We’re taking the Duffy Time Machine back to 1968. West Philadelphia. Eight year old Mike Duffy (aka Me) is living in harmony with Mom, Dad and my three brothers at 6333 Girard Avenue. Attending St. Donato’s Catholic Elementary School.
For some unknown reason, by the age of 8 I had already developed a keen skill for casually removing items from a specific place for which I did not claim ownership, originally, anyway. Stealing? No, more like misappropriation of material goods with the intent of eventual return.
I can’t really explain how it started or why it started. It wasn’t for monetary gain, unless you count the money I stole. It was more a sense of accomplishment. Um, wrong word. A sense of achievement. A skill. Like making a hole in one with no one around.
Anyway, the family involved won’t be named here on the remote chance that any of them are still alive and could one day read this blog.
One day I was in the home of a friend. We were upstairs playing in his room, when he had to use the facilities. Now there were plenty of things right there in his room that I could have taken. G I Joes, Matchbox cars, Silly Putty. But instead I wandered into what turned out to be his parent’s bedroom. I focused on a wooden night table and opened the drawer and there it was! A plastic banana. At least that’s the first thought that came to mind.
It made its way out of the drawer and into my front pocket with ease. I slid the drawer shut as I heard the toilet flush, and soon thereafter there was a call downstairs for dinner and I made my way out the door and home. Along the way getting a few stares from Mom and Sis who were focusing on the front of my jeans.
Once home I made my way upstairs but that offered no level of privacy. The three maniacs I shared a bedroom with were all at home, so I made my way down to the basement, or dungeon as we called it. You had to have a very good reason to go down to that room. It had to involve small unrestricted animals, stashed food or Playboy.
As I started to inspect my stash I realized it wasn’t a banana at all, even though it was slightly curved. It had groves of some kind…and wait…a button! Having no sense of the importance of what could be I pressed the button without hesitation and it produced a subtle, whirring sound. It was a low level, calming sound and movement which I had never experienced.
“Oh my God, where did you get that?” The booming eruption came from Mom, who was on the steps behind me. I never quite figured out how she was able to move from place to place undetected, but there she stood.
“Um…I found it”. Not one of my better lies, but a good fall back. “Found it…where?” “Um, in the alley”. Several smacks later I coughed up the truth, along with a bicuspid I believe. “I don’t care how you do it, but you take that back, and don’t let anyone see you!” Mom was used to issuing orders in a house of five unruly and uncooperative men. But this seemed different. What she was telling me, as much as my eight year old mind could decipher, was that I was to replace the banana in the same manner in which it had been removed, and to leave no trace, regardless of the manner in which I did it.
In the days that followed multiple offers to return to the scene of the crime to play with my friend were, for some unknown reason, rejected politely. And suddenly, it was Sunday morning. The routine for most families was 9:00 mass. My usual routine was to leave out the front door, dressed in church clothes, run around through the back alley, change into play clothes and find some trouble to get into.
That morning, I had an agenda. I peered out the window until Family X passed by, then headed around the corner, up their driveway and to the back door. Mom had inferred by “whatever means possible”. And even at eight I knew this was a possible suicide mission. I wasn’t given a cyanide capsule, just the image of the heel of my Mom’s shoe in my mind banging against my head was enough t keep me focused.
The back door was locked. The front door too. Lower level windows…locked. What is with these people? Don’t they trust anyone? Next up, shimmy up the post of the rear awning, onto the awning and check the 2nd floor windows. I loved being eight! So much agility.
My luck was changing. One of the rear windows was cracked slightly. I quick tug and lift and I was inside. I made my way back to the parents bedroom when I was hit with a lightning bolt. There were two nightstands. And for the life of me, I could not remember which one it went into. I broke into a quick version of, “Eenie meenie miney moe” opened a drawer and in it went. But it wasn’t lost on me that as I closed the drawer, inside there was another banana! Almost identical.
Oh my, how the mind of an eight year old works. Mine anyway. Fifteen minutes later I’m sitting at their kitchen table enjoying a bowl of Frankenberry cereal, playing a mock game of Spin the Bottle with one of the bananas, whirring away, when the back door opens and in walks Family X, Mom holding the box of danish, which promptly dropped to the floor. “Ooh, Cherry”, I exclaimed as I was grabbed by the left earlobe.
I was ushered out the door with four spoonfuls to go (and without my cherry danish) and ten minutes later Mom and Dad X were at our front door, greeted by my Mom. It was explained that not only had I stolen from them, but that I had broken into their home. I was summoned downstairs, now having changed into my, “Lost in Space pajamas”, looking as innocent as Dr. Smith himself. “Well, what did he take?” Mom uttered casually. She knew all too well that they could never admit what was taken. I didn’t know it at the time but Mom was a master. The flustered couple grumbled something about keeping her son away from their son and staying away from their home, blah blah blah. It wasn’t difficult to realize later that I learned from the best.
That ban lasted about a week. By then I was back in their home, playing as usual. It was not lost on me that there was a different lock on several of their doors. No matter. Picking locks for me, even at eight…no problem.
Trapped in a Happy Life 