YOUTH ON THE LAM-PART ONE

One day the young manager from another store came to visit our store and see how business was. He and I became acquainted and he invited, “come over to my store after work this Saturday and we’ll go places.”

 

Sure, I replied, always game for anything that was stirring.

 

When I arrived there, I found a card game going on in the back room. I was too impulsive to be a good gambler, but neither could I resist the invitation to join the fellows. I lost my pay fro the week, then desperate to get back what I had lost, I went into debt as far as the fellows would let me.

 

When I got up from that table I felt sick. I had no money to take home to Mom. She needed that money for food, for rent, for the girls. She had been depending upon me and proud of me. How quickly and easily a man could mess up his life! I trudged wearily home, trying to figure out what to tell her. I was eighteen and I had never learned to face life. I lied and ran away from the consequences every time I could. So when I got home and looked into her inquiring face, I mumbled, “The Boss wasn’t there to pay me. I’ll get it Monday.”

 

She put her hand on my arm, a habit of hers, as if to stay me in my wild careen downward, Phil a boss is usually there to pay his men. He considers it his obligation. Now tell mother the truth, and we’ll see what we can do about it.

 

I threw off her hand and stamped out of the house. I couldn’t stand the look on her face, and so I tried to forget by getting drunk. That wasn’t the first time I had been drunk, by a long shot. I had been drunk off and on since before my days at Boys Aid. The other boys and I in the neighborhood used to steal wine from the basements of the Italians living in Sacramento.

 

This time when I staggered home, Mom managed to get me into bed, and was she mad at me! She knew what was coming and so she set an old wash tub by the bed, warning me, “Don’t you miss it!”

 

I didn’t.

 

By Monday I was over my drunk, I arose early and sneaked out to the store. All day long, as I waited on customer, wrapping packages, ringing up the cash register, I worried, how can I get ahold of some money to give Mom to prove to her that I didn’t lie? Face her and admit the truth never even occurred to me. No, I would prove that my wrong was right. There was only one quick answer. I managed to slip twenty dollars into my own pocket. When Ed, the manager, counted up that night, the till was short. Because it was the first time there had been a shortage, Ed put it down to a mistake of some kind. I was relieved and boastful. I took the twenty dollars home and proved to Mom that she had misjudged me!

 

All went well for a week, then, again I went over to the other store and lost my week’s pay. I couldn’t go home and face Mom. What could I do? Well, I had ruined everything again might as well do a thorough job of it. I returned to the store where I worked, broke a lock on the back door and stole about a hundred and fifty dollars that was kept hidden for change. Ed would know that I had stolen it because no one else would have known where to look.

 

It was about one o’clock when I arrived home. Mom was waiting for me, a worried expression on her face. She knew something was wrong. Too wrong! I gave her the regular amount of money and went to bed, but not to sleep. I tossed and turned, knowing that by Monday we would all be questioned and that my police record would come to light. I couldn’t face it.