Tom Thievery

Theft is a crime on multiple levels; it violates the ten commandments, the law, social codes of decent behavior and the cycle of karma.

My leather jacket wasn't anything special. I'd only waited a year and a half to buy it, scouting out every leather establishment from the bazaar to the mall to find the perfect fit. I finally opted for a form fitting black bomber jacket from Mango - of all places - and of all places, it was recently stolen from my yoga studio.

The scoundrel who robbed me would either have to be a student at the studio or a random passerby who decided to go up four flights of stairs, walk in surreptitiously and have the gall to walk out with another person's item in hand. If you ask me, it's a risky way to go shopping.

I'm still giving the strangers at my yoga studio the benefit of the doubt. When I reached for my jacket and it wasn't there, I assumed it was a case of mistaken apparel identity. Perhaps in post-yoga euphoria someone had mistaken my leather jacket for theirs. In fact, as I began searching beneath the many coats on the wall of the dressing room I found a similar black bomber, distingushed from mine only by tacky snap button pockets. Otherwise the two were almost identical.

Theft was bound to happen at some point during my stay in Istanbul. Up until now, I've been quite lucky. I once left my wallet in a taxi, only to have it returned to my work with everything inside. The cabbie did request a 50 lira tip, but whether he was taking advantage of my foreigness or merely asking for a well-deserved thank you I'll never know. I gave it to him, justifying the tip as my way of keeping the incentive for honesty higher than the incentive to steal, and perhaps inadvertently adding to my own dwindling supply of good karma.

When I first started taking yoga classes, the owner warned me about the potential for theft. "This is Beyoğlu, after all. You just never know." I bought a cheap lock and always keep my personal items in a locker; the thought of my jacket being stolen never even occured to me. When I called this morning, he suggested that it was an accident - people had even walked out wearing the wrong shoes in the past. Still, I'm loosing faith - fast.

Stealing perplexes me. The stolen item is forever tainted with someone else's past - and not the good kind of taint, like the musty smell of my Belmont Avenue vintage store or the fading white movie star elbow legnth gloves I bought at an old costume shop in Hollywood, but a bad, foul taste in the robber's mouth that would prevent me from stealing ever again. But then again, I wouldn't know. I'm no theif.