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Short Story

The Sly Fool

John sits at the table near the window with his eyes closed, his hand gripping his forehead. He uses the breathing techniques he’s learned from his mother, to help with his building anxiety. He opens his eyes, and stares at the medical bill in front of him; a bill of over $2000, just for an ambulance ride and a check-up. If he would’ve known calling the ambulance was this expensive, he wouldn’t have called it over a panic attack. 

Ever since John got out of highschool about a week ago, he was preparing himself for college, and thankfully knew what major he wanted to pursue: Computer Science. With a Comp. Science degree, he thought to himself how he would be able to get a six-figure job right off the bat, even at entry-level. However, he’s not sure his dad would pay this bill, since John didn’t have enough money to pay it off, and his dad is really stingy with money. He made an agreement with his dad, just so John would be able to go to college, but he would have to pay his dad back all the money after college, with interest. Not to mention, after John’s mother died during his Junior year, his father started hanging around the house less and less, sometimes being gone for weeks at a time, leaving him alone in the house. Anytime his dad would come home, he would enter the house, usually with a newspaper, and make his coffee. On rare occasions, John’s father would actually say hello to him, but he mostly just came by to check on the house, and buy enough groceries for John to live off of for a few weeks. He preferred to stay inside anyways; anytime he would go outside, something would always go wrong. Part of him was thankful that he graduated from high school, so he won’t have to go outside as much, that is until college rolled around, only if he paid off the bill though.

John does a heavy sigh, and grabs his lockpick set from his backpack. John saved up enough money for a while to buy the set, which came with a tension wrench, a rake pick, and a small hook, with a see-through lock to practice with. He sets the tension wrench in place, and grabs the small hook, breathes in,  breathes out, and steadies his hand as he puts the hook in. John sets the first pin in place, not hard at all. He then goes for the second pin, which had set in place almost immediately, to his surprise. Going for the third pin, John struggles a bit. He can’t seem to find where the pin is supposed to be set, and starts to intensify his focus. He pushes the pin up and down, over and over again, barely missing where the pin should be set. John leans in, keeping his ear close to find the sound of the pin setting. Instead of hearing a click, he’s startled by a loud thump on his window, making him drop all the pins.

He darts his head towards the window, seeing Andrew smirking, with his fist on the window, and a cigarette hanging from his lip. John stares at him as he walks around to the front of the house, and starts banging on the door instead. John stands up and opens the door, Andrew putting out his cigarette on the welcome mat with his feet.

“What the hell was that for?” John asks.

“Well, there’s no ashtrays in your house.” Andrew responds, as he sits down where John was sitting, putting his feet up on the table. 

“Wait, how do you know that-” 

“You need some cash?” Andrew interrupts, holding the medical bill. 

John walks towards Andrew, snatching the bill back. Andrew stands up, attempting to size up John, despite having to tilt his head up to stare at John’s eyes. 

“You’re still in high school, you know?” 

“I’m a senior now, asshole.” Andrew responds, trying to make John flinch.

“Why are you here again?”

Andrew backs off, and sits on the chair again, lighting another cigarette while staring at John.

“I might need your help.”

“For what?” John asks.

“A job.”

“No. Get out of here.”

“The hell? You didn’t even let me say why I need you.”

“Fine, what’s it for?” 

“I need something. From a house.” 

“Ok? Then go get it.”

“I can’t.” 

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know how to pick a lock, dumbass!” Andrew yells.

“What are you going to have me steal this time?” John asks, putting his hands on his face.

“Some jewelry. High-end shit too. You’ll have enough money for the bill, and then some.” Andrew says with a smirk.

 “Alright, fine.” 

“Nice, I’ll let you in on the details by tomorrow, I still gotta figure some shit out.” Andrew says, giving John a shoulder tap, right before he walks out.

John stares at the wall, ignoring Andrew slamming the door shut. He tries to take a deep breath, but chokes on the lingering smoke in the air. Coughing, he opens the window to his left, sitting down in front of his lock set.

Letting the air clear out, John breathes in deeply, then slowly lets out air. He didn’t like smoking. Not the smell, not the burning in your throat, not the shakes you get after not smoking. Andrew made him try weed one time, which ended up with John experiencing the worst panic attack he’s ever had, and also the reason why he has to pay a large medical bill. It didn’t help that John already suffered from Asthma, even though it seemed to only trouble him at the worst possible times. 

Andrew seemed to bring John nothing but trouble, even back when they first met in Sophomore year. That day, John was walking to his computer class, struggling to walk past the traffic of people stopping and turning in the most awkward spots, bumping into people every few seconds. He went from one side of the hallway to the next, trying to find a good path to the computer lab. People seemed to pour in from both sides, squeezing John more and more as he walked forwards. His breathing started to get irregular as more people were bumping into him. He kept pushing past people, leaning forward to try to catch his breath, accidentally knocking a shorter person over. He stopped to help the person he knocked into, but then was pushed by someone else, falling to the ground, taking that moment to actually catch his breath. He looked up and saw Andrew staring down at him smirking, wearing a jean jacket, with a cigarette in his mouth. He looked around, seeing how John wasn’t the only one to give him a dirty look, then aggressively pulled John up. Andrew offered him a cigarette, which on closer inspection, he noticed was actually chalk candy. He takes the candy, and Andrew goes to leave, tripping over the guy on the floor while trying to squeeze through the crowd.

John wasn’t much of a people person, but Andrew presented himself as quite the opposite, constantly talking about his “gang”, even though John feels like he’s referring to his imaginary friends. Throughout High School, John didn’t see many people talk to Andrew, except this one blonde girl, who John kept forgetting the name of, only speaking to Andrew on his “bad days”. One would know Andrew is having a “bad day”, since he would wear his black hoodie, covering his face, stare at the ground, and walk in a straight line the entire day, bumping into anybody that was in front of him, leading to Andrew getting into fights all day. However, he would often come to school with more bruises than he would leave with.

On one of these bad days, John was at his locker, hearing Andrew struggling with a lock. He knew little about Andrew at the time, and with the little he knew, John didn’t want to interact with him. He closes his locker, and feels a hand on his shoulder, turning around and looking straight at Andrew, his face hidden by his black hoodie. Andrew said that he wanted John’s help opening a locker. John was bewildered on why Andrew would ask him, especially since the only interaction they had at that point was Andrew knocking John over. He was hesitant at first, but after some pushing from Andrew, John agreed to help. When they got to the locker, John didn’t recognize the locker number, and wasn’t even sure that it was Andrew’s locker. John thought about putting the first combination of numbers he could think of, and put in 3-2-5. The lock clicked, and opened, to John’s surprise. He didn’t even know how he managed to guess the code correctly, but Andrew took it as John being able to open any lock, beginning the relationship between John and Andrew.

For a few weeks, Andrew had John open people’s lockers, either to grab other people’s money, or to trash other people’s belongings; either way, it seemed to John that Andrew wanted to get back at the people that had fought with him, albeit in an indirect way. John didn’t agree with the fact that he was stealing from random people he had never met, but that pocket money helped him buy his lockpick set, helping him open even more locks. 

Even though John didn’t have much practice with the lockpick set at the time, he constantly surprised himself with how well he was able to open locks. He stopped helping Andrew after his mother passed, which led Andrew to start selling “weed” to other people, which was actually some oregano he brought from his house, mixed with dirt and grass from the school. 

Thinking back to High School made John cringe a little, and also made him quite hungry. He didn’t really know how to cook anything, except eggs and toast, also cereal, of course. John thought about learning how to cook for himself, since his mother used to make good cupcakes every so often. She could also bake cookies and cake, but she mentioned that she’ll only bake cakes for birthdays, and bake cookies whenever John’s friends come by to visit. Sadly, she didn’t bake many cookies.

John grabs a bowl of Lucky Charms, cereal first, milk after, and sits down by the table. He then realizes he forgot a spoon, and so he goes to the kitchen again to look for the spoon. While walking back to the table, John stops for a second, looking at the letter he got when he was approved to go to college. He was only able to get a small scholarship, but something is better than nothing, despite his future debt being transferred from a school to his father. That is, if he doesn’t get even more mad about the medical bill. Did John really have to steal jewelry to pay off his medical bill? Why didn’t he bring his inhaler that time? Why did he think it was a good idea to smoke weed, from Andrew nevertheless? 

All these questions and doubts started bouncing around in John’s mind, as he picked the marshmallows from the cereal, leaving the other pieces of the cereal intact. His breathing started thinning, the more questions bounced in his head. John reminds himself of the breathing technique; breathing in all the air you can, holding it in by clutching your rear, and then breathing it all out. His mother told him that it helps with giving more oxygen to the brain, and letting out all the carbon out of your body. John thought that it was a bit obvious, except the rear part, but he thought it worked better for her than him, since her asthma was only a problem when she was younger, whereas for John, he feels it becomes more of a hassle as he grows older. John uses the technique, applying it several times. Calming down, he looks at his bowl of cereal, which had one marshmallow left, and is now quite soggy. He eats the last marshmallow, drinks the milk, and dumps the rest of the cereal in the trash can. 

John looks out the window, half-expecting seeing Andrew knocking on the window again, asking if he left his wallet or keys in John’s house, then remembering he had either in his back pocket. John sighs, wondering why he agreed to help Andrew all the time, despite knowing that he was mostly just using John to get what he wanted. Why was John willing, even if he did regret it afterwards? There were no other questions in John’s mind, except this one. A question that lingered in his mind ever since they started breaking into locks together. John talked to people in high school, people he considered acquaintances, but people he still had some memories with. He wasn’t that lonely, he knew that. There were still people that talked to John. He wasn’t as lonely as Andrew; that was a fact. Right?

A thump on the window breaks John’s train of thought. John gets closer to the window, trying to see if Andrew was nearby. He opens the window, looking around, seeing a limp squirrel on the window platform, meant for flowers. John thought that the squirrel didn’t see the glass, and knocked himself out. He hoped that the squirrel wasn’t dead, dead things smell pretty bad.

Closing the window, John thinks he should get ready for tomorrow. Knowing Andrew, he’s probably going to knock on his door either past midnight, or past noon; either way John has to be ready to start right away.

He wonders how exactly Andrew has this planned out, and where did he find a house that he knows has a bunch of jewelry. Not to mention, John doesn’t believe Andrew knows the difference between real and painted gold, which worries him even more. 

John goes to his room, laying out different clothes that are mostly dark, expecting that he’s going to be breaking in at night. John chuckles to himself, thinking about how he’s actually going to break into a house. Now he just has to hope they don’t get caught.

John wakes up in the morning, feeling a bit stressed. He opens his window, and decides to do his morning stretches, pulling out his Yoga mat, setting it near his bed. He spreads his legs, lifting his right arm, and reaches to the left side of his body. After holding the pose for thirty seconds, he switches sides, lifting his left arm up, reaching to the right side of his body, holding it for 30 seconds. He brings his legs together, and then reaches for his toes. 

John comes back up straightening his back with his eyes closed, and then gets hit on the chest. He opens his eyes, and notices a small rock that wasn’t there. A moment later, he dodges a larger rock. Sticking his head out the window, he sees Andrew on the street throwing rocks at his window.

“What the hell are you doing!?” 

“Trying to wake you up” Andrew responds while throwing another rock, the rock hitting the wall, next to the window, startling John.

“Why can’t you just knock on my door?”

“I didn’t think you were up.”

“Alright, I’ll open the door, just stop throwing rocks at me.”

John closes his window, turning around to leave the room. Suddenly, he hears glass breaking and turns around, seeing his window broken, and a rock on the floor. He leans over, looking at Andrew through the hole he just made. Andrew just shrugs, and walks towards the front of the house.

John sweeps and throws out the broken glass, and then lets Andrew in. Andrew lays out all of the equipment he got for the mission on the table: two headpieces and a backpack. John wasn’t expecting much anyways, but still wondered if it really took Andrew a whole day to get all the materials, considering there was an electronics shop three streets down from there. John looks at Andrew, notices that he hasn’t lit a cigarette yet.

“I guess you quit smoking?”

“Yep, smoking’s bad for your lungs.” says Andrew, taking a hit from his vape.

John stares at him, then shakes his head.

“Alright,” says Andrew, “here’s the plan.”

John and Andrew slowly trek towards the target house in the darkness of the night, both of them dressed in all black, wearing the headpieces. They pass rows and rows of houses, all of them quite similar in structure and size. Andrew extends his arm out signaling John to stop, pointing at the house across the street, in front of them. John lays his body flat on the grass, Andrew hiding behind the mailbox. He stares at John, then gets on the ground as well. 

Andrew takes the headpieces out of the bag, giving one to John. They test them out, John cringing at the feedback he hears anytime Andrew speaks. They turn the headpieces off, Andrew giving the bag to John.

“Where’s my inhaler?” says John, looking through the bag.

“Don’t know, you probably forgot it.” Alex shrugs. “Are you ready?” 

“I need a moment,” says John, while practicing his breathing technique, “are you ready?”

“Oh yea, definitely. I just have to sit here after all.”

John snaps his head towards Andrew. “You said you were coming with me.”

“And I did. Plus, I’ll watch you from here, just in case something goes wrong.”

“Whatever, these are all charged, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. I think I charged them yesterday.”

John lets out a heavy sigh, staring at the house. He holds on to the grass around him, grasping it tightly, his body feeling tense. He breathes in, and releases all the tension on his body while breathing out. He looked at his hand, noticing that he was still shaking a bit. John feels a hand on his shoulder and jumps, but then notices it was just Andrew trying to calm him down. He retracts his hand awkwardly, but John thanks him anyway. 

After a few minutes of laying on the grass, John turns on his headpiece and sneaks to the front door. He tries to open the front door. Locked. He takes out his lockpicking set, grabbing the tension wrench and the small hook from the case. Putting the tension wrench in place, goes for the first one, which sets in place quite easily. Going for the second one, it takes a bit of a struggle, but John manages to set it in place. Getting to the third pin, he lifts it up and down, but can’t find the place where the pin is supposed to sit on. His hands start to get a bit sweaty, and starts to loosen his grip on the tension wrench, accidentally dropping the third pin. He taps the other pins to check if they were still in place, and breathes a sigh of relief. He picks up the third pin again, putting only slight pressure. He finds the notch where the pin sets, it being way lower than usual locks, and finally is able to turn the lock. He opens the door slightly, and walks in slowly, and then closes the door even slower.

Keeping one hand on the door, John looks around the house. His eyes adjust slowly to the room he’s in, noticing the couch, stairs, and open kitchen. He checks the corners, no cameras, no alarm system. He shifts the bag to tighten the strap, making the bag hang off one arm. Taking a few steps forward, he looks over into the kitchen, noticing some chopped lines of white powder on the kitchen top, and a couple of dirty pans in the sink. John flinches from the large crackle coming from his headpiece.

“Where’d you go?” Andrew asks, through the headpiece.

“What the hell, man!” John whispers loudly, “You scared me!”

“Turn down your volume then.”

John sighs, “I’m in front of the kitchen right now, staring at the stairs.” 

“Ok, go look for some pricey stuff.”

John looks at the paintings by the stairs. He notices that one of the paintings looks like The Lament for Icarus, but as he gets closer, he feels that the painting looks off. 

“Should I take a painting or two?” John asks.

“Nah, not worth the weight. They’re all cheap copies.” Andrew responds.

“How would you know?” 

“Well, that’s my uncle’s house. Of course I would know about the paintings.”

John takes a moment to take in what Andrew just said.

“Now that I think about it, my uncle never let me into his office alone. He might have some good stuff in there.”

John looks up the stairs, the gun cabinet to the left of the stairs catching his eye. Through the glass of the cabinet, he could see a variety of military rifles, making him wonder if they were legal or not.

He forces his gaze up the stairs, and takes his first step, the creaking making him tense up. The stairs creak with each step he takes, making John pause on each step. Reaching the top of the stairs, he takes a moment to calm his nerves through breathing, thinking that his breathing is heavier than usual. John holds his breath, realizing that the heavy breathing wasn’t coming from him, but from the door right in front of him.

He scans the hallway, seeing a white door at the end of the hallway, slightly ajar. He walks towards the door, and enters the room. The light flickers on, sending John into a small panic. He turns and finds the dimmer, with the automatic light sensor next to it. He turns the light off, but realizes his eyes still need to readjust to the change in light. John turns the dimmer on the lowest level, being able to make out the space in front of him. 

The room seemed so out of place from the rest of the house; there were two white leather chairs, one by the desk made out of polished expensive-looking wood, the other right in front of it, a snow leopard carpet with the head flattened out, a small collection of books to the side, and a vase on the corner of the desk, which looked like it was worth more than his own house. 

John checks outside the door, seeing that the light had not woken up the man in the house yet. He leaves the door a bit open, so that he can hear if the man wakes up. John goes to the desk first, seeing the desk drawers and a safe with a keyhole. He places the bag on the floor, and tries to talk to Andrew through the headpiece, with no response. He tries again, waiting for a response, wondering if he ditched him. Checking the headpiece, John notices that the light on the side is red, signaling that it ran out of battery. He thought about going back and forgetting about the whole plan, but since he was already in the office, he might as well just check around the office, to see if he can find something good.

John starts with the desk drawers, since none of them have any keyholes. The first drawer had a small laptop, and a piece of expired chocolate. The second drawer had some nice looking rings, gold rings that actually had some value. John got a little excited, putting them in the bag. He checks the third, bigger drawer with anticipation, finding a revolver with a pack of ammunition right next to it. His heart drops, and closes the drawer, taking a moment. He looks at the rings in the bag, then looks at the safe.

John takes out a rake pick, from his lockpicking set. He places the rake in the keyhole, and wiggles it in and out, while turning it. Surprisingly, the safe opened relatively easily, despite looking so tough and sturdy. John opens the safe, expecting more jewelry, but ends up finding a thick black folder. John picks it up, realizing that it’s quite heavy too. He places it on the desk, raises the dimmer a bit, and starts going through the folder. He finds all sorts of documents in the folder, with different colored tabs dividing each section. In one section, there are pages and pages of transactions, with huge amounts of money with either a – or a +. Some of these transactions are labeled “Gasoline”, “Cement”, and “Columbia leaves”. On other pages, there’s huge sums of money being received, under seemingly random names, such as “Big Boss”, “Silver Fox”, “Mr. Blue”, and “Sally”. 

John scans through the folders, trying to understand what he’s looking at. He flips through the pages, until he notices a smaller folder in the pile, with a big “CLASSIFIED” tape over it. He takes out the small folder from the pile, looking inside. Each page in the small folder, is on different people, with a picture, name, nickname, and preference. The first page looks like someone who calls prison their home, their face riddled with scars, cuts and wrinkles, under the nickname “Big Boss”. There was no name attached to that man. He recognizes a few of the other people, some of them being actors, some of them being celebrities, some of them being politicians, stopping when he sees a picture of his father. John blinks, and checks again to see if his eyes were deceiving him. He checks the picture; that’s a picture of his father. He checks the name; Larry Bondsman is definitely his father’s name. He checks the nickname, listed as “Mr. Blue”, with the preference of marijuana and coke. 

John’s breathing becomes irregular, and decides it’s time to leave. He jams the small folder in the large pile, and tries to pick it up, but trips with the weight of the papers, knocking the vase over, watching it loudly smash on the ground. John’s eyes widen as he sees the pieces of the vase rocking back and forth, turning his head when he hears shuffling down the hall. He tries picking up all the papers, but there’s too many of them, he tries closing the safe, but it doesn’t want to close, he hears footsteps coming towards him and a shotgun being cocked, and his breathing starts getting more and more jagged and sharp, he thinks that his heart is going to jump out from his throat, he starts crying, looking for the gun in the drawers, he opens the first one, and doesn’t find it, he opens the second one and doesn’t find it, he opens the third one and sees it, ripping open the ammo box, grabbing the revolver and putting one bullet in before the door swings open, John cocks back the revolver, closes his eyes and fires, screaming. John screams and screams, until his throat gives out, starting to focus on breathing, the dead silence in the air enveloping him. 

John tries to calm himself down, expecting to see a body in front of him, surrounded by a pool of blood. He takes a deep breath, and opens his eyes, being met with the gaze of someone who would call prison their home. The man turns around and looks at the bullet hole on the door frame to his left, mere inches from his face.

“Guess I’m that lucky.” He says.

John can’t muster a word; both out of fear and screaming too much. The man stares at the open folder, the papers on the grounds, and then back at John.

“Did you look at the folder?”

John slowly shakes his head. The man stares more intensely at John.

“I’m going to ask again, John.” John’s eyes widened. “Did you look at the fucking folder?”

John rapidly nodded.

“Good boy.” The man squats down to John’s eye level, using the shotgun for support. “Listen, Larry is a good client, and a good helper as well. Under normal circumstances, you would already be dead. But, cleaning blood off this carpet is a pain in the ass, and Larry wouldn’t appreciate it if I spilled his son’s brain all over my carpet.”

“I’m willing to pretend that you were just testing the security of my house; which is pretty shit if some jackass kid could break into it, and for your hard work, I gave you that bag over there, with a couple of gold rings. Sounds good?” The man says, pointing at John’s bag

John nods his head.

“Good, you’re free to go.”

John gets up slowly, then gets pinned to the wall by the man. 

“However, if you ever think to pull this type of stunt on me again, I’ll make sure you and your father share the same casket.” 

The man hands the bag to John, giving him a pat on the back. John starts to slowly walk out of the office, and then darts down the stairs, and out the door. Running to where Andrew was, he notices that he’s nowhere to be found, and decides to try and find his home. 

John spends the whole night trying to find his house, finally arriving at his doorstep by sunrise. He opens the door and sits at the table, checking himself to see if he’s still alive. After a while, his father comes back holding the weekly newspaper, heading towards the kitchen while smoking a cigarette. John stares at his father’s face, feeling like he looks a bit foreign, almost wondering if he walked into the wrong house. He picks up his bag, and ends up ignoring it, deciding that he was too tired to worry about something irrelevant right now, just thinking how much he wanted to go to bed.

John goes to his room. He sits down in the middle of his bed, and looks through the broken window, seeing how the light rays pour in, illuminating his dirty clothes. He closes the curtains, not wanting to see whatever the outside brings in again. There’s too many things that’ll want to use him, too many people that’ll abandon him. It’s much safer to stay inside; that way he’s able to know what’s around him, that way he won’t have to risk as much anymore, that way, he’s able to lock himself out of harm’s way.

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