A Memoir by William P. Adams

During the summer of 1966, when I was ten years old, I frequently walked to Pacific Highway, crossed the busy road, and visited the three stores on the other side – TradeWell supermarket, Rexall Drugs, and Sprouse Reitz. Sprouse Reitz was a variety store that sold all kinds of interesting items, though their candy section paled next to Rexall’s. It even sold live animals like white mice and horned toads for terrariums. One day, I was looking at the mouse cage, and the furry ghouls were feasting on one of their inmates. I told one of the store clerks, a nervous-looking younger guy who wore a pocket protector filled with pens in his white shirt pocket, and he went to look. When he saw the little cannibals having their snack, he turned to me and said he’d take care of it. He looked embarrassed, as if it was his fault, but I think he was glad someone had told him.

I committed my first ever crime when I shoplifted a bag of marbles from Sprouse Reitz later that fall. I didn’t play with marbles, but the bag ended up in my jacket pocket, and I left the store without paying. When I got home, my mother asked why and how I acquired the marbles, and I fessed up that I’d taken them from Sprouse Reitz. She told me to put my jacket back on, and we drove back to the store with the pilfered orbs. On the way there, she kept saying that stealing was a sin and that I should know better because I had memorized the Ten Commandments. When we arrived, I returned the marbles to the same mouse guy and told him I was sorry for taking them without paying. He just took them back and said thank you. I don’t know if he remembered me from the mouse banquet, but he didn’t lecture or make a big deal about the situation. As we drove home, my mother told me she hoped I’d learned a lesson about stealing and grounded me for a week. I didn’t mind the grounding and hadn’t quite learned a lesson. A couple of years later, I would up the lawlessness.

In the spring of 1968, my best pal and fellow sixth-grader, Brock Weston, and I were briefly part of a small ring of juvenile lawbreakers. Brock’s cousin, Robbie Garvin, lived catty-corner from our house, was a year older than us in seventh grade at the Junior High, and was a bad influence. Robbie’s mother was Brock’s father’s sister. He had the Eddie Haskell schtick down pat and would charm our parents with his feigned politeness. Then, when he had us in his sway, he became a criminal mastermind. My mother saw right through the act, but he was Brock’s cousin, and family was family, so for a short time, we fell under the power of this young Svengali. Robbie’s forte was shoplifting, and his main target was TradeWell supermarket. He would nick things like cigars, candy bars, bottles of wine, and cigarette packs if he could manage that difficult maneuver. He told us cigarettes were the hardest because they were in a rack behind the checkers. Robbie boasted he could steal anything.

Robbie usually sold what he lifted to a group of high school kids he knew and asked us if we wanted in on the deal as junior shoplifting accomplices. Brock was all for it, but I was reticent, and it took some cajoling from Robbie with assurances that it was easy pickings. I caved because I didn’t want to look weak before these guys. My moral compass had gone awry. Robbie told us to go into the store alone – he said it would look too suspicious if we went in as a group. He had us wear jackets with pockets for the small stuff and said to bring an empty brown paper bag for the bottles. My first thrust into the Underworld resulted in a purloined pack of Swisher Sweet cigars and a giant Hershey bar. When I showed Robbie and Brock, who were waiting near the highway, they were impressed with my haul, and I was relieved to be out of the store. I knew it was a seriously wrong thing to do, but it made me feel like I was part of an exclusive club.  Brock would come away with similar items that day.

After a few days, Robbie got us together and said one of his buyers wanted a bottle of wine and would pay five bucks. I was tabbed to bring an empty paper bag and appropriate the vino, and I walked into the store, highly exhilarated, with the bag in my jacket pocket.  I arrived at the section with the screw-top wine bottles, and not knowing anything about wine, I hurriedly grabbed a bottle off the shelf, stuck it into the bag, and prayed no one was looking. Another thing Robbie told us was to go in when the store was busy because more people around made it harder for the TradeWell workers to watch out for crooks like us. There was a crowd that day, and I made it out the automatic door and crossed the highway with the wine safely concealed in the paper sack. My cohorts were waiting on the other side, and when we got into the woods, Robbie took the bag to see what I had. After he looked, he shook his head and said: “Shit, Sonny, this is cooking sherry.” Robbie called it garbage and said his guy wouldn’t pay five cents. What did I know? He sent Brock back across the street for a bottle of Port.

So far, none of us have been caught, and I had two successful misdemeanors under my belt. The three of us were at Brock’s house one Saturday at noon. His parents were out shopping, and there wasn’t anything to fix for lunch, so Robbie said let’s go to TradeWell and get some TV dinners. He was the boss, so we returned to the Honey Hole. We all went in together, and I thought he was going to buy the dinners, but being who he was, he called an audible, and we each stuffed a frozen entrée down the front of our jeans. The entrée-only dinners were smaller and fit perfectly, but he had broken the ‘don’t go in as a group’ rule. Right then, the store manager snuck up on us and said he’d seen us playing ‘Hide the Salisbury Steak.’ We were caught dead to rights and removed the icy fare from our frontal areas. The manager marched the three of us to his office and demanded that we each give him our names, parents’ names, and phone numbers.  

I was ready to sing like a canary, but Robbie took control and said we didn’t have to and we weren’t going to. I clammed up then. After some threats about calling the police and having us arrested didn’t break Robbie’s resolution, the manager took us out back to the loading dock and told us to sweep it and stack all the crates and boxes that were scattered around. We said we would, and I apologized for trying to steal the steak. Brock and I stacked a few crates, and after about ten minutes, Robbie said let’s go. The manager had returned to the store, but no one was watching us. As we left for home, I decided then that my career as a thief was over; back to confession for this sinner. Both cousins would continue their five-fingered ways for a time – stealing shirts they’d tried on in the Value Mart dressing room and walking out with their sweaters covering the new shirts. But I stayed away from that business.

Later that year (without his cousin), Robbie tried to walk out of the Value Mart wearing high-heeled, pointed-toe Beatle boots. As he clip-clopped down the aisle, store security stopped him and summoned the local Constabulary. After a few weeks in Juvie, Robbie returned home as uncontrite as when he arrived there. It wasn’t long before he started putting a new crew together.

To this day, I can’t abide Salisbury Steak.

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William P. Adams writes short fiction and memoir. His stories have appeared in Rockvale Review, Macrame Lit, and Neither Fish Nor Foul. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.