With complete, total and abject apologies to Mister Shakespeare.

Anyhoo, today on The LawDog Files your Humble Correspondent brings two extra-special examples of the Criminal Mastermind at Work.

Ladies and gentlethings, I give you Critter #1. For simplicities sake, we’ll call him “Richard”.

Now, although Richard has an extensive amount of documentation as to his status as a juvenile delinquent, Richard is still fairly young. He has, to his dismay, discovered that the ability to beat your mother senseless does not count for quite as much as he thought it might here in the criminal corrections system.

Damn the luck.

So, Young Ricky has decided that he must gain some street cred whilst in County. He must prove — beyond a doubt — that he is hard in order to avoid becoming someone’s Bestest Buddy In The Whole Wide World, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Somehow, Ricky has decided that he requires a tattoo to properly display his chops.

The story that is being held to is that Ricky has come to this conclusion all on his ownsome, however Reno and I are of the mindset that the sum total brainpower possessed by Richard consists of one solitary neuron weeping all alone in the empty darkness behind his eyes. In other words, Ricky had some coaching to come up with this tattoo idea all by himself.

Anyhoo, where was I? Oh, yes. Young Ricky, full of enthusiasm regarding the respect he shall gain by way of this tattoo, approaches one of the lifers in his tank and requests that the lifer “ink him up.”

The critter meditated upon this, and asked Ricky what sort of ink he wanted.

Ricky responded that he wanted a cross, right in the centre of his back.

Nae problemo, responds the critter, and they get right to it.

Richard thereupon spends some time being inked. There is hissing; there is gnashing of teeth; there is the plain and simple fact that Richard is getting stuck multiple times in the back by a staple that has no doubt been bled upon by every-stinking-body in that tank.

Ah, well, the things we do for respect.

Anyhoo, at last, it is done! Richard thanks the lifer, shows the tattoo to the tank, strikes a pose: there is applause!

Flushed with the happy knowledge that He Has Cred, Richard goes to his cell to examine this princely work of art in the mirror.

Yet … there is something … not quite right. Matter-of-fact, the cross embedded in the skin of his back doesn’t quite look like … that’s not a cross-bar … it actually looks a lot like … a cannon? Or maybe two cantaloupes in a sack, draped over a pipe?

And the the Awful Truth dawned: Rather than the cross requested, he had received a depiction of the — how can I say this — defining anatomy of the male of the species? In magnificent, rampant glory. In ink. In his back.

Young Richard immediately exited his cell, impugned the character of the tattoo artiste verbally and at length, and then attempted to extract recompense from the hide of the lifer.

“Attempted” being the operative word, because that long-term resident of the Texas Penal System proceeded to stomp a mudhole in his butt and walk it dry.

Which led to deputies … enthusiastically … breaking up the squabble, followed shortly thereafter by the lifer, Richard and Richard’s new tattoo getting tossed bodily into solitary.

*snicker*

Critter #2 is a member of a criminal street gang which has been tear-arsing around the county seat, pulling drive-by shootings, a knifing or three, and stealing everything that isn’t nailed down (and if you can pry it loose, it wasn’t nailed down).

Anyhoo, the locals got a belly-full of this bushwa and proceeded to file a Gang Injunction against the most prolific of the gang — to include Critter #2.

As soon as #2 received his copy of the injunction, he decided that Da Law was keeping tabs on him, to include taps on his phone, pager and cell-phone surveillance, etc., etc.

In this, he is faced with a truly troublesome dilemma: he is forbidden from associating physically with his homies, yet he wishes to link-up with his buddies in order to cock a snook at the judge who issued the injunction.

How to do this, without tipping off the eavesdropping fuzz? How?

By using his MySpace account, duh.

So, he gets onto his MySpace page, he posts the details and waits for his posse to log-on and link up.

Huzzah!

Plans are made. Op-orders are written. Involved discussions ensue on the best way to avoid getting nicked.

And voila! They show their defiance to the judge by taking pictures of themselves in a large group. One of them has the bright idea to write scurrilous opinions regarding the judge on a handy piece of paper and to hold it for a group photo, while simultaneously giving the camera multiple International Peace Signs.

Wait! This is not good enough! How to properly chastize the judge? How?

Of course! One gang member gets a copy of the paper and turns it to the headline about the injunction, and they pose for another picture, holding the paper high and proud and flashing their gang signs.

Take that, minion of the law!

And what better way to immortalize this deed of derring-do, than to post the pictures on that very same MySpace page?

Yeah.

Did Critter #2 remember to make his MySpace page — not to mention the flagrant and obvious confessions to violations of the injunction — private?

What do you think?

These are the criminals I have to deal with. Where is my mastermind, dammit? Where is my Lex Luthor?

Dr. Doom wouldn’t have left a confession on his public MySpace page.

*sigh*

Oh, well. If they were smart, I’d be out of a job.

LawDog