Matthew Dicks

by Something Missing (v5)

  Things became desperate in January when Dunkin’ Donuts began cutting back on Martin’s hours as business slowed following the holidays. Working less than twenty hours a week, he had been looking for other employment when the alternator on his 1978 Chevy Malibu failed, Jim came up short with his share of the rent, and their toilet became hopelessly clogged. Though he managed to repair his car and cover Jim’s rent that month (an act of kindness that Jim had never forgotten), he was left with absolutely no money for groceries, including the Liquid Plumbr that he would need in order to clear the pipes in his toilet. With no other options, Martin turned in the only direction he could.

  His parents.

  Martin’s mother had remarried when he was seven years old, and so the stepfather that he would grow to hate more and more through the years was the only father that Martin had ever truly known. Martin remembered his biological father as a brave and strong man who had failed to act as such when thrown out of his house by a wife who had fallen in love with another man. He had left with his proverbial tail between his legs, and Martin was left with a stepfather whom he despised.

  By the time he was a junior in high school, his stepfather (aided by his mother’s compliance) had managed to convey the message that upon graduation, Martin would be moving out, releasing his parents from any financial responsibility. Avoiding words, his parents had initiated their plan with a series of gifts designed to convey this message for them: a microwave oven for his sixteenth birthday, a set of towels at Christmas of the same year, and a vacuum cleaner and set of dishes on his eighteenth birthday. All of these gifts sent a clear message to Martin: You will need these things because you will be leaving us soon.

  Despite his solid academic background, “college” was a word never mentioned in Martin’s home, and somehow he had managed to escape high school without a guidance counselor ever discussing the prospect with him. Perhaps Mr. Malloy had called Martin’s parents early on and received word about their unspectacular vision of Martin’s future. Or, more likely, Mr. Malloy, who also served as the school’s track and field coach, had spent all his time on athletes and student government members and had forgotten about the quirky little kid with good grades but little personality.

  So in January, with the heat set at forty-five degrees and the cupboard literally bare, Martin went home for help. His initial plan had been to explain the recent string of bad luck to his parents and ask for assistance until he found more work. It was a Tuesday evening in February when he arrived at the front door of his parents’ house and found the windows completely dark. His parents were uncharacteristically out for the evening, and Martin couldn’t imagine where they might have gone. If anyone had a predictable schedule, it was his parents.

  Martin turned and headed back toward his car when he realized that he still had a house key, and with a belly grumbling from a day’s worth of missed meals (apart from the doughnuts he devoured at work), Martin decided that it was time to eat.

  It was odd to think of himself as a stranger in his childhood home, but as he fried eggs on a stove that his mother had used to cook his meals for more than eighteen years, the sense that he was an intruder intensified. Though it hadn’t occurred to him when he cracked his first egg, by the time the toast was brown and the eggs were well scrambled, he had begun to suspect that his parents, particularly his stepfather (though his mother would surely be standing beside her husband, silent and compliant), would not approve of his unsanctioned use of the kitchen and his consumption of their food. By the time Martin was buttering the last piece of toast, he had convinced himself of the severe reprimand that he would receive from his parents for the intrusion, and had decided to make every effort to escape before being noticed.

  Not knowing where his parents were or when they would return made this process a stressful one for Martin. He began by rinsing off the dishes, initially forgoing the time it would take to apply soap but quickly realizing that if he did not take the time to wash the dishes thoroughly, his parents would determine on their own that someone had been in the house. Suspicion would then naturally fall upon the only other person with a key. This stress-filled balance between washing quickly and washing meticulously served as the basis for many of Martin’s future business decisions.

  He never wanted to be in a similar situation again.

  With the dishes washed, dried, and replaced in the cupboards as close to their original positions as he could remember (another problem Martin would later rectify, through the use of digital photography), he turned his attention to the kitchen surfaces: the stove, the sink, and the small round table upon which he had eaten. Wiping these surfaces with paper towels that he then stuffed into his pants pockets, he had the entire kitchen cleaned and returned to what he hoped was its original condition in less than ten minutes. He was pleased with himself. He thought that the chances were good that his presence would go undetected.

  Martin felt less confident about the food that he had eaten. Four slices of bread for toast, three eggs, and nearly a half stick of butter were impossible to replace without more time. He felt that the missing bread would likely go unnoticed, but he was less certain about the eggs and especially the butter. His mother loved to bake, and if she had recently cooked up something that required butter, she was likely to remember exactly how much was left. In addition, butter was not a product whose loss was easily attributed to someone else in the home. It would be difficult for his mother to imagine that her husband had gone through half a stick of butter on his own. After all, there’s only so much a person who doesn’t bake can do with butter.

  In order to deal with this problem, Martin removed a whole stick of butter from the box in the refrigerator (leaving three sticks behind), and lopped off slightly less than a third of it before placing the rest on the butter dish. He stuffed the remaining butter in his pocket, reasoning that it was more likely that his mother knew how much butter was on the butter dish than how many sticks were left in the box.

  As for the eggs, there was nothing Martin could do except move three of them forward to the front row of the egg drawer, hoping that their loss would go unnoticed. Despite the missing food items, Martin felt that his chances were good that his visit would remain undiscovered.

  He was exiting the house, wishing he hadn’t parked in the driveway, when the need to urinate reminded him that his toilet at home was still clogged and in desperate need of Liquid Plumbr. This was a product that his parents always kept on hand (his mother had always been a practitioner of the lots-of-toilet-paper single-flush method), and Martin felt with certainty that he could remove a bottle without it ever being missed. He raced to the upstairs linen closet, found two bottles in their accustomed spot on the closet floor, and took the one already open. This, unlike the butter, was a product whose disappearance could easily be attributed to another person in the house, as its use was probably not advertised.

  With Liquid Plumbr now in hand, Martin had made it halfway down the brick walkway to the driveway when the lights of his parents’ Oldsmobile blinded him. Not expecting another car in the driveway, his stepfather skidded to a halt just inches from the Malibu’s rear bumper. He was out of the car in seconds, shouting at Martin as he closed the gap between them.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing parking in the middle of the drive like that? Jesus Christ, I almost hit you! This driveway’s got plenty of room for two cars if you don’t park dead center … and hello? What the hell is that in your hand? Huh?”

  Martin stared up at the man, just over six feet tall with the hint of a middle-aged gut beginning to show, and quickly sought out an excuse, a lie, to extract himself from this situation. But knowing that there was little he could say other than the truth, and feeling completely defeated over his current financial situation, he mumbled, “My toilet’s blocked and I couldn’t afford any groceries this week. I needed a little help.”

  “Help? Is that what you call this?” his stepfather shot back as if this response had be
en preplanned. Martin had always despised this about his stepfather. No matter the situation, he always seemed to have the perfect retort. “Help is when you ask someone for something and they give it to you. This isn’t help. This is stealing.”

  Martin’s mother was now out of the car and approaching the two men. “What’s going on, Martin?” she asked, the tone indicating that she knew precisely what was going on but was feigning ignorance. This was one of his mother’s favorite ploys. She would allow her husband to come down hard on Martin and then sweep in, ignoring the remarks that had already been made and adding her own, gentler rebuke on top. Martin knew that this time would be no different.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I ran out of cash this month and I needed some Liquid Plumbr. It’s expensive and my toilet’s blocked. I’ll pay you back.”

  “I understand, Martin. It would be nice if you had asked, though. That’s the difference between borrowing and taking. All you have to do is ask.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s just that you weren’t here and I really needed to …”

  “We all need things,” she interrupted. “But we don’t just walk into people’s houses and take them.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he replied, unable to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

  “Well,” his mother said, leading up to a phrase he had heard all too often growing up. “I’m going inside. It’s freezing out here. Will you be right along, Bill?”

  “Right along” were two words that Martin’s mother adored. They meant that her husband now had a window of opportunity, not too long, in which to issue a final reprimand. And because his mother would not be present, she would not be implicated in whatever might be said.

  “Right along, Jeannie,” he replied, not taking his eyes off Martin. He waited until his wife had entered the house before leaning in and adding, “Keep the stuff. I would’ve given it to you if you’d asked. I’d hate to think what you might do if I don’t let you have that bottle.” He then leaned in even closer, lowering his voice, and whispered, “Never thought I’d be worried about you turning into a thief. And a bad one at that. Don’t try to fool me again, mister. You can’t and you won’t. You hear me?”

  Those few words began Martin’s career. Though not officially a challenge from his stepfather, Martin had taken it as one. He saw this as his first opportunity to best the man who had been besting him all his life.

  It was the last time that Martin had ever been caught.

  Three weeks later, while his parents were spending the day in New York, Martin entered his childhood home wearing surgical gloves that he’d purchased at a local pharmacy. With his car parked more than two miles away in the lot of a local high school, Martin made his way through the neighborhood on foot, crossing the tree line that bordered the rear of the property, and entered through the back door. In the course of an hour, he acquired two boxes of macaroni and cheese (leftovers from a time when he still lived at home), a bar of soap, two pounds of hamburger (his mother kept at least ten pounds in the freezer at all times), one stick of butter, three apples, and the Mike Greenwell rookie card that was displayed in protective glass on the mantel above the living room fireplace.

  The card, one of his stepfather’s most treasured possessions, had been signed by the Red Sox outfielder after an August game in 1988 during which he had smashed two home runs and driven in five on the way to a Sox win over the hapless Tigers. Greenwell would have his best year in 1988, hitting .325 with twenty-two home runs and 119 RBI and finishing second to Jose Canseco in the MVP race. At the time, the wiry left fielder was quickly winning over the Red Sox faithful, reminding fans of their beloved Fred Lynn from a decade before with his gritty attitude and aggressiveness at the plate. Sadly for the city of Boston, the Gator (as he was affectionately known) would never hit more than fourteen home runs and never drive in more than 100 RBI for the rest of his career. But on that hot summer day in 1988, Mike Greenwell was at the top of his game and fans like Martin’s stepfather thought that they had found their next great Red Sox hero.

  He had been waiting outside the players’ clubhouse for more than an hour after the game, in the hopes of getting an autograph from his favorite ballplayer, when Greenwell stepped out from the door marked PLAYERS ONLY and into the blinding sunshine. With desperation in his voice, his stepfather had finally managed to acquire his hero’s attention just before the team boarded a bus that would take them to Logan Airport to begin a lengthy road trip. Much to his delight, Greenwell signed the card and shook his stepfather’s hand before disappearing behind tinted windows.

  Martin knew how much his stepfather loved this card, had heard the story of how he had acquired the autograph many times, and also knew how easy it would be to acquire another one. Though Greenwell was a lifetime .300 hitter, his lack of power from the outfield position, and the numerous injuries that had kept him off the field for much of his career, had transformed the once promising star into little more than a scrappy, average ballplayer by the time he had played his last game. The card, released by Topps, was valued at more than twenty-five dollars in 1988, and was probably worth much more with the autograph, but on the day that Martin entered his parents’ home intent on acquiring it, the card was worth less than five dollars. It was the autograph, and the memory attached to it, that made the card so valuable to his stepfather.

  Martin was in possession of three of these cards that day, having acquired them a week earlier at a baseball card convention in Lowell, Massachusetts. None of these cards was signed, of course, but this was what Martin had wanted. Standing in his parents’ living room, he removed the cards and a black pen from his coat pocket and placed them on a table beside the television. He then removed his stepfather’s prized card from its glass protector and, using it as a model, proceeded to replicate Greenwell’s signature on the new, unmarked cards. His second attempt was so well done that Martin didn’t bother marking the third, returning it to his pocket with the first (a rather clumsy effort) along with his stepfather’s original card. He then took the forged card and carefully placed it into the glass protector and returned it to the mantel.

  “Can’t fool you, huh?” Martin said as he admired his handiwork.

  Martin’s parents would remain his first and only clients for a long time after that day. Almost a year later, a series of house-and pet-sitting jobs arranged for him by his mother would allow Martin to pick up new clients and expand his business (though these clients had been discontinued long ago). Despite his rising success, Martin found no greater pleasure in those early years than visiting his childhood home and listening to his stepfather retell the story of the day he met Mike Greenwell and had his baseball card autographed. The thought always made him smile.

  Martin was still in possession of the original card. He kept it in his back pocket whenever he worked, serving as a constant reminder of the day he was caught by his parents exiting their house, so that he might never find himself in that situation again.

  Despite Mike Greenwell’s presence in his back pocket, Martin now found himself trapped behind a client’s sofa, just inches from a man almost twice his size, and in danger of being caught once again. Time was rapidly ticking away and he knew that if he did not find a solution to his predicament soon, Cindy Clayton would finish her exercise regime and make her way downstairs to see if her husband was in the downstairs shower. At that point, he would surely be caught.

  Alan Clayton belched, the kind of belch that men release when they are alone or drunk, causing Martin to flinch in surprise. This was followed by the crunching of aluminum and a slight shifting of the sofa, indicating to Martin that his client might be on the move. He listened intently, hoping for a clue as to Alan Clayton’s next destination. The two sportscasters on television, who had finished with tennis and moved on to steroid use in baseball for the last five minutes, had been temporarily replaced by a commercial for underarm deodorant. Martin watched from his crouched position between the sofa and wall as Alan Clayton rose from his sea
ted position and walked out of view, presumably toward the kitchen. He surmised that the man was either heading for the bathroom to begin his shower or getting another beer. Either way, Martin thought this might be his only chance. Moving slowly, he rose from his hiding spot and saw that his client was halfway across the kitchen, heading for the refrigerator, thankfully turned away (the underarm commercial apparently not captivating enough to hold the man’s attention). Now standing in full view, heart thumping, hands balled unconsciously into fists, Martin took two steps toward the stairway when the rhythmic pounding of Cindy Clayton on her treadmill suddenly stopped and Cindy called, “Alan!” Frozen in place by a combination of uncertainty and terror, Martin watched as Alan Clayton paused with one hand on the refrigerator door, turned his head slightly and replied, “Yeah?”

  Just three feet from the foot of the stairs but still in plain view, Martin tried to remain as still as possible, afraid that any movement might be picked up by Alan Clayton’s peripheral vision. He listened as Cindy Clayton stepped off her treadmill and began walking around her bedroom, the creaking of a floorboard and her soft footsteps on the carpeted surface sounding like thunder in Martin’s ears.

  Should he be spotted by either homeowner at that point, his plan was to exit through the front door (hoping the dead bolt was not engaged) and run as fast as he could down the street, eventually cutting back into the woods once out of sight. He thought this plan might work. It was unlikely that Alan Clayton would pursue a potentially dangerous intruder, though the look of the man, tough and weathered and no-nonsense, made Martin wonder.

  “Are you planning to shower soon?” his wife asked, her orders once again expertly phrased as a question.