The Break In

A true story about something that happened to me a week ago.

The Break-In

            At eleven o’clock on the evening that her daughter fell asleep just a little early, Lia answered her cell to her best friend asking her if she wanted to hang out. She did, but there would probably be drugs and her boyfriend Carter was gone for the night, so she told him “no thanks.” If he had come over and they had hung out, that evening would have been different in more ways than Lia cared to admit.

            Lia watched tv for a half hour before crawling into bed with her daughter, Crystal. She closed her eyes and fell deeply asleep. The fire burned in the woodstove and the cartoon on tv that Lia knew Crystal would ask for later, played softly, the dialogue barely audible. Lia was warm and happy and felt good that she had made the right decision blowing her buddy off. They would have gotten high and stayed up all night anyway. Then she would have felt like crap the next day, not worth the trouble. That was what she thought when she went to bed. That was what her subconscious was thinking as she slept. That was what made her rest so deeply that when her friend stopped by at 1:50am seeing if she wanted to hang out, she didn’t even stir at the knocking on the door. She was safe, and had no reason to think otherwise. Yes, all was well.

            But all is always well right before something crappy happens. You can’t be in the middle of some crappy event and then have something crappy happen to you and act all shocked. It wouldn’t work, because of all the previous crap, you see? It’s just not done. So everything had to be all good and well for what happened shortly after her best friend left to have made life after that night just a little bit crappier.

As she slept two young men walked slowly in black worker boots up her gravel drive way that ended in between the two houses on the property. They were careful, stepping heel toe, heel toe, heel toe as they made their way to the darker, larger home. The one that was only occupied half the year. They knew it was empty, because they had watched the two houses for a month now. Smoking cigarettes on the vacant drive way just next door. They looked to the world like any other two young men down on their luck and makin it by the skin of their teeth.

Dressed in darkly colored flannels and dirty baggy jeans, they did not stand out in the dark night. They had picked a good night for their plans, because the moon could not break free of the stretched thin clouds hanging low in the night sky. They were not exactly the brightest characters, to be sure, but they had done some work and put some thought into the job, and that would eventually prove to be enough.

            “Do you think the girl can hear us?” robber number 1, also known as Trip, asked his companion.

            “Well s**t, if we start up a conversation right in front of the door she probably will, now shut the hell up!” robber number 2 or Alan as Trip and everyone else called him replied, and they walked slowly to the back door  of the larger house.

            “Do you got the lock pick, Alan?”

            “Christ in hell, do I gotta muzzle you? Don’t talk, don’t ask questions, and don’t say my name!!! You know, you could get five maybe seven years for breakin and enterin. I suggest you just follow me and do what I tell you, alright?” Trip nodded.

            Around two thirty am, Lia tossed a bit in her comforter. The movie was too loud. She absently felt for the remote, lowered the tv volume and fell back to sleep to the deep breathing of her little girl.

            Alan and Trip huddled over the door knob and quietly worked at the lock. As Trip wheezed on Alan’s neck, Alan became irritated and lost his temper throwing his tools to the ground. The dark, leafy, palate ridden ground.

            . “Now look what you made me do!” Alan stomped his foot before lifting up the door knob and slamming his shoulder into the heavy green door. The pain down his arm distracted him from his anger at his foolish partner and they both paused a moment before they entered what wasn’t theirs. They were on a mission, to go where they didn’t belong and take what didn’t belong to them. The world owed them, as they saw it, and they weren’t fool enough to get shorted in any department. So they’d take from those who had. It was only fair. In their eyes at least.

            They stepped inside and began to look around, turning on hand sized flashlights and casting the light around the room and up a flight of stairs. They walked down a hall to a bedroom, inside was a nice personal flat screen tv. But where were they going to put it? Most houses had money or small items lying around thatTrip and Alan could trade for cash or dope. But this house had goodies. Trip called out to Alan from the forey.

“Fishing rods Alan! They got a ton of ‘em. Lined up pretty as flowers!”

“Damn you idiot! You got to open your mouth while we’re pulling a job, and that’s what comes out? Some crap about flowers? I don’t know why I keep you around me…” Alan was thinking, or at least trying to. The wheelbarrow! He had seen it out front by the dying Christmas tree. It was perfect for transportation, and could easily be ditched afterwards. But how to get it over to the back door? Alan decided to hell with it, and he pulled open the heavy wooden door to the front of the yard. It hadn’t been opened in a few weeks or more, and groaned terribly, but no movement came from the house next door and the wheelbarrow was less than ten feet away. Alan hurried to it and moved it to the porch steps as quietly as possible.

            “Put your stupid fishing rods in here, Trip. Then help me do a sweep of the rest of the house,” Alan was already wondering what kind of great goodies the tenants had left for a man just like him. A stealthy man. A cunning man. A criminal mastermind. Oh yes, they all left their dark houses with goodies just for him. He deserved them.

            Alan stepped up onto a chair by the doorway to look atop a floating cabinet. Nothing hidden there, but as he stepped down and opened one of the doors he was pleased. Two long guns lay angled inside the cabinet. He couldn’t make out what kind they were, but they were guns, and that definitely got you cash with his friends and contacts. He handed one to Trip.

            “Put this in the ‘barrow. Quietly!” Alan carefully placed one of the guns inside the green metal garden tool as Trip was juggling and fumbling two rods and the gun Alan had handed him. “That’s it! You idiodic moron! We’re leaving before we get caught. Cuz of your dumb a*s…”Alan trailed off and jerked the goodies from Trip’s arms and placed them quietly in the wheelbarrow. Then he walked softly back into the house and carried the tv to the wheelbarrow. It was perfectly full without looking like it would tip. Perfect, Alan thought.

            “Want me to push that for you, Alan?” Trip asked loudly while Alan shut and locked the door behind him. He didn’t know why he locked it, it was just habit he guessed. His momma used to whoop him for not locking the doors. Now he knew why. Because of people like him.

            “What did I tell you about talkin?” Alan shoved Trip aside and took hold of the handles. “Just shut it now, will ya?” And the two young men made their way down the other half of the gravely drive way.

            Lia saw darkness. Only darkness. Had the power gone out? She opened her eyes to see it hadn’t. It was a dream. She lay there in bed and gazed at the clock. Four am. Too early for medications. Crystal stirred then buried under blankets before going back to sleep. Lia closed her eyes too and eventually fell back to sleep.

            The next morning was strange. Lia watched her boyfriend drive home and she couldn’t wait to tell him how she avoided a bad situation the night before. She met him at the truck and smiled as he walked out. He didn’t smile back.

            “What?” Lia asked exasperated.

            “I saw Norman’s truck driving away from the house last night. Late.” Lia’s boyfriend, walked to the woodcutting station and grabbed the table saw. Lia followed.

            “Well I don’t know anything about why you would have! I went to bed. He wanted to hang out, but I said NO!”

            “Yeah right, with all you had to drink when I left you, I really doubt that. Probably slept with him too, huh?”

            “Oh Jesus Christ, are you honestly going to start the day like this?” Lia asked.

            “That’s what I thought” Carter muttered.

            “What did you say, d****t? You know how much I hate when you freaking mutter. If you’re going to say something, then say it!” Lia barked.

            “It’s only that” Carter started purposefully and slowly, “You didn’t deny Norman coming over, so I guess you have nothing to deny. Just to admit. No to hell with that, I don’t even want to know.” The table saw whined loudly in their ears for a few moments while wood fell to the ground.

            “Whatever,” Lia said as she walked back to the house.

            It was a strange morning.

            Oddly enough, it wasn’t until the afternoon, when bickering between the two grew worse and drew Carter to seek reprieve in the other house, that anyone knew about the bandits from the night before.

            Carter ran from the big house to the little one to tell Lia the awful news. Lia listened with a stone straight face and then her cheeks fluttered as she began to smile.

“HA!” Lia looked at Carter smugly, “betcha you wish now that I actually did have Norman over last night. Even if we had sex it would still be better than what happened. S**t!”

            And at that moment, as much as Carter hated to admit it, he agreed. Agreed with Lia’s absurd and distorted logic. Anything Lia could have done last night would’ve been better than this having happened. He thought of the times he had shot those guns. The fish his step-dad had caught on those rods. The soap operas his mom had watched on that tv. And all he could think was, “d****t, there has to have been something I could and should have done.”

But that’s not how life works, is it? Crappy days come. No one can avoid them. No one should try. Because there’s never really anything that anyone can do. Because even those who hurt you for your things are having a pretty crappy time most of the time. Crap is all around us.

 

THE END