And the last time I'd actually been to bed with a woman…well, I don't know when that was. I'd had a genuine girlfriend for several months, and that had come to a bitter end sometime during the winter, not this past winter but the winter before. Then sometime the next spring (which is to say last spring, which would make it approximately a year ago) I'd acted out.

Acting out.I'm not sure when we first started calling it that, or what we used to call it before that convenient term came into widespread use. Misbehaving, maybe. Whatever you want to call it, I reacted to having my heart broken by doing three things in dogged succession. First I stayed more or less drunk for the better part of a week, but all that did was give me head-banger hangovers and a perfectly suitable case of postalcoholic remorse. Then I started chasing women in a rather frantic fashion, and even managed to catch some, though the ones I landed were the sort any self-respecting sportsman would have thrown back. Finally, I went on a burglary spree, in the course of which I must have averaged a break-in a night for close to two weeks. I was a one-man crime wave, and the risks I took don't bear thinking about, but at least I wasn't suicidal about it. I didn't have a deep unconscious desire to get caught, and nobody caught me, and when I finally came to my senses and settled down again, at least I had a tidy sum tucked away in my rainy day account. I came out of it ahead, which is more than I could say for the drinking and the woman-chasing.

And since then…well, since then I'd been as sexually active as a priest who took his vows seriously. I'd helped Carolyn compose her listing for Date-a-Dyke ("LOOKING FOR A SPRING FLING? Five-foot-two, eyes for you. Bright and cute and funny, you can think of me as the long-lost bastard daughter of L. L. Bean and Laura Ashley. Love scotch, love New York, hate softball, and limit myself to two cats. My meaningful relationships always lead to heartbreak or LBD, so how about a meaningless relationship?") but wouldn't hear of cobbling up an equivalent listing for myself. It was, I told myself, a phase I was going through. I was evidently not yet ready to have a woman in my life, and when I was I would automatically change the vibe I put out, and women who now had the good sense to steer clear of me would suddenly think I was catnip. Just a question of time, I told myself. Time. That's all.

So whenLaw amp; Order packed it in I watched the first five minutes of the local news, then surfed my way around the channels, watching thirty seconds here and two minutes there, not getting caught up in any of it, perhaps because I didn't stay with anything long enough to give it a chance to catch me. I thought about calling Francine ("Hi, I saw you onLaw amp; Order tonight, and I swear I couldn't take my eyes off the jury box. You absolutely lit up the screen!") and looked for her number, but I'd recopied my address book since we stopped seeing each other, and she hadn't made the cut. I reached for the phone book and put it back when I realized I couldn't remember her last name. Then I channel-surfed some more, and then I turned off the TV and stood up.

All of the foregoing is by way of explanation for what I did next, and maybe it explains it, but it doesn't justify it. The whole thing's embarrassing, so I won't dwell on it. I'll just report it in plain English.

I went to my closet, opened up the hidden compartment, gathered up my tools and gloves, put on my windbreaker, changed my mind and swapped it for a blue blazer, and went down the stairs and out of the building.

And on the prowl.

On the prowl.

The phrase has a wonderful ring to it, doesn't it? It sounds at once menacing and exciting, deliciously attractive in an unwholesome way. Byron, someone observed, was "mad, bad, and dangerous to know"-which evidently made the son of a bitch irresistible. Can't you picture him going on the prowl?

When a burglar goes on the prowl, he's improvising. Now improvisation is vastly useful in the arts, and in jazz it's fundamental; when a jazz musician gives himself free rein to improvise, he finds himself playing notes and creating phrases he hadn't thought of, unearthing the music from some inner chamber of his private self. When I play a record and listen to some solo piano by, say, Lennie Tristano or Randy Weston or Billy Taylor, I can get lost in the intricacies and subtleties the pianist is working out on the spot, creating this beauty as he threads his way through the notes.

That's great if you're a musician, and what I really should have done was stay home and play some of my old LPs, admiring the way those fellows could prowl the keyboard. Because improvisation in burglary is different. It's a foolproof method for minimizing rewards while maximizing risk, and what kind of a way is that to run a business?

It is, I should point out, not a career I would recommend for anyone. It's morally reprehensible, for starters, and the fact that I evidently can't give it up doesn't mean I'm not well aware of the disagreeably sordid nature of what I do. Such considerations aside, it's still a poor vocational choice.

Oh, there are attractive elements, and let's acknowledge them right in front. You're your own boss, and you never have to sit through a job interview, never have to convince anyone that you have the requisite experience for the task at hand, or, conversely, that you're not overqualified. No one has to hire you and no one can fire you.

Nor, like the ordinary tradesman, are you dependent upon the good will of your customers. That's just as well, as ill will is what they'd bear you, and it's all to the good if they never know more about you than that you've paid them a visit. But you don't have to drum up business, and you don't have to deal with suppliers, and no avaricious landlord can raise the rent on your business premises, because you don't have any.

Your business is essentially unaffected by booms and busts in the national or world economy. There's a built-in hedge against inflation-the value of what you steal keeps pace with your higher costs-and depression won't throw you out of work. (The competition's a little keener in bad times, as otherwise solid citizens decide to find out what's behind Door Number Three, but that's all right. There's always enough to go around.)

You don't need a license from the city or state, either, and there's no union to join, no dues to pay, and no paperwork to fill out. On the other hand, there's no pension plan, and since you don't pay taxes neither do you qualify for Social Security and Medicare and all the other benefits that sparkle like diamonds in the setting of the golden years. No sick days, either, and no paid vacation. No health care. Bottom line, you're pretty much on your own.

You set your own hours, of course, and you'll never find yourself putting in a forty-hour week. Even allowing for study and research, you're not likely to work forty hours in the course of an entire month. Once you get down to cases, time is of the essence, and burglary, unlike some other pursuits, does not reward the chap who makes the whole thing last as long as possible. The idea is to get in and get out as quickly as possible.

All of this sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Even the drawbacks-no pension, no security, no guaranteed annual wage-are part of the image of the romantic self-sufficient loner, making his rugged-individualist way in the world. You can almost hear country music playing in the background, and Merle Haggard urging you to chuck the effete urban rat race and move to Montana like a man.

Well, there's a downside. For one thing, you never get to feel like a useful and productive member of society, because you're not. Even if you can shrug off the natural guilt that comes from taking things that don't belong to you, even if you rationalize it by arguing with Proudhon that all property is theft, there's nothing to give you a sense of accomplishment.