THE BURGLARY C 2011 JoJo

When I emigrated from Brazil, I first went to live in England, where I spent 2 years, prior to ultimately emigrating to Canada.

I settled down in London, got myself a job, and found a flat in Regent’s Park, literally 500 yards from the Regent Park’s Zoo. We always knew when it was feeding time, because the animal noises we heard was a sure indication that they were hungry and wanted to be fed – pronto! Lions roaring, elephants trumpeting, monkeys screeching – we heard it all, every day.
I shared my basement flat ( “flat” is British for “apartment”) with Anneliese, a German girl. It was a small flat, with one bedroom and a sitting room which doubled as Anneliese’s bedroom. Our small bathroom had a window leading out onto the stair-well, that I swear was only a foot wide, (erm … the window – not the stair-well) so we never bothered to close it, figuring that nobody could squeeze their bodies through such a narrow aperture.

We were wrong! Some emaciated, anorexic/bulimic, skeletal individual did indeed manage to squeeze his (her?) body through the window, and I interrupted the burglary in progress. This burglar, realizing his/her only exit was blocked by me, ran through the flat to my bedroom, climbed out of the window into a small enclosure, broke into the upstairs flat’s basement, and literally fell into a goldmine of goodies (the occupants were filthy rich which is why they lived upstairs, while we lived in the basement).

I’d always wanted to dial 999 (the English equivalent of our 911, which never made sense to me because in those days, the phones were all on dials, and it takes quite a while longer for a 9 to wind down on a dial phone during a dire emergency call, than it would a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8).
In due course, the Bobbies (English cops) arrived accompanied by a Detective. On being told that nothing had been taken from our flat (we didn’t have a thing worth stealing back then) and that the robber had then proceeded to break into the upstairs flat via their basement, we all trooped upstairs to talk to the unlucky occupant. Now, although it was none of my business, I went up there too – I’d been dying of curiosity about our upstairs neighbours, having heard all sorts of goings on through the paper thin floors! I couldn’t wait to see what they looked like, and what kind of opulence in which they obviously lived judging by the glimpses I’d gotten from the street through their sitting room window.

The Detective buzzed their door bell. The door was opened by a very fat, bald, obviously extremely drunk man who could barely stand up, and swayed as he desperately hung onto the door knob, in an endeavour not to fall down on his large bottom, in front of us all. He was wearing a loose bath robe, and judging by the gap in front, not much else! Actually, to be completely literal here, he was stark naked under that bathrobe.

“Yesh?” he slurred. “Wha’ can I do … hick …. for your ossifer?”

“Sir, it looked like your flat has been burgled .”

“Izzat a fact?” the sloshed homeowner said, emitting a ripe, resounding belch. “Well, you’d better come in then, hadn’t you? You’re not … going to find out a damn thing … jusht shtanding out there now, are you?”

We all trooped into his flat, (naturally I went in too – I wouldn’t have missed this opportunity for the world!). Looking around eagerly, I instantly noticed it was decorated in the style of a French bordello (not that I’ve ever been in one, mind you, but I’ve seen them in the movies, and this flat was a dead ringer for any one of them). Crimson velvet everywhere, with lots of gold tassels and lavish gold braid, big heavily carved furniture – I’m sure you get the picture! If asked to describe it as succinctly as I could, I would’ve called it “gaudy tacky tasteless opulence.”

The place was a shambles but the Soused Fatso didn’t seem to notice. We ended up in the master bedroom, which told the whole story. There, strewn on the bed and all over the floor, were dozens of empty jewelry boxes.

“Looks like your wife’s jewelry has been stolen,” the Detective said soberly, which I thought was a completely asinine remark to have made in view of the evidence right in front of our eyes, scattered all over the bed and floor.

The homeowner stumbled across the bedroom, threw his arm over the Detective’s shoulders, pushed his face up close (I saw the Detective wince and shudder when he got a whiff of the man’s breath) and said “Oh no, Detective … when my wife … (hick) … goesh out … and she’s out right now … SHE PUTSH IT ALL ON!”

Blimey! (See how English I can be when I put my mind to it?) I looked at those empty jewelry boxes strewn all over the place and thought to myself – she must look like a freaking Christmas tree!

The burglar was never caught but from them on, our bathroom window remained firmly closed and bolted. All in all, it was quite an exciting adventure and I got to see the gaudy flat in all its glory, and far more of Mr. Sloshed Fatso than I wanted through his gaping bathrobe!