The work of fiction below is not exactly as I would like it to be. I plan to write several more that will fill in a chronology of about five years. This was the first I have written because it was the one that occurred to me to be the most exciting. It is not a bad representation of what I was trying to tell, but it ends much more weakly than it was first imprinted to memory. In my mind's eye I know the finale of this story is the most exciting part, but I have not been able to articulate that as well as I would like. Even so, I think it is interesting reading, but at near 5K words it may well be more than most will care to spend the time on. I would ask if you are not sure to read the first paragraph or two, then decide.
I looked at my watch, it was 04:40 and I needed to be out the back door by no later than 05:30. Fuck I was running late, always, - this time no different. I had eight large garbage bags staged at the back door, three up front behind the counter where I had filled them, laying on my side and raking each shelf clean with my hand and forearm.
Peaking into the showroom I scanned the parking lot beyond for head lights. I saw none, took a deep breath and stepped through the door from the stock room, and manger's office into the dark showroom. Moving quickly across the back, and down the far wall to the sales counter, I kept my eyes pinned up front watching for lights. I didn't look down once, I was confident I didn't have to. Eleven strides, - pulling my eyes down at ten, eleven, I was at the front counter. Dropping to my knees behind the counter next to the hefty bags, I quickly tied the openings closed with one big overhand knot. Pushing the bags in front of me back toward the open end of the counter my eye caught the brass glint of a cabinet lock. I noticed there were four long flat drawers that ran along the bottom edge of the counter. I had been so focused on quickly dragging everything from the inside of the front counter display, while watching the parking lot for headlights, I had totally missed these drawers.
My heart raced from 150 beats to 180 as adrenalin splashed across me, It was 10 minutes to 5am, just more than 5 hours since that first spray of adrenalin caught fire in me. The events of the 2 hours that followed would see that fire grow, fueled by a mix of frustration, urgency, and ever more adrenalin. Twelve 3/8 inch nuts that secured the shroud over the rooftop HVAC unit provided the frustration. Tared over by a thoughtless roofer, it took more than an hour to remove all of them. The frustration and finding myself more than an hour behind right from the start, provided the urgency, and the adrenalin, well fear and the race it's self provided the adrenalin.
It was after 02:00 and I had just made entry, lowering myself down onto two suspended lateral supports for the sub-ceiling. The frustration, and urgency were washed away for a moment by the rushing thrill of being in. That moment of entry is always a huge thrill. It is the relief of comparative safety that you are no longer vulnerable out in the open, along with the excitement of commitment, - the realization that this thing is underway, that always brings more adrenalin. A body and head rush that seems to start at the base of your neck and spreads down, and up to the top of the skull in a hot tingling wave, stoking the fire. That fire was brought to a roaring white hot blaze when I fell from the false ceiling after a cable securing it broke under my weight, the blast of adrenalin that slammed in to me as I slammed down on the hard floor had made my heart rate soar to 250 beats a minute. Since then I doubt it ever dropped below 150. my system now saturated with the pale yellow primal speed I had become addicted to before I hit puberty.
I was only 9 when racing motocross had been my first fix. More than 20 years later, my addiction had only grown stronger, and with it had grown the engines of action. A single armed robbery had been the top fuel ride of my life, and I would never stage that again. No, I had become a top driver of the less frantic race that was commercial burglary. Measured in hours rather than minutes it suited me much better, both in temperament, and in conscious.
It was December 26 and I was doing this job still having some money from the last. I had even put a little money away, but I had been working hard, constantly in some stage of the process over the last two years. What had been as tough as anything was coming up with working excuses for missing family gatherings - all but the first burg three years past now, and one other pulled on a major holiday. I still wonder what the stats are on that. If the % of commercial burglaries is higher on major holidays. I'm sure it must be, - I don't think I am the only one who realized the clear advantages of doing so. My realization of that had nearly cost me my freedom.
It happened during the first burg, also an electronics store, when I had exited the back of the store with two bags of electronics. I had just lowered them into the store's dumpster, when I heard the sound of foot steps echoing off cement. It was some one coming down the cut through between the electronics store and the grocery store next to it. It was just after 2am, this must be someone walking home drunk from one of the many nearby downtown bars, I thought. The cut through was commonly used by ppl walking from the downtown area, and headed into the large neighborhood that started right behind the strip mall where the electronics store and the grocery store were located. I stood quietly just inside the dumpster area waiting for the walker to pass by.
The dumpsters were walled in on three sides, with an opening not much wider than a standard chimerical doorway on the back wall closest to the building. The far side that faced away from the back of the building was open, but had two large gates that came together like french doors. As long as I stayed inside the dumpster area and in the corner the only way I could be seen would be if some one looked in around the corner.
Just then a man in a bakery smock stepped into the dumpster area with a bag of garbage in each hand, and turned and looked directly at me. I froze, already running lies through my head that might explain why I was hiding next to a dumpster dressed in black jeans, black long sleeve turtle neck, black knit beanie, blue latex gloves, and a wire running from a police scanner on my hip up under my shirt and out the neck to my ear.
It didn't matter what I said, I was going to have to try to bowl him over so I could get through the opening in the back wall that he was blocking. Before I could move he tossed both bags in the dumpster simultaneously and spun around and walked out the way he had come. Somehow he had not seen me. I am not sure how, but I have learned a lot since then, and what I learned right then was, that you could not count on things playing out as planed.
I had thought of the chance that someone from the grocery store might be dumping garbage in their dumpster. The grocery story dumpster shared the dumpster area with the electronics store dumpster – the dumpster where I would stash the hefty bags of electronics. I would bring them out two at a time, and later I could go around the corner where I had left the van – drive up to the dumpster – load them and go. Things being what they should, I would have been warned of the presence of a grocery store employ, because the back door of the grocery was a metal, chain reel, roll up door, that you could hear a mile away, and gave you loads of time to get back inside or out of sight. But this baker had come from the front of the store and walked up along the side, something I had not anticipated. I had long since known that even the best planed job still had an element of risk, but it was imprinted in me that morning, and it was in those unexpected, or unimagined freak occurrences that the risk lied.
I also learned that once inside, stay inside until you are ready to go. Sure you would spend more time getting everything out all at once than you would any one of the 5 or 6 times bringing the stuff out piece meal, but the risk of being seen one of those times was greater than if it was done all at once.
The most important thing I had learned that morning was, the more possible opportunities for random unexpected things to happen that you could eliminate, the less the risk that one would. (sounds obvious, but from then on I would devote hours and hours to running scenarios of possible deviations from the course, and then I would try to wall off as many of those points of deviation as I could.) Had there been no employes in the grocery store, I would not have had to rely on the roll up door to alert me of their presence. And failing that, nearly been found out.
That is why I was on my knees with my heart racing, robbing an electronics store at 5am December 26th. The grocery that actually shared a common wall with this electronics store would not open for another 3 hours – hopefully 2 hours after I was gone.
Adrenalin speeds up everything just like synthetic speed, but allows you to think much clearer than the street drugs I used in between these races I enter myself in every 3 or 4 months. Reaching for the drawer next to my knee, I had already remembered that my pic set was in my breast packet, had determined that these locks on the front of the drawers were wafer locks and could be opened as quickly as if you had the key, and that I would take time to open them, all before my hand reached the cut-away handle on the drawers face.
The drawer was unlocked, hitching backwards on my knees I slid it opened reveled two Sony Vaios just released and the hottest sub-note on the market. Yes! These drawers were very flat, probably only 5 inches tall, but very deep and wide, and I could see two more boxes behind the two up front. There were four drawers in all, and if all of them contained similar items I could not leave them behind. I was running out of time, and I knew it.
Sweating profusely, my heart racing ever faster. Staring at the Vaios, I was in a near state of panic, brought on by the conflict of knowing I had to empty this drawer and probably the others while also knowing I absolutely could not push my exit time back any further. (My plan had been to be out by 04:30, though I always built in 30-45 minutes that were unaccounted for and you always needed them) Those two thoughts fighting like cats in my head, I had locked up. I knew this feeling too well by now, and I knew how to get past it. And I had to get past it, because it is debilitating, costing time in the worst way, and I had none to spare.
It happens when the brain is running in hyper drive and you lose focus on the course of action. When something happens and you are suddenly faced with multiple options, the brain in this state starts firing possible next moves to every option at you so fast, you can't grab on to any one course of action. You can literally be immobilized by this for 10, 20, minutes, frozen doing nothing while thoughts fly past you in a blur. Your mind is in a Fight, or Flight state, and its ability to work out complex thoughts beyond one or two moves ahead has been sacrificed in exchange for the lightning quick ability to deal out real time moves one after the other.
I Closed my eyes and tilted my head back, taking a deep breath. Trying to think about only one thing my breathing, I rolled my head back and fourth on my neck. The panic was trying to fight in, and I knew I had to push it out and breathe, breathe deep breaths. I needed to get the drawers emptied, I needed to get all this stuff to the back door, I needed to hurry. I needed to hurry, fuck, fuck, fuck. I kept my eyes closed, and focused on calming my panic. I told myself, I would leave what ever I had to, that it was as easy as that, and I could feel the calming of that thought. Another minute of breathing, while I imagined every breath coming in as ice cold blue energy filling my lungs and spreading through my body to cool me. Exhaling soft white energy that rolled slowly out and dissolved above me as I rocked my head back and fourth.
Taking one final deep breath, I tilted my head back forward and slowly opened my eyes. My mind still racing, but no longer in a state of panic, I knew exactly the right course of action. I pushed the three bags in front of me to the opening at the end of the counter. Raising up on my knees, I twisted and looked out over the counter top and scanned the parking lot. It looked good and I rose to my feet, grabbing a bag in each hand, and started walking along the wall toward to back. I knew from watching the manager lock up from the parking lot several times, that once I was about half way back along the wall I would be covered by a large display in the front window on one side, and merchandise racks that cut off the line of sight as they angled across the middle of the showroom.
Turning the knob and pushing the hand truck in front of me and out into the showroom the distant sky had started the fade to dawn. Cutting directly across the showroom floor I no longer cared about what anyone was doing outside, I had now set myself a different frame of mind; one that soon would be tested to its fullest.
I don't want to call it a game, but for lack of a better way to describe it, I will. It is when you do something out in the open that would appear to be, what it is, an illegal act, but it is done with such obvious attention to only the job at hand, it appears to be legit. Why I call it a game, is because that is how it plays in the head. For it to work, you have to be 100% convinced you are meant to be there, - in your head, you have to own your legitimacy in what you are doing. It is the only way certain things will work. If you have put yourself on front street and you are doing something that will be seen as suspicious, the only way those observing you are going to see it differently is if you can sell it as being legit. And the only way to do that is to lose any sense that it is not legit.
Costumes and props can help, and here's how it works. Two guys dressed in dark blue work shirts with names patched on the front enter a 7-11 shortly after (Greg) the day manager has left for the night. One guy walks up to the clerk, and passes a clipboard toward him, and says, “Greg, right?” Meanwhile the other fella is paying no attention to the first and he is unplugging and strapping the new Pole Position video game to a refer dolly. The first guy is pissing and moaning about running late and still having to return with a replacement video machine before he is done for the night. Hopefully, a customer or two is now waiting on the somewhat uneasy clerk. This is the point where the game is won or lost. If I, as the guy holding the clip board, pulls it back and says, “we'll have you sign for it when we come back”, then game over,- the clerk will be on the phone to Greg, or the cops before you can turn around. On the other hand, if you wait patiently, impatiently, for the clerk to wait on his customers, and then get his signature and give him a recipe for the arcade machine you are picking up, because you know you have to have his signature, he understands you are doing your job, and everything is fine.
This was the mind set I had assumed when I grabbed the hand truck out of the stock room. With three empty merchandise tubs stacked on the dolly, I wheeled around the remaining hefty bag and to the far end of the front counter. It was almost quarter after five, and it took almost 20 minutes to empty the drawers contents into the tubs and re-stack them on the dolly. Checking my watch it was exactly 05:35 as I hoisted the hefty bag up and set it atop the tubs. Tilting the dolly back toward me and starting off for the door at the back of the showroom, I resisted the urge to look around out the front windows, remember you are doing a job and don't care anything about anything else. Excited about what I had found in the other drawers, that included four more sub-notes, four laptops, and one drawer full of Fluke test meters, I also had to resist the feeling of elation that one gets when finished with such a night. I had only to get everything out the back door and into the van parked right outside the back door and out of the parking lot and I was home free, but staying focused was as important now as any time.
I had not planed on using the dolly and had to spend a few minutes clearing a path wide enough to get the dolly to the back door. Pushing it open, I stepped out into the dim gray blue of early dawn. The chill that hit me brought an audible gasp up as I was looking at the side of a tractor trailer backed into the loading dock of the grocery store. When I looked to my right, where the van was parked I was horrified to see that just beyond the van there sat a bakery delivery truck pulled across the the nose of the grocery truck and cutting off my path of escape. No one was in sight, but I could hear the sound of two men talking.
OK I thought, deal with it. I reached down and wedged the door open with the wooden block I had found just inside the back door. Quietly wheeling the dolly over to the back of the van, unlocking the back doors and unloading the hefty bag and the three tubs into the back of the van, I looked through the front windshield at the gap between the bakery truck and the side of the building, - was there enough room to squeeze the van through? No, I didn't think there was. Sitting on the back of the van I quickly pulled off my gloves, green and tan lama skin U.S. Air Force fighter pilot issue, there was nothing better, but they would stand out, and not at all fit the dress of who I was going to have to be. I also striped off my long-sleeved black t-shirt that I had sewed four button pockets to the front of, and tossed it toward the front of the van. Reaching behind the spare tire I pulled out a rolled up blue Dickies work shirt and orange nylon work vest. Just then a dispatch crackled in my ear, Suspicious Circumstance, but the other side of town. I un-clipped the scanner from my side, and removed the ear phone, - switching it off I tucked it right inside the back door. I pulled on the shirt, looked down to see my name was Steve, and stuffed the vest back behind the tire.
I hated having to be with out the scanner. It had saved me more than once. One time I had heard a dispatch directing any available unit to my location. I had started toward the exit of the lot I was in, - it was an L shaped lot, and as I headed toward the corner of the lot I heard a patrol unit radio in 97, - 97 was the code for 'on scene', they were already entering the lot around the corner from me. I made a sharp left over a curb and through a section of ice-plant down an embankment that ripped off the front bumper and punctured the right front tire as I bounced out across a neighborhood basketball court. I limped through the neighborhood several blocks away, parked, and got away from the van. I returned hours later to find the van had not been discovered, changed the tire, and cautiously made my way home. That was only one time the scanner had saved my ass, and I hated being deaf now.
The voices were coming from around the front of the big rig, and when I stuck my head around the side of the bakery truck I saw two drivers clutching coffee mugs shooting the shit.
I said, “hey I'm going to need one of you to let me out here in a minute.” in a strong matter of fact voice.
They both looked over smiling and the one closest to me said, “we might look like doughboys, but the fella you want went around front to see if he could get someone to open up back here.”
“OK, its going to be a few minutes before I'll be leaving”, I said, and then, “I don't think he's going to have a lot of luck, I think they don't come back online til 8 this morning.”
I turned around and as I was walking back to the open back door, I could hear the two of em debating whether I was right or not, and belly aching that if I was how they could have slept in.
There was nothing to do but get the van loaded. I paid attention to making sure I didn't touch anything as I stepped inside and grabbed the hefty bags two at a time. As I headed back from the van for the third time I heard someone yell, “Steve” and then, “Hey guy”. I realized I was “Steve” and had blown it by not responding right off. I spun around and said, “I bet you mean me” with a big smile, “actually it's Scott, new service got it screwed up.” The short, balding fella I was looking at surely might have been the pillsbury doughboy come to life.
“Hey you need me to let you out?” He asked.
“Yea, that would be nice” I replied.
“Let me know when ever your ready, and I pull up for you. I can't even load a rack yet cuz there all locked inside, so I'll be sittin it the cab.”
I finished loading the van, and with a rag in my hand I pushed the dolly back inside, kicked the wedge from under the door, and let it swing shut. Back at the van I reached in the drivers door and started the engine. And then I saw the padlock I had picked off the ladder cage gate, laying on the passenger floor. (Access to the roof was by a ladder running up the outside of the building, and was in-caged with a gate padlocked at the bottom.) In that instant the growing joy I had been feeling was dashed away completely. This was it, this was the one too many. I was fucked. I had left the tools on the roof. This under any other circumstance would not have been a problem. I had a routine of carefully spraying each and every tool I would be using down with WD-40 and wiping them clean of any prints they might have as I loaded them into the tool bag. This time had been no different, and I had no problem sacrificing $300 worth of tools. The reason I was fucked, was because there was one tool on the roof that would hang me.
When I had run into the problem with the nuts on the roof unit, I had drained the battery on my cordless nut driver. Remembering I had a fully charged battery in the van I had retrieved it to get the remaining nuts off. That battery could be clean of prints and it would still hang me, and worse the person it belonged to. It was a friend's battery and had his first initial and full last name stenciled on it. It would not even be any work matching the name to a person, not only was it less than ordinary, it was also well known by local law enforcement.
The doughboy slide the door opened on the side of his bread truck and hollered, “You ready?”
“No, not yet, I still have a bag of garbage topside I have to grab. I'm just warming her up” I bellowed back.
I had no option, though I was fucked ether way, I had to get that battery off the roof. Once I was half way up that ladder I would be visible to not only the happy little doughboy, but to the other two fellas as well. If they did not think to try to stop me from leaving, they would get my license plate #, and I would be had anyway. As I pulled on a pair of work gloves, I became determined to sell this better than I had ever sold anything. I was going to climb that ladder, get those tools, and come back off that roof like I owned that fucking building.
I moved with purpose, stuffing the small book bag I had carried the tools up in with the nut driver, battery, wrenches, sockets, and small wrecking bar, leaving the coiled 15 meter length of static line aside. The book bag I then rolled tightly in duct insulation I had pulled off the 3 foot 30 inch diameter section of ventilation ducting I had removed to make entry. (I am not sure why I did this, but I think it was because I had said I had garbage to remove from the roof, and in my focus to do what I had said, to sell this act completely, garbage needed to be part of what I retrieved from the roof.) This in turn, I secured in a hefty bag, and carried over to the side of the building. I then threw two loops in the end of the static line and passed one under the other forming a clove hitch, that I dropped over the knot in the hefty. I quickly threw two more half hitches over the top of the bag and lowered it to the ground hand over hand. Yelling, “heads up” I tossed the remaining length of line over the edge of the building.
Stepping down on to the ground and swinging the gate closed, I reached into my pocket for the lock, which I clicked closed on the hasp of the gate. I turned to see the doughboy standing in the doorway of his truck looking at me. I smiled and said, “Ok guy, I'm outa here, thanks” He smiled back and jumped into the drivers seat and backed his truck down so I could slowly make my way out past him and the other two fellas, who I smiled and nodded at as I went by.
The release from the battle I had been engaged in for more than six hours left me in a cold sweat as suddenly as if I had been filled with high pressure steam, and a valve the size of an elephant's ass had been thrown open. As I exited the lot out the steep drive way of the service lane that ran behind the complex of buildings, my legs were shaking so explosively I had to place my left foot atop my right and stand on the break to come to a complete stop, before pulling on to the street.
About an hour later I would hear the dispatch of a possible burglary, called in by a person walking by who saw the ceiling panel hanging down, and the discovery of the police that it was indeed a confirmed burglary. exhausted, I would sleep for most of the next 24 hours, and I would not be sure for 2 or 3 days no one had taken down my license plate #. I might not have been certain then, if I had not been somewhat convinced I gave the performance of my life in the last few minutes of that morning. I still have my buddies battery, - it's all that remains of those days. Easy come, Easy go. But that, now worthless battery, is my own little Oscar.
3 effin novels in the works, plus a slew of erotic short stories i need to edit and finish, thanks for the kick in the ass lol
