You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy
The Ugly Man talks.
It’s a jail house interview. They can be unpredictable, but also invigorating.
The Ugly Man walks in, tattoos dripping down his neck, anger pouring out of his blue eyes.
“How ya doing Mr. Brown?” I say extending my hand.
He looks at me like I’m warm spit.
He is handcuffed, and in leg shackles.
He is wearing an orange prison outfit and a guard is right behind him as he shuffles slowly into the doorway.
He pushes his hand forward as far as the chain will allow.
I grab it and try and make the moment less awkward.
“I ain’t talking shit to you,” he says defiantly.
I point him to the chair, and introduce myself.
“They lied to me,” he says pointing at the deputy sitting in the interrogation room.
“Well I didn’t lie to you,” I say. “If you want to tell me your story, then tell me your story. If not….”
I pause.
He looks at me angrily.
“I guess you don’t have to.”
He has tattoos on his face. I study his pasty white complexion. It’s like a lawn that is full of grass and weeds, homogenized into one surface that is part freckle, part scraggly beard.
He appears to have a tear drop on his left eye and some sort of lightning bolt or swastika on top of his head.
I stare at the swastika. It’s ugly. It’s non descript blue, like it was etched into his head with a Bic pen.
Why do that I wonder.
Why desecrate your own body with an image so reviled it makes others wince, makes me assume things about you that I shouldn’t this early into an introduction.
His hair is flaming orange, like Heat Miser in a Frosty the Snow Man Christmas Special.
His neck is covered with serpent imagery.
The art work is dull blue, but quite ornate. It is a spider web of lines that come together like scales on a slithering python.
He takes a humungous gulp of air and then starts talking.
He talks and talks and talks.
His words are fast. The start of one sentence often collides with the end of the last sentence, like a morning fender bender where both parties get out and begin pointing at each other’s car.
The Ugly man is a con man, who gives a little to lie a lot.
He will swear on his mother and father’s grave to prove to me he is telling me the truth.
He will make up a word and use it over and over and over.
“I DO HAVE INTERVOLEMENT,” He will says.
INTERVOLVEMENT? WHAT THE HELL IS THAT, I feel like asking.
But I dare not. I am letting him bury himself.
He is naming names and filling in blanks in the story.
I don’t know the details. I don’t know the ins and outs and what the other four teenage suspects have told investigators.
I casually look at the deputy in the room .
He rolls his eyes as the ugly man spews facts and venom and lies and misconceptions.
The ugly man is on a roll.
He never stops talking, never stops to wipe his lips, or scratch his nose.
He inhales all the oxygen in the room and talks and talks.
He is a conflict of lies and misdirected sense of purpose.
He tells me that he is being truthful. I question him over and over.
He sticks to his story.
He didn’t break into the gun collector’s house, he tells me with ferocity.
He protects this sentence like a mother bear protecting her cub.
“Them boys came to me with stolen guns. I DIDN’T BURGLARIZE NO HOUSE!”
His eyes are on fire as he tells me this. His red hair flairs and the demonic tattoos on his neck seem to fill with every pulse of adrenaline.
I didn’t burglarize nothing, he will tell me.
I find it odd that he does admit his INTERVOLVEMENT in other parts of the crime.
He tells me he knows the high powered semi automatic weapons are stolen. He tells me that he tried to help those teenagers sell the 89 assault style weapons. He implicates himself in many facets of the crime wave, but he will not admit that he broke into the house.
Aggravated Burglary is the charge he is trying to avoid.
Why so concerned about the burglary charge?
“I’m a convicted felon. Burglary will send me back to prison,” he says knowingly.
He blames the four teenagers for the burglary.
Wheres the truth?
Hard to say.
Deputies will tell me that the teens broke into the house. Investigators say one of the 18 year olds is related to the victim who was an avid gun collector.
Law men will also tell me that the ugly man was implicated by all four of the teens.
“You need to ask those boys,” the ugly man will say over and over.
Finally, I’ve heard enough.
“Thank You,” I say as he shuffles down the hall, his weighted metal ankle bracelets slapping the linoleum.
People lie.
The Ugly man has lied.
Where’s the truth?
Not for me to say.
My job today is find 65 high powered rifles still on area streets before someone is hurt.
Hopefully somone will hear the fire and brim stone lies and call the law.
If not?
Only The Ugly Man knows.
Life’s Crazy™