Thieving Weasels - Billy Taylor Page 0,2

America. The Plains Indians invented it to prepare for battle.”

Uncle Wonderful looked at the stick with newfound respect. “No shit?”

“But enough of a history lesson,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“Taking you home.”

I shook my head. “No way. This is my home now.”

“Save it. Your mother wants me to bring you back, so I’m bringing you back.”

“Why didn’t she come herself?” I asked.

“Because she’s in Shady Oaks.”

“What’s that? A retirement home for convicted felons?”

“No, smart guy, it’s a mental institution. Your mother tried to kill herself last week.”

3

THE FIRST TIME I GOT ARRESTED I WAS FOUR YEARS OLD. Actually, arrested is the wrong word for it. It was more like I was taken into custody. My mother was the one who got arrested, although we both wound up with our pictures in the paper. In the photograph, we’re being led out of Macy’s in handcuffs and beneath it the caption reads “The Littlest Criminal.” Except that was wrong, too. Not the little part, the criminal part. Mom and I were never criminals. Criminals rob banks. Criminals steal cars. Criminals deal drugs. Mom and me? We were weasels. We were thieves. We were slime. And so was everyone else in our family. I’d bet a million dollars there hasn’t been one minute in my entire life when at least one of my relatives wasn’t collecting welfare under an assumed name. And I’d bet another million there were at least two more cashing disability checks for jobs they never held.

Like I said, we were slime.

The kid in the paper told the police his name was Michael Dillon, but that was an alias. Over the years I’ve been Bobby, Timmy, Richie, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. For a long time I wanted to be called Waldo after the guy in the Where’s Waldo? books, but my mother said no to that because it would have stood out too much. And in our line of work that’s the last thing you want. My real name is Stephen O’Rourke, although I’ve never seen my birth certificate or any legal proof of my existence. My mother calls me Sonny, and everybody else calls me Skip. The best thing about a nickname is you don’t have to change it every time you change your identity, which I’ve done more times than your average seventeen-year-old has flossed.

Here’s how it worked: Mom would lease an apartment under a fake name, pay first and last month’s rent, and after that we’d rob the place blind. People were always happy to talk to a jolly fat lady and her cute little boy, and by the end of the first week we’d have learned everything there was to know about everybody who lived there: the hours they worked, when they were gone, and when they were born. After that, it was simply a matter of slipping into their apartments and finding their Social Security numbers. We’d take out credit cards in their names, shopped till we dropped, and sell what was left of their identities for a few hundred dollars. Three months later, and we were on to the next place.

I once asked my mother if she felt guilty for stealing from the people who lived next door.

“Why?” she replied. “It’s not like they’re family.”

Then she’d rip off one of my uncles, and when I asked her about that she’d say, “That’s because he’s a real A-hole.”

I’ll say this about my mother: she may have been a coldhearted thief, but she rarely cursed in my presence.

That said, she did lie about everything. Especially to me, and especially about who my father was. Sometimes he was an Irish tenor. Other times he was a diesel mechanic. Most of the time he was just “some guy.” When I asked my Grandpa Patsy about it, he’d just sigh and say, “Talk to your mother. That’s her deal, not mine.”

So, there you have it. Most kids have a father. I have a deal.

I was seven years old when I started to realize just how messed up my life was. This was a challenging time for Mom and me. My value had always been my size, and as I grew I became a liability. People began to wonder why the kid wandering through the Fragrance Department at Lord & Taylor on a Tuesday afternoon wasn’t in school. In other words, they paid attention to me—which is something you really don’t want when your mother is trying to stuff bottles of Chanel No. 5 in your Buzz