A Delinquency Awoken

Shoplifting is easy: a new story from “Chasing Crazy”

“If they call the police, tell them my name is Paco.”

Manny was winded as we ran but was still managing to call out orders.

We were running to our first robbery and had set our sights on The Falls — an outdoor shopping mall.

The walk there was treacherous.

No crosswalks existed in that part of Miami.

We would tip-toe over broken glass as we raced through traffic to get to the opposite side of the street where the canals were.

The shopping center sat on a paved swamp that served as the mouth of a system of polluted canals that cut into suburban Miami like an ugly tattoo.

My brother Jason and I had been walking up a canal near the mall looking for a spot to fish a few weeks back.

The water was green and murky. A few feet under the surface the color shifted to an eerie purple haze, like the pupils of a corpse.

I was about to cast my line with a fishing pole I had found in my uncle’s canoe.

He won’t mind, I thought as I yanked it free from some netting that lay at the bottom.

As I pulled my arm back, Jason grabbed my wrist and spoke in a whisper.

“Gregory, don’t move.”

To our left, no more than five or six feet, basking against some rocks at the lip of a tunnel, sat two full grown alligators.

The larger one crept up a bit, only to back into the water and dip into the shadows of the canal.

The other one had its mouth gaped. It didn’t move.

Jason grabbed the scruff of my shirt and pulled us backwards up a grassy slope.

We both took off running, not looking back until we reached the convenience store on the corner of US1.

Jason picked up the receiver of the pay phone and called my uncle.

“…well Gregory threw your pole at it…yeah I have no idea why.”

I hadn’t even realized that I was not holding the pole anymore.

Uncle Tim was not happy trudging through the canal later that evening looking for his new fishing pole.

A fishing pole he would never find.

“Hurry up!”

Manny was impatient as we hurried through the empty parking lot in front of the shopping mall.

The large fountain of the The Falls, from which its namesake came, remained dry.

The concrete bottom was littered with black rings — remnants of coins long wished away.

Graffiti marked most open walls and vagrants gathered in the hollows of the stinky tunnels that abutted the mall on each corner.

The Cineplex stood behind the fountain.

I followed Manny in.

He took me to the nearest trash bin and stuck his arm in. He pulled out a large empty cup and a half-full popcorn bag.

After that, he dumped the popcorn on the ground and squeezed the top of the cup so that the plastic lid snapped.

He motioned to me to hurry.

“Come on.”

I followed Manny to the concession stand where an old woman operated the register.

She was quiet and carried a dazed look in her eyes. I watched her near-translucent fingers shake their way over the keys of the machine.

Manny approached, panting into the air.

“I spilled it! I spilled everything! My mom’s gonna kill me!”

Manny had worked himself to tears.

I looked away as the woman tried to calm him down.

“It’s okay. No, no, please don’t cry. Where did you spill it?

Manny pointed to the spot where he had just made a mess.

“Here. We’ll get it cleaned up.”

She handed him a large popcorn bag, her wrist trembling with shot nerves.

“What drink did you have dear?”

Manny looked at me and whispered, the fake tears dried.

“What do you want?”

My voice was soft, fearful.

“Coke.”

The woman gave Manny an odd look but must have paid it no mind because she turned around with a large soda.

We turned around. As I prepared myself to run, Manny caught my arm.

“Don’t run, stupido. You never run. It makes you look guilty.”

We were out in the miserable heat again, but it made no difference. We had a feast!

The popcorn was still hot. We had taken a few salt packets, and we poured on a heavy amount. Manny and I walked around the store-window-fronts, pointing out what we were going to buy when we became millionaires.

It was enjoyable but depressing.

The trailer park seldom allowed its inhabitants to break free. Dreams were quenched before they were conceptualized.

We were both prisoners and we knew our claims were meaningless.

By the time we arrived outside the toy store, a realization hit me.

I’m about to steal. I’m about to go into a store and steal something.

I began to feel wheezy.

No. Am I crazy? I thought.

No, this is definitely not happening.

Manny was holding back his fear by staring straight into my eyes like a determined athlete, never breaking eye contact.

I was not ready for this.

“You ready?”

Not a chance, I thought.

I looked into his eyes and made my stand.

“All set!”

I was not a very confident child.

I positioned the fanny pack so that it was loose enough to fit as much as possible but still taut enough to stay up. We walked in.

Bright fluorescent bulbs overhead threw yellow light across the walls of toys and merchandise in the massive store.

It felt like a spotlight aimed at us.

Aisle by aisle I followed Manny, as the bag swayed with each stride, like it was filled with water.

We passed the stuffed animals, the board games, a narrow rack of “slap bracelets” — a new type of accessory that every kid in school owned but Manny and I.

Manny would stop me whenever we saw someone wearing one.

“Those are stupid, huh?”

I knew he wanted one but was too embarrassed to admit it.

Once we passed the Yomega yoyo section (another fad that our fellow classmates would enjoy without us), we found the action figures.

There they were.

Manny was right.

They had every kind of version of these turtle figurines. We saw the movie version, the comic book version, the cartoon version and a few we didn’t even know about.

It was almost too much to take in for me.

I now felt determined.

“We’re getting ‘em all man.”

Manny looked around before nodding that it was time to start.

I stood watching him as he ripped open the clear plastic of the cardboard box.

Small decals and accessories poured out onto the linoleum floor.

Manny panicked.

“Quick! Grab these!”

I scooped up the gray ninja stars and miniature sword holster and slipped it all into my bag without thinking.

Manny started throwing green action figures at me.

One by one, I tried to catch them.

We looked like two deck hands tossing fish in the air. I stuffed each in as they sank to the bottom of my bag.

I had sixteen ninja turtles crammed into the fanny pack before Manny stopped and whispered.

“We got ’em all. Let’s go. Just act normal.”

I tried zipping the bag but it wouldn’t close together.

Manny came over to help.

“Just get ’em in there. Push harder.”

This annoyed me, and I felt terror rise in my stomach.

“I AM pushing, retard.”

Just then, the crackle of an intercom shot on above us.

“STORE MANAGER, AISLE SIX”

Manny whispered to me without looking.

“That’s us!”

I noticed he was nervous, which only intensified the dread now surfacing on my face.

Manny noticed.

“Shut up. It’s fine. We just walk out. Okay? Just walk. Now.”

I could see the front entrance as I walked with a limp, the bag on my waist starting to unbuckle. I squeezed the two plastic clips together.

My heart raced as I imagined my mom picking me up from a police station. I imagined her calling my father to tell him I was ‘no good’ or a ‘bastard’.

I prepared myself for the worst.

The humid wind raced down my throat as I walked through the automatic doors. I still hadn’t looked back by the time I got to the second row of parked cars.

Out of pure survival, trailer-park instinct, I knelt down and crawled under a station wagon.

It wasn’t until the gravel of the asphalt started digging into my belly that I managed to peek back.

I began to celebrate internally.

I’m alone! No one’s there! No one followed me! Ha!

At that moment I realized the significance of the thought “no one had followed me”.

I spoke in a faint but loud whisper, “Manny…?”

I started to say it louder.

“MANNY!”

He was gone.

I needed to find him. I was beginning to get scared. I rolled from under the car to stand up.

As I got to my knees, I saw two suit legs in front of me.

I looked up, squinting from the sun. A thin man with sandy-colored hair and a short-sleeved dress shirt took his glasses off to clean them — an indentation left on his nose.

He had a deep, soothing voice. His voice belonged on a ranch, rustling cattle and shouting at coyotes. He cut straight to the point.

“Come here, son. I think we need to talk.”

I felt too frightened to respond as I lowered my head and led the way back into the store.

A middle-aged man in a burgundy smock stood next to Manny off to the side of the registers. Manny wasn’t speaking as the man and I approached.

In fact, no one spoke for what felt like hours.

The four of us just stared at each other until the man in the smock spoke.

“Did you boys steal anything?”

Manny answered first.

“No.”

The man looked over at me.

Manny stood with tears welling in his eyes. I knew he could fake that, but this time the tears were genuine. The two men turned to me as the man in the smock spoke with a sterner tone.

“How about you?”

I shouted out in an instant, as if I had been preparing for this question all afternoon.

“No. We didn’t. I swear!”

At this time, I happened to look down and catch sight of the bag I had around my waist.

My stomach fell.

Green, muscular legs and arms were spilling out of the bag at different angles.

The presence of the misshapen bag was not subtle.

It was obvious to everyone that I had stolen something.

In fact, I had stolen many things, as evident by the heaviness of the fanny pack that sank into my thighs and the plastic ‘num-chuks’ that hung from the unclasped zipper.

It was beginning to wear on me. I couldn’t stand there for much longer.

The man in the smock looked disappointed but didn’t say a word.

During the long silence, we stared at each other with different intents.

The man with the deep voice stepped forward.

“Are you both sure? Think about it hard, gentlemen.”

We both piped up at the same time as if we had planned it.

“We didn’t!”

The same look of disappointment fell over his face.

“Well, I hope your conscience will make you come clean one day.”

The two men turned and started talking as they walked away from us.

Manny and I felt confused. Manny flicked the back of my neck, which he knew I hated.

“Come on. Go. Go go go.”

We walked out of the store at a casual pace until we made it outside.

We ran to the child’s bike and hopped on. It was my turn to peddle.

The uncomfortable bag bounced up and down, slapping into my stomach like a rock wrapped in cheap plastic fabric.

We raced back to the trailer park as fast as we could and screeched into the gravel lot in front of his home.

The quick braking caused a cloud of dust to rise overhead.

Manny gasped, out of breath.

“We made it. We’re good. Chill. Bobby’s home though, so shut up!”

NEXT…Justice comes in the form of a Hungry DOG…

Check out Part One!

OR…

Start at the beginning of the RACE!

CHASING CRAZY!