You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Rabbit.
He’s an infamous car thief that was sentenced to life for Grand Theft Auto.
Damn.
That’s a lot of time for a non violent offense. Must mean ole’ Rabbit done stole him a lot of vehicles.
The call comes in early.
“Cordan,” the gravel laced voice on the other end screeches. “Rabbit is in here drawing up warrants.”
“Who?,” I squelch.
“Rabbit. He has like a hundred auto theft charges.”
“100?”
“Yeah, and someone stole his car.”
The gravel voice laughs.
“Is he still down there?”
“Yes. Come on Cordan, when I call you gotta move. Someone stole the car of ole Rabbit. You gotta get it, man.”
Click.
It’s 9 am and we are about to go to the news meeting.
I feel like this story has potential, but I move cautiously.
Will they like the story of a life long car thief who suddenly has Karma slapping him upside his head?
I bring it up. Some people snicker, but the over all mood is less than enthusiastic. I am not sure they get past the man’s nickname, Rabbit.
We go around the table and no idea is better than another. Finally someone says; “You don’t have anything better go get the guy.”
Go get the guy, like he’s the freaking mayor and there is some sort of press availability.
I call my source back.
“Is he still down there?
“No. He’s at the auto theft unit taking out warrants. I told you, you gotta move, Cordan.”
Damn.
I call the auto theft secretary who I have known for ever.
As soon as she picks up, and hears that it is me, she whispers.
“Andy, you’ll never guess who is in the office.”
I laugh.
“ah….Rabbit.”
“Yes she says quietly. How’d ya know.”
“Ask him if he’ll do an interview with me.”
She pauses. “OK, hold on.”
I hear some muffled talk then, “He says he will.”
“Cool. Tell him I’m coming right down.”
On my way to the auto theft department on Omohondro Drive I think about the excitement in the secretary’s voice. They get a lot of visitors in the lobby. She spoke of the Rabbit in criminally reverent tones, like he was a nefarious rock star.
I get to the auto theft office. It’s a worn out trailer surrounded by stolen cars and recovered motorcycles and jet skis. It looks like a perfect setting to interview an auto thief who has had an ironic slap in the face.
I walk in the lobby. There is only one old man there. He is every bit of 72 with a full set of hair and a gleam in his eye. He is sitting in a hard chair fumbling through his papers.
“You gotta be the Rabbit?” I chuckle.
“That’s me.”
I point my camera at the friendly ex con and go right for it.
“So how many cars you think you stole in your life time?”
He laughs. He folds his wad of papers.
“I don’t know. It’s not as many as they say it is.”
His words are mumbled, smothered in a sauce of life long Southern living.
The Sgt comes out and stares at me harshly.
“Andy. Do that outside, will ya please?”
I grumble, and we move to the parking lot.
Rabbit shows me a newspaper article from the 70’s. There is a black and white picture of him with a full set of dark hair.
I begin reading. “You may have heard the names of underworld gangsters,” the caption reads. “Men like Machine Gun Kelly, and Baby Face Nelson and Al Capone. But have you ever heard of the Rabbit?”
He smiles as I read. He is proud of his press clipping.
Rabbit will tell me that he was sentenced to life in prison for a number of larcenies, that is what they called auto theft back in the 70’s and 80’s.
He served 18 years according to the Department of Corrections and then got out on parole in 2005.
Rabbit assures me he has been straight ever since.
“So what happened?” I ask.
“Someone stole my Z -28 Friday night. It was in the parking lot. I came out and saw the glass broken and I called the police. But then I saw a tow truck circling the lot. It was suspicious. It drove around like he was looking for something, then he left.”
“How’s it feel to be an auto theft victim?,” I muse. “It’s like Karma caught up to you after all these years.”
Rabbit laughs. “Well it don’t feel too good.”
He tells me that he and a buddy follow the tow truck guy. They ask him what he was doing in the parking lot.
“He said he was looking for a blue and white Z 28. I told him it was too late. I told him someone beat him to it. Stole it before he could get it.”
He says the tow truck man doesn’t know who called and the tow truck man doesn’t know where he was suppose to tow the car if he had found it.
The 72-year-old smiles. He has spent most of his life stealing cars. If anyone knows what to do with a stolen car, Rabbit knows what to do.
Tracking his stolen car is like a blood hound following a day old scent across a grassy field. He simply knows where to go. It is instinct. He trusts his senses as an invisible force guides his criminal self through the seedy underbelly of felonious jurisdictions.
Rabbit tells me he gets to a salvage yard south of Nashville. He says they start searching the property for his blue and white Z 28. In Tennessee it is legal to sell a car older than 12 years old without producing title.It’s a ridiculous law, which is why cars that are 12 years and older are so frequently stolen. Rabbit knows this and he knows this salvage yard that doesn’t mind skirting the law.
“So I ask the manager if anyone has brought in a 19-year-old Z 28. Yeah, the other night,” Rabbit says the manager replies.
Rabbit finds his car. The dashboard is cracked and the window smashed he says. It sounds like the thieves were all ready hard at work parting the car out.
I ask Rabbit how he feels.
He laughs. His words exit his 72-year-old face like so much dirt and southern syrup. He is hard to understand. While he talks I wonder if it would be rude to put sub titles under him.
Rabbit will play down how it feels to be a victim, but he will also tell me that the irony is palpable, even to an ex con like him.
I call the police and they tell me that they would have found Rabbit’s car, without him, but they admit he did find it quickly.
“His previous life allowed him to know what to look for,” a grizzled detective will say to me, not so impressed with Rabbit.
“Why do you care about this guy,” anyway?” he asks.
I mull that question for a minute.
He’s a life long car thief. He was sentenced to life in prison for auto theft. He made parole and he has apparently lead a clean life since.
Now someone steals his car and he is a victim and he uses his previous life instincts as a thief to track down a younger version of himself.
Why do I care?
The question is so silly, I don’t even answer.
It’s poetic justice. It’s Karma. It’s one of life’s ironic melodramas unfolding exclusively for me.
Why do I care?
How could I not?
Life’s Crazy™