Shoplifting

It was a month before my eighteenth birthday. I’d been staring at the same walls for hours, my thighs were sticking to the metal of my designated chair, and crotch rot was festering at my lady parts. I was ready to piss myself, in part because nature decreed that humans will urinate after drinking too many diet cokes, but more so because I was scared shitless of what the next few hours entailed. Relieving myself was an option, but that day I became a juvenile delinquent, and a trip to the loo required the supervision of a police officer. I don’t really like handcuffs (at least not at the hands of law-enforcement), or being publically humiliated, so I chose to stay stuck to the taupe fold-out that was my seating assignment. My bladder could wait.

Along with a sadistic cop who enjoyed watching teenage girls cry, an old-looking chick was in the room wearing cut-off denim shorts and an orange tank top. She was the shift leader. I was the epitome of apologetic to both of them, and even though I confessed my wrongdoing the second I was approached by a sales clerk, they treated me like something innately despicable. Maybe it was because I told them I was going to NYU in the fall. They probably thought I was a spoiled NYU girl who really could afford the gray-sweater dress she tried hiding under her clothes, but did so anyway because she got a kick out of stealing. Granted, my parents have the money to send me to one of the most expensive universities in America, but that doesn’t mean I have an unlimited fashion fund to drain at my choosing. An over-priced piece-of-shit sweater dress from Urban Outfitters is what they’d consider a frivolous purchase, and they've never supported frivolity. They’re of the wealthy frugal brand. The money I could muster out of them was as precious as it was scarce, and I saved everything I had for beer and weed. Regardless, being presumptuous has its perks. I entertained the thought that the cop was an incriminating asshole who took his job too seriously due to a lackluster marriage, and wasn’t getting enough (if any) pussy. On the other hand, the shift leader had a chronically sandy vagina because she was working a dead-end job, chewing out teenage shoplifters in the D.C. suburbs. I didn’t rule out jealously. I was hotter than she was, and despite her working for a trendy apparel conglomerate, she couldn’t pull off denim cut-off shorts. The presumption helped a lot. I didn’t lose my temper when the cop implied I was something along the lines of a stupid fuck-up.

In all honesty, I do have days when I am incredibly stupid.

I like to think that I hang out with predominately good people, but when you’re a broke seventeen-year-old, morality is open to interpretation. Congruently, shopping had a mildly different meaning in my social circles, as money didn’t have to be involved. Rather, brashness and craft are what my friends depended on for merchandise. As I didn’t and never have possessed either of those traits, I tried to keep my hands clean when my crew was cruising stores, stealing pube trimmers or beer or cheap jewelry. Once in a while I’d jack a bottle of nail polish from CVS, or a cheap pair of tennis shoes from a bargain store, but that was a seldom occurrence reserved for an occasion when I was feeling ballsy.
That afternoon, upon entry into Zoe’s station wagon, I demanded a drugstore visit. I explained that at a party a few nights ago, Phil Snell’s fingers must’ve been dirty, because I developed a nasty yeast infection and would do anything for Monistat. I was prepared for a proper transaction at the CVS register, but John, a beautiful gay boy with altruistic inclinations, was too practical for that kind of speak.

“Vicki…how bout I steal you something for your crusty vadge…and you can save the money for a bag of weed instead?”

John's a great friend. Hands down, he's also the best shoplifter I’ve ever met. Though he was arrested at Marshalls a year later, he was an ingenious klepto, and could walk out of any store with something up his sleeves, down his pants, or on his back. His venture down the feminine hygiene isle initiated a trip to Urban Outfitters, in which everything my friends gathered was pulled off the rack via five-finger discount. I made it clear that I didn’t want to steal anything that day, but after spotting for Zoe as she loaded clothes into her Spiderman backpack, I felt the urge to make an addition to my wardrobe. When I came across a gray-sweater dress I thought would be perfect for a nippy New York morning, I had two options. I could pine over how cute it would’ve been with booties or over leggings, or I could steal it. Choosing the latter, I hid the cashmere-y number under a bunch of t-shirts, and landed myself a fitting room. I nipped and tucked it to fit under my clothes, managed to tear off its ink tag, but (of course) left the price tag on the floor. When a sweet-looking sales clerk asked me if she could reattach the tag I left on the blue carpeting of the fitting room, my heart started racing. I told her it wasn’t mine. She told me it was. I’d been caught red handed and I didn’t know what to say. I confessed that there was a 50 dollar dress under my clothes…that I was sorry and stupid…that I’d take it off immediately and give it back to her if she’d let me. When you’re a dumb girl hanging with a flock of tattooed teens in tight pants, diplomacy doesn’t really work for you.
Before I got hold of my mother, I appreciated the safety of the loss-prevention office. Granted, I was uncomfortable, scared, and surrounded by a bunch of assholes, but I was safe. I was a minor, and petty larceny isn’t a big deal if your record will be wiped clean in a few weeks. No one in that room had the power to destroy my life. My mom’s reaction to the fresh marks on my formerly unscathed record terrified me, however, and I knew that home would be anything but a haven from this point on. Behind closed doors I was subject to my parents’ mercy, and being merciful surely wasn’t on their agenda that evening.

During some bitter interaction with the shift leader, my mom made clear to both of us that I was a spoiled brat deserving of jail time. I walked with her out of the store, and when I tried apologizing, she hissed at me:

“Don’t speak. Give me your phone. Stay ten paces behind me. Don’t sit in the passenger’s seat. Get in the back.”

Each order was short and profound. All over again, I started crying profusely..

The first thing I saw when I walked up the stairs was a heaping pile of black contractor bags in the hallway. My Dad and my brother were cleaning out my room, throwing everything I owned into garbage bags, coming across things they knew I had and others they didn’t. Packs of cigarettes. Pregnancy tests. An empty forty. An hour ago I thought my dad was merely going to box my ears in the kitchen, with the sole purpose of explaining that I was a selfish freak with an authority problem. Instead, my shit, as well as my person, was about to be shipped somewhere and no one was telling me where I was going. I reacted the way any selfish freak with an authority problem would.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY STUFF?!”
I can’t remember what happened next, all I know is that there was a point when I tried stopping them from piling the bags into the car, and my Dad and I stopped using indecipherable barks and shrieks to communicate with each other. He pushed me down, but I got back up. He grabbed my arm, forcing me down to the ground again, and I used every bit of strength I had to push him away from me. I struggled. Immune to the unworthy escalation that ensued, my mother and brother watched him squeeze his hands around my neck. I couldn't breathe.

After he let go, I stayed on the hardwood floor. They kept loading my things into the car as if nothing had happened. I was crying too hard to see. Jumping in my brain like reels on a slot machine, panic replaced any feasible thoughts in my head. There was nothing I could do but watch them relocate my life from my bedroom to the trunk of a minivan.

I spent the last few weeks of my summer in Stevensville, Maryland, with my family, the bay, and not much else. Convinced my friends were the problem, my parents transported the entirety of our unit to the middle of nowhere, where they owned a beach house.

I haven’t shoplifted since.