This is the second in a series of posts that starts here.
It’s a look into my past as an employee of so many jobs, I
may not be able to recall them all. I believe I left off at the end of my
tenure at Liberty State Bank, and started fixing windows and screens and doing
various other duties at hardware stores across St. Paul.
For some reason I had a knack for fixing broken since my
teenage years. Although I’ve never considered myself to be mechanically
inclined, I knew my way around a torch, putty knife, and a dull pizza cutter.
Those were the main tools in window and screen repair and I became quite good
at it. I was also good at sneaking goods out the back door, and modifying prices
for my friends on S&K tools, a very high end brand. I made enough money to
not need the supplemental income, but it was the thrill of the thing that got
me. And as it would turn out, I wasn’t actually very good at stealing because
it’s how I lost the next three jobs. Maybe not outright, but in some way, I was
let go with the implication that things were coming up missing and I had to go.
So I moved on.
One quick story from an Ace Hardware. I worked in the
basement, and one day a kid started there as his first job ever. It was the day
of a glass shipment and it all had to be carried from a truck outside, to the
basement where it sat upright and sideways on shelves, the glass sticking out
about an inch. It came wrapped in cardboard so it wasn’t sharp until it was
opened and put on those shelves, but it was very heavy. On his very first trip downstairs,
on his very first day, in his very first job, this poor kid stumbled just a bit
and brushed his hand against the shelf while he was carrying a heavy, awkward
box. And that was his very last day. The back of his hand was completely gone.
Blood flowed freely onto the ground and I laughed as we both stared at the
massive wound because I thought somebody was playing a joke on me. I could see
every white bone, and every spurt of blood as he tried to move his curled
fingers. I told him to get to my car and I pushed him up the stairs and threw
him in the passenger seat. He was crying, and I was stark white as I’ve always
had an aversion to blood. I drove down the streets like a madman, blowing red
lights and using the opposing lane, and I got him to the E.R. in less than five
minutes, certainly quicker than calling for an ambulance and waiting.
I’ve never been that seriously injured, but I’ve cut at
least four of my fingers down to the bone with razor blades while working with
screens. I also had an individual piece of screen wire imbed itself all the way
under my fingernail. Pulling it out dropped me, and I awoke to the manager
telling me I needed to find different work. There were too many suspicious
things going on with me around. I think he thought I had passed out from drugs.
I don’t believe it exists anymore, but there used to be a
gas station, a 76, on the corner of Concordia and Snelling in St. Paul. Well,
as an 18-year-old kid, I worked the overnight shift in what was then a pretty
dangerous part of town, possibly because I contributed so much to the local
crime effort. I’ve hinted before at a daring heist I pulled off with a friend
of mine, and I think I’ll share that….. In my next post J
I did figure out how to syphon money from the gas tanks,
figuratively, as I would be allowed a
certain number of drive-offs per night. Things weren’t-t prepay back then, and
they didn’t want me to confront anybody stealing gas at 3:00am. Well, I made up
more that my share of drive-offs and pocketed the cash. But still that wasn’t
enough to satisfy my thirst for money. I had to do a robbery.
