Petty Theft (Short Story)

Geraldine Cecilia Flanahan—I mention her full name because it is almost certain either that her name was the true source of her moral degradation or that her ethical failings retroactively justified the parental cruelty involved in the naming—was a thief, though not a particularly ambitious one. True, six rings, all stolen, did glitter rather gaudily on the first three fingers of her left hand, but these had all been pilfered at one go from a small vendor stall near the beach while its proprietor was distracted by an oddly aggressive border collie. Presently, Ms. Flanahan was fully engaged in another instance of mediocre banditry, attempting fruitlessly to force a yellow blouse from a Nordstrom clothes rack into her small leather purse (also stolen).

            As she worked away at this task, she failed to notice the approach of a youthful employee, a malnourished young man wearing thick-rimmed glasses and a meager beard. At length, she became at least partially aware of his presence, though she gave no indication of this fact to the young man in question. He, understandably, found this somewhat disconcerting.

            Having stood in a shell-shocked silence for nearly a minute (during which time Geraldine Cecilia Flanahan continued her vain effort to secure her prize within the purse), he finally screwed up what passed for his courage and cleared his throat. Though he had intended it to sound menacing, he was disappointed to find that the effect was actually such as to merit the title “effete.”

            Even such a one as the young Ms. Flanahan found this rather too much to ignore.

            “Yes?” she said impatiently, though she did not turn to face him.

            The employee found this to be so unnatural a response that for no small space of time, he was rendered unable to answer.

            “Well…” he said, “I mean—you’re stealing that. Right?”

            “And?” Geraldine said savagely, redoubling her efforts at blouse-wrangling.

            This riposte, so flawless in its logic and supreme in its swift and elegant force, quite crushed the bearded and bespectacled store clerk, whose name, incidentally, was Dennis. As he reeled, standing rooted in place, mouth agape, Geraldine succeeded at last in rolling and twisting the blouse into her purse. She closed it and secured the clasps. With a small, mirthless grin of triumph, she stood and turned at last to face her would-be adversary. Looking him up and down, she gave a faint snort, then strode confidently past him on her way out the door. Dennis could only watch as an inexorable ennui overtook him. He became, from that moment on, a devoted reader of Sartre.

           

            Geraldine Cecilia Flanahan walked out into the daylight. The sky was clear and the air was warm, as indeed it usually is in southern California. She was across the street from the boardwalk, and she could see many families walking along the beach, thirty-something couples and their small children, carrying balloons or hotdogs or ice cream cones. Some of the mothers looked harried, and some of the fathers frustrated, but most seemed as content as could be expected of ordinary human beings. She walked faster.

After some six or seven blocks, she arrived again at her own home, a small and cluttered apartment on the second floor of a squat and unadorned building. She locked the door behind her and set the purse down on the one chair she owned (and which, as it so happened, she did not steal). She marched to the sink and filled a tea kettle, which she put on the venerable—that is to say, rusting—stove.

            Waiting for the sound of the kettle’s whistle, she thought back to the look on Dennis’s face—though, of course, she did not know his name—as she made her escape from the store. She remained lost in this posture for no small span of minutes. When the shriek of the kettle at last punctured her little reverie, she gave the slightest of starts before retrieving a cup and returned once more to her seat.

            As she sat drinking, her purse now consigned to the bare floor, she absent-mindedly pulled off each of the six rings on her left hand. They had not been the best fits for her—she thought that, perhaps, they had been meant for a child—and they left significant imprints on her flesh. She took a sip from her cup (held in her right hand) and flexed the ring-marked fingers. They did not feel right to her, free from the familiar constriction, but somehow she thought in time they would.