September 4, 2007

Gesturing wildly, he told me that there was nothing to worry about. "We go in through the open window, wearing stockings over our heads. Then, you stand in the bathroom, lock the door, and change into this outfit." He picked up a college sweatshirt and a white vest.

"Are you serious? Why would I be wearing that?"

"Listen, there's no time to question things now, you come out of the bathroom once you hear that the guy and his wife have realized I'm in the house. You scream, "COPS!" and you hold this bat." He handed me a black maple bat.

"Why would a cop be wearing a Columbia sweatshirt, with a white vest over it, swinging a black baseball bat?"

"Are you in or not man? Think about the payoff, you probably won't even have to come out. If they don't wake up I just take the shit and we leave." He clapped his hands together and sent his right hand shooting off into leavedom, towards my face. Ironic.

We staggered behind the house, we put our stockings on, and in we went. I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. I immediately took my wallet out of my pocket and put it on the sink. I said to myself, "What am I doing?" Apparently we hadn't been very quiet entering through the window, both the wife and the guy were downstairs confronting my accomplice. I took one of my house keys off the keyring and placed it on the sink.

"You get the fuck out of the bathroom, whoever you are!" yelled the big man. I felt lots of footsteps real close to the door and then a pounding on the door. The wife was calling the real cops. I didn't really think about what could be happening out there. I knew what I had to do. Kick open the door, wave the bat around say I was the cops. Well, no. First I had to unlock the door so when I kicked it it opened. I put on the sweatshirt and the white vest over it. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I put my hand through my hair to fix the stocking-hair. I wasn't very excited. Being in that bathroom felt safe. I wasn't up for the challenge of kicking the door, angling my eyebrows, and raising my voice. I didn't really hear anyone anymore. I heard the real cops outside.

"Yeah we have two dead. Yeah. Washington Avenue. 125. Looks like the husband strangled the burglar after the burglar strangled his wife. The husband said there's someone else in the main bathroom, I sent Randy in to check."

I fumbled around and put my wallet back in my pocket and the key back on the keyring but I couldn't really get it on so I stabbed the key and my keyring into my pocket. I threw the bat in the tub and turned the shower on. I fumbled with the bathroom lock, I could hear the footsteps coming down the main hall. I slowly opened the door and then bolted out into the hall and didn't turn around to see if the officer had reached the hallway and seen me. I ran out the back door into the backyard. There were two kids smoking pot on the pool deck. I don't know who they were and they didn't ask whom I was. I jumped from the pool deck to the gate of the neighbors and then onto their pool deck, and so on for about 5 houses.

As I was making my escape. I heard the voices of the cops ringing in my head. Autumn came and settled on these suburban backyards. "The husband will get manslaughter. Probably get off, he's a reputable guy. Once we find the accomplice the judge will slap him with some other armed burglary, 5-10, he'll plea and take 90 days, who wouldn't take 90 over 5-10?"

I didn't want to go to jail and I thought maybe there was a way I could get off with this. I kept hopping pools and decks and something happened that I was scared would happen. The white river all around us kept swirling and the silver sky made the leaves moist and slippery. Some were red-brown others were green-brown. I hopped over a gate and saw the two kids smoking pot on a different pool deck. All the pools were covered with black tarps and asymmetrical ponds had formed. Some of the leaves were on the bold green grass, but most were neatly packaged in bundles. I stopped running and sat in the corner of a backyard. I walked up a slight incline to the back of a backyard. I took off my sweatshirt and so my vest, I was wearing a black t-shirt underneath. I put my key back on the keyring. I sat with my knees bent at my chin. The unforgiving wind of the white river blew indistinguishable brown specs into social frenzies that speckled the dark gray outlines of the clouds.

I still hadn't thought about my accomplice and that he was dead. Instead I thought of jail. I was haunted by the voice of the judge which came in so clearly as I made my escape. I knew I had to get out here. I had enough money in my bank account, I could go South. I'd never make it over the swirling white river without being identified. My fingerprints would be on the knob, so if I were to make an escape on a plane, I'd have to do it soon, as the judicial bureaucracy would crawl to actually place a deadlock on my commercial travel. Where could I go? Where did I want to go?