“You know what I mean. Tank’s good. Lines are good. Fuel system looks fine.”
“Then explain where my gas is going.”
There was a short pause.
“You got teenagers nearby?”
“No.”
“Anybody else driving the truck?”
“No.”
Another pause.
Then he said, “Buy a camera.”
So I did.
Nothing elaborate.
Just a small security camera that connected to my phone.
I positioned it where it could clearly see the driveway and Earl’s fuel cap.
The following morning, I made coffee, sat at my kitchen table, and opened the recording.
For a while, there was nothing.
A cat.
A car passing.
Tree branches moving beneath a streetlight.
Then the timestamp reached 1:17 a.m.
A man walked onto my property.
I leaned toward the screen.
“No…”
I recognized him immediately.
Clark.
My neighbor from three houses down.
Clark was around forty-five.
Married.
Two children.
Good job in insurance.
Fairly new SUV.
And somehow he talked about money as though bankruptcy was permanently waiting at his front door.
He had borrowed things from me for years.
A ladder.
Socket set.
Extension cord.
Pressure washer.
Once, even my red gas can.
Getting those things back was another matter.
I’d ask, “Clark, still have my ladder?”
“Yeah, Frank. I’ll bring it over.”
A week would pass.
“Clark. Ladder?”
“You need it today?”
That question always irritated me.
Why did I need to justify wanting my own property back?
Still, I usually avoided making a fuss.
Nancy used to tease me about that.
“You’d rather spend three weeks annoyed than five minutes arguing,” she’d say.
She wasn’t wrong.
But what I saw on that recording wasn’t borrowing.
[Clark approached Earl carrying a gas can.]
Then he pulled out a hose.
I watched him remove the fuel cap.
Feed the hose into the tank.
And begin siphoning gasoline.
My mouth actually fell open.
There wasn’t any possible misunderstanding.
He hadn’t mistakenly walked onto the wrong property.
He wasn’t checking whether something was wrong with the truck.
My neighbor was stealing gasoline from me in the middle of the night.
Ten minutes after watching the recording, I was standing on his porch.
Clark opened the door in sweatpants, holding a mug of coffee.
“Morning, Frank.”
I didn’t bother with pleasantries.
“Have you been taking gas out of my truck?”
His expression changed.
Only for a second.
