“We are all capable of villainy and heroics” by Josh Stallings

 Q: Whom do you consider the most intelligent, diabolical, or frightening criminal you’ve encountered on the page, and why?

A: This question had me stumped. I realize I don’t write and or read looking for or enjoying mastermind criminals. My life experience has taught me that if most of the criminals did the math, added hours spent setting up and pulling off a robbery plus court and jail time ultimately served they would discover they didn’t make minimum wage. Sad truth is working the fryolator at a fast food joint isn’t cool but it pays better than house breaking. 

A lot of crime fiction is written about the smallest demographic of brilliant criminals, successful cat burglars, serial killers, etc… Truth is a life of crime is not the choice of those with upperclass opportunities, or special enough skills to climb out of the trap of poverty. 

“I could go to Harvard but I’d rather rob a store,” said no one ever. 

Recently stupid thuggish criminals have moved mainstream. The Trump crime family raked in billions in fraudulent Saudi investor’s cash while being headed by a fool so stupid he thinks he is the first person to notice U.S. spells “us.” 

Professor Moriarty is as much of a fiction as was Sherlock Holmes. There may be a brilliant detective out there but looking at the paycheck, I think most brilliant folks tend to work as lawyers or doctors or CEOs. This is why I fell into reading and writing hard-boiled. Philip Marlow’s detection method comes down to, stumble around stirring things up until they explode. Then sift through the rubble and maybe find the bad guy, or not.  

Michael Jackson was wrong, “smooth criminals” are a complete fiction, or at best an anomaly. We are living in the days of ignorant bullies, and unfortunate folks who feel they have no other option to make it other than turning to crime. Madison Avenue and internet influencers convince us we will never be truly happy until we own the latest greatest most costly widget, shoe, SUV, jeans, or what ever the fuck else they are hocking. The world wide corporatocracy convinces us all that if they are making profit we are all doing good. Stock market is up, so be happy. It’s bullshit, but if you say that you get branded a radical communist or a socialist, or even worse an out of touch liberal dreamer.  

Before you call me a total buzz kill, I’ll admit I dig 007, Bond, James Bond. I like a good fantasy like everyone else. But I like Mick Herron’s Slow Horses better. It feels more real to me. I get there is an element of fantasy in all crime fiction, I just like mine closer to the truth. Fiction can teach us about the world outside our personal bubble, but it can also misinform and be dangerous.

Jason Aldean has a hit country song on the radio right now, it’s clearly racist dog-whistle fiction.

“Carjack an old lady at a red light

Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store

Ya think it's cool, well, act a fool if ya like

Cuss out a cop, spit in his face.....

…… See how far ya make it down the road

'Round here, we take care of our own

You cross that line, it won't take long

For you to find out, I recommend you don't

Try that in a small town…

…Got a gun that my granddad gave me

They say one day they're gonna round up

Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck.”

This is crap. Bad lyrical crime fiction. Aldean forgets that in “big cities” we don’t buy a teenager an AR15, body armor and a box of ammo. We don’t have school shootings in big cities, or meth labs on the edge of town, or that it was small towns that filled the most prescriptions of oxycodone, or that those guns you love have become the number one killer of children in America. He writes about a fictitious small town, like rabid MAGA types talk about the good old days when America was great for rich white men. 

Why oh why did I go on that last rant? 

Maybe because not telling the truth has an actual price we all wind up paying. And it’s not just right wing punks who use the lies of scary thugs that only they and their guns can protect us from. Hillary Clinton spread the lie about "super predators.” No such thing existed, but it got rousing applause. Liberal states like California were happy to enact Three-Strikes gets you life bills and to prosecute thirteen year old gang members as adults. All this brought to us by a pop culture that was full of lies about crime in America.    

I struggle daily with the idea that most of our problems are systemic not personal. Corporate greed. Systemic racism, misogyny, homophobia.  Four U.S. companies will pay $26 billion to settle claims that they fueled the opioid crisis. How do I portray these huge ideas in the tales I write? I don’t know that I can, so I work my dark corner of the street and tell the truth I know as best I can. If TRICKY has a villain it is a combination of a simple mistake, police officer's confirmation bias, and their fear of the other, particularly when the other is of the brown tattooed type.

I guess the truth is that pushed to extremes, we are all capable of villainy and we are capable of acts of heroism. We all carry scars and biases, emotional ghosts we must overcome, these are what makes us us.  

In the face of all that, we must all tell our truth while questioning what we believe. Discovering our own prejudices doesn’t make us wrong, it makes humans struggling to grow the fuck up. My strongest weapon against my shadow side is my unbridled love of humanity and all its beautifully damaged ways of being.