Dealing in Beef
Ron Shirley, Lizard Lick Towing, Wendell, NC
"I spend my days chasing people around stirring up as many problems as I can, doing what I can for my lien holders. I find things that can't be found, and do what they say can't be done."
Is a repo worth risking your life for?
That's a good question. I don't do it purely for the thrill of repossession. It's a business; I'd be lying if I said I wasn't in it for the money to a certain extent.
I'm also an adrenaline junkie. I love that mental chess game. I have to be slicker than a harpooned hippo in a banana tree.
Who are the worst kind of people do deal with?
People who are under the influence of alcohol or drugs. You have an intense situation and then you throw in a substance in there, and you can see this blankness in their eyes, which is scary. In a flash, it can go from a civil chess game to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
What's the worst thing anybody has ever called you?
Words don't bother me. I get paid to put up with words. You can butter my butt and call me a biscuit for all I care, but the bottom line is I got your car, you met the King Lizard, and you just got licked. There's nothing that outlicks a lizard.
Is there anything that really bothers you?
Somebody spitting on me or touching me.
You'd rather be glued to a Tasmanian Devil in a phone booth than put your hands on me. If you spit on me, I'll be on you quicker than a beestung stallion.
Is anyone ever polite to you?
Yeah, when they come in with common sense we want them to leave happier than a three-eyed dog in a hubcap factory.
Tell me about your poetry.
My poems are very in depth. I don't write short five-liners. These poems are an insight into my life. I sometimes might play the simple redneck role, but my mind doesn't work like that. It's like I always say, the quickest way to get thrown out of the dog pound is show them your pedigree.
I think the attribute I possess that helps both my poetry and my job here is that there is not a situation, a race, a religion or a culture that I can't relate to. I talked to these two people the other day, pretty simple folks, who told me about how they'd been manipulated by lien holders and the other people, and I could just sense the pain in their lives.
I have had pain in my life too, so my poetry is drawn from all of that.
Do you have a personal philosophy?
I live in my own world, and that's a world I want to bring you into. I live in ron-topia. There are no truisms, there are ron-isms. At night I look at ron-stellations. There are no conquests, there are ron-quests. It's a not religion, it's ron-ligion.
Ultimately, I want everybody to be in ron-topia, and in ron-topia, I'm the King Lizard.
