Choking On Mice

She steals every day that she can. Why not? She never took anything as a kid, but plenty of her friends shoplifted when they were young. She didn’t get it then. Didn’t see the point of it. Linda was the worst. She’d steal candy and makeup when they hung out together, slipping it all into her purse while Tammy held her breath and her heart kicked. Linda never got caught. This was before all the “eyes in the skies,” the surveillance cameras that peep from the ceilings, with remote joysticks driving their lenses, focusing on suspicious shoppers’ subtle hand movements while they stroll up and down the isles touching and sampling. No, when they were kids, all they had were those convex mirrors to deter them. But they never stopped Linda. The clerks were too busy at the cash registers to focus on the mirrors. But Tammy always saw deeply into them, the way they inflated her body into a hideous Betty Boop balloon bouncing at the end of its tethers in some mock Macy’s Day parade with the marching bands blaring and the majorettes twirling and never once missing a high toss.

But none of that really mattered. None of the fatness, or thinness in their friendship. It simply came down to Linda’s perfect timing and execution of her crimes. She’d wait for the little old ladies to shuffle up to the cash registers with their canes and baskets, coupons and coin purses, and then make her move: snatch the mascara and then select the lipstick she wanted to buy. Yeah, she’d actually go up to the register with the Mabelline Crushed Cranberry, stare the clerk in the eye, and pay the money, with her purse right there on the counter, busting with boosted goods. Tammy worried that if Linda were ever caught, she’d be arrested too, as an accomplice. But nothing ever happened. Linda was slick. Cool. Never looked nervous, never broke a sweat. And she always kept to the same routine: Steal a load of crap, and buy one little thing. What else could you do in the suburbs for fun, to fill stinking boring hours with nothing to do but walk around the same glaring mall with no real money in your wallet, with no real hope of getting out of town until graduation, until if and when some college somewhere said “congratulations,” and loans could be patched together somehow. Otherwise it would be the commuter college, and living at home for four more years in the same bedroom with the same stuffed elephant staring from the bureau by the window looking out to the rutted road where the neighbor always drove home drunk and hadn’t killed any of his kids in the driveway just yet, but said, “aw hell, it’s easy enough to make another one,” when he came close one day. Otherwise, if the community college sent a rejection letter because you failed that last year of English, you could always work that job at the mall full-time at JC Penny to make the car payments. Because in the suburbs to have a car was to have a pulse. Otherwise you were dead. Dead and buried in the grave of your parent’s house. Under the weight of their concern and constant interference.

But now that Tammy was middle-aged, and on the downslide of her life, alone without Linda, Linda who had long ago abandoned her for the city and subways, the apartments and the elevators, and the homeless begging for spare change on the streets. She lived in her own house in her own suburb, with crushing car payments and the new mall just five minutes away, where shoplifting was like a jailbreak for her. A release from the monotony of the early alarm clock, schedules, routines, and compulsive vacuuming and silver polishing. She had found herself tempted again one day in the candy store, and grabbed a fist full of rainbow gummy worms, successfully sliding them into her coat pocket, before bolting out the door and into the Christmas shopping crowd. Her heart pounding, she slipped into a nearby clothes store. Tee shirts lay folded on display. She had a large shopping bag ready in hand. The store was bustling and crowded. It was a popular store with the teens. People pushed in all around. Rap music blared from the speakers. Spot lights flared. She was perspiring. She stood out from the other shoppers, and sensed that people were looking askance at her, as she stood there, short and fat, in her bulky winter coat and scarf, with her cotton hat. fine facial wrinkles and thin pale lips. She never had Linda’s cool, and never would have it, and she knew it. She picked up a tee shirt, held it and considered it for a long while. It would make a nice present for her son, even though he didn’t enjoy gifts. It was a bright color, solid red. A change from his usual dark colors and black. She checked the price tag. Twenty-four dollars. Not bad. She had the money. She had the credit cards and cash. She folded the shirt with meticulous care, like she did with the laundry at home every day, and placed it back on the display. On her way out of the store, she grabbed a pair of socks from a table close to the exit and dropped them into her bag.

Walking back into the mall congestion, loud and bustling, her heart banged against her ribs so hard it felt as though someone were kicking her from the inside, like the old thrill with Linda, but with an edge of mortal sickness this time. She felt a headache beginning and knew it would soon explode into a migraine. Her knees felt soft, as though they would buckle, and she soon found an empty spot on a bench where she sat with her eyes closed. Perspiration continued to bead on her lip. No mere hot flash this time. Waves of nausea became more intense, beyond the usual upset she’d expect from a headache, and she became aware of a dull ache now in her left arm.

This is grossly unfair, she began thinking, as a tightness began to travel more centrally into her chest, squeezing down, unrelenting. That old elephant standing on top of her, killing her with his weight. She collapsed to the floor, softly and slowly, her fist pressed against her chest, as the security guard caught up to her, and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Help is on the way,” he said…just as she lost consciousness.