Stealing as Obsession

My Brilliant Boyhood Career

To discern and describe the very moment you cross some hidden threshold and simply must take that thing — when you must steal, when you have no more say in the matter— this is not easy. I will try though.

What was my motivation for stealing (yes, was is correct, I don’t steal these days, and haven’t for well over fifty years)? Was it the candy I’d often buy with these ill-gotten gains? Was it the thrill of it — the stepping out on very thin ice that might indeed crack and sunder under my feet any moment?

Was it the instant riches (if that’s what you might call it; the buck or two — in Swedish 1960s currency, mind you, adjusted for inflation)?

It seems, now that I scan my boyhood career, that each little bit of pilfering (I’m casting about for euphemisms here) was preceded by a wish, even a need to buy something; candy in the main, for yes, my teeth — fostered by an awesome cookie-baking mother and ditto grandmothers — were very sweet.

This wish was often, especially in the summer, for ice cream.

The little town where I grew up had a nice public beach (with an ice cream vendor or two as well as a restaurant that also sold ice cream) and I see now that once the yearning for ice cream swelled in me, I’d head for the male changing shed to plumb for riches.

This changing shed was a large, floorless structure (you’d tread on sand inside it), with room and hooks for perhaps 40 or so boys and men to hang their regular clothes to then head out for water in their swimming gear. Once inside I began patting down each set of slacks or each shirt or jacket for the presence of a wallet or coin purse. It was amazing how trusting people seemed to be back then, for I would always find one or two such stashes from which to liberate a buck or so.

True, there was always the excitement (the rush even) brought by the chance of being discovered, even though I’d check outside for anyone heading in the direction of this changing shed before I’d help orchestrate the escape of some useful change.

As a side note, it’s amazing how many synonyms there are for stealing, both regular and colloquial ones. A fairly widespread activity, then, I’d say.

The buck or two safely pinched (there’s another one) I’d head for the ice cream vendor or the restaurant to spend my newly gotten gain.

Strange as it may seem, but I don’t recall ever being caught in the act. Not sure whom to thank, for I’m sure any Guardian Angel would have frowned on this activity (angels usually do) and would have wanted no part of it.

In fact, I had to devise other methods of getting caught — which I was very good at.

One instance that stands out is the morning that I lifted (see, another synonym) a two-konor coin from a friend’s bedside table. Well, not a friend exactly, more like an acquaintance, the son of one of my grandma’s neighbors. His bedroom was on the top floor of a large yellow house, the ground floor of which housed the little convenience store that his dad owned and ran. Now, what I was doing on the top floor of that house, alone, that morning, is anybody’s guess, but there I was, in that sunlit bedroom snooping around when I spotted the sparkling two-kronor coin (they are quite rare, by the way, these coins, bordering on the extremely rare as a matter of fact) and simply had to nick it (see, another euphemism).

So far, so good. No one saw. Now for the clean getaway down the stairs, and out the back door. Undetected. Rare coin in pocket. Rich boy.

My money to spend as I saw fit, possession being one hundred percent of the law in my boyhood book.

And now, for the exquisite art of getting caught.

I walked around to the front of this big house and into the badly lit little convenience store where my victim’s dad was busy restocking some shelf or other. The door rang a little bell as I entered and he looked around and said, “Hi” and I said “Hi” and he asked me how he could be of service.

Well, I was pretty good at math, so I pointed to this and that piece of candy running the tally in my head until I hit two kronor on the nose. “Fine,” he said. “That’ll be two kronor.”

So, I handed the kid’s father the two-kronor coin (which he more than likely had recently given the kid) as payment, took my haul and left to consume.

Naturally — gravity is less predictable — it wasn’t long before my mom hauled me in for the third degree about where, precisely, had I gotten that two-kronor coin? She knew, of course, that I did not have one that morning, and now that she had been informed that (a) the kid was missing his precious coin, and (b) that I had just handed said coin (or a very unlikely identical one) to his dad in the store as payment for a healthy load of candy, she gave me the evil eye and waited.

Confession time.

I’d always start out flatly denying. And I’d always end up confessing. Once suspicions had, and for the most part correctly, alighted on me concerning some missing thing or other that I had nipped (another one) I always confessed in the end.

Always.

Probably the longest I held out asserting my innocence in the face of being rightly accused of stealing was after I had liberated (I like that one) a five-kronor bill from the wallet of one of my dad’s employees (Folke was his name). This wallet was to be found in his jacket, which hung in his locker. This was actually a daring operation since anyone could have walked into that room at any time seeing as it was a vestibule between the outside entrance and the factory floor.

Of course, just to make sure that this misappropriation was discovered I took the only bill of cash Folke had in his wallet at that time. It wasn’t like he was not going to notice it gone.

Clever fingers lifted and pocketed said bill. So far so good. Shortly thereafter, we all went home for lunch, me and Dad to our house and some mini-feast (Mom was a great cook), Folke to his, by way of the store to pick up some milk, where he, of course, discovered his five-kronor bill was gone.

Shortly after lunch my dad called me into his office and asked me point blank, had I taken Folke’s five-kronor bill? Uh-uh. No way. Not me. Was I sure? Yes, yes, very. I wasn’t lying? No, not lying. I did not take any money from Folke’s wallet. Not even close. Wouldn’t even know where Folke’s wallet would be, or what it looked like. Totally innocent. Absolutely. Not me.

My dad shook his head and grimaced the way he’d grimace when he was concerned or confounded or perhaps even sad. Can I go? Yes, he waved his hand in my direction, get out of here.

Now, just to prove my innocence beyond any lingering doubt, leaving Dad’s office I took to whistling as all innocent people do in situations like this, at least in Disney cartoons.

A little bit later, my dad came up to me. Would I come back with him to his office?

He sat down, I remained standing. He grimaced again. Looked up at me. Well, he said. Folke had not stolen his own money, that was for sure. And he clearly remembers having the money in his wallet this morning.

I nodded. Okay. Yes, I follow.

Nor had my dad taken it, that was also for sure. I nodded again.

And I, my dad’s son, had not taken it either, right? Right, I confirmed. Nodding harder. Well, that particular day, there was only one other guy on the floor, Lennart was his name, and he then, obviously — by process of elimination — must be the thief, and Dad just wanted to let me know that he was going to fire him for stealing. He just wanted to double check with me first.

That, obviously, did it. Confession time.

As an aside, I did apologize to Lennart for almost getting him fired, though now, writing this, I don’t think Dad had any intention of firing anybody. I think he simply wanted to press a confession out of me.

In this case, too, there was something I wanted to buy. This time it was a bamboo vaulting pole (this was before the flexible ones entered the fray) that a schoolmate of mine was selling for, yes, five kronor. Oh, man.

Looking back, I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time in empty changing rooms. The town’s bath house, for one. Fertile fields.

Many a piece of useful change was also swiped from hallway tables (local priest, local organist), wallets (local farmer), backpacks (boy scout pal), cash tills (local football club), piggy banks, pockets (changing rooms), and various drawers — kitchen, bedroom (grandmothers).

The only time I can recall where I was simply overcome with the urge to steal money with no immediate acquisition in mind also turns out to be both my last theft and my largest haul. It was never discovered and I never had to own up to it to anyone. I’m glad that the confessional statute of limitation has run on this.

Here’s what happened.

Lasse was in his late twenties when I, in my teens, worked as a freelance journalist at a provincial newspaper. Lasse was in charge of advertising at that same paper. That, and he was also the manager of a local band called “The Five” in French, i.e., “Les Cinq.” On top of that, he was also a promoter of sorts and because of that, even a local celebrity.

Lasse had now rented the Saga, a movie theater that doubled as a performance venue. He was putting on a show. As I recall, there were three bands on the menu: The Shanes (a nationally known band from way, way up north — Kiruna, I believe), The Panthers, a local band, and of course, his own band, Les Cinq.

Admission was ten kronor (probably the equivalent of ten bucks today). There was a little cinema cashier’s office just inside the main entrance (once you ascended three wall-to-wall-carpeted steps) where the Lasse-appointed cashier took care of all the folks lining up to see the show — and there were a lot of them; the line snaked around the building. I believe the place sold out.

Now, somewhere halfway through the venue filling up, I was asked to fill in for the cashier (potty break or something) and take people’s money and hand them their tickets. Sure. So I did.

And did, and did, and then something just snapped: all this money. This little, and still growing, mountain of money. So much money. Too much for anyone to notice if some went missing, surely? I had to help myself to some of it. I had to. And I did. I grabbed a stack of bills and shoved them into my pocket, and then I shoved some more into the other pocket, and when I was relieved by the original cashier a short while later, I sailed down the stairs to the basement bathroom to rearrange the loot into my socks (just in case money would in fact be found missing and people searched — socks were better than pockets; yes, I actually thought of that).

No, I was not searched, but, once the show was over — the following day or so — Lasse told me that they had come up way short on the money, which he didn’t understand because the place was packed by the end of the show. However, and this is a big however — and perhaps very much a saving grace for this thief’s impressive swan song — at some point during the show, someone had opened the side fire escape to the cinema and let people in from the outside. Of course, there was no telling how many people had been let in without paying, and perhaps these gatecrashers did account for the shortfall; that was Lasse’s reasoning, anyway. Still, he was really bummed about this and probably ended up paying the shortfall out of his own pocket (which was empty most of the time, as I recall).

I made off with seven hundred kronor that night, which by today’s value would equal about seven hundred dollars. That’s not a pilfering or a nicking or a snatching or a lifting — that’s larceny, of the grand type. You’d look at jail time for that. I have not taken as much as a penny from anyone since.

I was a great shoplifter. Chocolate bars, movie-star cards, even cigarettes once or twice. In my book, shops were made for stealing. If they didn’t want it stolen, they shouldn’t place it within a young boy’s reach.

Even shrimp! Boiled, shelled, smoked, and frozen in eight-ounce packets. I loved those things. Just writing this sentence still makes my mouth water. I must have lifted a packet or two of these glorious shrimps on a dozen or more occasions from one of our local grocery stores.

Way before in-store security cams, obviously.

Eventually, I was fourteen at the time, spring of 1963, Mom and Dad had grown so worried about what seemed my constant thieving that they made an appointment for me to see a shrink about it. I remember the evening before very well, lying on my stomach in our small living room watching television (a black and white Centrum) and feeling nervous about the whole thing. And I remember the train ride down to Gävle, where the nearest teenage psychologist held the fort. Mom brought me — still nervous about this visit.

Then we arrived and we spoke, the shrink and I, Mom waiting outside. He was a nice enough guy and I answered his questions honestly. Bottom line: he told my mom not to worry, I’d grow out of it (I must have made a very good, non-thief impression on him). She was relieved. I was relieved. And I’m sure my dad was relieved as well.

And the shrink was right, I did grow out of it. I didn’t steal again, but for that one, thunderous finale of $700 — as if to put an emphatic end to my stealing.

Today, I am both embarrassed about this obsessive passage of my life, and relieved that it is indeed long-ago history.

© Wolfstuff

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