It's A Steal

Ed had made a habit of riding the trains at rush hour in the evenings. He liked to pluck the expensive electronics from the various pockets of the riders and rush hour in the evening made it much easier. In the mornings, people were still waking up and could barely focus on one thing. This should have played into Ed's favor, but he found that most people in the morning are playing games on their phones or listening to their iPods making these items more obvious when taken.

The first time Ed tried to pick a morning rider, he listened in for the song to stop and tried to quickly unplug the headphones from the jack to give him a buffer of time to run away before the rider realized a new song had not begun. Unfortunately, the tall man in his tweed blazer was unaware of Ed's plan, but hyper sensitive to silence. His iPod was turned up to great volumes causing the headphones to emit a loud split second buzz when unplugged. The rider reached immediately for his iPod to check what was wrong and ended up holding Ed's hand. With a weak smile, Ed apologized and claimed he had accidentally caught his arm on the headphones and pulled them out of the iPod causing it to fall into his hand. One semi-severe beating later and Ed no longer considered the morning trains profitable.


The evenings were Ed's time to shine in his mind. On any given afternoon during rush hour, Ed will come home with 5 high end phones and 4 iPods of varying styles. On this Thursday afternoon, he spotted a young man in black padding fresh off a day of bike deliveries bobbing along to his iPod oblivious to the number of times he was ramming his hips into the other riders. One rider in particular was going to enjoy this new rider regardless of how much he was shoved.


Ed took a couple of shots to the ribs before this tall kid plucked the earbuds from his ears to answer his phone. The nearby group of riders was immediately showered with the loud yet familiar sounds of Billy Idol's Mony Mony. Ed saw his opportunity to snag the mp3 player without pausing to wait for a song break, but as soon as he put his hand on the red player in this kid's coat pocket, Billy Idol broke into his chorus with "I say yeah!" Strangely, Ed and half the train all sang "Yeah!" loudly with Billy.

Ed froze with the iPod in his hand pulled from the messenger's pocket wondering where that burst came from and why everyone seemed to have caught at the same moment. His eyes met the nearest fellow passenger seated nearby. A frail woman in her 80s had wide eyed concern at where her rebel yell stemmed from or even what a Mony Mony was. That didn't stop her and most of the train from echoing with another "Yeah!" as the chorus built to the next verse.

Confused and concerned for his mental health, Ed bolted from the train through the massive crowd pushing on to the train. He was back on the street before he realized he still had the red iPod in his hand. He was surprised to find that the headphones were still attached and Mony Mony was fading in the background to the point that he could not hear the words anymore. He was still mumbling the yeahs as the song faded out and he quickly switched off the music. He rubbed his thumb over the smooth metallic face until his thumb caught on a smooth etching on the upper edge of the face above the screen. The markings appeared to be Chinese characters of some kind, but Ed knew nothing of the Chinese alphabet to decipher it.

He would have to do some research before he could sell it off in case it was a name or an insult that people would not want to own. The last thing he wanted was a piece of electronics that he couldn't sell or that would give away that he had stolen it. He would take it home and reset the playlist. Before that though, he decided to see what music was currently on it to see if he wanted to keep any of the songs already on it. He was still surprised that the owner had not followed after him to get his iPod back as he walked into traffic as Been Caught Stealin' by Jane's Addiction came in and Ed came home with the largest haul he's ever seen.