Nearsighted

Apologies in advance to those readers who complain that all I ever seem to write about is getting robbed (I’m looking at you, Janet).

WHEN

When it snows in Burlington, Vermont, human behavior shifts. One doesn’t simply stare contentedly out the window as the thick swirling flakes drop from the sky, sighing at the beauty of it all as you sip peppermint tea. I mean, certainly, you can do that, but if you don’t act fast, you risk not being able to back your car out of the garage. You must, instead, don a fluffy coat, one that hypes its ability to keep you warm in sub-zero temperatures. Don’t forget your hat. And gloves. Good gloves are essential to the task you are about to perform. They should not only keep your hands warm—they should also allow you to keep a firm grip on a cold metal pole for a very long time. But wait, don’t put on your gloves until after you lace up those snow boots, the ones that weigh as much as a bowling ball. Now you are ready to go outside, where, within ten minutes, you will be unzipping that sub-zero coat because you are sweating so much. After a few perfunctory “good morning” waves to the neighbors who are already at it, you begin to shovel away the ever-growing drifts before they freeze and harden. You clear the sidewalk at the end of the driveway first. Then, before you can tackle the area behind the one-car garage where you park

your

car, you set to brushing away the foot of accumulated snow from your wife’s car. After it’s clear, you come back inside, grab her keys and back her car into the street. Once the entire driveway is shoveled—at this point you are wearing nothing but a T-shirt and your hands are pulsing—you back your car out of the garage then pull your wife’s car into the snow-free driveway, come inside to shower and get ready for work. Your wife spends the day writing, as is her normative behavior. As the hours and winter storm progress, she sees from her office window her car getting buried once again. But she doesn’t care: she has no plans to go anywhere. She has no errands to run. No friends to meet. A day passes and the snow abates. You yell, “Goodbye! I’m going to work,” and leave the house. Your wife continues to drink tea and edit the book that her agent is sure will be a big hit. Just as she finishes typing the word

psilocybin

into her Word document, she hears you come back inside. “Um, sweetie,” you say from so far away she’s not sure she hears you correctly. “What?!” she screams, because oh god she hates to be interrupted when she’s writing. You don’t reply—rather you clomp up the stairs and stand in the doorway to her office, a look of utter dismay on your face. “Someone broke into your car,” you say more nonchalantly than the news necessitates.

HOW

“What? How is that possible?” your befuddled wife yells, jumping up from her desk and running into the bedroom to put on clothes, since, at the moment she is wearing only a black nightie and fleece socks. She slides on sweatpants, her daughter’s castoff BHS sweatshirt, wool socks, and skitters down the stairs, almost careening into the hall closet door, which she tears open while you, following slowly behind her, stutter out some inchoate, incoherent words of explanation. She slams on the first hat she can find, slides her feet into her purple UGGS, shoves her balled-up fists into some wool gloves and rushes out the door, slowing just enough to keep from slipping and falling (yet again) on the steep and icy sidewalk leading from the house to the driveway. Tentatively approaching the car as if it’s been sprayed with poisonous gas, she reaches out to the door handle, but before she opens it she whips around and peers into your face. “They didn’t break any windows. You fucking forgot to lock it yesterday, didn’t you?!”

WHAT

“Oh my God,” she whimpers, when she opens the door. Everything that wasn’t bolted down in her 2018 Rogue SL is gone. Literally, everything. She begins to shake with anger, cursing not just you but the ever-growing population of desperate drug addicts who have taken over Burlington’s streets. Cars and homes are being broken into more often. Used hypodermic needles litter the sidewalks and alleyways and parks. Until a police-person shows up to shoo them away, homeless people stake out camping sites in children’s playgrounds. But these are not the thoughts running through her frantic and furious mind, no. Your wife is too busy compiling a mental checklist of all the trivial and not-so-trivial items she will need to replace. And that’s when it hits her, hard, in her solar plexus: they took the large diamond-shaped necklace on the chunky gold chain that hung around the rear-view mirror: a touchstone to her dead mother; a kitschy piece of costume jewelry she would finger whenever she’d get into the car before whispering, “Hi, Mom.” “I hate you,” she gurgles over her shoulder as you stand there, contrite hands in pockets. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” is all you offer. “I thought I’d locked it.”

“Well, you thought wrong,” she replies, peering into the gaping emptiness of the glove compartment. “Shit. They took my binoculars. Tim gave those to me twenty years ago.” Once she has taken account of all the things that she is pretty sure were taken from the car, she files a police report, knowing 100% that they will do nothing. Still, it calms her to see the list of stolen goods, tidily organized: Mom’s necklace, a beaded necklace made by Loy, Nikon binoculars, Rogue owner’s manual, a fake diamond ring, a crystal, KN 95 masks, a box of tissues, lip balm, an open bag of Red Hots, 2 pairs of cheap gloves, a tube of hand lotion, a tube of sunscreen, 2 pairs of reading glasses, 2 pairs of sunglasses, Swiss Army knife, nail clippers, a pair of contact lenses, a towel, a map of Vermont, 2 pens, a pad of paper, a phone charger thingy, an air pressure thingy, a bottle of Advil. She is heartened by the fact that the person or persons who pillaged her car did not defecate, urinate or leave used needles on the backseat: a common occurrence in many of the recently-reported car-crime cases. She is sad, but she also feels lucky.

WHERE

Immediately, she calls three pawn shops and describes her mother’s necklace to the nice men on the phone and asks them to please get in touch if someone tries to sell it. She scours Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, hoping to find the necklace and/or the binoculars for sale.

Months pass. She finds a similar-looking necklace on Etsy and buys it. When she explains to the seller that it kind of looks like her mother’s stolen piece, the woman offers her a 15% sympathy discount. And then, then…just this past week, long after she’s stopped trying to recover her lost goods, she clicks on FB Marketplace and sees her binoculars for sale. A very old pair of Nikon Travelite binoculars. Her binoculars. They are listed for $20.

She immediately writes to the man, whose blurry profile doesn’t engender good vibes, but she thinks maybe she’s just projecting her anger onto him, but anyway, she writes him and says, “I will buy these NOW,” and he tells her where he lives and when she sees it’s Decker Towers, the looming 11-story subsidized housing project down the street, she feels in her gut that THIS guy is the guy who broke into her car and she is going to make him PAY.

WHO

She grabs the replica necklace out of her car before proceeding down the street to Smalley Park, the halfway point between her house and Decker Towers. Once she has the binoculars safely in hand, she plans to show him the false necklace and demand he give her the real necklace back. She tells you all this and you say you are going with her, to stand watch, as if, six months later, you are still trying to apologize for screwing up so royally. She says, “No, thanks,” and slams out the door. At the park she paces. Her heart beats loudly in her chest. He’s already 7 minutes late when he texts her, “Where you at?” “Smalley Park.” “I thought you said the park by the City Hall.” “That’s City Hall Park.” She wonders how he could have gotten this so wrong. Doesn’t he live in Burlington? Five minutes later a dark-haired, very muscular, sweet-faced twenty-something man zooms up to her on an old bicycle. He is holding in his hand a case. A binoculars case. Something she did not have. These binoculars are not her binoculars. Given that they are the same kind that were stolen and they are cheaper than anything she’s seen on eBay, she digs around in her pocket, finds the $20 bill tangled in the counterfeit necklace, and hands it to him. And, as she is never one to let a good story go untold, she asks, “Why are you selling these?” “They are my father’s,” the man answers in a thick indiscernible accent. “I need the money, so…” he trails off. A ruby-colored stone encased in a silver dragon claw hangs from a thick silver chain around his neck. Although she finds it garish, she politely admires it while casually asking, “Where are you from?” “Ukraine.” “Ugh, I’m sorry.” She knows she shouldn’t pry, but it’s in her nature to pry so she asks, “Is your family still there?” trying not to stare at the sharp talons. “I was able to get them to Romania. They are safe. For now,” he says proudly. “But I have no idea what is the future.” She shifts on her feet, feeling the guilt begin to trickle up inside her. She had been poised to catch a thief. She’d imagined that she was going snatch the binoculars out of his hands and shout, “You stole these!” and then—what?—run? Call the police? She hadn’t bothered to play out the entire scenario in her head, but she was sure she was going to win.

Something.

Now, though, she feels only loss. She cannot, no matter how hard she tries, imagine the pain he must be feeling: his family is uprooted. His homeland has been invaded. He is living in a public housing building

plagued by drug dealing, theft and noise

. He has been reduced to selling his father’s precious items for less than they are worth. All she had to do was buy a new tube of Chapstick. She lifts the binoculars to her face and peers through the lenses instead of at him. “I'm so happy to have binoculars again,” she says, the familiar weight a comfort in her hands. "Thank you for selling them to me." “Yes,” the man with the ruby necklace replies, “it is good to be able to see so far away.”