Blueberry Tea for Burglars

“One last chance, loser,” was my parole officer’s first words to me after the parole board let me out.

“This time, you either get a job and stop pickpocketing, breaking and entering, burglarizing, mugging, robbing, taking from people and whatever else it is that you do, or its life in here for you,” My parole officer sneered. The idiot didn’t know that I already knew about three strikes. What does he think I am, a moron?

“Yah, whatever you say, pig,” I said.

I shouldn’t be snarky with my parole officer given he could make something up about me and have me sent right back to jail. And even though I knew better, I still flipped him the bird on my way out. I’ve been locked up so long I didn’t take crap lying down.

I felt the urge to explain to him I wasn’t an idiot and went back inside.

“By the way, dipstick, I’ve known what three strikes was since the judge explained it to me before he locked me up. You just wasted your breath,” I said.

I shoved my parole officer out of the way and walked off.

“That’s assault. You’re lucky I like you,” I heard him yell as I walked out the door. Yah, he liked me the same way a hunter ‘liked’ a deer.

I gave him the finger again, thinking I was out of site.

“You’re lucky I don’t press charges. Oh, and you forgot your stuff,” he said.

“I didn’t realize you were behind me,” I said. I heard laughter coming from him and some of the other officers that came out with him.

Crap, I thought. I didn’t feel like going to the prison locker room, given my last experience there wasn’t so pleasant. I guess I had to get my stuff. It’s funny, I’ve been locked up so long I don’t even remember what I left here, except for that it was that it was mine. But to leave it behind would be immoral.

To get through the sea of dirty looks, I tried to look the other way while I walked towards the locker room, but my parole officer shoved himself into me.

“Now I can sue you for assault, buddy,” I snapped.

“Good, we’ll sue each other,” my parole officer said.

Which locker has my crap,” I said to the group of officers that was standing around and staring.

“Eighty eight, this way,” one of the officers said.

I was directed to the locker room by a pretty nice looking female officer. I was given a key and she pointed to my locker. I only grabbed some of my old stuff before heading out, leaving the expired gum behind. Somebody broke my cell phone before shoving it into the locker, so I left that too.

I walked outside, smelled the fresh air and I was finally free. Free, after five long, tedious years in that abysmal inferno.

On the way out, I had every intent to tell the officer what a nice ass she had. But on second thought, it didn’t seem like a good idea. She seemed to be the sensitive type, and would just put me right back in a cell or Taser me and claim self-defense.

I didn’t feel like losing my new found liberty before I had a chance to walk out those oversized, menacing gates. Oh well, that’s what apodyopsis is for, so I would just indulge myself for the time being. I imagined what she looked like with nothing on.

I started laughing at the thought of having to go back to my cell so soon, and what the guards would say to me.

Something to the effect of, “that didn’t take you very long.” Then they would have continued to harass me forever. They had an irrational sense of superiority. Just because they were on the other side of the bars didn’t make them any better them me. Without the law, people like me would be in charge. Maybe we should get rid of the government and go back to city-states. Then the people might elect me mayor and I’d set all the prisoners free and arrest all the officers. They were pompous, arrogant pig-headed buffoons.

On second thought, it wouldn’t be so funny to go back. I wanted to earn enough money to retire in a cabin, which I couldn’t do if I was locked up.

I couldn’t go back to that hell, I wasn’t even on the other side of the wall. Just thinking of the way the sentries used to endlessly plague us with physical and verbal abuse gave me chills. “Self-defense,” they called it. I called it being to cowardly to take your lumps.

But something had made me smile. It was thinking of all the people I didn’t like who I was leaving behind. All the other prisoners who made me there prison bitch. Now they were someone else’s prison bitch… hopefully.

The guards in that god-awful place always treated us less than human, and never stopped any of the prisoner on prisoner crime. And I always thought this was unfair, because yah, I’ve made a few mistakes in my life, but I’m still a human being.

Unfortunately for me, the guards seemed to disagree, not understanding that maybe I chose a path of crime and went down the road I did because I was hungry and couldn’t get a job. Maybe I had abusive parents, or I was dead broke and needed a little extra cash to get by. Maybe my neighbor or teacher had an inappropriate relationship with me that messed me up psychologically, and I was venting by stealing from other people who reminded me of the teacher.

Of course, none of that was true. It could have been true though, I contemplated, but it wasn’t. I was just born to be a greedy little bastard, I guess. I was compelled by the illustrious lifestyle.

I could see a therapist and get a formal diagnoses. I could have the guy treating me say I was mentally ill because of my compulsion to commit crimes. But who the hell wants to hear that about themselves, even if it’s true and could be used as a mitigating circumstance?

After the gates had opened to ‘dispense of the trash’, as my parole officer had so eloquently put it, I headed to the railroad tracks. That’s where I had buried two separate boxes a few miles apart from each other.

The first one had two unregistered guns, just in case I changed my mind about getting a job, five hundred dollars cash, and a few other items I hadn’t thought about in years.

I figured by the time I got out, all my other cash would be gone, most likely taken by the government. I used most of my savings to pay bail, that way the government wouldn’t get much. I then withdrew five hundred in cash from the ATM, leaving my account with one dollar and thirty eight cents left in it. After I had gathered my glorious things, I went to check on my remaining dollar and change, and of course, I was right. My account was emptied and closed.

I had made a collect call to the bank a few hours later just to give them a hard time, and to my surprise they answered.

I asked them why they closed my account, and they said the court had frozen everything, then my account was mysteriously ‘closed’ after three years of inactivity.

I asked why my assets were frozen, and they said something about a court ordered mandate to prevent me from leaving the country. As if I could live the good life on less than two dollars. I asked how it was legal for the government to do this and they mentioned something about RICO laws. Screw RICO laws.

In addition, the banker said the account would have been used to pay for new fees. Apparently there’s a new law that says prisoners are responsible to pay for room and board if they have the money. I asked them how my last remaining dollar and thirty eight cents paid for all that, and they said it didn’t. I had apparently been getting paid ten cents an hour in prison and the money had been funneling into that account, but the expenses where greater than the money I was making, so the overdraft fee’s had been adding up. They thought it was best just to close the account. That way the state could charge me all they wanted and at least I wouldn’t have to pay overdraft fees. I thanked them and hung up.

I started to wonder why it’s not okay for me to burglarize people of some petty cash and jewelry that they didn’t need, but courts can legally rob me blind of everything I had? What kind of life lesson is that? It was like they were telling me, “society is going to screw you over because you screwed society over. Revenge is an acceptable practice, provided a judge hands down the sentence.” Oh well, I guess, it’s just too bad my voting rights were taken from me like everything else. I might vote for someone who would change that, or run for office myself.

I called back in a rage and pressed the banker for more details on how to get my money back from the government, and the banker hung up on me this time. I should at least get an explanation as to why I couldn’t get a refund from the lawyer who obviously didn’t do his job. I got thrown in jail because of him, I was owed that much.

It’s hard to believe how society lied and claimed to be getting better every day, yet people still love to kick a guy when he’s down.

I walked a long way to the tracks, and now I was tired. I decided to sit down and rest. I had been curious as to what else was in the bag I dug up. I buried it so long ago I forgot. I was so excited to take a look my hands started shaking. After I had made myself comfortable, I opened the bag and started sifting through it.

The first item I noticed had been a note I didn’t leave. I wondered how it got there.

I picked it up and it read, “Looking forward to seeing you again soon.” It was signed John. How thoughtful of my parole officer to leave me a note. Well, John old pal, I’m looking forward to disappointing you. At least he didn’t steal anything from my stash, but I wondered how he found it. The only person I told was my cell mate. Jimmy, of course it was that big mouth. If I ever see him again, I’m going to give him a beating.

As I continued to sift through my things, I found an old ‘legalize marijuana’ shirt, and I started laughing. This used to be my favorite shirt, and was the shirt I was arrested in the first time I went to prison. I remember the arresting officer thinking this was what I was going to prison for, and was surprised when I explained it was actually for burglary. He didn’t believe me until he checked with dispatch.

“You’re a funny guy,” He kept saying on the ride to jail. At least one person thought I was funny. It was just too bad it had to be my arresting officer.

After looking at the prison issued jumpsuit I still had on, I decided I didn’t like the color. I changed into the shirt I had found in my bag.

I had also found another old broken cell phone. I had stolen it years ago from some old guy yelling at his poor wife about her disgusting dinner the night before and figured he didn’t deserve a phone anyway. There was also a pair of dirty pants from the same old guy, I made him walk around naked as a punishment. There was also a wallet I had some additional cash in.

I wondered if my cash was still in there and opened it up. Everything was in the wallet except the fifty six dollars I left. I couldn’t believe someone had taken the cash, even after I had taken a precautionary measure to protect it. I hid it underneath everything else so it wouldn’t be seen.

But at least I still had my five hundred dollars, my three fake driver’s licenses and some credit cards. The credit cards had likely been canceled by now, so I’d need to find something else to rely on until I started making money.

It was odd that whomever found my wallet and took the cash had probably seen the five hundred dollars in the box, the guns and the fake licenses. So why did they only take the cash from my wallet? Unless it was John, and he just stole the cash and ignored everything else because he didn’t want me coming after him. Oh well, I no way to prove anything against John anyway. What was I going to do, sue him for taking ‘my’ stolen wallet?

After I had finished looking through the box and was reasonably sure I wasn’t being followed, I decided to follow the tracks a little further down where I had buried a second care package. It had some stolen jewelry I wanted to pawn. I had carved the letter A in one of the magnolia trees where I had stashed my items, so I could remember exactly where I had buried the second box.

I probably didn’t have to carve an A on the tree however, because when spending five years in prison I really didn’t have anything else to think about but where I had buried my treasures. But how was I supposed to know how boring prison was and how unlikely I would have forgotten.

After I retrieved my second box, I was hoping that the jewelry that was in there would be enough to bide the time until I could get a job, which I hoped I could do quickly, because even I knew that five hundred dollars and some stolen jewelry wasn’t a lot. For the moment though, I didn’t have any other money.

If I didn’t blow all my cash on a hooker, I might have enough to last me a little while. But after five, long, desperate, lonely years in prison with only the most hideously unattractive cellmates, I desperately needed one.

I entertained the idea of getting a hooker, but I’d have to binge for the room as well. This meant I’d have to get a cheap older hooker, so I could have some money for her and a place to make her useful. This would also mean it wouldn’t be much fun because I was one for the younger ladies. They have more energy and are flexible enough to do everything I want.

It was a bad idea, as lonely as I was feeling. I’d binge on a dirty magazine instead. The best part about magazines is there’s no charge for reusing them, and no chance of catching a disease.

While looking for a place to stay, it was tempting to go back to my old ways so I could pick up some quick cash. I was usually really careful too, careful not to leave much if any evidence behind. I began to twitch trying to get these thoughts out of my head

I was caught twice already, my meticulous planning was never perfect. I also started thinking of prison, I really didn’t want to go back. This time I would try a little harder to be good. I was determined to always do the right thing, the ‘legal’ thing, and get a job. As undesirable as being a servant to some idiot manager was, I had to try. They had no compassion for people like me. They thought they were perfect just because they had no criminal records, not even realizing even breaking a speeding law was just as immoral as anything I had done. What if they hit someone? And what if that person died.

You’d think they’d have a little compassion for their fellow man, criminals or not. All I needed was food, coffee and a warm place to stay.

Some of the places I applied to I had previously robbed, but I hoped this fact would be omitted since I had paid my time in prison.

I suppose getting a job would be better than serving the idiots in jail. At least I could quit and get another job, something prison didn’t offer. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with those morons. And to be at the mercy of the guards again, atrocious.

Just to make myself feel like I tried, I spent the rest of the day filling out and handing in applications and decided to spend my money on the nicest room my remaining $474 dollars could get me. I figured after spending all that time working on those applications, I had earned something nice. This was a really horrible decision on my part. I had no money left for anything else, including getting another room tomorrow.

After I had checked in, I went to my room, flipped on the television, and started to doze off. I just wanted the day to be over.

After I had fallen asleep, I had a dream about going broke. I woke up the next day in a cold sweat, and was worried about money. It was hitting hard just how stupid I had been to blow the last of my cash on a room, and my head started spinning and I felt nauseous.

I couldn’t stop obsessing. How could I have spent it all on the room? I was now completely out of money and jobless.

I packed up my things, took a shower and left my room. I had walked to all the places that I had sent my application too to check if I got the job. They had all looked into my criminal record and no one wanted to hire an ex burglar.

I thought it was unfair that even someone like me couldn’t be hired, even though I was trying to do the honest thing and get a job. In a desperate attempt to get hired, I even lied and tried to explain that while behind bars, I found religion, prayed daily, received accolades for my good behavior, and learned my lesson. Truth be told, I learned nothing, got into a few fights, and was a devote atheist. I lied because I really didn’t want to go back to prison. The only truth was that I prayed, but only that I would keep winning my fights until I got my freedom.

There was only one place that said they would hire an ex burglar, and that was the locksmith. They told me they were fully staffed at the moment, but would keep my application on file.

That does me no good. It looks like I can’t get a job until my damned records are sealed or the previous locksmith died or got fired, both of which wouldn’t be for several years. What to do for money in the meantime, I pondered.

I couldn’t stop pacing, agonizing over what to do. It was a terrible feeling to be out of money and homeless, and I was not going to stay at another shelter. I had done that before and I absolutely hated those flea ridden junkyards. They were full of psychopaths that tried to kill you if you look at them funny and washed up losers like me. They had no hope, but I did. I desperately want to improve myself, which is impossible to do at a shelter. It was like being in prison, except there were no guards to separate fights. It wasn’t what you would call an ‘inspirational’ environment for somebody like myself.

Every time I stayed at a shelter, the more aggressive the people got. It seemed like the crazy people knew when I was coming, and all decided to show up when I did, and going back to one of those places gave me goose bumps.

I felt bad for the sheltered, though. Most of them can’t function in ‘normal’ society for various reasons. They might hear voices or see things, or were born with a short fuse and had temper issues just too name a couple problems. And instead of people trying to help them, they abandon them, kick them out of cities, complain about them, then complain about anybody who tries to build a shelter for societies abandoned humans to go to. They can’t get jobs like the rest of people and they have nowhere else to go, and people still complained about the shelters after kicking the homeless off the streets. Can you believe they call me the bad guy when they treat their fellow humans like garbage for having the audacity to have a mental illness or prior criminal record? I learned from my past and deserved a second chance. Society was broken and nobody cares enough to fix it. The people trying to shut down shelters then complain about the homeless in the streets were the real monsters, not me. They should be sent to jail for callous narcissism.

They need to at least hire an inspirational speaker or a therapist to help get some of those broken down people up and running again. And in this bad economy, that might not be such a bad thing to do. It would get some bums off the street and into a decent living environment, and stimulate the economy by providing jobs to therapists and shelter workers. And with new shelters and more homeless people moving into their own place because they’d hopefully be provided a job, there’d be more room in the shelters for those who were to broken to fix.

My legs were getting sore from all my pacing, and I decided to sit in a very old, uncomfortable chair. I had to decide what to do, the dreaded shelter, or burglary.

I started thinking it was funny how out of all the hundreds of houses I had burglarized before I was detained, I had only been caught twice in my career.

Then I started thinking there was a good reason for this. I was always very meticulous, waiting outside each prospective house, making sure they weren’t home. I would then put on my gloves and ski mask, bring my tools, which included the standard paperclips and screwdrivers, then shut off the alarm. If I got lucky, they didn’t have one. I would only take possessions that I thought wouldn’t be noticed or missed. If they were noticed, the homeowner would probably assume he or she lost them because I would limit myself to one valuable item. An example would be a pearl necklace or a single pair of diamond earrings, and maybe some small paper bills if they had any lying around. Only the ones that were worth twenty or less would go unnoticed.

I would then turn the alarm back on, leave the house, relock the door using the reverse paperclip method, which took some skill and practice, and was actually quite proud of myself for being able to do that. Then I would leave, mission accomplished…

The first time I got caught was because the owner had come home early from the vacation he was taking. Apparently, his flight was cancelled and the next flight wasn’t for some time, and he was feeling sick and just wanted to go home and lay in bed, not realizing someone else was already there stuffing his pillow cases with his watches, his wife’s jewelry and other personal items. He came home, got scared and called the police. The jerk didn’t buy my story that I was his neighbor, and I came by to borrow some art supplies and sugar.

Even though I apologized to him a second time in court and promised never to borrow art supplies without asking again, he continued to press charges. The judge even had the audacity to convict me, even after I apologized several more times. What more could they ask of me, I even managed to fake some tears and make crying noises, and they still didn’t show mercy.

The second time I was caught, the homeowner had a damned cat which was carrying around a small camera on its collar. It was trained to activate it in the event of an intruder. He figured out I wasn’t supposed to be there and licked it on. I had removed my mask briefly because they had kept the temperature at eighty degrees and I was getting hot, and in that brief second the cat managed to catch my face. I knew there was a reason I hated cats…

A loud pounding at the door broke the silence. “Mr. Skeezton…” a voice said. Isaac Skeezton was a bad alias I had invented for myself. It was on the fake I.D. I used to check in. They bought the name, no questions asked. Not that it mattered if they had my real name, since no one had been looking for me at the moment.

I knew the name sounded fake, but as long as they didn’t realize it was fake, I really didn’t care. It was strangely comforting to know that no one at the hotel knew my real name and couldn’t turn me in, even though I had yet to do anything wrong. It was an old habit.

Another knock at my door.

“Who is it? What do you want?” I barked, even though I knew it was the hotel staff inevitably going to tell me to get out.

“If you’re going to stay here another night, you have to pay at the front desk. Otherwise you have to leave!!!” I heard a high pitched voice squeak through the door. I heaved the door open with such brute force I was surprised I didn’t unhinge the damned thing.

In an attempt to dissuade the hotel staff from hassling me about leaving, I had made my most irate, intimidating expression. I acted like I was going to bring my fiery wrath upon whatever unfortunate soul had been waiting on the other side for me.

It was a young bell boy, no older than 20. He was scrawny looking, unkempt curly red hair, glasses and freckles everywhere. He had nowhere near the physical aptitude I did.

He started shaking, and started to stutter something incomprehensible. I was almost impressed this scrawny little wimp had not wet his pants. Then as if he had read my mind, I noticed a water spot by his zipper, and it was getting bigger and bigger. This made me laugh. Even with all my problems, I was glad I wasn’t this guy. I was glad the hotel sent him up for some comic relief.

“I’m sorry sir… really, I didn’t mean… the manager told me to… I was just…” he started to say. I slammed my fist on the door frame and he jumped back.

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?” I asked and chuckled. He stood there and stared at me.

I slammed on the door frame again, and he backed up. “What’s the matter? You afraid of some loud noises? You got something to say? Speak up,” I said.

I sighed, and told him to relax and take a deep breath. “Look, its fine, alright. Just tell your boss I’ll have the money in a few hours,” I said. He nodded, his hands still trembling.

I started laughing again, thinking of how I had made this little runt wet his pants. If he had done this in prison he would have gotten his ass kicked. I knew I was a tough, intimidating person. Even in prison most people were afraid of me, but I had never made someone wet themselves before.

“Well, if you say so, sir… a few hours Mr. Skeez… Skeezton… sir… I’ll tell the manager. Thank you. And I’m glad to see you smiling, our goal is always to make the customer happy. Have a good day,” the bellhop said.

He stood there and continued to stare, so I snapped my fingers to get his attention.

“Sorry sir, leaving now,” the bellhop said.

“I believe you have to move your legs to leave,” I said.

He blushed and started walking away, then turned and looked at me one last time before he left. I noticed that people who were scared of me had usually turned around to see where I was before continuing to walk away.

He’d be eaten alive in prison, but he did seem like a decent guy. For making me laugh, I should at least give him something, especially after literally frightening the piss out of him.

“Thank you!” I yelled down the hall.

“And oh… wait, come back, here’s a tip,” I said and searched for change in my pockets.

The guy looked back nervously, and stammered as he said “It’s okay Mr. Skeezton, some other time… maybe!” It was a good thing he said that, because I hadn’t had any cash left over. Not a single dime to my name. I would have had to recant what I said, negating any positive vibes I was trying to send his way.

“Alright, your loss, and you can call me Isaac next time you see me…” I said. I was starting to dislike the name Skeezton. It no longer had that sleek sound it used to when I was younger and thought I was cool. My personality was different. To go by Isaac Skeezton seemed odd to me, a distant memory. I thought the name Blare was pretty cool, I should change my I.D.

He turned, gave me thumbs up, and turned back around and started walking faster to the elevator. It was funny seeing such a scrawny little guy try to run, it was like watching a blind jockey try to win the horse race.

I went back inside and closed my door. The reality of my circumstances was starting to cause a panic attack. I was becoming unnerved. Just a few more hours to figure out what to do, that’s what my friend the cowardly bellboy had said. That didn’t give me much time.

I decided I needed some water. I went over to the sink to get some. I took a sip, and decided to also rinse my face off as I was standing there.

As I stood there looking in the mirror and observing the tiny beads of water trickle down my face, I wondered how I had aged so much since I last checked my reflection. It was then I had come to an unfortunate decision.

If I couldn’t pawn my jewelry, I was going to have to steal some money, but just enough to pay for a room. I wasn’t going to be greedy, I would just break into a couple more houses, steal what I had needed, come back and get a cheaper room, then apply for a few more jobs. I could start using my fake I.D. so they couldn’t find my criminal record. I hoped that eventually I would send in an application to a company that would hire me before I needed to steal from someone else. I suppose it’s only wrong if you get caught. And I was only doing this until I could get honest work. I really do want to get honest work, it would be nice if I didn’t have to watch my back for the police all the time.

As bad as I was feeling about this, I grabbed my guns off the desk and shoved them into my pocket. Then I grabbed my stash of stolen jewels and left the hotel. There was no time to think about the guilt, remorse or shame that was swelling inside of me, as I desperately needed money if I wanted to avoid the shelter.

My first stop was a corner street pawn shop. I dropped my bag of jewels on the table and asked “how much?”

The clerk emptied out the bag and inspected each piece in detail. He put everything under a microscope.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but these pieces are faux,” the clerk said.

“What do you mean faux?” I asked.

“Faux as in fake. You have a stash of fake jewelry, sir,” the clerk said.

“I know what faux means, but that can’t be right. These were stolen… I mean, purchased from an upscale store,” I said.

“I don’t know what to tell you, you got ripped off. I’ll tell you what though, I’ll give you ten dollars for the lot,”

“TEN DOLLARS,” I shouted. The clerks face jolted backwards.

“Ugh, make it twenty and it’s all yours,” I said.

“Fifteen and you got yourself a deal, sir,” The clerk said. I shook his hand and he paid me fifteen dollars.

Fifteen bucks was a start, but I needed more. I walked to a small, dingy looking neighborhood to case some houses. As I started to look for empty houses, I got a bad feeling. I started to think of what my parole officer had said. I couldn’t get caught again, I didn’t want to go back to jail.

Some time had passed, and I was feeling more and more frightened. I had assumed it was from years of deliberately repressing my emotions. They were finally catching up to me, making me feel pretty rotten about doing this again. It was an abysmal sensation, and I hated it.

I started to wonder if this is why there weren’t more burglars in the world. Despite the fact that stealing was easy to get away with and didn’t come with an automatic life sentence for first time offenders, the guilt I was now feeling was a lot to burden. I now understand why statistically there weren’t a lot of home invasions.

I started to think of other reasons this was wrong. When I get a job I wouldn’t want anyone to do the same to me and break into my house and steal my hard earned things. The work it would take to earn everything helped put burglary into perspective. All prison did was punish people like me for committing crime, they never explained why it was wrong. Maybe instead of the prison system just locking everybody up, they should try rehabilitation programs instead. Hell, that might have helped me stay out of jail the first time. All I needed was a little rehabilitation instead of being caged like an animal.

As I was walking through the neighborhood I noticed somebody left there keys in their car. I was probably going to need a temporary car to put my stolen goods into. I’d borrow this one, drive my stolen goods half way back to the hotel then abandon the car.

I drove around the neighborhood a few times in my new Chevy Camaro to see what houses seemed empty. I pulled up to a house I had been casing. I was pretty sure nobody was home. I got out of my car, then broke in by crawling through an old window that had a rusted lock. But the house only had twenty three dollars in cash and some more faux jewelry lying around. I hated faux jewelry. This wasn’t even enough to pay for a damned room, even if I was to check into a cheaper hotel. I guess that’s what I get for breaking into a house on the poor side of town. If only I knew how to get to Bel-Air, Calabasas or Beverly Hills.

As I continued to search for potential valuables, I found something that could be useful.

It was an old vault. All I needed now was something to smash it open with. It was a number lock, and I didn’t have a stethoscope to listen for the clicks when I hit the correct number.

I went to the garage and found a hammer, then started to smash the handle. After a few tries, I had unhinged the vault door. I searched the contents, and it had some tax documents, some old newspaper clippings, and some ammunition for my gun. This was great to find, I didn’t have time to buy any ammo before going to prison.

I was going to do that a few days before being locked up. While I was out on bail, I had to find a guy willing to sell ammunition without doing any background checks, and that was the easy part.

The hard part for me was not giving people a hard time, I had the worst social skills outside of prison. Naturally, I got into an argument with the clerk at the gun store. He said that people should be allowed to carry guns in public to defend themselves from burglars, robbers, muggers, perverts, deviants and any other creeps that might be lurking out there. I knew he was just saying this to try and sell me a gun, but the urge to defend my career choice was overwhelming. I told him that perhaps the burglars and muggers were harmless and had no intent to actually hurt their victim. Maybe carrying a gun might cause the victim of the robbery to over react and shoot a robber who might need the money for legitimate purposes. This seemed to irk him the wrong way and he refused to sell me ammo. Then I spit on his face, gave him the finger and left the store. He called me an idiot for pissing off the owner of a gun store, but I acted like I didn’t hear him.

I did find it strange that the gun safe had no guns, just ammo. Maybe there was another safe somewhere I had missed, but oh well, my goal wasn’t to steal everything, just what I had needed.

At least if the owner came home early like the last home invasion that I botched, I would not have been making threats with an empty gun.

The thought of robbing somebody with an empty gun made me laugh. If they had come at me with a kitchen knife, I couldn’t even fire a warning shot, let alone a shot to defend myself.

I quickly looked around to make sure nobody was watching me after my laughing fit. Not that it mattered much, I doubted anyone heard me laughing, but why not be cautious. I hadn’t taken as much time as I usually do examining the house because I was in a hurry, so just in case someone was within ear shot, it was better to be safe than sorry.

There were only four bullets, but hopefully I wouldn’t have to use any and that would be more than enough. At least my guns weren’t empty. I opened one of the guns, and put the bullets in. I was relieved the formally hollow chambers of my pistols were now loaded. I just hoped the guns still worked.

I left the first house in a hurry, hoping I hadn’t left evidence behind.

I then went to another house, eager for more valuables.

The second house I had wondered into had nothing valuable or significant inside. They didn’t even have a sandwich or any snacks in the fridge, which I had only discovered after several hours of searching. I wish I had known this before I had broken in, because now it was almost sunrise and I was very hungry.

I had no time to break into another house, which meant the streets or a shelter for today, and possibly a shelter for tomorrow. I was not looking forward to trying to find a park bench, but at least I had twenty three dollars for breakfast in the morning.

I had started to get mad at the person who lived here for not having anything to steal. Why do people always have to keep their cash in the bank? I started to feel a little less guilty about what I was doing, remembering why I hated everybody. If only I was born in ancient Rome where they had buried all their money in the backyard because banks didn’t exist. Like burglars back then didn’t know where the money was buried and couldn’t dig up a little dirt.

I was about to leave and I heard a loud crash.

“Who’s there?” I murmured. I searched for a switch to the lights. After caressing the walls a bit, I thought I felt the light switch and flipped it on. I am glad my sleeves were long enough to cover my hands, because I had misplaced my gloves some time before going to prison.

Although the light in the house was still not very bright, it was enough to see what the noise was. I heard something purr and jumped back, almost tripping over myself in the process. I didn’t see anything at first, but then felt something rubbing against my feet.

Now feeling impervious to whatever had come my way, I had looked down, and saw a cat. Just a small cat, which was continuing to rub its head up against my leg.

“Good cat…” I said. “Now shoo! Get out of here.” I tried to push it away with my legs, but it barely budged. Of course, I couldn’t hurt it, otherwise the resident of this place would start to wonder why it was hurt and might know I was here.

“Go, go!” I had said, starting to get irritated. I hoped this wasn’t another camera cat. After a few minutes of berating it, the cat had hissed, and walked off. God, I hated cats. I was a dog person, as long as it wasn’t someone’s guard dog. I check the cat’s collar and didn’t see anything, which was good because I was in too much of a hurry to cover my face. I better get out of here before someone finds or see’s me. I ran to the door. I tried to open it but it seemed to be stuck, which was odd because I left the door open after I had come in, so I wasn’t even sure how it closed. I then smashed the butt of my gun against the handle, which still didn’t loosen the door.

“Sorry!” I heard a voice behind me say. Alarmed, I turned around and fired my gun. I saw the bullet hit something and make a spark but it didn’t hit the person talking. Unfeasible, I thought, for I had been here several hours already, and searched the whole house and knew no one was home, and if someone opened any of the doors or windows in an attempt to sneak in, I would have heard it.

“Who are you? What do you want?” I asked. Then the lights went on and I saw the face of an old lady sitting in a rocking chair. She didn’t look surprised to see me, even though I was intruding in her house.

She had looked happy, smirking as if she had been expecting someone to break in. This had managed to send chills down my spine, which didn’t even happen the first two times I got caught. That might have been because I wasn’t facing a life sentence.

I turned around and tried opening the door one last time. It was still stuck, and no matter how much I rattled the knob, the door wouldn’t budge.

“Sorry, I can’t let you leave!” the old women sneered.

I turned to see her smoking a cigarette, inhaling the smoke and blowing it out a stoma in a very self-satisfied fashion.

She gave me a look as if she had seen an old friend.

“What do you mean, why not?” I asked, gradually getting more nervous. I now know how that poor bellboy felt.

How did she get in the house without me seeing her, and then lock the door without me hearing it? Then creep past me to get to the chair, all without me noticing? And since I had already gone through the whole house, why hadn’t I passed her? My head started to spin.

“Before I can let you go, you must sit down and have a drink with me. I hope you enjoy tea,” she said with a surprisingly deep and garish voice for such an old lady.

“Ha!” I laughed nervously. “You got some hubris lady, keeping me locked up like this. Let me out of here now, or I’ll shoot you!” I said, trying to sound confident. Being as anxious as I was, I didn’t say that as threatening or as loudly as I intended too, but I think she got the point. I hoped she did, because I didn’t feel like repeating myself considering how dazed I was feeling and how surreal this all was. My hands were shaking which was probably going to screw up my aim.

She smirked at me menacingly, which made me more uncomfortable and eager to get out of here. All I could think about now was how the hell I was going to escape.

As I pointed the gun at her, my hand started shaking violently, and I couldn’t aim. She started laughing even harder now, as if she was mocking me.

“L…li….listen here…..” I couldn’t speak and I was breathing heavy.

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?” she goaded. “N-No… now let me…” I tried to speak, now forcing words out of my mouth.

“Ha, you say I’m hubristic, but what moxie you have standing up to someone who has the obvious advantage over you. This is your third strike, is it not?” She asked.

“H… How… how did ... you…” I started to say, she started laughing.

“How did I know about that? I told you, you’re going to have to have some tea with me before I’ll explain anything or open the door for you…”

“Let me out now or… or I’ll…” I started, now more annoyed then scared.

“I highly doubt you’re going to do anything, considering you are wetting your pants.”

I looked down to notice a growing wet spot. Wow, now I really know how the bell boy felt.

“GO AHEAD AND TRY…” she challenged.

“Fine, you old witch, I’ll blow your head off...” and I pulled the trigger to shoot her, figuring that even if I hit her, the guns were unregistered and the bullets weren’t mine, so they’d blame someone else. I thought I saw the bullet hit her right in the head, but it seemed to go right through it and not cause any visible damage.

It wasn’t my intent to actually kill her, just frighten her. Her head wasn’t what I was aiming for. I really just meant to scare her, and I was aiming my gun so low, how the bullet managed to find its way to her head was perplexing to me.

But even as I took a step closer, there didn’t seem to be any blood, or any evidence a bullet had scathed her.

It was unfathomable, I thought, that she was still sitting there, smiling, now puffing on her cigarette again.

“Sorry, I’m afraid you can’t kill me, either. At least not with bullets” She said.

I was astounded that she was alive and could still talk after being shot. Usually when I shot at someone, even when I missed, it seemed to shut them up immediately.

Then again, my bullets went right through her. I’m not sure how it was possible, but they did. I was now shaking, wanting this whole night to be over, hoping it was just a bad dream and I would wake up in the hotel room. If it wasn’t a dream, then she must have been something supernatural.

I started to approach her, and just as I was pointing my gun at her, I tripped over something and fell. She started laughing at me.

“Shut up, shut up!” I said. “Stop you’re laughing and let me go!” I yelled.

She then walked over to me and grabbed my shirt, dragged me to the table, and pushed me into a chair. I started to suck in air and asked, “Where did such an old woman get such strength…?”

“Maybe I’m not as old as I appear, or perhaps you are weak. You’ll feel better once you’ve had some tea. Trust me!” She said.

“Maybe I don’t want your tea,” I said in a fit of defiance.

“Then you’ll never leave…” she said. Not knowing what else to say or do at this point, I agreed to drink her tea. I was hoping that she would keep her word and actually let me go.

I was starting to feel the pace of my heart pick up as she poured steaming hot tea from her kettle into a cup. I had no idea where the tea had come from, because I didn’t even see her start to make it.

She placed the cup in front of me and smiled.

“How do I know it’s not poisoned?” I asked.

“Now that you’re unarmed and stuck to the chair, you’re just going to have to trust me, so why not just drink the tea,” She said. Why not, because you’re an evil witch or some other supernatural force, I thought?

After taking a sip of tea, I reached in my pocket to try and grab my guns, determined to get out of this crazy woman’s house. As I reached for them, my body went completely numb. I could barely feel, but could still tell they weren’t there. Why weren’t they there?

She had then reached behind her to grab something and handed it to me. It was my pistols. “This is impossible,” I muttered.

“Impossible?” She laughed. “You should see what I do to visitors who don’t finish there tea,” She said in a sweet but sarcastic sounding old lady voice. Then she howled, “NOW DRINK YOUR DAMNED TEA!”

“You could say please…” I said, mockingly.

She had grabbed the gun which I regrettably left on the table. She started to play with it, then pointed it at me as if she was going to shoot me.

“Please…” she said sarcastically, as she aimed the gun at my face and cocked the trigger.

“Damn you, old witch,” I shouted. “Alright, you win. We’ll do this your way, I’ll drink your damned tea…” I said. I picked up the handle and blew into the cup, taking as long as possible to take a sip in an attempt to bide the time. “You sure know how to treat a guest…” I said.

When I took the sip, I made a loud slurping sounds to let her know I tried some.

“This is actually pretty good,” I said, not wanting to offend her any more then I already had, hoping she would let me go.

After a couple more sips, I started to feel a little better. The feeling only lasted a few minutes, then she explained what she had in store for me.

“It tastes like blueberry!” I said.

“You guessed it. Blueberry poison” She said, then winked.

“Poison,” I repeated and chuckled, thinking she’d made a joke.

I hope she thought I liked her tea, even though it was the most deplorable cup of fowl tasting tea I had ever had in my life, even with the artificial blueberry flavor. It tasted worse than prison cafeteria food, which was pretty damn bad.

“You know, you’re not the first person to break into my house!” She said.

I laughed timidly, and asked “so is that why you’re so content around me?” I said it in a way that had come off as satirical.

“What’s wrong, you think I’m kidding?” she asked.

“Well, now that you mention it, it does seem a little strange that I’m the first intruder. Your window was left open, you have no dog to watch the door. And why don’t you have a working alarm system? Or at least a decent lock?” I asked, and immediately lamented the question.

She aimed my guns back at my face and said, “Does it look like I need a working alarm system, a guard dog or a lock?”

“No… I guess not. You are pretty good at stealing guns…”

“And if you still honestly think I need an alarm system, just take a look at the walls!” she chuckled.

“I’ve already taken a look at the walls. I’ve spent several hours staring at the walls since I first broke into this dump, and there’s nothing there. I think I would have noticed if…” I stopped speaking when she smiled.

“Look a little higher,” she said, and pointed to where she wanted me to look.

What I saw when I looked up immediately made me dizzy and nauseous. As tough as I thought I was, I was horrified at the site. It was impossible to continue my tough guy routine at this point. I wasn’t able to fully process what I was seeing.

“Their heads, human heads!” I managed to stammer while inhaling air. The more I panicked the more I struggled to breath. Despite the grotesque nature of what I had been staring at, I was still trying to force myself to relax.

“Not just any heads. The heads of all the people like you. The ones that have broken in here and didn’t want to finish there tea… and eventually met their demise in some form or another,” She said. She had spoken so charismatically, then laughing diabolically.

“You’re sick… You old bag. I drank your tea, and now I’d like to leave,” I said. I tried to stand up but couldn’t get out of my chair.

“But you only took a sip…” she said. “You have to finish the entire pot before I let you go…” She said, then cackled. I grabbed the cup and slugged down the tea.

“There, I’m finished. And making people kill themselves just because they broke in is worse than anything I’ve ever done. And to keep their heads, well, that’s just repugnant. How could you… How could anybody have such a revolting collection?”

Calling her collection revolting was the last mistake I’d ever make.

“You shouldn’t have called my collection revolting. My sister called my collection revolting, so even after she had finished the tea, I added her head to my ‘collection,’ too!” She said, and pointed to one of the heads on the wall. There was a head of an old lady on the wall that looked a lot like the old lady in the chair. The only difference was it didn’t have a body attached.

“Just because she’s my sister doesn’t mean she can come over any time she wants. Then after trespassing she has the audacity to insult my collection. Well, excuse me if I was offended and thought she had to go.”

“Fine, I’m sorry. Please, just let me go, I finished your tea,” I said, now trying to squirm out of the chair, which had a tight grip on me.

“It’s too late for you, you cannot be saved. None of you ‘burglars’ can be saved,” the old lady said.

“Come on, lady, you promised,” I said.

“I lied. I hate burglars, especially one’s that insult my prized head collection,” She said.

“What about your sister, you should have at least let her go. She didn’t do anything to deserve to die. Sisters insult each other sometimes. It doesn’t even sound like she meant to insult you she was just giving you her opinion,” I said.

“She wasn’t understanding of my cause. I have to continue to teach intruders like you valuable life lessons,” she said.

“Your cause is sick, lady. That’s what prison is for. Doesn’t everyone deserve a fair trial?” I asked.

“You had your chance to learn a lesson, and you blew it. You blew it twice, you’ve been locked up twice. Yet you’ve still broken into my house, you selfish corrupted piece of garbage,” she said.

“But this time is different,” I tried to explain.

“Why, because this time you’re only stealing what you need? Isn’t that always your excuse? Since you were a little boy, you haven’t stopped stealing things.” How did she know all this information?

I attempted to reach for my gun… why, I don’t know, considering I knew I didn’t have it anymore. I guess I wanted to make one last attempt at escaping at this point.

She threw the gun at me and it hit my shoulder. It slid perfectly into my hand. “Go ahead, try and shoot me again…” she challenged.

My entire arm felt like a wet noodle. I had used all my strength to point the gun away from me, but my hand still twisted and contorted until it was at the bottom of my chin.

“DON’T… DO… THIS…” I cried. This was the first time I had felt a tear on my face in years, but it didn’t seem to make a difference to her. She continued to puppeteer me somehow, gradually dragging my arm across my face.

This had to be a nightmare, there was no way this was possible, unless I was dreaming.

That’s it, I must have been dreaming. I stopped fighting the urge to move the gun. I had hoped that this would wake me up.

The gun started to drag across my face until it reached the side of my skull. My gun was now burrowed in my head and I was completely horrified by the fact that there was absolutely nothing I could do. How could my own hand betray me like this? I started wondering, what if this wasn’t a dream? What if this was real?

But if it wasn’t a dream, what else could it be? Could it have been magic, mind control, an illusion, perhaps? Maybe it was my own repressed conscience, some lost sense of morality from days long gone finally catching up to me? My old therapist had once said that inevitably, all my repressed emotions would catch up to me unless I could find a platform to express myself. A platform that was unrelated to crime, of course. But of course, I didn’t take him seriously. Instead, laughing it off as a joke. A dull, mundane joke only a therapist would make.

Perhaps he was onto something, though. Maybe I should have taken up a sport, like boxing or contact football. Now I wondered what would have happened if I had developed my conscience earlier, if it would have really made a difference in my life.

I started to think that maybe there was no old lady in the house and I just felt guilty and was going psychotic and having a nervous breakdown. Maybe I had imagined this whole thing.

The heads on the wall started to look familiar, vaguely looking like pictures I had seen in other people’s houses that I had broken into or the people who had come to court to claim it was there house I’d trespassed on. I suspected my subconscious was punishing me for not caring about anything or anybody but myself my entire life. It had noticed what a horrible person I had been. But before I had time to calm down and call my old therapist for advice, having him give me a reasonable explanation for what was going on, my trigger finger started to shake and sweat. When I had tried to pull my finger away from the trigger, it slipped, and a bullet was fired from the chamber and traveled through the side of my skull.

Copyright © March 22, 2006 by Alex H. Mittelman. All Rights reserved.