Can Organized Crime Save the World?
The Tally/Snolly story… Where to even start with that one?
The McPhearson crime family believes that if you give children ordinary names, they’ll live ordinary lives. It should thus surprise nobody that the two bosses of the family as our story begins, the twin brothers Tallywhacker B. Darlington McPhearson III and Snollygoster J. Davidson McPhearson (Tally and Snolly), are not ordinary people.
Remarkably in fact, they had actually learned and internalized the very hardest lesson that there is regarding crime. That is, crime does in fact pay, but for intelligent and industrious and self-reliant people, it usually doesn’t pay as well as ordinary business does. Quinton Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” is entirely about this lesson. The film depicts a bad day at the office for a bunch of gangsters. That is, a doctor, lawyer, teacher, real estate salesman, software developer or anybody else could have a bad day at work and, most often, survive and be little the worse off for it the next day. The same, clearly as the film shows, is not the case for criminals and gangsters.
Thus as our story opens on a coldish November morning not terribly long ago, a decade and a half or thereabouts had passed without any member of the family doing anything much more illegal than jaywalking or insider trading. The family was mainly involved in operating a string of small to medium sized casinos along a river along with various businesses related to those and, while the family’s bank accounts were looking quite good, something like what you might call the thrill of the chase appeared increasingly to have gone missing in action. It was clear that something would have to be done about that.
“You thinking bout gettin back into criminal activities or somethin like that, Boss??” asked one of the Gen-X members of the family.
“I’m not thinkin bout doing anything STUPID...” replied Tally.
“An I’m not the kinda guy who wastes time dreamin bout returnin to some kinda past golden age or anything like that, time moves forwards, it don’t move backwards. There is a good time for anything an the good time for drugs and a lotta the stuff we’ve done in the past is over and gone, too many people involved in that stuff now, too much stupidity, too many machinegun fights and what not, I’m not thinking bout any of that stuff, I’m thinking bout somethin totally new. In fact the Mexican cartels you read about are said to have money and power equal to that of the Mexican government itself, any sorta local crime boss thinkin bout competin with THAT shit would gotta be straight outta his mind.
“An there’s anuddah problem in that picture...” added Snolly. Soma you guys are what, thirty, thirty five or so, me an Tally are getting towards sixty five an seventy, time ain’t on our sides no more. Sooner or later, in theory at least, we might hafta try to justify our time on Earth to Saint Peter or somebody in that crowd, an a lifetime spent in ordinary stupid crime ain’t gonna cut it. We need somethin substantially different...”
“You talking bout something like Robin Hood used to do, Boss, steal from the rich and split the proceeds tween yourself an the poor??”
“Close...” replied Tally. “I’m talkin bout somethin so totally new, at least to criminals, that nobody ain’t never thought of it before. Nobody in it at all. Somethin we could make a whole lotta money at an at the same time, make massive improvements in ordinary people’s lives an in fact save lotsa lives.”
“Say what?”
“Any you guys evah heard bout DDT?” asked Snolly.
“DDT??”
“See whad I tell ya?” interjected Tally. “These guys never even hearda the stuff, no idea what we’re talking bout at all. I’m gonna hafta give you younger generation types a bit of a history lesson here…”
“DDT was, actually still is if you can get hold of any, the world’s ultimate pesticide, a legit candidate for greatest thing the white man ever invented. They had malaria, polio, mosquitoes, lice, bedbugs, typhus, and whole lotta other shit like that all but wiped off the planet in 1958 or around then.
“An they banned the stuff??”
“The stuff had been sittin round for a long time before they figured out what it did to insects. Patents had all expired, no way for any one big company to make obscene profits with it. An there was another problem which is trickier to explain; any you guys ever heard the word “Malthusian”??
“Say what??”
“Thomas Malthus was a cousin of Chuck Darwin’s, evolution, all that kinda bullshit, the guy convince a lotta people that the Earth was always gonna be runnin outta resources, that’s where all the green bullshit you hear bout comes from, those guys wanna reduce the human population of the planet to medieval levels for the greater good and the glory of “Gaia”.
“Boss, some of what you’re talkin about jus came back to me, wasn’t that the stuff got banned cause it was killing all the birds?”
“That turned out to be a lotta bullshit:
http://junksciencearchive.com/ddtfaq.html
...stuff had no effect on any higher animals at all includin birds, but it was absolute death on insects, specially lice an mosquitoes, bedbugs, fleas and every kinda thing like that. They had malaria an typhus an polio all but wiped off the planet by 57 or 59 an that was too good for em, they went an banned the stuff, goofy broad named Carson wrote a book bout shit she didn’t know nothin about and the idiot government banned the stuff, not just here but pretty much around the world.”
“So you’re sayin ain’t nobody shoulda died from malaria for how long now?”
“Since around 76 or thereabouts, somethin like 100 million people dead from malaria since then, no reason but, like I say, that makes the Malthusians and greens happy...”
“Can’t possibly make all those dead people happy… Who you plannin ta sell this stuff to, Boss, assumin you got some way of comin up with it?
“Just all kindsa possibilities” replied Snolly, we could start with hotel and motel owners who wouldn’t hafta worry about bad reps from customers getting bitten up by bedbugs no more, country clubs, golf courses, any kinda thing goes on outdoors, specially in the South, an that’s before ya even get to the hundred an whatever million Harry Homeowners in the country!”
“The stuff ain’t totally simple but it ain’t the world’s hardest shit to manufacture either an it don’t gotta be absolutely pure to work” said Tally. We already been talkin to a group of chemists here in town who been lookin for a way outta makin PCP an meth for the gangs... we move those guys to somewhere a couple hundred miles out, new IDs, a new business the gangs and cartels ain’t ever even heard of or know nothin about, an it’s like they dropped off the planet, they’d never be found.”
“Sounds collossal boss, but what about pushin the stuff and whatever kinda sales force you’d want for somethin like that, you guys given that any kinda thought?”
“Wouldn’t be the same kinda losers you’d use for pushin drugs…” replied Tally.
“That’s the kinda problem our government is good at fixin for us” said Snolly. “All those legions uh kids you keep readin bout with college degrees an no jobs an mountains uh student debt what they can’t get outta by just declarin bankruptcy like in the old days. Government, banks, and colleges are in on it too, but that’s basicall our sales force.”
“What keeps other crime families from hornin in on it??”
“Time, basically. By the time those losers ever hear bout what we’re up to if they ever do hear bout it, we got all the market locked up or all the market worth havin. That an just the market being so big, even Capone couldn’t squeeze us outta it.”
“You totally certain this stuff is basically harmless boss?”
“You can overdo anything and too much of anything gets to be problematical. Even too much money or too much sex can cause problems for people. There may or may not have been any kinda problems with usin the stuff as an area pesticide for crops on large farmin operations, but for just usin it to protect human habitats an houses an yards an what not, there wasn’t any downside.”
The meeting broke up and the operation was underway within a few days.
This isn’t the kind of story that has any sort of a definite ending. The activities described are not the kinds of activities that government agencies are good at following or keeping statistics on and there isn’t any official word as to how the project might be going at present. Like the name of the soldier whose remains lie at the Tomb of the Unknowns, any success that the McPhersons might have achieved in the venture will most likely be known only to God.