Neighbors

by U.L. Harper

The people most likely to rob your house are your neighbors. Not necessarily your immediate neighbors. It might be someone from down the block or across the street. In some cases, it's someone from around the corner.

Before I moved to this place six months ago I lived in a small apartment with the rest of my pretty large family. There's my mother and father--still married--and my younger sister and brother. Both of my siblings are ten years younger than I am and fraternal twins. I'm 23 years old. It's a two bedroom apartment, so that place is too small. My family is still really close. For instance, they all have a key to my house. It's the least I can do. I could have stayed home and helped out, or I could have moved out and helped them a lot less. If they have a key it helps my conscience. 

I remember the first time we got robbed. I was real young, like 10 years old or something like that. Whoever stole from us took some dumb stuff: cake mix, eggs, my backpack--probably to put the cake mix and eggs in--some milk, is what I remember.  They didn't take anything nice like the television or VCR or money or the radio. The next time we got robbed I was much older. I was fifteen so the twins were about five. I baby-sat a lot. If I wasn't watching them, my mother was. If my mother wasn't with them, my father was watching them. If nobody could watch them, Aunt Sara did.  Whoever robbed us had to know when we weren't going to be home for a period of time.  They'd have to know our patterns. All they had to do was pay attention. That's what I heard my dad saying. My mother was pissed. My dad thought it was bound to happen, sooner or later.

When I was eighteen the same thing happened. I even think I know who it was the last time. Whoever it was, they didn't do it themselves; they got other people to do it.  How can you prove it, though?

Never mind proving it.

I moved out with my best friend Ralph.

Ralph is my age and works delivering sandwiches during the day. At night he does security. He doesn't do either one five days a week. On the other hand, I work five days a week managing a movie theater. I work days and nights, including weekends.  Ralph and I put our money together and started renting this two bedroom house over here on the other side of town. It's not the nicest place in the world, but it's, basically, affordable, and not too far from my family.

On this street there are all kinds of families. Me and Ralph made a point to meet mostly everybody. We didn't want anyone thinking we would thieve them. We know how important trust is. They had to get to know us, quickly. Now keep in mind this isn't the most amiable neighborhood of people, merely one where people are acquainted. For instance, everybody knows about the tweakers in the house around the corner. The tweakers wander the neighborhood late at night and early in the morning, like lonely vampires with nothing to do. I don't know who pays rent or actually lives there. We, meaning the rest of the neighborhood, figure the people in the tweeker house will eventually burn themselves out and die. They're abnormally skinny, with their eyes bugging out of their heads, and for some reason, their tongues are always moving around in their mouths, like their chops are perpetually dry or something. If they don't die off, they'll get evicted.

Our closest neighbors are the Roberts across the street. What I mean by close is we talk to them frequently. We consider each other friends. We watch each other’s back. I play with their dogs: Hercules and Venus. I play video games with their kid, Josh. I talk politics with their father, Jack. I don't say much to his wife, Jill, but we don't mind each other.

I'm looking at the Roberts house from my living room window. I'm peeking through the curtains, not letting today have a good look at what little material possessions we have. We have no furniture, except for three fold-out chairs. Against the wall is a television that has no reception, which is horrible for someone like me who has nothing to do while not at work.

Ralph pulls up outside and he doesn't seem too happy.

I watch him drag himself up the walkway and to the porch. My eyes are on the front door when he steps inside.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

He closes the door behind him, kicks his shoes off and starts rubbing his hands through his shaggy hair. "They're saying they don't need me."

"Really. What'd you do?"

"Nothing. They just don't need me. It's fucked up."  He lays down right there on the hardwood floor.

"Is business slow?" I say, closing the blinds.

"I don't think business is slow. Not really."

"Listen," I say moving next to him. "They're firing you and just said they didn't need you. I do it at my work all the time. Someone's not performing, we stop putting them on the schedule. We tell them there aren't enough hours. Stuff like that."

He gets off the floor. He's shorter than I am, but weighs more. "Fucked up."

"It happens."

"That's cash not in my pocket. Not this month, but next month..." He shook his head. "It's fucked up."

"I don't think so."

He starts for the kitchen. "Why not?"

"Just find a day job."

He goes to check the fridge like he usually does and finds out again that we have nothing to eat. "We have nothing to eat!" He comes back into the room with me, holding his belly. "They kicked me out before I ate."

"They kicked you out?"

"Actually, I left. They wanted me to leave, anyway. Fuckers. Let's get some light in here." He opens the curtains.

I grab a fold-out chair from the corner, set it in the middle of the room and sit. 

"Want to see a movie tonight?" I ask him, knowing he isn't in the mood for a film.

"I have to conserve gas," he says, gazing out the window.

"I'll drive."

"Hey, Donnie," he says all inquisitive. "How long are the Roberts out of town?"

"The Roberts? I think they're gone for a solid week or so."

"I'm going for a run," he says, facing me.

"When did you start jogging?"

"Right now," he says, heading to his bedroom.

"Now?"

"Why not?"

With that, he goes for a run and I sit there, reading this outdated business magazine. The phone rings. It's Aunt Sara. She wants to surprise us, have a dinner at my place. I say, sure, we could use the food, but who wants to eat with no table and no chairs or anything.  She asks if Ralphy doesn't want to eat either. I tell her that he works at a sandwich place.  He's never hungry. She asks me if I'm going to Jamaica with her and my family in a few weeks. "No, I have to work."

"That's too bad. Your birthday's while we're in Jamaica. It would be a great gift."

Then she starts pretending she's Fozzy Bear from the Muppets. "Wokka wokka." 

"Yes, it would be great."

"This is the only time of the year the whole family has time to do this. Your father saved all year for this trip. Wokka wokka."

"Can't go. Have to work."

It would be nice, though. I'd love to be in Jamaica for my birthday, instead of at work. We hang up.

The truth about Aunt Sara is that I don't like her much; I don't want her over, if for no other reason, because she's wild-crazy. One time she told me that she thought it would be great if she were a horse. That way she could graze the grass and then gallop home.  She's kind of a wacko, if you ask me. One time she explained to me how there is another race of people on the earth. They're taking over the world. They all wear suits and fake smiles. I said, you mean business people and TV news persons? She said, no. The race of people she spoke about never wore pants and walked down the street in high heels while holding a briefcase. She sees them all the time. "They're taking over! They're taking over!" she told me.

I do more reading.

Ralph walks in from his supposed jog, in his shorts and basketball shoes, not even huffing and puffing, not even breaking a sweat. 

"Did you run?" I ask, setting the magazine down.

"I walked around the corner."

"Took you long enough."

"Wasn't exercising."

"Then what's around the corner?" 

"Bill and Chad and Scott."

"The tweakers?"

"You know how much we can cluck a TV for?"

"Cluck a TV?" I say.

"A TV," he points out the window, which is still open, "the Roberts'."

I shake my head at him. "That's the dumbest... Are you serious?" I shuffle to the window and imagine what I could see in the Roberts' home if their curtains were open. A lot of cool stuff, that's for sure. "When did you become a master thief? Why would you want to steal from your neighbor? Are you serious?"

"We could basically cover a few months rent with the money. That way we'd be ahead and I'd have another month to find a day job. It's only material crap. Shit that doesn't matter."

"It might to them."

"If they wanted it, they would have taken it on vacation with them."

"You're seriously serious?"

"I'm just saying..."

How much can a TV have been worth in the first place? "The idea won't work anyway. We couldn't possibly get that much for one television, I don't care how top of the line it is."

"Well, we'd have to get more than the television. We'd get...everything."

"What? Hell no!"

"That's what we'd do."

"Hell no!"

"It's just...stuff. We'd sell it. They'd get over it, buy new things. Everybody wins."

"Hell no! Hell no!"

"You didn't even think about it."

I eye him for a moment. "And I don't think I need to and I won't."

Half asleep, I hear my bedroom door open. With my eyes closed, I think I hear Ralph click on the light. I have the big closet, so we share it. Him being in here isn't anything new or odd. Then I hear a siren in the room with me. A screech in the middle of the night. Ralph is near the light switch standing next to Aunt Sara.

"Wokka wokka!" Aunt Sara is in the doorway with one of those toy fireman helmets that has a siren on top. She has her eyes crossed, and she's flail as if she's trying to not fall backwards. Ralph exits the room, quickly.

"Wokka wokka!" she says. She's overweight. She's got some gray hair in her long mane.

"What the hell are you doing?" I ask her, lifting my voice above the siren.

She starts switching the bedroom light on and off, on and off. I get out of bed, wearing my red sweatpants and no shirt, no shoes, no socks.

"Who gave you the key?"

"Your mom! It's time for dinner!" And she leaves the room, siren wailing and all that.

I find her in the kitchen with Ralph. He grabs something out of a white paper bag: fries, a hamburger and some sauce in small plastic containers.

"Eat up," she says, clicking off the siren.

"God, I'm hungry," Ralph says while shoving fries in his face.

"What kind of burgers we got here?" I say, heading for the white paper bags, salvation. "I'm starving."

She points at the bags. "Double cheeseburgers and chili cheeseburgers."

"Thanks, Sara," Ralph says with a full mouth.

She starts stumbling around, holding a cheeseburger, saying, "A wokka wokka!  A wokka wokka!" After stuffing the remaining cheeseburger in her face, she turns her siren on. 

Chewing and swallowing, I say, "A wokka wokka!" We might as well be saying, "Cheers! Cheers!" 

"I couldn't get the family down here," she says, chewing. "It's too late to go out.  We always eat late. They had macaroni. William cooked."

"He did?" I said above the siren. William doesn't do anything, not even have fun, but tonight he cooked, because his wife abandoned him to give us food. I give her a hug. "A wokka wokka!" I say, in celebration. "Wokka wokka!"

Aunt Sara leaves. Ralph and I stay awake for a while. We're in the living room about to go back to bed.

"Your family really gives a damn," he says.

"That's what family's for."

"I'm off to bed. Need to do what I have to do, tomorrow."

He starts off to his room.

"You think my family is disappointed in me?"

He stops and says, "Disappointed? Why?"

"I'm not doing anything with myself. Not in college, no girlfriend, no food. I don't even have furniture."

"We don't have furniture."

"I feel like some friggin loser."

"If you're a loser then I'm a loser, and I'm not a loser. So we're missing some things that other people have. So what. Who cares?"

"I don't. But here my aunt is coming over late at night to feed us. She got the key from my mom, so my whole family knows that I can't even feed myself. It's kind of embarrassing."

Ralph shrugs, crossing his arms. "Maybe."

We stare at each other for a minute.

I say, "Maybe it's time to look at some...options, I guess, or something."

Ralph sneers.

"If we had a couch or a second television it wouldn't be so embarrassing," I catch myself saying, "or better yet some food in the fridge."

"That's not going to happen any time soon."

Sighing, I say, "True."

He nods his head. "We could sell something. What do you think we could sell?"

"I don't know. What could we sell?"

"Beats me."

"I'm out of ideas."

"I hear that." He pretends to yawn.

"Fine. Okay. I'm down for it."

"Hey," he says, smiling, completely sure of himself, "people get robbed all the time. It's no big deal." He walks away from me and heads towards his bedroom, triumphant, with a full stomach.

A day goes by and we don't even talk about how we're going to rob the Roberts' place.

The day after that, we talk about it, but none of the conversation is positive. The Roberts' have dogs. We know they lock-up pretty good, and we're not going to break anything to get in. On top of that, we're not sure exactly when they'll be back, so therefore we have to act quick, probably before we're actually ready.

To add to matters, it's official, they stopped putting him on the schedule and he's having a hard time finding a job. That and his night security job is burning him out, so it's hard for him to look for more work in the morning. For a minute it seems worthwhile getting him a position at my work, but that will only be a couple of hours a week, if he's lucky. We're not even hiring.

Ralph has an epiphany. He says we don't have to worry about the dogs, because we know their names. The dogs won't give us any trouble. He decides we have to do something right when the sun goes down tomorrow night. That's the first chance we'll get, maybe the only chance. Tonight is too soon. We're not prepared. Tomorrow, if the Roberts come in the daytime, forget it.

I have an epiphany of my own. "They keep a key under the flower pot, in the backyard. It's been there since they moved in. Jack told me.

"You're kidding."

"I shit you not. He says it's a nice place for a spare. It's so nice, he forgot about it for a long time."

Ralph realizes, "The only problem is, the time we'd be going over there is relatively early. We'll be seen."

"I'm sure we can get across the street without anyone seeing us."

"But where are we taking the goods?"

I say, "Through their back fence...where..." I improv, "where the tweakers will pick it up. That's it! The tweakers! Since you have that deal with them anyway."

"Brilliant. You're a natural crook."

"Yes, a bonafide backstabber. Great."

Since Ralph has made better acquaintance with the tweakers--Bill and Chad and Scott--than I have, he's the one who negotiates with them. They agree to be waiting out back at about nine o'clock at night, to take the stolen goods to their place, where the goods will be until sold to whomever. From there, they get a cut of the money, as do we.  The tweakers have a backyard like we do, but we don't want to store our trusting neighbors' stolen appliances and what not in our backyard. The tweakers don't care. They need the money worse than we do, I suppose.

At about eight, we, nervously, get across the street.

"Maybe we should do this later," I think aloud.

"But what if they're here by then?"

"Right."

We open the fence to the front yard and hear Hercules and Venus growling inside the one story, two bedroom house. We rush through the side yard and into the backyard where we have a smaller chance of being seen. The dogs bark once and then twice, bolting through a doggy hatch in the back door.

We politely call their names. Once they recognize us they sniff and lick us and jump all over us. I go for the key under the flower pot. Ralph entertains the dogs. They pant but don't bark. I open the back door. The dogs go running in and Ralph follows. It's like visiting old friends and borrowing things they'll never get back.

They have a 60 inch television and an entertainment system they'll miss without question. Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of stuff is in here. I suggest we take the television, the speakers, the coffee table, the whole lot, and while we're at it, anything that has our fingerprints on it, we have to steal that too. We should even take the back door.

"They won't fingerprint the place," Ralph doubted the scenario.

"Why not?"

"That's cop show crap. They don't really dust, I'm sure. I'm not saying don't be careful, but don't worry about that."

"I'm getting gloves."

"From where?"

I go into the kitchen and turn on the light. I find yellow dishwashing gloves near the sink. 

I yell to him, "Don't touch anything!" The dogs have followed me into the kitchen. They feel like playing. "No, Hercules. No, Venus. No."

I prop the backdoor open.

We each get one dishwashing glove. I got one on my right hand. His is on his left.  We lift the television, with not the greatest of ease, to the backyard. The dogs jump on us the whole time. We set the TV by the back fence and go back inside for the stereo and speakers. We do this for the speakers, the coffee table and the love seats. This goes on for a while, grabbing things and setting them by the back fence. Eventually, we have appliances from the kitchen, pretty much everything from the living room, and a frozen pizza that Hercules and Venus wind up using as a doggy bone. Anyway, they stop jumping on us. Wearing the yellow dishwashing gloves, at the back gate we wait for Chad, Scott and Bill, the tweakers.   

"So far so good," Ralph says, peeking through the back fence as if it's a periscope.

"I don't think tweakers can tell time."

"Is that why they're always up so late?"

"I don't know but they're not here. They should be here."

"Don't panic," he tells me, lowering his hands, motioning for me to calm down. "We should move this stuff out into the alley. I don't want to be in the yard if and when the Roberts get home."

"The alley's not okay."

"There's no one in the alley right now."

"How do you know?"

"Check."

I open the fence and take a look around. He's right. It's deserted.

"Nobody?" he says.

"Nobody."

"Let's do it."

It seems like it takes forever, but we move all these things into the alley. No sign of the tweakers. No sign of anybody.

"This is feeling iffy," I tell him. "Let's just leave it here and forget it."

"We can get it over to our yard."

"All this?"

"Let's take the TV first, then the table, the coffee-maker, and the love seat."

"This is how dumb crooks get caught."

He bends over, putting his fingers under the television.

"What are you doing?"

"One two three... Help me out, it's heavy."

"What?"

"One two..."

I grab the bottom.

"Three."

It's wet from the grass. The gloves make it more slippery than it needs to be, but we're so genius we leave the gloves on anyway. Things are heavier when you're stealing them; the situation is slippery. Once we're on our way, I start putting my side down.  What we're doing feels wrong.

"What are you doing?" he says, closing the gate behind him with his foot. "This goes to your place."

I say nothing, not moving.

"Come on." 

It's not far to the end of the alley, only a couple of hundred feet. From there it isn't too far to my yard. On the sidewalk is where things are going to most likely go wrong.

I agree to take it to our place. When we get to the street, some guy watering his lawn says, howdy. Nobody around here ever waters their lawn at night.

"Howdy," I say back to him. The guy doesn't bother us any further. I've never met that guy. He must be new to the block.

We get to the end of the alley, taking small steps, trying to hurry. We have to keep adjusting our hands because they keep slipping. Cars are driving by, but no one seems to be paying attention. Several people ride by on ten speed bikes. They don't see us. We live on a small residential street, but several cars drive by us. They don't look to see us.  Crossing the street, Ben, who lives up the block stops for us so we can cross in the middle of the street. We see him and he's stopped, but he doesn't look at us while we're crossing. He keeps looking to his left. We don't know if he actually acknowledges that he has stopped for us. And how can we tell? We're not going to try and get his attention.

Once across the street, we start on our twenty foot trek to our place. Cars line up at the stop sign in back of us. We know a bunch of these people. Butch, who runs a gardening business, waves at us. My yellow glove is slipping off, but I still find a way to take the gloved hand and wave back to him. He passes us. Two cars later it's Jody and Stacy, with Jody joking from the passenger seat, saying, "What, you robbing your neighbors?" they laugh.

Ralph and I smile and nod. 

The line of cars grows longer. Every car is a nicely tuned mechanism of stress, harboring personalities that will roll all over you if they don't approve of you. I keep smiling, because everyone approves of smiles. 

People are going home right now. It hadn't occurred to me that this is a weekend night so everybody is on the move, and we can't move fast enough!

We set the television down so we can open our small fence. We lift the television again and enter the front yard. Once inside, while still holding the television, I notice something.

"Ralph. Did you leave the lights on?"

"Probably."

"Do you hear that?" We keep walking straight into the side yard.

"Hear what?"

"There's someone in the house." We keep walking.

"I don't hear anything," he says, short of breath. 

Cautiously, we small step towards the backyard, to where we'll be safe.

"Shh," I say to him as we set the television down in the backyard. "Listen."  Somebody's moving things around in our house. "You don't hear that?"

He looks at me curiously; he heard it.

While we were robbing our neighbors across the street, somebody was robbing us.  No doubt it's the tweakers, those bastards. Like we wouldn't find out. Intensely we listen and there's more than a few of them. And they're laughing.

"Donnie, check it." Ralph points back down the side yard, the path we had dragged the television. "Who's that?" 

We take off our gloves, throwing them to the ground, getting ready to brawl. To our surprise, it's Chad and Billy, carrying a love seat. Scott, the smaller of the three is coming up behind them.

"What took you guys so long?" Ralph questions them.

"Lost track of time," Chad tells us.

"You mean you can't tell time," Ralph says.

"Nah, man. The clock at our place doesn't work but we didn't know that. It's been seven o'clock for like three weeks. Know what I mean?" They set the couch down.  "Shoot, it's like time stood still for a while, you know?" He chuckles. His tongue wanders around his mouth, slipping across his lips. "Nah, man. We can tell time."

Scott and Bill, in their decrepit skeletons, kind of sway, staring at nothing, gritting their teeth.

Chad is the sane one.

"Stay up for two weeks," Chad says, erratically dabbing his lips with his tongue, "and tell me if you care about time after that."

I hope I never stay awake for two weeks. 

"Did you guys see who was in the house?" I ask. Before they answer, Ralph asks them how they knew where to come.

"The guy watering the lawn said you guys came this way," Chad explains. "We saw your gate open."

Ralph and I look at each other, worried. 

Chad adds, "We figured you wanted to bring it here instead of our place. You guys should have used a car or something?"

Ralph says, frustrated, "This won't fit in any of our small assed cars."

"Shit," I say. "Who's in the house?"

"You guys don't know?" Chad says. "Some kids. I thought you knew them.  They're running around with some other people."

"Kids? Other people?" Then I hear my mom's laugh.

Ralph hears it too, I guess, because he quickly swings open the back door, and there, inside, is my family. They have food with them. They have a table in the kitchen.  The aroma of chicken and cornbread rush at me. My aunt sees Ralph and goes into a frenzy.

"Here they are!" Sara takes a look at me and sucks in enough air to overfill her lungs. My mother and brother and sister come from the living room. They had been waiting in the hallway between mine and Ralph's rooms for us to get home, so they could jump out and say "surprise!" 

We ruined all that.

"Surprise!" my mother yells. 

Then my sister and brother, yell, simultaneously, "Surprise!"

There's a table in the kitchen, but not large enough to fit everybody. My mom is hugging me, telling me they bought the table for me and Ralph. It's for all those times they want to come over and have dinner in a house and not an apartment.

I hear the toilet flush and my dad exits the bathroom.

"Donnie!" he has his arms spread, waiting for me. "Give the old guy a hug. We're off to Jamaica but I'll be damned if I miss my son’s birthday."

"That's right!" I shout to Ralph who's mingling with Sara's husband in the living room. "That's right! I'm 24 years old!"

"Twenty-four!" Ralph hollers back.

"Twenty-four!" I hug my father.

My loving mother convinces everyone, including Chad, Bill and Scott to gather around the kitchen table for prayer. I hold my mother's hand as we have prayer. Everyone says, amen and Aunt Sara begins ushering them to the paper plates they brought. From the plates, people go to the food: chicken, corn bread, corn on the cob, greens, fresh-out-of-the-can cranberry sauce, buttered bread, the list keeps going; this is my birthday dinner.  At the end of all the food is wine. Even the kids can get a small glass to drink on birthdays.

My dad extends the table so that almost everyone can fit around it, and then tells my brother to get the chairs from the living room. Only Chad, Scott, Bill and Ralph have to stand at the counter.

For some reason, Aunt Sara has her purse on the table. My dad says she shouldn't have a purse on the table. She says there's important things in there. 

Dad says, snickering, "like what?" 

She opens it up and pulls out a horn. It's the kind a person would put on the front of their bike in the 1950's. She starts honking the damned thing. We're laughing, spitting up food everywhere. This is a good time. Everybody is trying to help me out by giving me food and the table and  love, and all I want to do is put back in to the good mood any way I can. 

I ask for Ralphs help on this next endeavor. We go out the back door and get the television we stole.

Sara honks her horn twice: Honk honk. 

"This is where we were," I tell everybody, as Ralph and I bring the television passed the crowd of family. "We were out getting this. I've been saving up."

All the kids ooohh and aaahhh. The adults mumble about its size and how much it must cost. Aunt Sara honks her horn. Honk honk. The tweakers laugh. Ralph waves at the tweakers, gesturing for them to follow him, and that's what they do. Everybody congratulates me for having something, anything, and the whole time they laugh with me. So the television is in the living room, looking prestigious.

Aunt Sara is having a blast with that horn. Honk honk.

Ralph comes back in with the tweakers and they have the love seat with them.

"Nice couch, son," my father tells me. "How much?"

"I don't know. I paid with credit. What do I care?"

Ralph and them set it down in front of the window.

My dad sits on the couch with my mother.

Aunt Sara tells me that, now, since I'm decorating my place, I need to fix my bedroom so that sexy women who don't mind hot corn being thrown at them can be accommodated accordingly.

"Yes," I say, "hot corn."

Honk honk.

"Now for your gift from all of us to you," my mother says, raising herself from the couch. She goes in the hallway near where my room is located. She comes back with a small radio. 

"You need this don't you?"

"I need whatever you give me," I tell her.

Everyone says, "Awwweee."

Sara's husband takes the radio from my mother.

I hug her and give her a kiss, and then another kiss on the cheek. My father, and his graying, pot-bellied six-foot self is lucky to have her.

Sara's uncharismatic, pear-shaped husband turns on the radio and starts searching for a station. His kids jump around him, like birds in a nest.

The front door opens and it's Jack Roberts stepping across the threshold. Ralph takes one look at Jack's angry face, his bald head, his six-foot six frame, his swollen muscles and hurries out the back way with the tweakers.

Everybody slows down what they're doing. It's obvious this man is upset. He eyes everyone, it seems, without saying anything. I look at him, then gaze over at his television. What must he have been thinking when he came home from vacation to see his house emptied into his back alley. His family must be devastated. I know what it's like to feel violated, like someone took something from you, something more than just material items. Because feeling violated means someone stole your dignity as well as your stuff. I'm sure, to his dismay, he looked over at my house, saw the living room window open, and what did he see on the other side of the window? His television. What was he thinking while walking over here?

He sees my mother and father sitting on his love seat.

"Are we being too loud?" my father says, apologetically. "It's Donnie's birthday. Have fun with us for these next few hours. I'm sure you'll have time to be angry later."

Jack sucks on his bottom lip. He swallows something: anger, pride, hatred. He shakes his head, disappointed.

I step up to Mr. Roberts. "You can shoot me if you want. Just don't do it now. Just...not now." I turn and scan the room, look at the good time I produced by having his things.

Jack whispers so no one else can hear, "I trusted you. My family trusted you. You're lucky I don't call the cops."

"I'd rather you just kicked my ass."

Instantly he shoves me to the floor. I look back at my dad and he's on his feet. I tell him, "God, I trip bad these days. I'm fine. I'm okay. I'm okay."

Looking up at Jack, I have nothing to say to him and he has nothing else to say to me. Our eyes lock. On his way out the door, Jack says in a hushed voice, "Happy birthday." 

Honk honk.

The party continues, joyously, in celebration of me, in acknowledgement of what a good person I have become.

Jack came by today to get his couch and television. If I were a better person I might have delivered these things to his house. But I'm not a better person. At least not a good enough person to step into a moving fist. He said nothing to me or Ralph the entire time.

This morning, Ralph said his security company wants him to supervise. Great. With the new position and its responsibility, he'll get a raise and forty hours a week. We would have been able to buy our couch and new television or food or whatever, if we would have been patient.

It gets around that Ralph and I aren't good people; you can't trust us. The Roberts move away, disillusioned with their once safe and respectable surroundings.

What gets me is that Jack's kid is going to understand that one of the few times he got burglarized, one of the few times he was humiliated, was when someone he trusted, me, robbed him. 

"The people most likely to rob your house are your neighbors," is what he'll tell someone. And he'll be almost completely right. Unfortunately, to be accurate, the people, or person most likely to rob your house...is me.