Nice Guys Finish Last
Author: Don Nigroni
A scholar I know read this Latin passage in an ancient manuscript containing a complex formula for presumably transforming lead into gold. Yet the formula looked peculiar and unlikely to accomplish its goal. I once worked in a research lab studying the neurochemistry of crime before taking my current position.
After I promised to keep the formula a secret, he gave it to me, in translated English. I then performed the various steps to see what would happen.
Alchemists never provided specific details on their procedures so failures by others could always be dismissed. But when I mixed the chemicals in the proscribed amounts and order for the specified times at the required temperatures, I finally realized what I was doing. This wasn’t literally about turning lead into gold but about transforming base people into upstanding individuals.
If enormous quantities were dumped into rivers, it could eventually transform humanity, not only for the current generation that partook of it but also for later ones in the womb. It had irreversible neurological properties. How they ever stumbled onto this, I’ll probably never know but I will devote the rest of my life to trying to figure that out.
Nonetheless, as a prison warden, I sprinkled a tiny amount into a hardened criminal’s morning meal. Didn’t matter which one, all of them in the line were evil devils, some of them obviously pretending to have reformed. But this fellow instantly tuned into a really nice fellow.
I pushed for him to be paroled and after two years, based on his behavior and my recommendation, he was released. O yeah, the very day the drug was administered, he sought an interview with the FBI. Two days later he spilled the beans on his cartel. And the day after his release from prison he was shot in the head.

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