One very important thing to know about my childhood: I had the cultural tastes of a 38-year-old bachelor. In elementary school, I had an obsession with film noir flicks and old Johnny Carson episodes that we had on hand on VHS. From this delightfully dated combination, I managed to have both a sense of humor and sense of 'cool' that were out of context in time, location, and age-range.

Because of these anachronistic interests of mine, I walked about the playground like a cocksure playboy some of the time. But I definitely didn't have the appearance, confidence, clothing, or anything really that made me fit the criterion of the part I was trying to play. Ever see a kid decked out in Bugle Boy jeans and a Big Dog tee trying to talk fast 1920's hooligan talk with a speech impediment? I feel like I would've been right at home with the Royal Tenenbaum family - I pretty much had all of the characteristics of a savant, without all that intelligence and genius-y stuff.

Anyways, one afternoon in elementary school, while high on a recent viewing of Ocean's 11 (the 1960 original, not the boy toy 21st century redux), life, and a cocktail of Yoo-Hoo, soda, and Smarties, I decided that I could be be like one of those old-timey badasses. There were playground injustices that needed to be righted by what talents (I thought) I had at my disposal: cunning and the delicate craft of crime. I was going to hustle my way to glory. No... better: I was going to assemble a team, and pull a heist of my very own. Today... I was the main character of that movie. Today, I was Danny Ocean. Today I was Frank Sinatra. And if there was anyone on this god-forsaken planet (or at least in Cloverly Elementary) that deserved to be on the business end of a heist, I knew the kid.

(I'll refrain from using this child's actual name, due to the embarrassing nature of this story - so let's call him Jamie for now. And, hey, screw it - I'll refer to myself as Sinatra from now on, too.)

Jamie used to push me around a bit - nothing too tragic, he didn't make me eat animal feces or nothing (and I already at bugs on my own accord anyway), and he didn't single me out specifically - but his cocky presumption and his penchant for taking advantage of the smaller kids still irritated me to no end. He would take dessert foods off the lunch tables of fourth graders, and enjoyed playing Monkey-in-the-Middle with other kids' glasses and - shudder - retainers. He and his friends were just a wee bit bigger than us fourth graders under him, and his sense of entitlement and ownership over us just seemed disturbingly oligarchical to me at the time, I guess. I needed to fight back, the way only a delusional kid with a hard-on for film noir could.

So I assembled a team:

Sinatra (i.e. Me): The Brains, Brawn, and Looks of the operation. Obviously.
Nick: The Mouth and the Eyes. He knew Cloverly Elementary head to toe, and could enter and tamper with the mind of anyone who hadn't hit puberty yet.
Ronnie: The Distraction. We needed something to keep Jamie and his goons occupied while I swiped the card - and he had a particularly specific and effective form of distraction

Together, we were...

**Left to right: Ronnie, Frank Sinatra (Me), Nick.**

After our dream team was put together, we began brainstorming ways to get Jamie back for all the hurt he caused to fourth graders - to our kind. (In retrospect, he wasn't that bad, but still... kids will take any excuse to act on their sugar-tripping entropic impulses.) This was where Nick came in. He knew how to lay the pain down on Jamie. He knew how to hit the kid where it would hurt. Hell, Nick knew a way that would bring any man to his knees - would drive him to the brink of society, crawling like a beast on all fours for some hope that the pain on their hands and knees would distract them from the overwhelming ache left in their heart - or whatever was left of it. Nick knew how to break a man.

It's simple.

You steal his Charizard card.

So we leaped into action. Jamie's crew hung out on the wheelchair access ramp (which was really douchey, now that I think about it), so we went towards that neck of the playground. We tried to act as casual as possible, but considering we were a handful of 9-year-olds about to commit our first major "crime," I'm impressed we didn't alternate between maniacal giggling and premature tears before begging them to forgive us before we even did anything. Luckily, we played it slightly cooler than that.

I sauntered on over, sat down next to the ramp, and made some comment on the weather. They told me to buzz off, since they were busy trading Pokemon cards. I ignored the comment and stalled for Ronnie to arrive, desperately trying to think of a conversation topic that wouldn't end up with them smacking my face into the dirt.

Luckily, Ronnie headed over before I could get a word in (thank god), and did what he was here to do. Ronnie did what Ronnie did best.

Ronnie puked.

Right there. On the spot.

No one ever knew how Ronnie could puke spontaneously, not even Ronnie. But he could - and no one questioned it much beyond that. It really was impressive and astounding, if deeply disturbing - and probably the weirdest thing about it was that it always smelled like hot Pepto Bismol. Let me tell you, thatkid was a school nurse's worst nightmare.

Before they could even react, I grabbed Jamie's binder of "rare" cards, and began to mosey off. Nick came to stall even more, with a roll of paper towels and that Mouth of his, screaming about how stinky it was, and how eager he was to help, and how this kid has some on his shoe, and how that kid better not puke, too, and whatever other BS he managed to regurgitate out of that Mouth of his.

He kept them distracted for a good 30 or 40 seconds, enough for me to make some space between me and them. As soon as Jamie realized I had his binder, he charged over to me with more fury in his heart than I knew a child of that age could even comprehend - I felt like a matador without a cape to sway. But I didn't run - I couldn't - if I made him give chase, it'd essentially be an admission of guilt. All I could do is walk forward, step by step, try not to look back, and pray that he didn't decide to tackle me.

The next thing I felt was his wet, panting breath on the back of my neck.

"Give it back." Jamie muttered.

"Oh, this?" I said as cheekily as possible, "This old thing?" He grabbed it out of my hands before I could manage to make myself look like any more of an eccentric bond villain, made a disgusted face, and said:

"I'll never get you, Turner. So weird." And he left.

What he didn't know - what none of them knew - was that during the scuffle, I had taken the Charizard card out of the binder and slipped it into the patented "tool pocket" of my reliable Bugle Boy jeans.

Once he began heading back to the classroom and put his binder into backpack, Jamie saw the void where his Charizard was once tucked, and he looked up to find me. Before he could head over, the playground aides blew their whistles, signaling the end of recess - and as he watched me from afar, I slowly waved as I stepped back into the sea of students sweeping into the school, falling into anonymity like a flake of gold into a sandstorm.

Me doing my best Keyser Söze impression. — Me doing my best Keyser Söze impression.

When Jamie got back to his desk, he broke down and cried in front his entire class. He was labeled a crybaby and a wussy for a few months' time, and his many threats to the fourth grade kids were retorted with things like: "What are you gonna do, Jamie,cry me to death?" ... We were not a clever bunch.

And what'd I do? Well, I immediately walked to the office and handed the Charizard card to the front desk, and told them that Jamie lost it and would like it back.

Just like that, every loose end was wrapped up. Jamie didn't really mess with me after that - maybe scared of how overly-thought-out my next retaliation would be. I didn't get in trouble at school, since I returned the property immediately. And I was able to fulfill my fantasy of truly being a noir-ish antihero for a day.

That was the first (but actually not the last) heist I was ever a part of. Later in life, I would go on to forge elaborate schemes to steal things like gamecubes, TVs, ping pong tables, and even a friends car (though he needed to be taught a lesson, to be fair).

I think I really began evolving that day, from what I was into realizing what I wanted to be, and what I could be, if I wanted to, American laws and biblical commandments be damned. And no, no, no, I'm no Charizard, myself yet - but I don't think it'd be too cocky to say I'm a Charmeleon at a pretty decent level. Like, level 24, at least. I think that's fair.

And I learned that I didn't need to be Frank Sinatra, really. Because I was already David Clifford Turner, and, hell, that had the potential to be even better.*

*I am in no way, shape, or form better than Frank Sinatra.