Quickie: Thieves' Eyes

The cops broke up my friend's house party--and the strip poker game we were playing in his parents' dining room--the moment I tossed my jeans aside and sat back down. My shoes, socks, hoodie, and tee shirt were already strewn about down there on the floor. It was just me and my boxer briefs when a male voice from the front entry hall yelled, "Shit! Cops!" and a female voice shrieked.

It was the shriek that got to me. Something in the terror of it launched me. I smoked the other five half-naked girls and guys to the back door of my friend's house. I hauled ass across the deck, down the steps, around the covered pool, and over the fence. Maybe it took me twelve seconds.

My football scholarship was on the line. I was only eighteen; the cops would give me a minor-in-possession charge, and no way coach would gut a misdemeanor conviction just to have me on his team.

I heard other partygoers far behind me, hissing and calling to one another.

"Oh, shit!"

"They're coming!

"Hurry!"

"Go! This way!"

Then, I saw the flashlights bobbing and jerking to the right and left of me. The cops were encircling my classmates. Their voices and commands spurred me faster. I was in a dead sprint, and it wasn't long before I knew one of the officers had peeled off to chase me down. I heard the heavy footfalls. I saw my shadow as the cop's flashlight pumped up and down right behind me.

He was so close on my heels that the choice came down to either giving up or doing something extremely stupid on such a cold night. I rocketed across the street and ran down the cement path toward the community dock. A second after my feet began pounding on the wooden slats of the pier, I hear the thuds of his boots.

"Stop!" the basso voice hollered.

No fucking way. The end of the dock approached, and I shortened my last two steps to prepare my body for a forward-leaping dive. I launched. The air was sharp as I sailed like a dart. The way I knifed through the frigid water, I knew in my heart it had been a spectacular dive. Like fucking Michael Phelps off an Olympic pool's starting blocks.

But, shit! The water was shockingly cold, even with my flight instinct rampaging. Still gliding under the surface, I dolphin kicked three times, breast-stroking with my arms and keeping away from the surface.

More.

More, and my lungs began to fight me.

More, and I battled the impulse to gasp for air. The muscles of my diaphragm lurched, and I swallowed back a guttural cry. Two more strokes.

Two more.

Two more.

Desperate, I broke the surface as quietly as I could. Stifling the instinct to pant and groan, I took a few long, painfully silent breaths before pivoting my body to find the cop.

The flashlight was there, seventy yards away at the end of the dock, searching for me. While I fought for breath, the light crossed over me once, but it didn't come back. It moved on, scanning the surface of the dark water.

"Holy shit," I whispered. The lake ice was all gone, of course, but late March was no joke. "Keep moving," I huffed. Spinning away from the cop, I saw the light from a private dock across the water. Maybe a quarter of a mile. It was my best option. Time to go. I braced myself for the cold and ducked under the surface. Then, I continued my swim.

Halfway across the lake, I decided it was safe to make some noise, and I swam along the surface, stopping every half-minute or so to check if any cops were searching around my destination.

Nope.

I didn't know much about hypothermia, but I was learning quickly. My arms and legs began tiring and aching. The idea that I could actually drown crossed my mind.

By then, just twenty yards separated me from the private dock and the ladder at the end of it. The moment my hand found purchase on the rungs, I realized two things. First, I knew how weakened the cold swim had made me; my fingers could barely clutch the metal. The muscles of my body were all slow-motion sluggish and old-man weak. I needed to get out of the water.

The second thing I discovered was that my picture-perfect dive had robbed me of my boxer briefs. Stripped them clean off me. I was totally naked.

I climbed out and found I could not stand. The strength to do it left me like air from an untied balloon. I collapsed onto my side. Shivering, I balled up my arms and legs for warmth.

It was not freezing outside. I vaguely remembered my Dad saying something about low 40s and to take a jacket if I was going out. Mine was on an overfull coat hook back at my friend's house. The rest of my clothes were in a haphazard pile in his dining room. The whole situation struck me as insane, and I started laughing.

But not for long. The uncontrollable shaking of my body interrupted my mirth like a fit of hiccups. This was not working, I realized. Staying put was not making me any warmer. I needed to move, get my muscles warm again.

It took a minute, but I finally got to my feet and left the dock. The backyard of the expansive lakehouse with the private dock had no fence, so I jogged into the side yard and stopped. Turning toward a low, airy humming sound, I saw the little shutters of a vent--maybe a dryer vent--built into the home's siding. The open slats pushed air.

I ran to it and found a gift from heaven: warm air. "Oh, that's so good," I gasped.

Where I stood, the vent was about neck-height. I bathed under the flow of air, turning front and back as if it were a warm shower.

After some time, I heard a car on the street crossing in front of the house. Popping onto my toes, I looked. It was a police cruiser.

"Shit!" I hissed, ducking.

It passed onward. Carefully rising, I resumed my air shower and took stock of the situation.

It was about two in the morning on a Sunday. Naked, I had no phone on me, and there was little chance of me finding someone out and about who might let me borrow theirs. "Sure, Naked Dude, you can borrow my phone."

I had a possible answer to my problems, but I didn't like it. Shoving the thought aside, I looked for another way out.

Home, I thought, was about twelve miles away. Half of the trip would be through rural countryside, but the other half would be on suburban and neighborhood streets. No.

My friend's house would still be teeming with cops. There would probably be pissed-off parents, too, arriving to pick up their freshly ticketed minors-in-possession. If I could wait a few hours for things to clear, then I could go back. I'd have my clothes and a place to crash.

As if responding to that idea, the air from the vent abruptly quit. Forty-degree air returned to envelop my body once more.

"Shit," I whispered. "Shit-shit."

There was no other choice, really. It was less than a mile from here.

I shivered and rubbed my arms.

Scrambling up the side yard, I made it to the corner of the house. I glanced left and right. All was clear, so I darted across the street and into the woods.

I was going to my mom's place--my real mom.

***

It continued to confuse me that my mom had remained so near. We didn't talk. She didn't come to any of my games or visit. What was the point of staying in town? When she got out of prison, I figured she would head back to California and her old friends there. Nope. Stayed in the area and got a shitty little place not ten miles from Dad's. I didn't know what she was doing to make ends meet. Probably something illegal.

My birth mother left us when I was nine. Dad took care of me, and a few years later--just about the time Dad was getting remarried--we found out my mom had been arrested for burglary. She and a female friend had broken into a junkyard and stolen copper scrap--evidently such stuff was valuable. Since she already had a DUI and two drug possessions on her record, the judge gave her eight years. She served four.

Dad took me to visit her in prison once, but she wouldn't see either of us. We never went again. I had no idea who the woman really was. Dad would not offer much about her. When I asked, he would say things like, "She made her own choices in life," and that would be the end of it.

There were pictures of her, buried inside boxes and stored in our basement. She had an ethnic Jewish or middle-eastern vibe to her. It was strange that her maiden name was Jones and not Schaffzin or Issawi or something. The exotic shape of her face and her coloring made her look foreign. Long, thick, and wavy black hair. Dark eyes. One could call her skin tan, but this coloring wasn't from the sun. The woman who gave birth to me was mesmerizingly, exotically beautiful.

I didn't look anything like her.

About once every few years after she left, I would sneak to the basement and look at those pictures of her, trying to figure her out. Sometimes, the photos made me angry, and I hated her. Other times after looking, I would set them down and stare at the concrete blocks that surrounded me down there, wiping tears from under my eyes in the cold silence.

I drove by her crummy house from time to time, half-hoping to glimpse her, half-praying I never would. The place was a dump when she first moved in. It was a one-story shoebox, maybe 800 square feet--a tiny step above a trailer.

In the three years she'd been there, I started noticing some small improvements. The little front lawn looked almost cared for. Potted flowers appeared, flanking the front stoop. A small garden showed up in her back yard. The siding had been repaired, and she'd put a coat of white paint over it. She'd replaced or cleaned the windows and added some drapes, too.

It made me wonder if she wasn't a drug-addicted thief anymore.

***

Fortunately, most of my trip to Mom's place passed through the woods. I only crossed three streets and wove around just a few homes. I did not even care about hiding my junk.

The running helped, but it didn't stop the bone chill from returning. The one aspect where the cold actually aided me was on my bare feet. The frigid air dulled the pain of running over twigs and rocks. The bottoms of my feet felt like something made of cold rubber when I crossed into my mom's front yard.

There were no lights on, and I ran up to the front porch and knocked hard. There was no doorbell. I jogged in place, shivering and waiting.

Nothing.

I knocked again, longer and harder. "Shit," I whispered, feeling every fucking molecule of that cold air.

She didn't appear.

I hurried down the stoop and went to the first window, peering inside. A den. The kitchen was behind it. I darted to the other side of the stoop. Frosted glass--probably a bathroom. I ran around to the back. Curtains closed. This was it--her bedroom. Had to be. I pounded on the glass and stepped back, covering myself with my hands.

The drapes shuddered momentarily. She was there, but I couldn't tell if she was peeking from the side or the middle.

Fuck it, I told myself. I waved, leaving one hand to hide my junk. That didn't last long. I was too cold. Covering myself, I jumped from foot to foot and waited.

The curtains split in the middle, and my mom was there in a tank top, short-shorts, and fuzzy slippers. Her long, wavy hair was a black waterfall. The dark eyes were wide with astonishment.

I mouthed the words "Help me."

Her hand went to her heart, and I watched her lips form my name as if it were a question.

Nodding, I said, "Please!"

She hesitated for a moment, and then she pointed behind herself to the front door. I darted around the house and waited there.

She took forever. At least, it felt that way, being a mere door's opening away from warmth. When I heard a deadbolt turn, I spun and saw her face appear.

"Can I come in? I'm freezing. Please."

"What are you doing here, Tommy?" she asked in that husky voice I had almost forgotten.

"I was at a party and the cops busted it. Had to run. Please!"

"Naked?"

I nodded. "Strip poker."

She didn't say anything.

"Mom, please! I'm freezing. I had to swim across Duckwood Lake to get away. I don't have my phone. The cops are everywhere. I had nowhere else to go. Please!"

She looked behind herself before turning back to me.

I said, "Or just give me a blanket. Can I have a blanket or bathrobe or something?"

The door swung open. "Come inside," she said.

I felt the warm air as I crossed the threshold, and I moaned, "Oh, shit. Thank you-thank you."

Pointing toward an old couch in the den, she said, "Sit down, and I'll bring you something."

"Yeah." I hurried over there, but I didn't sit down. It would have felt funny to put my bare ass on her couch.

A moment later, she appeared and, while I kept myself covered, she draped a black blanket over my shoulders. It was big, fuzzy, and felt like an embrace from a bear. "Thank you," I huffed, and I sat on the couch, curling my feet underneath me and covering every inch of exposed flesh except my face.

Mom sat down in the chair across from me. She didn't say a word. I felt her looking me over, heard her chuckle. I turned, teeth chattering. "Wh--what?"

"You look nine-years-old again in that blanket."

"Cold."

She nodded. "So you were at a party?"

I nodded.

"Drinking alcohol?"

I looked at her, eager to pounce on any recrimination.

She didn't offer any. She went on. "Playing strip poker--and apparently losing?"

I nodded.

"So the police show up. Everybody runs, and you escape by swimming across Duckwood Lake?"

I nodded, shivering.

She sighed. "It is good to see you again, Tommy."

Teeth chattering, I took her in.

She was older, of course, but still captivatingly beautiful. That long, raven hair had a few grey threads. Sitting across from me, she had brought her knees up to her chest, hugging them in her arms. Her limbs seemed softer than I remembered. In the months before she left us, her body grew gaunt and frail. Still skinny by any definition, she now seemed robust, maybe even plump in comparison to the enfeebled form I remembered.

She was taking me in, too. "My word, how big you've grown," she remarked. "Are you doing well? Are you happy to be graduating soon?"

I didn't want this conversation. Moreover, I was discovering that the blanket did nothing for the chill that remained deep in my bones. "Can I take a hot shower or something? Would you mind? I'm freezing."

"Tommy, there's no hot water--at least, there won't be until morning."

"Why--why not?"

"I shower when I get home from work," she replied, "shortly after midnight. The tank is tiny, and it's an old electrical heater. There's no hot water left."

"Shit," I muttered. "Maybe an electrical blanket or a heating pad?"

She shook her head with some sympathy. Stopping, she said, "I could make you some hot tea."

I nodded. "Please, yes."

She rose and went behind me into the tiny kitchen. Cabinets opened and closed. A mug landed on the countertop. Water ran. She called out, "Are you looking forward to graduation?"

"I guess."

"Will you go to college?"

"Yeah."

The microwave began running. "Where?"

"State."

"You're playing football?"

"Yeah."

"What will you study?" she asked.

I didn't like this. I said, "Look, do you have any guy clothes? Ones that might fit me? I can just go."

The microwave pinged, and she didn't say a word. I heard her tear something open, and I heard water pouring into a mug. "Two minutes," she said. "And I don't have any clothes for you."

"Then can you drive me to my house?"

"Is that what you want? To show up at home, smelling like whiskey, in nothing but a blanket? Your father--," she didn't finish.

She didn't have to. Dad would awaken at any sound, and he always checked on me when I came home. Of course, he wouldn't expect me this night because I had told him I was staying at my friend's. So when I got home--yeah, it would get ugly.

Even so, I didn't feel like conceding her point. "Going to have to go home like this sometime anyways."

I heard a spoon stirring, and then her footsteps approached me from behind. The steaming mug appeared. She said, "I put some honey in it."

I took it greedily, opening the blanket enough to sneak a hand through. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she said, resuming her seat across from me.

I took a sip, sucking plenty of air as I drew in the liquid. It burned, but not too much. Swallowing, I felt the tea drain down my throat and coat my tummy with warmth. I groaned at the sensation.

Mom smiled. "Helps a little?"

I nodded.

"What will you study in college?"

"Why do you care?"

"Am I not allowed to show interest in a person I haven't seen in nine years?"

"A person you refused to see. Abandoned. No, I don't think you are." I took another sip, readying myself for another counter-attack.

"People make mistakes," she said.

"You could have corrected your mistake every day since you got out of jail--what?--three years go."

"I let you inside my house, didn't I?"

I was shivering again. Funny how something hot makes the rest of you cold. Still, I opened the blanket and took another sip. "To save me from dying of exposure. Very generous, Mom."

She didn't say anything. Her eyes glanced downward and lingered for a moment. She nodded and said, "You should cover yourself."

"Huh--?" I began. Then, seeing my exposed cock and balls, I spat, "Oh, shit!" At my waist, the blanket must have fallen open when I took a sip; I snatched it closed. "Sorry," I muttered, feeling my face turn pink.

She shook her head.

Eager to move past the unfortunate exposure, I asked, "So why? Why didn't you reach out to me?"

"I don't want to get into it right now. I want to make sure you're going to be okay, and then I want to get some sleep."

"Why didn't you?"

She appeared to give up. She sighed and turned away from me, staring at the blank screen of her television. Her voice grew distant when she spoke. "The mountain I had to climb seemed too high, Tommy. And I told myself climbing it wouldn't change anything."

"Why did you decide to live here when you got out? Why didn't you go back to Oakland? You just wanted to--I don't know--make sure we couldn't ever forget about you? Is that it?"

She rose from the chair and reached under the coffee table in front of me. There was a fat book with thick pages. She pulled it out and sat beside me. Digging her thumb into the middle, she hauled it open.

Newspaper and Internet clippings--from the local and the city papers, websites, from the booster club's Facebook and Twitter pages. They were of me and my teams. Pictures, articles, Tweets, and comments.

I shivered, muttering, "That doesn't fucking change anything."

"I know it doesn't. You asked why. This is why. I stayed here because I wanted to stay connected to you."

My body involuntarily shook. "And you couldn't even call?"

"I could have, but I was too terrified to learn how you felt about me." She flipped through the pages absently. I saw football, basketball, track, and baseball articles and images from years past. There were academic clippings, too--honor roll and speech competitions, my name highlighted.

"You sh--sh--should have called," I muttered, unable to stop my body from trembling.

She closed the book, and suddenly her hand slid inside the blanket and landed on my chest. "Oh, Tommy, you're still freezing!"

"Don't--," I began.

"Come with me," she ordered, taking my hand and pulling me from the couch.

"I'm warming up. I'm--."

She led me out of the den and down a short hallway. "Come on," she urged.

"Where are--?"

Before I could finish, Mom guided me to her bed and covered me in her sheets and blankets. "You need to get warm--right away. I know about these things, trust me." She climbed onto the bed beside me, saying, "Hypothermia and frostbite are serious."

"I was fine--."

"You were not fine," she insisted.

I suddenly felt like a kid again.