Markham, Illinois

by Dud Lawson, Columbia, MO, USA

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"Illegal?

Naw, I wouldn’t say what I do is illegal. I mean, really, I think I’m doing more of a service than any harm. You can go ask any of the people around the neighborhood, and they’d probably agree with me.

Ever since the Second Depression, anything that stimulates the economy is welcome…so as long as you aren’t hurting anyone, pretty much nothing is illegal. That is until somebody starts enforcing laws against it. And trust me, the Feds got a lot bigger problems to deal with than anything I’m doing.

I mean, cigarettes are 'illegal', but I guarantee if you go down to the govvie-shop on the corner—right now—that the upstanding government employee behind the counter is gonna sell you a pack of smokes. Sure, it might ring up on the register as a pack of gum, and you might have to leave an extra hundred on the counter, but you can get whatever you want if you look to the right places. And for people around here, I’m the right place.

I guess the feds’ hearts were in the right place when they started the Government-Regulated Commerce Initiative, but by that point they had already dug a hole too big for them to climb out of. What was supposed to be a New New Deal really just destroyed more local businesses. So now, the only stores within walking distance are the equivalent to government-owned 7-11’s. Remember those? Nah, before your time. I mean, they should have thought this shit through. Really, people need more than beer, coca-cola and potato chips to survive. I tell you, this country does everything backwards. They just don’t know what to do with us.

What? Naw, I don’t deal with any of that. I don’t do guns, drugs, stolen shit. Just stuff you need. I make sure that I’m as legit as possible so that in case they ever do start locking people up for internet trading they don’t get me on anything serious.

So yea, I admit there is a risk, but so many people depend on me for things around here that it’d be selfish for me to stop.

Basically, I saw this coming like, 30 years ago. My wife likes to joke that I predicted the Second Depression, but really I guess I wasn’t that far off. Right after the President signed the papers to start US.Net, I knew something was gonna happen.

I mean, 'free nationwide wireless internet' sounds great. The future was supposed to be here for everyone, “eliminating the technology divide between the rich and the poor.” But all-in-all, US.Net did more harm than good. Because the Government developed their own networks instead of building upon existing ones, almost every internet provider went under. Hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their jobs, and who knows how many foreigners lost their outsourced ones. Who cares, even. Global economy my ass.

On top of that, the money to pay for all those micro-satellites and shit had to come from somewhere. And who had to foot the bill? Us. At first it was just going to be a 3% tax on all items purchased over the internet over state lines. That was doable. But then it was 4%. Then 5%. For a while, about ten years or so, everything was good. It seemed like things were gonna stay that way, but then the Little Big One hit California, and well, we all know what happened there.

20 years later and we’re sitting at 30.5% federal taxes on every Goddamn item you buy online from out of state. And that’s in addition to all state taxes already in place. And that doesn’t even include shipping. I tell you, (laughing) if the stock market were still functioning, anybody that had stock in UPS would be a fuckin’ gazillionaire.

So anyway, in around 2025 or so, when the increased internet tax was just rumors, before everything started going downhill, my wife and I took a couple years off of work, depleted our savings and traveled around the country. Then we quickly and quietly set up a legit bank account in all 48 contiguous states. She was against it at first, but she had no clue my plan would work this well. Hell, neither did I. While the govvie-shops hurt everyone else, all they did was make shit easier for us.

What happens is someone comes to me saying they want something they can’t find at any of the Govvie Shops. They pay me cash, bring me the link online, I buy it online from my bank account in that state, and boom. Only state taxes paid. Loopholes are great when they’re big enough to jump through

(laughing) Yeah, had I really been able to predict the future I woulda known not to even worry about staring accounts in California, New York and like 5 other states.

Huh? Well, of course I charge a fee. This is how I make my living. Look at it this way, you can buy something yourself and pay almost a third of the cost in taxes or come to me and pay a tenth. It’s a no-brainer. This community would crumble without me.

My name? No, I’m not gonna give you my name. What’d the point of that be? I mean, it’s not like I’m even gonna be able to let you live after stenog-recording this conversation."

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