Ryan Featherman
January 20, 2004
Reverse
Los Angeles was the perfect city for the perfect crime. With this city full of money and desire came two great advantages for me. One, everyone living in Los Angeles has some money stashed away, who doesn't? Well, maybe not everyone, but it is true for the most part. Secondly, there were millions of people living in the city, and I could slip away into the dark shadows easily. I was the wolf dressed up in sheep's wool, hiding, and waiting for my prey.
Well, I was not a murderer, no. I was a thief, and a great one at that. I did not break into homes or banks and set myself up to be captured, that's just silly. I did my work way much better, yes. I stole people's money, in a way, but I did it with their social security number, a much cleaner and more resourceful way. They call it identity theft, the fastest growing crime in America. I just saw it as some idiot's receipt is turned into my beautiful, bountiful, cold, hard cash. To think, just by searching through the trash of Nordstrom's department store, I got trips to Havana, Italy, a beach house in the Bahamas.
You know, once I found a receipt of the wife of Jack Nicholson! I thought about using it to my advantage, they do have millions of dollars to spare, but decided he was a great actor and a nice guy, so I shredded it up at my house. Ah yes. I was a little paranoid about those things, but you cannot be too sure. I always took my receipts home, and shredded them, just for protection from other thieves like me. I also took my wife's too, and told her, "Honey it's the fastest growing crime! Just let me shred them will you?" Then she always would give me that look she does that taunts me and smiles at me at the same time.
My wife must be the most beautiful woman God has ever created. I loved to wake up in the mornings and smell her soft, dirty blonde hair, and gaze into her mysterious dark hazel eyes. I saw her perfect body outlined by the bed, like she was fitting herself into some giant glove, the sheets forming a mold shape around her, accenting every feature of her body. I saw her creamy skin, and long legs. I love her so much. She talks with such a voice, I cannot explain it. It is like falling through the sky. All would rush by me, and all I could focus on is the words that emerge from her tender lips. "I got to go in early to work, hon. Boss wants some paperwork done, and he picked me of course out of all the other workers. See ya."
She left me with a soft kiss on the cheek, and closed the door of our apartment. I hated lying to her. I told her I was a reporter that I was a reporter that goes undercover on the streets to get some stories. This worked out great for me, because I usually would never have to say I am going to an office. Although, this plan proves tricky for me sometimes when I have to publish an actual article to show my wife to impress her. I send these stories to my friend Barney. He has a small, independent magazine about underground bands and such, so I send him a story or two sometimes. But, I focus mainly on my theft work, which I happened to slip up on one day. I went to a store to purchase a new plasma screen television set for my apartment, and got very much caught up in the moment; I love technology, and I was amazed at the size of the screen and the small width. Anyway, as I was leaving the store, I was so distracted with my new purchase; I accidentally threw my receipt away, the biggest mistake I could ever make. I looked at the store door, reading the Friday hours: 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM. I thought that if the garbage trucks started their routes at, let's say 5:30 PM, when business dwindles downwards, I could come back and make up some excuse to find my receipt from the truck.
I went back to my house, and turned on the news, listening to the recent account of the hilarious yet disturbing Naked Stalker happenings. I then decided to get in my convertible and drive around a bit since it was early. I drove to my wife's office to give her flowers, but she wasn't there, so I left a note instead. Then, after an hour or so of driving, I pulled into the back parking lot at the store where I came upon the garbage man getting ready to leave, having a little smoke beforehand.
"Excuse me, sir," I said politely, "I believe I dropped my wallet in the garbage when I was here today by accident. Do you mind if I rummage around a little to search for it?"
"Look, buddy, I don't need ant of your little 'I lost my wallet sir' shit," he said with a grungy look on his face, imitating my voice but making it sound high and childish.
"I really need my wallet, sir. Please let me find it," I asked again with a twinge of annoyance in my voice, "you don't understand how valuable it is to me."
He spat out his cigarette to the ground, and stomped on it hard with his foot, rubbing it into the pavement. He looked at me with pure fury in his mad eyes. "And you don't understand, sir, that I don't give a shit about your god-da….." He fell to the ground with a look of shock upon his face, as blood began to pool around him. I took my father's Vietnam knife out of his chest, and wiped it with my shirt. He moaned, so I finally silenced him with a kick to the head. Immediately then, I realized what I had done in my quick, but unthinking action, and dove into regret.
"Shit," I yelled. What would I do now?
* * * * *
When I got home, I ran quickly into my bathroom before my wife turned away from her cooking to greet me.
"Hey hon, is that you there in the bathroom," she asked.
"Um….yes it's me. I'm gonna hop into the shower real quick, ok" I replied quickly. I showered away all the blood from my hands and body. Before I had returned home, I placed the garbage man's body into his truck, hidden in a trash bag at the bottom of the tuck. Then, after an hour of searching through the trash can with no results, I drove the truck into an alleyway, and threw my shirt into the truck as well, but I kept the knife.
I went along through the night as normal. I ate a spectacular pasta meal my wife created, that must have been sent from the heavens it was so good. Later, after drinking wine and talking at the candlelit table after dinner in our dim apartment, me and my wife sat down on the couch and popped in Citizen Kane and watched it until Orson Wells made us fall asleep, as usual. The week went by as normal, our daily routine repeating itself, until two weeks later, when my life was changed forever.
I found out, over the news, that some bitch had seen " a man disposing of what looked to be a dead body" into a garbage truck in an alley on 32nd street. A feeling of immense panic came over me, a giant wave crushing my conscience when I remembered what I had done in the past.
Eventually, the police identified my fingerprints on the knife they found in the truck I had thrown in there as well, and I was arrested for murder in front of my wife the next day. She hasn't spoken to me since. I wish I could've not started this theft of mine, this easy money, this addictive drug. But, I did, and now I am sitting in my jail cell in Nightengale prison writing this short memoir for an article in People magazine.
Sincerely,
Jake Anderson-thief, charged with murder and robbery, sentenced to 45 years in prison…
* * * * *
David Simtengensen sat down at his computer, where he went to websites such as Best Buy, Amazon, DVD Central, and spent a grand total of $631.73 He thought this was of little matter to him though, after all, it wasn't his money he was spending. In annoyance, he pressed the OK purchase button for the 12th time and deleted the message that popped up on his computer screen: "Thanks for your purchases, and thank you for shopping here, we hope you return Mr. Anderson…"