Cat Burgling

I remember the taste of adrenaline on my tongue, the slightly metallic, acidic flavor, as if I had been sucking on a mouthful of pennies. Slinking through the abandoned store, hooding our flashlights like professional thieves, and speaking in whispers whenever we dared speak at all, we gathered the things we deemed worth taking in a pile at the back, near the bay doors. One of them had been left open, leaving a gap of about three feet. We had seen our chance earlier in the day while walking past outside the chain link fence, and excitedly made our plans to come back after dark.

I lived in a small apartment complex next to a run-down strip mall, with several abandoned stores and a few fast food restaurants still limping along within it. Me and a few of my neighbors had heard about how some guys had been caught stealing copper wiring from inside the walls of one of the stores, but before they got caught, they'd been bragging about making a lot of money selling the things they had stolen. Apparently one particular store had shut down with all the merchandise still inside. The descriptions they gave made it sound like a motherlode, and to our inexperienced ears, it sounded like it would be easy.

There was only one security guard for the whole place. If we kept a lookout posted and everyone stopped what they were doing when he came by, we could clean the place out.

Most of us were in our mid-twenties. We were full of piss and vinegar and thought, as most young people do, that we were invincible. We were also mostly broke, and looking for extra beer money after work or class was something we embraced wholeheartedly. New ideas were discussed every day we found ourselves without the money to wet our collective whistle. And this day was only different in that we had stumbled across the open door, thus giving us our plan.

We waited until after dark, dressing ourselves all in black like cat burglars, and snuck down to the site on foot, giggling and cutting up until we got there, and then we all stole quietly around to the back of the store. If we had only known what would happen, would we have been so casual?

The darkness was intermittent, with street lights and neon flickering randomly along the strip. The smell of honeysuckle was in the air, blowing to us from further up the street where a mobile home park had used it for a hedge around their boundaries. Short hairs escaping my ponytail tickled my face and I tucked them behind my ears as I followed the shadow in front of me. Randy went first, having won the toss to be the person in charge, leading us all around the fence, to the split the other thieves had told us about. One by one we filed in, Randy holding the fence up and touching us all as we went through, as if to count us and make sure no one was lagging.

The smell blowing from the building to us on the breeze, had undertones of something dead, and I remember wondering what it was and not wanting to go inside. I kept thinking something had made a kill and had gone inside there to hide and eat it. All of my hairs were standing at attention, cautioning me with that not so subtle warning. I picked up my pace, and pushing through my friends, I grabbed Randy's shirt to get his attention. He whispered for the others to go ahead and wait for him at the doors as he held a handful of my shirt in his fist, keeping me there with him. After telling him about my reservations, he nodded, thinking and then towed me to the doors by my shirt and told me to stay put and watch. After hearing my best owl, he told me to hoot if the guard came, and they all disappeared into the darkness, leaving me alone by the doors.

It was quiet, with the muted sounds of the street behind me and the empty parking lot in front of me, and the breeze picked up, making me shiver as I sat still on the concrete. I had been warm while we were walking but now the chill crept out of the ground and covered me with its dampness. I heard rustlings in the bushes at the fence and squinted trying to see in the dark. I wondered which way the guard would come from and held my breath so I could hear. It was quiet for so long I was beginning to think I had been left behind.

Just then the guard came around the far corner of the building to my right, the beam of his flashlight cutting through the dark mist. I hooted, cleared my throat and hooted again. Nothing happened except the guard continued to advance. When he was halfway across the parking lot, I finally heard an answering call. I stood up carefully, and slid back into the loading bay, keeping to the shadows. I hooted back, feeling anxious and excited all at once. A few more owls called back to me from inside the building, sounding so genuine I remember wondering if any of them were real. I thought I heard a noise behind me, and turning, nearly collided with Randy, coming to see why I had signaled. I squeaked in alarm, grabbing onto him to keep from falling down as he steadied me with a warm hand. Recovering quickly, I pointed out the guard walking across the lot toward us, his light swinging from side to side and his shoes grinding on the scattered gravel. Randy put his mouth to my ear and sent me to warn the others, sliding his knife from the scabbard at his belt as he crouched behind the door jamb. I could barely breathe as I crept quickly to the next cover, and ducking behind the extinct movie counter, I listened for any noise besides my rapidly beating heart and the sound of my breath whistling in and out. I hooted as soon as I had my wind back, afraid to move anymore with the guard so close, and heard several muted answering calls from somewhere behind me in the store.

It was pitch black inside the movie kiosk and the floor was covered with spilled VHS tapes, making it hard for me to sit still. The movies kept shifting beneath me, snapping and creaking every time I dared to move. I could almost hear Randy shushing me inside my head. My attention was diverted back to the bay doors by a slight noise. Just then I found a crack and pressed my eye to the tiny peephole. The light coming through the open bay door was broken by the shadow of the officer as he passed between it and the streetlight outside. I heard the muffled scrape of a shoe on concrete and a grunt like my old papa makes getting up from his Lazy Boy. I thought he must have seen or heard something, because he was coming in.

We had forgotten to watch him for a while first to ascertain his regular routine, so we had no idea he came inside every third pass he made of the loading dock. I can't believe we were actually so careless as to have skipped such an important step, but I wasn't in charge and we had all agreed to take Randy's instruction. In the excitement, Randy had forgotten, and we had all assumed he had taken care of everything, so no one else thought to check. I didn't know him that well but I trusted him. Mainly because we were sleeping together, and I had that blind trust we all have in our first few relationships, comfortably secure in the false knowledge of things working out in the ideal fashion of our fantasies and daydreams. But that night things took a right turn away from them.

Randy told me later that it was my safety he was worried about the most. He felt responsible for me and that was the reason he gave for his impulsive actions.

I was unable to see much through the crack I had my eyeball pressed over, but a tangle of light and shadow rolled by several times, and flashes of light struck my retina as something bright was lifted and lowered so fast I almost didn't see it. At the same time I heard another human grunt, this time unlike anything I had ever heard before. It sounded hollow, like someone had let all the air out of him.

I was close.

Randy whistled long and loud; our prearranged signal that it was time to leave, and I began to hear the rustlings and shuffling noises that told me everyone was coming my way. I stood up and stepped out from behind the counter I had been crouching behind. Not wanting to leave empty handed, I scooped up an armful of movies and dumped them into my bag. Then looking quickly around, I grabbed a curio shelf and an adding machine that looked like it came straight out of a 50's gangster movie, and made my way, heavily laden, toward the doors where I could see everyone gathered in a loose circle around something dark on the floor. I pushed my way through into the circle and stopped short. The security guard was lying on the concrete, a dark patch spreading beneath him. I stared at him in shock for what seemed like a long time, but surely could have only been seconds. Someone touched me and I jumped back away, colliding with someone else in the dark. Then we were all running together, following Randy to the fence. He grabbed the edge and pulled it up, pushing us all through, whispering, "GO, GO!" to each of us as we passed him. Panic caught and I didn't stop until I caught up to some of the others up the street. Randy was right behind me, pushing us all to keep going.

Later there were multiple sirens, and ambulances and rescue vehicles rushed to the empty store, their lights pulsing over the neighborhood for hours. We all crouched in my apartment, afraid to move; sure the cops would be coming for us any time.

Nothing ever happened to us, and no one ever found out. Randy gathered us all together the next day and we all solemnly cut ourselves and swore the blood oath to him, never to reveal what had happened that night. But I'll never forget the way the man reached up, pleading with us for the help that would come too late, while his lifeblood dripped down his wrist. I will always think of the copper smell and how it reminded me of the taste in my mouth.

Randy and I didn't last much longer after that. I couldn't see him the same way, knowing he had taken the life of another, even if he said it was for me. I didn't want it to be for me. I didn't want to always wonder every time I watched one of those movies, or placed something on my stolen shelf, if there was a little girl out there somewhere, missing her Daddy.

But I made myself keep them and I say a prayer every time I use them, for the man whose life is on my head.