GOOD CLEAN FUN
by Rose White
I met him at a Chinese restaurant outside Pontiac. The guy was tall and scrawny,
with a skinny neck that looked too long for his body and a worn, streetwise face. He is
wearing a large, puffy coat. It's July.
He's already left a message on my machine that disturbed my roommate: “This is
Antonio calling about the kidnapping job. Give me a call back if you want to do an
interview."
"So why did you start doing this?" I ask, as we choose a booth to sit in.
"Basically, I do it to finance my music," he says. "I'm a rapper." He pauses to
receive a huge plate of ribs. I order the egg drop soup. "Dig in," he says, motioning
towards the ribs.
"I'm all right," I say.
"So, I'm going to tell you what I do," he says. "Damn, these ribs look good,
they're hot as fuck, though. Basically, a couple of years ago, I saw what was happening
with extreme sports going mainstream, and I saw a market for what I'm doing now."
What he’s "doing now" is running a kidnapping business. People, usually white
suburban businessmen, pay a good chunk of money to be kidnapped off the street (in a
pre-arranged block of time or place), thrown into a car, tied up, taken for a joyride,
harassed and intimidated, and then . . . it's over, and the "girls' team" that kidnapped him
(or, if you choose, an all-male team of "thugs") takes the victim out to a strip club, and
they all celebrate.
Celebrate what? Paying to live vicariously? I don't care. I'm in this situation for
the material--and the fifteen dollars an hour.
"I have two warehouses that I use. One's in Warren. It's part of what they pay for
in the kidnapping package, to be taken to a warehouse for a couple hours. Nothing much
goes on there. You basically try to scare people.
“It really worked, a little too well, when we were doing this with all guys. They
would wear ski masks, and... man, having guys do the kidnapping was not always a good
idea. We got into some really heavy psychological shit with that, you know, we ended up
really scaring some of the victims way too much, and ourselves. That's why I started
doing these kidnappings with girls. They're lighter, more fun, and they don't freak people
out as much.
"Your basic econo-kidnapping---that's what I call it---is four hours long and costs
the victim about five hundred dollars. So it wouldn't be much of a time commitment for
you. Of course, there are longer sessions that people can choose that cost more money,
sessions that last overnight. That's when you can really freak people out. I even had a guy
call from out of state the other day who wants to be kidnapped for, like, a couple days.
That's fine. That'll set him back a couple grand. I'm happy to do it.
"I have a rotating cast of girls. You don't have to go on every job. If you don't feel
comfortable wearing, say, a certain type of costume that the victim has requested, for
example, you don't have to go on that job. My only rule is you can't turn down three jobs
in a row. Then you're fired.
"It's light adult entertainment," he adds. "Light, very light--no touching, fully
clothed. Maybe I'll ask the girls' team to wear, say, a uniform if we're doing a flight
attendant theme or a spy theme or something like that. And definitely high heels. Maybe
you can tie the guy to a chair if he's into it. But that's it."
This appeals to the sadistic side of me, the angry side that hates businessmen, and
I give him my full attention.
"This is all just good, clean fun. Yell at him, scream at him, swear, try to scare
him. Of course, there's a training period. Not long. We basically just train you how to
grab someone and throw them into a car without hurting them. By the way, there's always
a slight problem with that, because it's done in public, and a lot of bystanders get scared
and call the cops. I've thought about having our name airbrushed onto the side of the
getaway car, but... that would probably ruin the element of surprise, wouldn't it?"
As our conversation comes to an end, women begin entering the restaurant, one
by one, and approach our table. They are wearing pancake makeup with low-cut tops,
blonde hair.
"The other girls are here for their interviews," he explains. The ‘girls’ look to be
in their mid-thirties, but I don't argue over semantics. "I'll be ready for you in a minute,"
he instructs them. "Have a seat someplace else and wait."
I didn’t get the job, of course. A part of me knew that I would have been a bad
kidnapper, and I think Antonio sensed that. Last I heard, though, the business is doing
better than ever.
Rose White is a freelance writer, among other things, and lives in Detroit. This story is
adapted from the first issue of her zine, "Old Weird America." To order it, visit
www.quimbys.com, www.boxcarbooks