They’d been on vacation for three days. No one goes on vacation for four days. One day, two days, seven days. Never for four days. Maybe three days.

He wanted inside. Inside, there was beer. There was always beer. He could hear their minivan as it chugged up the street after a grocery run. Judging from the cartons, it was always a Costco run. He could see them unloading Henry Weinhardt’s and lugging it inside. The mom, the son, the overweight daughter. Frequent trips. How much beer did they drink? They never had guests. There was no dad. The beer was in there, and he wanted it.

Unko, unko.

He looked down at his nephew. The brat wasn’t too bright, but bright enough to approach Kris from the shady side. Forcing him to squint against the sunlight bouncing off his nephew’s fat white head.

Go ‘way. Too hot to ride.

Unko.

Kris looked at the house across the street some more.

Unko.

He raised a hand without even looking at the boy.

Nephew left.

Inside that house there was beer, and it would taste good. His own sister wouldn’t buy him beer. Not because he was an alcoholic. I wish I was an alcoholic, he’d joke with the assholes in the barber shop. Kris never seemed to need a haircut, but they let him sit in there sometimes. At least if I was an alcoholic, I’d have a hobby. It was the only time he’d ever made them chuckle. Half the time they spoke in an old country dialect, and he could barely understand them.

No, his sister refused to buy him beer because it was expensive. You getta job, all the beer you want,. She’d say. A Job. He’d had a job. It did things to his back. He’d gotten a severance, a bit of workman’s compensation. Then that dried up. And so had he.

Sometime, he liked the heat. But not today. Today, he hated it. If he had a beer, he’d love it. He’d love the heat like he was 80 and his wife was 75 and his wife was the beer and they were old friends and knew each other well enough not to talk anymore. Just benefit from one another’s company.

Because, when you think about it, beer was meant to be swallowed. It was meant to be swallowed on a hot day. That boy, the son, maybe he snuck some out now and again. Hid it in his gym bag. Took it to school. Drank it, warm, behind the school. Shared it with his buddies. Offered some to the pimply girl with no friends, the one who was desperate for someone, anyone, to like her. She’d try it, sure, eager to find a way to fit in, hate the taste, sour, like pennies, but she’d drink it anyway, and now they were all friends, so she’d open up, make fun of some teacher. The boy would wonder what she looked like naked, decide he’d didn’t like the thought, didn’t like the girl, never bring beers to school again, three bottles gathering dust under his bed, long long past the best-by date, such a waste, such a fucking waste, and Kris outside, melting, no beer.

Three days they’d been on vacation. What was it, noon? 2:30? On a Thursday? Who comes home from vacation on a Thursday? Who comes home at 2:30? No one. No one who hordes beer.

God damn it. It would be easy. When he was a teenager, he’d just waltzed right up to his best friend’s house, one day, nobody home, but the door unlocked, who locks their door in Janetree Village? He went inside, his head buzzing, like he was following a few inches behind himself, watching himself make a sandwich, idly open his best friend’s mother’s drawers, dropping crumbs, standing for a while in the hallway, looking at the faded family photos in the faded family frames. Finally he took a leak, flushed, put the lid down, washed his hands, dried them on his pants, and left. At home, dinner was turkey and dumplings, and glass after glass of cold iced tea.

He would just walk over, try the door. It would be locked, he’d go around back. The back door would be locked, he’d try the boy’s room window. It would be stuck, so he’d try the girl’s room. It would be open, so he’d crawl in. It would smell kind of funny. Everyone’s house smelled kind of funny. This room, messy, all girls were, basically, slobs, and this room, clothes on the floor, pimple magazines tossed around, half-started diaries with entries like Everyone thinks Corey White is sooo hot but I think he’s kind of scrawny. He would walk to out of the girls’ room, glance at the boys room (door ajar) the mom’s room (door wide open) walk into the living room (tidy) into the kitchen (astringent clean) open the refrigerator (puff of mist) reach for a Hank W, domestic, bottle opener optional, top off, head back, magic gold caressing parched throat in one 20 oz go, gone before he’d had time to step outside himself and see the moment as a temporary pause in his life’s chronology.

Or his sister would call him for supper. Something Asian, something with fish, something she’d learned from a grandmother who hated the idea that her kids and grandkids would forget how bad the food they cooked in the old village tasted. Something that tasted like it had been buried. But if it had been buried, it would not have tasted this bad.

Kris stood up, rocking back and forth, bouncing the bike between his thighs. A little dance. A little victory dance. Because he was going to beat that house. That house was a challenge and the beer was the reward, for winning.

Unko.

What if he got caught? What if he didn’t get caught? Not in the sense that he might succeed. But what if he didn’t get caught, what were the negative consequence of walking over there, finding the front door wide open, the AC blasting, a freshly opened beer sitting snug in a Styrofoam cozy, no sweating, the game already on, what game, any game, exactly the right distance from the chair angled at exactly the right angle so he could sit back in it and tilt the beer and drink the beer and never have to take his eyes off the TV? How would that break him down? How would that decimate him? How would he survive that?

Unko. My turn.

He could go over, find no windows open at all, no easy access, so he breaks a window, an alarm goes off, the ancient grandfather he hadn’t seen come over to house-sit grabbing up the shotgun, the 100 pound rottweiler he’d never seen them bring home bursting from the enormous doggie door in the garage, the patrolman who just happened to be passing by arming himself with mace and a taser, a hornets’ nest in the eaves suddenly enraged by the sound of the window breaking, the bad genes he never knew he’d inherited from his grandmother, the ones that skipped his sister, finally giving up and letting his heart flat line, his brain hemorrhaging, his liver failing, a solar flare sparking a freak wind storm and a bolt of lightning attracted to his copper bracelet arcing down from the sky and frying him where he stood. Could he survive that?

Yes. Kris removed his bracelet, handed it to his nephew without looking at him. The nephew held it up to his face, nearsighted, IQ in digits that wouldn’t even be a good fastball at the minor league park. The distraction was only temporary. Unko. My turn.

He raised his hand again. The nephew only flinched this time, in slow motion, didn’t run away. The opposite of once bitten twice shy. Kris was the boy who cried wolf. The beer. His doubts where the boy who cried wolf.

Kris scooted the bike forward, let it roll on its own, took his eyes off the house long enough to smirk when the nephew did not catch the bike in time, chased it into the street. Squealing tires. The nephew frozen. The car hitting him, but only barely, only a little. Enough to knock him over, no more than Kris might knock him over. The boy started to cry. Got up and ran towards Kris, past him, inside. Bike still in the street.

It was the neighbors. They were home. But why were they driving down the street? Why weren’t they pulling into their driveway?