The Throwaway: The Grifter

It was the busy season in Nicaragua. I had been working at Finca Magdalena for quite some time now and I had never seen this many people at the hostel. Normally Finca Magdalena was quiet and reserved for the travelers that didn’t want to socialize at a party hostel, but this time around we were filled to the brim with travelers, nature enthusiasts and free spirited hippy types alike. It was out of the blue too — I had gone to take a nap and when I came back to work the reception desk we were packed which meant that I had to work in the kitchen because everyone was hungry and the staff was going to need help.

Hippy girls that will talk your ear off about alcoholic exs that they still love, but can’t be with no more, random white guys linking up to play guitar together and a whole lot of European guys in loose linens because well-fitting clothes make them feel like a corporate monkey — it might as well been a crowd at a phish concert ( if I am confusing my type of white people I apologize). There was this one guy, he was the loudest out of them all, besides the hippy girl crying about her ex. Cody was trying to impress the rest with how much of a hippy he actually was and they were eating it up. To me Cody was clearly working¹ them and he was also trying to work me too. I let him borrow my charger during his stay there and he tried leaving without giving me it back.

Some months later, after the high season had ended, I saw Cody and this German guy he had been living off of since I saw them at Finca Magdalena. I had remembered Cody had persuaded this man, Gus, to pay off all of his tab and stay while they were at the Finca. Cody had convinced Gus that they were the best of friends, brothers even, Gus’s words, not mine — that is the thing with working someone, there has to be some level of believability or truth to make it work. Cody in some ways was a friend to Gus, but in more ways than not he was using him for his money. The last time I saw them together it was the two of them going out of town together for a full moon party off the pacific coast.  A lot happened at that party I found out about with players that know nothing of Cody and Gus. I will for sure talk about that at another time.

A few more months had passed and it was now late May — I had seen Cody with a girl in Ometepe, this was his new girlfriend, this was his new grift. Cody was telling me about how much in love he was with this girl and how she was helping him get his life together and that there was seventy five thousand dollars waiting for him when he gets back home. This is when it was clear Cody was not just an opportunist — Cody was a grifter. I asked him what happened to his “brother” Gus. Cody went on to tell me that Gus “isn’t cool” and that Gus was never a real friend to him. They had a falling out over the amount of money Cody had been spending and they went their separate ways, but not before falling out. In other words — Cody’s grift was over, at least for Gus.

Over his last couple of days in Nicaragua, he was always with his girlfriend. The last night I saw him or her we were at one of the gentrifying restaurants run by a guy from the UK I was guilty of going to once in a while. He told me about all of his grifts, of course in the form of innocent story telling, but I was able to catch onto his international escapades of grifting. Stories that forced him to get deported from Mexico — get kicked out of his home in Pennsylvania and so on. There always is a silver lining though even for a weasel, because this was the last time I would ever see Cody. See, because through all of the lies, Cody had actually been telling the truth about having seventy five thousand dollars waiting for him and he was going back to the US to get it. Then again, now that I think about it, maybe it was just a grift so that his new girl gets him a ticket out of Nicaragua.

I know I called him a weasel, but I admire Cody. I think Cody is living a truth all of those other expats and travelers want to. Maybe Gus is a good man and maybe his girlfriend didn’t deserve to get grifted, but in his time there Cody had grifted and lied to almost every Expat I had come across. Understand that these Expats are using and exploiting the natives and now there is a little snake who is biting them back. In another way I think that everyone who is in these spaces wants to be like Cody a little bit, but shame holds them back from doing so.

I never saw or heard a story of Cody grifting a native. Maybe that’s due to natives not having much to be grifted out of and not some righteous effort to make the expats and travelers pay for doing what they do, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt. In his time there he had grifted Gus, he had grifted the British hostel owner down the road, he was probably grifting his girlfriend and like I said before he grifted almost every expat I had come across on the Island in some way or another. Lies of being able to give physical labor for a meal and a place to stay or for pay and having absolutely no idea on the different types of labor he was promising to do — from carpentry to culinary skill, he had said it all in the attempt to get what he needed. By the time he had left Ometepe there was no one else to grift. Why would he stay there anyway?

The expats hate him and I admire that. To them he is the lowest form of free spirited hippy traveler, but the reality of it is he is the same as them, he does to them as they do to the natives. I admire that. I don’t know if Cody thinks this deeply into his deceptions, I highly doubt it, but nevertheless it is clear as day he is the grifter of the grifters. If you ask me it is a cake walk to what most of them actually deserve. I think another reason the expats hate him so much is because secretly not only do they grift with the natives they also grift with each other, but they are much more subtle than Cody. They have to be because they are a community, Cody is just some outsider not directly attached to the community he is grifting.

I also see myself in Cody. I think Cody is many of the travelers I see true selves , but morals and values stop some of us from grifting. I for one care what people think of me and I have zero ambition of using people for my gain. I do have fantasies of it, but I don’t have it in me to do so nor do I want that sort of will power. The idea of entire communities hating me and for good reason is an ugly nightmare in my eyes. There are a couple of ways Cody could have become like this. One can be he was naturally born a sociopath and lived his whole life in the grift. I personally know a couple of people like this. There is the other aspect of things — maybe he slowly over his time traveling or in life in general he became a grifter. Maybe people treating him poorly and him learning to not view them as people but as objects and commodities turned him into a grifter. Maybe it is the opposite and Cody was treated great by the people he has come across and now he solely lives off the kindness of others because he knows he can get what he wants from them. 

The last one is where I fear me and Cody are similar. I have been very lucky while traveling to get help from the people I meet when I need help. From the time I was stuck in Cuba to any time I was unable to get access to my money because the bank didn’t believe I was who I said I was. All of these small to large acts of kindness done to me by strangers I am greatly grateful for and especially my family who has helped me along the way, friends too. I’ve been gone for years from home besides a few short visits. I have been abroad for years now. To do this without any help would be almost impossible. That is where I feel I understand Cody. What is the gauge from having help to using people? Cody absolutely is beyond that space but where am I on that scale? I do know we are in completely two separate spaces of mind. Cody is in his mid thirties and he has no ambition to return to a “normal” life. For me I am living out a life’s long dream of traveling the world and I will be home to normal life long before my mid thirties. Maybe this is another thing that has led to his grift. No ambitions, just drifting along.

In favor of Cody though, we all have grifted in some sort of way. I grew up in New York — You don’t think I have participated in small scale swindling and cons? You the reader probably have too. Trying to get out of paying for something, buying something and calling your bank to say it wasn’t you, running out on a tab (you know who you are) all of these are grifts, but I wouldn’t consider you a grifter. Becoming a grifter isn’t an overnight thing. It is a series of decisions and possibly intentions that lead you to be a grifter. Maybe it’s out of desperation or maybe it is out of convenience, but whatever it is being a con man is the easy way out anyone can do that, but being honest and genuine is the right way to do things.

1. Working- informal To manipulate or exploit someone or somethingto one's own advantage.