Seattle Press on Line - Reflections on a Crime

Writers' Corner

Reflections on a Crime

By M. C.

Jun 20, 2002 -- It was about six years ago that I stole the manhole-cover from East Howell Street in front of what used to be the Roswell Cafe and Laundromat. I was moving back east and wanted a keepsake from the city that had become my second home, a base-camp of sorts for my West Coast endeavors and aspirations. I had just seen that popular Man-Hole Covers From Around The World coffee table book in the window of a Broadway bookseller, and imagined what a nifty keepsake an actual piece of the municipality would make. I fancied somehow securing one of those cool city-map or native tribal graphic embossed manhole covers to a wall in my apartment in New England and then graciously receiving compliments about my choice in decor from the guests at the housewarming party I was sure to have.

This was not to be. Not exactly anyway.

Upon more thorough consideration, I came to the conclusion that downtown, where these more interesting manhole covers sat, the near perpetual presence of both passers-by and police made this pilfering highly impractical. The actual size and implied weight of these aesthetically pleasing covers of holes through which men (and women) occasionally descend made this absurd. Cockamamie in fact.

So I went about looking for a more manageable manhole memento, and soon found one near the laundromat I used. It was late at night, well after potential witnesses had meandered home from nearby pubs. I felt exhilarated. I was a ninja-cat burglar; cooler than Bruce Willis in Hudson Hawk, and I allowed the "Mission Impossible" theme to loop in my head unabated. I was conducting a super-duper special-secret-stealthy covert operation. I pried it up with a heavy-duty screwdriver, and was troubled when I found that there was more to this lid than just a two-inch-thick pizza sized disk. No, there were stout and sturdy cross braces cast as part of the souvenir I sought, making it much heavier than it had appeared. Nonetheless, I summoned the strength to heave it into a satchel and get it up on my back. I bore that manhole cover on my back like Atlas, holding the weight of the world aloft. I may have given myself a hernia.

That night I got it home, and within a few days, into a moving truck headed east.

Did you ever try really hard to get something and then, only after getting it, realize it wasn't quite what you'd made it out to be?

The manhole cover sitting here in this room where I write is nowhere near as cool as the steel or iron plates in the Man-hole Covers of the World picture book. It has no Pacific Northwestern tribal design or Seattle city map in relief on its surface. The words "Olympic Foundry" are so worn, they are barely legible. It's not even a real manhole cover; you'd have to be a contortionist to squirm through a hatch with its diminutive diameter. It had never concealed a ladder leading down into Seattle's mysterious bowels, just some levers and valves for water. What's worse is that a friend of mine who is still living in the Emerald City told me over the phone that he'd bottomed out his car on the very spot of my sewer-cap seizure, and that I'm an asshole. I can picture many Seattleites, just like my frank friend, hitting the deep divot on East Howell and cursing as they spill screaming hot lattes onto their laps. Perhaps I am an asshole. When I visited Sea-town last spring, the gap and exposed levers, valves, and spigot remained uncovered.

I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize to anybody who may have unexpectedly encountered this spot where there is no pavement and no cover to bridge the gap. Whether you just felt a little bump, bottomed out, or tripped with an armload of laundry stepping out of the Roswell, I do sincerely say, "I am sorry" to you all.

In addition, I'm going to put this all right--both my ill-conceived relocation to the Northeast, and the whole foolish manhole fiasco. I'm going to bring the plain-Jane utility cover with me when I move back there this autumn, and under cover of the night, slip it back into the space where it belongs.

Editor's note: The author asked to be identified only by his initials.

Reader Comments

Discuss this article in the forums!


John Doe	Sep 07, 2003	Wherever	Wherever works
This is positively the worst story I've heard it's more crap that needs to be filtered out of the internet.