Throw

This flash fiction piece was written as a story companion to the day 9 drawing prompt Throw from the 2020 Inktober prompt list. Click here to see the drawing.

A lot of people picture burglars creeping through houses in the middle of the night, with flashlights and whispers hissing between members of the thieving gang as they rush to bag as much loot as quickly as they can.

What they don’t realize is, real burglars—the good ones at least—don’t choose a house unless they know they can take their time. Wait until you see a couple loading suitcases into their car, or a family wearing Hawaiian shirts piling into an airport shuttle the weekend before Spring Break. Those are the houses you want to hit.

And you don’t go at night. That’s the most amateur thing a burglar could do, really. How are you gonna see what they’ve got that’s any good to lift? Flashlights are useless in a home where you don’t know the layout. Sure, they’ll illuminate what’s right in front of you, but that doesn’t mean you won’t turn a corner and clip a giant sectional sofa. Trust me, you don’t want the only thing you take from the house to be a twisted ankle or a gaping head wound just because you couldn’t see the turned up edge of the area rug in the foyer.

Afternoon is ideal, and going solo is, in my estimation, the only way to play the game right. Learned that one the hard way in my early days when these two jokers I used to tag along with cooked up a scheme to turn me into the police before we hit the house. Was gifted with my first six month stretch in lock-up thanks to those two-bit crooks.

No honor among thieves, I guess.

It’s better alone, anyway, ‘cause then you don’t have to meet up afterward and decide who gets what. Someone always gets precious and thinks they're entitled to more than a third of the goods because they were the look-out or the getaway driver and, apparently, whatever they contributed really kept the whole thing from falling apart. Without them, the job would have gone south, yadda yadda yadda.

What you really want is an excuse, some kind of good reason for being at the empty house. That way you can really take your time. Get a truck with a plumber’s logo on the side of it, or an exterminator van. Hell, wear a mustard blazer and walk in carrying one of those “open house” signs under your arms. No neighbor will give you guff about, “What are you doing here, they’re out of town?” if you got the right excuse in your pocket.

This job I’m doing now, I pulled up in the back with a windowless van marked Share the Love Donation Center on the side of it, and it’s, if I do say so myself, the perfect touch. I keep taking bigger and bigger things out there and no one’s gonna say a word. If they do, well, all I gotta say is Mr. and Mrs. O’Leary certainly are the most generous of souls we ever saw down at the center.

Of course, it’s better if no one sees my face at all. Confrontations with bystanders are best avoided, and the less I’m noticed the better. That’s why 1:30 in the afternoon is prime burgling hours. Everyone’s either at work or at lunch.

This place has got it all. I spent the first hour just walking from room to room deciding the best stuff to take. TVs, laptops, iPads, you name it. The missus even has a jewelry box with diamond rings and necklaces in it. I felt like an honest to goodness old-timey cat burglar, rifling through there. Couple more trips out to the van and I’m a ghost. It won’t fit much more anyway.

Every time I go back in the house, I pass by this arm chair with a knitted throw draped over it and think of my grandma, since she was always making something with yarn every time I went to her house. Granny’s the one who taught me the trade.

Not burgling, per se, but she was the finest con this side of the Mississippi, and that’s the truth. That woman never paid for a thing. She’d lean over to me at the end of our meal at the fanciest restaurant in town and say, “Watch this, kid,” before butting a dead cockroach under the last bites of steak she didn’t want and start screaming bloody murder. By the time the manager and the owner got done calming her down and begging her not to call the health department, we’d have a free meal and vouchers to eat at the other three places the guy owned.

“Never let ‘em see you sweat, Agnes. And remember—it’s always their fault.”

It was good advice.

After a while, my mother didn’t let me see her any more. Something to do with a joint bank account that kept ending up empty, and too many fruitless trips to Atlantic City. She never conned me, though, the old bat. I still carry a plastic bag to save dead bugs when I find a good one, just in case I need a free meal. You never know.

Then again, with how successful my line of work has been the last couple years, I’m don’t really need help paying for food—or anything else. But sometimes, I’ll run a con just for the nostalgia. Granny died ten years ago, and it had been at least that long since I’d gotten to see her. Mom told me at Christmastime and then said, “Good riddance!” as she put on the 24-carat earrings she thought I paid for with my fancy, made-up investment bank job.

On my last trip out of the house, I pass the throw again and pause.

“This one’s for you, granny.”

I grab the blanket and drape it over the TV I’m carrying out. Looks more like a donation that way, anyway.