THE MEDIEVAL science of Angelology occupies itself with the nature, constitution, and organization of the supernal race of angels. What might a Scammerology discover about these invisible, realitybased order of sub-beings?
The phone rings. I know the male voice which says, “Hi, Grandma” to be a scammer; my grandsons call me Lore. But it is with a small, a lingering anxiety that I hang up on the call from the student who has lost her passport, she says, and is about to be taken into custody by the police in Paris, France. No student of mine would say Paris, France. Several by-now familiar voices have exhausted themselves, they tell me, trying to reach me before the expiration of my car's warranty. I don't own, have never in my life owned a car, I tell them, but they will keep calling.
Robbers, thieves, con-men—the nation of goniffs figures in our oldest literatures, preexists angels for all I know. But the voice, this voice saying that my bank is charging my account $1,099.00 for a purchase I could never have made, belongs to a fellow human, a person living at this hour, which puzzles and interests me.
What sort of a person are you? I want to ask him. Is the creation of scenarios that will swindle people out of their money an art or is it a profession? Is it a way to make a living or a quick buck to pay, perhaps,
