A Thief's Code

They steal in order to survive. They steal with a code. They're tired of being shackled by a code.

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The gangly woman is wearing a green hijab that covers her entire body from her head to her ankles, save a small round portion of her face. She carefully brings down the tray from her head and places it on her propped up knee.

I can feel her beaming with hope as the young boy scours her merchandize, passing a deft finger over the various available sizes of bread without actually touching it. She’s about to make a sale and she couldn’t be happier.

You can tell from the time of the evening and the amount of bread left on her tray that she hasn’t had the most productive business day. But this one addition, no matter how small, matters. It matters to her, a lot.

I almost feel bad for her. But it is her own fault. How can she possibly believe this small boy will be able to make a purchase from her? Can she not see the way he is dressed, or more accurately, not dressed? Tattered singlet covered loosely by a faded, ripped yellow long sleeve shirt, with milk shorts turned brown from time and struggle and dust.

Doesn’t she know this neighborhood? Know that a child this young can only dream of having a hundred naira to call their own, let alone have enough money to buy a loaf of bread.

She’s so gullible, it’s sad. Or maybe her desperation just makes her so. Her need to make more money than she currently has blinds her to the obvious.

It doesn’t matter. They are always the easy marks–the gullible ones. And it is all for the better.

I am leaning on a wall in a narrow, pungent smelling, slime-infested alley between two unopened shops, unnoticed, invisible, observant. The awfully rancid smell in the atmosphere makes it that much harder to be completely observant, but I manage.

The shops between which I’m standing must have been shut down a long time ago, because no serious minded shop owner keen on making the most of their small business would close up their shop when the day is just starting–for the second time.

Not many people know this, but there are two starts to the day around these parts, and only one of them smiles upon shop owners.

During the first start to the day, when the dark shell of the sky is just breaking to reveal its beautiful blue-ash streaks, everyone’s either hurrying to their daily jobs or to open their shops. Hence nobody really has time for any form of business transaction, not the seller or the buyer. And after that the day sort of goes to sleep, blinking open a few times with a trickle of customers, none of whom makes much of a difference, because they’re not actually buying anything colossal.

It’s usually the people with nothing doing that have the time to go around looking for what to buy at that time of the day. And them not having anything to do just means they won’t have money enough to buy anything that would make much difference to a store owner.

Then the day wakes up again. It is evening and people are either coming back from work, needing to buy something urgently. This usually works well for the salesperson because they are too disoriented to bargain properly or even decide what they truly need. So they end up just buying anything they can. The other categories of evening buyers are those that come out of their home with enough money to make their purchase while taking an evening stroll or just driving around. Put together, these categories of people make evening time the best time for a salesperson to keep their shop open.

So these shops being closed, coupled with the irritating, poisonously sour smell coating the air around proves that the shops have been shut down for a while.

I know. I have a talent.

Back to important things.

I don’t see what happened, but I know what happened, have seen it happen enough times to draw an informed conclusion. The once calm, hopeful, beaming woman, is bolting after the boy she thought was about to add a couple of hundred naira to her sales for the evening. Her hijab is providing surprisingly little resistance to her sprint. Then she lifts up the front hem with her left hand and it provides no resistance at all.

She’s pretty fast, but the boy is faster, has had to be because of the kind of life he was born to. Running fast was one of the greatest weapons a boy like him could have, along with stealing. So the woman isn’t going to stand a chance in the chase.

The reason for the chase I know for a fact is because the boy grabbed one of the bread on the tray and dashed as fast as he could away from the woman. And as any sane business owner would do in such a situation, the gullible, unsuspecting woman gives chase. Deep down she must know the chase if futile. Doesn’t she?

That doesn’t matter to me though. The moment I see her running after the little thief, I come out of hiding. I’m quick as a cat, always have been, always had to be. I snatch two of the largest loaves of bread from her tray sprawled on the ground, abandoned like an unwanted infant left behind by its mother to chase better things, not realizing they are leaving behind the most important thing.

I move through a different alley between open stores. I know she is not giving chase, but I can’t afford to be static. I have to keep moving, fast, to avoid any unfortunate incidents, like the woman realizing what’s truly going on and coming after him, or someone else having seen what happened tries to be a hero, or to simply claim the prize for themselves. These are both unlikely scenarios, but they’ve happened before. So I can’t be too careful.

I keep running, pulsing through alleys, through people–bumping into some unsuspecting ones–, over puddles of muddy, shitty water, and avoiding any gathering with more than five people. By now the boy must have dropped the stolen bread, seemingly giving up on his thieving dreams. He doesn’t have to, could get away with it, has actually gotten away with it. But it’s part of the game. Dropping the bread gives the chaser a pause, confusing his mind to try and make sense of what just happened.

Why would the thief drop his loot when he’d almost certainly gotten away with it? This pause for thought before and after picking up the retrieved stolen good buys even more time.

It needs to happen at the right time, quickly so it’s before the chaser gives up on the chase, but not too quick that enough time isn’t given to the actual thief to make his move and get out of sight.

I’m as sly as a cat as I am quick like one. I relieve an unsuspecting store owner of a nylon bag. It must have been left there for a future customer. Too bad.

Now just pacing, I stuff the stolen bread into the bag. It barely fits in, but it’s enough. A few stores later I turn left, away from the hamlet of stores and into the clusters of uncompleted and mud houses. I swim through the unending proof of bad governance, circling back to meet up with the decoy.

Someone throws murky, milky water out of the roof of one of the uncompleted buildings. It doesn’t pour on me but I walk right into the pond it’s created. Before I look up the person is gone. I curse out loud, more at myself than at the person, for not spotting it before it happened. I’m supposed to be alert, vigilant, be able to sense everything around me. This is a very important aspect of being a thief. It not only helps me be a good thief, it’s also important in preventing someone else from stealing from me.

What kind of horrible thief gets stolen from?

But I can’t really blame myself right now. I knew the living situation around these parts is as shitty as the smell, but I didn’t think anyone would be bold enough to live in such a place. The building, I notice now is not uncompleted. Uncompleted is a term reserved for much prettier buildings.

This one looks like it collapsed on itself, folding in on itself like a crumpled piece of paper. It has small openings a person could squeeze through, but I honestly doubt there’s enough space in there for somebody to comfortably spread out their hands.

How can a person live like this? I have it easy, I’m once again reminded.

I continue walking, shaking out what seems like aged, fermented rice water out of my legs and slippers.

A few moments later I’m in a slightly better neighborhood–my neighborhood. Most of the houses are made from mud–but look slightly better than those from the neighborhood I just exited, although some look exactly like that–, while others are made from poorly done red-sanded cement mixtures. But they hold, and they are home. There are a few decent houses, but only a few. You’d have to go far into the outskirts of town to get a glimpse of continuous well-built, averagely beautiful houses.

I pass through a few houses before coming out to an open street. I then turn left, heading south towards the abandoned market square.

The broken, cracked structures of the market come into view and so I turn left on the next crossroad. We’ve used the stalls of the actual market place as a rendezvous point for a few months now that it’s a miracle no one has found us out yet. But we didn’t want to wait for our luck to run out, so we chose a different location today.

The rendezvous point has to be around here because it is of equal distance between both our houses. We don’t want to meet anywhere too close to either of our houses, but we don’t want to meet too far either.

We don’t want too many people knowing we’re working together. Most people won’t mind, but if the wrong people get wind of it, they might start to get the wrong idea. They might start to think that we’re starting a gang of our own, even though we’re too young and not stupid enough to venture that.

But people around here will look for any reason to start a fight with anybody, especially if it’s Toxic’s younger brother. My brother’s repute can only protect me from so much. It can also easily be the reason I get in trouble.

If it’s being passed around that I’m starting my own gang, not even my brother can help me. Hell, he’ll be expected to put a stop to it himself, to show he’s not weak, to prove he can lead the biggest gang in town. Everyone is always out to get the biggest dog, and using his little brother against him is not above any of them.

I’m aware of all these risks, but I still have to do all this. Even mom has said that working with the decoy brings more return than if I worked alone. And as popular and feared as Toxic is, his popularity doesn’t provide for the house. He doesn’t give a damn about how we provide for ourselves, just ensures that nobody goes near his family, and this he has to do because it would harm his reputation if something happened to his family.

His gang would lose fear and respect for him. If he can’t take care of his family, he can’t take care of us.

So it’s left to me and mama to provide for the family as best we can, whilst also taking care of my long bed-ridden father. So screw a rumor starting. I do what I have to do.

I reach the St. Augustine Anglican Church within moments of turning away from the market. I take a spot at the top of the short stairs leading into the main entrance door. Some children are playing football at an open space beside the church. A few of them are at the sidelines, clearly waiting for their turn to play. These children are lucky. These children don’t have to steal to eat once a day. They don’t have to run every day of their life just so they don’t run out of life. These children have parents that can comfortably provide for them, giving them enough time and peace of mind to be able to play football in the evening.

I clutch my bag tighter to myself. I don’t know why, but I hate these children. I hate that they’re not like me, skeletal, hungry, and invisible. I always use my invisibility to my advantage as much as I can, but it hurts to be there but not seen. It hurts almost as much as the hunger.

I hear the scratching of slippers on cement before I hear the voice. “What are you moping about?” a squeaky voice inquires beside me. he claims his voice is about to break that’s why it sounds almost like a dog whose tail was stepped on.

I turn to see Dee coming turning from the other side of the church. He looks like he’s run a relay race all by himself. He doesn’t usually look like this. Did the woman give a better chase than I’d suspected?

But before I can make any inquiries as to why he looks like that his eyes narrow on my clutched bag. “That’s a big loaf,” he says, suspicion in his voice.

“It’s two big loafs,” I answer as calmly as I can, acting as if I didn’t just break a very important rule. Always take just one of anything you’re stealing. It makes it easier to run, and it shows you’re not a glutton. My mother made the rule, and we agreed. I think the rule is crazy. I believe in taking as much as you can carry that won’t affect your getaway speed. Why take one when you can have more? If you took more you’d only have to go out only thrice a week to find food, instead the limitation makes it a five day working week with not enough to eat a comfortable twice a day meal. Why the sudden morality when that didn’t stop you from stealing?

I never voiced any of these out loud, but I’m certain mother could see it on my face. I did as I was told, always, until today. I don’t know why I took two loafs today, but I don’t feel bad about it.

“Why?”

Why? I expected more from Dee. He was always a stickler for the rules, never disagreeing with anything he was told. He’d make a very good gofer Toxic would always say. Deep down I know he’s planning on recruiting Dee as soon as he comes of age. That makes me sad. It’d be a horrible life for him and I’d lose my only friend.

I try to deflect. “Do you think we should be talking about this here?” I ask, jerking my head towards the church.

“We’re not inside. I’m sure he won’t mind.” He looks straight at me, and asks again, “Why?”

I concede. “I don’t know. I just did it, without thinking.”

Dee inhales deeply, and for a moment I think he’s holding his breath. But then he exhales. I didn’t realize his hands were behind him until he relieved them and let them fall forward. I didn’t realize a lot of things today. What is wrong with me?

He’s holding a loaf of bread as big as mine. The loaf he stole. The loaf he was supposed to drop when he thought it was the right time. Apparently he didn’t think there was a right time. “Looks like you’re not the only one who broke a rule today.” He sits beside me, resting his back on the steel door behind us. “What do we do?”

We can’t go back with this. This is three times what we’re supposed to bring for provision lifting this evening.

“We go back with yours and then we split mine,” I say automatically. “Nobody has to know. We just have to hide it carefully, and we’re good. We deserve to eat to our fill, even if it’s just for one day. Don’t we?”

I have to ask that. Dee isn’t like me, isn’t rebellious. So I have to know that I’m not forcing him to continue with his mistake rebellion. I have to know if he’s with me on this, if he doesn’t mind being one loaf richer if it means lying about it.

“I don’t know why I didn’t drop it,” he says instead. “It was as if I felt entitled to it, like I won it fair and square, like I deserved it.”

“You do.”

He looks at me like he’s disappointed I think so low of him. “Why did you do it?” he asks again, but there’s something different about the question this time.

Now that I know he broke the rule too I can dig deep and be completely honest.

I don’t hesitate. “Because I could,” is my reply.

“But you’ve always been able to. Why today? Why is it the same day that I do this too?”

“Don’t overthink it, Dee. It was bound to happen someday. Stealing almost every day of our lives, we were bound to overreach at least one time. It’s just a coincidence that it happened the same day.”

He sighs deeply again. “Maybe.”

“And we won’t always have to hide whatever extra stuff we take,” I add quickly, because from now on there will be extra. There has to be. It won’t be every time, but enough times for us not to starve anymore. “We’ll bring up the need to steal more, or at least enough. She’ll agree, she has to, because even she knows we can bring more in. Then we won’t be breaking the rules anymore.”

Dee looks bewildered.

“It’s necessary,” I say. “And we won’t steal more than we can carry. It’s not like I’m eager to get caught. But we have to start stealing enough. You know I’m right, or else you wouldn’t have taken that,” I say, pointing to the exposed loaf in his hand.

Time passes, and it feels like forever. It seems like I have to ask again. “So?”

“Do we really have a choice?”

I smile.

The truth is we do have a choice. Between lying and being scolded, we have a choice. We’ve been scolded before, so we could definitely take it again. Hell, I’m sure deep down our parents will be glad for extra loaf. But I’m not about to say that. Not when Dee has so clearly made his decision to side with me. We’re in this together now, more than we’ve ever been. Deep down we’ve both known we could do a lot more than we currently do. But this is the first time we’ve both accepted it.

This is the first time we’ve both truly accepted that we are thieves, and that it’s okay.

By Triumph Akhigbe

From: Nigeria

Website: https://troywritesstories.wordpress.com

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