Delinquency Report
Delinquency Report
By Herschel Cozine
Copyright 2010 by Herschel Cozine
Cover Copyright 2010 by Dara England and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
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Of Sound and Silence
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Una boda de verano
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Venus of the Metro
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Delinquency Report
By Herschel Cozine
It was on the eve of my ninth Christmas that my innocence was shattered. I discovered to my dismay that Santa Claus was not a jolly old elf in a red suit. He was a middle-aged man with a beer belly and stained T-shirt; the man I called my father. I had already become an agnostic the year before when my Superman cape reeked of my father’s cigar smoke. But I ignored it in a futile attempt to maintain the myth.This particular Christmas, however, I caught him in the act of assembling my electric train on Christmas Eve after I had (ostensibly) gone to bed.
I faced the revelation with mixed feelings. On the downside I had to lower my expectations of fancy presents and become a little more realistic in my requests. On the other hand I was no longer faced with the onerous task of maintaining good behavior, especially toward the end of the year when I expected Santa would be paying attention. Not that it seemed to matter. I could never find a correlation between my deportment and the quantity or quality of the presents I received. I suspected Santa was treating anything less than grand theft auto as a “boys will be boys” infraction not deserving of his attention. Still, I wasn’t taking any chances.
But that was over now. With Santa no longer an influence in my life I became a new person. It was the beginning of my life of crime.
My first foray into the underworld occurred, quite by accident, at Woolworth’s five and ten cent store. I lifted a yoyo, retail value: five cents. This was during the depression when a penny still had some value. I had not set out to steal. But I found the yoyo lying on the floor in the toy department, begging to be stolen. In a burst of daring, I slipped it in my pocket and walked out the door, fully expecting the long arm of the law would descend on my head and I would be sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Nothing happened. Nothing, that is, until I got home. My mother, a species that is blessed with x-ray eyes, a naturally suspicious nature, and an intuition that beggars description, sensed my guilt and reacted as only a mother can.
“Where did you get that?” she said, pointing to the yoyo.
“From Jimmy,” I said.
She frowned, and I knew I was in for a grilling.
“Why would Jimmy give you his yoyo?”
I thought quickly. “I traded my Bill Dickey baseball card for it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you do that?”
“I have two of them,” I said, which were the first words of truth uttered in the conversation. I made a note to get rid of one in case she decided to check it out.
She nodded towards the yoyo. “It looks new.”
“It is,” I said. (Another true statement.) “Jimmy got it in his stocking and didn’t want it. He hates yoyos.”
She eyed me suspiciously. It was a test that I could not afford to fail. Although my insides had turned to jelly, I remained calm, matching her look with my own.
It was my finest hour. After what seemed an eternity, she looked away. The stew she was stirring burped and she quickly lifted it off the burner and set it aside.
“Dinner will be ready in five minutes. Go tell your father.”
Thinking back on it, the stew had been my salvation. If I had had her full attention I could never had pulled it off.
My father was a different story. He barely looked at me as I swung the yoyo in a wide arc near his head. One could park a stolen bicycle in the living room without fear of discovery by one’s father. They were wired differently. I filed that bit of information for future use.
Emboldened by my “yoyo caper,” I visited the general store. We lived in a small town where our main source of groceries was the store on the corner. It was run by a husband and wife, a Swedish couple in their late sixties, with accents that made them hard for me to understand. Most of the goods were kept on shelves behind the counter. But just inside the door was a barrel containing large red apples. On most days Mr. Svensen could be found behind the counter by the cash register, where he had a clear view of the barrel. He never worried about theft, of course. This was a place where no one bothered to lock their doors at night. Who would steal his apples? But his presence presented a problem to anyone with larcenous intent.
I felt I was up to the challenge. I stood by the barrel, pretending interest in the array of penny candies in the display case against the wall. Mr. Svensen watched me perfunctorily.
“Vill you be vanting some candy, eh?”
I shook my head.
He eyed me a few more seconds, then looked away. I watched while he studied a paper on the counter in front of him. He picked up a pencil and started to write.
The window of opportunity was small. Quickly I took an apple from the barrel and stuck it in my pocket. Looking back to where Svensen was sitting, I was relieved to see that he was still engrossed in his work and had not seen the heist.
“Goodbye, Mister Svensen,” I said as I turned to go.
“Vait a minute,” he said, coming around the counter. My heart leaped to my throat. I fought my flight instinct and froze in place. I am certain my face had guilt written all over it. My knees were shaking and the apple in my pocket was the size of a watermelon. My life was over.
Going to the candy case, Mr. Svensen slid open the glass door and plucked a stick of gum from the pile. He handed it to me with a flourish.
“You like gum, yah?”
I took the gum in my shaking hand and nodded.
“Thank you, Sir.”
“You’re velcome,” he said. He patted my head and returned to the counter. Picking up his pencil, he turned his attention to the papers in front of him.
I stood there a few seconds, my head whirling in disbelief. He never suspected! Well, he was a father, after all. If Mrs. Svensen had been there...I shuddered at the thought.
Reeling with relief I slammed through the door and ran down the brick stairs, almost upending Olive Jameson, the preacher’s wife. Ignoring her cries of dismay I crossed the street and ran through the town square.
Once out of sight of the store, I took the apple from my pocket and studied it. Red and firm, with no sign of a worm, it was the perfect apple. My heart had quit racing and I lost myself in the beauty of the apple in my hand. I couldn’t take it home. How would I explain it to my mother? Rubbing it on my sleeve, I took a bite. I would have to eat the evidence.
So far my criminal career had earned me about six and a half cents. But bigger things were in store. Buoyed by my success with Svensen’s apple, I quickly forgot about the dangers of my chosen trade and looked forward to my next job. I had my eye on an Atlas slingshot and a marble bag at the five and ten. I wasn’t certain I was ready for the big time; still needed to hone my skills with more easily obtained items—a gumball, perhaps, or a pickle from the barrel in Svensen’s store. Yes, that was it. Svensen’s was the perfect training ground.
Jimmy, my best friend, was now involved. I had to tell him about the yoyo incident so he wouldn’t blow my story by denying it. He had willingly agreed; seemed even more excited than I about the prospect of free goodies. We would be the new Bonnie and Clyde. Well, neither of us could pass for Bonnie. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would do just as well.
The tree fort in Jimmy’s back yard served as our headquarters. There we would plan our next job while consuming the loot from our last one. Except for a brief argument over the name of our gang—“Archie and Jug” won out over “Mutt and Jeff”—our partnership was amiable. And profitable.
By the time school had started in September the team of Archie and Jug had garnered three ginger snaps, a half-dozen jawbreakers, two Atlas slingshots, a pickle and nine apples, (not counting the one I had stolen before our collaboration). My effort to swipe the marble bag came to naught when my mother came down the aisle as I was about to stuff it in my pocket. Jimmy was the lookout on this job and warned me just in the nick of time. I never got another chance. Except for the slingshots, all the loot was consumed before we went home. I hid my slingshot in the tree fort and never had a chance to use it. As far as I know, Jimmy never used his either. Such is the price of ill-gotten gains.
My new exciting life came to an abrupt halt in early December. Having endured a boring Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle, who were childless, I was ready to resume my career. Christmas was rapidly approaching and I had presents to buy. Jimmy had tired of our profession—an attitude spawned by the marble bag episode—and I was going it alone. I was just as satisfied. He wasn’t cut out for this line of work.
I had my eye on a baseball in the five and ten. It was a real baseball, not one of the squishy rubber kind stuffed with yarn. It was beautiful in its pristine condition. In all my baseball playing days, we had never had a new ball. This would be the crown jewel of my career. It was early in the day and there were only a few shoppers in the store. My mother had gone next door to the beauty parlor and I had all the time I needed. I picked up the baseball, turned it over in my hand, admiring the beauty and feel of it. It was a work of art! I looked around, saw no one, and quickly put the ball in my pocket.
I turned to leave, only to have my way blocked by Myrna Stover, the stern looking salesclerk who had seen my every move. Myrna was a friend of my mother. Even worse, she was a mother herself, with all the attributes I mentioned earlier. I was doomed!
“And just where do you think you are going with that baseball, young man?”
I started to say, “what baseball?” but even I knew the absurdity of such a statement. Instead I stepped back, pulled the baseball from my pocket and held it out to her.
“Your mother will hear about this,” Myrna said, turning the ball over in her hand. She grabbed me by the collar and ushered me out of the door to the beauty parlor next door.
The scene that followed is too painful for me to describe, even after all this time. My mother was, naturally, horrified. I was confined to my room, allowed out for meals and bathroom activities. Since iPods, laptops, cell phones and television were not yet a part of our lives, I could not be denied these privileges. My mother did, however, remove the yoyo, having correctly concluded what she had suspected all along—that it was “hot.” I was left with my school books and a beat up copy of
The Hardy Boys Great Airport Mystery.
I have it still, a bleak reminder of my errant ways.
My imprisonment came to a sudden and unexpected end the following week when word came over the radio that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. In the confusion and turmoil of the days that followed, my mother had neither the time nor the inclination to continue my punishment. My sentence had been commuted! But it came with a stern warning.
“Don’t think for a minute that I am letting you get away with this. Watch your step, young man. I will be watching. And next time....”
“There won’t be a next time,” I said.
“There had better not be,” she said. “Not if you’re smart.”
She put a hand on my shoulder. “Meanwhile,” she went on, “there will be extra chores for you to do until the baseball you stole is paid for.”
“But I gave it back,” I protested. I started to say more, but the look in her eye told me not to pursue the subject. How long could it take to pay off an eighty-nine cent debt?
“Yes’m,” I said.
“And the yoyo.”
Okay. A ninety-four cent debt. I was grateful that she knew nothing of the edibles.
“And the slingshot.”
“How did you....?” I started.