Housebreaking
When I was younger I used to ask my mother why everyone looked at me. She pointed out that maybe they were staring at me because I was staring at them.
That’s the first rule, don’t be noticed. I’m pretty sure there is nobody else on the quiet residential street. There was no one here when I started walking, I don’t think anyone has arrived since. If I don’t look suspicious why should anyone suspect me? I don’t look around, my hand reaches for the low wall, the muscles in my forearms tense and twist. There is a childish joy in the physicality of my own body as I vault into the back garden.
All the lights are on in the first house. A middle-aged couple sit silently watching TV in the living room. Something boils in the kitchen steaming up the window. I crouch watching. I landed in a bush and something has cut my leg, there is a dull warm pain, a wet sensation that may be blood. (Later that evening back at home I will discover an inch long twig pushed under the skin of my calf). I can’t quite figure out what they’re watching. From the sliver of screen I can see it looks kind of like porn, and then there’s the rhythmic motion of the man’s shoulders… but the woman sits reading a magazine, apparently oblivious. People are strange. I decide not to dwell.
Moving across the back wall I (rather ungraciously by my own standards) tumble over the dividing hedge into the next garden.
It’s dark, quiet, it’s only nine in the evening, this is all good. I tug a branch from the small-leafed bush next to me and throw it forward. If you wake up to a load of foliage on your patio now you know what’s been going on: Somebody was in your back garden checking for security lights.
There are no lights. I walk forward, stooping to pick up one of the fist-sized smooth stones that edge the lawn. I’m not one to carry tools with me, a crowbar down one's trouser leg is never easy to explain away. Instead there is a small maglite torch on my keyring and I’m wearing a canvas jacket. To break a window quietly simply hold the jacket against the glass then strike it with something hard and heavy. Be quick, be sure. A friend of mine used to swear that all he used was a cap and his fist. He’s in prison now.
But first things first. The kitchen door is locked, the window however is not, the latch isn’t even down. There is even a bench on the patio underneath it. I pop the window open and slither through.
That’s the first rule, don’t be noticed. I’m pretty sure there is nobody else on the quiet residential street. There was no one here when I started walking, I don’t think anyone has arrived since. If I don’t look suspicious why should anyone suspect me? I don’t look around, my hand reaches for the low wall, the muscles in my forearms tense and twist. There is a childish joy in the physicality of my own body as I vault into the back garden.
All the lights are on in the first house. A middle-aged couple sit silently watching TV in the living room. Something boils in the kitchen steaming up the window. I crouch watching. I landed in a bush and something has cut my leg, there is a dull warm pain, a wet sensation that may be blood. (Later that evening back at home I will discover an inch long twig pushed under the skin of my calf). I can’t quite figure out what they’re watching. From the sliver of screen I can see it looks kind of like porn, and then there’s the rhythmic motion of the man’s shoulders… but the woman sits reading a magazine, apparently oblivious. People are strange. I decide not to dwell.
Moving across the back wall I (rather ungraciously by my own standards) tumble over the dividing hedge into the next garden.
It’s dark, quiet, it’s only nine in the evening, this is all good. I tug a branch from the small-leafed bush next to me and throw it forward. If you wake up to a load of foliage on your patio now you know what’s been going on: Somebody was in your back garden checking for security lights.
There are no lights. I walk forward, stooping to pick up one of the fist-sized smooth stones that edge the lawn. I’m not one to carry tools with me, a crowbar down one's trouser leg is never easy to explain away. Instead there is a small maglite torch on my keyring and I’m wearing a canvas jacket. To break a window quietly simply hold the jacket against the glass then strike it with something hard and heavy. Be quick, be sure. A friend of mine used to swear that all he used was a cap and his fist. He’s in prison now.
But first things first. The kitchen door is locked, the window however is not, the latch isn’t even down. There is even a bench on the patio underneath it. I pop the window open and slither through.
posted by Sookraj at 2:23 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home