Porch Light
One more “retiree” for the journal submission home.
Porch Light
It wasn’t even a good shirt. White with some kind of lion thing on the front and a last name in curly fake calligraphy. I didn’t recognize the name, but I recognized the box: plain brown, sitting on my neighbor’s porch for three days. Long enough to feel like a free-for-all. I was twelve. I wanted something that felt like treasure. I stole it, opened it, and wore it around the neighborhood like I was the heir to something.
The first time he saw me in it, he asked what my shirt meant. I said I wasn’t sure—it was just a shirt. He asked where I got it. I said something about a thrift store, or maybe my cousin. I don’t remember which lie I picked. Either way, I didn’t finish it. I took off before he could press further, which must have told him everything he needed to know. The next time I saw him, he was on our porch talking to my mom.
I had to apologize. My mom stood behind me with crossed arms while I mumbled something about being sorry and not knowing it was important. He nodded like a disappointed teacher and said he didn’t want the shirt back. “I want you to think about what you did every time you put it on,” he told me. That was too much. I wasn’t a hardened criminal—I was a dumb kid who wanted a new shirt. I folded it up that night and buried it in the bottom of my closet like evidence. I never wore it again.
It stayed buried for years. Every now and then I’d spot a corner of it beneath an old backpack or forgotten homework folder, and I’d get that same lurch in my stomach. Then I’d go do something worse. The shame wore out faster than it should have.
I thought it was going to change me. I really did. The apology, the speech, the folded-up shirt like a cursed object in the bottom of my closet. It felt like a turning point—like one of those after-school special moments where the kid realizes he’s gone too far. But I didn’t stop—not really. Not yet. It was the last time I stole something off a porch, but the first time I felt the slow heat of being caught. That stuck with me. I stopped stealing things I had to look at later.