They were a wretched sight, mother and son, hunkered on yellow plastic chairs at the police station. They sat at the lip of their seats, suggesting free will, meanwhile they huddled, stiff and frightened looking. The way they positioned their limbs obscured the handcuffs and lengths of chain tethering them to one another and the metal desk. The young man fussed with the locks, worming a toothpick into the hole, while mom blew him a kiss and winked.
For decades these low-rent schemers had mustered a living from genteel crime. Mom would conceptualize and son would implement, tipping cars off cliffs, staging robberies, faking injuries. Only one time did things get out of hand when setting a house ablaze they accidentally charred half the neighbor’s. “Hey!” the mom assured, “No one got hurt.”
The dad had fled long ago, his car crammed with everything they had ever owned, never to be seen again. The son, from an early age devised a mode of his own. While craven, he was a nimble-fingered thief and instinctively he knew this was a talent he ought to develop. In candy stores he cleared whole shelves, stuffing his pockets before moseying off. Eventually the mother discovered her son’s penchant, finding him and his pilfered candy in the basement.
“What’s this?” she said, hands on hips, as her son cowered and immediately confessed. “Who is my good boy!” she exclaimed, and gave her child a smothering hug.
Entwined as they were by their proclivities, they teamed up. When the schemes worked they took their winnings and shoved them into burlap sacks and buried the loot in a bog.
“Crime does pay!” the mother extolled.
Their favorite activity was acquiring. They exhausted themselves with purchasing. They were gluttons and they gorged, wiping the sweat from their brows with soggy paper money. It was a while before they noticed the karmic strings attached. For one thing, the money had to be stashed in a filthy freezing cold hole. Getting at it was trying.
Time passed and they got sloppy, no longer bothering to look around and check who might observe them pulling bags from out the arsehole of a field in the middle of effing nowhere.
Mom was returning to the car, the fourth such trip that morning, dragging the dirty bag of cash, letting it jounce off slimy clods. Bills fluttered loose, gone on a gust.
“Mom! The bag!”
“What?”
“The bag! It’s spilling!”
The sack had split its seams. Tattered white fringe bust in all directions, while bills swirled, twirling on the cold metallic breeze.
It was bad luck a trooper was passing by. Of course he saw enough to warrant a look-see.
Mother and son were transported to county jail where they sat in the yellow plastic chairs, whispering, and fussing with the locks of their restraints.