I figure that’s the reason I didn’t get any closer. I looked at her sad figure pressed into the worn-out folds of the recliner, for just a moment the image of my grandmother superimposed upon her features, and left the room and the complex with no more than the clothes on my back and the sour taste of vomit in the back of my throat.
***
It was hot as hell. Not a fucking breeze stirred, sun radiating off the tops of car roofs like gas vapors at a filling station. The first day I hid out of the sweltering humidity beneath the overhang of Peabody Hall. Summer school was nearing the end of its brief run, but there were still plenty of junior and high school level groups fucking around here and there, their faces all sunny and serene, not a worry in the fuckin world. And regardless of the fact that it didn’t improve my mood any, it did provide pretty good cover except for the fact that I was dirty as hell and smelled like shit. But once again, no one seemed to notice. Sometimes a lone walker would glance my way, but no look ever lingered. I sat down on the steps and smoked slowly through a crumpled pack of filter-less cigarettes I’d found on the walk over. So there, don’t think I never got lucky.
Blinky didn’t follow, I never saw her again. Like I said: when it was over, it was over. Just like erasing a line on a page or turning off a television. She couldn’t or wouldn’t say anything as I’d walked past her to the door, and although I half-expected, as I trudged across the littered parking lot, to hear a shrill string of curses chase me down, it didn’t happen. She was gone, over. With me it’s either here or gone. I suspect that’s how things’ll be tomorrow…
Anyway, as the day shortened and campus cleared out I began formulating a plan. Up until then I’d simply been blank. Totally plumbed out. But I needed a target, some kind of sanctuary; already I could picture the gang at the complex readying themselves to hunt me out. It was not that I expected them to do me harm, but that I might go back with them if they found me.
If the cycle was to broken it was to be broken now.
I decided to vacate the area and work myself into the depths of the heavily-wooded subdivisions between campus and the lakes. I knew several of the mansions lining the shallow and often polluted string of lakes had boat houses or unlocked sheds, so the plan was relatively straight-forward. Of course it wasn’t wise for a bum like me to shamble down the clipped and trimmed sidewalks in these affluent neighborhoods, but running with the gang had equipped me with the skills to get around what I couldn’t change. Besides, I needed some goddamn money if I was really planning to clear out.
At any time of the day or night the parks, bicycle trails, and pull-offs around the lakes were alive with people. Joggers, fishermen, girls out looking for a fuck, guys out looking for a fuck. I knew; I’d watched them many times and rifled a few cars when their heads were up their asses. The trick was in never taking too much. Perhaps that is why no one ever put the hooks in me; I was as nondescript a burglar as a person. Also, on the times I’d slipped into any of the nicer homes I was always amazed (at that time anyway) how many of the richest people spent the least on security. With a few handy gadgets I carried in my sock I could be into most houses in minutes, but then again I can’t say it would have been the same for everybody. And nobody was as good, as daring, as I was then. At least nobody I knew, and I knew some genuinely crazy motherfuckers. I had nothing to lose and it showed. Or, to be more truthful, I didn’t.
My plan was to swim the lake (even with the weird hangover I wasn’t worried; it wasn’t very deep and I didn’t give a fuck if I drowned or not), pull up in the darkness in the tall border grass and water lilies, and proceed to introduce myself to someone else’s belongings. Like I said, it was amazing the shit rich folks leave in easy reach. And the damndest thing about it was most of the time they didn’t even know they’d been picked. Sure, a week later one of the gardeners finds the shed rifled for several particularly well-selling pawn store items, but by then it’s old news. Bring out the dogs if you wanna; I’m working a different section of town.
I chose the biggest and the closest neighborhood that night for one reason alone. We hadn’t rifled it as of yet simply because it was too close, and I knew the gang wouldn’t look for me there. I would sneak ashore, befriend any animal I might find ‘guarding’ the place and then reconnaissance. Boathouses were my first line of business, but I was not against a little breaking and entering on the residence itself, mansion or fucking not.By 9:00 I was in the water. A half hour later saw me wading through river lilies and swamp grass next to a fairly large, dark boathouse fringed by a soft line of azaleas out near the dock. As I’d expected, no waterfront motion detectors. From a parking lot on the opposite bank I’d chosen this white, two-story Greek Revival set down tight among the many old live oaks which stood in a silent groping line across the backyard and hung ponderously out over the water. There was no fence to negotiate. The house was dark except for the cast of moonlight which sprinkled down through the trees among the columns and a halogen lamp twenty or thirty feet up in a tall pine tree, illuminating everything in the backyard except the dense pack of shrubbery along the far right side and the waterfront tree line. The houses on either side were completely blocked off by immense hedgerows. There were no dogs, deathly quiet, the only sound, water gently lapping against the bank.
The water level in the connected string of lakes didn’t fluctuate greatly except during extreme droughts and torrential downpours, and this was not one of those times. The boathouse was suspended almost entirely over water and the present level was almost to the top of the pilings. Above my head was a door with no visible padlock. I didn’t even try opening it; if it was locked it’d be from the inside though it really didn’t make much difference to me. There were two ways in: one, swimming up from underneath, and two, climbing out through the weeds and in through the yard-side door. The second choice seemed more civilized and that’s the one I chose.
As it turned out, as I’d half-expected, that door wasn’t even locked, though there were two heavy steel rings for a padlock. Mysteriously absent, or so I thought until my right foot came down unexpectedly on a Yale lock lying forgotten on the deck planks. Strange, but not completely out of the ordinary. Rich folks have just as many quirks as the rest of us.
I thumbed the latch and pushed the boathouse door open, watched as the light from the halogen reached inside. Not much. Or at least not much I could use. Sure, a Cajun Special fishing rig with a 15 horsepower Mercury and an equally new and impressive same-make trolling motor. Completely useless. I couldn‘t turn that into ready cash. But what I was interested in rested right alongside: a two-man kayak with matching fiberglass oars stuck just above it to the right side wall beneath a water-stained picture of James Dean walking the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. It would serve for the return trip. When I bent down to examine it my eyes involuntarily picked up on several Igloos and deep-sea ice chests stacked against the lakeside door on what looked to be a hinged section of deck that when raised, I had to assume, allowed boat access to the lake. So I’d have to move all that shit out of the way to get out. Well…
I left the goods and made my way to the door, quietly closed it and scooted into another mass of azaleas which flanked the far side of the boathouse on the weak side of the light. Time for a plan. The quick inspection of the boathouse had taken no more than five minutes, but looking down at my wrist, I realized everything I did from then on would have to be self-timed. The cheapo watch had finally kicked at 9:42.
Still no activity, no lights, from inside the house. No movement on the lawn and only an occasional car passing by on the road out front. A pair of dogs had started barking farther down, I guessed a house or two down, but it sounded like the other side of the street and I didn’t let it bother me.
Keeping to the deepest shadows along the perimeter of the yard I slunk up next to the house. It was tailor-made for picking. Shrubs and palms close off the eaves, shadows everywhere. The curtains had been pulled shut across the back rooms but in what appeared t
o be a washroom window they were open. I eased up to get a peek inside and saw a tiny green light reflecting off a hallway mirror just in front of the doorway. Bingo! The silly fucker had an alarm (I could almost guess the company) but like a lot of people who felt the sign in the front yard was enough, he didn’t take the time to turn the goddamn thing on. His carelessness made me smile.
I crouched down again and took another long, slow look around. Nothing, even the dogs down the way had stopped their racket. The back porch was screened but the glass door was situated in a pool of shadows the halogen light screwed into the reaches of the pine didn’t touch. I slid over and pulled back gently on the door in case the hinges were rusty. I already figured the damn thing would be unlocked too; this guy should have sent me a goddamn invitation. It slid back like water through ice. And then? Well, the easiest part of all.
Amateurs and chickenshits will lead you to believe breaking and entering has to be done covertly. I was (and always have been) of the opposite opinion. I go in through the doors. Fuck climbing through holly bushes or pushing up windows that haven’t been opened in years. I go for speed and quiet. Doors are used to being opened; that’s what they’re there for. And for just this purpose, I have a ring of skeleton keys that can open a steel ball if the motherfucker’s got something valuable inside it. I hit it on the first try, because like I said, I’m good.
From the stoop near the porch door to inside didn’t take more than one, two steps. I’d ditched most of my clothing in the bushes near the boathouse, skinning down to my underwear. Clothes could rustle, clothes could get hung on stuff in unfamiliar territory. But if I was gonna lie dying or dead on someone’s expensive rug it damn sure wasn’t gonna be stark naked.
Once into the rear foyer I stopped to make assessment. That’s really the main ingredient of being a thorough and, most importantly, breathing thief. Can’t let the excitement get the best of you.
Hopefully no one was home; I hadn’t seen any lights or movement, but it was almost ten o’clock, and mid-week. So I went on the assumption that the target was home, that the son of a bitch could be steps away in the kitchen grabbing a glass of milk…or a fucking gun. Caution, caution. There were no shrill beeps, no other tell-tales that alarms had been tripped. I shut the door carefully and walked into the adjoining room. And stopped cold.
I have never been able to shake the awe of privilege in which some people live. It had always been the tangible that proved life had no wish in ‘being fair’, whatever that meant. I’d heard a lot of teachers talk about ‘fairness’ in school, but the word is meaningless. Especially for the poor. I had been sleeping in a dirty corner of a spike pad for the better part of six months and this room brought that reality home. By itself it was bigger than anything I’d ever lived in with my mother or grandmother. The furnishings and decorations would have taken them (working in unison) three lifetimes to accumulate. Leather this, imported that, trinkets that would cost a working woman’s whole salary, a television as big as a goddamn Volkswagen. Enough paintings to fill an art museum. Everything imaginable and not one fucking thing I could use.
I already knew I’d have to go deeper into the house for that, because money is the one thing people just don’t leave lying around. They want it close, like a baby, in case it wakes up crying. Most of the time it’s in the bedroom, or in the master bath near the sink. Sometimes (very seldom) I’d found them in the laundry room on top of the washer or dryer. Well, I knew where that room was and, figuring to scratch it off my list, hurried around the corner, identified the hallway mirror on a nearby wall and turned toward the back of the house where the undrawn curtains waited. Threading my way along through the darkness, I saw the tiny green alarm light shining from the kitchen. Everything was well.
My heart slowed to normal time and I fell into the groove. There’s really nothing else I can call it. There’s the old cliché of ‘ice water in the veins’ but that’s just words from old movies. I don’t believe in clichés, I’ve just always been able to handle pressure. I guess it’s got something to do with the invisibility thing, about people never really stopping to pay me much mind. So since I was generally ignored I learned to use it to best advantage; I’d read the book by H. G. Wells. And even if you gotta go down in the end, it’s best to go down swinging.
I snapped my second tool out in the washroom: a tiny penlight. Perfect for snooping. A quick scan of the washer and dryer tops was enough to convince me the wallet wasn’t there. So I turned and headed back to the kitchen. Cool, tile floor, humming stain-less steel side-by-side refrigerators deep enough to hang meat. Not even two, but three fucking sinks lined up in military precession. A ship’s galley worth of cookware hanging from the ceiling above the butcher block island. Everything male. Not one sign of female presence in the whole place. No little fancy dollies, no little cute notes on the fridge. Nothing.
I slid through the kitchen looking for the hallway to the bedrooms. The house promised a master suite, and I knew the sonofabitch who lived here wasn’t gonna walk up a flight of stairs every time he wanted to crash. Through a door on the far side of the kitchen I thought I’d find just that. The adjoining short hall led back into deeper darkness where the door to the suite would be. I had to suspect the bedroom door would be closed. They usually were. These people were used to being secluded in their private offices everyday and that habit was hard to break. But, like the derelict alarm system, these doors were also very seldom locked.
I snuck forward, breathing quietly through my mouth. I couldn’t risk a whistling nose this close to the clutch. I found the knob at the right height; it was a big sculpted number, as heavy as a shot put. But of course its workings were perfect and the bolt slid into the housing with nothing more than a sense of ‘passing.’ I paused before pushing the door open.
Then I crouched in the hall and waited. Several times before this had saved me. Because usually, if a man is going to budge, it’s then: in the first few minutes when he senses someone entering the bedroom. With women you never can tell, but I didn’t expect to find one there anyway. Not unless she was something dragged in off the street and all her clothes were in a pile at the foot of the bed.
A slow, relaxed drone of steady breathing reached my ears and I listened intently for any sign of disturbance, counting silently to three hundred as I did so. By that time my eyes had adjusted and the room was not so cavernous dark; I could make out faint patterns and shapes through the streamlet of light passing along the sides of the thick curtains which covered the windows.
From the sound of his breathing, the guy was lying on his stomach. That was good: one ear would be buried in a pillow. I held my penlight tightly and walked into the room. Though I had to fight the urge to crawl in the first few times, it was second nature to me by then. Walking was natural, and crawling, many times, made too much damn noise. The more casual a thief, the better chances he has of staying out of jail, or the grave.
I flashed the tiny dot of light around the room, getting a lay of the furniture. Everything except the bed appeared to be pretty much against the walls. I couldn’t make out any piles of clothing or other obstacles to go tumbling over on the floor. The man’s clothes were resting on a valise pushed back by the closet. It wasn’t neat; it wasn’t dirty. Typical man.
Well, time to get down to business. Quickness was the key, to get in and get the fuck out. Still, steady breathing, that was the gauge. I flashed the tight beam to the nightstand, empty except for an alarm clock and another expensive lamp. The bathroom then, it would have to be on the other side of the bed, back near the corner where a deeper darkness idled. I slid around the bed, carefully listening for any striations in the man’s breathing. I knew even if he woke up now, there’d be a period of disorientation in which I’d probably get away, but then it would have all been for nothing. And let’s face it, I wasn’t there for the fun of it. I needed money. Bad.
The bathroom was massive. I could tell from the different ‘hollowness’ of echoes th
at curled around me. Perhaps it was all the tile and glass. I dared not use the penlight for fear of reflection, but the window near the toilet was covered with a set of wooden slats that created a ghostly white glow around what looked to be a sauna door. The sink was easy enough. I let my hands drift along the counter top, carefully weaving past the colognes and toothpaste dispenser for the wallet.
I found it and something else in the same moment. Of course I recognized the wallet, but the other item momentarily stumped me because it was so out of place. I slipped the wallet into my underwear at the same time winding my fingers around the straps of the unlikely purse. My first thought was that I’d missed someone in the bed, but when I trained my ears back in that direction I could still only make out the sound of one person. There was nobody else…at least in the bed.
The purse wasn’t zippered and I reached inside for the wallet. There…long and thin, fake leather, and old, ragged. Odd. I squatted down beneath the reach of the mirrors and held the penlight in my teeth. It was also torn along one side, and when I opened it I found twenty-three dollars. Also a driver’s license, an out-of-stater. The owner’s name was Melissa Sandage, from Arkansas of all places. I stole the license and money before stuffing the torn wallet back into the purse. I left it on the floor, not giving a fuck what the old man thought when he woke up. His wallet would be gone anyway, along with his fucking kayak.