The Worst Thing I've Ever Posted

Disclaimer: I've had some drinks, but that's no excuse. The best writers in the world write when inspiration hits, and this is the inspiration i had tonight. So don't consider this an apology, it's just a disclaimer. Take this for what you will. Burn me at the stake in the comments.

Discovering a Garage Sale

It’s a typical night, although not one I had high hopes for. It’s Wednesday and that’s not a popular day for garage sales. Still, I need to support my family and this is how I’ve made my living for the last 6 months. It definitely wasn’t what I had anticipated doing when I crept under that border fence. My wife and child were already here. I got her across when she was 8 months pregnant and I actually thought she would burst right there, right in the back on the truck. She had my son in a nice clean hospital, just like I said she would and now he’s a U.S. citizen, just like I knew he’d be.

So here I am, sitting in the cab of a pickup that by day carries 7 guys and a lot of palm fronds. By night, it carries me and two others and we do a kind of yardwork that is different from the one the fucking gringos pay us so cheaply for. This one is work, and takes patience, but it pays and is just un poquito more exciting.

We’ve been driving for about 2 hours tonight. Since about 11. That’s the cost of doing business. This 1997 white chevy pickup doesn’t get the gas mileage it used to. Still, it has the quietest idle of anything we own and that makes all the difference. We’ve found a few morsels that will tide us over and make good Christmas gifts for the ninos but we haven’t found “cuenta grande” just yet.

There’s a few neighborhoods we prefer. We mow and rake and weed-eat there in the daylight and we learn schedules and we learn habits. Just because we work blue-collar jobs, doesn’t mean we have blue-collar minds.

After scouting a few new places we cruise through familiar territory. Condos with closed garages. Nice places give nice people false security. White people associate ghettos and barrios with crime because of the dingy appearance, but they’re some of the safest neighborhoods in town. We bring the barrios to them.

“There it is,” I say to the driver without the slightest hint of exhilaration. The sight of the open door has become pretty routine. At this hour, there’s always one.

We can mow a half-acre lawn in 20 minutes, we can trim 25 trees, remove all the branches and rake up the shrapnel in an hour, we can clean out a garage in 12 minutes. We know where the good stuff is and we know our demographic. In Scottsdale, golf bags full of clubs fetch a nice price with half-way wealthy white people, work-out equipment, not so much. This place has a snowboard, boots and a roof rack. This town’s average temperature is 78 degrees. We’ll leave those. But we’ll take these power tools and this blowtorch and this bucket full of various nuts, bolts, washers and screws. There’s a day-laborer pick up site at 44th street that will love these. We’ll leave the couches and furniture, they might get money at a sale but they might draw attention moving at 2 a.m.

I don’t like to say Christmas at these jobs. Christmas involves Christ and I don’t think his father would be too proud of me now. But his son would. He was all about helping the poor and needy. Since he hasn’t come back yet, we’re going to help ourselves. I’m sure he’ll understand when he gets here.

Now, usually an open garage means a car is here. But evidence is not something we’re interested in leaving. We’ll leave it alone, unless…yeah, this idiot left the car unlocked. There’s change in the center console, identifying information and titles in the glove box. (Some time’s there are even keys. We’re not in this for grand theft auto, but we know people who are.) And just in case the pinche rich gringo is oblivious to the fortunes he has, we’ll arrange everything nicer than we found it. This car is nice and there’s a key here. We’re not in this for grand theft auto, but we know people who are and this will do nicely. You’d think with skateboards, an iPod, power tools and golf clubs that I wouldn’t be interested in the change in the center console. But that’s where you’d be wrong amigo. 100 pennies make a dollar makes 7000 pesos. That’s worth every penny to me. They say the only reason we’re in America is because we’ll do the work that nobody else will…if that means counting the pennies that nobody else will, then you’ve got me pegged.

In the back seat, there’s an apron. Maybe this person isn’t making that much money after all. Ah fuck him, the servers always make more than me when I bussed tables. With this much stuff, he does fine. There’s a wine key in his apron. Obviously he works at one of those nicer places. We’ll take this too, just to stick the corkscrew into the man’s ribs a bit.

He’ll wake up tomorrow and call the policia. They’ll ask some questions, mainly for insurance purposes and they’ll leave, never to talk again. Even if they find a fingerprint, they’ll never find us. They call it undocumented for a reason.

And we’re off. We’ve taken anything of value to us, but not everything of value to him. He has one of those fancy laser things that keeps the door from closing on cars and kids. If the door is closed in the morning and everything is clean and tidy, nobody will be the wiser for quite a while. This will lead to confusion for the boss, but not for the new owner.

This stuff, along with what we have found the last few nights will make a nice garage sale. And nothing will look better than I can afford. I’m selling their hides back to them and none of them will be any the wiser.

The hours are hard, but it’s worth it. My family is better off, and I’d do anything for my family.

Adam Wright is a frustrated writer and frustrated human who has been shunned and pushed aside by the writing community and then had his car and his garage robbed. He has given up on writing as a profession and embraced writing as a simple hobby, much like knitting or painting. He has no proof or basis of assumption about the perpetrator of his crime, just an idea in his head. And if that makes him a bad person, then that shoe fits.