This is my last four days. I am not suggesting that I’m
dying, although surely we all are. Today is Friday, and by this coming Tuesday I
will be back to working more than full time.
It’s been a good run. I’ve had the opportunity to go to
several Twins games. I get to go to the gym every morning. And I get to drive
around to places far and near to do things that are either necessary, or
desired. It’s kind of like having a seven-day weekend for a month. I really like it.
It’s 9am, and I’m sitting at J&S Bean Factory in St.
Paul. I’ve been up since 6:00, and I’m still winding down from my workout. My
last two posts have been quite popular with you people, and I’m grateful for all
of the comments and helpful feedback I’ve received. This puts me in a bind,
though. Right now, I am at a loss for words, and perhaps the people in the
coffee shop have caught me staring blankly into space, or worse, at them. My
mouth isn’t hanging open when I gaze though, so they don’t appear to be
frightened.
It was dark. The whirring of a box fan in the single window
was the only separation from complete silence. I knew I had to be quiet or I
would wake up the residents above the restaurant. I had entered the premises using
my I.D. because I had lost my keys to everything in a drunken stupor some time
ago. I was on a mission: I had to steal money out of the register without
anybody seeing me on camera.
Every step seemed to echo in the long, well-lit hallway that
leads to the cash register. There was a camera that covered that hallway, and
the register, but so long as nobody was awake upstairs, nobody would see me. To
my left, the metal equipment was still settling down from the day of service,
creaking and groaning as if it was trying to tell me to just stop and go home.
But I couldn’t. I needed my fix.
I rounded the corner and typed in the proper arrangement of
passwords and commands, which had somehow never been changed, even after it was
probably obvious to management that money was going missing. The drawer opened
up with only a hollow click, and I reached my greedy hands inside.
I went in about every other night because that’s how often
the cash was restocked, and I took a few bills, mostly 10’s and 5’s. I never
went for more than $40 or $50 at a time, but sometimes I would have to go back
twice in a night. Tonight I took $50, and I slunk out the back door, leaving my
fears behind me. I went down the back alley to the rear entrance to the bar. I
had left five minutes earlier, stating that I had to run home to get more money
for pull tabs.
That’s how I stole money from Pedal Pushers Café. That is
why I had to make that amend. And that is the burden I had carried with me
throughout the years, and even well into sobriety. I broke into the restaurant,
yes. But I also broke into their home, and I broke the trust that they had
given me. When I first moved down to Lanesboro, they put me up in their trailer
when things went south with my roommate, and they even helped me get an
apartment in town. What I did should have been unforgivable, but it wasn’t.
Really, nothing is.
Alcoholics and addicts spend most of their lives wreaking
havoc on the lives of those around them. It takes time to make up for all of
that, but the reward is happiness and love; this is the remuneration I have
been earning for my work.
And that is how it’s done.
