Deeper & Deeper

Follow the link if you missed the last post in my biography.

I stayed with my soon to be ex-girlfriend that night and woke to the feeling of complete despair. What the hell was I to do now? My problems hadn't disappeared and I wondered if bonding out was the best idea. In jail at least I had a roof over my head and free meals. My girlfriend was lactose intolerant, allergic to wheat products, and a vegetarian. She had blown more than one high of mine with her non-Texan fare and I couldn't stay there for long with her parents around.

I had spoken with my mother that morning and she conveyed to me that there was little she could do to immediately assist me. I was told to sit tight and give her a few days to work something out in the way of providing me with a place to stay. Didn't she understand what being homeless entailed? Hadn't I learned yet to listen to her?

Cash still padded my pockets and I settled on finding another cheap motel to set up shop in. My mind always raced in those years and I was rarely content with sitting and waiting for something to happen. Patience remains new to me even now.

Boulder, for those of you unfamiliar with its demographic, was blanketed with wealth and a youthful, trusting, and almost inviting community -- neohippie wannabe Rastafarian republicans. Crazy, I know. And if you didn't follow that...picture kids pulling up at school in Audi's, BMW's, and Benz's, only to emerge from their 50 thousand dollar daddy sponsored interiors with dreadlocks and snow-dirtied jeans. Boulder was one big oxymoron.

A crime spree can have many influences to its initiation I imagine. Almost all of them somehow point back to money though. Addictions are never cheap, bills need to be paid, and some perpetrators are just fucking greedy. I don't know where I fit into all of that, but I started my own spree and was packing my hotel room full with the spoils of my idiocy. I had never burglarized a home before and none of the homes I entered in this spree were forced-entry cases.

This was my modus operandi: Park in the driveway, knock on the door, smile innocently for the eventual peep-hole viewing, and should someone answer, ask for a random girl by name with a claim of having arranged to take her to school. "Oh, so Vanessa doesn't live here? Wow. Well, do you know of a girl, say, about this tall, with brown hair and blue eyes that might live on this street? I was almost sure this was it. No bother! Thanks and sorry." Looking in the mirror now, ten years later, it's hard to tag myself as either an unsavory or threatening looking person. I worked that to my advantage and never raised any suspicions.

If the door wasn't answered, I'd wait for a comfortable amount of time, maybe knock twice or a third time, and then simply check the door to see if it was locked. Nine times out of ten the front doors were unlocked as if waiting for me, and this resulted in easy, quick, and numerous burglaries. It was all so easy! I'd have enough loot to get my own apartment and furnish the damn thing without any help from my mother. That was precisely the plan, though it happened organically. I just started and it worked.

Two particular burglaries stood out. The first involved a home in which I let myself in and actually opened the garage door of the home and parked my car inside of it. There were plenty of goodies inside and though I was doing my best to only steal cash, jewelry, and items that were easy to get rid of and untraceable, there were some pretty fine accessories there that might have spruced up my eventual apartment and loading them in broad daylight into the trunk of my car was not wise.

I worked on the bottom floor before I headed upstairs to see what my hosts had to offer. The last room I chose to enter was the master bedroom. Upon opening the door I was greeted by a large dog. Who left a dog at home with free range of their bedroom while they were at work all day? Someone with some valuable shit in their bedroom, that's who! The dog was a bit of an issue though. His tail wagged, but a sneer accompanied it. I tried to go all Caesar Milan on the confused pup and, just when I thought he was going to back down and let me enter the room, he lunged for the crack in the door. I instinctively slammed the door and an angry squeal resulted as the gaping maw of the dog was forced back into the bedroom. I felt terrible. One thing I am not is animal abuser.

The second instance in my spree which stands out occurred when I entered a neighborhood scoping for my next mark. As I drove down the street I passed a woman with a twin-stroller and its precious cargo. A mile or so further down the road I selected a house and pulled confidently into its driveway. I knocked once, twice, and when no one answered I let myself in. Didn't anyone lock their fucking doors?

As I stepped around the door, closing it behind me, I noticed on the console table in the foyer a silver-framed picture. It was the woman I had passed in the street and she was holding her twins, staring me down with a knowing smile. I believe I might have blacked out, but know I left the house empty handed without looking back. Looking back can sometimes scare the hell out of you. (Click here to subscribe to my feed!)

Homeless, but not for long...

Follow the link if you missed the last post in my biography.

After turning the Thompson's world upside down, I found myself sleeping in my car, without even a blanket to protect me from the snow's cold that now masked both my windows and any warmth my rolling home could have provided. I could hardly afford to leave it running when I didn't even have the money for proper shelter.

I had a girlfriend (who of course had no idea about the circumstances of my eviction), Lauren, but she still lived at home with her family. Her parents, as so many people seem to have been fooled, were fond of me but not the type to approach with such a proposition as was necessary to resolve my homelessness. I had no idea where to turn. The Honda would have to do for now.

My first night within its confines, I of course overslept. I had been due at work in the morning and wouldn't have been able to make myself appropriately presentable without an iron and mirror anyway. You can add unemployed to the list of my problems. I was definitely proving myself ill-equipped for adversity. My only option seemed to be calling my mother and having her wire me some money from Venezuela. How would I explain to her my situation though? Yeah, fuck that. You think you could have that conversation with yours?

I still had a key to the Thompson's house and after a couple of days living out of my car had become positively bitter. I convinced myself that I was the victim somehow and that Mrs. Thompson owed me one way or another. Evict someone...sure! Put a kid out in the snow with no resources (either monetary or familial) who is strapped to the state by a little thing called felony probation, and you're practically inhumane. I mean fuck, I hadn't even seen snow before a few months prior, went skiing in blue jeans (Lucky Brand of course) I was so obviously ignorant and Texan, and had practically been raped while in a drunk stupor the first time we shared a bed. That would be their bed, the one she shared with her husband. She owed me and the fat wad of cash she kept in one of the drawers of that very bed would be sufficient compensation for my winter eviction and present state of affairs.


On a day when I knew no one would be home, I simply let myself in with my key and retrieved the money. I knew I would of course be the prime candidate if and when the police were informed. The only option to circumvent the crime being attributed to me was to make it look like it had been an actual break-in. I chose the garage's side door as my supposed entry point and kicked it in about as well as any 155 pound man; more than twenty attempts and several instances where I thought I had separated my shoulder. The scene was set and I would be sleeping in a hotel room that night. I just knew I wasn't going to freeze to death over getting my dick wet. I was much smarter than any cop I'd ever met and proof of my crime would be hard to come by. (Click here to subscribe to my feed!)

My Dad always said I was a Fool

David and I were quickly handcuffed and tossed unceremoniously into the back of the squad car. We had both been arrested before and were more worried about what our parents would say than anything. I already knew what my father was going to say and had thus determined that I wasn't going to call either of my parents for help. Always the optimist, I was positive I could escape this situation unscathed.

Our destination was the Harris County Jail; home to crack-heads, car-jackers, rapists, cho-mos, and murderers alike. We were mere golf club thieves--a detail about our crime that we had already decided to keep from our fellow inhabitants. There's nothing "hood" about that.

Being booked into a jail of such magnitude is an experience in and of itself. It takes well over 7 hours on an average day. We were going in on a Friday. We could expect full-body cavity searches, fingerprinting, blood testing, psychiatric evaluation, and chest x-rays. All were a segment of the process. Picture musical chairs. Except, the chairs are cells--holding cells that contain about 40-60 individuals. Inmates are shuffled in groups through these barren gray slabs of concrete as they complete the various evaluations required for booking. The only interruption to this virtual criminal assembly-line is the occasional sack-lunch scuffle.

I'm not talking about people fighting over bologna and peanut-butter & jelly sandwiches, although that's sure to happen as well. These people actually get in fights and arguments about abandoned and empty sack-lunches. Once an individual has managed to collect enough of these empty sacks, they are then wadded up, providing an excellent pillow to use while sleeping through the intake process. Sleeping was the last thing on my mind.

After experiencing many hours of other peoples' body odor, snoring, and halitosis, I was thankful David and I finally made it to one of the housing units. There was much more air space in our new environment to dilute the myriad smells I had been picking up on earlier. Also, the nurses who looked like they took some of these guys home with them when the need arose, were far far away, several floors beneath us. I firmly believe my belonephobia can be attributed to them.

One of the few benefits in being in such a large county jail is that you get to court quickly. We had court the very next day, on a Saturday, and I was able to get out of jail immediately afterwards. My parents would only think I had stayed out overnight at a friend's house and everything would be cool. I would just tell them about my 5 years probation, 240 hours community service, and 3 months of boot camp at a later time. I had a June deadline for turning myself in for the boot camp portion of my sentence, which was allotted by the court so that I could graduate high school. I was a damn fool.

You are probably wondering what brand of golf clubs we had heisted, because that crime would usually fit under the misdemeanor category of "theft under $500." You don't receive five years probation, community service, and boot camp for a misdemeanor. They had charged me with a class 2 felony; 2nd degree burglary. You have to enter someone's home for a crime to be considered a burglary. I never even left the car and David heisted the golf clubs from the front porch.

David smartly passed up his first and second offers from the district attorney before being released about four weeks later with credit for time served. No paper trail, no community service, and, most importantly, no felony.

I'll always regret not making that phone call to my family and either asking for an attorney or sitting it out and missing school in the county jail until I was offered a fair deal. The felony and probation would turn out to be some of greatest hindrances of my life. I was only seventeen, but I was branded for life. Worst of all was that I had no one to blame but myself. (Click here to subscribe to my feed!)