We Live Inside You (25 page)

It was about five years after the fire when love finally ran you down.

You were twenty-one years old and still a virgin. You’d decided to chase nobility and had never exploited your semi-orphan status for a cheap lay. Besides, that would have meant talking to someone. Maybe even getting to know someone. Not an option.

Your Uncle’s route—female companionship as commodity—never quite seemed like the right tack.

You’d become fairly confident that chasing the cat was for suckers anyway. You had transcended that status because you had a
new
kick, and it was something you’d guessed was much, much better than pussy: THEFT.

You weren’t stealing for the money—your parents’ life insurance and allotments from a nice little trust kept you financially sound—so much as you were stealing because you’d recognized a great opportunity.

Portland was a runner’s city, and while it was impossible during the day to hit the waterfront on either side of the river without seeing a jogger or two, it was also fairly common to run into different crews at night. OHSU medical researchers training for the Portland Marathon at two in the morning. A pair of cabbies whom you always spotted jogging through the streets of the overdeveloped condo blight near the Pearl District. Running zealots like you, who absolutely had to run and were thus forced into the night shift.

You kept your morning jaunts with your Uncle going, of course, but he was seldom interested in cracking open more than a three-to-five miler. So the evenings were your time for the long hauls. The air was cooler; the minimized traffic meant sucking down less exhaust. And the further you traveled, the easier it was to black out from exhaustion after you got back to your house, hit the shower, and hobbled to your bed. Less time staring at the ceiling, thinking about who you were, what your life meant, just how truly alone you might be.

Most nights you spent a few hours on the streets, tearing up one of your three rotating pairs of Nikes. And what you started to notice was that Portland’s runner omni-presence rendered you invisible to the cops. Or if not invisible, then negligible—a non-threat. Just another fitness junkie trotting around in fancy gear. Garmin GPS runners watch—Check. CamelBak water backpack with enough H2O for the long slogs—Check. Yellow reflective vest—Check. Short shorts designed to hug your junk for minimum shift and emulate that 70’s basketball player style—Check.

Sure, you looked like a douche-bag, but this wasn’t about attracting girls with your NASA-approved space gear or Kenyan physique. It was about the act itself. It was about going further when you could, letting your legs burn a little more, trying to push the dreaded “wall” —that utter vacuum of energy that forced you to stop and walk—out another mile or two. Sometimes you got lucky and accidentally ran yourself into a runner’s high and found yourself soaring over miles of terrain, the air tinted with a slight taste of cotton candy as it surged in and out of your chest. Other times you fought for every stride, side knotted up, thighs burning, guts liquefying. But you always loved it.

It cleared things out, and it gave you your own space to carve through the night, temporary and unseen.

You actually thought that the cops might be ignoring you because you reminded them of what they should be doing off shift. These guys, with their proto-fascist moustaches and Krispy Kreme-endorsed lard rolls rubbing raw against their belts, they couldn’t catch a running criminal without a K-9 unit or a bullet.

You always waved at them, or gave them a nod that said, “Hey, boys, here we are. Upstanding citizens keeping things safe, sound, and healthy on this fine and muggy evening.”

Sometimes they waved back. Some of those times you were running right by them with a thousand dollars worth of pinched jewelry jammed into the inner pockets of your CamelBak.

Never did they think to turn around and question you. What self-respecting thief would run right by a cop car while rocking reflective gear meant to call attention? Hell, what self-respecting human being would wear little nylon hot pants like that if they weren’t a die-hard running fanatic?

To them you were just another night runner fading in the rearview.

And in fairness to them, you were pretty minor shit at first. No better than your standard jockey-boxing meth-head menace.

It all seemed so easy and made you feel clever and dangerous. You used that feeling to try and squash old jealousies that you knew were worthless but couldn’t keep from harboring. You thought, “I bet Mikey Vinson never had the stones to pull of this sort of thing.”

You were most familiar with the suburban streets of your South East neighborhood, but it didn’t feel right to jack the low income starter families and Russian and Vietnamese immigrants that called it home. The ritzier region of the North West hills seemed like a better target. You’d frequently run near the NW 23
^rd
(AKA Trendy Third) street shopping district, an upscale consumer rat’s nest where surgeons and lawyers parked their Harley’s out front of the Starbucks. You believed that one day the 1960’s Sonny Barger would magically materialize and beat these men with a length of chain, but it never happened. Despite your dismay over this lack of justice, 23
^rd
remained a decent through-street to Thurman, where you always turned to head up to Forest Park and the Leif Erickson trail.

The neighborhoods on the way up to the trail were beautiful and the streets were strewn with easy targets. Suburbans and BMW’s and Jaguars (and a smattering of Portland’s ubiquitous Subarus and Priuses). You started to spend less time running the trail and more time learning the surrounding territory. You memorized the location of older vehicles—hoping they’d be less likely to have alarms—and as you ran sidewalks you looked to see who had a habit of leaving small valuables in their ride.

You scanned purses, cell phones, MP3 players, laptop computers, PDA’s, you name it.

You acquired gear for the job. The LifeHammer tool was designed for drivers who found their vehicle suddenly submerged in water. It was lightweight and one side featured a razor which the driver was supposed to use to cut their seatbelt loose. The other side was the real gem—a small metallic hammer specifically designed to make shattering tempered vehicle window glass a breeze. Ostensibly created as an exit tool, it also worked great for entrances.

So one evening, around two thirty in the morning when you guessed cops would be even busier nabbing drunks, you LifeHammered your way through the triangular rear window section of a jet black Escape, reached in and popped the lock, and then grabbed a pale blue iPod Nano. You accidentally hit the control wheel and the light flooding from the player caused a temporary panic—Is it a flashlight? A cop’s floodlight?—quickly abated as you recognized the glow and stuffed the player into your backpack.

You got out of there fast, hands sweating but mouth parchment-dry. Your shorts felt extra tight and you realized you were half-way to a raging hard-on. You could still smell the mixture of stale air and over-sweet cologne which had floated in the cab of the rig.

It was glorious. Without intending it, you tracked a new record pace on the run back to your house.

This was beyond a runner’s high, and the kick had a momentum you couldn’t contain. You hit twelve more cars in the next two weeks, sometimes scoring nothing, sometimes taking a worthless object just to have a totem from the night. Your spree temporarily upped the patrol presence in the area, giving you your first chance to wave hello to the five-oh and clueing you in on the idea that it might be better to strike more randomly. Your territory shifted between the hills on the North and South West side and the richer South East neighborhoods near Laurelhurst Park.

Each evening’s loot got stashed in a cardboard box in your closet, which you picked through during the day, deciphering what you could about the people you had taken from. You fell asleep to other people’s play-lists (you loved it when you accidentally scored the player of another hip hop fanatic) and studied the smiles of strangers in digital photos.

Your Uncle Joshua stopped you one morning, before your mutual run, and asked you why you seemed so happy. Why the little smiles during breakfast?

You said you didn’t know, and that was enough for him. Your shared loss had kept you close, but quiet, as if speaking too much might bring you each nearer to what had happened. It was years ago but still floated under the ice of every conversation. Each word shared threatened to chip away at the agreeable distance. Unless, of course, you were talking about movies or music.

You gave him one of your best iPod’s later that day and showed him how to operate it. He spent that night uploading King Crimson albums and painting a pirate lassie with sea-spray gleaming on her treasure chest.

You spent that night taking your brief career in burglary to the next level.

After all, any tweaker can crack a couple of car windows. The vehicular smash-and-grab felt like the definition of inelegant crime, and the buzz was starting to dwindle.

Breaking into houses seemed like a logical next step. You started to smile just thinking about it, but killed the grin in case Uncle Joshua was watching. You laced your shoes double tight before leaving the house that night. The rain was thick to the point of sheeting as you began your run, but you barely noticed.

You came so close to bailing out.

You’d done your research, been by the place—a beautiful art deco rip-off in the NW hills—enough times to notice the owners almost always left the sliding glass door on the side of their house open. But as you moved quietly through their yard you heard the wet grass squeaking under your shoes and you felt too conspicuous. Would your sopping shoes leave prints on their floor that would sell you out? Only one of their three cars was out front, and the lights were off, but what if one of the owners was sitting home right now, polishing a rifle in the dark? Was it worth it?

You backed off. You were taking this too far.

You opted for an auto break-in instead. They still had an older model Infiniti sitting in the driveway, no alarm light blinking near the dash. The front right window crumbled under the LifeHammer. You reached in, popped the locks, ran around to the driver’s side.

You didn’t even know if there was anything valuable in there. It was a desperation move. But you got lucky—you opened the glove compartment and found a receipt. Franzetti Jewellers—$6,000. Dated that day. You scrambled the rest of the car for the jewelry box but came up with zero.

Was it in the home? Earrings, a necklace, a ring—any of those would fit into your backpack so easily. And something like that was so much more intimate than an iPod. A purchase like that represented a history between two people, a choice, a serious debt. It had gravity, and it pulled you towards the house.

You walked right up to the open side entrance. You knocked on the edge of the door frame at the entrance to their kitchen and said, “Hello?” as loudly as possible. You figured that if anyone answered, you had an easy out. Feign injury, start to limp, say you rolled your ankle coming down from Forest Park and heard a crunch, that you were so sorry to impose but really needed a cab so you could head to the hospital in case it was broken. The neighborhood was swarming with runners. It wouldn’t seem implausible.

No one answered back. After your third “Hello” echoed back from nothing, you crossed the threshold.

It took you five minutes, the longest and most exhilarating five minutes of your life, to find the jewelry box. Bedroom dresser, third drawer down, under a pile of gold toe socks.

It was a square cut rock mounted on a platinum setting that seemed to strain to hold the gumball size gem. How many carats, you had no idea. It seemed an engagement must be in the cards.

Just for a second you thought about leaving the stone there. But then you remembered Mary Ashford. You remembered Sarah Miller. You remembered where marriage ultimately led your parents.

You had to save the guy from becoming another sucker, so you hit the streets with the box tucked away behind the plastic bag of water in your CamelBak.

The jewelry went into the box in your closet. You knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep once you got home, so you reviewed all your swag, these tiny pieces of other lives. About every ten seconds your attention returned to the ring.

You were shaking in the shower that night, laughing quietly to yourself, occasionally whispering, “Holy shit, I fucking did it.”

Your life sped up. You couldn’t keep your brain off the B & E’s. You kept it to one a week at first, spending Monday through Thursday on casual jog recon, with weekends dedicated to the break-ins. People were out on the weekends, traveling or hitting the nightlife while you prowled their houses. You were no safe-cracker, but you did a fair job of sniffing out where people kept their valuables. Jewels were your favorite. They spent time close to other people, had a sentimental value and memories associated with them. Seemed like they’d be easy to pawn off, though you never did. You’d take cash when discovered, but never credit cards. You wore thin white runner’s gloves and hoped they’d be enough to keep the oily prints of your fingers from being left behind.

One house a week became “whenever the coast looked clear.” Your record was three break-ins in one night. You started prying back window screens and using the LifeHammer. You had to be more careful with the non-tempered glass. Couldn’t catch a cut and leave blood behind.

You pushed yourself to stay in houses longer and longer each time, until the tension and paranoia became unbearable. You would look at photos but never take them. You’d read notes left on the fridge and kitchen counter. Most read as a variant on the standard “Hey, babe, went to the market, be right back” refrain, but occasionally they were more interesting. You found a post-it note stuck to a bathroom mirror in a SW hills McMansion that read, “William, I know about the other account. I’ve gone to Lisa’s. Don’t call, please. I still love you. Just need time.”

You kept that note.

You carried tiny steak-flavored dog treats but never had the guts to break into a house after you’d heard a dog start to bark. You petted cats when they’d allow you to.

If a whole pack of cigarettes was left out you’d take one smoke, but only one. You’d save it for the morning and puff on it at sunrise.

Sometimes you went to hip hop shows before your evening run. It was easy to stay low key and enjoy a show solo. You kept your hood up during each show and felt like an anonymous gangster among all the dudes fronting around you. They could talk up the criminal life, but you were
living
it.

You tried to maintain the morning runs with Uncle Joshua, but he noticed your owl eyes and lagging pace and was beginning to look concerned.

For the first time in years, you dropped the routine. The nights were just too long.

It was in this mental state—harried, sleep-deprived, lead-legged, junkie-hungry for more break-ins—that you let everything fall apart.