When I was eight I embarked on a career as a shoplifter. I was a latchkey kid from the time I was seven or so, but before I was eight it was just during the after school time. That summer we moved to a tiny apartment with our three cats while my parents were building their house. It was near one of the busiest streets in town, State Street, and I was forbidden to cross it.

(An aside: this apartment was the location of my first erotic dream. Oh, Alex P. Keaton MWAH MWAH MWAH!)

At first I had some supervision, in the form of a stay-at-home mom who lived in the building. After I spit in her daughter’s face, I think the adults determined the arrangement wasn’t working out so well. My mom saw that I had made a bunch of friends with the other kids in the neighborhood, so she kind of let me loose. Specifically, she saw that a twelve-year-old girl named Jenny had taken an interest in me. Jenny was pretty, charismatic, and a quick liar, so most of the adults liked and trusted her.

Jenny was one of those kids who was automatically in charge, no questions asked. She was the oldest and the bossiest, and was a master manipulator. She would stage fights for the other kids’ entertainment. I was a frequent participant in these fights and a frequent loser. Jenny was the one who coaxed me into spitting in the other girl’s face, because it was determined that she was a namby-pamby. She was, too, and I didn’t care for her much either.

Shortly, as in a couple of days after I started hanging out with Jenny’s gang, they decided they wanted to cross the busy street that we lived a couple of blocks away from. There was a Stop-N-Go (a.k.a. “The Stop-N-Rob”) that had a motherlode of candy to choose from.

“C’mon,” she said. “I want candy. Let’s go across State.”

This is the point where I should have said, “I’m not supposed to cross State Street,” and walked away.

HA! Yeah, right. For my entire childhood I was plagued with the fear that someone was going to think I wasn’t totally hard to the core. I have been beaten up and eaten disgusting things more times than I can even remember. Therefore, I didn’t say anything except for, “I don’t have any money.”

“That’s okay,” she called over her shoulder, “you won’t need any.” Wow! Was my new friend going to buy me some candy?

No.

Jenny stood at the end of one aisle, acting as lookout, while I hovered over the Jolly Rancher bars.

“What do I do?” I asked on the way in.

“Just stuff it in your shorts!” she hissed.

She gave me the nod and I snatched a bar and crammed it into my waistband. It was pretty close to the clerk, but just then Jenny darted over to the ten-cent candy. He couldn’t keep track of all of us. Jenny bought a piece on the way out.

When we got back across the busy street, we turned out our pockets (and pants) to pool our haul. I was allowed to keep my Jolly Rancher. The other kids had grabbed more than one thing, so the booty was divvied up.

“How does that taste?” Jenny asked.

“Pretty good,” I said, the bar hanging out of my mouth. It was watermelon flavored.

We made many more trips across the street after that. I got busted once by my mom’s friend’s boyfriend, who was driving down the street and saw me run across. My mom scolded me, and I did it less after that, but didn’t really stop. I hated that guy. I stayed at my mom’s friend’s house once when she was out of town, and his daughter narced on me for pretending to use an Exacto knife on a teddy bear while we were playing Surgery. She told me not to do it, but I ignored her; latchkey kids do what they damn want. Then of course he ratted me out. I guess it ran in the family.

When I turned nine the house was finished, and we moved safely away to the sticks, where the hobbies there were drinking, teen pregnancy, drinking, and shoplifting. A year later, when I was ten, we saw Jenny’s teenaged sister, who was working as a bagger at a local grocery store.

“How’s your sister doing?” my mom asked.

“Oh,” Jenny’s sister said. “A few months ago she got hit by a car while crossing State Street. She died on the way to the hospital.”

It took me years to realize that could have been me.