Stolen Me, K. Michael Washington [ready to read books TXT] 📗

pulling the evil right out of me. She told me she had never hit anyone and that she was so sorry she had to hit me. My pockets were empty, she had even taken fifteen dollars I had already, said it was for a new hair dryer. I never came out of a job with less money before. Her gall punctuated her words and made me smile. When I did, one of my teeth fell out and I almost choked on it. I shot up out of bed and spit it across the room. There she is, laughing so hard she’s crying. She was laughing at me and I was happy to be her clown. I never wanted another woman again. All my answers were right there, in her, her laughter was the sound of my life. Mary Louise made me whole, with her on my arm people looked at me like everybody else. In this life, your future rides on the pick and that old farm house was the pick of my career.

Another pick tip and one of my favorite things is when a houses’ elevation is down hill from the main road, maybe only the roof being visible. This means seclusion and that means time. You can pull right up to the front door like it’s yours.

Manicured lawns and other extra frills are only good because they make you feel good, fact is upper middle class people usually keep less cash than lower middle class folks. Blue-collar men hate blue-collar crime. A large number of them have tried and failed at it. That’s because, to be a successful blue collar criminal, you have to have a white-collar mind. None the less, stealing from the working class American is even frowned upon in the criminal world, but it is stomached thanks to the insurance racket that steals from these very same Americans every month. So I’m like Robin Hood at the end of the day, because almost everybody is going to exaggerate the importance or value of the things gone missing.

Split level homes are also nice because they provide a unique element of entry. Remember, the less shit you have to break to get in, the less noise you make, the less evidence you create coincidentally the less you cost the home owner. Second story windows are commonly unlocked and a split-level’s second story isn’t very high up from the out side on at least one side of the house. I’ve gone in that way at least seven times in my career, and every time the window belongs to an older child. Go ahead and parallel park as close to a window as possible. Climb on the roof of the car and climb right in. If you can’t park under the window, use their lawn furniture, a ladder, or anything on the property that’s immediately available. Lightly sweep the room of entry for loot. Immediately afterwards formulate an exit strategy, also known as finding all the doors, eyes open for valuables all the while opening any closed doors. Time isn’t important as long as you don’t take too much of it. How long you stay depends on how much you find. The sooner you have what you deem a good days work, get out. That’s why the master bedroom is so important. Flip the mattress, check under the bed, go through the drawers, check the bathroom, all in any order, but whatever you do always check the closets last. Closets yield guns and we only take guns when we don’t find enough cash to pay for the job.

I hate the heat guns put on you. The very first guy I ever robbed houses with was called Little Red. He was an all right guy, but he felt like he had a lot to prove because his dad was Big Red. Big Red went to the pen on a life sentence for murdering four cops that had beat him in the street the night before, leaving Little Red to be raised by an ignorant woman and two crazy as Big Red uncles. Big Red was a ghetto legend. A twenty-foot high Free Big Red Mural was painted on the side of the project building that Little Red grew up in. Talk about pressure. Well after the paint peeled, the uncles got shot, and Mom got hooked on crack, Little Red had to make his own reputation and of course he chose the one that had been forced on him from the beginning. Little Red wanted to be a gangster.

Little Red and I robbed the house of a cute light skinned girl I had got behind when I was thinking about taking classes over at the community college in Vacaville, CA. I thought I could be a good accountant, I knew I would be great an embezzler. Little Red found that light skinned girl’s Daddy’s gun. A chromed out thirty eight, the wooden handle had a gold bull dead center, he shot it out the window before we even made it home. Man, he packed that pistol like he was at war. What made it so bad was that fact that Red really had just about everybody’s respect just for being a cool cat and he definitely didn’t have any enemies, at least not before the he got that bull. Must have lasted about a year, him pulling that gun out any time there was a little friction. Now I don’t know how much that twenty-foot high father had to do with what happened, but if you let me tell it, there was no other way Little Red could have played it, he was trying to fulfill his destiny! Two Highway Patrol Officers decided to poke a little fun at Little Red one night when he got caught speeding. They asked to search his car and gave him the normal treatment that a young black man got at the time. One pig talked him out of his car, walked him back and then put him on the hood of the cop car, while the other one tore through Red’s shit. Well that cop had dropped the “N bomb” a couple times and it had became obvious they were intending on roughing him up. Red spun around and jerked that pistol so fast the cop had no choice but to comply. Red growled at him “Gimmie your gun and you put, your hands, on this hot ass fucking hood!” Ol’Red kicked his feet apart and gave him the up and down like he had been in the academy. Then he put the bull to his head and charged. The other cop shot Red in the back three times. After Red executed that racist puke of a police officer he just stood there smiling at his handy work. I don’t know if Red forgot about the other cop or what, but I know that they linked that gun to that robbery, and that robbery linked Red to several others. Shit they pinned so much shit on Ol’Red thanks to that hot pistol, they had to give that other cop a medal and a promotion. All this felt great at the time. It gave some other serious guys and me a clean slate. Unfortunately that small victory only lasted until the next job. The other side of the double edge is still razor sharp. That bigot cop that became a hero for killing Red is a United States Senator. So if you take guns, do whatever you can to get rid of them, even if it means throwing them away. If the heat isn’t enough to keep your hands off guns try to consider that when you take his gun, you cripple a man’s natural right to protect himself and his family, and even for a thief, that’s low.

SON

They told me he was alive, the pain I felt because of the lies was irrelevant compared to the elation I felt as they told me about him. He was the reason for all the lies. It was him who they kept the secret from. I figured the issue date on my adoption certificate was a year after the accident because when Judy concocted her lie she had my name changed to fit the miracle. She wasn’t that clever, an infuriated judge had my name changed to help hide me from my father. The issue date was a year later, because I was adopted a year later. The only truth in the whole thing was that my mother died in an accident, I never lost a brother or sister, just her. My life was spared as was my father’s, Freeman Braddock. I was born Dillinger Braddock, son of a man so evil, that he was not fit to raise a child. He was a man who even after paying his debt to society would never be forgiven, but in contrast he would never be reformed.

From the moment I found out I wasn’t related to the miracle, a dark feeling of loneliness was growing inside me, but I was closer to my real family than I could have ever imagined.

Judy Cutler was born Judy Louise Thornton. She was the product of a third generation Iowa corn farmer Named Carl Thornton and his wife Margaret’s first attempt at “completing us”. This was how Margaret described her need to have a child. Coincidentally these were the same feelings that she also described before conceiving her second and final child Mary Louise only a year later. The matching middle name was tradition. Margaret was bred down from upstanding southern woman, and for several generations any and all daughters born from a woman in Margaret’s family, was given said daughters’ grand mother’s name for a middle name. Carl Thornton was an old fashion man, who raised his two daughters to be “honorable women”. With the balance his free-minded wife provided to Carl’s strict boundaries, both girls graduated high school and went onto college. Judy, who dreamed of being a doctor, chose to attend Washington University in Saint Louis. A year later Mary graduated, but chose to live at home and attend the nearby Iowa State University. Everything was going according to plan, and then entered Freeman Braddock.

The bigotry that reverberated through both Mr. and Mrs. Thornton’s genealogy still rang strong enough that they would disown their youngest daughter for becoming impregnated by a smooth talking young black man who had robbed their house. Of course Carl didn’t know my father’s occupation, all he needed was his description, and his mind was made up. My mother sat both of her parents down and broke the news to them of her pregnancy. Margaret of course was thrilled, Carl on the other hand was only a little uncomfortable at first, but things took a turn for the worse as he asked questions about the father. Mary, being aware of her father’s ignorant views on interracial relationships had thought long and hard on how to answer the inevitable question her father would pose since he knew she had an interest in one of the few black boys she had attended high school with. She had decided to just be straightforward about who had fathered her child. By the time the race question hit the table, she had already shown her cards, proposing an undying love for my father.

“He’s black dad.” She said so, nonchalantly.

Then in the very same demeanor he explained to her that she was no longer his daughter. My mother sat there, crying, while her mother stared at her, beaming disappointment. Then Margaret said “Be ready to pay for you own tuition next semester.” She walked after her husband and neither of them ever saw Mary again, but I did darken their doorstep. Carl and Margaret Thornton were given the chance to raise their grandson due to my mother being dead and my father being unfit to raise a child as well as incarcerated. They emphatically declined, hoping that the black blemish