House Arrest Rough Draft

A Story by Jake Walcott

A family walks in on a house-robber who is forced to hide under a table in order to avoid being discovered, but while hidden he overhears their secrets.

Adam had seen that the lights were off from the outside, but was still not entirely prepared to navigate a stranger’s house using only a flashlight. He felt smooth like water drifting between and furniture and fragile vases, until the occasional bump against a chair or creaky doorknob jolted his eyes open and sent sweat down his brow.

He kept his eyes on whatever the flashlight passed over, as if he had a choice, and looked for the distinctive glitter of jewelry, electronics, or coins. The pieces that pulled his eyes were harvested into a thick brown bag fashioned from an old pillowcase, which became more of an obstacle and a burden as it grew heavier with his newly acquired goods.

Adam had steeled his nerves against the sound of creaky doorknobs, so it took a few seconds after the front door began to shake for him to realize that he was not the source of the sound. The hinges cracked open and Adam crouched to the ground in panic, banging his knee against linoleum tile. His flashlight illuminated a purple tablecloth surrounding a rectangular dining table with six seats, one on each end and two on each side. He ducked underneath the tablecloth and did not have to keep himself silent because he was frozen with terror. The brown pillowcase crumpled under his grip against his chest.

A switch was flicked and purple tinted light showed that Adam’s hands were shaking like a scared puppy. The sound of a heavy set of hard soles entered the house, followed by the clack of heels and two shuffling sets of feet that were probably children.

The hard soles dropped loudly across the living room and opened the door of the closet. Adam prayed the man would not notice the missing fur coat, or the Italian dress shoes he had taken.

Evidently he did not, because the first thing he said was, “Martha, you’ve got to get rid of some of these jackets and things.” He paused for a second and added, “They’re just sitting around wasting space when you wear one and never touch it again.”

“Daddy, I’m still hungry!”

“Those plates were too small! I need more!” The word ‘more’ was dragged out a few seconds too long and the sharp male voice made Adam cringe.

“Mommy will cook something, won’t she, mommy?” said the man’s deep voice, flawlessly mocking his children’s vernacular.

The woman, Martha, sighed and said “I guess I can find something to heat up.” She sounded exhausted, like the evening she had taken to go out and relax with the family had only made her more stressed.

The children said thanks and their footsteps dulled as they ran upstairs, while the couple stayed behind and moved into the kitchen. Cabinets and drawers were opened and closed, and it dawned on Adam that he would not be able to hide under the table any longer once the family had assembled for dinner; at least one pair of legs would knock against him or his sack.

“Here, how about we warm up the leftover turkey from Thanksgiving?”

“Or you could actually cook something instead of being lazy as usual.”

“Ralph, the kids are home…”

“They’re upstairs and we both know they can’t hear a thing. You idiot.”

There was a hard crack of skin on skin. A few seconds of cold silence followed. Martha crinkled cellophane and grew uncomfortably quiet.

“You’re lucky I’m not wearing the ring. That rock leaves a mark.”

Ralph’s heavy steps moved out of the kitchen and down the hall. A few moments later he yelled back, “Where’s my ring?”

“It’s wherever you left it, honey.”

“Don’t talk to me like that. I left it right here on the table. I always leave it there when I go out.”

Adam recalled a thick silver band that had been lying down on a small brown table with two small diamonds flanking either side, and a dime-sized piece in the center. At the time, all he had been thinking about was how much the diamonds were worse, disregarding what they represent, or if they represented anything at all. Now the ring rested at the bottom of his pillowcase.

The microwave started beeping, and Martha called the kids down to eat with urgency in her voice. There wasn’t much time left before they would have their plates of leftover turkey and begin sitting down at the table. Adam could smell spiced meat, a welcome change from the citrus of lemon pledge that the floor reeked of.

“Mom, Teen Titans is on! I wanna watch the show! It’s the best show ever!”

“Yeah, mom, the best show ever!”

“Are you sure? You’re always watching tv and it’s supposed to be good for families to sit at the table togeth-“, but the kids had already begun rushing upstairs.

“The kids have the right idea. I’m paying for over 800 channels; we might as well use ‘em.” He paused for a moment and then added, “and on at least one of those is a baseball game right now.” He marched up the stairs and left Martha alone, to scrape whatever was left onto her own place and take up a spot at the head of the table.

Adam was already uncomfortable, but he could not look away from Martha’s long, white legs, one across the other, and figured that as far as hiding places go, he could have done much worse. The smell of her peach perfume mixed with the smell of the Turkey and could have put him to sleep. He wondered why anyone would treat a lovely woman so viciously who had done nothing to deserve it. Although Adam was aware of the irony in a robber criticizing another’s morality, he was only there to find things to pawn off to pay rent and support his roommates. In their two-bedroom, five-person apartment they fantasized about what it would be like to not be constantly living on their last dollar. They kept a list on the fridge of all the unnecessary things they wanted to buy once they had money that was supposed to motivate them; a skateboard, a blender, Jenga, vanilla vodka, books by Jack Kerouak, Stanley Kubrick films and a DVD player to watch them on; but although the list was meant to motivate them it only made them bitter and resentful that they lacked the opportunities needed to earn their desires. He did not want to say that Ralph deserved to be robbed, but the more the thought about it the less guilty he felt for taking the wedding ring and putting it to his own use.

His introspection was interrupted by the kids running down the stairs yelling for their mother to help them get the DVD player working.

“Mom, you have to set up the DVD player so we can watch Zombieland! Zombieland is the best movie ever!”

“Yeah, mom, the best movie ever!”

“Mommy is tired and hungry, and needs to finish eating. Why don’t you ask Daddy to help you?”

“We did but he was taking a nap and he wouldn’t get up to help us.”

Martha sighed. “Alright, I’ll see what I can do.”

Adam was sorry to see her soft skin, which had been a comfort to him under the extreme stress, disappear from under the table and leave to help the kids. She turned off the light as she went out, and did not return for the rest of the night. Adam sat crouched under the table for what seemed like an eternity, but was actually his best guess of 5 hours, completely silent until he felt like he could slide himself across the linoleum and out from underneath the purple tablecloth without making a sound.

The kitchen was lit only by moonlight, but Adam’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness. On the kitchen counter he saw the microwave, leftovers of a turkey dinner, a toaster with uneaten pop-tarts still inside, two discarded mugs of unfinished coffee, and some eye-drops. He was able to navigate to the back door without bumping into anything with his shins or his pillowcase of valuables, a welcome change from his entry. The gentle creak of the doorknob sounded like nails on a chalkboard to him, but nothing stirred in the house so he escaped unharmed.

Dew had made the lawn soft like a cushion, and the roofs of the well-off neighborhood bordering his own were edged in silver by the moonlight. Everything seemed quiet and still, which caused even more of a surprise when in the corner of his eye, Adam noticed something loud and moving.

A silhouette on the other side of the lawn behind the house was digging into the lawn with a shovel, and Adam recognized her long, white legs that seemed helpless earlier, incapable of manual labor. Lying next to the growing pit was the limp body of a man who must have been at least a foot taller than her. In normal lighting, in nice clothes, Adam might have compared his hair to melted milk chocolate, but right now it only matched the growing pile of dirt beside it.

Adam was almost free, but the gate to his escape creaked slightly, and this time his fears were justified as Martha turned her head quickly towards him. Her face was beautiful and was framed by the night stars, but there was nothing arousing about her look of terror and worry. Her eyebrows were drawn sharp like a diamond and her pupils were the baseballs.

In any other situation, Adam would have loved to ask her about her life, talk to her and get to know her better, but for now the only connection they could have was an unspoken pact that neither would speak of the other’s actions that night. She continued to dig as he turned away and fled through the gate. Before leaving the yard and making his way home on the cement, Adam fished into his pillowcase for the ring and tossed it back over the roof into the backyard. He felt pangs of jealously for the next man she married who was a worthy recipient for the gem-studded prize, and pure pity for the poor son-of-a-b***h if he wasn't.