The Proper Way to do the Perp Walk

The whole world is filled with speculation
The whole wide world which people say is round
They will tear your mind away from contemplation
They will jump on your misfortune when you're down

-- "Ain't Talkin'," Bob Dylan, 2006

Since I've been led away to prison in shackles more times than a persistent runaway slave repeatedly being returned to a plantation, I know a little bit -- OK, what the hell, I know quite a bit -- about the proper form and etiquette of doing the perp walk. With so many Cuyahoga County elected officials and public employees looking down the double barrel of two buffalos (a "buffalo" being a nickel, hence, in criminal argot, a five-year sentence) quite a few people might be in need of this type of information in the near future.

I consider it a public service to give these guys -- and perhaps a woman or two -- a few pointers on maintaining their pride as they fall... since they will have little else left afterwards.

Here goes: Although the actual time you’ll spend being paraded in front of the TV cameras will be brief, the trauma associated with it will make the time move in extreme slow motion — it’ll seem like an eternity. Since you’ll wind up replaying your 15 seconds of fame (actually, infamy) over and over again in your mind’s eye, you really want to do this part right.

While graduate business schools might teach crisis management, they don’t teach a course on how to handle what can seem like the lowest point of your life; nothing in your education, training or experience prepares you for doing a proper perp walk with seemingly the whole world watching.

Of course it just may be that at this juncture your head, like a lot of other malefactors, is in the proverbial sand; perhaps you’re one of the dozens — if not hundreds — of people around the county who are whistling past the graveyard, hoping against hope their chicanery isn’t discovered, and their ticket to the Big House isn’t about to be punched by the feds.

But, hey, you know what you did, and if you think the feds are going to miss very much, you’re sadly mistaken… the Department of Justice is nothing if not thorough, trust me on this one, I know from personal experience. The wheels of justice might grind slowly, but they do grind exceedingly fine.

Before it’s over they’ll have you wearing your ass for a hat.

The problem is, no one does dirt in a vacuum, and a secret can only be kept by one. And when people get caught they are going to roll over. At this very moment, down in the basement of the FBI headquarters on Lakeside Ave., agents are beating people about the head with billyclubs in an attempt to get them to shut the hell up.

Dudes that were once considered stand up guys are now ratting out friends about dorm room dope parties held 20 years ago in an attempt to mitigate their sentences. They’re even flipping on their own family members, telling about how their wives switched price tags on sleek two-piece outfits at Nordstrom’s. That’s a federal offense, right? I can hear one of the weasels now: “She also tore that tag off the bottom of our mattress, you know, the one that says ‘DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALITY OF FEDERAL LAW’... that information should be good enough to get me a year off, shouldn’t it?”

There’s no shame in their game. As the saying goes, “It ain’t no fun when the rabbit got the gun.”

So, right now you might be about as nervous as a whore in church, but the main thing — the cardinal rule — when doing the perp walk is to not let them see you sweat. I’ll give ‘ol Bernie Madoff credit for that, he has remained stone-faced (which probably, more than anything else, means that he’s a total, complete sociopath).

However, I've seen some supposedly real tough guys get so scared they come down with an instant case of Parkinson's disease. As soon as the feds roll up on them they begin shaking like a dog passing peach pits.

In criminal circles, that's considered bad form.

There’s a gangster tradition to be upheld here (and, believe me, while you might not look like a gangster, the public knows different), and if your knees start to buckle in front of the cameras, Edward G. Robinson will start spinning in his grave. If Al Capone were still alive to see you break that weak, he’d probably send someone to kneecap your punk ass.

Will you be shaking on the inside? Does Pinocchio have a wooden pecker? Of course you will be … but just don’t show it. And to be able to pull that off, you have to start preparing yourself right now, today. No more wishing and fanaticizing that one day you’re going to wake up and it’ll all be gone away. I used to try to feel myself like that too, but it doesn’t work. Do a quick reality check. You can’t click your heels three times and get out of this shit, you’re in too deep.

Also, fear can have other physical effects—you might not be able to prevent your sphincter muscle from tightening up when in front of the judge, but no one can see that; what you have to pray for, what you absolutely have to guard against, is your bladder betraying you in open court. Whatever you do, don’t leave a puddle in front of the Bar of Justice.

Here are a couple of additional tips: Wear a dark suit to court on the day of sentencing just in case, since pee doesn’t show up as much on dark pants. And you might want to think about maybe even investing in a pair of those adult diapers, I think they’re called “Depends.” But if you do a number two, or faint when the gavel is dropped, you’ll never be able to live it down.

And, that silly-assed move of trying to hide your face from the TV cameras? Fugetaboudit. Everyone knows what you look like by now, so the best thing to do (after sentencing, not before) is, when the camera moves in for a close-up, smile and give them the finger, that will really fuck them up; they won’t be able to show that clip on the 6 pm news.

This will also increase your street creds, so when you do get to the Big House you won’t have to become the butt boy for some big tattooed dude named Bubba. Ouch!

It also helps to keep in mind that one day you’ll look back on all this bullshit and laugh — it just won’t be any day soon. In addition, when you get out, you just might be able to convince some university to allow you to teach a course on “How to Take a Bribe without Getting Busted,” since we are evidently doing such a piss-poor job of teaching ethics to those who go into government in Cuyahoga County.

But don’t lose heart; there always are exceptions to every rule: If the feds do allow you to throw a couple of your colleagues under the bus, you just might be able to avoid indictment … and then you can move to another part of the state and raise livestock (or even remain on City Council). Is this a great country... or what?

From Cool Cleveland contributor Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com

Read Mansfield's book From Behind the Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race, and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate. It is available again in hardcover through the author. Visit him online at http://www.FromBehindTheWall.com.
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