Matthew’s House

       We knew it was time to do a hit when the mail started
piling up at Matthew’s house. The lights never went
on, nobody went in or out, and with each passing day,
the mailman became more and more confused as to where
he should put the ever growing cluster of letters that
congested the mailbox. Soon, the mailman just started
to put the letters on his doorstep; a pile of letters
that Matthew would probably receive far too late. We
came to the conclusion that little Matthew had gone on
vacation, and began to make a plan to get into the
house.
       We always did hits like this. It was a group of four
of us: me, Alex, Cade, and Sam. We would move into a
small, slightly sleepy town, and do hits all around
the neighborhood; breaking into people’s houses and
stealing their shit. We would take anything- DVDs,
VCRs, TVs, laptops, iPods, money, jewelry, paintings
and sculptures, clothing, belts, pots and pans,
expensive-looking silverware. It was all ours for the
taking, and by the time we had left, the people didn’t
know what hit them.
       We would do about three houses per town, and then it
was time to leave. We knew when we had overstayed our
welcome; sometimes the townspeople caught on, and in
their little townhall meetings, they would decided
that the recent outbreak of robberies had to do with
the four new guys in the area. We tried to look the
part as much as possible– usually wearing normal, not
very outstanding clothing, and never wearing any of
the clothes we had stolen from any houses until after
we had gone very far away.
       We were in Berkeley, California this time. I knew it
was a bad idea when Cade suggested we go to Berkeley,
it being so well known and so heavily populated. After
all, before we moved to Berkeley, we had been hitting
places in Montana and Idaho; never in California. But
Cade insisted the big money was all along the West
Coast, and going somewhere like Petaluma or Gilroy
would not reap any sort of benefits. So we packed our
bags from Fargo North Dakota, and headed out to
Berkeley. We got a house on a quiet street called
Oxford and waited. We got acquainted with the the
neighbors there: Mrs. Figg, the crazy old lady who had
about fifteen reptiles, Lois, the single mother of
three, Matthew, the neighborhood retard.
       Well I guess he wasn’t retarded...just kinda slow. He
was nice, and very easy to convince of anything, and
he was rich, rich as fuck, which was the important
part. Word around the neighborhood was that he had
received a massive inheritance from his father when he
had died a couple years back. Matthew lived modestly,
(I mean, of course he did, what else would he spend
the money on besides the rent, the bills, and some
food? He had no need for extravagance), but we knew he
had a lot of shit lurking around in his house just
waiting for us to get our hands on. Alex, the more
quick-witted of us four, brought it to our attention.
       Alex had been standing by the window all day, his
large frame enveloped by shadow, one hand in a fist at
his mouth, the other arm around his middle. He took a
box of cigarettes out of his pocket and packed it
hard. It was the first time he had moved in an hour.
He stuck on thoughtfully in his mouth. He let it hang
from the edge of his lips, and as he spoke, it flopped
up and down like a noodle.
       “Matthew’s mailbox is getting awfully full,” he said.
       “What?” Cade sat up from the couch with a start,
almost ripping the newspaper he was reading.
       Sam looked up from the bowl of soup he was drinking,
and I stopped sharpening the knives.
       “You think he’s gone, or something?” Sam, the baby of
our crew, asked.
       “Probably. Mailman doesn’t know what the fuck to do,”
Cade replied.
       “Well let’s fuckin’ hit it then!” I yelled, my hands
shaking from excitement. I was always the guy who
wanted to get scrappy and get going; I loved the
thrill of thievery.
       “No, no, not just yet,” Alex said, waving away my
rough sentiment with a flick of the hand that was
holding the cigarette. “We gotta watch the house for a
while. Then we’ll make our move.” He took a drag and
thoughtfully nodded to himself.
       So we did just that: we watched the house. Every day,
one of us sat by the window as the others went out to
run errands or do some work. (We would bide the time
with little odd jobs just so the neighbors would think
we were actually legit.) For a week, no one came to
the house, and we became restless. We knew that no one
was there, and we knew that we could easily do the
hit, but Alex was not budging in his strategy. And we
knew not to defy Alex, not because he was the leader
of our group or anything like that, but because we
knew he was smart, aware of his surroundings, always
thinking. If you ever went against his word, he would
beat you to a pulp. He was strong, too. A great
fighter. He could kill you with his bare hands and not
give it a second thought.
       Then, one evening at dinner, Alex lifted his head
from his bowl of spaghetti, his nostrils flaring
slightly.
       “Tonight’s the night,” he said, holding his knife and
fork so hard you could see his enormous knuckles
turning white.
       We all looked around the table and nodded at each
other, satisfied grins creasing all of our faces. We
quickly finished, and Sam elected to do the dishes as
the rest of us suited up. I grabbed our bulletproof
vests, and distributed them like I was giving out
candy canes at Christmas time. Cade got the guns:
Sam’s tiny derranger, Cade’s beloved semi-automatic,
Alex’s mammoth shotgun, and my hand pistol. Alex,
meanwhile, sat by the window and schemed. I could tell
he was thinking hard because he was slowly rotating
his wrist in a counterclockwise circle with one hand
and rolling a cigarette back and forth with the other.
He always had to occupy himself while he thought.
       We got dressed all in black and sat on the couch
quietly, waiting until all the lights around us had
gone out. The neighbor next door watched t.v. until
one in the fucking morning, and that was the last
person we were waiting for. When “Wheel of Fortune”
finally ceased, we all looked at each other
apprehensively. We all knew what was at stake: there
was a bunch of valuable shit in Matthew’s house, and
it was rumored that behind a real Picasso, there was a
safe holding over two million dollars. Now I’m no good
at math, but if I’m not very much mistaken, that would
leave us with 500,000 dollars or more each. And after
we sold that Picasso and the other stuff in the
house...let’s just say we’d never have to rob a place
again.
       We put on our ski masks, and we cut holes in the eyes
so we could see. Same’s was a little out of wack so we
adjusted it for him before we left. We crept out the
front door and, making sure that no one was in the
vicinity or awake, we rushed across the street. Cade
picked the lock while Sam played lookout and me and
Alex hid behind the fence that separated Matthew’s
house from his neighbors’. Despite the distance of our
hiding places, we all heard the lock click when it
busted open, and we heard the sweet sound of the hinge
swing when the door opened. We all felt powerful
heavy, strong. Like we had control over the house, and
we could do whatever we wanted with it.
       In one seamless action, we all got together and slid
quietly into the house. As soon as we got inside, we
immediately got to work. The house was a fucking
goldmine. I had never seen anything like it. There
were expensive pieces of art everywhere, jewelry,
silverware, and little pockets of cash strewn all over
large wooden tables, and even cups looked like they
were made of pure platinum. It was amazing. We hardly
had enough room to fit it all in our back packs. I was
putting a thick gold and ruby ring into my knapsack
when I noticed something odd. All the lights were off,
as they had been in weeks, except for one light that
we had not seen from view of our house. I whistled
softly, and when all the boys turned towards me, I
jerked my head in the direction of the light.
Nervously, we glanced at each other, and I made a hand
signal that said for us to move toward the room.
Everyone nodded, and we all drew our weapons.
       My intention was never to kill anyone. I don’t like
killing. I just like stealing from rich, and giving to
the poor; that is, myself. I have never had to go into
a house and kill, I have only once encountered someone
in the house. But I was scared this time, I didn’t
want to kill Matthew, he was a good guy that was
simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
       But as we got closer to the room and I cocked my gun,
I realized that I might come down to that. Killing
someone, I mean. If I did have to end up murdering
poor Matthew, pulling the trigger would be the hardest
thing I would ever have to do.
       Sam nervously, his derranger poking out in front of
him, loosened the knob on the door. It opened with a
heavy sigh, and we all covered our masked faces in
disgust.
       The smell hit us like a wave of shit. It was
disgusting. We looked around the room that seemed to
be an office, and saw that no one was there. We all
looked at each other, unsure what our next move should
be. Cade was the first to go towards the desk that was
against the wall immediately before us. He walked
slowly apprehensively, and when he got behind the
desk, he yelled and jumped back.
       “Oh my God, it’s Matthew! He’s dead!”
       “What? Wait, what the fuck?” Alex rushed past me and
Sam and looked under the desk. I followed, and Sam
came soon after. We all crowded around the hollow
bottom of the desk and all drew one gasp together when
we saw Matthew, massacred, laying in a slumped “s” in
a pool of his own flesh and blood.
       “It smells like fucking hell,” Cade said, backing
away even more than he already had.
       “He must have been here the whole time we were
watching the house,” Alex said, taking off his mask
and wiping his damp face. “He looks like he’s been
choked with some razor wire.”
        Congealed blood matted at his severed throat, some
flies buzzed around his head. His tongue had been cut
out of his mouth, and his limbs had little brown burns
in the them, like someone had used his arm as an
ashtray. Both his kneecaps were broken.
       “I can’t believe it,” I said, still covering my nose.
“This whole time...”
       “Oh shit, oh shit!” Sam said, cursing
uncharacteristically. “Oh fuck, what are we gonna do?
We hafta call the cops! But the cops will think it was
us! Oh holy Mary and Jesus, what are we gonna fucking
do??”
       “Sam! Be cool!” Alex punched his shoulder and Sam
frowned, taking off his mask in desperation.
       “We’re not gonna call the cops,” Cade said, going up
to Sam and rubbing the spot on his shoulder where Alex
had punched him. “We’re not gonna call the cops,” he
repeated. “We gotta figure this out on our own. We
can’t discard the body and we hafta put back all the
shit that we stole. We’re gonna stay in this house in
rotations. Everyday we’ll rotate out and keep an eye
on the body. While the other three are out of the
house, we’ll try and figure out who did this to poor
Matthew.” Cade cast his glance on the rotting body,
and we all followed. Eight regretful eyes watching two
closed lids. “Little unsuspecting Matthew...”