IT'S A CRIME
by TJ Western  

     We cruised through the neighborhood peering out at the single story bungalows of suburban St. Paul. To the three of us these residents were well provided for and should share with those of us of lesser means.

     Our method was to park close enough to load the stuff but positioned for a speedy getaway. I don't know how we thought we could escape by using our own registered car. If the police came while we were doing the house, they'd have the plate number at least. But burglary, to start, requires some foolishness; desperation and poverty are good motivators too. In my case it was all three.

     Since dropping out of high school at sixteen I tried hard to get-over.  I delivered newspapers for three years. Chump change is all it was--Cigarettes and video games. When my girlfriend got pregnant I took a job washing cars too. That money and AFDC got us a one-room dive in Selby-Dale area. She split after a year. I shouldn't have hit her. A truck driver took her and the baby to California.

     When I was eighteen I took a job packing groceries at the neighborhood market. That job and the paper route put money in my pocket but I was a tired son-of-a-bitch at the end of the day. My friends used to fuck with me behind that. They'd call me, "Billy the bag man." And say shit like "Bet you get all the bitches the way you pack them bags." "Billy delivers." I didn't listen to that shit. 

     After two years I was still packing bags for stinky old ladies drenched with strong perfume and young mothers wrestling screaming kids. Shit, when I asked the manager for a raise he just smiled his fatherly grin and told me to be patient, "All comes to those who wait." The tight bastard. A nowhere job.

     I signed up for a job-training program. But what was I supposed to do until they reached my name on the waiting list? Eighteen months they told me. My ass!   

     Then came Joker with his plans. He was older and experienced. He made me feel good about myself and gave me pride for the first time in my life. He knew how to make people do things. He was smart. He made sense. His favorite rationale, "Hey, they got lots and we got nothin. They're covered by insurance."

     Joker had been a black activist leader and a self-proclaimed revolutionary in the sixties. When he spoke about injustice and inequality his voice sounded like a preacher's--raging with anger sometimes and demurring in sadness or hopelessness at other times. He was inspirational.

     The intensity of his truth made it truer.    

     "Survival is the thing," Joker would say. "Friends are more important than anyone else...true friends who stick by you; your girlfriend, she gets the hots for some other guy and she's gone in a minute; your parents just want you to live their lives; churches want you to live for death and to hell with life, they'll enslave you; the government wants you to fight their wars, maybe to die, so they can hang onto their power over the world and make them senators rich."

     He'd stare directly into your eyes with intensely sincere, dark eyes. "Friends are forever. Your friends come first."

     I could see the truth in what he said all around me. Reality glared at me like a fun house clown with its round white face and bulging red plastic mouth opened in a taunting laugh. 

     Wealth also surrounded me. Untouchable richness oozed from the seams of society. I only hoped to get a taste.

     I started stealing. Breaking houses was good money. Of course, I didn't figure the cost of maybe getting caught. Nothing is free.

     Houses became targets when the conditions were right. If a house had a television antenna on the roof, it meant a color T.V. There was no cable TV then. Color televisions were rare and expensive. Homes were marked if no lights were on and other signs of absent owners: no cars in front, unclaimed newspapers, or mail sticking out of the mailbox.

     It was about 9:00pm when we began cruising the neat, modest homes of the far eastside of St. Paul. The air was warm compared to the severe winter just passed. Spring was welcomed by burglars like pollen by bees. The sun set early enough to give us cover of dark and warm weather invited open windows--that makes entry a hell of lot easier. Quieter too. Since it was Friday we hopped that potential victims would not get home until 10 or 11pm.

     Joker, pointed to a tan stucco gingerbread house that we drove past. "Let's try that one."

     A neighborhood park covered the block on the opposite side of the street. The thick grass looked black except where isolated mercury lamps formed violet lily pads on a murky pond.

     "Billy, park around the corner," Joker said to me.

     "How you expect us to load?" our other partner, Kenneth, asked about this break from standard procedure.

     "Trust me, it's the best way tonight. Just do it."

     Joker had an uncanny sensitivity to his surroundings and his order was not questioned again. We believed in being sensitive to our feelings--especially when it came to the hunches of a pro like Joker. He had recruited and trained us for this occupation. 

     We walked briskly over the park lawn and arrived at a large tree directly across the street from the vacant house. Looking from around the gnarled bark of the trunk we cased the place. The windows were dark hollows of a skull. Neighbor houses on both sides stared blankly like they were fucked up on heroin. A dog barked in the distance, somewhere down the next block. Joker feared dogs. If he even suspected a dog's presence, he was gone. No peds were around and there was no traffic in the quiet neighborhood.

     It was decided, I think by Joker, that we needed a look-out man. He appointed himself that job and elected me to make the initial check and break-in. This would be my first break. I had always followed the lead. I was scared shitless.

     Leaving the false security of the tree I went directly to the front door. The varnished natural wood door stood in front of me, its small window of four beveled glass panes was supported by a cross of wood molding. A knocker bulged from the door below the window where its lion head rested on a chin of brass.

     Looking up and down the street I nervously pressed the lighted door bell button. I glanced back at my partners for any warning. None. I went over in my mind what I would say if someone answered the door. "Is Susan here?"

"Oh, isn’t this 2120 Payne?"

"The next street over? That way or there? I'm really sorry. Thanks for the help."

     I pressed the door bell again. Nobody. I rang again.

Waited. Then I dropped the heavy metal knocker a couple times to make sure that the house was vacant.

     A burglar I was but a robber I was not. I had no interest in confronting anybody or risking my life--or theirs.

     No response.

     I returned to the park to get the tools, a hammer and a towel. The towel would muffle the sound of breaking glass.

     Back at the door it took three tries before the glass broke. Each strike was so loud I was sure it would alert the neighbors. They could be calling the police right now. One pane finally shattered sounding like the roar of a shotgun. I quickly reached in through the remaining glass shards and flicked the lock. Pushing the door in I cautiously stepped over the threshold and into the foyer. The broken glass splintered under my shaky legs, echoing through the small hallway. My heart drummed my ears. Breaths heaved. The adrenalin surged through my body. All my senses were sparkling and my palms were sweating. A natural high.

     In the faint light I could see the stairway directly ahead. After a flight of steps it turned left, out of sight. An open area between me and the stairs joined the living room on the right from the dining room on the left. Street lights cast shadow arms made by window pane silhouettes across the carpet of the living room, up the couch and onto the wall. The family photo framed on the wall was quiet, detail obscured. The form of a piano squatted in the far corner near the gaping fireplace.

     Lace table cloth hung off the edge of the dining room table crowned above by a crystal chandelier. Candle sticks, maybe silver, rested on the teakwood buffet against the wall. A wooden silverware setting case lay to one side. The room smelled of lemon scented wood polish.

     Glancing back to the street I saw Kenneth approaching while Joker lurked behind the tree.

     "Time to get down," I told myself heading for the silver setting.

     Suddenly the darkness exploded with light. Hot, frightening, blinding light flooding down from the stairs above. For a millisecond that seemed minutes I imagined the blast of a gun, my body flinging against the wall and slowly feeling my flesh start to sear as the initial shock wears off, blood pumping onto the plush beige carpet.

     Jam...I was out that door passing my fellow thieves like Keystone Kops, in a flurry of panic to escape, not only that place but the East Side entirely. If the resident wasn't close behind, the police were.

     I swore, never again would I burglar. Packing groceries at 23 years old might have career opportunities after all.

     The next week, after sharing half a gallon of Arriba wine and a lot of bravado, me and two other partners headed for the near East Side. This time Joker refused to go with us. He said he had other things to do. I should have known then.

     After loading the back seat of our '56 Chev with frozen meats and a case of beer, television, stereo and assorted non-valuable items from a single floor bungalow, we headed home. Five minutes later we drove through the intersection where the squad car was parked. They must have decided that this was no place for two niggers and a hippy to be driving and they pulled us over.

     I didn't go to jail for that first offense. If I had, I swore to myself before sentencing, that I would learn everything I could about criminal enterprise in the joint. If I was sent to prison, I repeated to myself, my life after release would be dedicated to striking back at a society that had flushed me down the sewer of life. I would succeed at that.

     As it turned out, I was given probation and I never burgled again. I got a job working for a stock broker. Eventually, I was recruited to manage a department at the company where I now work.  

The company is exploding with growth. My job description is “Energy Trader”. I am rolling in dough. The game is good. I buy energy output from a producer, send the power out of California, mark it up, and then sell it back to California. Sometimes I cycle the same block of power several times through a loop to add profit and fool regulators. My commissions keep me in a lifestyle I was always destined to have.  

Just to think, I used to risk jail for chump change when I can now buy my Lexus, vacation home in Vail, and have parties thagt would make ancient Rome look like it was a convent. And I don’t have to worry about going to jail for that.  

Working at Enron has changed my life.   

(c) 2006-2010    TJ Western              

All material is copyright and can be reproduced only by written permission from the author.