister provides him with an identity. He enjoys his reputation, but he doesn’t exactly bask in the glow of it.

At times, for purposes that serve his evil intent, he does enjoy the ill repute of being the epitome of infamy. But he’s not simply nefarious for the sake of celebrity. His notorious reputation brings him the illicit work that provides his first-rate upkeep. So he enjoys a splendid notoriety. But he doesn’t dwell on it; he leaves that to others, while he sits in the reflected glory of his enormity.

We’re the ones who anguish over this situation. That’s because we’re the ones who are subject to the noxious vagaries of guys like this. Devious maliciousness: That’s how they distinguish themselves as real bastards.

But to continue to call them real bastards, which is what they are, risks becoming offensive in the extreme after a time; scatology run amok can get on peoples’ nerves, and mores. So, I’m going to refer to him as an RB, and all like him as RBs. (That’s not to say I won’t use the word ‘bastard’ again, only to say I will use it less frequently.)

The designation for these fiends could be S-M, which often stands for sadomasochistic, which he was, and also stands for sadomasochism, which he exemplified. Certainly schadenfreude looms large in his tragic character; and like anyone influenced by the inclination, he gets immense pleasure out of causing others pain. Anger and revenge drive him to the extreme.

Dregs. JB was one of them. Dreg being the poorest or most undesirable part of anything. Of course, by any name or euphemism RBs as a ‘breed’ are the most infamous dregs of society: a menagerie of detestable savages that haunt minds, prey on society, disrupt civilization, and foment hostility for everyone, all with one theme, a leitmotiv of savagery that runs the gamut of macabre.

The RB in this story is oblivious to any humane response. He’s aware of yours, though. He may use his understanding of human nature against you at any time, because he’s constantly plotting some atrocity. And if you’re somehow in the mix of his villainy, whether the express target of his perversity or not, you won’t be able to get out of the way, since you won’t know what’s coming or why it’s coming or when or where. Because! He’s both an impassive and impulsive RB.

And the reason why you will never know how you got involved, or how you are going to get involved, is simply and often because he doesn’t usually know those details himself, that is, you may just be an unintended consequence (sometimes referred to as collateral damage). That’s a large part of what makes him and what he does so devious. Just incidentally, on one occasion, he might shrug you off; on another occasion, he might knock you off. That is, he doesn’t always know the targets of his deadliness until and he doesn’t always know who because many of his acts are random and unpremeditated. If he intends to kill you, though, it could be gruesome, because the RB might want you to see it coming and feel the sting of it when it comes.

Understand clearly, this is not just a bad apple that’s being considered here, this is a sinister someone. Remember that fact, although you might not need to be reminded as your reading progresses. This is a guy who enjoys the violence and mayhem he creates; havoc is a personal reward he derives from the brutality that he metes out. It’s the satisfaction he feels inside, the magnanimity he experiences, the sheer pleasure he feels that can provide him with some kind of arcane reparation and, on occasion, can even make him rapturous.

Causing pain and suffering is like stroking his psyche. He itches, then relieves himself, metaphorically, by scratching—then by scratching out the source of the aggravating itch.

In regard to the RB herein described, and in terms of his shocking feats, he didn’t brag about them. He didn’t boast because his infamy spoke for itself. The butcherman never sought accolades for his malevolence, because the only recognition he ever sought, that ever meant anything to him, was schadenfreude: the pleasure he gained from creating the pain he caused. Absolutely, positively, he most certainly enjoyed being rotten to the core.

He committed many uncommonly vile acts, some too gross to describe. Sadistic is too good a word to characterize the worst of his crimes, iniquitous too mild, obscene too vague …

This is one guy that was able reach the depths of perversity without the slightest effort. Administering a coup de grâce is not among his first thoughts when facing a victim. He’d rather maim first than murder; he’d rather insult his prey with viciousness than prematurely administer a fatal blow; he’d rather see his victim writhe in pain and whimper in fear than die without notice; and, he’d rather see tears of agony pour down and spread out over a victim’s face than confront a braveheart with a stubborn streak. That’s your RB: vulgar, vicious, villainous and virulent in the end and to the end—an end noxious/toxic/lethal.

The venomous bon mot: hate—as food for thought, as a tool for turbulence, as a machine of destruction, as a balm for a perverted mentality, and as an incentive that inspires the monster to continue his diabolism without interruption or imposition.

You can’t feel sorry for the RB. But he’d like that if you did. Your forgiveness, your mercy on top of his madness is like manna, and makes his day. He glories in the novelty and incomprehensibility of it. Because he sees the beautiful irony in it—

Chapter 3

Jasper. That was his given name. Birdsong was his surname. When he was a child, and for a time after he was a child, he bore his name with some reservation. Jasper Birdsong drew some giggles from schoolgirls and some jokes from schoolboys. ‘Sing for us Birdie,’ some mocked. What’s in a name? Some amusement for others. —But not for long …

By the time Jasper was 12 there was no poking fun at his name. It was too costly for anyone who did. Jasper had become a force, and he showed his force when anyone mocked his name. Of course, that wasn’t the only time Jasper showed his muscle. He was strong, stronger than any other kid in his school, and he proved it from time to time, depending on his mood and the provocation, of which he needed very little. And Jasper often broadcast his meanness in a way that became an irreverent mantra: he grit his teeth in a snarl that was ominous.

Jasper grew bad more than he grew up. It was a tragedy that hate and infamy ruled Jasper’s world, and what was even worse was that Jasper fit right in to that uniquely distorted world; in fact, he found a comfort zone in a world of tumult and torment. Famously bad, Jasper had his niche. Innocence and mercy became as distant from Jasper, metaphorically, as the stars.

I realize that you may think my vetting of Jasper as an RB is harsh. That is to say, how do I have the audacity to pigeonhole Jasper, perhaps even the egregious audacity to subject him to such severe condemnation? You’ll see—

Before you wonder too much about what makes me so knowledgeable about Jasper, I want you to know that I learned these things right from ‘the horse’s mouth.’ I’m the person who heard Jasper’s unsolicited confession; that is to say, I got it from the original source, a source that was not available to others. I came by it the hard way, and I have the (psychological) scars to show for it. Additionally, I interviewed his closest acquaintances, and I actually was one of his acquaintances in elementary school. Finally, I’m a person who has an opinion, so writing about Jasper and other RBs is like free association. That is, I’m free to express my opinion.

I do have credentials of a sort. But I’m not a criminologist, nor am I a psychologist or ethnologist or anthropologist or sociologist.

I do have a profession, but it’s not in social science. In my case, I get paid for what I write. Writing about things I investigate is my métier, my vocatio. That is, I’m employed as an investigative reporter/sort of. For me, it’s not a regular job. I dig up assignments and sell some publisher an idea wherein I uncover some scheme or issue or shenanigans that a publisher will pay me to explore in detail and expose to public scrutiny. Also, if I find a scourge, I’m expected to propose ways to expunge it. —To say it simply, I am a voice on issues worthy of scrutiny.

That’s been a problem for me on this assignment/to find a voice—with some authority. I need a solution. I think I might be too close to the problem to see the dividend. Anyway, I’m not great at math, so maybe it comes as no surprise that things don’t always add up for me.

The thing is that I present everything from the viewpoint of an insider. I’m the guy who knows the guy who did the horrible stuff/and told me all about it. This RB was a guy who confided in me, voluntarily revealing all the horrid stuff that he did, or enough of it so that I was able to imply or infer from the information I was given to report on the horrible details.

As I noted earlier, he was a guy I knew in elementary school and later, by chance, then by finagling, in prison. How did I manage that last? Because I, too, was incarcerated, you’ll learn. I hadn’t committed a crime, though. I wasn’t convicted of anything/other than being inquisitive and of being willing to satisfy my curiosity and that of some others. I did object to my imprisonment, but I accepted it as a condition of necessity; it was either that or going without—sustenance.

I promise to tell you how all of this came about in the following pages, including the circumstances leading up to the incarceration of both me (for almost a year) and Jasper (presumably for life), who was my targeted subject of research. Also, as a kind of sidebar, I will tell you about the nature and extent of my relations with the primary source of my information.

Additionally, I will provide a description of the other sources of information made available to me, and their involvement. For the time being, it’s enough for you to know that I acted as an undercover agent for the federal government with a judicial imprimatur and, surreptitiously, as an investigative reporter under the auspices of my publisher/on his payroll, and in his debt.

Have I taken some liberty with the material I’ve acquired? You bet. Why not? After all, I’m at liberty to do that, so I’m taking advantage. But! I’m