Staring at the mirror in my bathroom with a joint burning my fingers I took stock of my existence. I had just agreed to commit a felony.

I was going to lose my job. I guarded a warehouse full of laptops, tablets, and phones and this morning I had fallen asleep on the job.

CRIME BY WILLIAM BURKE 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 120

The bus door swooshed and I stepped onto the kerb. The morning sun splashed the storefronts with goodwill and optimism. It was a morning to glory in the Lord! The exclamation burst free from the book I was reading, And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov. Good old Mikhail. Stalin’s favorite epic novelist. He escaped the gulag but was consigned to the remainder bin of literary history. I had spent the night reading Sholokhov, and craving dumplings with sour cream. I headed into the pub to finish off a chapter.

The Corrib was a real Irish pub full of real Irish bartenders, fair-faced young men and women newly arrived from Kerry, Cork, or Dublin. Their signature trick was to draw a shamrock in the foam of your stout.

I took half the pint in one long thirsty pull, and looked around at the dark wall paneling, the dartboard and Guinness posters, steel kegs stacked in the hall, and a few other graveyard shift-workers.

I pulled out Sholokhov but let it lie like a doorstop on the counter. I realized I had no will to open it.

I was going to lose my job. I guarded a warehouse full of laptop computers, tablets, and phones and this morning I had fallen asleep on the job. I missed the hourly check-in.

The salesman for Vice Lock Security Temps had convinced the owner of the warehouse he needed top-notch security. Me.

I had presented as a wandering scholar-errant to the hiring manager at Vice Lock. She had red hair escaping her ponytail in three directions at once and sipped coffee from a “Number One Mom!” mug with a chip on the rim. She made the criminal history check and I was in.

At the Corrib this morning I took off the last of the Guinness. The bartender already had a second pint for me. I would be all right. I had not been at Vice Lock long enough to have to account for a gap in my work resume. Everything was going to be all right.

“You looking for a job?” a man asked. His face held no expression, and that is not easily done.

“I already have a job,” I said.

“Maybe you have time for another.”

“Maybe.” I was asking myself yeah why not?

“Let’s talk out back.”

“Sure.”

Beyond the back door of the bar, we tucked up beside a dumpster.

“So what is this about?” I asked.

“It’s a house. Lots of cash.”