“Meet at the lilac bush after school to rob the Food Fair” says my sister Karla.  Stanley Brownell and I are glad to comply with her command since our last attempt had gone sour when the stash of Bit O’Honey was discovered by ants.

 

            Karla and I are veteran shoplifters, having raked the Park Luncheonette for my baseball cards and her Sweet Tarts for more than a year.  After refining the buy-one-lift-one routine under the watchful eyes of the owner, a pale little guy with numbers stamped on his forearm, a grocery store would be easy pickings.   Karla is a skinny black-haired fourth grader who had given Stanley a bloody nose the year before in a battle for the lilac bush.  The huge old shrub between properties has an open area in the middle that neighborhood kids used as a fort.

 

PHOTO: Karla

 

We wait for Stanley surrounded by the dark green leaves and remnant purple smell.  After half an hour Karla surmises “He’s not coming, let’s go.”  I’m crawling out humming the Nancy Sinatra song “These Boots are Made for Walking” when she calls me back with “Wait, what’s the plan?”  I only shrug so she answers:  “We’ll zip some pies inside our jackets and walk out the back door.” 

 

Two crows call from up on the big twin Fs as Karla and I march through the front doors, past the cash registers, and down to the pie aisle.  There they are, TastyCake, Dolly Madison or Hostess, fruit, cream or glazed in row after row.  It’s hard to choose.  “Come on David, pick one before somebody sees” says Karla who has already slipped a Dutch apple into the front of her jacket.  I grab a coconut cream pie and slide it up under my coat.  We’re side-by-side heading for the back door when yanked backwards. 

 

“Where do you think you’re going with those pies?” says the store manager.

 

“What pies?” replies cool-headed Karla. 

 

“Zip down your coats”, he commands.  I do and mine breaks open as it hits the floor. 

 

“Tell me your names”, he demands.

 

“Da-“ I blurt until cut short by Karla’s “Shut up”.

 

 “I’m gonna call the cops”, the guy says, dragging us by our coats back to the office.

 

When I break into tears Karla slips out of her jacket and takes off for the back door.  As he lunges for her and misses I break free. 

 

The automatic front doors slow me enough to notice Stanley coming in as I head out.  The chase proceeds into the Codrington Apartments with me in the lead, the manager huffing behind, and Stan taking up the rear.  With heart pounding and lungs burning, I turn a corner and scramble into a sunken basement window ledge.  I hear his keys jingle by and think the coast is clear.  Then the keys return and suddenly stop.  I peek up to see a big grin as he reaches down to drag me out.

 

He’s leading me by the collar back through the apartments when Stanley catches up.  Walking backwards in front of us, he pleads “Please mister, he didn’t mean it, let him go, let him go.”  Two of our classmates hop off their bikes and join Stanley’s pleas.  The manager is kicking them away when Karla comes running around a nearby apartment, freezes in her tracks, turns white, and shoots back around the building.  In the manager’s moment of distraction I shake loose again and take off for dear life. 

 

I don’t look back until across Tea Street and splashing through the brook into unknown woods.  Jogging down a wide trail which loops through the dense brush and crosses similar paths, I soon realize I’m on the fabled tank trails.   Neighborhood kids whisper stories about getting lost in this swampy maze left over from National Guard training during World War II.  The trails are about six feet wide with brambles spilling over and deep rutted tracks filled with muddy water.  I had just pulled myself out of a muck hole when I see two men up ahead with traps dangling from their belts.  It was either slink back toward recapture or chance an encounter. 

 

They whirl in surprise and then laugh at the mud covered boy cowering before them.  At first I’m relieved to recognize them as older guys from Hanken Road.

 

“What are you doing following us, stealing our traps?” one of them accuses.

 

“Nah, got caught stealing a pie from the Food Fair” I manage to whimper.

 

“I know a kid who went to reform school for taking a piece of bubble gum from there.”  

 

“How do I get outta here?” I sob.

 

“C’mon, we’ll show you the way”, the other guy says.

 

I follow the brook back to my neighborhood singing “one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you” and cut through a backyard to avoid Union Avenue where I’m sure police cars are lined up.  Worried that the manager has found our house, I hide in the shrubs next door and wait.  Shortly after the Calco whistle signals quarter to five and the end of day shift at the Calco factory Karla comes walking down Longwood Avenue.  I pop up from the bushes and wave so she joins me.

 

“I ran all the way past the high school and came back through the Park”, she explains.

 

“What’ll we do?” I whisper.

 

“Never go in the Food Fair again”, she definitively replies.

 

To the chagrin of our older sister Kathy, for the next five years until the store closes Karla and I disappear whenever our mother yells “Which a you young’uns is goin to the store?”