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

would be erased from the Thornton family tree. Be careful what you wish for, strings may be attached. Judy who had just married the biggest computer geek in Saint Louis in lieu of completing college lunged at the chance to adopt me. Although she never approved of my father either she was no racist. Judy Tornton wasn’t the only person Freeman Braddock instantly rubbed the wrong way. They met once, in the hospital when I was born. Aunt Judy only stayed a few minutes, shortly after she arrived to my mother’s hospital room, my father returned from where ever reeking of marijuana and obviously high. Judy just looked at him in awe as she cradled me in her arms. Being the imposing prude that she is, she chose to call him on it. She says “Freeman, how could you do drugs at a time like this?”

My mother sharply stated her position. “Judy, please don’t speak to my husband that way”.

Judy stamps her foot the way her mother would and with one hand on a hip and the other pointing at my father she makes a big mistake. “Your husband? Please don’t tell me you married him”.

My mother only managed a slightly audible “Give me my baby.” Judy hesitated, but it became clear, distinct, and incensed. My mother shrieked. “Give me my fucking baby and get out!” Judy heard my father loose hold of his laughter, and it escorted her all the way to the elevator. She hadn’t lost any love for her sister, but she had lost her final opportunity to tell her that she loved her. My mother was dead before the water flowed under the bridge. When Judy found out my mother had passed away, she never forgave herself for how they had last left one another. Her motivation at least in part was to atone when she chose to adopt me. With that addition to her family Carl subtracted another daughter from his.

The last thing Judy heard her father say was. “I let it slide when you married that Jew, but this is blasphemy!”

Judy had long since built a life independent of Carl Thornton, but empathetically speaking, I know she had to have missed her daddy.

FATHER

The getaway is just as import as the pick, or any other aspect of the game. Driving amplifies one’s mood like plugging in a guitar. So when you play your solo, make sure it’s “cool baby”. Never go straight home, or to a fence, or to a stash. If so you could put them in jeopardy without even knowing. Besides, we need new shoes. Park at the mall, but walk to one of those low level department stores that sits across the street, as if outcast from the likes of Sears or JC Penny’s. All their shoes are sitting out and you can try them on yourself. Plus they’ll have some on clearance. I don’t like to invest much into what I’m hoping to throw away soon. Those chain discount shoe stores usually carry brands unique to them, so steer clear, just in case Robocop works burglary. It won’t be long before they stake out the right stores, if every footprint found at a burglary in the state is an XJ-900 sneaker. Also keep everything you stole on you if possible while you’re shoe shopping. Walk out the store wearing the new shoes. The old shoes need be tossed before we even go back to the car, and leave the new shoebox at the store, do anything else with it and you’ll just create another clue. Make sure you toss the old shoes far away from the store were you got the new shoes and nowhere near where you parked. If the getaway wasn’t clean it may have already caught up with you while you were shopping. I’ve had it happen before.

I saw the cops standing around my car from deep across the parking lot, so I dropped everything but the cash down a sewer drain. By the time this happened, my Mary was already dead. If she hadn’t been dead things would have been different. As good as I was by then, I didn’t see something a rookie cop did, an angle that became a wedge. These cops didn’t know squat, but they arrested me anyway. After seventy-two hours they still didn’t know squat, so they had to let me go, but for the first time since I started doing things right, I was hot. I couldn’t work. The last thing I needed or wanted was a nine to five so we had to move. I laid low for couple of weeks before making the move south. When the day finally came we would leave everything except a small bag of clothes, a photo album and a sledgehammer. Just before sunrise, we took a ride. Before getting on the interstate out of town we stopped by the cemetery. Even though it was a quarter mile from the main road, and slightly up a recently mowed bluegrass hill, you could still see the angel that watched over all that rested there. The fifteen-foot marble angel stood straight up, its wings wrapped its body and the ground around it’s feet. The head bowed in an eternal prayer. It was a pretty expensive venture considering that Mary was never buried. She chose to donate her body to science. She had always said that she didn’t need it where she was going. Her sense of faith was matched by her sense of charity, the type to give a kidney. She was an angel, but she would have made a great thief. She was incredible and I tested her time and time again. Without letting her know I started leaving number messages like “07734” on a calculator, microwave or anything in the house that was digital and in plain view. Eventually the messages grew in complication from the upside down hello to alpha numeric code that pointed towards a certain piece of literature in the house with an underlined passage, page number, copy right date or anything that led her to a message or more clues. I would make love to her through these messages. It would never take her more than two days to respond as well as challenge me. The best part about it was that we never talked about the messages outside of the messages.

We had our own little world packed into that little house on Rusty Wheel Trail. Mary had this crystal display case filled with around a hundred little animal figurines. I would pick one up and try to replace it exactly the way it was. The next day that same figure would be gloating, lying down on its side. I would stand it up and make my next move. She kept me in check for that entire game as well.

My Mary had too much class to be an all trades thief like me. She could have made her living just by working cons. When it came to telling a lie, she was naturally hard as diamonds, she got it from her father. I don’t know if she ever told a lie before she met me, but I do know I only heard or heard of her lying for and or about me.

After Mary, Iowa was the only place for me. I had to be with her. My feelings for her were met with enthusiasm. She moved on campus the first chance she got so that she didn’t have to sneak around to see me. I was back on the road moving to Iowa in less than two weeks. I wasn’t even healed completely from her assault. At Mary’s insistence I stayed with her on campus the first week after I got back to Iowa instead of getting a hotel. That one week opened my eyes to a whole new way of life. She had a philosophy class on the same day I got there, so I went with her. It blew my mind. It blew it wide open. Even after I got my own place, I still spent a lot of time on campus, a lot of time, almost all my time. I didn’t just sit in on her classes, I sat in on any class that I could. Sitting isn’t all I did either. I got involved in discussion and even started doing assignments in one case. Some classrooms were so unorganized that nobody ever asked who I was. A couple of classes the professors welcomed visitors, but in one class in particular, he knew. He was Professor Arbuckle and he taught criminal psychology. In order to sit in on his course he demanded my full participation. After a few assignments he took it upon himself to position me as the devil’s advocate in a group discussion on morality. When I told the class that morality was a byproduct of man made religion and therefore just learned behavior framed by a chosen faith the discussion ended and the arguing ensued. I don’t know what he was trying to accomplish but I was his guinea pig for an entire semester. He would examine me in front of the class, even allow them to ask questions, hoping that a bright mind in back row would shout out what he saw so clearly in me. Arbuckle loved having a real life psychopath to play with. No one ever rose to the occasion, but after class he would coach me on everything from my posture to my voice inflection, eye movement to breathing. By the end of the semester he had taught me to hide everything. I could even beat a lie detector. Arbuckle’s class isn’t the only place where I learned a lot of shit. Truth is, I got everything but the diploma. Of course when you steal things, nobody gives you a receipt. It all ended one night when Mary and me were fooling around in the back of my Chevy, fogging up the windows on campus. A security guard got nosey and bangs on the side of my ride with a flashlight. Slightly intoxicated but fully infuriated I stepped out and knocked the boy out in one punch. I must not of hit him fast enough though. The next day I was sitting in back of a small theater attending an extremely crowded Latin class and in walked at least six campus security guards. I was already halfway to the other exit following three other guys with obvious indiscretions when the guy with the swollen jaw pointed me out. Of course I ran and of course nobody caught me, but my college days were over. For a year I had done nothing except go to school and lay up with my girl. I was running low on cash and basically expelled. Put those two things together, and for a guy like me it means its time to work. Then as if I needed the added pressure Mary gets pregnant and disinherited at the same time. I wanted to rob a bank, but Mary wasn’t even worried. When she told me that everything was going to be all right, I was actually relieved, I believed her.

SON

I had this great biology teacher before I dropped out of high school to run away from my aunt and uncle. It was Mr. Johnson, a tall skinny man with stringy gray hair and absolutely no since of humor. He had time for nothing other than teaching. This man would lecture anyone, anywhere, and not just on biology, anything, but biology was his favorite. If you asked the right question, you could sidetrack him for the entire period. The day I dropped out of school, a question compelled me to go to see him one more time. I needed to know if a certain thing could be passed from a father to a son, even if the father and son never met. To get the best answer from Mr. Johnson I knew I would