(10) Under The Cover Of The Night:
Araceli Torre
“We’re checking, but that doesn’t seem to be the end of your night?” Riggs asked.
“Nope, and the next part could possibly be considered...slightly illegal," I stammered.
Could this be why I’d been arrested? If that was the case, my entire family needed a long time-out, and maybe then they would stop getting me into trouble.
“Well then, please continue Ms. Torre.”
The car ride home had been beyond uncomfortable. Monica had refused to utter a single word…she blamed me for the whole ’car’ fiasco. But it didn’t worry me too much, since Monica never stayed upset for long.
Besides, the lack of chatter gave me ample time to come up with several ways to fix this mess. After the events of the night, it’d become clear to me that our neighbor was emotionally attached to his belongings.
“We have to return everything,” I said, finally breaking the silence.
We were parked in front of my apartment, not even trying to get out of the car. We were both still traumatized from the night’s events. It wasn’t everyday that we got chased by short fat men, drove through rivers or almost crashed.
“It’s all long gone by now,” she responded.
“No, not all of it…they’re too lazy.”
“That’s true.”
“Right. So there’s a good chance that most of it is still lying all over your living room floor,” I said.
“Mmm…what do you suggest?” Monica asked.
The ‘what to do’ came easy; we needed to return everything that the crazy ladies had stolen. The ‘how to do it’ got tricky, but apparently Monica had ample time to mull that problem over during the long drive.
“Go change, wear all black and meet me back here in thirty minutes,” she demanded.
“What now?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Monica looked like she wanted to add something else, but refrained. She simply nodded and we parted ways…running in opposite directions.
* * * * * * *
Monica hadn’t arrived yet, which meant the chances of me chickening out were higher than normal. To help prevent that, I decided to stay outside until my cousin showed up.
Letting my body fall to the ground, I tried to not look suspicious, a difficult task on a normal day, but it turned out to be especially tricky dressed as a ninja…in the middle of the night.
The whole situation made me a little wary, and I hoped that my black sweats blended into the night well enough to deter any nosy neighbors from calling the cops. For extra assurance, I arranged my hair around my face and settled down for quick nap (it was way past my bedtime).
“Psss…”
I laid completely still, opening one eye at a time to let my vision adjust to the darkness again. When I felt confident I could see, I sat up and searched my surroundings for the source of the strange noises. It didn’t take me long to spot Monica hiding in some bushes near our mailbox, her big eyes bright with excitement.
“What are you doing there?” I crawled over to my cousin, trying to channel my inner cat.
As I got closer, I noticed that Monica had really gotten into the spirit of tonight’s activities. She wore complete cameo attire, and had covered her face with a mud/grass concoction to match her outfit. Several twigs were tangled in her hair, but I couldn’t be sure that part was on purpose.
“Let’s do this,” she whispered.
Nodding at Monica, I ran back to the front door and grabbed the first bag from inside my foyer. A frantic search throughout my house for the original bags had been futile; my aunts had probably stolen them as well. So now there were thirty little bags stacked into a pyramid that we had to move.
This mission had the potential to take up the entire night, so to speed up the process, we’d come up with a little system where I would throw Monica a bag and she’d run and shove it into the backseat of my car.
Once we’d transferred everything, I giggled my way into the driver’s seat (I blamed the adrenaline).
We rehashed the plan just to make sure that we were on the same page (or planet, whatever). The first phase consisted of actually driving to the house, but parking a few houses away for our safety.
Once there, we were going to tip-toe (very carefully) all the way to the front lawn and just leave the bags where we found them.
“Got it?”
“Got it,” Monica answered.
We’d arrived in record time, so I took my time parking just to give us more time to mentally prepare. Monica looked ready, but concern flooded me.
“You’re not allowed an out,” Monica said.
“But Moni-“
“Nope.”
“- it’s trash night,” I said.
It hadn’t crossed my mind that it was trash night when I’d agreed to this. The trucks would probably take the bags away before the angry neighbor had a chance to notice that we had returned his crap…or worse, they would catch us.
“So what do we do now?” She asked me.
“I don’t know, but let’s get the bags out first.”
We used a similar method for the second phase; I got the bags out of the car and ran them down a couple feet to the ‘middle zone’. Monica would then move the bags the rest of the way, arranging them in a neat row in front of our neighbor’s home.
It took us a little longer the second time around, but after the last load had been transferred, we crouched behind the bags and wondered how we were going to do this.
We were lost in thought for several minutes, and in the distance we could hear a large garbage truck approaching. We were running out of time.
“I have an idea,” Monica squealed.
Even if I knew what she was up too, I couldn’t stop it…she was already running towards the house with a bag in each hand. She dropped the bags near the side of the house, and focused her attention on jiggling a side window open.
I was afraid to stop her, and concentrated on being the ‘lookout’ instead. After a few seconds, Monica retreated and swung the first bag through a now open window.
“Monica…what-“
“Hurry up and pass me the bags,” she whispered as she looked over her shoulder.
The grind of the garbage truck sounded closer, and so I grabbed the closest bag and tossed it to Monica, who sung the bags inside…one by one.
We had like three bags left when a light somewhere inside the house turned on, Monica and I hit and ground in fear.
“What the hell-” said some man inside the house.
A second light came on, followed by a whole lot of cursing. I didn’t want to be there when he came outside, so I made a ‘mad dash’ for the car.
“What are you waiting for? Just drive,” Monica said from the backseat.
“Can’t, just stay down or he’ll know it was us.”
I pushed my body down as far as I could and tried really hard to concentrate on other things…nice things, like a vacation to the Bahamas. I really needed a vacation right now.
I risked my life and took a peak in the side mirror, a tall black man had come out of the house and he did not look happy. He rushed back inside, yelling at someone to call the cops.
We’d return the bags to the wrong house.
“Monica, we have to run.”
“Do we have to?”
“Yes.”
“I hate running,” she said.
With one quick glance, I looked up and signaled Monica to get out of the car. We began to walk away slowly, hitting full speed the moment that we turned the block and didn’t stop until we got home.
“Are we in trouble?” I asked. It all sounded worse out loud.
“Maybe.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means we’re taking another break, I have some things that I need to check out,” Riggs said.
“So…is that why I’m here?” I asked timidly.
Riggs sighed, “We’ll discuss it when I get back.”