This is an old story of crime and punishment, as old as human history. Can the punishment for the crime ever end? Maybe it is possible, for some, but not others. Maybe it is possible for everyone. Who knows such things? You be the judge.

One day I was riding down the turnpike and I just got hungry so I stopped in at one of those greasy spoons that dot our highways. I like to eat in places like that because it lets me see how people really live.

I sat down and ordered the mid priced meal of meat loaf and some potatoes and a good piece of apple pie. I saw a small family consisting of a broken man, probably the father, and his wife of about twenty five but she looked forty and three children. They were sharing a meal, one single meal for all five of them.

After a few minutes there I spoke to the waitress about another order. A few minutes later five of the best meals they served were brought to their table. There was an argument but the waitress pointed to me and the man came over.

"We don't take no charity" he told me, holding himself as erect as he could, in his worn and dirty clothes.

"Please don't misunderstand, this is not charity. I expect something for it." I truthfully told him. "I expect you to one day help someone else, a stranger, when you think you can help. So you see this is not charity, I want something in return." I told him.

I handed him a business card with a name and address on it. "Go see this man, he is expecting you. He will offer you a job, one that will be more than sufficient to support your family. Don't worry about how you look because it will not matter to the man, he will hire you. The work will be hard but it will be honest. Your car will never make it, so you better take the bus. If he does not give you the job call me here and I handed him my card, and I will make sure you and your family are taken care of." With that I handed him an envelope containing one thousand dollars in ten dollar bills. "This should help you get there without any problems. Get a good night sleep and a good breakfast."

As he stood there looking at me I got up and left.

"Mr." the man started to say.

I stopped him. "Remember we have a deal, you must, if you can, help someone else." I told him.

"Yes sir, I will." Then he in an emotion filled voice, he yelled, "I promise sir, I will do that."

Then he walked on shaking legs to his table and collapsed into his chair and with his wife and children looking on, he cried.

I do this all the time. Actually, I have done something like this with thousands of people. I have lots of small businesses and then at times I help someone else with a small business. Usually when I send someone to a specific place to take a job they actually go, and accept the offered job. I have never had a person fail to hire anyone that I sent to them. There are times when those people just blow it off preferring to get drunk or do drugs with the money, and no call is ever made to that business, but at least I try.

I do the same with people that need a little seed money to start a business.

You might think I am some kind of good person, I'm not. I am not a good person at all. As a matter of fact I have done some pretty vile things in my life, evil things.

More recently I was in the military and I killed a lot of people; not all of them in combat. I never took a prisoner. You gave up then you were just easier to kill. I was not sure why I did it. Maybe I thought they might hurt my fellow soldiers later and killing them now would save time and lives later.

But in truth I have no idea. I never knew if I was right or not, who can see the future, but I did it just the same.

I did not kill for fun or sport. I got no pleasure or benefit out of doing it. If anything I got horrible nightmares. Every night I see the live face of the person I killed and then I see their face in death. There were so many, so many. War is like that. You kill because you have to kill, so you will be able to kill again.

Even before then I was a horrible person. As a child I stole things, I hit people, I lied and cheated. Now I was not always that way. As a very young child I was told I was pretty sweet and the family and neighbors loved me. Somewhere along the line I just got mean.

I think it was because of the mark. I have a slow growing birthmark on my face. It was not there when I was born, I have seen the pictures but at about six or seven years if age it shows up, small at first and then the discoloration got larger. It is not that it is ugly, well it is to me, but it just bothers the hell out of me. People stare at it and that pisses me off.

I remember the first thing I did that I can call being mean, I killed a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. I did not have to kill it. I was not hunting or anything like that; I just did it because I could. I smashed it with a rock. It does not make me a good person or even a bad person; we kill things all the time. If it deserved to live it would have and I would not have been there to kill it. Well that is the way I thought about it. I know I was angry about that mark, I have pictures of that time and it was just coming in.

It was about that time that I began to steal things from the desks at school from both the teacher and the students, my friends. I stole things I did not need. Maybe I was jealous that someone had something I did not have. Maybe I was jealous that other people looked up to those I stole from, because of what they had, and which I now had in their stead. I could not tell anyone I had it, having it and their not having it, well that was enough for me, at least then it was.

It was about the same time that I began hurting other children too; and animals.

It was strange that the larger the mark became the angrier I became and the more vile a person I became, or was it the other way around?

There were fights and I always won. I am not ashamed to say I cheated and if I had to use a weapon to win a fight, I used the weapon. No, I did not kill anyone, well not then anyway; but I hurt a lot of people. If I needed a rock or a stick, anything I could use as a weapon, I used it. I did get hit once in a while but no, I was never really hurt.

Even in war I did not get injured; it was just that it was never my time.

But that was then and this is now. It should have been the less fortunate that I was looking out for, instead of myself. I realize that now, but it is too late. But, as the bible says, I forgot exactly whose keeper I was, and looked to my own self interest.

I got back from the war and into the world. I decided to go to school and did my best to graduate and get a degree. I busted my ass to get the best possible grades. I did not care for study groups, why share my grades and study habits with others? As far as I was concerned getting good grades was like being in a war, take no prisoners, show no mercy, victory or death.

I figured out a way to get the tests before they came out. Sometimes it was the trash where I found them; or at times I broke into an office to locate them. I stole the professor's computer and copied the hard drive and then returned it by tossing it where it would be found by the professor. I did not care what I had to do to get ahead and get a degree.

When there was a grade on a curve I killed the curve for everyone else so they got bad grades and I got the good ones.

"If they can't keep up they should not be in the game." That was my way thinking.

I was about to get my degree and it all came to an end; a sudden end. I met a woman. Now I know you think of a perfect woman, what ever you think is perfect, well that is not what she was.

She was old and rich. Ok that was pretty perfect for me. The best thing about her, other than the money and the sex was she did not seem to be bothered by my growing mark. She asked a few questions about it and even gently stroked my face where it was and smiled, but did not seem repulsed by it as others have been.

"I used to have one like that," she said.

"What happened to it?" I asked her.

"It went away one day." She responded with an enchanting smile.

"Well maybe some day mine will go away," I told her.

"Maybe," she said. "Who knows such things, but maybe one day it will."

Here was the deal she offered me. I would get one million dollars but I could not graduate as I would have to spend the next year helping everyone I fucked over when I was stealing and cheating to get the best grades in the class.

Hell, a million bucks, fuck it. I did not care about the degree I wanted money and knowledge so I took the million, I already had the knowledge.

Ok, I had to fuck the old bitch too. She was not bad and it took care of a problem, no sex; and I got the fucking million dollars.

So I got my million and started helping the less fortunate, or the intellectually challenged, as I referred to them as. I started slow but in a few weeks I was working close to fifteen hours a day to tutor the fools.

I was doing a great job with the teaching but damn these people did not have shit to study with, above their shoulders or in their pockets.

I started out telling them to use the library, but eventually it was easier to just buy them the damn books. Then I bought them some computers for the house where they studied and then I went out and bought laptops, and soon they were getting a food allowance and then a fucking room allowance, then clothing allowance, then I had to move because of all the students that lived in my home and there was no place for me.

I blew through a million bucks faster than you can kiss a duck. I went back to the old broad, fucked her a few more times, got another million and went back to school, as a tutor. I never did find out why I spent the million on someone else; pretty dumb.

I actually spent two years at it and got a lot of idiots little pieces of paper that said they were not idiots, written and handed out by idiots with little pieces of paper that said they were not idiots.

I went back to the old woman, told her this was stupid and we were not helping anyone. She asked, "What should we do?"

What the hell, I balled her more than a few times, took all of her money, then I married her; in that order.

I thought I would toss her a mercy fuck but after the first few times it was me asking for mercy. Damn that old woman never knew when to stop. Ok she knew when to stop; when I was out cold. I tried to keep up, hell I was only 25 by then, but I did not have the energy. Not only could I not keep up I had no idea about the things this woman thought up doing. No we did not bring others in, we just kept doing different things and at all times of the day and night.

I never slept through a night and neither did she. I still have no idea what I like about her body but I could not get enough of it. She smiled when I told her that.

The really crazy part was I had the money but I kept the old woman too and then I married her.

Then I came up with the small business plan. It was great. I approached people and helped them start a business and then I would find people who needed a job and offer it to them with one of my small companies. I had lots of partners but they knew the rules; my rules. I was very specific.

I was a partner and I got a percentage of the profits. They would reduce my take by hiring people I sent to them. My other profit went into a bank account. This money I used to start more businesses.