If I Could Have Just Been Arrested...

            by Ian Flanagan

 

            The candy aisle isn’t so much an assortment of sweetened items as it is a vast display of colors. Shelves cradle these colors and at the same time relinquish their hold to announce to you “half off” or “two for one”. You are in charge of these morsels of pigmentation; it is your business what you choose, when you choose, and how you choose. It is no wonder that standing in the candy aisle one can be overcome with a sense of eternal power as the adrenaline surges through the body. The hue of the Snickers, the Reeses, the Skittles, and the pink-green-white-covered-things-that-taste-really-good-but-you-have-no-clue-what-the-hell-they-are, melt together, forming a lush meadow of flavors.

 

            It is an imposing building as I walk past it now, but as I entered on that seemingly non-eventful day the walls sang no song of intimidation. The doors parted for me, the gray floor was neutral, and the aisles were yet uncluttered with fellow Berkeley High Students.

            I wasn’t hungry. I had packed a lunch, but heaven forbid you be seen alone at lunch. We travel in packs. With our motto: “Where for lunch today gents?” That Tuesday no one had much money and everyone had a need to form cavities. Our sweet-tooths can then be blamed for leading us to this hall of color.

            Every one of us stood there eyeing what we might want, but we were eyeing colors, not candy. A child in a candy store is as innocent as kittens and Mickey Mouse. But, when you’re keeping one eye on the candy aisle and one on the candy aisle security guards you’re no longer a cute fuzz ball or a Disney character; you’re a potential thief. We took comfort in the knowledge that we weren’t stealing candy. In fact, we weren’t stealing at all. Rather, we were gathering vibrant colors with which we could enrich our lives.

            Walking out of the store with a liberated Nestle Crunch Bar and a pack of DoubleMint gum nestled in our pockets became second nature. So much so that eventually this consolation we, and especially myself, had found in the idea of colors couldn’t work any more. I found it stupid, even more stupid than you found it as you read about it. So I had to change. Now my excuse became that I was sticking it to “The Man” - “The Man” being a capitalistic-pig-dog-corporation, a.k.a. Walgreens.

            So there I stood, feet firmly planted, and eyes the complete opposite. I was ready to tear down the walls of corruption and regain power for mom and pop and their little corner store; I was prepared to steal some candy. I alone would bring economic justice to the world.

            Only problem was: all I was doing was jacking a candy bar.

 

            The air was mechanically cooled, nice in the warm weather sometimes existent in the latter part of May. Maybe there was music playing, maybe there wasn’t; a thief has to keep his mind focused. More like a Viking than a ninja, I was easily picked out of a crowd. At six foot four and topped with what is sometimes called white and sometimes called urine-colored hair I was nay one to think I could blend in.

            Every movement was noticed: an old man drops a bottle of ExLax, a woman retrieves a two dollar bra, a kid grabs a whoopee cushion, a teller directs her gaze dead into my eyes, and a few fellow peers argue over who gets the last bag of Doritos. Oh shit! What was that last one? “A teller directs her gaze dead into my eyes?!” No, couldn’t have been. They don’t care, they don’t know. Come on Ian, get it together.

            My mechanical grabber, much like in those money vacuums you find at arcades, the ones filled with stuffed lobsters, reaches forward and settles on “The Man’s” secret plans to destroy the mom-and-pops of America. Only it’s not a mechanical grabber, it’s my arm, and there are no secret plans, but instead a Snickers bar.

            The grabber closes around it, and I reel it in. Check, what’s next on the list? A finger pokes me, a comrade in arms. A nod directs my gaze. Oh fuck! Again my eyes meet those of the smug Man-minion, known to those not affiliated with the resistance as a cashier.

            Quickly I turned, no time to pocket the goods. I’d have to wing it. Down the aisle I walked, every step I took echoed off the high cement ceiling. The stomping was deafening, it drowned out the overhead speakers, how could anyone not hear.

            A right turn, I’m in front of the pharmacy window, there are other people, none notice me, a relief. I slow my pace and let my muscles relax. The eyes always give one away. I let mine dance and play off of the soda, milk, and beer, which now faced me. The reflection off the cooler doors showed no sign of trouble.

            One Snickers bar slipped into my pocket, then an M&M’s made its escape, followed by a pack of Orbitz gum. Loose fitting clothes, thank the lord, no revolutionary could start a movement with skintight pants. How would he heist all this candy?

            Now, having no money, I rendezvoused with my comrades at the checkout stand.

            “The eagle has landed?”

            “The rabbit is in the bag.”

            The purchases were made. Give a little, to take a lot, pig-dog! It was the perfect cover - we bought something. No one steals and buys, right?

            I wheel to face the door; I’m on my way out. The sunlight warms my face. It’s a treat after the cold of the capitalist machine.

            The motion censor sees us, but all it does is open the door, show us our exit, we can make our escape. We start to exit single file, three of us are out, I am the last to step through the stainless steel and polished glass opening.

            Then a clamp comes down on my shoulder, not hard, but immobilizing me, more from shock than brute force. I crane my neck and can see a brown hand holding firmly.

            “Hello sir. Would you mind showing me where you put that big candy bar?”
            OH FUCK! Wait, no, don’t panic. It’ll be ok. You put it back, yes, yes, you put it back. To this day I remain surprised by the magnitude of levelheaded-ness I maintained as I was lead back into the store by this giant of a man.

            “No problem, right this way.”

            I lead him back, right back to the scene of the crime. And this time the colors were back, but no longer were they consoling, no longer were they a reason to steal. Now they mocked and taunted me. The pinks laughed, the blues cried, the browns pointed.

            “Yea, I decided against buying it. Acne trouble, you know…”

            I knew I had to find a candy that was out of place, a color in a bed of an opposing color. Ah ha, I see one, a Milkyway in a Skittles box, perfect.

            “Ah, here we are. Sorry I didn’t put it in the right box. I’ll do that now.”

            I picked up the brick and hefted it into its correct container. My hands had a reason to tremble, yet they weren’t. But now it will be ok, I’ve tricked this fool, big and dumb, what a capitalist.

            “There, no harm done. Sorry about that.”

            I looked up. For me to have to look up means this man was huge. His mouth was drawn into a thin line and his eyes had narrowed. His brow was furrowed with thought.

            “No, no I don’t think that was it. You wouldn’t mind showing me where you left the candy bar I’m talking about, would you?” He motioned with his hand, the way that scantily clad women on game shows would present a rotating car.

            “Um, well I’m pretty sure this is it, but we can check the drink aisle. I did walk down it.”

            The floor tiles were no longer a neutral gray, but had become darker, and were growing blacker every step I took.

            We rounded the end of the blur of taunting pigments and proceeded towards the pharmacy, where we would again make a turn. Halfway there my misdemeanor was confirmed.

            This seven and a half foot tall man, who I had taken to be an oaf, snatched quickly into my pockets. He then pulled forth one of my rescuees. Goddamned loose fitting clothes. Everything came crashing down. The trembling in my hands started, my eyes widened, my heart thumped.

            His bare paws grasped all the way around my arm. He said nothing at first, just looked at me, same narrowed eyes, same taut mouth. Then his tree trunk legs started to move, and he marched me down to the pharmacy booth, turned, and then down the aisle where the deceiving coolers had tricked me into thinking I was unwatched.

            Now people stared. Now they looked. Another revolutionary caught in the act.

            “All you boys be thinkin’ you can just take from us, huh? Yeeeeaaaa, well it ain’t like that heea! This ain’t no give away boy, this a store, man!”

            We had reached a door to the far right of the store, but in the clear and open front. All eyes were on me. He worked the buttons on the electronic lock, a light went from red to green and he swung the fake wood door open.

            I never struggled; what good would it do? Not only was this guy the size of a mountain, running would just land me in more trouble.

            “Yea, I know you kids, thinkin’ you all that, wantin’ to show off. ‘Maybe I’ll steal some candy.’”

            The door shut behind us. The room we were now contained in was small, maybe four feet by four feet, with doors on either side. One was metal, obviously the door to the refrigerated area where they keep the bodies of people like me. The other was wooden with a glass window, through which I could see another small, but not quite as small, office.

            The room had no smell, but the air was thick. Black binders were stacked floor to ceiling, each crammed with papers to the point of overflow. Pictures, posters, and papers were tacked to the walls. They provided motivation, “A customer's favorite dish is good service,” as well as information, “Upcoming BBQ!…” But the thing that hit closest to home was a picture of rat looking over its shoulder while stuffing merchandise into its pocket. The caption read: “Keep a sharp eye, shoplifters come in all shapes and sizes.” This poster was most certainly out of line, rats don’t wear pants. And this one was definitely sporting a pair of cargo pants.

            Though this room was foreign to me, it would not remain the case for much longer. In my short, and by short I mean long, stay there I would come to see it as my own.

 

The mountain grabbed a chair and set it on the ground. Or at least it resembled a chair, in miniature. The thing couldn’t have been more than six inches off the ground. It was yellow and constructed out of one hundred percent plastic.

            “Sid’ down man.” He pulled out two pairs of handcuffs, not one, but two. I hadn’t even opened my mouth. What the hell was he going to do with two pairs of handcuffs?

            I sat down slowly. This guy was already pissed I did not want to break his chair. And seeing as how it was made entirely out of plastic, I assumed that without caution my two hundred and thirty pounds might do just that. My rear touched the chair and it sank another three inches; I was really squatting more than sitting. Someone not familiar with our current situation could have easily thought I had mistaken this binder closet for the men’s restroom.

            “I’m goin’ to handcuff you now, a’ight?” Honestly, what’d he think I was thinking, that we were going to play doctor?

            “Um, yea, sure.”

            He knelt down and hooked my right wrist with one end of one pair, the other end was then attached to the leg of the chair. The left side was applied likewise. Ok, maybe I wasn’t so wrong about this guy. If one was to stand up after being thus handcuffed, the restraints would fall right off the six inch legs and both hands would be completely free.

            So now I sat, erm squatted, not knowing what to expect. Maybe this is the room where they beat you to a bloody pulp, THEN they put you in the freezer. How convenient it would be, seeing as how the door is a foot away.

            “You young cats be thinkin’ you can just take from us? If you had a sto’, you be lettin’ people steal from it?…” My mind wandered. I had no idea what was going to happen to me. Would I be arrested? No, couldn’t be, for three bucks worth, no way. I’d had friends get caught, same as me, they weren’t arrested. Would they call my folks? Yea, probably, shit.

            “…expelled, man.” That word drew me back to reality.

            “Expelled? Uh, wha, erm, what?”

            “Yeeea, man. You see dem’ binders behind you man? They was all empty when I started heeea, now they’s all full. Full of little punks like you. You probably goin’ be expelled man. Every one of dim kids been expelled from Berkeley High, you know what man?” My eyes dart across the linoleum floor, then back, then back again. They were searching for an answer, or a question, they didn’t really know which.

“How’s it goin’ be man? When you sittin’ up in San Quentin?” The truth comes out, he did think I was stupid and had just divulged that this was in fact a scare tactic. I relaxed a little, the chair sank another inch.

 

            His eyes narrowed to a glare as mine rolled. I had just been informed of how big burly men were going to “sexually haAAaass” me in prison.

My present company had grown. Now in addition to the mountain, who by the way had contracted a fairly bad case of diarrhea de la mouth, there was a small Asian man, and, as far as I could tell, a Jamaican.

They stood in the other small office, peering through the window. The Asian guy was on the phone with the authorities. A moment ago he had poked his head tentatively through the door and asked my age, weight, height, address, and so on, everything I had, a second before, written down on a clipboard that was handed to him.

The door opened, swinging into my lecturer. A woman poked her head through. I expected her to say something along the lines of, “Oh, sorry, I’ll come back.” Instead she gave the big guy a sympathetic look, then whipped her head around and gave me a look that always seems to accompany the phrase “Oh no you didn’t!”

The woman held her disapproving expression as she stepped into the room. Her girth coupled with that of the mountain and myself took up the entirety of the room. She was wearing the red and blue uniform issued to the minions of “The Man”. We squirmed and gyrated as she attempted to walk further into the room. “What the hell are you doing lady? We’re quite cozy as it is. You are most certainly not needed.” Of course I did not say this; however, I think my expression was displaying it for me.

“You best be showin’ some respect to you adults, man.” He who is known as Mountain had noticed my somewhat unsubtle confusion as to why we needed to cuddle with this woman.

Big Bertha leaned forward, her loose midsection slapping my forehead. As she leaned farther her flesh slid along the top of my head, pulling my hair back with it. Her stretch marks eventually came to rest. I don’t think I could have been more humiliated and disgusted, but there was no way I was going to show it.

Though I couldn’t turn my head, I could see the woman pull out a small plastic card. This was then inserted into a yellow box that hung on the wall that had, a second ago, been behind me. Oh, she’s punching out for the day. How crafty, have the interrogation room and the clock out box be located in the same place. Oh well, how many employees can end their day during my little stay here? The woman shifted as she attempted to straighten up and leave. The added load of her fat prompted another inch loss in elevation.

As it turns out, my stay wasn’t a little one, and Walgreens has a shitload of employees.

In the four hours of hospitality shown to me by Walgreens there must have been twenty-five tired, angry, putrid, employees open that door into the Mountain. Each one looking at me, looking at me while they punched out to leave for the day, looking at me sitting in my chair of shame. The chair now resembled a spider - no normal spider, but a spider after being smashed under a plate. The legs were splayed out in all directions and at its highest point the chair was no more than a couple of centimeters off the ground.

As we waited for the police, my apprehender’s verbal bowels finally dried up. He left the room, probably for a drink. I stand by this assumption on the grounds that he left with the final remark “I need a belt!” His absence was soon filled by the Jamaican. The two were basically identical. Save for their size, the only difference was that one didn’t pronounce his “r’s” and the other put a “h” in man.

The rasta left the sanctuary of the slightly-bigger-and-apparently-better-smelling office with a wrinkled face. A smell had filled the room. This has been known to happen when you mix twenty-five Walgreens’ employees, a man that could use the Bay as a backyard swimming pool (and had the likewise stench), a dumb kid who is sweating profusely (understandably so), and about ten cubic feet of space.

He placed his tootsies right where the giant man had been wearing a hole in the linoleum. The prints from the former engulfed those of the littler man. He now squatted, not in the fashion I had been squatting in, but a much more sophisticated kneel, one that was imposing and self-dignified. My squat was involuntary and thus I sprawled out on my thrown of shame, arms, legs, and any other extremities jutting out and writhing about as I tried to maintain some kind of comfort.

“Listen here mahn. I been in this business a long time, mahn. I came to this country from a land of sugar cane and coffee, and since leaving I have caught many little shits like you, mahn.” His woven red, yellow, and black hat waved as he talked. He spoke with his whole body, his head bobbed, his hands gestured, and his gut distended and contracted as he breathed.

The closer he leaned, the more pronounced his facial features became. His cheeks were open-pit coalmines, sunken deep into his face. His nose came to a fine point after sloping down from his brow. And where his eyes should have been there were two protruding balls of white, pure white, only interrupted by a speck of black in the very center of each.

These eyes grew as he berated me. As he hissed, spat, muttered, and cussed at me, they grew. Grew until these balloon eyes of his reached a point at which they might have broken free from the tethers of his skull and floated straight to the ceiling. They then proceeded to pulsate, as though they were breathing, inhaling and exhaling, rising and falling, but never moving. Just when I thought I was going to be covered with eye goo, he stopped bobbing his head, and his eyes stopped breathing. Though these two motions had ceased, the rest of his ambient flailing continued. His rigid neck, now cocked sideways, held his head firmly. He started to close the distance between my face and his.

Our noses touched and he finally stopped. All I could see were his two huge eyes; they engulfed my entire field of vision. His stare never wavered, his head never moved, his taught mouth never loosened. Yet, I could still hear the sound of his flapping, waving limbs that had yet to settle. Then he began to really talk.

This man talked very fast, and with his thick accent, understanding him was like deciphering hieroglyphics - people shoot themselves after attempting it.

“OK mahn, here’s what we gonna’ do. When the caterpillars tremor John airplane underwater Central Park. OK mahn?”

“Yes, of course.” Like hell I was going to tell him that I now thought an airplane was underwater in Central Park, apparently piloted by an earthquake, a guy named John, and a bunch of bugs.

“Alright right then, mahn. Stephen King Dr. Pepper decimated fornication housewares and ragdolls. Ceiling tower bunny, cotton picking synthetic marshmallow tube. Blanket ladder New York exponentially fought latex pants.”

“Um, could you maybe –” the rasta then snatched forward and grasped my shoulders. He shook me rather furiously. He continued shaking me as he inquired as to what the matter was, couldn’t I understand him? He stopped shaking, possibly thinking he had dislodged something from my ear canals.

“Ok, mahn, let’s try this again shall we?” he then proceeded to repeat the same line about a horror author and a soda destroying silverware, bath towels, and dolls with the act of making love. A pause, as he waited for my recognition. “Oh!” I mouthed.

“Good, –” and that was followed by the line pertaining to the banking capital of the world, wrapped in a shawl, climbing a ladder, and fighting some horrid sounding clothing…to the power of two. Again, I gave the wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression of “Oh! Now I get it!” This satisfied him and he released his hold.

The Jamaican stood, the swelling of his eyes going down, and his head returning to a rhythmic bob. I could see that, yes, his arms and legs were still thrashing about him. Just then there was a knock on the door. One spastic limb moved to the handle and, after some effort, opened the door to reveal a police officer.

The cop was tall, clad head to toe in his blue (or black, you can never really tell) uniform. He looked quite dignified. Even though I was being arrested and this was the man that was going to carry it out, I had never been so happy to see a cop. He would take from the stench of this little room. From its binders, its freezer door, its Jamaicans, and there would be a state of calm for the first time in four hours. Then he opened his mouth.

“DID YOU KNOW A COP JUST GOT SHOT!? A FUCKING COP! AND I’M DOWN HERE DEALING WITH A LITTLE SHIT LIKE YOU!”

The force of his scream hit me like a tsunami. Speckles of spit dotted my face, my hair blew back from my forehead, and my eyes were spread wide. A long pause followed this bellow, and as I relaxed, thinking that was his vent for the day, my chair broke, all four legs snapping clean off.