I don’t remember the first time I did it, but I remember the first time I got caught. I was a freshman at U.C. Santa Cruz, the store was called Zanotto’s, the item was Neosporin. I took it out of its packaging, bent down as if to scratch my ankle, and then wedged the tube of triple-antibiotic ointment into my white ankle sock. When the guard grabbed my arm, I was so scared I peed on the floor. As we waited for the police to come, I had to watch a janitor clean up my pee with a mop. I was taken down to the station and formally arrested: fingerprints, mug shot—they really wanted to teach this nineteen-year-old, transparent-dress-wearing punk a lesson. The lesson I learned was that I was now legally an adult, so I didn’t have to worry that my parents would be called. I was free—even my crimes belonged to me alone.

Illustration by Luci Gutiérrez

In time, I improved. I discovered that stealing required a loose, casual energy, a sort of oneness with the environment, like surfing or horse-whispering. And once I knew I could do it I felt strangely obliged to. I remember feeling guilty for not stealing, as though I were wasting money. After I dropped out of college and moved to Portland, Oregon, it became part of my livelihood. I stared at my shopping list like a stressed housewife, deliberating over which items to steal and which to buy with food stamps. My preferred purse was gigantic and discreetly rigid, like a suitcase. I packed it with blocks of cheese, loaves of bread, and lots of soy products, because I was a vegetarian.

But it wasn’t just about the supermarket—the whole world was one giant heist. It goes without saying that I used magnets to reset the Kinko’s copy counters to zero, and carried scissors to cut alarm tags out of clothes. Everyone I knew did these things. I say this not to excuse myself but just so you can visualize a legion of energetic, intelligent young lady criminals. Anytime anyone we knew flew into Portland, we urged her to buy luggage insurance and allow us to steal her bag from the baggage carrousel. The visiting friend then had to perform the role of the frantic claims reporter and was given a cut of the insurance money. Some friends were up for this; others thought it was an inhospitable thing to ask.

My first employer in Portland was Goodwill, which, yes, is a charitable organization, and, no, I did not have any qualms about slipping books and clothes and knickknacks into my bag. Because what is money, anyway? It’s just a concept some asshole made up. I also put red “Sold” tags on large appliances and entire living-room sets, and felt magnanimous as my friends gleefully loaded up their vans. One day, a co-worker was admiring a pink blouse that had just come in. I encouraged her to take it, and when she wouldn’t I put the blouse in a Goodwill bag and ran out of the store calling, “Sir! Sir! You forgot your bag!” Then I stuffed it in the bushes. At closing time, I fished it out with a halfhearted “What’s this?” and handed it to my prim co-worker. Prim and ungrateful, as it turned out. I was called into the boss’s office the next morning; the pink shirt was on her desk. “The good news is we’re not going to press charges,” she said. I wept as I walked over the river to the place where my girlfriend worked as a dog groomer. I’d never been fired before. It was a lot like dropping out of school or being arrested. All of these institutions, in their crude, clumsy way, seemed to be saying, You don’t need us, we’ll never understand you, and it’s important for you not to want us to.

I took the message to heart. I labored obsessively over creative pursuits they would never recognize, hurtling through systems and hierarchies as if nothing that already existed were relevant to me. I performed at colleges and scanned the room for what I could take. Even a box of chalk slipped into my pocket reassured me that I still had my freedom—the freedom to steal, to self-destruct, to ruin everything.

There was an exact moment when I decided to quit. I was sitting on a man’s lap and we had just determined that I was “his girl.” As we kissed, I thought, Well, I guess I have to stop stealing now. As if the idea of having a boyfriend, of being straight, required straightening out in other ways. I may have been looking for an excuse; I may have realized that I didn’t need to be a criminal to be an artist. Art itself could be the crime—could be scary and dangerous enough to shoulder my rebellion. After a while, I also stopped getting into physical fights, working in peepshows, bleaching my hair white, and wearing my tights over my shoes. Still, for a long time I thought my biggest heist was fooling everyone into believing that I was an upstanding citizen, a sweet girl. Then, just a few years ago, I realized that everyone feels secretly fraudulent. It’s the feeling of being an adult. ♦