How many pockets would a pickpocket pick....
Wasting My Youth in Prague part 6
In Prague there is almost no unemployment, and I think I have figured out why. It appears that anyone who would otherwise be unemployed is working in the city’s lucrative pickpocketing industry.
The metro (subway) of this city is crawling with thieves, as are the crowded tourist areas above ground. Some days it seems there are thieves on every train.
In my first week here, I had five encounters with pickpockets on the metro. I didn’t lose anything, because I keep my wallet in a securely buckled cargo pocket, and I’m careful to cover this pocket with my knapsack when the train is crowded.
But one of my classmates hasn’t been nearly as fortunate—he was pickpocketed three times in our first two weeks.
Over the past few weeks I’ve become accustomed to the sensation of sneaky fingers lightly tapping my empty pockets in the crush of people. On a few occasions, I’ve turned just in time to see a sinister little hand snap back to the side of the person standing next to me.
It didn’t take many of these encounters before my fertile imagination hatched an intriguing story idea. My plan was to get a bunch of cheap wallets and fill my knapsack with junk, like defective cameras and broken CD players. Then I would go on the metro dressed like a clueless tourist, and see how long it would take me to lose all my stuff. Done properly, it could be a hilarious story—investigative comedy journalism, deep below the streets of Prague.
But if my wanted my story to be a classic, it needed a diabolical twist. Like a booby-trapped knapsack. All I’d need to do was cut one end off a sturdy shoe box, and place a mousetrap inside. I’d position the box in the bottom of my knapsack with the open end pushed against an invitingly unzipped zipper, so any hand that crept into my bag would be unwittingly reaching into my box of peril. In moments it would find the mousetrap, and... SNAP!!!
Then would come the really interesting part. How would the pickpocket react when the trap sprung? Would he cry out and wave his stinging hand around in agony, attracting everyone’s attention with a classic bit of humiliating slapstick? Or would he have the fortitude to try the deadpan route—stifle his cry of pain and nonchalantly slip his afflicted fingers back into his own pocket? Either way, the scene would be hilarious.
One afternoon I was pondering this very stunt as I stepped off the crowded ‘A’ train. Suddenly, something didn’t feel right. I glanced down. The buckle on my cargo pocket was undone and dangling.
My blood ran cold. With my hand I confirmed what I already knew. The pocket was empty. My wallet, money, transit pass and credit card were gone.
FUCK!
I spun around to get back on the train, but the doors had just closed. As the train pulled away I made eye contact with a nondescript male in his thirties, standing on the exact spot I’d occupied just a moment before. There was a hint of a smirk on his face as the train sped down the platform into the permanent night of the tunnel.
That bastard!
Never in my life have I felt such a narcotic rush of pure animal hatred. In a vicious tantrum of four-letter words I cursed that man, I cursed all his ancestors, and I cursed all his descendants to come. I prayed to the lords of karma that he would meet a swift and painful demise.
Oh yeah, he’d got me. He’d got me good. He’d got me even as I stood there thinking about pickpocket defense, and taking unbeatable measures to protect myself—I was positive I’d kept that pocket securely covered with my knapsack the whole time I was on that train. How in the hell did he do it? How?! Was he some kind of magician?
Then I reached into my bag, and there was my wallet.
A sense of shocked relief literally kicked me in the stomach. I slumped against the wall, overwhelmed with gratitude. And shame.
Alas, for the past twenty minutes I had been jealously guarding an empty pocket. The guy on the train—that nondescript thirtysomething male I had just condemned for all eternity—was innocent. And I felt guilty.
In Prague, I have learned to beware of pickpockets. But I have also learned that I am an idiot. •
Originally published in The Peak, June 25 2001.
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