I went to a craft show last week and watched this scene unfold.


CHRISTMAS CHEER


Threading her way through the slow moving crowd at the Christmas Craft show, a tall thin woman stops in front of a ten foot pegboard wall of ornaments. Before her are row after row of baked clay gingerbread men, Santa Clauses of all kinds, reindeer, puppies, and kittens. Each one is adorable, four inches tall, flat, and brightly painted. It’s a staggering array of imitation confectionary characters.

She counts the rows, top to bottom (eleven), while she touches the colors on a squirrels face, painted lights on a curvaceous palm tree and a trio of candy canes snuggled together in a bow.

She plucks at a bear in snow shoes, turns it in her hand, and hangs it back up with the rest. Her fingers linger on a kitten peeking out of a box, painted tinsel in its eyes. Lifting it off its hook by its thin red ribbon, she holds it in her palm, trying to make up her mind.

Glancing into the booth, she notes that the proprietor is making change, opening a bag and wrapping little ornaments in tissue paper. Her fingers close over the kitten in her hand and she drops her arm to her side, her hand hidden in the folds of her skirt. Moving down the rack, she looks intently at several more ornaments before she drifts away into the crowd.

One aisle over, she drops the kitten into the green cloth bag slung on her left arm, where it joins the other things she’s taken today. Her heart is pounding furiously but her face is as bland as her outfit. Her generic tan sweater, brownish mid-calf skirt that matches her hair, beige belt un-stylishly cinched at her waist and a cheap long silver chain with a polished slice of oval cream stone make her forgettable.

No one notices her slowly making her way down the aisle, lifting a pair of earrings here, four wooden book marks there, charms, gee-gaws, pittances that all get slipped into the green bag. It’s her pounding heart she relishes, not the things.

She feels a hand on her shoulder, half way into the next aisle. A heavy set black woman in a beige security uniform speaks quietly to her, “We’ve been watching you steal things for three days.” Caroline’s face stays impassive, but she shrugs the green cloth bag down her arm to her fingers and sets it gently down just inside the boundary’s of the booth to her right, dismissing the responsibility of it.

The white paper gift bag is still in her hand: two receipts, two things she’d actually bought on Friday, legitimate purchases to mask her game. Now she can show her worry, her fright. The guard says, “Don’t get upset, it’s all right.”

It’s not all right, but it will be. She’s been caught before and she knows how to act from here on. She lets the guard lead her quietly off the floor of the convention center, down drab hallways to a room where she’s invited to sit. There’s always a room and a chair. Caroline sits, clasping her hands and crossing her ankles demurely, acting confused, but certain that she will evade punishment again.

She doesn’t know that the plainclothes security man who picked up her green bag is going from booth to booth with his list of its contents. Whispering to venders, he tells them the thief has been caught and confined. “She has something of yours, will you come identify it? Will you press charges against her?” Caroline doesn’t see the anger in their eyes when they say yes.

She doesn’t know that this time she will not be going home for a long while.