Couch Bandits

Tyler, Nick, and I arrive via taxi to a popping Chico party. It was a girl’s birthday, she had lots to imbibe, but I had no taste for her. This unknown female had aged whisky, beer, wine… name it, I could have drank it all. But I had to have whisky with a couple of rocks, a timeless drink since my pre-party drinking had already deluded my time space continuum, but more so since this other cute girl who looked like Velma from Scooby Do was pouring me a glass. My first impression of her was that I wanted to solve a mystery and then bone while thinking about justice. But I knew my oddly animalistic yet moral instincts had to subside, so we talked for a while.

She asked me why I drank. An odd question I thought, I asked her why she drank. She told me she wanted to forget the sober day behind her even though the intoxicant didn’t help a bit. She replied so quickly, I drew two conclusions. First, I knew she was telling the truth, and second, her personality was false. I chose her to mingle with because she looked different from the twenty airbrushed blond college girls across the hall, but her personality was no different. In my sarcastic state I replied “I drink to hit on girls who look like Velma from Scooby do.”

She didn’t understand what I meant. Even her dark rimmed glasses and quirky demeanor couldn’t fake smarts. She was a hack, a fake, a con artist. She didn’t know anymore than the dumb blond across the room, which scared me. Maybe I should try for someone way, way outside my league, and lose the hot but overly begging crime solving mistress. I was unsure of myself, and worst of all my stereotyping radar was striking out.

I told her she scared the shit out of me after I kissed her softly. Then I exited stage right. I left her attention to steal as much food, booze and pumpkin insides as I could humanly possible. After a couple hours Tyler had stolen a hat and he was “tired of it.” I supposed he meant that he was tired of the party so we quietly left out the backdoor. To Tyler’s dismay the dude who he stole from found us and was holding Tyler’s sunglasses. Begrudgingly Tyler traded hat for sunglasses so we could leave.

I thought the night was finished; I always do the first moments my feet make motion in the direction of home, but this night was slightly different. This was the first time all three roommates were out together, heavier from fermentation and grains, on a mission to get home. After walking four blocks, we passed 9th and noticed something that wouldn’t usually catch any of our eyes. Two beautiful couches lay on the porch of the house at the corner. One of the reasons why we party is because there are three roommates, and we only own one love seat. We can fit more people inside the toaster oven then we can on the thing we call our couch. Our comfort had not even matched the broke college student budget we flaunted. We were living a failed American dream with our cushy rights degraded. We were without decency; we were without comfortable seats. We needed a couch since the beginning, we needed to be comfortable, we needed those two beautiful couches laying gracefully in front of our eyes, we needed there to be a moment when reality failed to consist of rules, we needed to be happy. Our mission, under the despotism of a glance and an idea, changed.

In an act of semi-drunken desperation Nick and Tyler grabbed the closest couch and proceeded to walk down the street. I knew at that moment I desired either to be the one who stole a couch and walk over a mile to get home with it, or the one who got arrested for one of the most ill thought out drunken schemes in my history of activities. Not necessarily the best idea, since the alcohol in our system had depleted any extra oxygen we would need. Luckily, they realized this early, and dropped that shit onto the sidewalk.

Try as we little, we couldn’t move the couch any further. But once you’ve got the taste of couch you can’t rinse it out. It lingers there for hours, like a vampire’s blood thirst. Almost every step home, someone mentioned the word couch in connection with stealing. After a not-so-careful deliberation we decided we were going to walk to Rio Chico St., steal the nearest couch, and carry it all the way home.

On the way to destiny two drunken plastics crossed our path. I asked one of them if she was a giraffe. Not that she was tall, I just wanted to convey that I knew she has, will, or may have had the property of giraffedom. Angry, one of them said “You can’t have this.” To which Tyler replied “I don’t want no giraffe babies.” By then they had vanished into downtown to eat some leaves in high up places or something. We take it upon ourselves to be the enemies of the soulless beautifuls who drain the air out of downtown, but this didn’t shift our focus. Our minds still locked into the thought of owning a couch in the most ridiculous of ways. We walked to Rio, we found the perfect couch, and we scoped out the situation only to find people inside the house. It was still only 1:30, upon checking my cell phone I realized that I could still make a beer run.

I related to my town very well. I don’t have a car, but everything is in walking or biking distance. Since I am never operating heavy machinery I am afforded more opportunity to do whatever I want more often (if you catch my drift). I live kiddy-corner to the main Chico bike path. It runs parallel to campus and leads into downtown housing. Then parallel to the path on the opposite side is the train tracks. Which means I live as close as possible to a rock concert five times a night. Luckily, I have tuned out the sound. For emotional revenge though, we throw our beer bottles at the rockin’ locomotive every time it rolls by.

The gang and I walked to Star liquor, bought the cheapest twelve pack they had, pounded several on the way back to Rio Chico, and when we arrived we waited patiently with our brew. The absence of a sizeable moon, and streetlights made this stakeout easier than stealing a hot mother from a baby. We were directly in front of the house, in silence, sitting straight up, eyes glued to the window in front of us. Outside and below the window was the couch we wanted; inside the window was the resemblance of two dudes rolling a blunt.

We sat and thought about how the property rights for the blunt smoking, outside couch owning individuals sitting clueless in front of us would soon change. Rio Chico is the closest street to the southwest side of campus (I live northwest), and sits perpendicular to the bike trail. The river separates Rio Chico from campus. Not twenty feet from the house in question was a fence that yielded enough room to carry a sizeable couch twenty more feet to the tracks. We would be seen only as long as it takes to reach the fence. After that we would be free from any suspicious eyes wandering late night Rio. The tracks would render us incognito under the darkening of nearby houses.

We each had a beer, and by the completion of our brew the blunt was rolled and torched. Two men smoking a blunt at two in the morning equals two tired individuals. One of them walked into the other room, presumably to jerk off and sleep, the other passed out on the couch. It wasn’t even thirty seconds after his eyes shut before we were on his porch. The moment my hands touched the couch I thought about the state I was in and the states of my teammates. I only had several beers and a glass of whiskey, so I could hold my own… easily. Tyler was decently sober, but he had definitely crossed the “shlacka lacka” boundary (point at which Tyler screams “shlacka lacka” for no reason and laughs more often than he utters coherent speech). Nick was in Nick mode. He has trouble understanding what is going on at all points and times. I usually find this funny and try to play off of it during parties. However, I realized that all this was only the spark we needed to live dangerously, and away from the days our asses will be locked into unique indents left on the cushions of our prey. This moment was more important than the utility we would soon gain.

Tyler ducked down below the window and pushed the couch forward until he was no longer in view of the sleeping stoner. We picked the couch up and walked with charisma in the direction of the fence until Nick screamed “Holy shit!” I dropped the couch and looked back, but there was no one outside. False alarm I guess, but that scared me like AIDS. Nick didn’t realize that I only wanted him to give me the signal if we were in actual trouble. Nick and Tyler picked up the couch as I directed them to the bridge. We made it.

Then we immediately dropped the couch on the tracks. Tyler wanted to declare victory. I was a bit skeptical, but if I were arrested I would be content with the consequences. We sat down on the couch, Tyler and Nick smoked a cigarette and I took a picture on my cell. We chilled for a minute until my anxiety raised higher than I wished. I wanted the couch home before I could rest. My anxiety caught Tyler’s attention, which caused a critical idea. Tyler decided to push the couch on the rails of the train tracks. It was perfect, no carrying required. The couch wasn’t heavy heavy, but we knew we wouldn’t last the whole distance carrying anything more than a pack of twelve-ounce cans. Tyler’s lungs have crystallized from all the glass dust he inhales at work in addition to the packs he smokes down daily. Nick and I were huffing and puffing as is. When one can’t breathe and the other two can’t breath, lifting a couch a mile proves that much more difficult. To compensate we each pushed an area of the couch forward effortlessly as the couch glided on the rail.

Looking straight ahead towards home pushing our newfound couch, I noticed a strong light pointed directly at us. The light moved slightly to the right and left of me, my hands tensed up; I let the couch fall off the rail, professional party crashers (PPC), the bitches in blue – police. Two cars were directly up ahead; they entered through the Nord Ave path connection. I freaked out. Maybe my prior argument for the night’s plan of action was a bit misguided. Maybe I don't want to be arrested tonight. Maybe I am not as down as I have previously thought. But enough contemplation, this is a time of action. I suddenly ran for the fence in hopes there was a hole. The dirt underneath my feet knew otherwise, because it gave out. I tumbled downhill nearly hitting my head on something sharp, steel and heavy. Oddly enough, the near early end of my night put me back in the game. In that moment I knew I was in fact devoted to the cause, because if I could just out run these cops and swoop in at the best possible future time, the couch would be mine.

We ran towards the path right into another cop car. The PPC intercom’d “Get off the train tracks, we have your couch.” Maybe these cops are really mad at three drunken kids upgrading their amount of comfort, when just down the rails dealers slang guns and dope.

The police came at just the right time, since we were only a few yards away from a break in the fence. We walked onto the path, but in the opposite direction of the cops. Both cars mysteriously ended up far down the path away from us. Strange, I thought. It seemed at first that both cars should be headed right where we were. They saw us moving a couch, they told us they had our couch after we ran away from it, and now the police are a four-minute walk down the path. We decided that it was in our best interest to flee like bandits, so we darted towards campus. All three of us hoped the next fence, hit the ground hard, and waited behind a ROTC training unit. Bright lights moved in all directions around us, but could never penetrate our immediate zone of safety.

We sat, waiting for days and months and minutes and seconds and years and days and seconds and minutes and months and days. We had no idea what was going on. Were the cops having a meeting on the path? Did that second car bring fresh donuts? Our dream coupled with our blood alcohol level forced one rash decision. We wanted to know what was stopping us from completing our mission. The next moment we were hoping back over to the path, back on our destiny.

“Shlacka Lacka!” exclaimed Tyler.
“What’s going on?” pondered Nick.
“Time to get arrested.” I quipped, though I was part sarcastic I was also part serious. I had already gone through a lot that night, and I was pretty much prepared for anything.

We closed in on the police, walking fast and keeping our heavy heads high. There were two cop cars, one cop outside, the other cop was no where to be seen. As we walked by the man in view Tyler exclaimed, “Hey, what is the couch doing there for no good reason. Could we take it off your hands? We’d do it for free my good man.” In stating this Tyler gave this party crasher’s cue to professionally take us down, because the cop immediately scoffed “I’m not dumb.” He grabbed Tyler and I, threw us on the couch and told Nick to stand against the police car.

“You’re the boys who moved this couch, I saw you. You can’t be moving couches on the train tracks… imagine what could have happened if a train came?” He handcuffed Tyler and I while keeping an eye on Nick. His radio beamed static every now and again he would answer back some stereotypical officer jargon, but he stopped long enough to let us know we weren’t their original target. He said the cops were out on the path at this time of night because some bum called in a domestic disturbance call. This whole predicament was all because of some dumb luck. Our great quest was thwarted by coincidence. He looked at me with disgust, but his looks faded fast.

The bastard didn’t even care about the couch bandits, he just wanted to move the couch and talk to some married bums. He let us go after a bit of stereotypical questioning. Right as Tyler broke his chains he asked the cop “So, since you’re doing nothing with that couch can we take it off your hands?” Nick and I laughed hard, but the cop took it a different way. He yelled back “Get the fuck out of here!” We quietly walked back to the apartment, guzzled some beers, and passed out only to find the next day the house we stole from had a new leather couch out on their porch.