Story I: Backgammon

If you cut a key the right way and learn to give it a good tap when you put it in a lock, you can open a dead bolt. It's called bumping.

Start at the beginning. What is bumping?

Mark’s stepdad worked at a box store and showed him how to use a key cutter to make a bump key and how you tap it right to make a dead bolt open. The whole high school was busting into each other’s houses.

Mark wanted to do “bump and runs,” in and out, leaving the key on the kitchen table or something, but for me bumping was a disease maybe like shoplifting. It was about sitting on their beds, looking in medicine cabinets, looking at pictures, going in their walk-ins. Feeling my heart pound. Everything about it.

Why do you think you liked it so much?

Don’t really know. It’s quiet. Sometimes I took my shoes off. [laughs] No, really. I took my shoes off.

It was electricity. I told Mark I didn’t want to do it anymore so I could do it alone.

You weren’t frightened to be in someone else’s home?

I found a Glock in a bedside table once. Loaded. 17 and one in the chamber. It was ready for business. I took the bullets out and lined them up on the nightstand thinking that would be pretty funny, like when we left bump keys on the kitchen table, but my hands started shaking putting the bullets in a row.

That was the one time I felt like I was truly breaking the law. I wiped the barrel down for fingerprints and got out of there like I’d killed somebody. [laughs]

You didn’t think you were breaking the law going into people’s homes?

I’m not a thief. Nobody believes me now, but at Lea’s was the only time I ever stole anything. The weed was in a drawer at the side of her mother’s bed. I knew it was in there because I heard Lea had a party at the house, and she’d gone into her mom’s room to get it. I knew the kid who sold it to her. Not to Lea. To her mom Tina.

Do you remember the first time you were in Lea’s bedroom?

Yeah, but it didn’t mean much to me. She didn’t have a bed, just a mattress on the floor, but it was a normal room except for the set on her bookshelf.

The set?

The backgammon set. The reason we’re here. [laughs] I knew it was valuable. I opened it up on the mattress. Black leather. Gold locks. It had an orange field. Ivory and black stones.

It had to be the most expensive thing in the house. Minimum a thousand dollars. That’s minimum. And I know they didn’t have any money.

[inaudible…]

Yeah. Lea busted me coming out around the back. They have a wooden fence that blocks off the back yard. I didn’t see her from behind it, but when I opened it there was no time to get away without looking guilty.

She was out on the sidewalk holding her arms around herself like she was hugging herself. I remember that again from later, too.

She asked what the fuck I was doing in her backyard. I told her I knocked on the front door to see if she was home so then I came around back. I told her I was yelling up for her.

It was complete bullshit. I was just saying anything. You think I’d be yelling up for her like I was Romeo? I don’t know what she must have been thinking, but then we talked outside for a minute and like everything was normal again.

You testified she was attracted to you.

I already knew she’d hook up. For one thing I was a senior and she was a freshman. For the other, she still would have. Most girls will. Your face says it all. Ha-ha. [laughs] Maybe not you. [laughs]

[inaudible]

No? Okay, name one that won’t. [laughs] Nah, lots won’t.

Let’s focus. You knew each other already, correct?

I’d sat next to her one time in the back of a car on the way to a party. We were crammed into the back. She said out of nowhere her dad was in the same place my dad was upstate. Mid-State Correctional. She didn’t even say “prison.” Just “same place.”

Did you have sexual contact that evening?

I could have. [laughs]

When we were in the car she was rubbing her leg up against mine, and she was joking, “Oh, I’m so sorry, so sorry, so sorry” or some shit like that. She could be funny when she wanted. We ended up making out for a while.

Was there any other sexual contact?

I think maybe I felt her up. I planned to hook up with her later. She called me The Situation like in the show.

How would you describe her?

I’d describe her as not my type. [laughs] She didn’t have great skin. She died her hair bluish. She was maybe half Mexican or something, but still tall. She was average. Not fat, but she had these big hips. None of that was my thing.

Why did you leave her at the party?

I was going to stay, but I knew two guys who they kept saying they thought she looked like an accountant.

Why did Lea look like an accountant?

Accountant means she’s like a prostitute. It’s a thing everybody says. It doesn’t mean she’s a prostitute. It means she’s easy. She’ll sleep with you. They’re assholes.

I heard later she was trying to find me that night asking everywhere. That’s kind of what I wanted to avoid. She left her number with a friend for me. Actually, she left her number with two friends. One of them was Mark if you can believe it. She said it was for “The Situation” which doesn’t bother me. Call me what you want. Lots of people call me that.

I didn’t call her. You know when they’re into you like that you’ll never get rid of them.

Did you see her again before the break in?

She was at my locker a few times waiting for me after that. She wasn’t afraid to stare right at you. I was a little scared of her. [laughs] No, I’m joking. I wasn’t scared of her. She was three years younger than I was. She kept asking about the party. She kept saying she was just curious, but she wasn’t just curious.

Let’s go back to the house that first time. She invited you in?

Yeah, I couldn’t believe it. We’d been talking outside for a while, but then I asked her if she wanted to get high. I’d been in the house, then I was back in like fifteen minutes later. Fucking crazy.

I couldn’t believe I was asking her to get high with her mother’s weed.

She asked me where I went at the party and why I didn’t call her. I told her I’d looked for her, but she wouldn’t drop the party. She wanted to know why I disappeared on her. I didn’t know what to tell her.

[Inaudible] Then?

Then out of nowhere we’re lying back on the couch, and she asks me if I wanted to play backgammon. I was like where did that come from? And she went upstairs and got the board. I was thinking the whole time, man I hope I put it back right. [laughs] I was so high. I thought I should get out of there, but I wanted to stay, too. I didn’t want to ditch her again. [laughs]

Why did you want to stay?

No idea. You’re the psychiatrist. [laughs]

So I pretended to see it for the first time, and I told her it must be worth a fortune. She said they weren’t selling it. It was her dad’s. He’d given it to her before he went in. Lea was harsh about him. Her and her mom told people he was dead. That’s pretty fucked up.

Then what happened?

She said she forgot how to play. I asked her if she wanted to learn again, and she said sure. It was like the first time she wasn’t judging me.

I told her what things were called, and why she didn’t want to trap her back line pieces. I told her they were called stones and how you bear them off the board. I told her my dad taught me.

When she started to lose, I asked her if she wanted me to flip the board, and I told her I would play her side then, and she said yes, so I took the losing side so she’d get to win unless there was a miracle, then I would have switched the table again. I didn’t care.

We were having a good time at that point. She was laughing. She rubbed her hands together and made a face like now she was going to destroy me. [laughs]

I told her my father used to flip the board with me when he was teaching me so I wouldn’t get frustrated. I would cry if he didn’t. I was little. That’s pretty funny.

I told her we still play in the family visitation room when there’s time. They have a board there. We never played it, but I seen it. I was always making up shit with her. My dad did use to spin the board around though.

Were you trying to impress her?

Not really. More like I didn’t want her to think my dad was a bad guy. He’s not. I do that if people know about him.

I joked about playing like strip backgammon to get something going. She said I could forget that, but that was still a yes, and we both knew it. Nobody was fooling nobody. [laughs]

She won with the board flipped, and she put me up on the board and she said, the bar for you, baby. She would always say that. She said her dad used to say it. The bar for you, baby! [laughs] That made me laugh.

But then I asked her if her dad flipped the board around like I did. She said no he definitely did not do that.

When I was putting the pieces back in the box she told me her dad had stolen the set. I know she denied saying it, but she said it.

Was there sexual activity that day?

Oh, yeah. Definitely.

We were lying on the floor basically staring at the ceiling. We did that a lot later on, and I remember she put a blunt out with spit between her fingers and put it up on the coffee table backwards over her head. Her mouth was open, and I was looking at her neck. It’s the one thing I like about tall girls. Then I remember her picking her hips up so I could slide her pants down. Caught me off guard. She did it all the sudden.

I asked her if she wanted to go up to her room, and she said no that there was fine, and we stayed in the living room on the carpet. Really, I wanted to be in the same room I was in like an hour before. This is before I got completely crazy with that. I didn’t know why she wouldn’t, but she wouldn’t. She just never would. Not once.

[pause]

Do you need to take a break?

Naah. No. I’m fine. The sex wasn’t very good. Kind of weird. She didn’t want to take her clothes off much, and she didn’t want to face me. I still have no idea why. It’s just how she always was.

Afterwards she told me I “had” to go, not I “should” go. I notice that stuff. I got evicted. [laughs]

When I was walking by the glass table you heard about on the back porch, I know I wanted to go back and tell her I wish I hadn’t stole the weed. I wouldn’t have minded starting from scratch with her.

I was kicking myself that I should have talked to her at the Shaker party. I was only 17 by the way and she was 15. I said I was three years older before. It was two at first. Some of the year it is two. I think it must have been two then.

It was three. When did you go back in the house “bumping?”

The next day after that first time basically I went straight to her room before she got home. It was like learning about her. The set was next to the mattress on the floor. Sometimes I felt closer to her sitting in her room than when we were together later. It’s hard to explain. Yeah. I’d sit there. She had a pink bean bag chair that wasn’t her at all.

After that second time I bumped her house, I went back to her house maybe 45 minutes later when I knew she was home. She didn’t get home usually till about 4:30. We played backgammon until she wanted to stop like we always did.

She starting calling having sex “looking at the molding.” Probably because after the first time we did it she called it looking at the molding. “Do you want to look at the molding.” It was funny. She could be kind of mean too. Really fast. Flip over. I never knew which Lea I was going to get.

Why did she call it looking at the molding?

When we lay on the floor beforehand that was our thing. We’d lie there and get high and talk while we stared at the ceiling. Almost the same thing every time. I mean we were getting together every day for weeks.

She said it was like we were in a spaceship getting ready to blast off. You know how they always look over at each other through their helmets. She said a lot of shit like that.

She told me you think koala bears seem nice but they can be fucking dangerous. She’d send me koala emojis in her texts. It was our joke. Her joke really.

Would you say she was special to you?

I know the whole time I didn’t go bumping once. Basically, I did that for her even though she’d never know.

But you testified you went into Lea’s house before she got home.

Other than into her house. Everywhere else I’d stopped bumping at that point. 100 percent.

And after a while it started to bother me a bit that she would barely take her clothes off at all and only slid her pants down to her knees and I had to get behind her. That whole thing was just weird. I didn’t care at first, and then it started to really bother me too that we never went up to her bedroom.

Sometimes I would sit in the bean bag chair in her room thinking about it. She had those stars you stick on your ceiling.

How would she respond when you asked to go up to her room?

She would say what do you think is in my bedroom that’s so magical? I said nothing really. It’s just strange that we didn’t go up there. I told her we could have sex on a mattress.

She had a lot of secrets I think. I mean I know she had a lot of secrets.

What do you mean?

I don’t know why she wouldn’t take her clothes off or even face me. I asked her if she had scars or something. I was serious. I wanted to know what it was. But she was better at not answering than anybody I ever met.

I told her I wouldn’t care if she had scars. Which was crazy, because no doubt I would have cared if she had scars. 100 percent. 200 percent. Anyone would have cared. Kind of a deal breaker, but that’s not why I wanted to see her body. I wasn’t going to say maybe look over at me once in a while as a courtesy. [laughs]

Then one time before everything happened she rolled away from me onto her stomach, and I could see the bottom of her back poking out from her jacket. She always wore a leather jacket even in the house, and I could see where her t-shirt had lifted up, and I pulled up her jacket and shirt so I could see more of her.

She reached back for a second and grabbed my hand, and I thought she was going to stop me, but then she didn’t she held it for a second and put my hand down on her back and held it there. More than a second. It was for a long time. I started to wonder if she’d let go.

I was looking at her back, and I told her I liked her back, and I did. Maybe it wasn’t her back. I told her I’d just wanted to look at it for a second. You can’t believe this conversation, but it made sense at the time. I can’t believe it, but I actually thanked her for letting me see her back.

Why do you think that is?

No idea. She said “victory, Rafe” to me sort of laughing at me, but she didn’t push me away. She said I should probably go, but it wasn’t an order for once. You know how when you have a girl you know you have her?

I was thinking the opposite. That she had you.

That’s funny. Someone else said that, too.

The thing is: I can’t tell you how bad I wanted to see her room. I could tell you everything about it at that point. Crap on her desk crushed up school papers and shit. She had terrible grades and she was one of the smartest people I knew. Her mattress was always a mess. The whole house was a mess. No wonder her mom bought weed from high school kids. [laughs]

The time after that was the last time. Everything was all in a row. I know for a fact.

Why do you remember?

She took all her clothes off the next day. I couldn’t believe it. It was at least a month of going over there, and she was totally naked for the first time. She told me to take my clothes off, too. I thought we might go up to her room, but we still stayed downstairs. For once she was facing me.

And when we were doing it she lifted her arms all the way behind her and looked right at me till she was coming. Till she came. I should have looked back at her, but I looked away. It was the best maybe ever. But she surprised me with everything all of the sudden.

I don’t understand. Why couldn’t you look at her?

Because I’d been in her house already, and I’d stolen the weed, and I felt like she’d see the whole thing on my face. I wanted to undo it. I just do this shit to myself. I always do this shit to myself.

And for some reason I fucking mentioned the stars on her bedroom ceiling. Like saying let’s look up at the molding. I think I just fucking said stars. I know I said stars.

Then we were just staring at each other for a minute. I was fucking frozen. I felt the blood in my face. I mean we were really high, and I couldn’t unwind it. She told me I needed to go. She was wearing perfume I think, but it might have been soap. It’s all so fucked up.

I remember her saying “go now” over and over. Go now. Go now. Go now. I just didn’t know what to do. I was totally confused.

I fucked everything up. I fuck everything up. None of this would have happened.

What happened after that?

Then she wouldn’t return my texts or calls or anything for probably a week, I think. I needed a chance to fix it. She wouldn’t fucking answer my texts.

Is this why you went up to her room?

Yeah. It was no different than a million movies you see when guys do that. I didn’t invent it. She was sleeping on her mattress on the floor.

She didn’t have any clothes on, and that’s when I thought maybe I shouldn’t be there. I was just looking at her for a minute. It was electric in her room like bumping but with a real person. It was both.

I must have been watching her for a while. You know what’s funny? That was the only time I saw the stars on the ceiling. They were yellow. I thought they’d be white and we’d be looking at them at the same time. That’s what I was thinking, but I knew it was over.

I’m not sure I see the relevance, but ok.

Anyway, you know how you can feel people sometimes staring at you. She must have felt me in there because she woke up, and she freaked the fuck out. She was scared right away and pulled the sheets to cover herself. I was thinking why is she doing that? It was me.

She was telling me to get the fuck out of there. I couldn’t believe she was frightened.

I told her to relax. I was trying to calm her down.

She was nuts. Practically fucking hissing at me. She was saying I hope my mother fucking shoots you. Get out. I’ll fucking scream, Rafe. I’ll fucking scream. I can still hear it. She said you’re not listening you fucking idiot. Over and over. Spit was practically coming out her mouth.

I don’t know why she was being like that. She was scrambling to get her clothes on, jumping into her jeans. Her hair was all crazy, and she was just looking at me like she hadn’t fucked me a million times.

I said Jesus, I’m going. Answer my fucking texts. I was really confused.

She’s saying you’re a fucking thief. I was in the house you liar. In the goddamn closet. You piece of shit. You weren’t ‘yelling up for me.’ She was mocking how I talk. She could be fucking mean. Really mean.

And I’m saying like I’ll fucking return it. I was going to return it.

She’s going “thief.” She was so mad.

I told her I was going to return it that I wanted to go upstairs all the time so I could return it, but that she wouldn’t fucking let me.

She said I was a total fucking liar. You had to hear it. She hated me. I got incredibly confused. I get confused like that when shit is really crazy.

I got by her mom’s door before she came out, but I heard her talking to Lea behind me when I was already downstairs. Saying are you okay and shit like that. It was a disaster.

If she had a gun, her mother would really would have shot me. 100 percent. I know it. Lea was making me feel like a thief. I had only wanted to talk to Lea because she wasn’t answering her fucking texts.

Late that night at my house then I got madder and madder. She didn’t answer. I knew she wouldn’t. She was never going to.

Why did you return the following day?

I don’t know.

No, what’s so fucked up about me is that I already knew I’d go back even leaving that time after she called me a fucking liar. I’m telling you it’s like a fucking disease sneaking into people’s houses.

Mark totally fucked my life up.

Why did you go back? This is the crux of it, Rafael. The court is going to read this transcript and make decisions.

I needed to return the weed to prove myself. I couldn’t leave everything like it was with me being a thief. It killed me she would think that. Most people would say that’s crazy, but it was important to me. I wanted Lea to know that I wasn’t a thief and that I always planned to return it.

Did you plan to return it?

It doesn’t even fucking matter. She couldn’t think that. Maybe I planned to. I can’t remember. I must have.

Then if I hadn’t spent so long in there sitting in the pink fucking bean bag chair I wouldn’t be here.

And for a fact the backgammon set wasn’t in her bedroom when I was in there, and it was always in there. Cause I remember thinking that. It was always in there. That whole thing is a lie.

And I swear to you that’s all I did wrong.

I put the weed and the bump key down on her pillow. I knew she’d know it was from me. That this was the last time I was going to bump anywhere. I hated all of that now. I needed to stop myself.

Okay. That’s significant. And then?

When I was leaving out the back, the box with the backgammon set was at the top of the porch steps on the glass table. It definitely wasn’t there when I came in. And I didn’t go in the living room. They said I went into the living room. I never went in the living room. That’s a lie.

I knew she left it out there for me. 100 percent. So then I knew she had been in the house. She must have been hiding in the fucking house again.

But why did you take it?

I thought it was her way of saying goodbye or maybe there was a chance she’d get over it. Like I was giving her the weed and she was saying she wasn’t like you know “mad mad” at me, so here’s the backgammon set.

So when I took it, I wasn’t stealing it is what I’m trying to say. I really thought it was for me. I thought it was a gift. You don’t get it neither. Nobody does.

It should only be criminal trespass. First degree. Not armed. No intention to commit a crime. This is the whole thing right there. The opposite. I was leaving shit. I don’t know why this is so hard to understand. It’s all so fucked up.

Then you were arrested.

It happened so fast. I was coming through the back gate. One of the cops had a fucking gun. I couldn’t even process it. Two other cops threw me down so hard on the grass by the fence I saw sparks. Actual sparks. They were fucking huge dudes. I told them in the car later I probably got a concussion. They didn’t give a shit’s shit. The set was all over the grass.

When they were putting me into the car I saw Lea on the front porch with a cop. She must have called them. I have no idea what she was telling him. I think she was giving him the bump key.

That cop was nodding like he believed every word she was saying and writing everything down on one of those pads.

Kind of like yours. [laughs]

Do you think they’ll be lenient?

It’s not up to me, Rafael. Like I said, the court is going to read a transcript of this. They’re going to read this and evaluate you with respect to the sentencing guidelines. Probation? Three months? Two years? I don’t know any more than you do. That’s what judges do.

And everyone sees things from their own perspective.

Everyone.

Oh.

[pause]

I know they won’t be lenient. I don’t care. You don’t care either. I can see it on your face. It doesn’t matter. It’s alright. Whatever. It’s my fault.

But let me finish at least?

Yes. Of course.

Lea was wearing a white t-shirt and pajama bottoms and holding her arms around herself like she was cold but it was the middle of July.

She was crying, and the cop fucking hugged her. She hated cops. She set me up because I wanted to sleep with her on a mattress. Crazy shit. Shit I’m never going to understand.

My dad’s attorney he told me “it wasn’t advisable going into the house” so I should take the plea, and I didn’t even know whose side he was on either.

But I didn’t take it. I really thought right until the trial that Lea might not press charges at the last minute, that she’d help me out when I was really in trouble and turn the tables, and I’d get off. That’s what I would have done for her.