Wednesday, September 15, 2010

caught stealing.

caught stealing.

and stealing is the last thing on earth that some would want to be known for even when they’re standing in between heaven and skid row. stealing. some might get a feeling of sick from such a word. not me as I can’t help taking what’s not mine and using it cause everything in this fine world takes a bite of something else and then gets by using it.

At the 711 looking for some beer with Clay and Alton shows up with Jane. Jane says she wants to go. I tell her there’s no way we’re going without grabbing something first. The clerk is watching us watch him instead of the door. There’s a man with a poodle outside the door. The clerk shifts his eyes when the dog yelps because some random guy with sunglasses scares him by screaming as he leaves the store.  It’s then I stick a six pack into Jane’s bag and Alton throws another under her Tom Ford exclusively one of kind coat. Clay keeps looking like he’s wasted and hands me a bag of sunflower seeds. I put them in my already full pocket and we leave while Clay stops to buy a pack of gum and takes a lighter from the display.

Sometimes I think, I don’t know why Clay does it. It’s not out of necessity. It’s not. He’s born and raised nearly straight off the country club with his day-to-day set of perfect clothes. Nothing like me or Jane with our luck that gets us by day-to-day with something.

Clay is the personification of a character that fell out of an Aberzombie and Fitch catalog one day and decided to try acid while base-jumping listening to Lou Reed off a four-story apartment building in East LA. More often than not he likes to take things that he doesn’t need. Need is palpable. And his is not as he slices open the contents of $4 DVD from Target then takes it home as a souvenir for the wall. The back wall of his living room in the 10.5 million dollar house that Ken-doll modeling didn't help buy, is covered with $4 dollar treasures from Target. He calls them his target practice and typically they’re not even movies he wants or likes. Somewhere in the sprawling mess he’s started a game room. Only the high dollar items and scene girls that like to star fuck are allowed in there. Alton once offered him a hand job if he would pretend she was Mick Jagger in the attempt to take a look. Lights out. 15 minutes. Neither got what they wanted in the end.

Alton is missing a chip up in her head. A screw loose or something like that. Therapist after therapist tells her that she’s got the noggin of a sociopath. But that doesn’t matter to her. In fact there is very little that Alton cares about except for stealing.

Alton looks like a model and talks like a sailor, carries around a plethora of sensor removing devices in her Gucci bag while smoking Marlboro reds in-between talking too much to anyone about how she’d like to fuck David Bowie. She once told an agent about this want and he told her that he could make it happen for a price. She says David’s not a whore and everyone she tells the story to that she’d never pay to make it happen. She makes her way in and out of the fine clothing establishments with anywhere between $3000-$5000 in clothing every day. Grand Theft Fashion. This is Alton’s full-time agenda apart from pick-pocketing men on the LA subway, especially the ones she picks up with the line, “Wanna ride me on the underground?” These men always answer a question with a question, “There’s an underground in LA?” but no one ever says ‘no’ to Alton. Not when she looks like that and talks as ridiculous as that.

Been caught stealing. Red-handed. Hand in the cookie jar. This time I’ve got a watch somewhere on my person and they’ll never find it. Cuffed and being carried through the open court of the mall. All the pretty little people doing pretty little shopping at the indoor venue for purchasing a whole lot of nothing and now they’re watching me, the awful criminal man being dragged through their day.

I think at the least the worst is over as the rent a cop mall security finishes frisking me for the watch I stole from the hand of the sales clerk. The truth is… he’ll never find it. Not where he’s looking anyway. It won’t be long before he gives up and throws me to the curb. They can’t hold you if you’ve done nothing wrong.

Watching Jane do it is like entertainment. She’s the girl next door with a ponytail and wholesome smile, walking in and out with her fast hands that react and don’t care where she’s at. In the store. In the park. In your house. In the middle of a crowd.  My girl’s like me she don’t need a reason.

Jane’s like a magician with her hands right out in the open. Handling business with me on the front side and reaching into the jacket of someone behind her faster than I can notice. It’s happening out where people don’t want to notice the obvious actions. As she’s walking up to a stranger’s bag rifling through it in the line at the store. Tells them she is looking for something if they catch her. They smile with patronization to the crazy girl and tell her that it’s not in there when she’s already taken their money and a royal red lipstick or appointment book and prescription of valium. She’ll bump into a man grab more than his waistline and while he’s busy enjoying the unnecessary action she’s taken his wallet, his keys and even his belt if he’s not careful. Hands are faster than the eyes.

Watching Jane in the 711 is like watching a master go to work. Not only is she packing the beer, but she’s managed to grab everything that no one is watching. Lighter fluid up her skirt, toothbrushes down her shirt, and if you’re lucky you’ll catch the lines of a cherry chapstick and a ball point pin in her hair. Then they sell these exclusive to 711 things on a shelf. No one wants anything exclusive that might make your insides your outsides. Jane takes them anyway and tosses one to the scared poodle on the way out.

I’m outside of the security booth at the mall when Jane phones me. I can’t remember picking up a phone today but its Jane so it must be mine. She tells me that she’s meeting Alton at 4, but right now she’s sitting with Sergio in a bookstore and waiting for his drug test watching people try to look important pretending they have better things to do. When I ask her where she’s going next she tells me that I’m supposed to meet in Clay outside of the electronics department at sears cause he has a surprise. Never telling me where she’ll be next.

Stealing watches right off someone’s wrist is like performing an act of magical community service. This is what I tell Clay when I meet him outside of Sears where he’s been waiting with a boombox secured neatly under his arm. I question him that’s the surprise and he tells me, no follow and watch. We reenter the store, return the boombox and leave with some large Craftsmen tools that are for opening things. I think this is a nifty trick and he tells me it’s not so handy before telling me about the Zoo.

We’re at the zoo watching the monkeys. No one is watching the monkeys at the zoo we just walked into thirty minutes ago after not paying and no intention of paying for where I swooped us three lemonade from a stand while a pimply faced girl made time with a boy wearing braces that looked like a child version of Clay. They didn’t even notice I was there. I walked up and walked away. One. Two. Three. After I finished the first lemonade Clay took the other two and tossed them into the monkey cage. Jane calls with Alton and wants to know what next, I tell her that I don’t know but we’re busy and after this I want some beer. Clay takes the phone and tells her 711. I tell him to fuck off. He tosses my phone. It shatters. He tells me that he’ll get me another but I tell him all I want is a beer. Clay starts cutting and hands me the other tool as he tells me that we’re going to when we’re done here. I tell him no one wants what’s inside of there to come out, and he tells me this is what he wants.

Outside of the 711 there’s a woman screaming about the monkey in backseat of Clay’s Porsche while the scared poodle isn’t yapping, the monkey is spitting on the windows of her car through the bars of its cage in the back of his car. Alton is busy with the man and his scared poodle who isn’t yapping, while Clay hands the screaming woman a wad of money, Jane smiles at me and takes the woman’s pocketbook. I tell her nothing and show her my new watch. She tells me she got me a shirt today and I tell her that’s just fine I needed another one before we…


Caught? In the act. Ever steal anything? Uh-huh... tell me more. So you took something that wasn't yours and then what? Did you get caught taking it? Art takes from itself. Cannibalizes to create new. No real-time updates. You’re not really busy if you have time to update others on the busy. A little less inside and outside today. Promised new though. And following through… in my own way of course. and new music… any recommends of day songs that become night songs that I can steal and make mine? song of the day/hour/moment: been caught stealing – jane’s addiction. have a great day… enjoy! kisses. m.

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