Stealing Back a Life

Stealing Back a Life
by Garrick A. Moritz

People steal for many reasons. Thieving is a universally understood practice. The act of taking something for one’s own benefit is understood by the whole of the human race.

People steal for many different reasons. Desire is a motivating factor. Wanting something you do not have. For others, stealing is survival. They take what they need to go on living. For me, it’s a strange combination of both.

I park my car in the backyard driveway in front of the garage door. I know that no one is home. I’m not worried about the neighbors. I know most of them have gone away too.

Grabbing my flashlight, I slip on my well fitting and worn brown leather gloves. They are big and clumsy, but they’re warm and that’s what counts in winter.

Stepping out of the vehicle wearing black boots and a dark brown leather jacket with a stocking hat, I’m the picture of a snow-time burglar. And, pitch black at 9:30 p.m., I truly feel like “a thief in the night.” But I’m not here for money, gold, silver or jewels. I’m here for more important things.

Flicking on my flashlight, I cast a faint glow into the dark. The snowfall has been light this year, but since no one has been home to shovel, drifts cover the sidewalk path. I move to where I know the spare key is kept. It’s so much easier to get into a house if you do it without a lot of fuss. Most human beings think very much alike, and the first time I came to the house, it did not take much grey matter to determine where the key might be. I would tell you where I found it, but I must keep some secrets.

I suppose it helped that I’m very familiar indeed with the people who lived here, and their habits. Owning that information made finding what I wanted here easy.

My feet crunch on the hard snow. I follow the cement sidewalk, enveloped by the snow along the south side of the house. Passing the patio and the kitchen door, I walk around the trees and the great evergreen bush, past the front window, to the front door. As I walk, I notice that my flashlight is already beginning to dim. It never worked well. A cheap, convenience store purchase that’s gone through two of those 6 volt batteries. I need to replace it. Perhaps, I’ll find something suitable inside.

The door opens easily. My nostrils catch the scent of age. This house is old. It is a dead house.

An aura of gloom surrounds me. The air seeks to quench the light of my flashlight. It seeks to overwhelm me. The familiar bookcases containing Shakespeare, Poe and Balzac stare at me, unread for almost a year. Everything in this place wants to be alive again. To be held by human hands and used again. To be loved again.

It’s almost too much. I don’t know if I can go on.

“It’s just a house,” I say aloud to break the oppressive silence. “I’m all right.”

I will not give up now, not until I have what I came for. I cross the carpet of the dark living room and head for the kitchen.

The fridge is in great condition, only bought two years before. The microwave has barely been used. The stove is brand new, the old woman couldn’t figure out how to use the touch screen digital dials. She was used to her old stove, her old life.

To my left I see the enclosed porch. In the spring and summer the family took their meals in warm air, eating sweet corn and steaks while the birds chirped in nests made in the trees and vines surrounding the table. Now, the ceiling has caved in and the wooden table that sat as a centerpiece is over-turned. Pieces of sheetrock litter the floor, as insulation hangs from the ceiling.

On the kitchen counter a white ceramic honey jar sits. A golden grizzly bear cub sits atop the jar licking his little fingers. A wooden ladle, shaped like a honey comb rests inside the jar. The grandchildren used to beg their grandma to let them have some, and she always did. The honey granulated, still edible if you heat it. I don’t have the heart to touch it.

Still, I haven’t eaten since morning. I know the old man was fond of nuts. Sure enough, in the cupboard by the stairs, is a canister of Planters Mixed Nuts, his favorite. I don’t suppose he’d care if I had them. He’d offer, if he were here now. I can see him standing there with a flower embossed glass dish full of pecans, walnuts and cashews. He’s wearing a brown wool sweater and thick gold rimmed glasses, smelling of Brut aftershave and Vitalis hairspray.

“Here you go, have some nuts,” he says. “Mind you don’t eat too many. You’ll spoil your supper. Helen’s been working hard today.”

I’ve lost my appetite. I put them in my large jacket pocket. I’ll eat them later.

By this time my flashlight is almost dead. During a previous visit, I left a candle and a book of matches in the now dry aluminum of the kitchen sink. I light the candle, being extra careful with it, because the last thing I want is to set fire to this beautiful old house.

The basement is my goal. I head down the steep stairs, having to duck or risk hitting my head. My right hand holds onto a wooden railing that the old man put up so I would not fall down the stairs again. Better not dwell on that . . . I keep moving.

I head to the left, avoiding the right side of the basement for now. The old man’s treadmill sits in one corner. It’s surprising that it still works because his many grandchildren used it as a jungle gym for so many years.

A child’s chalkboard on the far wall next to a box of fuses reads “Today’s Special, Brownies.” The grandchildren used to joke that grandma’s food was so good, she ought to open a restaurant. When she brought the oven warm brownies on a green plate, a granddaughter wrote the chalk message that has never been erased.

Walking left and around the corner I find a cupboard. Opening it, I see where the old man kept his liquor. A low whistle escapes my lips. “Wow, he certainly kept well stocked.” Many of my drunken college friends would have given an appendage for a hoard like that. Most of it is virtually untouched.

But getting drunk, although appealing at this point, would be detrimental. More importantly, it would not meet with the approval of my good host who did not believe in drinking just for drinking’s sake. Therefore, I’ll stay dry. I’ve got a long drive before I can sleep anyway.

Now comes the moment of truth. I’ve got to screw up the courage to go over there. I’ve been avoiding it. A very unprofessional burglar I’ve made. I’ve been stalling. I knew where I wanted to go when I pulled up, but I’ve been avoiding it.

I take a deep breath and feel needle pricks in my lungs. It’s still below freezing inside the house. The cold is pinching my nose and cheeks. The candle drips drops onto my gloves. I smell the burning wick and the small warmth that lights the basement in a faint glow. I can wait for it to burn out, and leave myself in darkness, or I can go forward.

I walk back to the staircase. Beyond, a basement window well catches the light of the full moon. The combination of this, stellar light and my own dim candle illuminates the room well. In the far left corner, past Helen’s sewing machine is the old man’s work bench. Tools lie scattered in an organized chaos. I place the candle in the ratcheted iron table vice, fixing the candle gently into place, so it doesn’t break. On my direct right an odds and ends shelf stands against the wall with box reading, “Slip-n-Slide” on top. The children loved playing in the yard with that thing, getting grass stains on their swimming suits.

To the far right, against the corner wall, sits an aluminum rung shelf with half empty containers of Coke. Several bottles of European wine rest there also, doubtless given to the old man by his Croatian son-in-law.

With the candle stationary, I decide to look for them. I know they won’t be hard to find. Sure enough, they are there. Just where he left them.

Above me in the rafters are kites. Green kites, blue kites, red kites. Kites of all shapes, sizes and colors. Some plastic. Some nylon. Some broken and tattered, and some unused. I pull them down one by one to look at them. I find the one I liked the most. Three eagles flying with the stars in the background. I flew it to shreds, and he fixed it so many times over because I loved it. And behind it . . . oh God.

The spool. Made out of dowel rods and a two by four. Carved in an H, with four inches of dowel rod on a top and bottom end. It was the most efficient kite spool he’d ever designed. It reeled in and gave slack when turned like a crank. Wrapped around it was the thick twine string that he insisted we use instead of that, “cheap nylon cord, that snaps so easily.” My vision blurs.

I’m outside with the wind on my face. “You’ve got it now,” he said. “Run boy, run! Get it up there! That’s the ticket, good job!” My eagle kite sails on the wind. It goes so high I’m afraid a plane might strike it. I’m so giddy glad I don’t realize until too late that a downwind caught her, and she’s sailing right to the barbed wire fence. I try to pull her up, but it’s too late.

I drop grandpa’s new spool. I run to the fence, the kite is lacerated. Broken and useless. I cry, my toddler tears.

“It’s all right honey,” he said. “It’s all right. I can fix it, honest. I’ve been flying and fixing kites since I was your age. It’ll be fine.”

And it was. He hugged me. Wiped my tears, and fixed my broken toy, with his kind and gentle warm hands. The hands I held the day he died.

He’d been sick for so long, almost a year. We moved them out of this house. They couldn’t take care of themselves anymore. I had told him good bye. I told him I loved him. I sang him songs he used to sing me to sleep with. I told him not to be afraid, that a man like him had nothing to be afraid of. He lay there in that little bed in the sterile institutional room, fighting for his last breaths. When he was gone there was no priest or pastor. I said what prayers I knew while I watched my family cry together.

Where are those hands now?

I find myself on the basement floor, grasping the spool. The tears are half frozen to my face. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Seconds, minutes, hours, a lifetime. Time vanishes into memory, like life into the vacuum of space.

Dad doesn’t think I should come here. “It’s not healthy Garrick,” he said. He doesn’t know how many times I’ve actually done it. He doesn’t understand why. Everything in the house holds a memory I can touch and see. And if I take enough things maybe I can get him back, just for a few minutes. I can steal him back. I will steal back his life.

But cold on the floor, I know. I can take everything from this house. I can clean it out, take everything, but I won’t get him back. Everything here holds a memory, but memories don’t bring back the dead. He is dead. I have to accept it.

My eye catches sight of black plastic tubing through the half opened door of the cupboard under the work bench. I know what it is. Grandpa liked his snake light because he could move it around to odd angles. Taking off my gloves, I sit up and reach for it. I’m certain it was a Christmas gift from my mom to him. “Dear Bert, I hope you find this useful,” sort of thing. I found out at the funeral, it was because of grandpa that my mom and dad met.

Flicking it on, the light glows white and powerful. It’s almost as if it’s brand new. Strange how people’s things live on after them. I’ll use this flashlight, his flashlight. I blow out the candle.

I’m all right now. I put the various things I’ve collected into a small satchel. I look at the spool one more time in the white light. It’s been well used, but it will fly kites again. I’ll see to that.

Up the stairs I go. I put a hand on the railing on the stair. He put it there because when I was five I fell off the stairs. I flipped over as I fell the 5 feet and landed too close to the base of my skull. Thankfully I landed in a box of potatoes, which cushioned my fall. He thought I had broken my neck, and was so relieved to find me unharmed. He swore he wouldn’t let it happen again, and he put this up to protect me and all the rest of his grandchildren. Nobody’s fallen since.

Upstairs, I move through the kitchen and into the living room to the front door. I lock the door again. I place the key in it’s hiding place. My boots crunch on the way back to the car. I have what I came for. In the bag under my arm I carry a fingerprint of his soul. Putting my treasure in the backseat, I sit down and start the car. Eyes with his light stare back at me in the car’s mirror. As I reach for the gearshift, I feel his hand hold mine. He taught me to drive, and he's still with me.

Grandma Helen asked me today how old I was. She didn’t remember. She gets confused sometimes. I told her that I was a man now, or at least that’s what I’m supposed to be. She straightened things out quick enough.

“I thought that Bert was here this morning,” she said. “I thought he was sitting on the bed talking to me. Then he wasn’t there, and I remembered. I guess I’m just going crazy.”

“No grandma,” I said. “You’re not crazy. If you are, then so am I. I see him too, sometimes.”