Pick Pocket

The sun’s rays shimmered through the moist glass of a window whose curtains had
forgotten to be drawn shut. The golden morning light illuminating left over cigarette smoke that formed alluring shapes as it danced through the air in the apartment. It cast an eerie glow throughout the apartment exposing and shadowing rooms that the light could reach; the living room and the conjoining kitchen. In the kitchen stood an almost-empty refrigerator, its door wide open and the light dead. Several draws had been pulled out of place and thrown onto the moldy tan tiled floor; the silverware had been stuck into the walls, and cabinets hanging from their last
hinges. Stacks of money sat on a nearby counter, neatly divided according to value. The conjoining living room was in a similar state of chaos. Broken beer bottles, poker chips, and cigarette butts were littered across a stained scarlet rug. Tables and furniture were overturned and a Pink Floyd record scratched its way through another song on a record table. The apartment could have been considered abandoned if there currently weren’t two bodies lying underneath an overturned couch in the center of the room. Somewhere in the distance an alarm clock went off
and one of the bodies stirred from its resting place. With an agonizing groan, a woman no older than the age of twenty two picked herself off the floor, and wrapped a blanket around her exposed form. She had short black, angled hair that shaped high cheek bones, and a pale face. Her frail looking body was covered in scratches and finger shaped bruises, and her crystal blue eyes showed the world a buried agony that she had taught herself to stop feeling a long time ago. She dragged herself into the kitchen where she pulled a beer from the warm refrigerator. Her bony
hand then reached for a bottle of hangover pills on the counter. She popped off both bottle caps in unison and then proceeded to take two pills with a swig of beer, casting a quick glance at the money sitting on the counter. By this time, a man had risen from under the couch, turned on the television, and walked into the kitchen. His dark clothing severely contrasted against his pale skin, giving him an almost angelic glow. His dark, unkempt hair resembled a used mop and
matched his deep, chocolate brown eyes.
“Casey, you know taking medication like that is dangerous. Didn’t they teach you that in health class?” He asked, now leaning against a wall twirling a fork between his bony fingers.
“And robbing a bank and murdering your hostage is what you call the ‘responsible thing to do’ Johnny?” Casey asked gesturing towards the money on the counter top and then towards the television where two separate wanted photos of the couple were currently being displayed on the local news channel.
Johnny’s expression darkened at her words and he began to move towards Casey, whose body tensed at his approach. However instead of closing the distance between them, he settled for making a series of rude hand gestures at Casey, who only sneered at him in response. Casey had been raised as an only child within a wealthy family, and Johnny was an orphan and a high school drop out who lived in a dumpy apartment and worked in a cheap eighties music store in downtown Chicago. When they first met, he was Casey’s ticket out of an arranged marriage set up by her father, and Casey or Casey’s money was Johnny’s ticket to a better lifestyle. So the pair developed a relationship, meeting in secret when they could, and eventually falling in love. When Casey was twenty the pair eloped and after a year of being happily married, like a pot full of boiling water, arguments between the two would heat up and their love began to evaporate into thin air as if it was never there. Johnny discovered that Casey had potential and talent; this made him a jealous, angry and controlling person. Never giving Casey enough room to breath, and acting cruelly towards her when he was in a bad mood, and as a result Casey soon took up the hobby of drinking and stopped talking to her family who was sending the unhappy couple money on account of the threat that Johnny wouldn’t ever let them see Casey again. Then Johnny recently lost his job, and the couple took up bank robbery to put food on the table and beer in the fridge. Casey’s life slowly spiraled out of control, she could have left him at any time, but she just
didn’t want to. In a strange way she still loved him, and hoped that he still loved her as well. So instead of running towards a better life, she stuck with him, and watched her wanted picture for assisted robbery and murder flash across the television screen again.
“Once this all blows over, we can finally get out of this dump and start a new life” Said Johnny; who was reassuring himself more then he was Casey.
“What happens with this all doesn’t ‘blow over’ and we are caught? Have you come up with a plan for when that happens? Because as I see it we’re just sitting ducks, too many people saw, to much evidence. There’s no way that we’re getting out of another situation like this clean this time. So tell me, what happens when we can’t hide anymore?
His reply was a sharp backhand to Casey’s right cheek, the swift contact causing her head to snap back at an odd angle and stumble backwards.
“ That is not going to happen! The only people that know our location is me and you. I’m not spilling anything to the cops, so unless you plan on doing anything stupid, we are going to get out of this clean!” Shouted Johnny to his now bruised wife.
Suddenly Casey ran into the bathroom, collapsing near the toilet and heaving the contents of her stomach into the porcelain basin. She slowly brought her head up and clutched the blanket tighter to her body, before her head disappeared once again and a disgusting reaching sound echoed throughout the
apartment.
“If this does blow over, are you really serious about starting a new life together? Maybe even someday starting a family?” Casey questioned her voice echoing throughout the innards of the toilet.
“Jesus Christ Casey! How many times do we have to have this discussion? You know I don’t do kids, want nothing to do with them. They’re only going to complicate things for us, and I don’t plan on you getting pregnant any time soon.
“It’s a little late to be saying that Johnny” Said Casey, her words laced with fear, grief, and pain.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I am pregnant you blind fool. Why do you think I’ve been throwing up my insides every morning? From alcohol? I don’t think so.” Seethed Casey.
“You’re not pregnant” Said Johnny defiantly.
“I think I’d know if I was!” Casey screamed as she pulled dozens of positive pregnancy tests from the trash in the bathroom and threw them at Johnny. She then stood herself up and stomped towards him yelling foul words and poking him in the chest, blaming him for everything that has happened to her.
Johnny just dumbly stared at her, his face void of any expression. His eyes then flashed dangerously, and he lunged at Casey, who screamed as she was backed into a wall, the butts of several pieces of silverware digging into her back.
“You can’t keep it” He whispered dangerously.
“What?”
“You heard me; you are not having this baby.”
“What gives you the right to decide what I can and can’ do? I have literally given you everything I have and you only take, never giving anything in return. I’ve stuck with you through everything, all of the abuse and crap that you put me through. I could have walked away so many times but I didn’t so I am having this baby. Not because you tell me I can, but because I want to.” Casey said, her voice shaking with emotion.
“NO!” He shouted, throwing her to the floor and kicking her sharply in the stomach. “You will not and cannot have a child, not now, not ever. It will only be another thing that we have to look after, and I’m not about to become responsible for a brat.”
“This child deserves a chance, but obviously you’re to selfish to see that” Casey gasped between sobs.
He moved towards Casey’s shaking and sobbing form again, stopped, clenched his fists multiple times, and then sighed.
“I’m leaving. When I come back in two weeks I expect that kid to be gone. It’s going to bring nothing but trouble for me. If it isn’t gone by the time I get back, well you better hope you’re not here.”
With that said, Johnny stormed out of the apartment, leaving a sobbing Casey on the floor to decide her own fate. When she was positive that he was gone, she slowly picked herself up off the floor, took one last look at the prison that she had spent too much of her life in, started packing, and ran. Ran from one life to another. By nighttime, she was gone, out of the city and back to a previous life that was better for herself and her baby. Two weeks later Johnny returned to the apartment expecting his wife to not be pregnant and begging him to forgive her for disobeying him. Instead he walked into a home that held no traces of her ever living there. There was only a note on the counter where the money had been two weeks
ago. It read:
Johnny,

Sometimes what a person thinks ‘the right thing’ is, another may not. Obeying the rules and regulations set by others can only hold a person back from achieving a form of greatness. In order to achieve this greatness and to get ahead in this game of life, we sometimes have to play by our own selfish rules, no matter who we hurt along the way. However sometimes playing by your own rules can
prevent a person from rounding that corner, passing ‘go’ to another stage in life, and collecting that two-hundred dollars. This decision was hard for me, but I realized that after you left, you didn’t love me anymore like I always used to hope you did. So obviously I couldn’t stay with you. You’re restraining me, and suffocating me, becoming a hazard for my physical health and sanity. I want freedom, freedom from your controlling ways, your anger, your selfishness, and your abuse. Freedom
for me and freedom for our child that I have decided you will never see. Also, you know that money that we stole? I turned it in and confessed, telling the cops and my family about you loosing your job, and convinced that you or I couldn’t get another, had to become murdering thieves, and in the end I was let go. As for you Johnny, you’ve been followed for the past week by a cop, and there is absolutely no way that you’re going to get out of this mess clean. Don’t try and run, trust me it won’t do you any good. Just stand there and think about everything you’ve lost in such a short amount of time; a wife, a child, your own family. Then think about the bitter iron bars of loneliness that will surround you for the rest of your life and separate you from the rest of the world. Sounds like a great trade doesn’t it?

Love always,
Casey

For the first time, Johnny actually listened to Casey and did think. He thought about a lot of things as the sound of sirens approached the apartment, and a glowing red light shined through a window whose curtains had forgotten to be drawn shut.