thief
Before I was a graffiti writer, I was a thief. Jim was my mentor. He relied on guile, stereotypes, and insincerity. He’d get to know the workers at stores, their work schedule, what they were studying in college, if they were in a relationship, if they had kids. Jim had these large round eyes that made his bullshit believable. He’d ask them to bring down a jersey that hung on a rack high above, or maybe he’d have them search for a different size in the back room, and then we’d make our move. We’d stuff the hats in our jackets at the same time, on Jim’s word.
Sometimes it would be me, Jim, and another couple of guys from our neighborhood, but when Jim wanted to hit a new store, where we didn’t know the salesclerks, he’d push for us to ditch the others, for us to be a duo. Store clerks saw me and him, the Asian dudes, as innocent, harmless, and these same clerks would’ve been on red alert if we had brought our Black homies. It seemed wrong to deceive our friends—we’d make up excuses of where we were going—but I couldn’t argue with Jim’s logic or the results. I’d wind up stealing over two hundred hats. Kids would place orders with me, what team, what color, the style. It was more efficient than the other way around, stealing them randomly, then acting like a salesman. I went to sleep with a wad of bills in a shoebox underneath my bed. Never had to ask my mom for money anymore.
The day Jim and I got caught at Marshalls, or rather, the day I got caught, the T-shirts we’d stolen weren’t for us but ’Dullah’s uncle. He hadn’t offered us much, ten bucks for three, but he’d taken us to see Boyz n the Hood, so we gave him a discount.
We rode the escalator up and left Marshalls with the shirts in our possession, mine tucked in my waistband. I started thinking about the drumsticks at Woolworths across the street. We met the downtown crowd and followed the flow of pedestrians. Jim took out a plastic bag and dumped the two shirts he’d stolen into it. He passed the bag to me. I started to pull out the shirt in my waistband,
but someone grabbed my arm. A man with slick black hair. He snatched the bag and examined the tags. “Got one, fellas,” he said to a huddle of men.
Jim was gone.
They brought me back to Marshalls and escorted me towards the security room in the back. All these men wore leather jackets and chewed gum. As I passed the workers on the floor, Latino women, they glowered at me, which only made me think they were chumps. You don’t own this store, I wanted to say. One of the men tugged me by the arm into the security room.
“Sit down,” the man with slick hair said.
I sat and faced a console of small black and white monitors.
“We see everything,” he said.
“You can’t hide shit from us,” a deep voice said from behind me. The owner of the voice was tall and lean. “Show him, Earl.”
Earl played with the buttons and joysticks, making the cameras zoom in and out and rotate in every direction. I wasn’t impressed. These gadgets hadn’t caught me. It was dumb luck. I happened to pull out the shirt in front of them.
I must’ve made some smart-ass face because Earl took a loud step toward me and said, “All right tough guy, we’ll see what your parents think.”
He called my mother, getting the number from me by threatening to file charges if I didn’t cooperate. I heard my mother on the phone yelling. “I’m glad I’m not you,” Earl said.
The guys launched into a lecture, clichéd and rehearsed: See kid, in life you have to be smart. Don’t let people manipulate you. It probably wasn’t your idea, right? But you’re the one paying for it.
I got the sense this was their favorite part of their job. They were talking over each other, fighting over who would get to make which point. Half an hour of this was hard to endure, tuning them out while maintaining a face of thoughtful reflection. There was no guarantee they wouldn’t press charges.
My mother finally arrived with Willie. He was dressed in his driver uniform. My mom walked past me, said nothing, and introduced herself to the plainclothes security guards. She wore black boots and a rabbit fur jacket. I hated that thing. I was no animal rights activist; I just knew Willie bought it.
She used a soft-spoken tone with Earl like she was at a funeral reception, then she came back over to me and knocked me upside the head. “Mouh yuhng a! ” she said, waving her finger at me as if she were casting a spell.
“You’ve really embarrassed your mother, Dickson,” Willie said. I wanted to tell him to mind his own fucking business. He was an extra in the scene. It was unfair that I couldn’t hate him more. He made my mother happy, and I was glad someone had that job.
“Mrs. Lam—” Earl said.
“Ms. Lee,” my mom said.
“Ms. Lee, you’re free to take him home.”
“You want to keep him here longer? Yeah. I don’t care.”
We drove home in Willie’s sports car hatchback. I had to squish into the
