Thief
It was late at night when we returned from the party, both tired ready to get some sleep. As I turned the
key, I noticed the door was unlocked. Something was wrong. Cautiously I nudged the door open just to face a
half-empty house. We’d been burglarized.
Neither the television nor the leather sofa in front of it remained. My favorite ottoman wasn’t there. The
VCR, the camcorder and the stereo system were all gone.
I rushed to the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife and ginger walked into every room, holding my breath
and ducking my head. Everything valuable in our home was stolen. Even my wife’s cherished afghan.
After the initial shock subsided, we sat on the bare floor and grieved for our losses. Along with our
belongings, we’d lost our sense of security. Sara insisted they were hiding somewhere in the house and any
moment would jump out and kill us.
“Why would they do such a thing? They’ve already taken everything,” I reasoned but she was hysterical.
I finally called the police. A few minutes later, sirens filled the neighborhood and several officers crowded
our doorway. They asked all kinds weird questions, took pictures and fingerprints, filled out countless forms
and ransacked our home worse than the thieves. Then promised to do what they could and left. We were
filled with fear and rage.
It was almost dawn when we went to bed, but neither one of us could sleep a wink. Neither of us went to
work the next day. We drank several cups of black coffee and took inventory of our losses. It was late
afternoon when in the midst of my search, I noticed a folded piece of paper in the corner of the room where
the lamp used to be. Inside the paper I found a small photo of an unfamiliar man and woman, about the same
age as my wife and I, posing with feigned smiles.
“How could the investigators have missed this evidence after hours of searching our house?” I shrieked
showing the photo to Sara. She didn’t recognize them either. Once again, we called the investigator in
charge and he urged us to promptly take the evidence to the station. “Aha, that might lead us to the
perpetrators,” the detective uttered. Now I was really worried about ever seeing our stolen furniture again.
I snatched my keys and rushed outside. As I approached my car, I noticed a man walking toward our
house. To my utmost surprise, I recognized the stranger. He was the man in the photo. Before giving him a
chance to escape, I stormed toward him, dropping my keys, tackled him like a pit bull and firmly grabbed his
wrists.
“What are you doing?” he screamed.
“You tell me, what the hell is your picture doing in my house, the house that was robbed last night?” I was
fuming.
“Sir, please, let go of my wrist. And do not answer my question by posing one of your own. It’s rude,” he
calmly said.
“You’re the one who robbed my house. You took everything we had!” I yelled.
“Technically yes, but we really need to talk about this,” he nodded with a dash of discontent.
“A thief always visits the house he robbed. This is the mistake they always make. And I’ve caught you,” I
confidently boasted.
“Actually sir, the correct quote is, ‘the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.’ From Alfred
Hitchcock, he was a genius and this particular film was his masterpiece with powerful characters, profound
dialogue and a strong plot. This is what I call filmmaking. Besides, you really didn’t capture me because I
returned on my own will.”
“You have the audacity to lecture me on the artistic value of movies? You’re a thief! You must be behind
bars.” I was hysterical.
“Please don’t scare me with the talk of jail. It wasn’t easy for me to come here. If your stuff was worth
anything, I wouldn’t be here and this conversation would not be taking place.”
“Our Sony television alone is worth over three hundred dollars!”
“Three hundred dollars? Are you trying to make me laugh?”“The new digital models are now less than
that. Your television set is really outdated with bad reception. It’s not even cable ready. It doesn’t show all
channels. When did you buy this? When Nixon was president?” He was losing his patience.
“You are a menace to society, I’m calling the police.”
He arched his eyebrows and rolled his eyes and waited for my next move. I had none.
After a few awkward moments, I defensively added, “We bought this house just a few months ago. The
closing cost, the home insurance and moving expenses set us back quite a bit. The house payment is much
higher than the rent we paid for the apartment. It’s almost twice as much for the utilities. Frankly, we can’t
afford new furniture, maybe next year.”
He sighed. “My wife wasn’t exactly thrilled to see your stuff in our living room. How long have you had that
couch? You can’t sit on it for five minutes without your back hurting. And don’t get me started on your
computer. It’s worth nothing and I mean literally nothing. It doesn’t even have a CD drive, for crying out loud.
It’ll cost me more to upgrade yours than to buy a new computer.”
Now I was trying to avoid direct eye contact with the thief.
“I don’t mean to sound condescending, but I really lost money on this job. You see, these days no one
takes the responsibility of being an accomplice. To do a simple job like yours, I paid a man $150 to help me
carry the furniture and load the truck. He wasn’t even a professional. He charged me a flat rate in advance.”
“You should pay your accomplices on contingency basis, a percentage of the net profit otherwise you’re
walking in the dark.”
“I made the plan and took all the risks. I didn’t even break even. And I wish my only loss was financial.
Now, I’m at odds with my wife too. She called me a good-for-nothing bum. Nothing I do is enough for her.
You know how women are. Nothing you do makes them happy. I feel like a failure. She has a steady job and
brings a paycheck home and here I am screwing up.”
Shockingly enough, I could see his point. I didn’t know what to do. I could have called the cops and had
him arrested, but if he had repeated the same story to police, I would have been more humiliated than he
would be in trouble.
“What do you want me to do? You stole my possessions and now you’re complaining it wasn’t a lucrative
project? Let’s resolve this matter amicably. I won’t call the police and you return everything, although this’ll
put me in a bind. How can I explain this to my wife? How can I tell her our furniture wasn’t even worth
stealing? She’s been telling me that for months. After this fiasco, she’ll never let me put the same old junk in
our house. She’ll buy everything new with her credit card, and that 18% interest rate is a killer. She never
understands how tight our budget is. You just go and get the furniture, and I’ll break the news to her.”
“Well, that’s the problem, my truck broke this morning and I have no money to fix it. That’s why I came
here. My wife left this morning and made it clear that as long as this junk is our house, she wouldn’t return.”
He took a deep breath. “I must get rid of your stuff, and I must do it now.” He was now chewing his finger nail.
I could help him bring back the furniture using my truck. But I had no way of telling my wife what happened.
Under a very peculiar set of circumstances, I found someone to whom I could relate. Someone I could share
my feelings and concerns with, and someone I was beginning to trust. A feeling I’d never experienced with
any friend. I found the midnight thief to be a sensitive, polite and cultured individual. And now a common
need brought us together.
Suddenly a devious thought crossed my mind. “Let’s solve both our problems. Why don’t we get our junk
from your house, take it to a remote area, and burn it? Then I’ll make a complete list of expensive items,
submit it to my home insurance company, and get reimbursed. We’ll split the money fifty-fifty?”
“Hmm, that’s not a bad idea,” he said.
“I’ve already reported this burglary to police, too,” I added.
“The insurance adjustor would ask you to submit a list of stolen items.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make up an expensive list.”
“No offense, but maybe I should be the one who makes the list.” He had a smirk on his face.
“And then, there’s an issue of mutual trust. You are practically a stranger,” he said, “but I know this entire
affair has put you in an awkward position and I feel responsible.” He squinted his eyes, “I accept your
proposition. Let’s do it.”
We walked a few minutes together and then I took the picture out of my pocket and gave it back to him.
“You must be more careful, my friend! So tell me, what good movies have you seen lately?”