Rogues and suckers

_ “If rogues knew the advantages of being honest, they would be honest out of roguery”

The first time I heard this aphorism was from the mouth of engineer A.J. da Costa Nunes, I believe in 1986 or 87. It seemed to me extendable to many people who think they are “smart”, and to evil people. After all, prisons are full of them and we are out here enjoying the free world, free, light and loose. With the exceptions that confirm the rule.

With time, today I think there are too many exceptions: in the financial market, in the management of public affairs, in the judiciary system, all free, light and loose.

And that, just as there are many honest people who are not fools, there are also many eternal children, many innocents, who believe in any “pretty” thing they are told or read and who are the main target of “confidence scams”, certainly where the name “swindler” comes from. My father already warned me when I was little:

_ a swindler does not have the face of a swindler nor the conversation of a swindler, otherwise he is not a swindler.

In truth, since we begin going to school, we begin to live with the diversity of the more ethical, the less ethical, the more innocent and the less innocent. But they are two distinct things: ethics and innocence.

The first experiences we remember must be those we had from the age of 5 to 6, they were the inconvenient ones, the aggressive ones, the harassers, the “rogues”, today summarized in the foreignism “bullying”. If we go to old dictionaries, “bully” was the brawler, the tough guy, the braggart, the tyrant, the pimp, the harasser, the exhibitionist or, as a verb (to bully), to intimidate, oppress, harass.

In my primary school there was one who terrified everyone in the school, but not because he had deviations or was of bad character, but because he was regarded as good in a fight, had a short fuse and had repeated one or two years. He was known as “Primo” and certainly about 4 years older than I was. It was very important that everyone knew you were “Primo’s friend” in order to be respected.

Later, in junior high school, already in another school, on Botafogo beach, there were some lamentable figures who harassed classmates because they were fat, or silly, simply to humiliate, even with sexual connotations, as if the homo were only the passive one. They thought they were the rogues. There was one called Freijó who must have ended up in some underground of life.

I am not a psychologist nor an anthropologist, nor from the field, but living and talking, I noticed that these problems happen from ages 6 to 16. Afterwards, personalities are more formed, the harassers no longer find easy space, they need to disguise their purposes better, they become more “artists”. In truth, we know people well before the age of 16, when one can know character. Since character does not change, it applies for life. The problem is that, from then on, the “bad-character” people camouflage themselves.

In my time, a Steve Jobs had not yet appeared to remind people:

_ rogues, treat your nerds (*01) well, because they will be your bosses

It was around 1995 that, arriving home at nightfall, I stopped the car in front of a bar to buy cigarettes and found some neighbors, drinking beer at the counter, who urged me to stay and pay for a round. They were all already somewhat “high”. Since my children lived around their children, we knew one another and it was a good opportunity to exchange ideas and information. After about 5 minutes, I noticed that at a table there were two who, now and then, interacted with my friends, one of them with an athletic build but with crutches, because he had only one leg. Just by looking I already thought, motorcycle accident. Someone confirmed it. On the next beer he turned toward my side and I could see his face. He seemed familiar to me. Where do I know this guy from? The memory recorder rewound and I spoke to him:

_ Man, are you not Primo from School 2-3? I remember you well.

And he, with the voice of someone who had drunk more than he should:

_ Yes, it is me. Back then I was the badass and you were the fools. Today I am the fool and you are the badasses.

I did not know what to say. I also do not know if I felt pity, or what the feeling was, but I admired the answer for its lucidity.

I always knew he was not of bad character. Sometimes he was an exhibitionist in the role of bad boy, which suited him to win over the girls, always attracted to bad boys. Sometimes, in the role of militiaman, he played the justice-delivering referee. A rebel without a cause? Could be.

After 30 years had passed (2025), I thought it was a subject to be recorded.

(*01) – slang for “dedicated, studious student”; foreignism: “nerd”

Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer, chronicler and columnist, member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the Institute of Engineering # written in Nov 2025 R2026 Jan Ra, 4,466 characters