Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Kill the Lawyers | Let Them Eat The Rich on WordPress.com

“The first thing we do is kill all the lawyers.”
–Dick the butcher.

When I was a child, I lived with Jack Cade. He wasn’t really my father, but I allowed the belief. It was easier than correcting everyone. Jack didn’t mind. He was as close to a father as I had. And though I can vaguely remember my mother, Jack is the only consistent man from my childhood.

Jack was a thief by trade and a liar by pastime. He seldom told the truth. He was not malicious in purposefully misleading everyone, he just had an active imagination. Contradictions didn’t trouble him. I went along with his fabrications because he loved me and doted on me. It made for a magical if somewhat hectic childhood. If a promise he made didn’t pan out, there was always compensation offered. I learned that life actually works this way too even though most people don’t believe it. I thought nothing of it, it was the water I swam in, if you get my drift. I learned that no one is really watching and no one is keeping score. People who get caught up in what is true and what is false miss the point entirely. What happens is all that matters.

I ate when I was hungry and had shoes on my feet. But he taught me to care for myself. Sure, we lived out of a beater Toyota Van for most of my eight year, but I was never cold or alone, and I never felt unloved. Jack Cade gave me an Internet connected computer when I was six. He showed me how to turn it on, explained the mouse and some programs and left me to it. He didn’t know the first thing about computers, but he knew an angle when he saw one. When I wasn’t helping Jack steal something, I lived in my own virtual world. I never went to school and we weren’t in one place long enough for me to make friends. I never watched TV; Jack hated drama, the artificiality of it was like a splinter in his brain. He’d say, “Fiction is for the dull. I can make up a truer story off the top of my head.” And we spent a lot of time making up stories together.

Jack wasn’t ambitious. He believed that life was lived in the moment. He had no regrets and made few plans. We were always together and I never felt like I was anywhere but the center of his world.

You may think I was deprived of a normal life. But if that meant I was deprived of daily betrayals by stupid, petty people or spared relentless bludgeoning of an education, then I didn’t miss being normal.

My playmates were Jack’s acquaintances; they just didn’t stick around long. He’d say
“It’s harder to hit a moving target – and fortune favors the smart.” He was smart and lucky. And we were a team. He never left me with anyone else, never betrayed me for sex, and never put his needs above mine. I guess we loved each other, but we never discussed it. He taught me that nothing anyone says matters. It’s what you do that counts. He made me responsible for my own thinking. And that has made me who I am.

I have a photographic memory. Actually I can even remember things that I was not aware of, long after they happen. I believe all people could do this, that nobody really forgets anything, they just choose to not remember. My brain has an advanced cataloging and retrieval ability. It’s like an instant file allocation table. As a result, I can remember everything; I don’t even need to try.

Jack also left me alone to figure out answers for myself. He took the idea of unschooling to a radical level. I guess he knew my insatiable curiosity would serve my needs. When I wanted to know how a computer program worked I looked it up. When I realized that everything ran on a set of instructions, I taught myself to code. I would decompile programs and poke around. I became a master at searching for the correct answer, reverse engineering to make maps of everything. And for someone who couldn’t believe much of what her father said, I developed a finely sharpened bullshit detector.

If I have a birth certificate I’ve never seen it. When I need identification, I make it. You’d be surprised by how little you actually need to own in order to survive. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have all I want. Jack taught me that the only difference between wants and needs is haves. I want for nothing.

By the time I was ten, I kept a daily journal, but I never learned to write on paper. By the time I was fifteen, I had access to Wells Fargo Bank and the secure municipal servers in Chicago and Minneapolis. I have access to anything I want and I never leave a trace. I was raised as a ghost. I am invisible.

Jack was killed by a hit and run when I was seventeen. But by then we didn’t see much of each other anymore. I learned of his death in a text message from the woman he was fucking at the time. I didn’t cry. Jack got everything he wanted. Why should I be sad?

The power to be completely anonymous is the greatest power a person can have; Jack Cade inspired me to this independence. He didn’t cultivate attachment. He gave me all these gifts and asked for nothing in return. Because of that he will live on in my heart forever.

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