How I Became a Thief Without Stealing a Thing

The following story is true; though I have tried to eliminate some details and facts to protect individuals.

Needing to return early for some additional work, I arrived at my apartment a full week before school would start. I expected to have the apartment to myself for a full week during which I could sate myself on Law and Order reruns, History channel documentaries, and the Romantic Comedies I sometimes sneak into house disguised as more socially acceptable Porno movies in brown paper bags.

For two days all was blissful. True, the cable was out and would not be repaired until after the New Year, but that only meant I would accomplish more. That I did with gusto. With my a gift card I got for the Yuletide, I purchased Ikea shelves and an actual Bureau to replace the plastic storage bin I had been using. My carpentry skill not being what it should, these projects consumed my Saturday until late in the night when I discovered long about 10:30 pm that the shelves were lacking the sufficient number of wall mounts without which I could not finish. Annoyed at being thus unnecessarily delayed, I watched a movie and read myself to sleep.

Sunday morning founded me awoken with a start by a slamming car door that turned out to be my roommate returning a week sooner than I had expected. In my drowsy state, I grudgingly accepted this further intrusion to my peace as though it were just what was expected. Yet still being tired, I returned to sleep. Having stayed up until very late, I overslept my alarm and missed my 9:00 am church meeting (held in conjunction with the Family ward in lieu of the Single Ward's normal 11:00 am time slot). I awoke at 9:30 am finding the living room bestrewn with luggage and parcels, including the boxes to my shelves and bureau and my green shoulder bag with wallet and keys. The door, however, was broken with both the doorknob and the deadbolt drilled clean through. Obviously, I said to myself, my roommate had forgotten his key and found some incompetent (but awake) locksmith at 5:00 am to destroy rather than pick the lock. I ate breakfast and decided that since I was both tired and naturally inclined to be lazy, I returned to my room to read and sleep never anticipating what was to come.

At 2:30 pm, I was startled awake by my roommate yelling. No voice answered his. A few moments of this was enough to convince this heated exchange was merely telehponal. The gist of this stentorian diatribe was that some unscrupulous locksmith had charged him $400 to come let him into his own apartment and in the process destroyed the locks then demanded $100 more to replace the locks. He had said, No, to this final affront and sent the man unceremoniously away. This complaint was repeated four times to four individuals, but being the timid sort, I was afraid to make my presence known (though how, with my bag, boxes, and dishes in the common area, he could be unaware of my attendance to these rants I do not know). It seemed to me that walking out would worsen the situation since then he would realize that I had been there to let him in. Exacerbating the situation seemed needless, so I remained ensconced and toasty warm in my bed reading a book by Nathaniel Hawthorne and wondering when my roommate would leave so I could arise, leave, and effect my "arrival" from my vacation and avoid any unpleasantness. I am coward; I'll not deny it, but peace is my major driving motivator.

Eventually he left and I got up, still slightly shocked that he could be unaware I had been home. I ate and cleaned up my mess in the common area then cleaned myself and continued my book. All was quiet until after I retired for the night at 10:30 pm. I might note, in passing, that nothing is as exhausting as doing nothing, and that nothing makes one more ready for sleep than lethargy. To return to my narrative. Not long after I retired to bed and sat reading Hawthorne's "Twice Told Tales", I heard my roommate return in a great flurry with his girlfriend in tow. I was at this time in my underwear and too comfortable to move. Add to this my natural proclivity to be alone, and I felt no compulsion to announce myself. I assumed that the light on in my room, the changed status of my effects in the living room, and the dirty dishes in the sink were adequate proof for anyone. More to the point, I might add, it never occurred to me that there should be any need for announcing my presence.

I listened casually as the couple watched a movie -- eavesdropping long a bad habit of mine -- but with no great interest. I preferred to absorb myself in the melancholy memorials of Hawthorne's Puritania. Peace, however, did not last, and around 12:30 am (sleep-sated and engrossed as I was I could not slumber), I heard noises, disturbing noises. At first, in my bashful innocence I thought I was hearing some movie scene where actors would be modestly swallowed in shadows and blankets. Not so. I will leave the readers fecund imagination to supply the details. Once I realized what was occurring right outside my door, I was horrified. Two facts came immediately to mind: this guy served a mission! and: we're not even allowed to lay down on that couch!

They must know I was there. After all, my lights are on, my bag and boxes are in the living room. Still, we never did bump into each other. Somehow, like a Shakespearean comedy of errors, I always exuented just as he entered and vice versa. My mind, which, I'll admit, was both horrified and attracted to this debauchery, reeled and tossed onto my consciousness the most random things. How did an action film inspire this? Why didn't I vacuum today? Did I put my socks in the hamper? What am I going to do tomorrow for New Year's Eve? Does the leather chafe?! Odd things suddenly became interesting. Why is there a popcorn seed on the floor? How long has spider's web been in that corner? Detachment is a sort of survival mechanism.

After some interminable time, the lovers' mutual exploration ceased and they chatted casually about the coming day. Clearly only one virgin lay within those dark walls that night. I determined to get out. How, this I could not yet say. The window? Nope, too high. That meant the door, but how? Further more, where shall I go? I thought of three options: My brother's house, the Church (to which I as organist have the key), my office. Shane's seemed dicey because firstly, it was the farthest away and secondly, arriving there in the middle of the night would invite questions I did not wish to answer. Church would be uncomfortable, but it had the advantage of being close, though I could not rule out late night alarms. I determined upon my office where there had been since immemorial time and for reasons unfathomable blankets.

I had a plan and a firm resolution. My passionate flat mates, however, would not leave off and instead kept up their nocturnal exercises for a further three hours, though, fortunately, they eventually moved to the adjoining bedroom, leaving the common room empty. By this time, all sleep had flown from me, and I was even more convinced that I did not wish to be around for any awkward silences and even more awkward non-silences of the morning.

By now it was 3:15 am and a heavy, pregnant silence stole over the apartment. I could not read; nor could I sleep. After a half-hour of silence I was sure they must be asleep. I made my move. Caparisoned in coat and sweater, jeans and gloves, I crept in perfect silence out of my room in stockinged feet carrying my shoes. Only in the dead of night when stealth is paramount, did it become acutely obvious to me just how noisy my apartment was. Every footfall found a squeaky board and every hand a poorly hung frame that rattled on the wall. Still, I perdured and crept in the crepuscular light along the edges where the floors would be quietest. I took my keys and wallet from my bag (leaving it behind lest its absence be too clear a proof that I was there) and then I met disaster: a chair was lodged against the door! How could I get out now? Whether to safeguard their stolen intimacy or to lock the still broken door I do not know, but there it sat, blocking my quixotic quest like Scylla and Charybdis mocking clever Odysseus.

In desperation I reasoned that I all was not lost, if I only took great care. I slowly removed the chair and pulled open the broken door. Depositing my effects on the brightly lit corridor with its florescent harshness, I reached carefully in and pulled both chair and door toward me. A few inches from close I pulled the chair up and under the handle then dragged both quietly closed. 2 inches, 1 and half inches, 1 inch, Disaster! A noise, from within the dark apartment stirred. Heavy footfalls rumbling across the hardwood floor. Panicked, I pulled the door the remaining inch, gathered my things, and ran stiffly down two flights of stairs and out the door.

My breath came in ragged gasps, but not from exertion. Would he follow? I had only moments to guess. Still in stockinged feet I looked left and right. Only naked bushes and sad, patchy, dead grass wet from a misty rain. My car was down the street. I hear foot steps on the stairs. My moment had come. I ran. I ran with all I could muster across the wet lawn, splashing my socks and pants with fresh, muddy rain. Down the street I ran and dove panting behind my car. Grateful for once that my car's electronics were on the blink, I opened the door and no cab light betrayed my hiding place.

I looked back at my apartment where a blazing light filtered between the blinds, two of which were pried apart revealing a dark shape crouching within. He had seen! It was over. I could not return, but scarcely could I linger. Removing my damp socks, I hung them over the air vents, turned the key and drove off leaving my lights off. Caught though I was, the thought of confronting a tired, cranky, roommate still wearing (I can only hope) his underwear, seemed less appealing than meeting him after we were both sensibly rested.

My drive to work was quick, as traffic was light and lights were blinking yellow encouraging me to yield to non-existent cross traffic. My mind was a jumble; I could not think. A pale orange light reflected off the lowering clouds and gave an eerie, ominous hue to the statuary along Massachusetts Avenue. Flags hung limply in damp air. It was DC at night. A city of secrets and lies where everyone hides from everyone else. I never understood that till now. Monuments to forgotten heroes whose epitaphs proclaimed their immortality to passers-by who knew nothing about them reflected the harsh, muted orange of the street lamps. In the all-encompassing silence that wrapped itself like a comforter around the city, it was as though the normal babel of the day were not so much gone, as suppressed, muffled by some malignant mind that now possessed my own thoughts.

I arrived at my office and still too alert to sleep I read my email and the news. This had somehow a had a pacifying effect on me. Reading passively, letting the words and ideas slide over me without much lasting effect is like a drug to us logophiles.

Eventually I obtained some sleep and by slightly after noon I was up, but still not ready to return home. I ate lunch nearby and took a moment to buy lunch for a homeless man who had asked for my leftovers. He still took the leftovers, despite my giving him a full meal of his own. I then did what I always do when I can't relax. I went to the bookstore. I admirably bought only one book (Washington Irving's complete tales for $6.95), and then visited the library where I got more "American Literature" which has been a passion of mine lately: more Hawthorne, some Faulkner, Thomas Pynchon's Gravity Rainbow - needlessly bloated and excessively overpraised tome in my opinion.

I hoped that these prevarications would forestall the inevitable meeting, but soon I found nothing left to keep me. The library shunted me out the door at closing (early for this was New Year's Eve) and I found myself aimlessly driving. Quite without realizing it, I found myself back on the highway driving toward my home. Turning the last corner to my street, I saw clearly at the end of the lane lights burning brightly against the gloaming sky. Dang it.

I parked and for a moment considered going in, but my natural cowardice convinced me that soon the pair would be leaving for New Year's Eve parties as I had heard them discuss the night before. I went for a walk, something that I added recently to my New Year's resolution after reading an article claiming that walking for half-an-hour four or five times a week was effective in reducing one's spare tire -- not that I have one, of course, but still....

As I once more neared home, I could not longer avoid it. It was cold and I was numb and the lights were still on. My cell phone rang. It was my roommate.

"Hello?"

"Jon?

"Yeah"

"When are you coming home?"

"Oh soon. I'm on my way now."

"Good. I had to change the locks after a burgler tried to break in last night and broke the door knob. I had to replace it today. I've got you're key here and wanted to make sure you got it before I left for the night. Are you in town or just on your way from the airport."

"Oh, um, I'm around. I've been, uh, at my office. Just getting home."

"Okay, see ya."

"Bye."

Anticlimax is a word too often used these days. Still, when it fits.

I arrived home shortly and my roommate unceremoniously gave me the new key and related his story gesticulating wildly and staring intently in any direction but mine: crazy weekend, got home yesterday, slept all day, chased a thief out of the apartment in the middle of the night and replaced the lock on the door cause the thief broke the knob. None of this was true; not a single word. But I could not be sure that he didn't know that I knew. Was he truly unaware that I had been there all that time and trusted me to believe him? Did he truly not see me run out the door and into my car? Was he hoping --like me-- to avoid any awkward, unpleasant conversations? Why lie about the door?

Cognitive Dissonance must be resolved: either by changing behavior, or by changing belief. However, some seem capable of simply refusing to acknowledge any conflict. It is an amazing trait; I don't think I have it. It is, in some strange way, a survival adaptation. Prolonged dissonance, or, shall we say, prolonged exposure to our own unharmonious beliefs and deeds is unhealthy and psychically destructive. This ability to ignore the nastier details of life may be necessary. The French Historian Ernst Renan once said that forgetting is as essential to identity as remembering.

Sometime I find myself absolutely weighed down by the hatred, hostility, pride, apathy, and destructive stubbornness I encounter every day. It wears on me and erodes my peace. I need to be alone because only then do I feel calm. There is too much of animosity and deception in this world and I have never been very good a confronting it.

Perhaps I judge too quickly. Hypocrisy is, after all, not the mere inability to live up to one's own high standards, but rather a refusal to see in oneself those foibles that the hypocrite so easily espies in others. It is not hypocrisy when, having high standards, one fails to achieve them; it is, however, cowardice not to attempt the heights of moral excellence once they have been glimpsed. Pope said it best. Man is

A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his mind and body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Whether he thinks too little, or too much;
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself, abus'd or disabus'd;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all,
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.

Perhaps my roommate likewise feels trapped and encumbered by his own actions. Somehow unable to live up to his own expectations of himself, he sinks to the easiest, lowest action. For when we cannot achieve our own high dreams, we often fall farther than did he who no such dreams at all. Perhaps in his quieter moments, he hates these very choices. I do not know and so to judge him with my limited and biased view would be a grave sin. Perhaps these lies and his constant attempts to keep his mind distracted with games and sports mean that he is not at peace within himself. Perhaps.

The highest aim is integrity: that almost ineffable state of harmony between one's words and one's deeds. I do not doubt that even the most vile sinners are troubled my pricks of the conscience when they permit themselves a quiet moment of reflection. Distraction is a technique that does not quiet the conscience, but it does drown it out. Peace, that inestimable gift of God, comes not just because we have said a good prayer or gone to church services enough, but when we have harmonized our will with His, when our deeds and our actions harmonize with God's deeds.

That is a tall order. I have not achieved it, save for fleeting moments. Peace that lasts, though, is a gift to the repentant; to the man or woman who acknowledges failings and works to better them. It is not the perfect who prevails, nor the mighty who obtains, but the humble and meek who learn the lessons of life and learn to move forward; it is they who will, as said the Master, inherit the earth.