Stolen Me by K. Michael Washington (read with me .TXT) 📕

FATHER

His life didn’t flash before his eyes, just his guilt. What a way to go, sitting next to your dead wife. Her throat laid open from ear to ear, both of you bound by her stockings, tied to your own kitchen chairs. I opened her up so fast she hadn’t even settled into her binds and gag. When I finished tying them up, I said my name. “Freeman Braddock!” They both just started struggling. That’s when I did it. Her first, but not with the gun, I despised her so she had to bleed. These two deserved no better a death, maybe worse. Although I had the gut to torture the kidnappers, I hadn’t the lack of decency. His crying told me he understood why I was killing him. Hearing his child like whine made me wish I hadn’t knocked the gag out his mouth with my backhand. I showed him that I hated him more due to that moment of weakness. I put that shiny barrel to his head. BOOM! CRACK, CRACK, CRACK! Before my ears settled from the gunshot that took his life, another stowed away with mine, which of the three I couldn’t tell. Something about the way bullets burn makes you ask questions. Was I dying? Yes. Why like this? I deserved it. What happened to me? I was born this way.

As far back as I can remember all I ever wanted to be was a thief. You might think that was strange for someone with my background. My family wasn’t rich, but I never missed a meal either. No broken home, I wasn’t abused or neglected, not even a criminal role model. Our neighborhood wasn’t the best, but my people taught me right from wrong, and gave me what any kid needed to succeed. I just cared more about stealing bikes than I ever did about books or balls. My parents were honest and hardworking people. I thought hard work was enough. No matter what I was doing, I obsessed over it. When I was a kid I tried to plan every detail of the following day as I lay in bed at night. What I would say to the people that I wanted to encounter became scripted. A separate script for every foreseeable reply. Eventually the foreseeable replies became conventional replies. I was almost never surprised. I don’t know when or why I started doing this nor do I know when I started using it to steal, I just know it made me into a great scam artist. My first marks where girls. As many girls as I could get to like me, was how much allowance and lunch money I collected. Once, I told a chubby, self-conscience chick I was taking her lunch money so she would loose some weight. Poor girl thought she was my chick on the side for half a school year. I was always running some kind of scam. You could say that the first twenty-one years of my life was a scam. My parents don’t even know when I started walking because I faked like I couldn’t until I was almost three years old. So to say I got an early start at it doesn’t really explain.

My older cousins introduced me to shoplifting when I was five. They stole everything they wanted. They always had something new. The latest G.I. Joe action figures, usually a Cobra. Unlike in real life, the bad guys always have the best guns. Next, my brother would have a new Transformer. Not like the plastic shit they got today. Cast steel. Our toys were tough, like we were. Kids are plastic today, like their toys…breakable. My cousin and his friends would even steal fish. Not like you eat, pet fish. Do you know how coordinated things have to be to steal fish? You have to find the right pet shop, no camera, one worker, you know shit like that. First kid in has to distract the worker. Usually the kid with the gift of gab, always asking question that lead to more questions all the while eating something messy to steal a little more attention, adults hate messes. If he’s real good he’ll corner the shop keep at the register, but only temporarily, registers are usually by the door and you need a blind exit. That’s when nobody sees the actual thief leave. Second kid has to be good enough or bad enough to attract all the extra attention. This is the kid that the clerk fights kid number one off to get to. Kid two looks like trouble so the clerk has to get close to him. He’s the bully, or better yet a dirty dark black kid, the poorer the better. Finally the smooth one, he has to get the fish in one shot. Equipped with a bag of water and a net on entry he simply has to open a tank and scoop. I don’t know how long my brother and his crew were running there thing before I came a long, I just know they were missing the most important part. My cousin knew I had guts, they all did, because I showed it. At the same time kid three exits, me the new kid, knocks over a display or breaks some glass or whatever, as long as it’s loud enough to cover the sound of kid number one ringing the register. Best case scenario we all get ran off. Worse case scenario, we run off on our own, no matter what we run. We were always running. One day, I got tired of running and decided to disappear. I became a burglar, almost impossible to catch…a ghost.

Most people don’t get it. Before you can even take the slightest glimpse into this world with any understanding, you have to get it. One basic thing, it erases the lines between you and me. Nothing you can do will ever justify your existence, but the reason you live is because of what ever you do. Life is all about whatever you do. Now I won’t ever argue the need for anything that the great men of history have created. This is to include morality and justice…also known as God. In anyone’s life, this at the least in whatever forms can be a valuable tool to accomplishing the ultimate goal. Feeling good as much as possible, without ever having to feel shitty afterwards. So, for me there’s no catch. No regret. You see, down to the deepest parts of my heart, I couldn’t care less what anyone else thinks of me. There is no guilt or god governing my actions. This is not work for the meek.

Rule #1. Always work alone. That insures that if you do your business right, nobody can place you at the scene. Rule #2. Always belong. This means that you can’t hesitate before you make a turn, if someone waves, you wave back. Sometimes you might even need to wave first. When you pull up to a place you want to rob, go right in like it’s yours, park as close to the house as possible. By being in plain view, you will be invisible. I ain’t talking about just while you work either. I mean all the time. Except when you’re at home, there, live a normal life. Fucking barbecue, play loud music, whatever. Just make sure people know you’re there. Works even better if you got family, but when you’re gone, play the roll. Make sure they don’t remember. There are so many tricks to make yourself a blur in people’s memories. It’s hard work applying them all, all the time. I worked so hard at it, it turned to habit. First off, don’t dress flashy, stay clean, but not loud. Including your cars. You can play loud music, but turn the paint down. Oh, and rims will get you fucking knocked. Keep all your shit legal too. If a cop pulls you over, you’re just another traffic stop. Let him do the talking, in and out you dig? Another thing that helps the same cause, while altogether important for another reason, is my favorite rule. Rule #3. Look everyone in the eyes when you talk to them. If you got some game with it, they will always believe you, believe me. Turns out, there’s a side effect though. A man looking back in your eyes don’t remember what you were wearing, usually not even the hair. So no Mohawks and shit. Your description has to be as loose as the one the cops use when they just need to round up some guys because they don’t know shit about how some guy got shot. You have to be anybody and nobody. Rule #4. Everyone already knows, but few people ever follow it. Don’t shit in your own backyard. Hit the road and work. If you’re home by lunchtime, you better have a knot. Rule #5. Trust your gut. If it feels bad then it’s bad, walk away. Unfortunately this only works if you have guts. If you’re nervous or just a scary muthafucka you’re probably messing on yourself anyhow. Go get a fucking job. Rule #6. Lighten the load. Large cash stashes mean walk out now. No reason to be fencing a fucking big screen with a two thousand dollar knot in your pocket. There is a small exception to #6, but this also, only applies to certain people with certain talents or skills. Me, I do it with skill, erected on a foundation of experience. I had a little stripper gal called Dezi running with me back in the day. She’d walk into a place and walk straight to the cash. She was like a bloodhound on that shit. See, when you find the cash first, it gives you time to look for more. If you find a one hundred dollar bill anywhere early on, there are at least five of them. As a little side note, if you ever find a large quantity of dope. Like more than a reasonable personal stash, find out who it is you’re robbing, you might be pissing off the wrong people. Which brings me back to Dezi. That little stripper girl had a nose for more than just cash. In fact, she snorted more dope than anyone I had ever seen. As long as I kept her in cocaine she never complained. I didn’t have a problem feeding the bitches habit, because I had ten keys. I stole it from the…well let’s just say I stole it from the wrong people and if I gave it back I was dead and if I sold a gram of that shit, word was sure to get back, then I was dead. Lucky for me that little stripper girl found where I was keeping all the dope. She stole it and my problems. Dezi and her new package found some new friends and an old hotel room and went on a bender that ultimately set her straight. Some guys bust in on Dezi and company with automatic weapons. The way I heard it, they caught her on break from the orgy but still naked and in the middle of doing a line. When they asked her where she got the dope? She stuck her straw into a pile of it and snorted as much as she could. Blood started running from her nose. The guys with guns just stared at her. When one of them got tired of seeing her defile herself, he asked again where the dope came from. Dezi spit blood all over both of them and went back to snorting like there was no tomorrow. And there wasn’t for her. The newspaper said she had been shot forty-nine times. Ass holes got