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

Rule #7. Know your shit. If you depend on the cash that you find for your salary, you’d have a better chance getting rich at the horse track. You have to be able to recognize valuables. You should have a basic understanding of art, stamps, coins, guns and other collectibles. You can’t steal everything so you have to know the good stuff when you see it. Just to be safe, if anything is on display, take it. If the frame of a painting is expensive, take it. If something is locked up or stashed away, take it. The other reason to know your shit is so you don’t dick yourself moving it. You’ll never get a million dollars for a million-dollar painting when it’s hot, but you better get more than a few thousand. Rule #8. Always treat yourself to some new shoes right after the job. Everyone already knows to wear gloves, but nobody can fly. I always bought a nice size range to work in to help cases stay unrelated. One use, then toss em, and not in your own garbage stupid. Rule #9. Never go back. For no reason what so ever, should you return to the scene. If you can’t get it in one try, leave it alone. The type of place you should be working is rarely on a main road, so you should rarely have to even pass by one. Never go back…ever! Rule #10. Save your money. Immediately take care of your shoes and then finances. First you pay your savings, then, bills, household needs, whatever. Fill your gas tank, you may not get another chance. Why not, why not! Because of Rule #11 that’s why! Never spend money today that you didn’t make today unless it’s a day off. You put you savings up, pay your bills, go party take a bitch out, don’t do shit, whatever. But when you wake up the next morning, you’re broke! Any money you still have in pocket goes into an emergency stash. You can borrow from this stash, but you pay it back like its money you took out your kid’s piggy bank. The emergency fund is a loan shark that moonlights as a bail bondsman. He also has a moving company on the side. Your emergency fund should always be growing. Rule #12. The rules never stop, you’ll keep making them as long as you’re working. And just like work you have to be ready to go in the morning. If it’s cold, raining, or snowing, doesn’t matter, just like the postal service. Also meaning you have to go to bed at night, or not sleep at all. The later is the way I used to do it. I always slept better after I got paid.

The next check of your intestinal fortitude will be on “the pick”. It’s easy to keep riding by doable jobs all morning long. When I was just getting into the game, I used to run behind this big sissy of a burglar named Swab, and don’t ask me where her got that fucked up name from either. He would drive and drive until we would be damn near out of gas, forcing us to work or be stranded in the middle of no where. That fat slob was dumb, but he was lucky. He always found good shit. Once I gave him a cheep ass gold chain for an old rusty revolver that was in some old ladies hall closet packed in a shoe box with a lot of other junk. I took that bitch and cleaned it up. Shit was from the civil war. Old Colt revolver, belong to Captain somebody. It financed a trip out of town for a much-needed vacation. Old Swab never knew though, he broke Rule #9 shortly after. He robbed an arcade on foot. Change is heavy as fuck so he couldn’t get it all in one trip. He left the second time with handcuffs that weighed more than that whole arcade. I lost touch with Swab after that. You see when people go to jail you have to distance yourself. If you really got love for them, just hope to see them when they get out. A lot of people leave behind some woman. Never contact the woman unless she’s family. First off, you can’t trust her, second, she’ll try to fuck you and you’ll give in. The last person you need mad at you is someone you did dirt with that’s locked up. Wars get started over pussy, you’re a thief, not a soldier.

Back to the pick. I started with the basics, no cars in the driveway or nearby. Nobody outside, no dogs if possible, like I said, the basics, but it got complicated. A secluded location with nobody around for miles is best, but I’ve even stolen with the victim home. Not strong-arming them either, not that I haven’t done that too, but I’m talking about they don’t know I was there until way too late and sometimes never.

As for dogs, there are a lot of hard ways and an easy way to neutralize them. The easy way is just to kill it. If your working a great location, gun shots go unreported. The best way is my way though. I would lead them to a bathroom with a couple steaks and close them in. Once someone’s pit bulldog opened the door and came looking for more steak. I was so impressed that he could open doors, I wanted to steal him too. But I’d rather be dead, than a dog thief.

Picking is very complicated to explain, but with experience it becomes second nature. On my first pass I can tell you if anyone’s home. On my second I’ll tell you what color the carpet is in the basement closet. The façade of a place is generally very revealing. You’ll know if old people live there, they keep strange shit, like those flamingos in their yards. Old people tend to have valuable collectibles and antiques. Older people also tend to keep some cash, especially the widowers. But in my experience it’s the younger people that stash the most cash. Young parents are almost guaranteed to have poorly hidden cash. Not necessarily young adults, but a couple with kids too young to go through mom and dad’s shit. I like to hit power couples with kids at daycare. To tap this resource, look for a plastic playground in the back yard.

Another of my favorite victims is the bachelor. Bachelor pads have expensive toys. Once I stole a guy’s boat, right out of his driveway. They should make key locks for trailers, or if they do, he should have had one. I backed in, hooked up, and rolled out. Well, I threw a tarp I had over the boat too. I was so proud of that one I kept the boat. I had a chop shop do a job on it and the trailer then put it in the water. See I was young, dumb and flamboyant. I wasn’t lucky enough to go to jail for this one. Karma must have thought I stole the boat from an orphanage. An older dude I had pulled a couple jobs with named Tyrone Robbins brought two girls along for a day of boating and drinking. We had a blast. I hit it off with this girl Jordan too. I’m still not sure what I did wrong that caused the accident, but being wasted helped. I ran that boat into one of those floating metal towers. I was driving fast as hell, like I knew what I was doing. I had never driven a boat that big or that fast. The news said that the passengers were killed on impact. Yeah right! I heard Jordan drowning as I swam away. I was barely in good enough shape to save myself. I got to shore and never looked back, but I remember the smell of gas burning on the water like it’s in the room. And those screams interrupted by gulps of water and gasp of scorched air soundtrack my dreams. The police figured out the boat was stolen and identified Tyrone, who had done three years for stealing cars and put it all on him. Of course they found alcohol and cocaine in his system, even though there was no coke. They put him in the driver seat too. I left Florida and ain’t ever thought of going back. Only one person can place me in that boat and she’s the doc that patched me up good enough to leave town.

SON

Before I can remember, my mother died and I was adopted. Growing up, my adopted parents told me both my mother and father perished with my two older siblings in a horrible car accident. I was spared thanks to a child safety seat. They always told me I was a miracle and a blessing, and I filled the role as best I could until I was thirteen, that’s when I found the first lie. My blessed parents Aaron and Judy Cutler adorned me the name Marcus Andrew Riles-Cutler, Riles being my father’s last name. I was a half-black kid being raised by a white couple, so I guess they had to tell me something. I landed on their doorstep via the state of California when I was just six months old. All I knew was that my family died in an accident and I had no living relatives. I was given the newspaper clipping that described a brutal head on collision between a minivan and the quintessential semi-truck before I could even read. There was a slight down poor that morning and plenty of fog. The minivan driven by Mrs. Riles was halfway through the road construction before the reality hit that she was in the wrong lane. The clipping made no attempt at trying to hide whose fault the accident was. Aaron, the whitest man on the planet always said, “there was something fishy about how it went down.” He was pointing towards how the California department of transportation turned a four-lane road into three under terrible weather conditions without the proper signs. Water filled pylons divided the lanes, two in one direction and my mother’s in the other, speed limit, thirty-five miles per hour, she was doing fifteen. Aaron’s boss my bitter and aged hippie mother said “Those rich bastards paid them all off.” The real truth about that accident is a combination of both things my parents had described, I know because when I was seventeen, there was a lawsuit brought by Michael Riles, brother of Lamar riles who perished in the accident. The suit was settled for twenty two million dollars, I was glued to the chair, my eyes to the television. When Judy made it back from the organic market I rushed to meet her in the kitchen. I threw my arms around her crying “Judy, I have a rich uncle and it really wasn’t moms fault at all.” That was the last lie of several that snuffed out my light.

The first lie was my being six months old when they adopted me. Anybody else would have got away with the lie, especially with a newspaper clipping saying “The six month old Marcus Riles was unharmed.” But not Judy the motivator who framed the newspaper clipping for “Fuel. Inspiration!” I knew it word for word, line by line. Nor could the packrat Aaron, who saved and