Dad comes back after cheating on Mom because there’s no other way for our family to survive. Mom can’t make it with kids on her own. And so my parents are back at work together folding towels, washing plates, breaking up fights, and cleaning bathrooms at the Cal-Neva casino in Lake Tahoe, NV, while my cousin Bianca and I are left with my twelve-year-old sister Michelle or left to find ways to entertain ourselves in and around our Incline Village apartments.

Bianca, small and round and brown like me, has also grown a want for want. We might have home-cooked food and a roof, but we want more. She is eight, I am seven, and so she is my mentor.

I have never seen Bianca’s dad, and every once in a while, I wonder why he isn’t around. Much later, I will learn from my mom that Bianca’s father left her when we were both too young to remember him. Betty, Bianca’s mom, and my mom hate each other, but for now, they try to pretend they don’t because they have to live next to each other. I sense this already at a young age because Mom is always calling Betty, “Hija de la gran puta.”

But Bianca and I love each other as a brother and sister. She is my first true friend. We spin around on the living room carpet until we see it become a gigantic blonde cookie beneath our feet. We take creamers from the Raley’s to pour in a glass. We rent a Super Nintendo cartridge for $1 at the Video Maniacs and play it all day on the console in the store. She teaches me how to buy pizza from the adjoining Café. And then she teaches me how to steal; how to keep my hands innocuous and out of pockets; how to pretend to browse items; how to assess a situation.

Bianca and I walk from our apartment to the Village Market, a tiny grocery store. Our feet make tiny wet sounds upon the small puddles and brown snow on the mostly clear path. Large piles of snow lie pushed to the side, and we stand so small; it feels like we stroll through tunnels of ice and snow. The winter sun soaks into our dark hair. The snowcapped pine trees bristle with the wind and drop long, sharp icicles.

We stop at the entrance to the small shopping center. There’s the video store Dad takes me to where he rents me He-Man tapes. There’s the comic shop Dad takes me to where I might get a cheap X-Men comic. There’s the pet shop Dad takes me to just to look at cute animals and my favorites, the kitties. Bianca and I always window-shop as we walk by.

We stop at the stairs that descend to the lower levels of shops. Our breath puffs fill the air between us. From her jacket pocket, Bianca produces tough little green, blue, and chrome circles of plastic and cardboard: Pogs. The biggest, heaviest, chromiest one is called a slammer, she tells me. She hands it to me. Its heft fills me with importance.

“That’s so cool your mom got those for you, Bianca! You’re lucky!”

 “My mom didn’t get them for me.”

“How did you get them then? You don’t have money.”

“You don’t need money how I got them, Michael.”

My eyes audibly widen, like those old Tom and Jerry cartoons we watch when there’s nothing else on TV. This is what I have been dreaming of for years, a method through which you don’t have to pay for anything, and a place where you can have whatever you want—as much—no, more—than the fair-skinned kids.

“How?!”

“Come with me. I’ll show you.”

We stand in the toy-knick-knack-aisle of the market. The soft rock that I do not know yet is soft rock plays in the background: “I was born in a small town…” The natural blue light fills the store through its front windows. Adult customers tower above us, their legs like stilts. Their shoes shuffle by. The chatter of the market rages on, the front door chimes, the registers continually beep. The smells of the bakery bread, the misty produce section, and the people all blend together.

“So here’s what you do,” Bianca says. She looks up at the camera that’s right above the aisle. I follow her gaze.

“Those round black things—” She smacks my arm down. “Don’t point at them, tonto! Those black things are cameras.”

She takes a tray-like package of pogs off the slim metal merchandise pole.

“Come over here. We have to go to a different aisle, where there’s no black thing.”

She scans the aisles and finds the least populated one without a camera.

“How do we get it for free, though, Bianca? Tell me already. I don’t get it. What do the cameras matter?”

She moves close to me, so she doesn’t have to talk loudly. “Just wait, Michael, jeez. And be quiet! You have to wait for the right time for this when no one else is around.”

“Why?”

“Just wait—okay see? No one is here, and now I can show you.” She extends the side of her poofy coat with one arm and envelops the package. With her free hand, she tears the cardboard backing carefully from one corner of the pog pack and lets the pogs spill into her inner jacket pocket. Finally, she hides the spent evidence under the aisle’s racks.

The brisk air outside the sliding double doors feels like a breath of reality. Bianca’s very steps sound confidant, and I half-jog behind like a doggy.

“And so you have to take the package off because the codes on the back set off the machines.”

“But Bianca,” I whisper in a not whisper. “That’s stealing.” I expect that saying the words will make Bianca quit her brisk pace, so we can stand and talk about this. But she keeps on walking, and I keep on trailing.

“So?”

“Well, so my mommy and daddy said that was bad.”

“So?”

 “Look, didn’t you want some pogs? These are for you.”

“What? Those ones are for me?!”

“Yeah, they’re for you, dummy.”

“Yay!”

“Yeah, yay. So see, you know my mom and your mom and dad don’t have money. So if you want something, you need to get it yourself.”

She makes it look easy. And it is.

I can’t swim. I can’t ride a bike. I can’t read. But I can soon steal all on my own. I do just as Bianca has taught me: checking for cameras, casually looking up, looking around, and scoping out the joint; feeling for the weakest corner of the packaging and tearing quickly and quietly; hiding the empty packages; stashing the merchandise in my underwear or pockets and positioning the items so they don’t look odd in my pants. I decide to use my backpack on my own. 

I now have some measure of control. Even the Anglo kids with the most opulent snacks envy the sheer variety of snacks I possess, everything from Hostess cakes to those cursed Fruit Roll-Ups. And I have my snacks for lunch too. I will top your rice cake for a chocolate rice cake, and mine is free and all mine. I’m the snack king. I’m the emperor of treats. Yo soy el rey del sabroso. And I am no benevolent ruler; whenever Becky or David ask to share some of my snacks, never once having offered me any of theirs, I take pleasure in lying, saying, “Sorry, I only have a little bit,” just like they have said to me so many times before.

I am making a difference in my world.

One spring morning before I leave the apartment for Mrs. Mace’s first-grade class, I look into my horde, my backpack, and I see I’m out of snacks. There’s not even any unfrozen Otter Pop juice. The rain pours outside. The thunder crashes. The pine trees smell so deliciously of pine and sap and dirt and rain. I want some Quaker Oats s’mores granola bars, and I will have them. I don my Power Rangers raincoat and my Power Ranger’s Velcro shoes. I splash through shallow puddles along the way. But one is too deep, making half my sock wet and gross.

I return to my usual haunt, where all this theft began, The Village Market. Inside the double doors, I survey all that I may own before me. The familiar beeps from the checkout counter reassure me that I don’t need those beeps to come and go as I please. Those sensors by the front door are nothing to me. The adults are too self-involved to notice me when I’m careful.

I know what I want for right now. I can get the rest after school.

I have improved upon Bianca’s methods. First, my backpack is an even better tool than pockets—you can fit so much more. Second, since I do this so much more than Bianca now, I check for cameras, and I check for people much more efficiently; I have the whole grid of the store and the position of each camera memorized. Third, I’m just better. I’m the best at stealing.

I unzip my backpack. Sometimes the zipper sounds deliciously loud, like a mouth that has waited long to open with a sigh. The boxes sigh similar groans when I tear their cardboard strips off. The granola bars crinkle to the floor of my bag.

I feel the thrill of anxiety, and I picture  big brown moths tickling the walls of my stomach with their broad wings. I walk towards the front aisle of the store, my throat ever-drying. I have to gulp but can’t. My steps feel heavy. But this dangerous flutter is familiar, a constant companion through all my stealing experience. I see the double doors. I’m going to step out and feel the cold air on my face and the puddled water underneath my feet. I’m going to go snack loudly in class. I’m going to get away.

I feel a hand on my shoulder.

“Hello there. My name is Charlie. You’re coming with me, Michael.” We walk to his manager’s office in the back of the store.

Immediately I have some vague memory about this brown-mustached man. But I don’t know who he is. I can’t believe I’ve been caught.

“I’m really disappointed in you, Michael.” His blue eyes look tired like my parents’ eyes look tired. He takes the granola bars out of my backpack and puts them on his metal desk. He grabs his coat off the rack and makes sure my jacket is zipped up.

He takes me by the hand. We walk outside, back into the reality of the rain. Car lights reflect off the oil-rainbow puddles. I don’t know where we’re going.

 “You stole those granola bars,” Charlie says.

“Yes,” I say. Maybe starting with the truth will lead me to a day-saving lie.

“Why?”

Dang. He’s got me already.

“I don’t know,” I reply after a long silence.

But that is only half true. I kind of do know. I know that I was hungry. I know that that hunger made me more hungry. I know that I wasn’t going to stop until I was full. I feel full now, with guilt. I’m growing sick with it. The heavy raindrops on my raincoat hood each sound like the taut snap of a belt strap.

Still, I’m glad it’s rainy. The racket of fat rain means we don’t have to talk as much.

I see my playground. He’s taking me to Incline Elementary, my school, just around the corner. I imagine waiting in the office with Charlie, the rectangle-rimmed glasses of the receptionist shining under the fluorescent lights while she calls my parents. I need to pee.

We stop suddenly. We stand on the sidewalk outside the playground fence.

“Michael, I know your dad. I’m going to talk to him. You tell him he needs to come talk to me. You have to. Now go to school.”

 He lets go of my hand, and I run to school.

Mrs. Mace, my first-grade teacher, always looks at me funny or doesn’t look at me at all. When it was my turn to be “Child of the Week,” where we get special attention and prizes, Mrs. Mace pretended I wasn’t there.

“Is Michael here?” She asked among the uncaring din of children.

“I’m right here, Mrs. Mace!” I shouted from behind her.

“I guess Michael isn’t here. Chris, you’ll be child of the week again this week. Okay?”

I turned quiet. I thought maybe she made a mistake, even though it didn’t feel like a mistake. And then I knew I would never be the child of the week.

Mrs. Mace doesn’t look at me any more funny than usual when I walk into class thirty minutes late. She just lets me go and tells me what to do and what all the other students are practicing; they’re reading a list of words for a spelling and reading test. She hands me the list of words like apple and book. At least I know the alphabet now because of the alphabet song, but these words are too hard for me, and I can’t even worry about that because I’m in so much trouble. I’m dead. Plus I have no granola bars. Plus I’m going to get the belt. Plus Mommy is going to be mad and cry. Plus Daddy is going to be sad and yell.

My head hangs low on the walk home to our apartment across the street from school. I’m so scared. This is scarier than Freddy and Chucky and the rest. This time I’m the monster that’s done the bad thing. I’m the one with the dark and terrible secret. I’m the one who hurts indiscriminately. I’m the one no can love.

Mommy’s dark eyes light up when she turns and sees me close the door. She got off work early because she didn’t feel good, she says. She smiles her beautiful smile that spreads far out so you can see her teeth and part of her gums.

“Mommy, I have something to tell you.” The rain drips off of me.

“¿What, mijo?” She must see how bad I look. Tired. Guilty. Sad.

“I um.”

“¿Michael, qué? Tell me.”

“Um.” The kitchen smells of spice and bouillon, and it’s too strong, and my nose doesn’t like it.

“Michael.” She grabs me by the shoulders. “Please tell me.”

“You know Charlie at the store?”

She thinks for one moment. “Sí. What about him? What about Charlie?”

“He caught me stealing today, and he told me he needs to talk to you and Daddy.” My tears overtake the rain on my jacket, and I bawl.

“Ay, Michael.” Mommy says. She’s choked up.

“¿Por qué? ¿Pero por qué?”

“I don’t know!” I sob more, and I bury my face in my hands. The steaming bean pot whistles.

“Are you going to hit me?”

“No.”

“Is Daddy going to hit me?”

“Probablemente, Mikey.”

I bawl more. Mommy takes me in her arms.

Dad does hit me with the belt after Mom tells him. I hear the belt cut the air before the first blow lands, and he tells me “¡Eso! ¡No! ¡Se! ¡Hace!” Each word is punctuated by the sting and pain of each of the whips to my butt. And then Dad, exhausted, drinks two shots of whiskey and watches fútbol. I am so bad. I have made him more tired. It stings.

The next day Dad and I go get an ice cream at 7-Eleven. My favorite is It’s-It, a big chocolate-covered cookie ice-cream sandwich.

“Do you see why stealing is bad, mijo?” He walks with his strong hand over my little one. “You have to work for what you get in this life. Nothing is free. Mommy and me work all the time. And we want stuff too.” He laughs. He smiles. I see his big white teeth and don’t see his missing front tooth. “It’s not just you who wants stuff. And I wish I could give you everything you wanted.” I look up at him. “But you can’t get everything you want, and you have to work for everything you get. Do you understand?” His brow furrows.

“Yes, Daddy.” I think I do, but do I? I will stop stealing for now only because my want to be good for them currently outweighs my want for everything else.

 Now, though, this beast of want lives inside of me. I want the big toys, like Power Wheels. I want never-ending It’s-It’s. I want every cartoon on VHS from He-Man to Lion King in my own personal media library. My parent’s love alone is no longer enough.

We walk home together. Dad holds my hand and tries to pull me up every time I slip on the ice.

Michael DuBon is a first-generation Nevada native of Guatemalan descent. His poetry has appeared in The Meadow, and he enjoys writing in both English and Spanish. He holds an MFA from Saint Mary’s College of California, and he is currently working on his memoir: The DuBonicles. At his most natural, he is always laughing and smiling. He hopes to share the smiles and laughter through his writing.