Be careful of what you steal.

————

    What cosmic rule says that a man who steals wallets should in turn be terrified by the very items he swiped? I am one of the greatest pickpockets you’ll never meet. Throughout my apartment you’ll find piles of wallets I’ve stolen. They’re testaments of my success.  

   One pile crossed that line.  

    Last night, as I was heading for the bathroom, I looked at the pile of wallets on my table, twenty in all, when I heard a very distinct yawn. At first I blamed myself. That I must be nuts. Am I dreaming? Am I awake? So, I looked at the table. Something had moved. Not that it happened in front of me. I walked by this pile everyday not really, truly studying it. It was more of a feeling.  

    But I could tell. My restless leg kicked in. So I took a picture with my phone right then. Then I came back five sleepless hours later, and took a second shot. The one I call Fat Wallet had moved from the bottom of the pile, to the very top.  

    These twenty sit on top of my brown table in my kitchen. Why did I give them this spot? It was a perfectly good eating spot. Just enough room for a newspaper and cold cereal.      

    Now at least one of them had moved. And the yawn? Sounded like a woman.

    I rule out an intruder right away.  

    I have eleven locks on my metal front door. My windows exist high up, and they’re small, like you’d expect in a basement. And I’m on the third floor! Unlisted phone number. No fire escape.  

    It’s the first time I’ve really thought about this pile of twenty wallets. Troubling still, I have no memory of swiping any of them.  

    I try to slow my breathing. Inhale. Exhale. It’s not working. My hands shake like oak trees trying to defy a hurricane. My breakfast spoon teeter-totters in my trembling fingers. I could sit down. My legs are certainly wobbling. If I do, though, I’m face-to-face with them. For some bizarre reason, I don’t approach.  So I reach for my chair and sit in the hallway. The overhead light above the kitchen sink is on. Their shadows stretch, making them look longer, as if they’re reaching out to grab me.  

    Another movement. Tiny. Maybe not. Maybe I’m skittish.

    I can’t live like this. Not with these twenty. I can’t be un-spooked.  

     I’m a nice guy. I never want to kill anyone. I wear drugstore reading glasses, and a crew cut that makes my head look as flat as a well-worn pencil eraser. I look like a middle school woodworking instructor. I do love wearing black-colored hoodies. They cover a man.

    I apologize to the room. To all the wallets, male or female of origin. “I’m sorry. If you guys liked your, I don’t know, peers in this pile? They gotta go!” I joke, of course.  

    You see, all the wallets in here are the closest thing I have to family. But they don’t yawn. Let alone move.  

    Most have a driver’s license inside. A name! Gym card. Or Insurance card. A history! Photos of fathers, mothers, siblings, friends. Now my relatives too! I never steal your identity. I just hang onto these little morsels. Little presences that keep me company.  

    The rest don’t move around. The rest don’t yawn, or make any noise at all.  

    I haven’t looked inside these tabletop twenty. Not deeply. Maybe not at all. My hands reach to touch them only to stop short. I just can’t do it.  

    Why do I feel this way?

    These wallets have to go.  

    Guilt twists my gut. I rub my wrists when I get nervous, to the point of aching.  

    What happened? Why do I feel this way?  

    With a brutal cocktail of fear and guilt and unexplained memory loss, I form my plan. Get rid of them. Out of sight, out of mind. I don’t believe in God. I do believe in spirituality. And the idea of atonement. I will release these twenty wallets back into the wild. Maybe slipping them into the pockets of twenty people will provide a balance in the world, and in me too.  

    I begin my mission at three pm. The time when the crowds are at their most, but see the least.

    I wear cargo-style work pants with a lot of Velcro pockets for starters, the usual two front and two back. Larger ones lie on my thighs. They are full of my twenty wallets. I clench a little plastic shopping bag holding the extras. After I clear out the first ones sitting in my pockets, I will replace them with the bagged ones.  I wear my hoodie.

    The whoosh of a diesel city bus rumbles by. I’m in the flow of humanity. Thick clusters of clomping strangers brush past me like mind-controlled drones. I tuck my arms in, trying to occupy less space, so they don’t keep bumping me. I can only take in that sight for so long, then I feel I’m drowning in the crowds. If anyone says even “hi” to me, I’m going to freak.  

    I stop for a moment and gently fish wallet number one out of my pocket. If you’re seasoned well enough, you can open a Velcro pocket without the ripping sound.  

    My first potential target walks right into an alleyway! Red-bricked on both sides. A neat, well-taken-care-of ground, there are no soda cans to accidently kick, no metal trash cans, no homeless people to grab your leg and plead for food. I silently cheer. What a way to start this!  There are people walking just ahead of him. So, it looks like I’m just part of the flow.

    I already have a wallet in my hand. I’m two feet away. I hold it, ready to tilt it in. He’s still walking. Maybe he’ll stop when he reaches the end of the alleyway.    

    Then the wallet in my hand goes bat shit crazy.

    A pudgy, little arm reaches out from inside the wallet and clenches my pointer finger. I scream and try to drop it like it’s a snake. But, the hand hangs on. Holding the wallet that’s already in my left hand, I pull the intruder out with my right. This…thing….looks like a human baby. With the color, flatness, and size of a dollar bill. He’s crying in my face like someone just pinched him.  A voice rises from inside the wallet itself. “That would have been your nephew, you son of a bitch.”

    I grab that wallet and run right out of there with the shopping bag coiled tightly in my hand.

    Now, I’m tearfully blubbering in terror. I’ll be better when I get home. I’m always better when I get home. I’m pushing the baby back inside. As gently as I can, he may be alive, he may be a trick; I’m not risking it.  Home is still three blocks away. All the wallets in my pockets wiggle around like panicky rats. Velcro is tearing open all over my pants. I push them back in. I cry, “Please stop! We’re going home!”

    My throat feels ragged from the run. My heart knocks against my rib cage. I turn the key into the building entry and run the tiled stairs. As I swing open the third floor double doors, wallets spill out of my pockets. The ones in my shopping bag fight for freedom too. I lift it to find they’re pushing the plastic beyond its limits. The bag rips open while it’s still in my hand!

    I’m tempted to leave them in the hallway. A vague sense of guilt makes me turn back to them, only to find they are already tracking me. They scamper past my legs as I open my front door.  I raise a leg, ready to stomp on any of them if I have to.  

    I yank off my pants. “Get away from me.”  I trip up and plummet onto the floor in shirt and boxers. All twenty wallets stand before me, with Fat Wallet mere inches from my feet. “Do you recognize my voice?” It’s Fat Wallet. A twenty dollar bill serves as his tongue. His teeth are pennies and dimes.  

   I think Fat Wallet is my father. I’m not totally sure because all I have to go by is his voice.  

    “Usually we spend no more than a few minutes moving at night. But, you caught us, didn’t you?” Fat Wallet says. “Even wallets need to stretch their legs. Well, maybe not every wallet. We twenty are pretty special. We’re livelier.”

    A voice from the group says, “Sorry about the yawning!” Others chuckle. I can’t tell who says what. Whether they’re teasing me or not.  

    Fat Wallet wobbles as he crosses the floor top to give me some space. With his eyeless gaze he still manages to look at me. I’m not certain how.    

    He says, “The wallets changed to fit our personalities. She was a mother…”

    That voice again. From the wallet in the alleyway. “I was pregnant, you bastard! Eight months along.” The paper baby was real? Just by living in them, their souls transformed the contents of their wallets too?      

    Fat Wallet cuts her off. “It’s been three months, Agatha. We agreed to accept who we are. We’re here for him. As a family.”

    Another voice cries out, “I wanna go to Heaven.” It was a Hello Kitty wallet. She actually looked at me. Which made everything else more believable.

    Fat Wallet says, “Shush, child, we agreed to stay on Earth.”

    “Not all of us had a choice.”

    “Shhhhhh.”

    The thought seizes me. They have been here for three months. How did I not know? I thought maybe a week, at most.  

    He turns to me, “I was a fat man. Who turned this into a fat wallet!” He guffaws. “That was easy!”

    I shake my head. “No. I sit up on my couch, leaving a pile of other wallets to tumble aside. I ignore them.  

    “We all died on you. You remember now, don’t you?” Fat Wallet says.

    I start to recollect. The explosion. The surprise party that I knew about. The surprise party where I built a bomb to scare them. To teach them to never force themselves in my life again. I don’t do well with strong emotions. They knew that.  

    I ask, “Why am I hearing you again?” Breathing sucks. In, out. In, out. I’m panicking. I haven’t needed an inhaler for years. Now I’m wondering where the hell is it?

    “We all died on you at the same time. We love you. We can’t send you birthday presents, or a Christmas present or anything. So we get by on these brief visits.”

    Feeling half in a dream, I say, “I didn’t cause that explosion at the Village hall.” Still wanting Dad’s approval. It would have been nice to remember these details one at a time. The flood of memories in my head. I cradle my face in my hands.  

    “Of course you didn’t. The bomb wasn’t yours.” Fat Wallet says with a nuance of sarcasm that only a child can pick up from their parent. I still can’t call him Dad. He says, “Honestly son, I’m not going to give you what you want to hear.”

    I’m remembering everything now. The bomb worked. Erupting when everyone was singing happy birthday to me. I had stood farthest from the blast. Right by the exit sign. They probably thought I was being quirky.  

    Fat Wallet says, “We didn’t know we were dead at first, and here you were picking our pockets in the wreckage. Most of us wanted something our souls could hang onto. It was instinct, son. We clung to the wallets as you stole them.  

    Now, we ignore that Heavenly light, we just love you too much, son.” Fat Wallet says, “But, all of this is hurting you, isn’t it?”

    I nod. I killed people? “I’m not a nice guy am l, Dad? I’m not a nice man.”  

    “No, son, you’re not.” My dad says in that honey-drip forgiving voice. “You’re a mass murderer.”

    This is not love.  

    This is retribution.  

    “I killed all of you.” I cry. No one spoke up to claim otherwise.

    Just like I did as a child, I punch my fist in my own gut, harder and harder. No mercy. I slug my own ribs, hoping some of them will break.  

    “Son?” Dad could always calm me.

    “Son.” It always took him more than once.

    “Yes, Dad?” I was short of breath. The self-punishment takes so much out of me.  

    “Let us sing to you. To help you forget.”

    “Why?” I don’t hate the idea.  

    “For relief. Healing. To help you so you may live a life. To forget we ever spoke. So we can live our lives through you. No one should carry such pain around. First bring us back to the kitchen table. I love to look out on these beautiful mountains of leather and nylon you have here.”

    He then says, “We were always money men weren’t we, son?”

    “Yes, Dad.”

    “So beautiful.”

    “Yes, Dad.”

    I hoist them back onto the table. And in return, they sing in voices too beautiful to be merely human.  Fat Wallet says gently, “This will happen again and again. We are going to haunt you, there is no pretty way to say that. We just are. Again and again. That is your punishment. Now forget…for now.”

    The song overtakes me. I sleep until morning.  

    Bustling spring birds tweet a frenzy outside my little windows. Sunlight shines on my piles of wallets. Including the ones on my table. It’s hard for me to admit, but I have no recollection of ever gathering those. Still, I leave them be. They’re not hurting anyone. But, why did I give them my favorite place in the whole apartment?

    I leave them be, for now. Still and peaceful.  

    Did one of them yawn?

    What the Hell is going on?

-end-    

By Steven Roisum

From: United States