All through my life, I never fit the profile of a juvenile
delinquent. I grew up in a middle class family in a decent house on
Portland Island. I had a nice girlfriend, got good grades in school, had a
good attendance record, and never did any drugs. But sometimes all it takes
for a good person to be led astray is bad friends. I had those friends.
Mike, Eric, Jimmy, and Rich.
Mike was a big kid, who mostly was the muscle of our group, but was smarter than he led on. Jimmy was the big drug user, who always showed up to school with bloodshot eyes and constantly laughing at little things, so you didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that he was perpetually stoned most of the time. Eric wasn't really a bad kid. He joked around a lot, and everybody thought that he was a loser, but he really was a nice, smart guy who had a tendancy to do stupid things, not unlike me. Rich was our ringleader, he was the one who told us what to do. I was known as "Professor" because I was always getting good grades despite the bad behavior. I never got that group. We were all smart kids who were fucking up our lives by doing stupid shit. And we didn't even know why, we just did.
With them, I did all the bad shit that pattern criminals do when they are kids. I shoplifted, vandalized property, smashed pumpkins on Halloween, trespassed on private land, and even stole a few cars. That's what eventually got me in trouble.
One night, I decided to steal a car to make a few bucks. Jimmy had gotten us involved with the biggest car theft ring in Liberty City. They ran a big operation down by the Portland Docks, where they would hire thieves and give them a list of cars to steal, and they would bring them back to the Import/Export garage there. We had made a few thousand dollars doing this, it seemed profitable.
I was in the middle of hotwiring a Bobcat in the parking lot of the Easy Credit Autos, when a cop showed up and wondered what I was doing lying on the floor of that truck, my head under the dashboard with wires hanging in my face. The next thing I knew, a bright beam was shined in my face, and I found myself in the backseat of a police car, my hands cuffed behind my back, tears slowly running down my face. It was bad luck on my part; I had just turned eighteen a couple of weeks ago.
All my life, everybody told me that this was going to happen if I didn't straighten up. And it all went in one ear and out the other. Even my girlfriend Jennifer told me to get my life in order. All the people I should have listened to, I ignored. I loved to be a rebel, on the other side of the law. I pled no contest to the charge of car theft.
The judge threw the book at me. Even dispite the blatant corruption of city officials, the police, even the mayor himself, I, Ricky Thomas, a lowly car thief, was given five years, the maximum for motor vehicle theft. Five years, with possiblity of parole after two years. God, my life had barely started, and now they were eager to just lock me up. Though I'm not saying that I didn't deserve it. I did a stupid thing, and faced the consequences I was handed. I also vowed I would never do anything with the teenaged GoodFellas again. I was too smart to become another Henry Hill. Hell, the little bastards even showed their true colors when I got arrested. With the exception of Eric, my "friends", never showed up for my trial, or wrote or visited me while I was in prison. It made me lose my faith in them.
The prison life wasn't too bad. Since I was a first time offender, they put me in the minimum-security block of Liberty Prison. No jailhouse love for me. Jennifer visited me every week, and was glad to see me. So were my parents. I guess they could see that I was going to change, to become a good person. That's what I wanted too.
After I got out, I thought I would finally get a chance to lead a normal life. Boy, was I wrong.
Mike was a big kid, who mostly was the muscle of our group, but was smarter than he led on. Jimmy was the big drug user, who always showed up to school with bloodshot eyes and constantly laughing at little things, so you didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that he was perpetually stoned most of the time. Eric wasn't really a bad kid. He joked around a lot, and everybody thought that he was a loser, but he really was a nice, smart guy who had a tendancy to do stupid things, not unlike me. Rich was our ringleader, he was the one who told us what to do. I was known as "Professor" because I was always getting good grades despite the bad behavior. I never got that group. We were all smart kids who were fucking up our lives by doing stupid shit. And we didn't even know why, we just did.
With them, I did all the bad shit that pattern criminals do when they are kids. I shoplifted, vandalized property, smashed pumpkins on Halloween, trespassed on private land, and even stole a few cars. That's what eventually got me in trouble.
One night, I decided to steal a car to make a few bucks. Jimmy had gotten us involved with the biggest car theft ring in Liberty City. They ran a big operation down by the Portland Docks, where they would hire thieves and give them a list of cars to steal, and they would bring them back to the Import/Export garage there. We had made a few thousand dollars doing this, it seemed profitable.
I was in the middle of hotwiring a Bobcat in the parking lot of the Easy Credit Autos, when a cop showed up and wondered what I was doing lying on the floor of that truck, my head under the dashboard with wires hanging in my face. The next thing I knew, a bright beam was shined in my face, and I found myself in the backseat of a police car, my hands cuffed behind my back, tears slowly running down my face. It was bad luck on my part; I had just turned eighteen a couple of weeks ago.
All my life, everybody told me that this was going to happen if I didn't straighten up. And it all went in one ear and out the other. Even my girlfriend Jennifer told me to get my life in order. All the people I should have listened to, I ignored. I loved to be a rebel, on the other side of the law. I pled no contest to the charge of car theft.
The judge threw the book at me. Even dispite the blatant corruption of city officials, the police, even the mayor himself, I, Ricky Thomas, a lowly car thief, was given five years, the maximum for motor vehicle theft. Five years, with possiblity of parole after two years. God, my life had barely started, and now they were eager to just lock me up. Though I'm not saying that I didn't deserve it. I did a stupid thing, and faced the consequences I was handed. I also vowed I would never do anything with the teenaged GoodFellas again. I was too smart to become another Henry Hill. Hell, the little bastards even showed their true colors when I got arrested. With the exception of Eric, my "friends", never showed up for my trial, or wrote or visited me while I was in prison. It made me lose my faith in them.
The prison life wasn't too bad. Since I was a first time offender, they put me in the minimum-security block of Liberty Prison. No jailhouse love for me. Jennifer visited me every week, and was glad to see me. So were my parents. I guess they could see that I was going to change, to become a good person. That's what I wanted too.
After I got out, I thought I would finally get a chance to lead a normal life. Boy, was I wrong.