What They Didn't Get

Beads of shattered glass pool by the front door of Gary’s digital photography studio, the door's metal frame still dead-bolted in place. As Gary sits across an empty desk from me clutching the brand new iPad that has become his constant companion, his shoulders slump, and his eyes well up.

“This is the only computer I have left,” he says.

Silent, we both stare at the little iPad. I imagine the thieves smashing the glass and crawling in under the door’s metal cross bar, just like the sheriff’s deputy did a little a while ago. I picture them grabbing the computer on my desk, the one that was only three months old and held all our customer records. I see them turning the corner into Gary’s office and thinking they’d discovered burglar heaven – two professional level computers, two flat panel cinema displays, a backpack open on the floor with two professional digital cameras, multiple lenses and a box full of high priced camera accessories. Upstairs, they snatch the laptop. Mere minutes elapse as they clean out the place, pass the loot out the door, load it up and take off.

Here’s what they didn’t get, though.

They didn’t get the backup drives with all our customer information, customer images and Gary’s own award-winning photographs. And they didn’t get the most expensive camera in the place. It doesn’t look very high tech. They must not have seen the value there.

They also didn’t see the true value of that stolen equipment, what it meant to Gary. They didn’t see the hours he spent learning all the nuances of the cameras and lenses and computers, or even more hours fine-tuning his techniques. They didn’t know about all the times he raced to the beach when the clouds were just right in search of a spectacular Pacific sunset, sometimes only to see the clouds dissipate into a flat gray sky. They didn’t see him come home drenched when he’d been so intent on taking a photo of some rocks and seaweed that he hadn’t seen the wave coming at his back. They didn’t see him smiling anyway, because he’d gotten a great shot.

They didn’t see the solo trips to the desert in snowstorms, chilling wind or biting hail. They didn’t see him wake before dawn to reach a favorite pile of rocks in time to capture the glow of rising sunlight on multi-hued geologic layers. They didn’t see him sink up to his knee in muck as he hiked to a remote outcropping of granite, or slide down a hill just barely holding on to his camera. They didn’t see him at the computer unaware of the time, applying his artist’s eye and technical expertise to raw images, transforming them into works of art.

They didn’t know all that when they took his cameras and computers, his art supplies. And, really, they didn’t care, did they? They were after things and they got what they came for. They didn’t get how not having those tools would turn an artist’s life upside down.

As we sit there, people come by from the other nearby offices. They come in ones or twos, solemn as if going to a funeral, and they stand outside the shattered door looking at the destruction. They all say they’re so sorry. They share their own stories. The man from the dental lab tells about his place being robbed and vandalized six months before. Someone tells about her house being broken into. They stare at the puddle and spatter of glass and shake their heads as if it had happened to them. They hurt for us. And they’re angry.

The woman from the Catholic Charities office two doors down sets her jaw and crosses her arms over her chest, fuming quietly for some time.

“Jerks,” she finally says. “What jerks.” And she walks back to her office.

People we don’t even know become like family in this moment. We all share a sense of having been wounded, and we look to each other for the salve of human decency.

The thieves didn’t get that either.

Copyright 2010 by Liz Zuercher