In Which the Universe Conspires to Steal My Fucking Laptop at the Worst Time Possible
I
walked out onto my porch on Sunday with a cup of coffee, a laptop, and
the intention of making additional headway in my campaign to subject
the totality of world institutions to the cleansing fire of conceptual
revolution as well as playing a bit of Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift on
my Nintendo DS emulator. In the real world, I had recruited, delegated,
and promoted nearly a hundred or so adherents until having lately
reached the point at which the organization could effectively carry out
any number of tasks, the most important of which involve developing
itself further until such time as I can release it into the wilds of
the information age, confident in the inevitability of my agenda being
carried out by this new and unstoppable entity, this alliance of
individual humans and dynamic schematics. In the presumably imaginary
land of Ivalice, meanwhile, my Nintendo counterpart Barrett Clemens had
integrated a mere five warriors into his benevolent mercenary clan,
itself wholly derivative of the hundreds of other such para-military
bands that are forever battling for primacy over mere physical
territory, which the real Barrett considers unimaginative and, more to
the point, impractical under the present global setup. But then, that
is how the game is played. I myself can no longer play it because my
laptop was stolen a few minutes after I went outside.
Upon
my exit, a fellow whom I presumed to live nearby was sitting on the
steps reading some art/design magazine of the sort that is popular
among those who aspire to decorating the deck chairs on the Titanic,
which is to say again that I presumed him to live nearby. He asked me
for a smoke; I only had one so I let him take a couple of hits off mine
and then went inside real quick to get the tobacco pouch in order that
we might both have individual cigarettes in the manner of the
wealthiest of kings. When I came back out twenty seconds later, the
fellow and my laptop were gone.
I
ran off in what I later learned was the exact opposite direction of the
one in which he had fled, then eventually gave up and called the
police, who arrived reasonably soon but who made what I consider to be
the crucial mistake of going into the store next door to review the
surveillance video before driving me around to find a criminal whose
chances of disappearing were increasing as a function of how high the
numbers got on the clock, which itself is a function of, I think,
motion, but at any rate I may be using function incorrectly. After
having managed to pause the video at such point as provided the best
shot of the comrade whod nationalized my means of productivity - and
thus having obtained for themselves information that I already
possessed and could have put to good use had we began cruising for the
suspect twenty minutes beforehand - we began to cruise for the suspect
twenty minutes after the beforehand in question. On the plus side, I
got to smoke in the cop car because one of the cops did so first, and
Were Not Gonna Take It came on the radio while I was smoking a
cigarette in a cop car with some cops, and it would be ungrateful of me
not to be grateful to live in a universe that conspired to arrange such
a thing. On the other hand, the universe had taken my laptop, which was
being used in part to organize Project PMs Africa Development Program
and thereby save and enhance the lives of countless human beings, and
was otherwise employed in letting me play high-concept Japanese role
playing games, so fuck the universe.
Just
a few minutes into our ride-along, the cops spotted a fellow who looked
vaguely like the culprit but who was dressed differently, was possessed
of such a drastically different bearing that I could make this
determination from ten yards away, and who was accompanied by a
relatively cute girl. One of the cops, and then both of them, were
fairly certain that this was our guy, that he had taken a shower and
changed and was now walking towards the scene of the crime for some
reason. I disagreed with this assessment and said so, but the cops were
very much in agreement with their own theory, confirmed as it was by
peer review, and called the fellow over in order to ask where he was
coming from (Zukkies, as it turned out). As soon as he opened his
mouth to talk I announced that this was not the droid we were looking
for. We continued our drive, as the cops wanted to check out the
outside of the various nearby Morgan stops in case that the culprit had
been intending to bolt the area but in a leisurely manner that would
involve him standing outside the entrances some 45 minutes after having
arrived at the subway.
We
didnt get a chance to pursue this brilliant lead as the cops instead
decided that the guy Id said wasnt the culprit was the culprit;
Thats fucking him, one kept repeating, thereby building his case.
They promptly found him due to the fact that he was still shopping with
his girlfriend around the corner - right across the street from the
scene of the crime, in fact, which was convenient enough, as they
wanted to take him to the bodega next to my apartment and show him the
security footage that had earlier captured the image of the actual
culprit. We did so, me becoming increasingly embarrassed as the
fellows information was taken down and as the cops debated with him
about whether or not he was the person he clearly wasnt; eventually
the fellow won the debate and left, at which point the cops lectured me
on my failure to be more certain about whether or not, uh, something. I
noted again that the fellow didnt have the same bearing. I dont care
about bearing, a cop retorted, accurately enough. I also asserted that
the culprit was a bit bigger and more muscular, at which point it was
explained to me that this was simply an illusion of the video,
apparently one that happened to coincide with the impression I had
received upon sitting right next to the guy an hour before. Finally I
pointed out that the culprit had arm tattoos whereas the poor fellow
wed been questioning did not; the cop explained that they could have
been temporaries and that this would fall in line with his Thief Who
Just Stole Laptop from Knickerbocker Took a Shower at His Nearby
Apartment and Then Took a Stroll With His Girlfriend Down to Right
Where the Victim Would Be Likely To Find Him Theory. I did not consider
it likely that a fellow would have had applied intricate temporary
tattoos in advance of an unpredictable crime of opportunity, but at
this point I had given up. We dont want to influence you, the cop
summarized.
The
next evening, the Cuban fellow who lived under me ran up to my window
and excitedly explained, more or less, that the rabbit who stole my
computer had been spotted and apprehended at the bodega next door, so I
hung up on my latest ex-girlfriend with whom I had somehow been tricked
into a conversation about my faults and bolted outside to receive my
due justice and buy some chocolate milk, which itself is simply a
special case of justice. It turned out that the bodega patrons, who had
already taken a special interest in my case, had identified and
apprehended a fellow who was not my culprit but who looked vaguely like
him. I explained this to the four cops who had arrived as well as the
two additional cops who arrived after them and apologized to the fellow
whod been detained, then silently took back my apology as the guy
continued to ramble and talk nonsense for several minutes.
Many
people are aware of the unreliability of eye witness testimony, even
their own; many people who ought to know such things in order to better
perform their jobs are not sufficiently aware of this. And there were
points when I wanted to believe that they were correct, as a captured
culprit would have led to me getting back my only valuable possession,
one that I require in order to work at my convenience, and one that I
cannot afford to replace at the moment. Imagine the desires held by
those whose loved ones have been murdered, and who are then asked to
identify the murder from a lineup - confronted with the fact that if
the murderer is not among them, he will perhaps never be caught. There
is a great amount of documentation of such dynamics, as well as
instances in such places as my semi-beloved Texas of men ending up in
prison due to misguided eyewitness testimony that is eventually
contradicted by DNA evidence. Had I allowed myself to be convinced by
the great deal of influence to which the cops continually subjected me
despite themselves believing that they were doing no such potentially
dangerous thing, the first fellow could have been arrested and subject
to all manner of injustices in the course of clearing his name. The discrepancy between information and action never fails to amaze, particularly when one considers the consequences.
The
actual culprit has tattoos down his right arm and possibly the other
one, wears his hair in a bun like some fucking degenerate, and talks
like a stoner crackerjack although he may be of Hispanic or
Mediterranean genetic origin. His hobbies include asking me for drags
off my cigarette, sitting on my porch, and stealing my laptop. I am
offering substantial rewards for the recovery of the laptop or the
information contained therein (I might as well announce here that I am
writing a third book and that the notes for this are stored on that
laptop) or the identity of the thief.
More to the point, join Project PM immediately by e-mailing me at barriticus@gmail.com.