Dumber than a stone

By Chanuga Rollins

 

Of all the people that I’ve known in my life, Charlie had to be one of the dumbest white guys that I’ve ever met. He’s never worked or driven a car; he lives most of the time with his mother. His life revolves around looking for his ex-girlfriend, who constantly cheated on him, and finding marijuana, both of which he was never successful in.

One day, three guys that he knew asked him if he wanted to go hang out in the city with them. Charlie, of course, said yes and jumped in the car. New York City was about an hour's drive away, depending on traffic.

Once in the city, they stopped at a hot dog stand on a corner. After eating, one of the guys said that he had to make a stop and that it wouldn’t take long. Twenty minutes later, they pulled up in front of a fancy high-rise somewhere in Manhattan. The driver and his front seat passenger told Charlie and the other guy in the back seat with him that they’d be right back.

Both men went around back and somehow snuck into this high-rise without the doorman noticing them. They went up to the floor where one of the guys casually knew the tenant and knocked on the door. When he opened the door, the guys rushed inside, knocking him down. With bandanas concealing their identities, they beat and tied the man up, leaving him in a closet as they ransacked the apartment. When they didn’t find the amount of money that they were expecting, they beat the man some more.

We know that you’re dealing cocaine, where’s all the money? They kept beating him until the tenant passed out. Taking what they could they went back to the car and drove away with dumb ass Charlie just looking out of the window in a pot stupor. The two thieves never told the other two what they did. All four spent the rest of the day wandering around the city.

Around 6pm and just minutes from the Holland Tunnel, a police car pulled them over, with guns drawn, the officers ordered all four of them out of the car and arrested them. The tenant remembered the driver and the kind of car he drove, and the doorman remembered the license plate because the criminal mastermind had parked right near the high-rise entrance.

Even with the two guys who did the crime admitting that Charlie and the other guy in the back seat had nothing to do with the robbery, but the judge charged them anyway. The ones that committed the robbery got 15 years each, Charlie and his back seat buddy each got three years, Charlie was sent to Rikers Island. He later told me that he wrote his ex-girlfriend every day, but she never answered his letters.