Theft and loss

When I was about five my mother's purse was stolen. It was carelessness, as I remember it. She left it on the front seat of the car which was parked next to the soccer field where I was playing. I might have forgotten to lock the door. They found the purse a day or so later, dumped in a mailbox without any money in it. I remember a conversation between my parents about canceling a Mastercard.

Later that year the family station wagon was stolen. It was parked outside our elementary school. Something about the way the story was told made me imagine that it was used as a getaway car in a bank heist. In retrospect it probably was not a bank heist (in Roxbury, in the late '80s). But it was gone and along with it a particularly special blanket with trucks on it. The blanket was of course irreplaceable. The hassle of replacing a car that my parents experienced (insurance, police) did not affect me in any way. Only the new smelling, silver Ford Taurus that replaced it held any interest at all. In the end, the car theft was no great blight on my childhood.

During my first year in New York, my credit card and bank card were stolen from my wallet. I realized the theft the next morning when I received a call from my credit card company about a strange number of purchases made in Jersey City the day before. Nothing was really lost though. It was the sort of fictitious money that exists in banks and gets spent with checks and swipes. I filed reports with the police, the bank, the credit card company. I made statements. I talked to officers. I identified the likely time of the theft. The money was back in its virtual place before it was missed. Someone got $125 in socks from my credit card company, but all it cost me was a temporary annoyance.

When I moved to Valparaíso I had read a lot about petty crime here. One day last week two men stopped me on the street unprovoked and told me to be careful. I think I must have been looking particularly gringa-ish that day, wearing a skirt and boots. People around here talk about theft all the time. The people living at the hostel all had stories or stories of friends- cameras ripped from hands, cell phones taken at knife point. It's an expectation. A sort of mistrust everyone has of everyone else. It's hard to explain really. It's not a hostile feeling. Just sort of sad.

I guess I was bound to see it eventually. Today my roommate was robbed while we were walking down the street together. A kid, who looked about eleven, grabbed her bag and ran down the hill. She yelled and threw a coffee cup at him and ran after. And then eventually, I yelled and ran after. But my shoe came off and I had to make my way more slowly. The police came. And witnesses said various things. A report was filed. Ultimately not so much was lost. Money. Things of personal significance. And I think she feels those losses now in ways that won't be as important in time. I am surprised really at how much it affected me. That invasion of personal space. The almost violent moment when he grabbed the bag. The paralyzed feeling right after. There are worse things. Many many worse things. Knives or guns could have been involved. It could have been a group of people rather than one kid. In time it will just be a small trauma. A little reminder that even in the glaring sun, it's not always safe.

Night Hunters

Around September my building got a new Super. Generally it's been a seamless transition. The most notable change has been that notes posted on the front door regarding proper recycling procedures are typed rather than sharpied onto yellow post-its. Until Saturday. On Saturday I awoke (far, far too early) and looked out the window next to my bed to see this:



EEK!! There is a huge, menacing owl on my fire escape! In the daylight! Surely it's a portent of doom!

No. After rubbing my eyes a bit and allowing rational thought to seep through the visceral fear, I saw that the owl was made of a plaster-like substance. It seems that in an effort to frighten the gaggle of pigeons (do pigeons flock? roost?) which lives on the telephone line behind my apartment building (and subsequently shits on every imaginable surface along the back of the property), my Super has installed a parliament (thanks!) of owls on the fire escapes and fences overlooking the offending cable. Which should be fine. I don't like the shit or the menacing sound of wings flapping against my window panes. But these are really scary-looking bird effigies. Let's take a closer look:



It's not so much that they are realistic facsimiles of actual owls. It's more that they are truly evil looking. If I were a pigeon, I would head for the hills. The actual pigeons are not so smart. They titter away on the phone line in spite of the dozen or so predators peering down at them. I am not so peaceful. Mostly I keep the curtains drawn tight to avoid the sight of them. But when falling asleep at night I sometimes imagine the hunkered silhouette of that stoic bird of prey illuminated against the curtain. Wild visions of those orange plastic eyes, lit by some internal, diabolical light play on the backs of my eyelids. I sometimes wonder whether this isn't some manifestation of a personal vendetta the super has for me. Were those Christmas cookies I baked dry? Does he think I am not separating my paper recycling properly?

The only thing to do is carry on with drawn shades. Hoping that when he sees the pigeons have remained he'll remove those monstrous forms. And my dreams will once again be my own.