“Then if your references are okay, you’re hired. I think we have your size in a uniform, though it may be a little big or small. Come in tomorrow morning at eight and if everything checks out, I’ll give you your first assignment and uniform and club.”
I start to leave his office.
“By the way, Tom. You haven’t an arrest record or anything like that? You’re not a thief, for instance, in this city or any other?”
“Nothing. Not even a car violation in ten years.”
“Any kind of violation before those ten years?”
“Nothing. Never. Not even as a kid.”
“And it’s not just because you never drove a car or were ever caught?”
“No. I never tried. I’m a very honest guy, my references will tell you that, and always have been, simple as that must sound.”
“All my guards are honest and all their references backed them on that. Maybe the references were scared or too palsy or wanted them out of their hair, but a few of the guards turned out to be not so honest after the first few days and one a sexual maniac. But I need you bad and it’ll take a couple of weeks to check with the police about you and your fingerprints, and my instincts and snap judgment are usually perfect and tell me you’re okay. Don’t screw me up. That’s not just a warning but an incentive. I have my own job to protect and boss to cope with, and if you are really honest and stay that way, you get better and easier positions the longer you work for us and also more pay.”
“I swear.”
“And look good as you look to me today with your nice clean face and shined shoes and we’ll just get along great.”
About my honesty I wasn’t lying, though I don’t know for sure whether I can club someone’s head. I’m not an especially violent guy, though I do have a temper sometimes and when it came down to it at a bar when I was being threatened, or recently because someone was beating up a shopkeeper I know on the street, I was able to use my fists and strength and protect myself and him. And from what I heard, most policemen never have to get off a shot in their entire career, so I don’t see why I, if I control my temper and say the right calming words with enough authority, will ever have to break anyone’s skull with a club.
Next day the interviewer says my references all checked out, takes my fingerprints and assigns me a men’s clothing store on Madison Avenue. I take my uniform and club with me, change in one of the store’s dressing booths, and the owner tells me what my duties are. “You’re to stay by the door. People who come in with large unwrapped packages or shopping bags of any kind are to check them with you and you give them a number tag. If you see anybody who looks suspicious, which usually means darting his eyes back and forth on you, keep a watch on him or her but not in a way where he thinks you’re spying on him and where the store, if your perception’s all wrong, loses a sale and maybe a lifelong customer. If I or any employee shouts your name, it means trouble and you come. If any of us yell ‘The door!’ that’s all, just ‘The door!’ it means someone’s going through it with merchandise he didn’t pay for and you chase and grab him and if you can’t get it back from him peacefully or any other way on the street, you hold him for the police.”
So I stand by the door two hours at a time with ten-minute breaks in between and a half-hour for lunch. I never had a job where my feet hurt so much or it was so boring. But I tell myself I’ll get used to it in a week or two, and maybe if I get a more comfortable pair of mailman’s shoes, I won’t mind at all.
Everything’s okay that day and the next, no complaints, nobody stealing anything, but the third day a saleslady comes over to me and says “Don’t look right away but I’ve my eye on a young man to your immediate left who stuck a tux shirt under his jacket. He’s well-dressed, wearing a navy-bluejacket and gray slacks and yellow turtleneck jersey. It’s okay, you can start turning around now, but slowly. See him? I’m going back to pretend to wait on another customer. If I see him put back the shirt, I’ll tell you and save you the trouble of stopping him. If you don’t hear from me, you’ll know he still has it.”
“What do I say to him if I don’t hear from you?”
“You don’t know?”
“The owner told me not to offend any of your customers.”
“He’s not our customer. He’s a shoplifter. Look, what did they hire you for?”
“Don’t worry, I know what to do.”
“That’s what I thought. What are you giving me such a hard time for?”
I don’t know what to do or say, but I’ll think of something. I watch the man every now and then. He seems all right. Going from counter to counter as if he’s just browsing, holding a tie up to his shirt as if he could tell what it looks like against that turtleneck. Then ten minutes after the saleslady spoke to me, he starts for the door. I stand in his way. “Excuse me, sir,” I say.
“Yes?”
“Isn’t there something you forgot to leave behind?”
“Leave behind where? My cigarette butts, in your ashtrays, that’s what I left behind.”
“Do I have to repeat it?”
“Maybe if you had more sense from the beginning you wouldn’t have to repeat anything.”
“The tux shirt. Does that make more sense to you?”
“Tux shirt? For what, the evening clothes I got on? Listen, I’m late. I shop here a lot, didn’t see anything I want today, so get out of my way before I call over your manager.”
“Please, this is my job. And I’m letting you off light by just asking for the shirt back, so don’t make more trouble for yourself.” I hold out my hand. He looks at it. “The shirt, the shirt.” The saleslady is behind him nodding her head at me.
“Forget the manager. You want me to get the police against you and this store for harassing me? I will. What’s your name?”
“I’m sorry, but I’ll just have to stand here and you there till we do get a policeman. Just a second.” I wave for the saleslady to go outside. “A policeman, ma’am, if you can.”
“Oh, I can,” she says. She goes out the door. The man bolts for it while it’s closing. I push him back. He swings at me with the stiffened side of his hand and clips me in the cheek good. I go down. He starts to run past me. I grab him by the ankle and hold on while my head’s spinning, and he drags me a couple of feet toward the door before he stops and tries to shake his ankle free of my hand. The shirt drops out from under his jacket to the floor. “Okay, that should be enough. Get out of here,” and I let go of his ankle. He raises his foot to bring down on my face. I roll over. His foot hits the floor. He runs out of the store and across the street. My other hand is still holding the club.
The saleslady comes back with a policeman while I’m brushing myself off and a salesman’s trying to dab my cheek with a wet rag.
“Where is he?” the policeman says.
“He got out,” I say, taking the rag and touching my cheek, because the way he was pressing with it hurt.
“Why didn’t you hold him for me?”
“Once he dropped the shirt he was stealing, I thought that was enough.”
“He might have had more under his clothes.”
“He did,” the saleslady says. “I saw him. A thirty dollar belt with a big bull’s face buckle and a bandanna.”
The owner of the store comes back from lunch. “What’s this, another robbery?”
“We almost had him this time,” the saleslady says, “but the guard let him go.”
“I thought he only took one shirt. And when I got it back, well, I felt I’d have to spend the entire day at the police station with the man and you’d have to pay for me plus another guard for here.”
“That’s my prerogative. I’ve been robbed so much I just want the satisfaction of one thief caught and locked up. Did you at least get him with your club?”