Howard Chalk

You won't find Howard Chalk, known as Howard to his friends, in any history books, books or even mentioned on a place mat at a fancy restaurant. This is because his lifelong ambition to be an infamous jewel thief never materialised and he was doomed to remain in obscurity forever. No matter how well he planned his robberies he was always foiled at the last moment, usually because he misheard the bus driver and got off at the wrong stop or he was unable to open some doors due to his lack of thumbs, something which later earned him the nickname "the fumbler". In fact on one memorable occasion he had to call the police to let him out of a jewellery store when a door slammed behind him and he became stuck in a small bathroom.

These are the entries from his diary on the days leading to and following his last great attempt at a robbery.

25th of April 1927

At the age of 76 I'm starting to wonder if jewel thievery is the right career for me. I was thinking of taking one of those adult education classes at the community college maybe something to do with business or maybe an art class. I've always felt I have this inner artist inside of me because whenever I see a paining of some fruit I get hungry, angry and begin to complain that my paintings are better despite the fact I've never done any paintings.

26th of April 1927

Forget what I said yesterday. Today I heard a drunk Eskimo in town talking about a jewel the size size of his big toe, and let me tell you this guy had some HUGE toes. He said it was either in a boats end in Libya or a goats head in India. I have resolved to go with the goats head and I will depart to India tomorrow. This will be my big chance to go down in history, just like that man who ate all those coins.

29th of April 1927

Sorry I haven't written anything in a few days but I've been stuck on a plane. The pilot got lost twice, first over the gulf of Mexico which we circled for hours looking for someone to ask for directions and then once again over Sweden when we too the wrong turn off the motorway. But I have now arrived in India and plan to do some research on where the goats head is and steal it tomorrow night.

30th of April 1927

Having done extensive research I have located the head. Tonight will go ahead as planned. Nothing else to say except that my mattress was a bit lumpy and on investigation I found that a family of bears live under the bead and use the mattress as a storage unit.

1st of May 1927

I write this after a failed job. Everything went to plan until I got to the head. It looked just like my childhood imaginary pet Hershi. So I phoned my analyst and told him about all the childhood memories that it brought up and by the time we had finished talking it was opening time for the museum and I owed my analyst $110. So I've decided that when I get back home I might take an art course.