The day has just begun, already

I have found it empty

The tasks I eagerly devoured yesterday

I wish I had saved

All around are tables, chairs, people busy

or at least acting busy

With all their little tasks

They had a plan to stay busy

My plan ran its course

when I asked if I could help

and they gave me some tiny momentary task

and I did it.

Now I sit at a computer which is not mine

making the typing sound with my fingers

the click of the mouse means I'm not busy

But the clackety clack of these keys could be anything

My boss walks by and I smile

trying not to show my fear

that my screen is reflected in my eyes

Hoping that he brings me a job

Inside the store, all remained still and I smiled.  My fingers were tingling; my breath came quickly, my heart raced.  My calm demeanor and placid face rebelled against everything inside which told me to flee.  I slowly turned my head and stared blankly at the gas station attendant, his eyes were as dead as they had been the previous minute and as they would stay until he got off work three and a half hours later.  The Snicker’s bar slid smoothly into my pocket and I could feel it there, a lump of pure gold to a hungry fourteen year old mind.  It felt heavy as I walked directly out of the store and it seemed as conspicuous as an extra eye as I rounded the corner of the store and walked down the alleyway to freedom. 

            My life had not known such excitement as that brief moment between stealing and getting away with it.  The bank robber must conceal his identity, but I was in plain view, smiling at the world as it sustained me.  That night after a dinner of half a potato, I thanked my parents and retreated to my bed.  Our house had only one room and so I carefully unwrapped my prize as my parents talked or yelled or cried.  The crinkle of the wrapping seemed to announce its presence like a freight train, but nobody heard or else nobody cared.  When I saw my parents open a clear glass bottle and begin to consume its contents, their daily portion of life, I knew I was safe.  As I lay on my mattress, the straw didn’t poke into my back; the lack of a pillow was forgotten.  As I bit into the cool chocolate, I was a king, as I crunched through the salty peanuts, I was self sustaining, and by the time I tasted caramelized sugar, I was free.  That night after my parents gave up fighting and moved on to sleep, I took my broken flashlight, my coat, and half a Snicker’s bar and set out on my own.

            Within the first few weeks I found that it would be very beneficial for me to have a partner in crime.  It was pretty easy to find other thieves when I looked for them.   The first one I met was named Stephen; he was a polished and inspiring thief, but he stole as a hobby rather than as a way of life.  He had read books on how to avoid detection by security cameras and how to distract people as you picked their pocket.  Steven was 16 and he helped me master the art of petty theft for a few months until he got caught trying to pick the pocket of a security officer.  He gave me all his books on thievery so that his parents wouldn’t find them and throw them out.  I liked to look at the pictures of the men slipping food into their pockets as the pretended to look at hair dye or smoke detectors. 

            I met Sam one rainy October night just before I turned fifteen.  All the common places to sleep like bridges or abandoned houses were always taken and pretty well guarded so I usually stayed in an out of the way fabricating shop that nobody else seemed to know about.  When I got inside and started to settle in, I heard someone trying to pop open the window to climb in.  I waited to see who it was and soon saw a small thin figure slide in and drop softly to the floor.  “Get out, this is my place” I said, pretty sure that I would be able to defend my turf against this intruder.  He walked up to me and asked who I was and I socked him right in the face.  He reacted with cobra-like speed and tackled me to the ground.  My upper lip began to burn with his first punch and I had to spin desperately to escape his grasp.  As I rose to my feet he hit me again, hard in the left kidney.  I swung in my pain and caught something, probably a shoulder.  The fight regressed into wrestling match and finally I pushed him back into a workbench where he fell, overturning the bench and sending tools and metal scraps crashing to the floor.  The noise shocked us both, I think, and we stayed still for a few seconds trying to figure out if anyone had heard us.  My lip was bleeding pretty badly and I didn’t have any solid reason to kick him out into the rain, there was plenty of space for both of us inside, so eventually I just helped him up and asked him his name.

“Sam Barnes” he said “and this is my place.”

            “Yeah Sam, I’ve been here for probably four months, but I’ll let you stay if you won’t tell anyone else about it.” 

            The question of ownership seemed to pass away and I found out that Sam was 16 and that his parents were fairly well to do. 

            “I ran away about a year ago” he said, “My parents would never let me do anything.”  Apparently he hadn’t done too well on his own, he was looked hungry and my punches seemed to have shaken him.  I handed him a box of cookies that I had picked up earlier that day and he ate like it was his first meal in days.

            Sam and I decided to work together and to split our earnings evenly.  I knew that I would probably earn more than him, but I needed a partner and Sam was the best I could find.  We were close to the same age, and I found that his philosophy of life was not so different from my own.  We both stole to live, we both did it for the rush, and we both figured that the world owed us something we were willing to take it. 

My lip was still stinging as we compared our tools and possessions.  I had fifty eight dollars and twelve cents, the nicest flashlight I could find, a lock picking kit that Stephen had given me and a few days worth of food which I stored behind a loose board in the wall of the hideout.  Sam had about forty dollars, mostly left over from what he had taken from his parents and no food.  “Is that it?” I asked him.  Sam hesitated and then slowly reached into a pocket stitched inside of his pant leg by his right ankle.  He produced a small silver pistol which sparkled even in the light of my flashlight.  It looked like he must have polished it every night, but he told me that he left it in that pocket at all times “for emergencies only”. 

It turned out that Sam and I made a pretty good team.  He was great at distracting shopkeepers long enough for me to grab what we needed and he became the public face of our team.  Also, Sam could read and we studied over my books until we knew them almost by heart. 

After several months working together, we were doing pretty well and we had the means to live as we pleased, but not where we pleased.  Sam started talking about finding a place of our own where we wouldn’t have to worry about people working late or coming in early or keeping everything looking the same when we left as when we arrived.  We hunted around for weeks, but never found anything even as good as what we already had.  Finally, Sam decided that we needed money to buy our own place, he was growing restless and he said that he wanted to blend in more with the rest of society.  A house would give us status and we could live like kings; maybe we could even get jobs and make an honest living, he said.  I was content with my life of crime, but Sam and I were partners, and I would have done anything to make him happy, we both would have.

            Although Sam and I had done well together as I said, we had nowhere near enough money stored up to think of buying a house; the Keystone Bank was our solution.  I didn’t like the idea of a bank robbery because it involved two things that I saw as beneath me: concealing identity and threatening others.  It was not thievery in its purest form, only brutality dressed up to look like stealing.  Sam said that it would just be this once, though and that we were actually doing it with good motives.  “Once we hit this bank, we won’t have to steal again.  We can become law abiding citizens; we will be able to be who the law wants us to be”.  I didn’t know if that’s who I wanted to be, but if Sam did, I would help him.

            We stole everything that we needed for the stick up: gloves, ski masks, a bag for the money, we even picked up the kinds of clothes we thought a pair of wealthy teenagers would wear into a bank.  It was a thing of beauty, the man at the ski shop told Sam all about his favorite places to ski and they talked about ski lengths, boot fits, and the purpose of ski poles while I lined my jacket with our disguises.  Sam always seemed to know when I was done and he smiled thanked the man.  “I’m going to send my parents back in here to get me ski’s for my seventeenth birthday.  Make sure you don’t let them leave with anything less than the best.” 

            The department store where we got our clothes was just about to close up for the night.  We quickly worked to load our dressing rooms with clothes and then fold up the dress pants and shirt that we wanted and stuff them into our oversized shoes.  The security guard knocked on the door and said it was time to go just as I was emerging with the remaining pile of clothing.  He eyed me carefully as I walked out and watched as Sam and I put back all the clothes we were holding.   

“Not going to buy anything boys?” he asked as we walked out. 

            “No, everything in here is way too stuffy” Sam said.

            “Yeah it all looks like something you might wear if you had a bank job”, I paused, “to do”. 

The guard raised an eyebrow, but looking us over once again in T-shirts, baggy jeans and huge skater shoes, he just smiled and we walked past.  We laughed most of the way back to the hideout.  The kind of laugh where you don’t care who hears you, you worry only about your stomach exploding or your eyes popping out.  It was a good day, one of the best.

We spent much of the night finalizing plans for the bank robbery.  We figured broad daylight was the time to go, when it was least expected and when there would be more people for the police to worry about.  We had found a loose manhole cover about two hundred yards from the bank and up a thin seldom used street.  We planned to go into the sewer and wait until it was dark before coming out.  If someone opened up the manhole we would have to make a run for it and hope to find another exit.  The last thing we did was to pull out Sam’s gun from wall, now dusty tarnished.  Sam polished it up as best he could “for appearances” he said, but we both agreed it was not to be fired under any circumstances. 

We got to the bank at 9 AM and walked right in the front door as we pulled on our masks.  Sam quickly pointed his gun at the bank teller and told her not to push the alarm.  When we got to the counter, Sam jumped over to the other side and yelled at the teller “Where is the safe and what is the combination” as he pointed the gun at her head.  I was shocked at his aggression, but I followed the directions back to the safe as I heard Sam say “If you gave us the wrong combination, you’re dead”.  I saw another bank employee peek out from under a desk and I figured the silent alarm had been activated.  The combination worked, but there wasn’t all that much money in the safe, maybe twenty thousand dollars for cashing checks and small withdrawals.  I figured there must be another safe with more money in it, but we didn’t have time for that anyway and I stuffed the bills into my bag and ran back towards Sam.  He was still pointing the gun at the teller and smiling in a way that was not cheerful at all, the opposite of our mirth of the previous night.  I was scared and I jumped over the counter and ran for the door without stopping.

As I ran out of the bank, the bright sunlight and the white bank walls dazzled and disoriented me.  I turned to the left and ran like the wind.  Sam came out right behind me.  “No, you’re going the wrong way!  Hey, come back, half of that money is mine!”  I couldn’t stop now; we would meet up later at the hideout.  I heard the shot from his pistol and wondered what had gone wrong.  I had no time to react before the bullet hit me in the back.  Like a gunslinger from an old western film, Sam’s single pistol bullet travelled against all odds impossibly straight and penetrated my skin.  It seemed almost humorous as it squeezed through my ribcage and lodged itself in my upper right lung.  I instantly fell on the concrete sidewalk as the pain overwhelmed me and I felt a warm liquid running down the center of my back.  My head began to swim, and I felt a tugging on my hand as the strap of the bag was pried away from me.  The police sirens sang me to sleep as I lost all consciousness. 

“Why do some of the players get to use their hands daddy?”

            “Those are the goalies; they have a special power that nobody else has.”

            “Well then why don’t they go forward ever, wouldn’t it be easier for them to score?”

            “Well they lose their power if they go outside of that box there.”

            “Oh… is it the bigger box or the littler box?”

            “The bigger box, it’s called the 18 yard box because it’s 18 yards wide and 18 yards above and below the goal to the wide sides of the box.  If someone fouls an attacker inside the box, the attacker gets a shot from that white spot there in the middle and nobody else can be around.”

Julia didn’t really understand except that it was the big box.  She was ten years old and this soccer game was the first thing she had done alone with her father for as long as she could remember.  She liked seeing the players in their bright shirts running all over the field, she liked how the ball flew around them like a pinball machine except it always seemed to know where it was going, and she liked how the crowd rose like a wave when the ball got near the goal.  Most of all, though, she liked being there with her dad, she was glad that he would talk to her and that he knew all the answers, she liked to clap whenever he clapped, it made them seem like a family.

As she sat there, she began to believe that he was different now.  She shifted in her seat slightly and turned her head to look at him.  He looked down and smiled at her, the smile of a father to his daughter, it made her feel safe and she smiled back. 

The rising tide of noise made her look back at the game.  She could see the man with the ball just barely touching it, delicately but quick, like a master chef cutting a tomato.  He slowed almost to a stop, but then suddenly darted off again; every movement was beautiful, like a dance that was being made up as they sat there.  The man found a small opening right above the 18 yard box and quickly his whole body changed from that of a ballerina to an iron worker.  All his muscles were geared for power and they all worked together to unleash a jarring shot which rocketed towards the goal. 

The wave crashed into a sea of cheers.

            Julia was awed by the beautiful game and cheered as loudly as anyone.  She turned to her father and saw on his face an excitement which she did not know.  The blue of the wild bearing sea sparkled in his eyes and his face was free from the anguish which had settled in.

            She felt that she could ask him anything and he would answer her.  There was one thing above all else she wanted to know.

            The game went on and Julia tried to build the courage to speak.  She looked again to make sure his face was still peaceful and kind, she waited until the ball was in the middle of the field, she checked his face again.

            “What happened to your leg Daddy?”

            She saw no reaction from him and looked down at her hands.  As she turned back to ask him again and a little louder, she saw that the life had left his face.  His eyes went dark and his face regained a shield of pain.  The stadium became a vast brooding presence and Julia saw that the other team had scored.  Her father turned to her and she could see a salty tear running down the inside of his cheek.  He staunched it with his shirt-sleeve before it could reach his mouth.  His voice was raspy as if his throat was parched.

“If you’re not going to watch the game then you can go buy me a hot dog”

He handed her a five dollar bill from his pocket and he tried to smile, but failed.  Julia took the bill and took the long walk to the concession stand, tears stinging her eyes. 

When she got back, her father was nowhere to be seen, she sat down and waited for him to return as the hot dog in her lap slowly lost its heat. 

Julia watched the game without any excitement now.  As she watched the players place the ball on the white spot and shoot at the goal, five for each team, she wished she knew what was going on.  When the last man kicked over the top of the goal, the crowd groaned and creaked and began to file out of the stadium. 

“Are you ok?”  She turned to see a man smiling and looking down at her.  It was not her father.

“I’m fine; my daddy’s coming back to get me.”  She hoped it was true.

After most of the fans had left the stadium, she saw a man limping up the steps and she eagerly went down to meet him.  When she got down to him, they did not embrace, she smelled that powerful stinging smell that filled her house on Friday nights and Saturday nights and Sunday nights and sometimes Monday and Thursday. 

“Let’s go.”  That was all he said.

When his leg had been blown off in Vietnam all his dreams had gone straight to hell with it.  He had been a soccer star in college.  Not just a player, but a flat out star.  He was first team all American in his Junior season and when he got married, he had felt that nothing would ever touch him.  The draft did, and a Soviet land mine did as well.  When he returned home, he found an angry public, a wife who needed him to be whole, and a daughter who never made him smile.  He drank a lot, but the worst times were when he was sober.  He wasn’t abusive, he was simply in anguish. 

When he drank he would seem to forget his woes and his favorite pastime was yelling at the TV for hours on end sitting in his favorite chair.  He could be ignored when he was drunk, Julia and her mother could live with that.  When he was sober, though, he wallowed in self pity and shame.  His voice was dry and cold, his bitterness percolated throughout the house, he never smiled, he never cried.  Julia’s mother found that there was nothing she could do to remove the pain and fear from his face.  She could not make him happy, she could not convince him to be productive, and she felt her life falling into darkness along with his.

The ride home from the game was like an insane carnival ride and Julia stayed as quiet as she could in the backseat.  Headlights played against the windows as car horns ignited the quiet.  Eventually, they made it home and the car rolled over the mailbox as it tried to turn into the driveway.   Julia got out of the car and ran inside where her mother was waiting for them.  She entered the warm embrace that a mother can always give and she waited, safe, for the door to open and slam shut. 

Julia watched her mother’s eyes fill with a mixture of anger and pity as she saw her husband stumble into the house.  If she hadn’t loved him, it would have been easy to leave him, to forgive him, but she did love him.  She had struggled to let him take Julia with him alone to the game, but he insisted that it would be fun and exciting and a great time for father and daughter to get to know one another.  As he stumbled into the living room in search of his chair, Julia’s mother gave her another squeeze and carried her up to bed.  As she lay down in her bed, Julia looked up at her mother and saw that the pain in her father’s face had been absorbed into her mother’s skin.  The pain masked her beauty and dulled her joy, but it could not hide her strength.  Julia faded off to sleep to the sound of crying.  Her mother heard the crying too, but did not believe in it.

            The next morning was cold and the tile floor of the bathroom absorbed the warmth from Julia’s feet as she packed up her toothbrush. 

“Where are we going Mom?” Julia asked.

“We are going to find a place where you can be happy.”  Her mother replied.

“I’m happy here, is Daddy coming?”

“…No”

“Is he going to be happy?”

“I don’t know”

Her father had left early that morning and they knew he would not be back before dark.  Whenever went out on a Saturday he arrived home late at night wildly drunk and went to sleep in his chair.  They were surprosed when they heard a taxi door close and the familiar sound of an eternal limp.  If they had listened close enough, they would have noticed a spring in the step that was unfamiliar, as if the metal in his replacement leg were excited about something.  Julia followed her mother’s lead and continued rolling up her socks and putting them into her big suitcase. 

When her father walked in, she saw in his eyes, a piece the same smile that she had glimpsed at the game.  He was sober and his forehead made his face look like an invitation hidden within an apology.  As his bright eyes came to focus in the dim room, his face quick went blank.  Julia saw his cheeks fall and his forehead begin to wrinkle up.  The fear she saw in his face was the culmination of all the things that he had lost and the realization that he was about to lose everything.  He limped out of the room without a word and then collapsed on the floor in front of his chair.  Julia wanted to run and help him and uncover his smile, but her mother’s tear streaked face was set with stony resolve.  Perhaps she had not seen the smile.  Julia had never seen her look as beautiful and terrible as she looked at that moment. 

As they walked out the door carrying their suitcases, Julia held her mother’s trembling hand, maybe they both trembled. 

“Why are we leaving Daddy?” Julia asked.

“It gives him a chance; it gives us all a chance…”

“A chance for what?”

            “To find our purpose, to recapture joy.”

They could not get away before they heard an anguished wail muffled by the walls and the closed door.  The taxi was waiting; they got in and pulled away with their bags sitting on their knees.  The cab driver said nothing.