The other day I was robbed – A Monday that was supposed to be a Holiday.
I was enjoying the cool onshore breeze of the Huntington Beach morning, goofing around the house with my wife and two daughters, finishing science projects, playing fetch with the dog –
Then my nine year old, Shannon, and I decided to return some library books before going on a search for monarch butterflies at the park.
I carried the books and my black fanny pack – my excuse for a purse – out to our Honda Pilot, placing the stack of things on the front passenger seat.
The fanny-pack, embarrassing now but popular in the 1980’s, provides me with a central location for all of my stuff like keys, wallet, checkbook, notepad, pocket knife, surf wax, $10 off Walgreen’s coupons for Rogaine Foam – Without this purse equivalent I would spend much of my time searching for the items it faithfully keeps in its care. Little did I know this longtime companion would soon be in jeopardy.
Shannon had run up stairs to find one last library book. Suddenly, I heard her scream.
I bolted back inside and flew up the stairs, screaming myself: What’s going on? (though not in those exact words).
Shannon met me at the top of the stairs, still disturbed. “It was a big spider,” she said. “He was crawling up my arm.”
Though relieved I also felt some anger bubbling up.
“Well, you gotta get a grip,” I said. “A spider? I thought your arm got cut off or something –”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her panic now gone. “I just really don’t like spiders.”
“I know,” I said. “But you can’t let yourself go totally berserk.”
We found the book and headed back down to the car. It had been about 2 or 3 minutes since I’d run back inside.
While Shannon buckled into the back seat I went to add the new book to the stack on the passenger seat. But the stack was disheveled, something was wrong, distorted, out of place, missing – My black fanny-pack – holder of all posessions – was gone.
Involuntary panic jolted through me, a hundred giant spiders climbed up my spine.
But wait, no, I couldn’t believe it – I must have taken it back inside during the spider drama, dropped it on the stairs or the kitchen counter.
I hustled Shannon back inside, scanning the empty street for potential thieves, sprinted through the house, retracing my steps, not wanting to believe I had been so badly violated, preyed upon, burned.
I willed the faithful bag to suddenly materialize in front of me, could envision my relief, laughing at myself for being such a paranoid fool: Robber? There’s no steenking Robber!
But it was no good. Me long lost black bag was truly gone!
So I rushed back out to the street intent on tracking down and capturing the perpetrator.
***
I’d been robbed before in my time. Once in Jr. High School – allegedly by one of the FBI’s currently most wanted, Jason Derek Brown. One kid told me it was he that picked the lock and broke into my locker, but of course when I confronted Jason he swore up and down he didn’t do it. I’d grown up with him, played baseball with him, and was never any good at just hitting possibly innocent people in the face, let alone a kid smaller than me. At the same time, fast forwarding, the reason he’s one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted is because he murdered an armored car guard outside a theatre in Arizona following Thanksgiving weekend in 2004. It makes me sick to think he might be running around out there somewhere while the family of the poor guy he’s accused of murdering continues to suffer. But he’s most likely dead.
Another time, during college at Humboldt, I was at the Laundromat (doing laundry of all things). While popping quarters into the dryer I realized I’d left my wallet on the change machine. I ran back to find my wallet gone, along with a man and two little kids that had also suddenly vanished.
That wallet showed up in my mailbox a few days later, everything intact including some Pato Banton tickets, just in time for Pato’s show that night. The only thing missing was three bucks and some change. I’ll never forget being strangely, abundantly, appreciative that sunny afternoon.
***
I jumped in the truck and took off down the street, trying to put myself in the mind of the perp – The Creep that stole my stuff !
I swung into the alley, no one, just trash and recycle bins, fishtailed around the block, patrolled a wide perimeter around the neighborhood before bashing the steering wheel with my fists in frustration, finally parking again exactly where the crime had occurred only a little while before.
Then I spotted a stranger coming up the street, a suspect perhaps returning to the scene of the crime as I’ve heard criminals so often do. I get out of the truck.
“Hi,” he says.
“You see anyone carrying a black bag?” I say, blocking the sidewalk. “A kind of … fanny, butt-pack?” I continue, trying to be more descriptive.
“No,” he says.
He has on shorts and a t-shirt, Vans slip-ons, nowhere to hide my bag.
“Thanks,” I say. “Have a good one.”
He nods and continues up the sidewalk.
I’m at a loss, have no leads. I’m a rotten detective with a case gone cold in under a half hour.
“Honey,” my wife says, leaning out the front door, speaking in a soothing manner. “We’d better cancel your credit card, ATM … Call the Police.”
She’s right and I am suddenly blinded by anger, the breach, the hassle – think of all the things in that stupid bag: Financial stuff, pictures, membership cards, insurance, the kids’ library cards, Our Identity! The thought that some shameless, hideous predator was now in possession of so many personal things – Things they could possibly use while we suffered the unknown consequences, truly made me sick.
And there was nothing I could really do except just feel stupid. Why? That’s just the way we are – We tend to blame the victim, even if it’s ourselves.
But I remembered my Gramma Daisy once telling me about a time that she and my Grampa’s house got robbed. “I wished whoever did it got a broken arm,” she told me. And sure enough, a few days later, a guy who’d done some work for them, and who was on the list of possible suspects, broke his arm.
Karma! Whoever stole my bag, I hope they break their arm, I thought. Or at least slam their fingers in the door, bite their tongue, or stub their toe really bad.
***
After we called the bank and the credit bureaus and the police took the report, I noticed Shannon, face in her hands curled up in the chair.
“Are you alright, kid?” I asked. She didn’t answer at first, but then lowered her hands from her eyes and looked up at me.
“I’m sorry, dad,” she said. “I just feel like the whole thing was my fault – I mean if I wouldn’t have freaked out with the spider and everything.”
I gathered her up, feeling like a jerk. “It wasn’t your fault at all,” I said. “Don’t think that for a second. It was the fault of whoever stole my bag.”
She smiled a little and a great cloud seemed to lift. There would be other black bags, perhaps even an 80’s style fanny-pack if they ever came back into fashion.
We then left for the park to search for butterflies.
***
The next day I arrived home from gathering my morning crime reports – Yeah, crime reporting is one of my things – Funny, that.
Anyway, I had already scoured the neighborhood, alleys, trashcans, drains, and across the street over the wall for any sign of my stuff, finding nothing. But still I held out hope. Maybe it was because of the time in Humboldt when my wallet had triumphantly appeared in the mailbox, or that I’m a hopeless optimist.
Regardless, I arrived home, took another look over the wall down the ice-plant hill across the street, then turned, looking back toward my house. And there, perched on the wall of my neighbor’s planter was my black bag, as if Boo Radley himself had placed it there for all to see.
And everything was inside except the little bit of money that had been in my wallet.
I was stunned, an awkward bucket of good feelings washing over me, projecting goodwill to the thief who’d brought my bag back – As if giving a Lost Dog Reward to the person that stole the dog.
“Thanks!” I yelled down the empty street. “About you breaking your arm – Or stubbing your toe – I take it back!”
Maybe if that guy would’ve returned my Gramma and Grampa’s loot, he would’ve been spared bad Karma too. We’ll never know.
But as it was, I was just glad to be standing there in the coastal breeze, holding my freshly found bag in the glowing afternoon.
*****