Eddie Stole.

Eddie stole.

Not very often, but it would happen quickly. Sometimes even he didn’t notice. It started when he was little. His dad had started him in kindergarten, practicing shoplifting and such.

When he got a little older (around nine when he started learning to hot-wire cars) he would steal bigger things; notebooks from his classmates, confiscated toys for his friends, groceries. Afterwords he would always feel a knot of guilt in his stomach. He would repeat what his dad had always told him in his head as a mantra: “take advantage of the world before it takes advantage of you.”

In the next few years he developed a set of rules for himself: don’t take from someone who needs it, don’t take from individual people, only take things you need. He’d justify taking that candy bar when his stomach hurt from hunger by reasoning it was a large company who wouldn’t miss anything. He only stole to survive.

Then he moved in with Uncle Wayne. They didn’t have a lot, but Eddie wasn’t as hungry as he used to be. Wayne tried to gently guide him through high school, teaching him new values. One time Eddie had stolen a jar of peanut butter for their lunches. Wayne came home and asked where it had come from. Eddie didn’t know what to say, no one had ever asked him where the groceries came from. It had always been strictly don’t ask don’t tell. Eddie had felt so embarrassed and ashamed that he never tried it again. That night Wayne sat him down to tell him that they were fine, they’d always have food on the table and enough for treats every now and again.

Eddie fought hard to break the habit, but he did teach himself not to pick up things, even small objects like pens or coins. It was difficult.

By the time he was redoing senior year Eddie hadn’t stole anything in a long time, didn’t even think to. That is, until he and Steve sat in the camper after stocking up on weapons. Steve had gotten a pack of gum (nervous habit) and popped a piece in his mouth. When Steve looked away, Eddie watched the other man’s jaw work as he chewed and gum and reached over subtly to take a piece from the package, wanting to know what Harrington’s mouth tasted like right then.