I was standing on the corner of 1st and Florida. I was waiting for my bus. There was a car idling nearby: a husband dropping his wife or mistress off at work. The woman was leaning over the open rear window and cooing at two dogs curled up on the backseat. The dogs were extremely fluffy.
    "I hope all my boys have a good day!" she was saying, in the highest-pitched baby voice I have ever heard.
    A man about 50 years old--male pattern baldness, stomach out over his beltline--was crossing to my side of the street. He seemed to be eyeing me suspiciously as he approached. I watched him for a second. Then his eyes moved to meet mine and he pointed to a spot right next to me. I turned and saw that my briefcase was not sitting on the ground where I'd left it. Instead, it was in the hand of a girl--college-age, black hair with blonde streaks--who was in the midst of stealing it.
    "Hey," I said. "That's mine."
    "Sorry," she said. "I'm a kleptomaniac. I'm on my way to class."
    I noticed that the girl was cute.
    "Well, just leave the briefcase with me and be on your way."
    "No. You need to call the cops."
    "That's not necessary. Just try not to steal people's briefcases anymore."
    "No, goddammit, you have to call the cops. It's the only way I'll learn."
    "Really," I said. "It's fine, you've got your whole life ahead of you, just get on out of here. Consider yourself reprimanded."
    "Listen, pal," she said, her voice rising in anger. "I need to get arrested. This behavior is a pattern with me. So come on, start yelling for the cops. Or do you have a cell phone? I need to learn that my actions have negative consequences. We studied this in psych class."
    "That bitch needs to get thrown in jail, is what needs to happen," the balding man said.
    I turned and saw that he had stopped in the middle of the road to watch from a safe distance. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. They made me feel overheated.
    The car with the dogs in it was still idling at the curb. The guy was waiting to make sure his lady friend was safely inside her place of business, but the door to her building seemed to be locked. She kept tugging at it and grunting. The dogs were panting in unison in the backseat.
    "Jeez, it's hot today," I said, reaching in my pocket for a handkerchief.
    "It's humid, is what it is," the balding man called over to me. "I think they said ninety-percent chance of rain, something like that? I had the news on this morning, but I couldn't find my shoes. So I was running all over the house."
    "Me, too," I said. I fought the urge to look down at my feet. I was wearing one blue sock and one brown sock.
    There was a jangling crash behind me.
    The college girl had unlatched my briefcase and upended its contents out onto the sidewalk.
    "This is at least a class C felony," she said, pawing through my belongings.
    I stood on my toes and craned my neck to see as far down the street as I could. "I feel totally confident that my bus will arrive shortly," I said, to anyone.



About the author:
Kevin Fanning lives in Illinois. He has been published in Eyeshot, Diagram, Inkburns, Whalelane, and The Morning News. Much of his writing can be found at whygodwhy.com.

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