Virgilio, we hardly bilked thee.

Since I don’t have cable, ridiculous news stories have become a larger slice of my entertainment pie chart. In addition to the one about the boy and the bear, there is this one – set in Hell’s Kitchen, only a few scant blocks where I used to call home.

This is the story.

Part Weekend-at-Bernie’s homage, part brazen fraud – two guys wheeled their dead roommate in an office chair to cash his Social Security check.

What’s great about their diabolical scheme is that it didn’t require any real thought. They didn’t bother with troublesome weighing of the risks and rewards involved.

They had a check made out to their friend. They had their friend, however unanimated. In their minds, it seems… all the pieces were in place for the perfect crime. “Okay, do we have everything? Government Check. Cadaver. Rolling conveyance. You got your keys? Okay… let’s do this.”

I don’t know what the thought was here. Once they tried to cash the check, how would they explain why he couldn’t cash his own check? He was too drunk, maybe? Maybe they would just point and pray for the best. “That’s the guy… see, the lifeless lump in the ergonomic chair? I’m getting his money for him. What? Nah, he’s just tired. Or anemic, maybe?”

This, of course, doesn’t even take into account that Hell’s Kitchen is overrun with people. And Ninth Avenue is one of the busiest streets in Manhattan. I think it’s safe to say that anywhere in Midtown, going incognito with a rolling corpse is on the lower end of the probability scale. The undercover cop that caught them said he ‘thought it was a joke’.

It does sound like a joke. But it’s not.

So, seriously: rest in peace, Virgilio Cintron. As you shed this mortal coil, may your roommates in Heaven be better than the ones you had in Hell’s Kitchen.