Having slept through my alarm, I was late for work on Tuesday morning. A lot of contradictory thoughts whirled through my head. While my car has been broken in to three times in the last couple of years, this was the first time I knew the offender. One of them, anyway.

I guess that's why I started trying to make excuses and ponder ways that Quan wasn't the one. It was pretty damning, though. At the very least he was guilty of pillaging my car after it was broken in to. While I might be willing to overlook that, he knew it was my car. He was the one that lead the police to my doorstep. Why? I guess he was hoping that I would bail him out. The thought occured to me that if I had I might have been able to get my stuff back.

But the fact that he knew he was stealing from me didn't sit well. I didn't care if the car was unlocked by the time he got to it (if he wasn't the burglar). But honestly, it would have required a serious chain of coincidental events for him to happen to have my stuff. It would mean that he would have stumbled across my car in a part of town that he didn't belong at 3am on a random morning. While I wasn't sure if my CDs had been taken even days prior to the burglary, I think I would have noticed and I definitely would have noticed my missing CD player faceplate. So then if the CDs were taken before, the player by the burglar, and the glove compartment contents by Quan, I had three separate break-ins over the course of a week. Unlikely.

I did wonder what happened to the other fellow that got away with my good stuff. My guess was that even if he was caught he probably through my stuff wayside as he scrambled away. I wasn't going to see it again. It was just as well since I'd determined that the police weren't particularly interested in the second assailant. I got the impression that in their mind they got their man and a second offender might make it harder to prove that Quan was the one that jimmied my car open with the clothes hanger.

When I got home I talked to neighbors Stoner and Snowflake. Upon hearing the news, they immediately knew who the other person was. They couldn't remember his name, but they knew that he was a hefty black man with a pony tail that was from Arizona. Snowflake even lead me to the guys house. If ever there was the very definition of a crack house, this was it. Snowflake, a former narcotics raid officer (no joke!) confirmed my suspicions. Apparently upon getting kicked out of Thrifthaven, that's where Quan was.

I'd commented to Eel just a few days prior and said that I didn't know what Quan was in to. By virtue of his acquaintances I figured he at least dabbled in drugs. The crack house was still a disappointment. I try to make an effort to differentiate between the criminals and the real troublemakers at Thrifthaven, but it seems the deeper I dig in to anyone and the more I find out, the deeper into it all they are.

The next day Saul the Mumbler told me that he found a CD binder with a CD that had my name on it. I was really excited until I found out that it was a second CD binder that I'd forgotten about. That's when I remembered that there was yet another, full with factory CDs, that I'd also forgotten about. None of it irrepaceable. Yet another another binder hadn't been taken. While I'd ripped all of the songs on it, it was a parting gift by Audrey and I was extremely relieved to still have that. The songs were replaceable, but the CDs weren't.

I also got a letter from the Gate County District Attorney's Office. They let me know that they were charging Quan with burglary and that they might subpoena me to testify. They told me to make a list of what had been taken so that they can demand restitution. I have yet to do so. What's the point, really? Is a man that felt it necessary to steal an anime convention badge, a box of toothpicks, and a car freshener really going to ever be able to pay me back?

Every day I get home I worry that my apartment has been broken in to. Every time I go out to my car I worry that Quan's associate broke in to take the CD player to match the worthless faceplate that he has. While it's extraordinarily unlikely they would do anything to make contact with me, Quan was pretty angry with me when they put him in the police car. He and his friends were angry with my apartment complex for kicking him out. Here I am and there is my car. There for the taking.

The previous two car theives were never found. While that makes me angry, in a way, it also prevented me from even worrying that I may run across them again. This time it was a neighbor and almost even a friend. Houston is a big city. Gate City is not. Even if and when I move out, if Strang is any indication Quan is probably out as we speak. Ironically it's because they caught him that I'm worried.

I'm not generally a paranoid person. I try to live my life in a way that stuff is just stuff. I'm not particularly careful, but I make up with it with flexibility.

Quan is poor. I'm not really worried about getting back what he took. I do, however, hope to get rid of what he left behind.