The Soul Thief Read Online Free PDF

a grudging gift from his stepfather, and the burglar might want to steal it. But, no; once having seen its 28
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    butterscotch-colored paint job, no thief would want it.
    Nathaniel waits. “You going to leave now? There’s nothing here for you.”
    The burglar sighs. “Don’t I know it. You’re not going to attack me or nothin’?” he asks. He is young also, probably Nathaniel’s age, stoned, but—Nathaniel can see this in the semi-dark—wearing a wedding ring.
    “No,” Nathaniel says. “Why would I do that?”
    “Well,” the voice asks, coming out of the flashlight,
    “would you make me a cup of coffee, then? I don’t care if it tastes of rust. This has been an awful night.” Nathaniel reaches for the light switch, and the burglar says, “No, don’
    do that. I can’t have you seein’ me.”
    “Oh, okay,” Nathaniel says. So all right. So why not make a cup of coffee for a burglar? It is a revolutionary act. After going into the kitchen, he fills his coffeepot, the Mighty Midget, with Breakfast Blend and water, lets the brew per-colate, and pours a cup. “Cream or sugar?” he calls out.
    The burglar has nodded off on the sofa. “Cream or sugar?” Nathaniel repeats more loudly, approaching the guy, who smells of anise. Nathaniel shakes the burglar’s shoulder.
    The intruder still has a flashlight in one hand, a toy gun in the other, and a grocery bag at his feet.
    “Aaargh,” the guy says. “No. I hate sugar. Sugar is a disguise. It’s bad for you. Gives me headaches. Black, just black, okay?”
    “Okay, sure,” Nathaniel says. After returning to the kitchen, he pours the intruder and himself each a cup of coffee, goes back to the sofa, hands one of them to the guy, and sits down on the other side of the room from him.
    “So,” Nathaniel says to the young man, in the near-dark,
    “you’re married?”

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    “Yuh,” the man says. “And my old lady got a baby on the way.” He sips the coffee. “Soon, too. See, I lost my job months ago. I was a janitor. Welfare’s run out and shit. She can’t work, my wife. She broke her leg in a fall she took downtown. Marble stairs, slippery, you know? Maybe we could sue. She just gimps around. Like a bug. What it is, we don’t have no parents, the two of us, like most people do.”
    “Too bad.” Nathaniel waits. “Of course it doesn’t help things that you’ve got a habit. You must be a crummy thief if you shoot up before you go out to steal things.”
    The man doesn’t respond to the critique of his lifestyle.
    “How come you live like this, man?” the burglar asks, sipping at his hot coffee, his voice calm. “This is one motherfuckin’
    friendless apartment.” He pauses, contemplating it. “Are you a Spartan or something? ’Cause a lonesome soul lives here, I’ll tell you that. I wouldn’t be able to stand it. Shit. I’d get me a comfortable chair, at least. And a TV set. Don’t you watch TV? Football? Johnny Carson?”
    Nathaniel shakes his head. And, before dawn breaks, he tells the burglar about the entire night, about himself, his studies, his former home in Milwaukee, and how Theresa would not come home with him, which, considering the burglar’s presence, was probably a happy accident.
    “You’re okay, man,” the burglar says a few minutes later, before he shakes Nathaniel’s hand to leave. “But, you know, you should get better locks on your door. You know, the dead-bolt kind? The kind you got here, they won’t stop a flea from coming in and sitting down on you.”
    “Talk to my landlord,” Nathaniel instructs him, as he closes his eyes. It has been a long night. “But I don’t think he’ll listen to you, either.”
    “See you around,” the burglar says, stepping quietly out.

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    As he goes, Nathaniel has, at last, a quick look at him, and he wills himself to remember the face in case he should ever see it again.
    “See you