SquizzyBase
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2009
- Messages
- 45
Counting
By SquizzyBase
“3” The sound barely escaped my lips. Ma always liked that number best, I thought. I mean, she sure did bring it up enough. She would always tell me how she won thirty-three thousand dollars the third time she ever played the lottery, and how she met my father by being three hours late to my aunt’s wedding when she hit his car as he was leaving, which coincidentally cost her 3,000 dollars. She would buy groceries in threes, shop for clothes in threes, she would visit her stylist 3 times a month and she’d even give me money in multiples of 3. I hated that. It was her lucky number she’d say. Well it sure wasn’t mine I thought.
I stared blankly ahead as the thought of my mother faded. The frantic panicked voices of the two men in the front seat came back into focus, they were all too familiar. One was deep and gruff with the patient tone of a father of many, yet patience showed from no part of his worried face. The other voice was much higher and raspy too. A voice burdened by years of smoke and carcinogens. I heard the voices but was not listening, even though the conversation seemed directed towards me. My companions looked back repeatedly with puzzled faces; it looks like they want an answer I thought. I must have missed the question, “Oh well” I said aloud. Everything went white, the taste of nickels filled my mouth, and a loud thumping noise replaced my thoughts. A piercing pain shot up the back of my neck to middle of my forehead as white faded to blurred shades of gray, green, and brown. I groaned in agony. I could here bits and pieces of angry insults being shouted from the front seat between the incessant thumping of my cranium. As my vision refocused I could see that the insults were targeted at me. “Oh well?, Oh well?!, You fucking idiot!, Oh well?!, that’s your answer?!” I must’ve given the wrong answer I thought. “What happened?” I mumbled. “We hit a wall of your stupidity! That’s what happened!” “Really?” I asked. “I hate you Ups” was the simultaneous reply from the driver and passenger seats. Ups was my nickname because I was known for escalating bad situations. The insults continued to be spewed by my two dear friends as the Jeep lurched back into motion. Still in a daze my eyes wandered around the back seat until they settled on the dirty blue Jansport backpack. My memory reclaimed my skull from the throbbing pain. Dammit I thought, probably wasn’t the best time anyway.
I brought my attention back to my two friends who were still finding time to blurt obscenities at me through their frantic arguing. My head continued to beat as though it had its own heart. Aspirin, I thought, but found it in my better judgment not to ask, seeing as my dear friends were rather unhappy with me at the moment. Seeing their still puzzled faces, I leaned my head forward between the two front seats. “Jo now that my brain’s functioning again can you repeat the question?” Both Joe and Jo gave me dirty looks. Jo frustratingly bit down on his cigarette bud and answered, “Joe said he saw a camera in the driveway and you swore that was the one place not under surveillance?” Wow, I thought, without even knowing it I had given them the true answer. Thank God they think I’m an idiot. “Listen, I told you both that there was a motion sensitive light there, not a camera.” “Now can you please chill out?”
I fell back into my seat. Thump, aspirin, thump. “Could one of you pass the aspirin in the glove….” My head was splitting in pain once again as the bottle of Tylenol ricocheted off my forehead out the window. “Assholes” I shouted. Even though I knew it was Jo since he was riding shotgun. Grabbing my skull with both hands I slumped over and lay across the back seat once again, trying to gain control of my pulsing brain. Both Joe’s looked back at me then quickly resumed their heated conversation about the day’s events. Sounds began to wobble and the words of my friends became indiscernible from one another, Brain damage, I thought, that should make things a whole lot easier. But at least my mind was working.
It had been quite a morning and I figured it was probably only fair that karma would bite me in some way, especially if it knew what I was thinking. I looked across the back seat at the blue backpack. It looked dirtier than before. “2” I clearly stated, from my crippled position. My friends paused and turned to me, “two what?” Joe asked, in his rather comforting voice. Two nosy bastards I thought, …two years of planning, two times the difficulty incorporating my two friends into my plan only two weeks prior. I didn’t give an answer. Joe went back to driving, but little Jo held my blank gaze. “Maybe we knocked him silly” came from the drivers’ seat. “I hope not, because we still need him,” with that Jo’s face disappeared behind the passenger seat. Two years ago as I was starting my sophomore year of high school, my mother came to me with a job opportunity doing housekeeping for the neighbor who lived two houses down from us. At first I was hesitant because I had a bad tendency to take things that didn’t belong to me. The house was the biggest on the block and the man who lived there was more than wealthy, but how that had come to be I never knew. Seeing as he didn’t work.
I took the job and by the second day I had already pocketed 200$ and found myself searching in drawers at every chance I got. It was that day as I was about to go home that I saw a small machine about the size of a toaster, with a couple of hundred dollar bills tucked in its side tray. As my attention became focused on the little machine, two surveillance cameras on opposite ends of the room became focused on me. I turned my head and walked out of the house. Curiosity killed the cat I remember thinking… “Satisfaction brought him back” I said aloud to myself as I peered once again across the back seat at the now seemingly even dirtier backpack. Jo looked back again with a puzzled face “you alright man? How’s the dome?” The thumping returned. In order to keep my train of thought I didn’t answer. The following two months working in that house, I stole nothing and spent the majority of the time trying to figure out the small machine which always seemed to have a tray full of “thump” hundred dollar bills. It was rather difficult since the room it was in had little to clean and was under constant surveillance. I would “thump” sweep the room twice daily, even though there was never any dirt on the floor. And by the end of two months I had concluded that the machine either; a. copied money, b. made money, or c. counted money. ”thump” I also had concluded that I was going to steal it.
I spent the rest of the first year drawing up a plan of the houses surveillance. The outside of the house was covered with “thump” cameras. But inside the house the only room with cameras had the small machine in it. These two cameras were tricky because they were motion sensitive and had spotlights attached to them. And as I would later learn were not connected to the household electricity. ”thump” I shifted in my seat and groaned. Once again the sound of my two friends talking reached my ears. They were much calmer now and their conversation topic had changed to a girl we all knew from high school. She was a good girl, I remembered, but damn did she cause us all some problems. “Ups was first….” Jo lit another cigarette…” I remembered when he first brought her around…” “yea and you were all over her” Joe cut in. “ Whatever man, it wasn’t his girlfriend so she was fair game” he took a long drag of the cigarette “plus he waited three weeks to tell us about her.” “ So what, it was his girl.” And with a smug tone Joe replied “and then she was mine.” “1” I said softly. Joe always wondered why I was never angry with Jo for taking her from me. I would tell him that it didn’t matter because Jo was my dear friend and I would be happy for him no matter what, but the truth was she always came back to me. She always said I was number one, and I was.
With that my eyes drifted back to the Jansport bag. It looked almost caked in mud now. I fell into deep thought. It was 1:11 am and we had parked the jeep a block away. With the money I had collected from my time working in the house, I had bought a large electro-magnet, which I planned to use to knock out the cameras in the small room. Both Joe’s crept up the driveway and killed the power by hitting the fuse box with a bat. I snuck in through a window I had left open the prior afternoon. In one swift motion I was just outside the room. Satisfaction brought him back I thought. I turned on the magnet. In and out. The machine weighed more then I expected. My friends were waiting at the window I had entered through, “Idiots!” I thought. Climbing back out I could only laugh at what had just taken place, I mean, I still wasn’t even sure of what I had stolen. We moved quickly back to the jeep. In truth I didn’t need the jeep, or my friends, or the help. It was a one man job and I was one man.
The snap of a match brought me back to my seat. Light crept into the jeep. The sun was coming up and the warmth it gave was strangely uncomfortable. “ ….do with your cut”? Joe didn’t answer, he just stared at the road ahead. He’d probably fix up the jeep I thought. I would of just bought a new one, but that’s me. Joe answered as though he had been asked . “ Well, first…” typical of Joe not to thank or be humble, and to just reap his rewards I thought “….and then I would buy…” However I felt about them, at the end of the day, they were my best friends and they probably always would be. I could remember when we would sit around and discuss our plans for the future; getting jobs, living together, starting our own company and so on. It all sounded good, but I had learned something that they hadn’t; Life throws curveballs. And with that I whispered “zero” grabbed the sludge covered Jansport and dove out of the moving jeep. For the split second before I hit the pavement I thought I felt some remorse, but it turned into pain to fast to know. I had hit the ground, hard, and rolled. I could see the jeep continuing on its way between the flashes of sky and tar. Truthfully, I wasn’t too worried that they would come looking for me. They would have the pigs to deal with, I mean, it wasn’t like that camera hadn’t seen them. “ Satisfaction brought him back” I thought once more.
By SquizzyBase
“3” The sound barely escaped my lips. Ma always liked that number best, I thought. I mean, she sure did bring it up enough. She would always tell me how she won thirty-three thousand dollars the third time she ever played the lottery, and how she met my father by being three hours late to my aunt’s wedding when she hit his car as he was leaving, which coincidentally cost her 3,000 dollars. She would buy groceries in threes, shop for clothes in threes, she would visit her stylist 3 times a month and she’d even give me money in multiples of 3. I hated that. It was her lucky number she’d say. Well it sure wasn’t mine I thought.
I stared blankly ahead as the thought of my mother faded. The frantic panicked voices of the two men in the front seat came back into focus, they were all too familiar. One was deep and gruff with the patient tone of a father of many, yet patience showed from no part of his worried face. The other voice was much higher and raspy too. A voice burdened by years of smoke and carcinogens. I heard the voices but was not listening, even though the conversation seemed directed towards me. My companions looked back repeatedly with puzzled faces; it looks like they want an answer I thought. I must have missed the question, “Oh well” I said aloud. Everything went white, the taste of nickels filled my mouth, and a loud thumping noise replaced my thoughts. A piercing pain shot up the back of my neck to middle of my forehead as white faded to blurred shades of gray, green, and brown. I groaned in agony. I could here bits and pieces of angry insults being shouted from the front seat between the incessant thumping of my cranium. As my vision refocused I could see that the insults were targeted at me. “Oh well?, Oh well?!, You fucking idiot!, Oh well?!, that’s your answer?!” I must’ve given the wrong answer I thought. “What happened?” I mumbled. “We hit a wall of your stupidity! That’s what happened!” “Really?” I asked. “I hate you Ups” was the simultaneous reply from the driver and passenger seats. Ups was my nickname because I was known for escalating bad situations. The insults continued to be spewed by my two dear friends as the Jeep lurched back into motion. Still in a daze my eyes wandered around the back seat until they settled on the dirty blue Jansport backpack. My memory reclaimed my skull from the throbbing pain. Dammit I thought, probably wasn’t the best time anyway.
I brought my attention back to my two friends who were still finding time to blurt obscenities at me through their frantic arguing. My head continued to beat as though it had its own heart. Aspirin, I thought, but found it in my better judgment not to ask, seeing as my dear friends were rather unhappy with me at the moment. Seeing their still puzzled faces, I leaned my head forward between the two front seats. “Jo now that my brain’s functioning again can you repeat the question?” Both Joe and Jo gave me dirty looks. Jo frustratingly bit down on his cigarette bud and answered, “Joe said he saw a camera in the driveway and you swore that was the one place not under surveillance?” Wow, I thought, without even knowing it I had given them the true answer. Thank God they think I’m an idiot. “Listen, I told you both that there was a motion sensitive light there, not a camera.” “Now can you please chill out?”
I fell back into my seat. Thump, aspirin, thump. “Could one of you pass the aspirin in the glove….” My head was splitting in pain once again as the bottle of Tylenol ricocheted off my forehead out the window. “Assholes” I shouted. Even though I knew it was Jo since he was riding shotgun. Grabbing my skull with both hands I slumped over and lay across the back seat once again, trying to gain control of my pulsing brain. Both Joe’s looked back at me then quickly resumed their heated conversation about the day’s events. Sounds began to wobble and the words of my friends became indiscernible from one another, Brain damage, I thought, that should make things a whole lot easier. But at least my mind was working.
It had been quite a morning and I figured it was probably only fair that karma would bite me in some way, especially if it knew what I was thinking. I looked across the back seat at the blue backpack. It looked dirtier than before. “2” I clearly stated, from my crippled position. My friends paused and turned to me, “two what?” Joe asked, in his rather comforting voice. Two nosy bastards I thought, …two years of planning, two times the difficulty incorporating my two friends into my plan only two weeks prior. I didn’t give an answer. Joe went back to driving, but little Jo held my blank gaze. “Maybe we knocked him silly” came from the drivers’ seat. “I hope not, because we still need him,” with that Jo’s face disappeared behind the passenger seat. Two years ago as I was starting my sophomore year of high school, my mother came to me with a job opportunity doing housekeeping for the neighbor who lived two houses down from us. At first I was hesitant because I had a bad tendency to take things that didn’t belong to me. The house was the biggest on the block and the man who lived there was more than wealthy, but how that had come to be I never knew. Seeing as he didn’t work.
I took the job and by the second day I had already pocketed 200$ and found myself searching in drawers at every chance I got. It was that day as I was about to go home that I saw a small machine about the size of a toaster, with a couple of hundred dollar bills tucked in its side tray. As my attention became focused on the little machine, two surveillance cameras on opposite ends of the room became focused on me. I turned my head and walked out of the house. Curiosity killed the cat I remember thinking… “Satisfaction brought him back” I said aloud to myself as I peered once again across the back seat at the now seemingly even dirtier backpack. Jo looked back again with a puzzled face “you alright man? How’s the dome?” The thumping returned. In order to keep my train of thought I didn’t answer. The following two months working in that house, I stole nothing and spent the majority of the time trying to figure out the small machine which always seemed to have a tray full of “thump” hundred dollar bills. It was rather difficult since the room it was in had little to clean and was under constant surveillance. I would “thump” sweep the room twice daily, even though there was never any dirt on the floor. And by the end of two months I had concluded that the machine either; a. copied money, b. made money, or c. counted money. ”thump” I also had concluded that I was going to steal it.
I spent the rest of the first year drawing up a plan of the houses surveillance. The outside of the house was covered with “thump” cameras. But inside the house the only room with cameras had the small machine in it. These two cameras were tricky because they were motion sensitive and had spotlights attached to them. And as I would later learn were not connected to the household electricity. ”thump” I shifted in my seat and groaned. Once again the sound of my two friends talking reached my ears. They were much calmer now and their conversation topic had changed to a girl we all knew from high school. She was a good girl, I remembered, but damn did she cause us all some problems. “Ups was first….” Jo lit another cigarette…” I remembered when he first brought her around…” “yea and you were all over her” Joe cut in. “ Whatever man, it wasn’t his girlfriend so she was fair game” he took a long drag of the cigarette “plus he waited three weeks to tell us about her.” “ So what, it was his girl.” And with a smug tone Joe replied “and then she was mine.” “1” I said softly. Joe always wondered why I was never angry with Jo for taking her from me. I would tell him that it didn’t matter because Jo was my dear friend and I would be happy for him no matter what, but the truth was she always came back to me. She always said I was number one, and I was.
With that my eyes drifted back to the Jansport bag. It looked almost caked in mud now. I fell into deep thought. It was 1:11 am and we had parked the jeep a block away. With the money I had collected from my time working in the house, I had bought a large electro-magnet, which I planned to use to knock out the cameras in the small room. Both Joe’s crept up the driveway and killed the power by hitting the fuse box with a bat. I snuck in through a window I had left open the prior afternoon. In one swift motion I was just outside the room. Satisfaction brought him back I thought. I turned on the magnet. In and out. The machine weighed more then I expected. My friends were waiting at the window I had entered through, “Idiots!” I thought. Climbing back out I could only laugh at what had just taken place, I mean, I still wasn’t even sure of what I had stolen. We moved quickly back to the jeep. In truth I didn’t need the jeep, or my friends, or the help. It was a one man job and I was one man.
The snap of a match brought me back to my seat. Light crept into the jeep. The sun was coming up and the warmth it gave was strangely uncomfortable. “ ….do with your cut”? Joe didn’t answer, he just stared at the road ahead. He’d probably fix up the jeep I thought. I would of just bought a new one, but that’s me. Joe answered as though he had been asked . “ Well, first…” typical of Joe not to thank or be humble, and to just reap his rewards I thought “….and then I would buy…” However I felt about them, at the end of the day, they were my best friends and they probably always would be. I could remember when we would sit around and discuss our plans for the future; getting jobs, living together, starting our own company and so on. It all sounded good, but I had learned something that they hadn’t; Life throws curveballs. And with that I whispered “zero” grabbed the sludge covered Jansport and dove out of the moving jeep. For the split second before I hit the pavement I thought I felt some remorse, but it turned into pain to fast to know. I had hit the ground, hard, and rolled. I could see the jeep continuing on its way between the flashes of sky and tar. Truthfully, I wasn’t too worried that they would come looking for me. They would have the pigs to deal with, I mean, it wasn’t like that camera hadn’t seen them. “ Satisfaction brought him back” I thought once more.
