Up Shit Creek

The mother with twins hadn’t shaken my conscience for too long. The looting was easy and I accumulated a huge stash of spoils. I was close to having enough money to rent a place of my own, but was hindered when I tried selling a Rolex to a private jewelry store. The owners had informed me it needed to be authenticated and wrote me a receipt. Its sale alone might have ended the spree there. Ah well, I was having too much fun anyway. Doing something you know is totally wrong can often be accompanied by a thrill. Guilt, wicked excitement, and the justification I had cooked up by being homeless were all juxtaposed, tugging at one another with no clear victor.

I left my personal pawn shop one morning and headed to another secluded neighborhood in Boulder. I chose a ranch style home as my next site for plundering, and following an investigative knock and subsequent no-answer, let myself in through the unlocked front door. There had been little sound upon entry, only the hum of a nearby refrigerator. I was alone as planned.

The master bedroom was the place to start. I didn’t find much of interest, only a television that would have looked nice in my eventual living room. I entered the walk-in closet and discovered a gun safe. The bolt for the locking mechanism was engaged, but the door had been left ajar. It seemed the owner found better use of it as a door prop. Why invest in a safe, especially one which will be used to house guns, only to leave it open? There were pump-action shotguns, hunting rifles with sophisticated scopes, and handguns galore. Luckily for the owner guns scare the hell out of me.

I decided to only take the T.V., and with half of its weight perched on my right leg and the width of it struggling to slip from my lanky grasp, I wrestled it into the trunk of my car. I exited the neighborhood with my car’s trunk as open as the home owner’s gun safe. The word brazen comes to mind. Or maybe foolish? Either way, I made it back to the depository with my burden in-tact and without consequence.

After I grabbed a quick bite to eat I headed out looking for more homes. The television from the previous burglary wouldn’t do me any good unless I could get together the cash to get off the streets. My next neighborhood of choice was located in a canyon and the houses rose sharply to one side of the road and disappeared from view on the other. Viewing the homes was difficult because of the mountain’s incline. I decided to focus on the elevated homes. My car’s moon-roof had been the obvious deciding factor in this.

Coming across a home that fit the look didn’t take long. I turned into the driveway, the rear end of my Honda announcing my arrival as it scraped the road I had just left. The driveway’s steepness reminded me of the clicking ascension of a roller-coaster ride and the potential energy placed upon my emergency brake as I parked and exited the car was alarming.

When I reached the porch I rung the doorbell and waited. No answer. No one looked to be home once again. The shutters were pulled and my vehicle was the only one visible. I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. A locked door in Boulder? If most of the doors had been unlocked when people weren’t home, then one would assume locked doors meant nothing different.

I made my way to the rear of the house to check the sliding glass door. In junior high I walked home from school and was the kid who lost every key his parents ever made him. I learned to let myself in through our sliding glass door by lifting it off of its track. I decided to try that trick here and didn’t succeed. I can recall thinking of how pathetic a burglar I was and then something suddenly came over me. Maybe it was the nervousness that accompanied my actions or maybe it was an undiagnosed case of irritable bowel syndrome, but I had to go.

I thought about returning to my car and trying to make it to a gas station, but the nearest was twenty minutes away — out of the question. Forest extended for miles behind the homes on the street and I decided I would just have to shit in the woods. I retrieved an apartment-locator magazine from my car and dashed to the concealment of the trees and became one with nature. A towel would have been better than glossy paper, but anything was better than leaves.

There had been no time to bury my waste the designated six inches and I decided to risk my wilderness permit being revoked in favor of escaping the situation as soon as possible. I fastened my pants and retreated to my car. Hastily exiting the driveway I accelerated dangerously as I navigated the slalom-like road. Over hills and around twists I sped. Then I passed a cop. Glancing in my rear-view mirror I noticed his brake lights come into full bloom in an area of the tract where brakes were only necessary if you were busting a “U”. He was turning around for me and with only two ways out of the canyon I was screwed. Who cared that my ass was itching? I’d likely be going to jail.

Tagged as: Autobiography, blog, crime, writing