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chocolates. We’d hit the jackpot. We started going back again and again to steal more. We’d
wait for the shops to start to close, then we’d go and sit against the gate, acting like we were
just hanging out. We’d check to make sure the coast was clear, and then one of us would
reach in, grab a chocolate, and drink the whiskey. Reach in, grab a chocolate, drink the rum.
Reach in, grab a chocolate, drink the brandy. We did this every weekend for at least a month,
having the best time. Then we pushed our luck too far.
It was a Saturday night. We were hanging out at the entrance to the stationery shop,
leaning up against the gate. I reached in to grab a chocolate, and at that exact moment a mall
cop came around the corner and saw me with my arm in up to my shoulder. I brought my
hand out with a bunch of chocolates in it. It was almost like a movie. I saw him. He saw me.
His eyes went wide. I tried to walk away, acting natural. Then he shouted out, “Hey! Stop!”
And the chase was on. We bolted, heading for the doors. I knew if a guard cut us off at
the exit we’d be trapped, so we were hauling ass as fast as we could. We cleared the exit. The
second we hit the parking lot, mall cops were coming at us from every direction, a dozen of
them at least. I was running with my head down. These guards knew me. I was in that mall
all the time. The guards knew my mom, too. She did her banking at that mall. If they even
caught a glimpse of who I was, I was dead.
We ran straight across the parking lot, ducking and weaving between parked cars, the
guards right behind us, yelling. We made it to the petrol station out at the road, ran through
there, and hooked left up the main road. They chased and chased and we ran and ran, and it
was awesome. The risk of getting caught was half the fun of being naughty, and now the
chase was on. I was loving it. I was shitting myself, but also loving it. This was my turf. This
was my neighborhood. You couldn’t catch me in my neighborhood. I knew every alley and
every street, every back wall to climb over, every fence with a gap big enough to slip through.
I knew every shortcut you could possibly imagine. As a kid, wherever I went, whatever
building I was in, I was always plotting my escape. You know, in case shit went down. In
reality I was a nerdy kid with almost no friends, but in my mind I was an important and
dangerous man who needed to know where every camera was and where all the exit points
were.
I knew we couldn’t run forever. We needed a plan. As Teddy and I booked past the fire
station there was a road off to the left, a dead end that ran into a metal fence. I knew that
there was a hole in the fence to squeeze through and on the far side was an empty field
behind the mall that took you back to the main road and back to my house. A grown-up
couldn’t fit through the hole, but a kid could. All my years of imagining the life of a secret
agent for myself finally paid off. Now that I needed an escape, I had one.
“Teddy, this way!” I yelled.
“No, it’s a dead end!”
“We can get through! Follow me!”
He didn’t. I turned and ran into the dead end. Teddy broke the other way. Half the mall
cops followed him, half followed me. I got to the fence and knew exactly how to squirm
through. Head, then shoulder, one leg, then twist, then the other leg—done. I was through.
The guards hit the fence behind me and couldn’t follow. I ran across the field to a fence on
the far side, popped through there, and then I was right on the road, three blocks from my
house. I slipped my hands into my pockets and casually walked home, another harmless