back under the stairs. Still nothing.
Debbie walked into the building, “Boys, are you
in here? I saw you run in here. Quit playing
around!” She was putting on her best concerned
parent act just in case someone was coming or
looking out a door. Matthew and I appeared from
beneath the stairs and reported what happened
with a shrug. Several seconds later, Bobby
strolled in and eyed the three of us clustered at
the end of the hall. Debbie gave him the bag and
the all clear.
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Matthew ran up the stairs and took his post at the
top of the stairs. If anyone came while Bobby was
breaking in, he was to run down the stairs as
loudly as possible. The three of us walked down
the hall to the first apartment door. I took my
post at the front door. Bobby chose the door
closest to the entrance and knocked on it himself.
After a few seconds of silence, he unzipped the
duffel bag and pulled out the flat pry bar, then
lowered the bag to the ground. Debbie knelt by
Bobby’s side and handed tools up as needed.
As I stared out the front door, I heard the metal
door pop open quickly under Bobby’s brute force.
I turned and saw Debbie pulling pillowcases from
the duffel bag, then zipping up the bag and
tossing it inside the apartment. She waved to me
and gestured for me to get my brother. I ran
quickly up the first set of stairs to the landing and
waved to Matthew to come down. Bracing myself
against the rail, I slid slowly to the bottom of the
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stairs. Matthew came bouncing behind me, still
trying to wake the residents.
The apartment smelled of powder and dust, there
were no food smells like I was used to. The houses
and apartments we broke into with Bobby always
smelled this way. Debbie handed each of us a
pillowcase, and we were let loose. Bobby had
trained us well, and we kept in good practice in
the art of burglary. Matthew and I were in charge
of packing the obvious items of value. We stole
silverware, candlesticks, jewelry, and any money
we found in plain sight. Bobby had taught us the
secret places people hide their valuables. He was
almost always right. In each room of the large
apartment, we dumped all the shiny items into
our pillowcases. Bobby went directly to the
bedrooms. Debbie hit the bathrooms, looking for
prescription drugs.
Bobby emerged from a bedroom, stuffing his
front pocket. He called to Matthew excitedly,
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“Drop that bag son and come to daddy for a
minute.”
Glowing with pride, Matthew placed his clinking
pillowcase on a couch and strutted into the
kitchen. I moved extra slowly through the living
room, as I spied Bobby’s tender attention to
Matthew.
“Get up there and find us somethin’ good boy,”
his voice full of encouragement as he carefully
thrust Matthew up above his head to search the
high cabinets. Matthew swept his hands and eyes
across the top of the cabinet.
“Over there,” Matthew said, pointing to the other
end.
Bobby strode effortlessly to the opposite end of
the cabinet with Matthew still held in midair
above his head. Matthew pulled down a small
box and was lovingly lowered to the ground.
Diverting my gaze, I began throwing everything
in sight into my pillowcase. Debbie continued her
search in the bedrooms for jewelry and anything
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else of value. Bobby stood motionless in the
kitchen, rifling through the small box and hastily
stuffed its contents into his pockets. There was no
television or stereo, and that made Bobby mad.
He began to curse whoever lived there and
stomped around the living room, stabbing a
screwdriver through the glass of all of the picture
frames. It was time to move on.
We moved directly across the hall, trying to stay
close to the front door of the building. Bobby
pounded a crowbar against the bottom of the
door, and I could hear the echo inside the
apartment. He popped the door with ease, and
we were inside again. Debbie moved quickly to
the back bedroom, and I heard a scream.
Looking up from my pillowcase, I saw Debbie
slowly backing into the room. In front of her was
a white haired old woman in a nightgown. She
was wearing a heavy pearl necklace and a funny
looking hat. She didn’t seem scared or even
alarmed that we were there. She was mumbling
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something that I could not make out. Before I
knew what was happening, I saw Bobby swing the
crowbar across the woman’s face. Blood sprayed
from the gash instantly. She collapsed to the floor
before the crowbar was at Bobby’s side.
“Beat the hell out’er, Matt, get’er!” Bobby
commanded.
Matthew attacked her with a ferocity I knew well.
He had learned from Bobby. Matthew liked it.
He hit her over and over again until her eyes
closed. Bobby had stood and watched as his
favorite son beat the old woman unconscious
before moving around the room looking for more
loot. I, too, stood watching, unable to move until
Bobby noticed and ordered me back to work. In a
moment of greed and disgust, I snatched the
pearls from the old woman’s throat and stuffed
them in my pillowcase. Matthew never stopped
hitting her.
Hoisting the television from its place, Bobby
made a quick exit to the car outside. The three of
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us followed with Debbie carrying the extra bags.
We left the old woman’s apartment with her lying
in a bloody pool on the floor, not knowing or
caring if she was alive or dead. We loaded
ourselves, and Bobby’s loot, into the car and fled
back to the Village. Bobby raced back onto the
interstate, as the car filled with cigarette smoke
and laughter. The radio came on for the first
time, and Debbie sang along while she grabbed
Bobby’s thigh. He looked at her and yelled,
“Bitch, I love you!”
The radio blared, as we returned to the safety of
the Village. After racing through the maze of
buildings, the car came to a screeching halt,
inches from the brick façade of our building.
Bobby was still laughing, as he jumped from the
car. He threw the seat forward for Matthew to
climb out and then reached in to grab the
television. Matthew and I grabbed our
pillowcases, while Debbie grabbed the rest. Into
the dark and musty building we ran. Matthew
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and I lugged our pillowcases one step at a time,
making more noise than we should have, but the
makeshift bags were much too heavy for us to
carry up three flights of stairs with any grace. I
heard Bobby kicking the door and yelling for the
men inside to open the door. There was more
noise from above, and then one of the men
descended the stairs and grabbed the pillowcases
from Matthew and me, throwing one over each
shoulder with a smile.
“Yer a hell uva kid,” he said to Matthew before
running back up the stairs.
“Race ya,” was all Matthew said as he darted up
the remaining stairs to the apartment. The door
was locked when we got there. Matthew did the
special knock, and the door was opened.
There was a party going on in the tiny apartment,
and Matthew and I were suddenly in the middle
of it. The two men we had left in the apartment
were digging through the loot, as Bobby plugged
in the television. The new one was much larger
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and nicer than ours, and everyone was easily
excited by it.
The men were each making piles out of the
pillowcases and commenting on which fence in
the Village would take which pieces and how
much could be gained from taking it out of the
city. With the television in place, Bobby grabbed
a pillowcase and dumped it in front of him.
Debbie passed out beers to each of the men.
“Matt, get yer ass over here,” he called.
Matthew bounced over to Bobby’s side, smiling.
“Yeah?”
“This yer bag boy?”
“I think so.”
Pulling from the bottle of beer he’d just been
handed, Bobby took a breath and yelled proudly,
“Gotdamn that’s a helluva job boy,” as he
cuddled Matthew close to his side.
“Baby, get this man a beer. He done earned it
today. This the best you ever done. I’m proud of
my little man today,” Bobby beamed as he turned
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to his friends. “You shoulda seen tha way he beat
dat bitch in dat house today. I’ll tell ya, this
sonuvabitch has learned from the best!” He said
to no one in particular.
Debbie looked at Bobby without saying a word.
He did not notice and never turned his gaze from
his young protégé. She moved away and
wandered stoically to the refrigerator, pulling out
another beer. She moved painfully back to the
living room and handed her oldest son a beer. I
sat behind the couch and watched the scene
unfold.
Sitting in his high back chair, Bobby launched his
mission to turn the loot into cash and drugs. The
phone rang each time it was set back in its cradle.
Purveying his bounty as he spoke, I heard Bobby
describe his take to the various callers. The deals
were sealed, and Bobby was pleased. He shuffled
the loot quickly and divided it into distinct piles.
Matthew and I were ordered to take it carefully,
pile by pile, into the spare bedroom. When all the
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piles were moved and the living room floor was
clear again, we waited for our next order.
Matthew picked up his beer and retreated to
Bobby’s side. Debbie sat on the couch, rolling
joints. The two men sat on either side of Debbie,
talking frantically. The room had become a
frenzy of excitement.
Rhythmic knocks brought men and women
flooding into the apartment. Before Matthew
finished his beer, the room was filled with people,
smoke and music. Some of the people I had seen
before, but they did not acknowledge that I was
in the room. Matthew was sitting on Bobby’s lap,
as he recounted his beating of the old woman.
“Daddy knocked her down and I jumped on top
of her and beat on her till she din’t move,” he
bragged, “she was bleedin’ all over the floor, and
it was gettin’ on me so I got up and kicked her,”
he paused and took a sip of his beer. Bobby
nodded his head like a proud papa and rubbed
Matthew’s shaggy blonde hair. Bobby grabbed
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the empty beer bottle from his hand and held it
above his head, “That’s my boy. I love this little
mufucka!” he exclaimed.
He turned his gaze in my direction and yelled,
“Hey, quit being a worthless piece of shit an’ get
yer brother a beer.”
I leapt from my haven behind the couch and
scurried to the fridge. I grabbed a bottle and
hurried back to Bobby. As I handed him the
bottle, he scolded me quietly: “That aint fo’ me
asshole, give it da him.” Matthew smirked, as I
handed him the beer. The party gathered around
Bobby’s chair, begging to hear Matthew recount
his story over and over. It changed with each
telling, getting more graphic each time, until
finally he bragged about having kicked the old
woman to death. No one seemed to notice the
inconsistencies, as they drank and smoked. Some
snorted cocaine from a platter on the table in the
middle of the room. The party only laughed as
Matthew got drunk and rested his head on
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Bobby’s giant shoulder. Debbie whispered in
Bobby’s ear, and he shook Matthew awake.
“Get up, you all right.”
Matthew’s head rolled around, and he hopped
down onto the floor. Matthew landing firmly on
his feet elicited applause from the room. Bobby
got up and moved into the small hall area.
“Tony wants some; I said not tonight, but I think
you need to tell him,” she pleaded.
“If Tony wants some give him some, ya know he
got tha money. Where he at?” Bobby’s eyes shot
across the room.
Tony was a frequent visitor, and I knew him well.
He was a tall, slender brother with a large afro.
Always dressed in a flashy half-open shirt and
tight pants, he wore the same brown boots as
Bobby. Now he stood in the center of the room,
holding the platter of cocaine to his face, with his
eyes trained on Debbie.
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Bobby stepped toward me and grabbed my arm,
dragging me to my mother. “Take him with you,
he just in the way out here.”
I watched, as Bobby moved toward Tony and
patted him on the back. Debbie pulled my head
around to face her.
“I love you. You know that, right?” It wasn’t a
question. Her familiar slurred speech and glassy
eyes told me that she was high. “Go sit in the
room like your daddy said. You don’t have to
watch if you don’t want.” She pushed me down