Website © 2003 by Tyler Carey
All Content Creator-Owned
Pirate's Palsy
by Joe Bakanauskas III
I.
"A steal at twice the price!" insisted the shop window's small plastic sign. Aaron still harbored an instinct to watch out for rip-offs and confidence tricksters. Too many TV stories about citizens having their lives stolen out from under them. Stolen dreams. Stolen futures. Stolen credit card numbers. Identity theft! Scary concept - a world away from Robin Hood. Yesterday, the high school concert band performed "The Thieving Magpie." Bumper stickers on the vehicles of those convinced the Bush gang stole the election blared "Hail to the Thief." Stolen kisses and stolen hearts filled the city, along with stolen art, bikes, and cars. Invasion of the Body Snatchers aired on the retro movie channel the other night.
II.
It had just finished raining and Aaron stood outside Ron's Baseball Cards, which kept weird hours and had been closed the past few weeks. A 1969 Carl Yastrzemski made a prominent part of that dim, dusty opening's display. Willie Stargell, 1971 Pirates outfielder, sat beside.
This was "Pilgrim's Providence"-the designated "commerce center" of his hometown's oldest neighborhood. Nearby, they were laying foundations for fast food huts and clusters of major retail outlets. But everything on this strip was still sold independently under rusted signs. Toys. Pipe and tobacco. Donuts. Ice cream.
The wire mesh of the batting cage on the next block looked brand new. A freckle-faced eight-year-old lead off of second, about to steal third, not yet the property of ballclub owners.
III.
When little, Little Aaron liked taking things that didn't belong to him. It began at age five, playing store with Michelle at the other end of the street. Michelle had a reverse lisp and pronounced her "three" as "free." When Aaron would scope her closet shelf of toys and ask how much each of his favorites was, Michelle would recite the only number she had down cold. The plastic drum set was "free," as were the Snoopy Snow Cone Machine and Donkey Kong board game. He put together a heaping pile, but once Michelle informed him he couldn't carry it away for nothing, Aaron began screaming for his play date's mother.
"Mizzez Peters! Michelle said I could have all this stuff for free!"
"But Mom, look at all this stuff!"
After a bitter, quiet dinner at Michelle's he snuck home one of her Hello Kitty erasers. A steal at twice the price.
IV.
Three years later, Aaron barely had a sense of ownership or "belongings," though he could recognize certain inherent meanings to stuff. Like his big brother's "stuff," or "collectibles" as Mikey later termed them. Mikey's collectibles, especially the baseball cards, were trophies. Proof of his power. Aaron knew that Chris on the next block had been offering top dollar for Mikey's 1969 Carl Yastrzemski. The day Mikey dribbled milk on Aaron's head became a day of reckoning. Aaron had watched a Little Rascals short at 5am that morning, teaching him that mischief and self-interest were his prerogative. Going through his brother's shoeboxes, Aaron saw at least twenty copies of the vaunted Yaz card. He wouldn't miss just one…but what if he did? What else could he dump over Aaron's head? But still…just one…
Chris gave Aaron half of what he had offered Mikey. "Show me the guide!" Aaron demanded. "I'll let you know now its half of guide price," Chris professionally told him, pocketing Yaz. "When you sell to a collector, you gotta give incentive. If I want to sell this to somebody, there's gotta be room to make a profit. Don't you know how our system works?"
They soon parted ways, highwayman and freebooter.
V.
Trick-or-treating was the best that year-the only one Aaron can still remember today. The neighborhood was generous with candy, especially friends of the family who would offer special caramel-dipped apples or chocolate lollypops.
"Gimme a skull!" Aaron extorted from Mrs. Kohn. "It goes with my pirate costume!" He also knew he'd feel even more special with white chocolate. Michelle, who wore a homemade emperor butterfly outfit, complete with orange wings and black markings, politely asked for a black kitty cat pop.
Even before the sugar rush kicked in, Aaron felt an urge to disregard safety. The night felt chill and feral, and the neighborhood was a vibrant blend of living storybook and Saturday morning cartoon. Dressing up, he pretended to hold Mikey at bay with his plastic rapier. Now that he was outside with family at a distance, he fully understood the demoniac whimsy of the lawless.
Like a phantasm, the Lowry's porch light flickered on. Aaron beamed. "Michelle! Do you know what this means!"
"What what means?"
"A full bowl of treats at the Lowry's! And nobody knows except us! And that means…all the candy can be mine!"
His metabolism shot him across the street like a wraith, waving the rapier in a mock heroic fashion. Michelle's yelling for him to stop went unheard. He even missed the Dodge that came two feet from splattering him.
VI.
Brian was the one who introduced him to pilfering. Real pilfering-from actual stores. One July, when twelve, they wanted sunglasses. Most of the street shops in what would later become Pilgrim's Providence had cheap plastic sunglasses along with piles of other carnival slum. Only the candy racks were closely watched. There were no more free treats, even on Halloween. So as they entered their puberty, Aaron and Brian pocketed little rubber gorillas, hi-bounce balls, Chinese finger traps, and squirt guns. It was the summer of sticky fingers and underarms.
VII.
When fourteen, they finally ventured into the city, fully intending to conquer the music industry. Aaron's mom dropped them off.
Both of the mall's record stores had just begun securing tapes inside clumsy plastic traps you needed a full set of calibrated, factory made tools to release. None of that kept Brian and Aaron from sliding a few choice gems from the metal section into a dark blue duffelbag and rushing to the mall's empty restroom.
Flushed and discombobulated, they hustled open the loot and tried pulling each tape out with brute force. It only led to sore hands and scraped fingers. After a few panicked minutes of banging the bastard things on the tiled floor, Aaron said "We should have brought two bags."
"Why?"
"I could have put it under my jacket and made the switch in here. Then, if they check your bag, you're okay."
"Why didn't you say that before then, asshole?!"
"Because I didn't think of it before then!"
They looked at the mess on the floor and smelled the urinal cake ammonia. The labor intensity of the heist made the still-wrapped Iron Maiden tapes look wasteful, stupid, and ugly.
"Wait here," said Brian, and he rushed out.
Only about a minute later did a member of Mall Security show up to whizz. Aaron spent the rest of the Saturday detained in a part of the mall only criminals and grunt workers ever see. He never mentioned Brian or his involvement, and that day was the last he ever heard from his buddy. Sitting in the mall security office, he pulled a pair of hi-bounce balls from his pocket. "Did you pay for those?" asked a gruff lady security guard. Aaron discovered there were no friends in this line of work.
VIII.
After his parents learned about his adventure, they made him take odd jobs to fill his time. The one lasting the rest of his high school years began with the task of pounding out pizza at Anthony's.
Aaron discovered it was something he could do well, and took on different errands without being asked. He unclogged the sink, reorganized the walk in, and poisoned every ant in the place. Piece-by-piece, Aaron effectively reorganized the restaurant, and Anthony made him Assistant Manager at fifteen.
His grades were better and something about the planning and challenge of the job was enjoyable. It kept Aaron's mind busy. These responsibilities were like a game that earned him praise, respect, and two dollars an hour over minimum wage. The only things he stole that year were kisses from Jennifer and a weekly sandwich.
IX.
Aaron broke his streak near the end of senior year when he lifted five pies from work for a party. Since he was in charge and had made them himself, he didn't think too much about it.
He showed up around 10:30, a little sore from work but still easily infected by the insuppressible laughter and cheap beer. Aaron's peers charged around him, happy from free play and petting. Jennifer and three girlfriends were sitting in a corner circle, made psychedelic by music and neon.
Nobody wanted pizza. All four girls wanted to cruise. Aaron offered to take his car all over creation.
As they stepped out into the night, Aaron kept to himself the fact that "his" car was actually his family's. More precisely, his parents'. Yet somehow, under cover of darkness, things casually become "yours," whomever's name is on the registration.
Exploring the roads five neighborhoods away, they had wind in their sails and fog in their brains. A benign daze-measureless, uninterrupted, light-hearted, and spontaneous. Three ate pizza in back, laughing and gossiping. Jennifer sat in front. Aaron felt like he could lead and control through mindless fun.
Over the next few weekends, they decided to organize mail theft and scavenger hunts. (They won their third by taking the inflatable, glow-in-the-dark hammer from the roof of the local hardware store.)
X.
Aaron quit Anthony's a month before leaving for college. His last memories of this town would be a full circle return to childhood's improvisational rhythm and song. The trick-or-treat garden was back for a few weeks, and he took every joyful opportunity to pull ripe, cross pollinating fruit from the trees. Somehow it worked. Anarchy was insurance; hyperactivity, insulin.
XI.
He helped Mom and Dad hand out candy his second year in college. Sitting out on the front steps, he passed one or two pieces to children passing by.
Aaron wasn't prepared for partiers his age. A group of three nineteen to twenty-year-olds showed up an hour into the evening wearing a combination of black turtlenecks and stage blood. One had Snoopy in a noose.
Aaron grimaced. "Let's see some I.D.," he said.
The alpha of the group held up his plush Snoopy. The others giggled and squirmed before grabbing handfuls of Kit-Kats and running.
Aaron verged upon disgust before remembering the coasters and glasses he swiped from last night's Halloween bash.
XII.
These things were few and far between now. Aaron thought it prudent to just go to class and pound his way through the four years.
The university economized itself through old, drafty buildings, small rooms and confining desks. Somehow, a major in business management included an elective in political theory. Aaron found himself a spectator of the matter-of-fact passions exchanged between poly-sci whiz kids chasing their imaginary white whales:
"Property is theft!"
"No, taxation is theft!"
The loudest students were emulous of the professor, who was rarely there on Wednesdays. He left it up to his hireling T.A. to referee the jabs between the pigs and the freaks. (Or sometimes the "justice nitwits" vs. the "running dogs," or "compassion fascists" battling "effete snob apologists for atrocity.") Aaron sat through this three days out of the week. One side thought private institutions tended toward monopoly and domination; another thought the worst oppressions were born from desires to manufacture equality and eliminate want.
It was the same thing every time. Aaron never joined in, despite coming to realize how much fewer mental gymnastics were required than one might imagine. Just select a polemic the way you would an afternoon snack at a burger joint… One: Tax men and G-men are thieves because they come with guns behind them to take 25-60% of your hard-earned dollars. Two: Landlords, capitalists, and majority shareholders are bloodsuckers who rob workers of the surplus value of their hard labor and have the power to hold the bare necessities of a healthy life at bay.
And you could supersize: The pigs hold life in contempt and are happy to see a surplus body of labor die once it's no longer needed; the freaks can't get laid and are thus envious of captains of industry, and want to expropriate what the industrial men of mind rightfully deserve.
Both agreed on one thing-property and material wealth had to be worked and struggled for. It doesn't grow on trees or flow like manna.
Aaron almost shouted out one session: "It used to!"
Each team thrived on the invective of the other-a self-sustaining latticework of intellectual self-abuse. Aaron couldn't pick a side and could hardly wait to become a ghost, earn full time paychecks, and start amassing stuff. He crashed out onto the couch in his dorm room, looted from another building's lounge one parents' weekend.
XIII.
"Kleptomaniacs don't usually take things that are of any value," Lana told him over lunch. "They live with this urge…a tension that can only subside once they've finally boosted something." She smiled. "And then gratification. Pleasure from the release." This was all part of flirting. Aaron had to wonder if she really cared about this stuff at all.
He had told her the third grade Carl Yastrzemski story and asked the attractive thing working on her Masters in psychology for a diagnosis. She informed him that kleptomania had nothing to do with taking things for personal use, money, or to express resentment. Overwhelmingly, kleptos are financially well-off. Only five percent of busted shoplifters are true kleptomaniacs.
"You're not a klepto unless you've been living with that kind of irrational craving to pocket useless bric-a-brac for six months or so," she said.
Which made him feel a lot better. The previous week, Aaron had pawned his mother's silver brush and comb set which he found buried under boxes in the family basement. It helped pay for this lunch date.
XIV.
Aaron didn't give it another thought for eleven years. (But there were only the sparsest thoughts around it, awash in dark, heavy molasses guilt.)
Aaron had stuff by then. His stuff-worked and struggled for. Relations with Lana were all legal and marital, recognized by law. Some things were "his" stuff, others hers, mostly "theirs." Mortgages and minivans were shared. Aaron worked forty to sixty hours a week to ingratiate himself inside this Levittownish reeducation camp.
His private opprobrium came after reading about a spate of theft and vandalism in the neighborhood.
(What if it had been his junk?)
Lana had taught him to "set boundaries" in relationships and in life. Lines of credit. Planning. Budgeting and mortgaging. Big dreams.
XV.
He had been those punks, once upon a time. Running and snatching through a trick-or-treaters' carnival, he took what he could. He tried to rationalize a lot of it. Mom's silver was buried, forgotten-abandoned property. But he took it. He plundered and pocketed fast money without any thought.
Cold had once been invigorating. Standing in Pilgrim's Providence now, in a frigid post-rain, he worried about catching cold.
XVI.
When five, he had his first trip to the mall. Dad tried telling him about money then, but gave up after seeing his son enchanted by noises, color, light, activity and shelf upon shelf of stuff. Aaron pointed to things he wanted and was denied nothing.
He had a similar feeling these days when making a rare impulse purchase on credit. Rare.
XVII.
Not a klepto, disgusted by stories of petty heists, neither pig nor freak, Aaron had a nostalgic urge for something… They were chasing a dream as little slaveys now, all the time telling themselves they make their own life. A grownup knows how to set boundaries. Satisfy the impulse…by calculating APR and staying within what you can afford. Recognize reality and the role you play in it. $26 billion was lost last year through shoplifting. Make a trip to the mall today and you'll be surrounded by video surveillance and closed circuit TV. Hell, there could be a quarter-inch lens spying on you now! What's that behind the mirror, finally? Pan, tilt, and zoom toys! Bulky tags on clothes match nobody's figure. Everything's fixed with iron-heavy electromagnetic tags now. Transmitters, receivers, 8 megahertz signals…
XVIII.
Nothing's for free. You can never have all the candy. Grow the fuck up. Time, money, and labor creates everything. Remember. We're watching.
XIX.
He had come back here trying to rework the bounding lines, but thicker, slower blood moved through Aaron's veins. Walking across a lawn marked "KEEP OFF GRASS" just wasn't the same anymore.
Maybe he was trying too hard. There was nothing spontaneous about planning to be a maverick. Checking a free spirit, trying to revive a nonconformity and make it judicious, wasn't working. Selective, opportune, cost-effective purloining was, at best, a retarded debauchery.
XX.
When he got back to his minivan, it was smashed to shit, with a beer bottle through the windshield and the CD player gone. For a nanosecond, Aaron felt the rush of shock, and then was almost idle. Torn between homesickness and remorse, he knew he couldn't return the half-eaten bag of M&M's in his pocket even when he'd want to.