A Reason Eye Candy Shouldn't be taken For Granted

Monday I wrote about Eye Candy and how it worked across the street from the studio at the new Shoe Store.

Little did I know that the Eye Candy was a career criminal.

He comes from a family of drug dealers. In fact his sisters were in my grade or near my grade in school. We rode the same bus. His brother was in the same grade as my brother. I remember the E C (Eye Candy) but only as a 4 yr old who threw rocks at the bus when it stopped to pick up or drop off his siblings. His father is a handsome man with a slick personality who has been involved in many con-type activities but always managed to avoid jail time.

Not his sons... both have been in and out of jail for things like drug trafficking and breaking & entering. They don't have the intelligence that their dad possesses, but they do have his handsome looks and fashion sense. I haven't seen them since the 70's. But I do occasionally see the sisters--both have married good men and live clean lives.

Mr. M, the owner of the Shoe Store is an elderly foreign guy who not only repairs shoes, but makes them as well. If you describe what type of shoe you envision on your foot, he can create it. Allegedly he's made shoes for the stars in Hollywood. He's a nice man but too trusting. He doesn't always understand what some one is telling him, and comes over often to ask me or dad to explain a letter he's received or a phrase he heard.

The Eye Candy just got out of prison. He spent a few years incarcerated for having a minor role in a big drug bust over in a town near-by. My brother says that he watched the news reports of it on TV when it went down and he saw the police bringing people out of the house and there was the Eye Candy, waving at the crowd.

The Eye Candy went over to the shoe store last week and told Mr. M that he always dreamed of repairing shoes and making them. That he wanted to learn an old and honest craft, something that few in the area knew how to do. Mr. M was impressed by him. Told the EC that he would teach him all he knew for 6 weeks and if he listened and learned and could do the job on his own; that he would give EC a regular job. The only BUT in the whole deal was that EC wouldn't get paid during his training. EC agreed and started work Monday.

Mr. M didn't do any sort of paper work on the EC. No application was filled out, no forms for tax purposes..nothing. After all, the young man wasn't officially hired. He might not even work out. So why bother?

After 2 days of work, EC impressed Mr. M enough for Mr. M to drive him over to F-ville where his other shop was and show him the store there and also where he lived. When they got back to town yesterday early evening (after all the surrounding stores were closed), EC stole Mr. M's keys to both stores and his home, took his phones and his cash and proceeded to escape in Mr. M's own truck. Poor Mr. M was stranded outside his store for a while. Luckily it was Church night and one of the members of the church beside the studio called the police for Mr. M.

He had no name or telephone to give the police. Distraught, he couldn't even remember much.

If a smarter person had created this plan and carried it out, it would have been perfect. No one would have known who the guy was. All he had to do was keep a low profile, gain Mr. M's trust and strike when the timing was right.

Not this guy... he had to go to several shops whose owners or employees knew of him and his jail record to perform a song and dance about being saved by Jesus and starting a new life as a shoe-maker. He even quoted Bible verses to them.

So come this morning, Mr. M goes to some of the stores on our street, he has several who not only tell him who the guy was but also give Mr. M his address. The Police are looking for him now.

What gets my goat is that after talking to several people who work downtown about what happened to Mr. M, they all said, "I don't know why he hired that guy. He's a thief. I wouldn't have hired him." Why didn't they warn Mr. M? If I had of known who that guy was (remember I haven't seen him since he was about 4 or 5), I would have told Mr. M to keep an eye out on him and Dad and I would have kept tabs on the store.

Mr. M is not from around here. He's a kind and honest man and he doesn't know who's to be trusted and who's out to take you to the cleaners. All it would have taken was a whispered warning and all of this would have been avoided.