As a Thief in the Night

by Chuck Crabbe

  The car moved faster and faster down the street as Alex looked wide-eyed out the windshield. The woman's purse was open on the console in between them. Ezra checked behind them again. The back of the car swayed as they tore into a parking lot. Alex pulled into a stall between several other cars and in front of a big apartment building. As soon as he'd parked, he began rifling through the purse. There was no wallet inside, just a few stray bills, some change, and cigarettes. Alex stuffed them into the inside pocket of his puffy winter jacket.

  "Alex! We can't do this!" The reality of what they had done overwhelmed Ezra.

  "Let's go," said Alex, and he pushed open the door and started to run.

  "Alex! Alex!" Ezra pleaded from behind as they ran across the lot. Alex stopped on the shadowy side of the building near a dumpster.

  "What! What is it?"

  "We can't do this," Ezra gasped. "We've got to take it back."

  "No! No way! We're not taking it back. It's done."

  As his friend jumped the high fence in front of them, Ezra heard sirens. Suddenly Ezra thought to himself: "It is one thing to hear sirens, when the crisis is far away (the old man dies, the fire consumes the photo, the bloody knife falls to the kitchen floor, the child is pulled from the pool, the neighbour hears...what?), it is something very different to hear sirens and know they are for you." Snapping back to reality he jumped the fence and chased after the dark silhouette of his friend. Finally, Ezra caught him, his eyes filled with tears from the icy wind and from his own fear too, and he begged Alex again to go back, but DaLivre would have none of it.

  Together, they ran behind an industrial mall, across a muddy lot where construction had stopped for the winter, and stumbled onto a cross street. Pulling up to a stop sign just ahead of them, they saw the back of Adam Nayeve's car (they knew it from the way the back bumper was hanging loose). Alex sprinted up to it, catching Adam just as he was pulling away again, and hammered his fist hard on the trunk to catch the driver's attention. Scared to death because of what had happened, Adam slammed on the brakes again and looked around wildly as if he expected the very hounds of hell to pounce on his father's car. But then Alex showed his face in the passenger window, and Adam knew that the fist pounding had happened only because his friends had found him by a lucky chance. Ezra got into the back seat, his lungs burning from the cold. "You crazy bastards!" Adam said as soon as they were inside.

  All the way home they watched for police cars, but saw none. Adam told them what had happened after they had left with the car. For maybe five minutes he had just sat in the McDonald's parking lot and watched in his rearview mirror. The woman had come back outside with a guy who looked like the manager and pointed to where her car had been. Then the two of them just stood there, probably waiting for the police. Adam had pulled out and left right in front of them.

  "I'm done," Ezra said. "I can't do this anymore."

  He did not sleep that night. Layne was away staying at a friend's house, and Ezra went up to his room, put a chair in front of the second-story window, in the middle of pile of clothes Layne had left on the floor, and looked out along the long driveway. He wondered about fingerprints. Had they been taken when he was a child? Would his be found on the woman's car and be matched to the ones he began to think must exist in some massive database somewhere. It was done on television. He was not sure if his mother had taken him to have them done when he was young. Did mothers do that? At any moment he expected to see a police car turn its lazy black and white body between the two stone pillars at the end of the property. Elsie was a light sleeper. The headlights would shine through the windows and wake her.

  The police did not come. All that Ezra saw from his window that night was Jason B. Prism. It was not unusual to see him wandering alone and aimlessly at some strange hour. Streetlights lit his ragged figure as he walked under them, the light overhead embracing and then abandoning him to the darkness again. The winter firefly at the end of his cigarette brightened and then blurred again as he breathed in his solitary pleasure. He walked without knowing where he was going but not without a sense of purpose. Pausing in front of one of the pillars, it looked to Ezra as if he were using one of his long fingernails to try to pry something loose from the stone. But whatever he was after was too securely attached and he gave up. Without stopping again he disappeared down the road. There was no rain anymore, but it was now snowing. Soon the snow would cover the tracks his big shoes had left behind.

  Jason B. Prism was black. This, as well as his madness, made him a different sort of man than one usually saw in Belle River. At the age of twenty-four he had had a schizophrenic attack and lost his mind. It happened at the University of Toronto, where he had been a promising archaeology student. Ezra saw him nearly every day, usually asking people for change or cigarettes outside of the coffee shop or the convenience store. He was six feet-five, wore a tattered, stained winter jacket that was too short for his arms, and took poor care of his matted dreadlocks and beard. Sometimes Ezra and his friends would stop to talk with him and give him quarters and dimes for coffee. When they did he held his hands together strangely, as if he expected a waterfall of coins to fall over them and was just trying to catch what he could.

  He was always rambling incoherently about archaeology; the various strata and quality of soil, the means by which archaeologists succeeded and failed to find artifacts, the way in which artifacts and the earth that hid them had to be studied to be understood, and the locations which he believed concealed the bones and tools of primeval men. Would you please make sure he got to this or that location in Mesopotamia? Or to the banks of this river in South America? Or to this desert in North Africa? It was necessary that he go quickly, before some other explorer gained access to the information he had. His sophisticated diction made it obvious that he had once been a man of reason and intelligence.

  No one seemed to know where he lived. Ezra imagined it was in some small apartment above a shop, or in someone's dank basement. Wherever it was, Jason B. Prism spent very little time there. He preferred to be outside, no matter how cold or how late at night, mumbling to himself, walking alone in the empty streets and staring, his eyes glazed with the hint of something unpredictable in them. Weather was irrelevant.

  As a young Ph.d candidate he had been close to the conclusion of his thesis, which dealt with nomadic hunting patterns and their relation to archaeological finds, but as he neared the end of the paper on which he had worked so passionately, the fears that had lain dormant in some remote part of his mind—the same fears that most of us have the good fortune of never being exposed to—began their slow incursion into his sanity. At first he had been able to see his fears for what they were and keep enough distance so as to appear normal, though preoccupied, to his colleagues and few friends at school. The very frightening thing about such thoughts though is that, in relation to the will of their victim, they are an autonomous force. They are the demons that attacked our more God fearing ancestors. As Jason got further and further into his work, the sense of separation he had been able to maintain from his delusions became narrower, and then finally collapsed.

  He had been walking in downtown Toronto, as was his habit before his evening work session, and had seen a horse and carriage, of the kind that still treats romance hungry couples to old fashioned rides around the city. Apparently, one of the horses had misbehaved in some awful way, because the driver had stopped the carriage, looking as if he had finally lost his temper after a long series of ignored warnings, gotten down from his seat, and was smacking the horse with his open hand and giving it a good tongue lashing to go with it, while the shocked couple gawked at his show of violence from their seats. For some strange reason this was the breaking point for Jason B. Prism. He rushed up to the horse, threw his arms around it as if he were a mother protecting her endangered child, began weeping terribly, and could not be convinced to let go. Prism was unusually strong and it had taken four police officers to pry his grip loose and finally subdue h
im.

  Ezra was frightened in the days that followed the car theft. He believed the police would arrive outside his door at any moment; the crime had been too stupid and sloppy to escape punishment. In daydreams he saw the small car still sitting in the parking lot with the spiral patterns of his fingerprints glowing hot blue in all the places he had touched it. It would not be hard for them to find him.

  Finally something had scared some sense into him. In the weeks before he had begun to feel as if the momentum of their crimes had grown beyond his control and that, if they did not stop, something he would not be able to come back from was on a horizon he could not see, but knew was close. Maybe Alex or one of the other boys they had been hanging with would make good on one of their threats. In their voices and eyes he'd read a new willingness toward violence, and was beyond anything he was willing to be a part of. So, he thought to himself, maybe it was good that they had stolen the car. Perhaps it had brought an end to what could have ended so badly.

  The smoking area was outside beside the parking lot, against the fence. Students skipping class for the afternoon drove by them and hit the speed bumps harder than they should have.

  "I was thinking," Alex said as he lit Adam's cigarette for him, "about doing one more job." He said "job" as if he were Butch Channer or John Dillinger. It was cold outside and Ezra put his hands in his pockets and drew his shoulders up to stay warm.

  "What kind of job?"

  "A place where we can grab a lot of easy money. A place with an open door."

  "An open door?"

  "Yeah," he exhaled. "I know a door they keep open, even at night."

  "Where is this place?" Ezra asked.

  "It's on the road to St. Joachim."

  "Past the church?"

  "It is the church."

  Nick Carraway, who had only been giving the conversation the slightest attention while he looked over a Mustang parked nearby, shot his eyes quickly toward Alex.

  "Our church?" he snapped.

  "Yeah."

  "You're crazy, Alex."

  "I know," he said through a smile. "What do you guys think?" he asked, tapping Ezra's foot with the side of his running shoe. "One more time and then that's it."

  "Shit, Alex, I'm eighteen now. If I ever got caught doing any of this craziness, I'd be arrested as an adult." Adam's birthday had been that December.

  "What do you say, Ezra?"

  Ezra let out a deep breath, looked up at his friend, and said, "I don't know."

  TIKTO 5088

  It was the Thursday before Easter and Olyvia Mignon was at work at the theatre in Walpurgis. She always liked to be there on opening night to see the costumes she had made come out from behind the curtain for the first time. They had taken shape and changed in her drawings and on the design table, then, when the bodies of the actors filled them out at rehearsals and the stage lights played on them, they had become something else, something full of potential, but it was not until opening night, when the eyes of the audience fell upon them, that they finally became alive. The final transformation took place after the tragedy or comedy had run its course, when the costumes were placed one on top of the other in their trunk coffins. But it was not Olyvia who put them there, and she did not know who did. It was someone else's job. All the comforts of disguise...

  Sometime over the last few weeks she had begun to be troubled by sporadic but intense lower abdominal pain. Olyvia was not one to run to the doctor for minor discomforts, but during the last few days the pains had grown worse and more frequent. Earlier in the day, as she was making sure everything was as it should be for that night, the pain had hit at its worst and she had doubled over in front of a couple of stage hands. She called her doctor and made an appointment for after Easter.

  From a doorway in the back of the theatre she watched the actors move on and off the stage. They delivered their lines in histrionic tones. She had known for a long time that most of them were not particularly talented, but she did not care. Someone came in from the door behind her and a little light from the lobby spilled into the dark theatre. She felt a hand upon her shoulder.

  "Olyvia, we need you backstage." It was one of the girls from the university who worked part-time to put herself through school, a pretty half-Asian woman who was studying midwifery.

  "What's up?" she whispered back.

  "The guy playing David's son can't find his crown."

  "It's in his locker with the rest of his stuff."

  "He's saying it isn't."

  "It's there. I hung it there myself."

  "Well, he's stumbling around back there like an idiot. He's in a big panic."

  "Alright," Olyvia sighed. But as soon as she moved to head backstage the stabbing pain came again, this time so badly that she was slowly forced down to her knees. The girl who had come from backstage rushed to her side.A few of the audience members seated at the back of the theatre turned around because of the commotion. Olyvia winced in pain and dropped her head. She tried to compose herself, and after several moments took the girl's hand and allowed her to help her up. In the lobby she balanced herself against the wall.

  "Are you alright?" the girl asked, still holding her hand.

  "I'm okay; I just need a minute. I'm sure the crown's—"

  "Don't worry about the crown. Someone else can take care of it."

  "Okay," she winced again, as if the effort of speaking were bringing on the pain. "I think I need to use the washroom. I feel a bit nauseous."

  "Alright, take my arm."

  The young woman led her into the ladies' room. As soon as they had entered, Olyvia rushed to one of the stalls, flung open the door, and threw up in the toilet. The girl rushed up behind her. "Okay, that's it! I'm calling an ambulance," she said firmly, after Olyvia had coughed the last of it out.

  "No, no. It's nothing like that."

  "Olyvia, are you sure? What's wrong?"

  "Nothing," Olyia breathed heavily. She used her arms, on either side of the toilet, to prop herself up. "I've just been having spells lately."

  "This has happened before?"

  "Yes," she lied.

  "Can I do anything?"

  "Maybe you could just put some pressure on my lower back with your hand for a minute."

  "Does it hurt?"

  "Yeah, it's a bit sore."

  She put her hand on Olyvia's back, just above the coccyx, but the pain hit her in the stomach again and she winced.

  She knelt on the bathroom floor for several minutes. They could hear the muted music of the pit band through the wall. The girl held her hair and pressed down on her lower back, which relieved some of the pain. When Olyvia felt good enough to stand again she went to wash her face and hands in the sink. Then, with the girl following and watching over her closely, she went to look for the missing costume piece, but could not find it. That moron has lost it, she thought to herself.

  She felt embarrassed and knew she couldn't stay, so she found the manager and told him she was going home. The young woman insisted on driving her. She told Olyvia she had to get a few people up to speed and made her promise to wait for her in the car. Gathering her things quickly, Olyvia headed out to the parking lot. But as soon as she got outside the pain came again, lower in her stomach this time. She struggled to get into the car and only half shut the door behind her. The pain became even worse and she gripped the steering wheel hard with both hands and waited for whatever was gripping her organs to let go. When the pain finally subsided she felt something odd between her legs. Was it? It felt like that. She undid her pants and stuck her hand down the front of them. When she pulled it back out it had blood on it.

  Southwest of Olyvia and her pains, her sister's son played European Handball. Ezra had never played until that year, but liked it as soon as he'd tried it. Practices were late because they had to wait for the basketball teams to be done with the gym. Alex DaLivre and Adam Nayeve walked in to the gym toward the end of practice and sat down on the bleachers to wait for him. They w
ore heavy winter jackets and had the smell of cigarettes and cold weather about them.

  In the days before Ezra had wondered if he would be able to go through with it. Alone, behind the altar, there was a cross that hung on the wall. To get to the office, where the collection money was kept, they would have to walk across the back of the sanctuary and across the face of the cross. Would he freeze in front of it? Would the weight of what he was doing finally seize him?

  A half-hearted prayer lived upon his lips. Strange that he should pray at all, but Ezra asked for an omen to steer him away—if the crime was not meant to happen, if God really forbade it. But he slept soundly. When he woke he searched his memory for traces of some stern or gentle voice to instruct him and determine his steps, but he found nothing. God has shown me the same indifference he showed my mother in the flames. For I have searched for benevolent whispers and found only dying wind.

  He was still sweating when the three of them left the school. In Ontario, even towards the end of April, it gets dark early. The sweat froze in his hair and he pulled his hood up over his head. Out on the street, Alex pulled a big knife out of the backpack he was wearing. Ezra just shrugged. The gravel on the road was frozen in place and coarse and they kicked it loose while they walked. He had a cold that he'd been fighting off for the last few days and he coughed roughly. Adam and Alex lit cigarettes and smoked. They offered one to Ezra but he refused. He did not want to smoke anymore.

  They cut through parking lots and walked in front of houses that had windows with winter steam on them. Inside the houses Ezra saw families eating dinner and watching television. He could not make out the screens through the fog but saw the lights changing on walls and couches and on people's faces.

  The three boys walked in front of the Charcoal Pit and saw Jason B. Prism sitting at a table, a half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray, and the remains of the meal he had just eaten in front of him. Alex tapped on the window and waved at him. Jason waved back with his long fingers and went on mumbling to himself. They kept on past the grocery store, the co-op gas station, and then by one of the convenience stores from which they'd stolen. It was the same store where Ezra had rented movies and bought treats in the days when he had spent such nights as this one alone. After they were beyond these places, there was only a long stretch of road with houses in front of them.