It bothered him like a gnat, the red dot on his chest. He knew it wasn’t a rash because the dot danced in a tight circle on the outside of his grimy wife-beater undershirt. He tried a few times to brush the red dot away as he climbed out of the steep wooded ravine and reached a long row of garage doors, storage sheds where renters pack old furniture and vehicles and junk. And maybe valuables. He picked a door and from his pocket he pulled out a small crowbar to bust the padlock. As he wedged his tool against the lock, a violent force pounded him to the ground, knocking him out.
He regained consciousness lying face down in gravel, hands cuffed behind his back. He could see only his captor’s baggy black cargo pants stuffed into paratrooper boots.
“Can I have a cigarette?” he asked the boots.
“You picked the wrong day for a break-in,” a voice atop the boots ignored his request.
“How’d you find me?”
“We’ve been watching you since you entered this ravine,” boots replied. “I jumped you from the roof.”
On the other side of this low row of storage sheds, President Bill Clinton’s motorcade paraded down Branson’s main drag. The Secret Service had secured the route for days. A sniper atop the storage sheds had taken aim as the burglar climbed the ravine.
“I wondered what that red dot was,” the burglar was resigned to another stint in jail. “Can I have a cigarette?”
–from Souls Along The Road
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