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He had borrowed my truck at 7:00 P.M. to run to Auto Zone to pick up a new tail light since mine had burned out. Nice guy, right? At 10:30, he was still there. Unfortunately for him, I knew it was karaoke night at LD’s, and since LD’s was only about a mile from our house, I walked up there just to satisfy my own curiosity. And lo and behold, there it was, my little truck, an eyesore parked so innocently among some of the shiniest cars in Charleston.

So, I “stole” my truck from BG, drove it back home, and parked it around the corner where he wouldn’t see it. He came home just after midnight, tired from walking, and woke me up from my pretense slumber on the couch.

“Adam, dog. Somebody done stole your truck, homie.”

“What?” I asked, groggy-eyed. “What are you talking about?”

“Your truck. It was at LD’s, but it ain’t there no mo’.”

“Jesus, BG. I thought you were just going up to Auto Zone. What the hell?”

“I know, man. I’m sorry. Karaoke night, you know.”

“Oh, man. Karaoke night?” I wasn’t happy, and he was getting a little nervous. “That’s pretty interesting. But not my problem.” I rolled back over to go back to sleep. “I don’t care where it is. You took it. Now, go find it.”

So he walked back up to the LD’s parking lot and back, to make sure it wasn’t there. He had been quite intoxicated before, so he thought his eyes may have been playing tricks on him.

Nope.

“Shoot, man,” he said when he returned nearly an hour later. “Everybody around knows you can start it with a screwdriver, so it was probably one of them.” He started making phone calls. Bonesy. Vurt. Fonz. Rabbit. Nobody knew what he was talking about.

“Well, Shep,” he said, finally apologetic. “I reckon we gonna have to call the police.”

So I stopped him there and told him where the truck was. Happy that nobody had stolen it, he got the point that I was trying to make, that he needed to have a little more consideration for me and my truck. Whew. Case closed.

Until three days later, when he took it, again.

He had gone to Sheniya’s house even though he told me he was running to Burger King to get some food. I knew he was there, because I heard him making plans ahead of time. “A’ight, I’ll be over there in a minute, girl…Hey, Shep! I’m taking the truck to grab a burger right quick. I’ll be right back.”

I didn’t have anywhere to go or anything important to do, so I watched a movie and took a nap and prepared to exact my revenge. After he’d been gone four hours, I called him on Sheniya’s phone. I knew how sensitive he was about the energy bill, so I played on what appeared to be his lone weakness.

“BG, check this out. Dog. I’m gonna tell you what’s going on over here at four oh nine B Pine Hollow. Everything electrical in our house…I’m turning it on. I’m talkin’ everything. Lights, radios, TVs, microwave. Everything. I’m gonna go run the washing machine with no clothes in it. I’m gonna open the fridge door and keep it open, and I’m gonna turn on the garbage disposal in the sink. I might even borrow some appliances from the neighbors. It’s gonna be like Chuck-E-Cheese’s in here. When you come home with my truck, we’ll turn everything off.”

And then I hung up. I even turned the AC down to fifty degrees and opened all of the doors and windows. The electricity meter out back was spinning like a vinyl record, and I had a huge smile on my face. Sure, I had to pay half of the energy bill, too, but I was willing to fork over a few extra dollars for one more attempt at proving my point.

And he got it. He came rushing home and told me that he was sorry and that it wouldn’t ever happen again.

Until four days later, in early April.

By this time, my tolerance was empty and so was my bag of tricks. I had run out of options, and I didn’t know what to do. Refusing to allow him to borrow my truck was perhaps an option, but I really needed the tradeoff for his automotive skills to keep the truck operable.

It was just after 4:00 in the afternoon, BG had been gone with my truck for two hours, and I was growing antsy. It wasn’t helping that I was watching