I Am Again Not Robbed

• 4 Dollar Sunday Curtailed By Emergency

Sunday night, I knocked off immediately after getting a text from my guest, Jacob, telling me that he had left my apartment and was going back to stay with Bob, his guardian.

I draw a girl to look at the dog that

came on one of the free canvases that I found on Craigslist

“Cool, did you lock up?”

“I thought you said you couldn’t lock the door...”

Well, I had told Jake that, since he didn't have his own key, he wouldn't be able to lock up behind him if he left -the deadbolt, that is; he would still be able to lock the old style lock on the door handle, affording at least some security.


Right: When Tim and I arrived at the pile of stuff on the sidewalk that was being given away, having been lured there by a Craigslist ad offering free books, there were a few blank canvases and one with the dog already painted upon it.
I hesitated to grab it, not thinking that I could always just paint over it, but did, as kind of an afterthought; and the thing has wound up growing on me, as it sits and keeps and eye on me. But I'm not sure I trust it yet, and so last night, I drew a little girl to keep an eye on it.
The way it took me only like ten minutes to render the girl encourages me to go back into drawing faces. Not dogs, though.

Jacob, Continued...

So, thinking that he couldn't lock the door behind him, he still left.

He apparently couldn’t have waited a couple hours until I returned from busking.

"He could have called you and asked you how to lock the door," said Larry, outside the Quartermaster, when I was there, dropping my milk crate off early, after having called it a night a little past midnight, after having made 4 dollars off the first group of tourists that came along.



So, in a building where a month ago my bike was stolen from the hallway right outside the door in question, that door stood unlocked.

 "Your early tonight," said the security guy at the front desk of Sacred Heart Apartments.

I felt like I was just starting to make money, after a group came by and threw me a few bucks, and it felt like it might not turn out to be such a bad Sunday night after all.

I had been telling Jacob that it isn’t unusual to follow an eighteen dollar Saturday with a sixty dollar Sunday, “there’s no rhyme or reason,” I had said.

Then I got the text.

I found it hard to keep playing "as if I didn’t have a care in the world" -which is key to getting people to throw tips- fearing that whatever little I made might come at the expense of having my apartment cleaned out by the type of person who just sits around noticing things like a person leaving the building.

Did they lock their place behind them? Maybe not. It’s part of a skeezers job to be on the ball and check behind them...

It was an innocent oversight by Jacob and there really only was a less than one percent chance that anyone would go into my place and steal anything. There is maybe only one guy, the one who stole my bike, who would.

But, if he happened to knock on my door thinking I was there and might buy a pair of size 17 sneakers that he stole out of a laundry room somewhere, or a boombox with only one speaker, and the door gave when he knocked, then I would almost certainly be minus a laptop and/or the Epiphone guitar, and my size ten sneakers...

But, all is well that ends well. Jacob had left a couple frozen pizzas in my freezer, which kept me from feeling like I had to stop and buy food on the way home, and today, he has bought me a shot and a half of kratom. So, had I played for another hour and made ten bucks, I would be no further ahead now, but would have taken the sheen off my new strings and missed out on an hour of reading "Iberia," by James A. Michener.