Stolen Me - K. Michael Washington (primary phonics TXT) 📗

when you can triple your money. The caravan would be traveling at an average speed of one hundred miles per hour, lead by some professional get away driver that master minded this whole thing. The route wouldn’t be given to anyone until just before the heist, so nothing could be rehearsed. Nicky was a street-racing champion, so our shot to make it was realistic. But before we could even start to worry about pulling it off, there was a matter of five thousand dollars.

FATHER

I stood in front of that Angel holding a sledgehammer and she stared me down. She reminded me that I wasn’t alone. She was too late. When she left me I acted as if I had nothing. I had all that I needed and my son needed me. Instead I had seen him as a consolation. While I strategically danced through my victim’s abode, my son sat waiting. I would break in and sit the baby down, do what I had to do, and every time, he was right where I left him. The kid was a year old and still didn’t walk. To so many people for so many reasons what I did was so very wrong. But for me, only one reason would ever make sense. It got me caught.

Before I could lift the sledge, I heard the first of the unmarked cars skid to a stop. I had hit the big time, the feds came to get me. Looking around, it was obvious that while they were still far away, I was surrounded. Dillinger must have felt my panic, he jumps to his feet and hastily walks to me, begging to be picked up. He didn’t’ stumble as if he was taking his first steps, he practically ran. Immediately I realized that he could’ve been walking in one of the houses I robbed. All I could do was laugh. I looked up at my angel and I swear she smiled. She told us not to be scared. I was still smiling when they cuffed me. A lady from child services was there to take my son. I knew then that it was his fingerprints that would convict me. While I stole he explored. I fantasized that he even took something himself. I looked at my son in that strange woman’s arms and he wasn’t scared anymore, and neither was I. I lost my son and my freedom, but I knew I would never be alone.

You wouldn’t believe the list of charges they can throw at you for taking your kid on a robbing spree across three states. Neglect, abuse, endangering, et cetera. My lawyer was so exhausted just explaining all the charges to me that he stopped short of completion.

“Plead guilty.” He said they would only give me fifteen years if I did.

With a life sentence realistically staring me in the face, I knew better than to buck the system. I took the deal and disappeared. Fifteen years was nothing. I was a young man, and when I thought about it, I had nothing to miss. I’ve already had my fun. I had lost the only woman who could ever hold my attention and our son. The pain sat on me like a boulder, almost intolerable. The Solitude of super-max security prison took it to its heights. The guards would tease me because I never talked, but I screamed in my sleep. The pain made me savage. Mercifully, time is like water and can erode any rock. In time, I found reason and reason brought back my sanity. I truthfully hoped that in fifteen years I would be able to learn a better perspective of life. I thought maybe there was a way to live free without risking freedom. My perspectives never yielded to any of man’s less substantive philosophies, but I had started learning, and I never stopped. I made sure everyday remaining of my sentence was spent acquiring knowledge. The subject never mattered. I knew you couldn’t know shit until you knew it all. It almost felt the like being in college again. An all-male college, but still I was energized. Then one morning it all changed again.

I was the only sane man in prison who wasn’t fixated on getting out. I was smart enough to stop counting. This made prison, stress free. Think about it, no friends, no family, and no place to be. It is that very lack of responsibilities that causes convicts to become institutionalized. Everybody who hopes to avoid being institutionalized will find a coping mechanism. Some take a lover, others dream of being free. For me, it was words. I read everything and anything. Books, magazines, brochures, newsletters, other inmate’s letters, clothing labels, food boxes and even the steel. I knew the name of every manufacturer that overcharged the American taxpayer to build the cold hard boxes that hold the lost. I was so lost in those words that I often lost track of time. When it happened, I was prepared, but still my heart jumped in surprise like when the killer of a good horror flick explodes into the scene.

“Braddock! Bunk and junk.”

The call that most inmates are waiting to hear left me feeling uneasy and uncertain. When I walked out of prison, my hope was to blend seamlessly into society, but after fifteen years of expanding my mind, the world looked surprisingly familiar. Money was everywhere, waiting for me to take it.

SON

“We’re going to need some dark clothing, gloves, some backpacks, a flat head screwdriver, flash lights and a pair of snips. You also need to get a bb-gun or something to break glass.”

That was Nicky’s reply when I suggested stealing stereo’s to raise some quick cash. He was all for it. No matter where they were, or what genre of music came out of them, custom car stereos had become common place. Not only is the supply good, but they’re liquid as well. Not only does everybody have one, but also everybody wants one cheaper than they cost in the store.

The best time to steal a car stereo is between the hours of three and five a.m. Sunday through Thursday. Honestly, how many times between those hours do you look outside? For the average Joe, zero is the answer. Paranoid people look out when they are in. People who are paranoid are either sick, on something, or guilty. I know this because I’m guilty and I’m always looking out the window for the cops or for some other guilty person coming for me.

We simply drive to a neighbor hood of choice, someplace that’s familiar so we can get around in the dark. We park near an exit and go for a walk. Nicky on one side of the street, suppressed air pistol in hand, me on the other with a shorter tool list than my partner had recommended. I always carry my screwdriver, it’s my favorite tool and weapon. Nicky was right about the backpack and flashlight, but to break glass, the bb gun was extreme. I just bust the white stuff off a spark plug with a hammer while it’s wrapped in a towel. Its fiberglass I think. You want your pieces to be chunky, so that they have enough weight to be thrown. One plug normally will net you enough for two windows, three with experience. Walk right up next to the car, an arms reach away. Take a pinch full spark plug and throw it very hard at the smallest window the car has. When you hit big windows, a large amount of air escapes the car producing that familiar pop of car glass breaking. “The smaller the window, the smaller the pop”.

Nicky and I worked well together. We both could get a stereo out in no time flat. He cut the wires. I just grabbed hold of the wiring harness and ripped it out. When one of us broke glass, the other would run across the street to sweep the car’s center console, glove box, visors, seat pockets and trunk. The stereo is bagged by the time the trunk is opened. It was heart breaking when expensive speakers and amps would have to be left behind. All we could do is hope that the car would still be unattended by the time we walked back. We were better off getting eight stereos and one set of speakers, than one cars entire system. Think about it, how many speaker boxes can you run with if the shit goes down? Sometimes people would call the cops, forcing Nicky and I to take a short break in hiding. A bonus of the stereo gig is the cash. So many people leave money in their car, we had to change the type of car we hit and the neighborhoods we worked. For instance, females carry purses and often leave them out in the car, especially when visiting someone else. We would always make sure to get a good look at the floorboard of any car with girlie shit hanging from the rear view. If we could run into a party we didn’t even discriminate. We would break into everyone of the guests’ cars. Four out ten cars would have purses and money in them. In two weeks time we had made twelve hundred dollars, just in cash. Plus we had the luxury of being able to sale every piece of stereo equipment we had. Cleo would buy any and everything, because any and everyone came to her to buy shit. Amber introduced her dope dealer as her best friend. I don’t know if she was speaking metaphorically, sarcastically or in reality, but they all rang true.

Cleo was this fat Puerto Rican chick that owned a thrift shop and chained smoked menthol one hundreds by the carton. She had inherited a dope connection when her husband Marquez was killed. A dope head shot and killed him while robbing the thrift shop. The dummy had no idea he was robbing the man whom he ultimately was trying to pay. Marquez was the man! Not for irony he still would be the man, but instead the man is his woman.

Cleo always had food cooking in the back of her shop, which doubled as her residence. The back wall of the spacious store hid her large apartment. The basement was the real treat though. Stereos, speakers, rims, TVs, cameras, all for sale, all for the cheap, all hot as lava. It was like Bad Guy Wal-Mart. Dope, guns, you name it. Cleo even had some grappling hooks and other crazy military shit like grenades, C-4, and night-vision goggles. A place like this could never exist in the city. Its not just that people talk too much, it’s different. In small town America there is a different type of separation. The elephant in the living room style segregation of class is not just prevalent, it’s chosen, accepted, and preferred. With two or three of the right people getting a share of the profits, Cleo’s would be there until lung cancer inevitability cures the county’s social-cancer.

FATHER

I aged very gracefully on my federally funded vacation. I exercised mind and body equally, while making sure not to lift too much weight. I never let a needle touch, tattoo or drug. Never let anybody get deep enough in a fight with me to leave a dent. You wouldn’t know I did fifteen years, unless you did some with me. I had to fix that right away. I had a couple hundred bucks on my books, so I immediately found a barbershop. Everyone’s clothes seemed to be baggier than I remember too, so next I had to get something to wear. Besides, I had a date that night.

Just after midnight in the pouring rain, I stood in front of our beautiful angel. The caretakers had kept her in immaculate condition and I appreciated that. I screamed for my Mary, raised the sledgehammer over my head and crumbled her, just as I had always intended. The box was there exactly as I had paid them to place it. It’s the reason the angel had to be so large