I guess my first case was the time some friends and I (be warned that some names have been changed to protect the guilty) decided to break into a second hand store in the neighborhood. If the store had been owned by someone in the community, I doubt we would have ever attempted it. Instead some white man, who didn’t live anywhere near the store, owned it. You gotta understand there were whites that lived near us. Some were good neighbors but a most had nothing to do with us other than to run a grocery store or two. Perhaps that it was white owned was just an excuse. This was the early sixties before black unrest would change the course of a nation. We knew that a black family lived above the store so we had to be very quiet if our plan was to succeed. There were three of us. Our crew consisted of me, Dirty-dogg who was my best friend and a white boy by the name of Jr. Simon. Somehow or other we breached the outside door in the back of the building. A locked door that would have admitted us to the main part of the store stymied us. We were debating the best way to break the single pane glass to gain admittance when we were stilled by sounds coming from the outside of the building. Someone was walking around the door. All they had to do was turn the handle to the door and they would know that it was open. In my mind, I knew it was the PO-lice having been alerted by the family upstairs. I imagined the cop with his gun out waiting for something to move to give him a target. My heart was pounding so loud that I was sure that it could be heard on the outside. After waiting for what seemed like hours I finally summoned the courage to gently push the door open and we sidled out. My shirt was drenched in sweat, some of which had trickled into my eyes. There was no cop or anyone else waiting for us. I was overjoyed as we eased away to discuss a strategy of getting into the store. Dirty-dogg was our unofficial leader. He was opting for an elaborate plan to tape the window up so that when we broke it, the pieces would not fall and make any noise. Jr. Simon was against that scheme and correctly pointed out that we had no tape. Me? I didn’t want to re-enter that dark anteroom ever again and I said so. We had all been badly frightened but I was the only one balking at going back in. I was scared and didn’t care who knew it. In the end it was decided that we give up and go home. As we were leaving one of us decided to try a frontal assault on the plate glass window in the front. I quickly found a piece of scrap iron and banged a hole in the corner of the glass. We then took off across the street to see if the noise had disturbed the upstairs family. By and by we determined that the noise had gone unnoticed and we slinked back to view our handiwork. Lo and behold there was a small hole in the glass. It was just big enough for us to stick a hand through and retrieve whatever was in our immediate grasp. Forgive me if I can’t remember exactly what our booty was. I do recall that there was a fishing rod in our little stash. I didn’t want any share of the loot since I was unable to take it home. If I took anything home I would have to explain where it came from and provide a receipt. On top of that I would have to show where I got the money from to purchase said item. It was not worth the hassle so I passed on the spoils of our ill-gotten gains. I had nothing to show for all that terror and work but that wasn’t the point. It was done more for adventure than for profit. Anyway we left; I went home and promptly forgot about the entire incident. A few days later it was rudely brought back to my attention. It appears that Jr. Simon had sold the rod on consignment. The kid he sold it to had the moniker name of
Dirty-dogg was all for stonewalling and denying everything. He was right since they had no evidence on us. Jr. Simon and I were of the mind that the cops already knew we did it so why not go ahead confess and get it over with. We were all given probation and also were supposed to pay for the window. Luckily for us the store went out of business and we never had to pay the three dollars apiece we had been assessed. The probation was unsupervised but I sure caught hell from my mom and dad. So there you have it, the first time that I ran awry of the law. It wasn’t much but it was my first taste of the judicial system. Although I had lost that battle, it was just the beginning of a lifetime war. A few years later Jr. Simon came to me with another deal involving the “Candy Man”. You would think that I would be wary of his schemes since it was his plan to raid the secondhand store. Let me tell you about Jr. Simon. He lived across the street from my Aunt Central. He had flaming red hair blue eyes and an infectious laugh. Since he was our token white boy he always felt that he something to prove when he was with us. His mother and father had no control over him what so ever. His mother weighed over three hundred pounds though she stood a little over 5 feet in height. Jr. would sock her whenever he felt like it. His father was a little quiet man who wasn’t home much. He was the third of four kids but he was his parent's favorite. Maybe they were afraid of him. I don’t know but they kind of steered clear of him when he had his dander up which was most of the time. Jimmy Sanchez who lived down the street from Jr. was with him this time. Jr. had turned into a little B&E artist wannabe. He explained that there was a house right across the street from the junior high school that I attended. The man that lived there owned a vending business and kept his stock of candy in the garage. I was game to take it on and later that night the three of us met and struck. Jr. had us in that garage so fast it was as if the door had never been locked. There was a veritable mountain of candy. Instead of choosing what I liked, I was indiscriminate and chocked all kinds of candy and gum into my box. A lot of it was sugarless and gross tasting. We also hit the Coca Cola plant that same night so we had lots of goodies. We had too much to consume on our own so we gave some of it away. Guess what happened? Right somebody’s mother turned us in to the cops and we got jammed up again. Back in the day it was a lot different then as opposed to how it is now. You have heard the saying that it takes a village to raise a child? Well where I grew up it was true. You had to be very careful of what you did and who knew it. If your own parents didn’t catch you doing wrong, when the right person found out, it would be going to get back to your family sooner or later. Strangely enough we felt sorry for the kid whose parents ratted us out, but we never held it against the grown ups who did the actual telling. This time when we went to probate court it was a little different. We were in front of a little ol' lady by the name of Judge Black. We had heard horror stories of the "time", which she had meted out to wayward kids. There was a whole cadre of kids doing time in kiddie prisons. Of course they were called Boys Training Units or reform schools but they were prisons nonetheless. Judge Black gave us a matronly look as if could have been her own kids or grandkids. All three of us had both parents in attendance and I think that made an impression on the judge. She sentenced us to unsupervised probation with a stern warning that she would not be so nice if we ever came before her again. I believed her entirely. It was then that my mother spoke up and said that she thought we should not be allowed to get off so easily and that we should be made to pay for the damage done to the garage window. I suspect that she recalled that the secondhand store window had never been paid for. The judge agreed with her. When my mother called the Candy Man; Mr. Krainbrink, he was delighted with the idea. He explained that he had already replaced the window square since it was small and he had them on site. His suggestion was that we come over to his house on Saturday’s to do a little manual labor. My mother quickly agreed and the following Saturday Jimmy and I went over and sheepishly met with Mr. Krainbrink. He turned out to be a nice guy and didn’t hold it against us that we had robbed him of his goods. Jr. refused to go saying the judge never ordered it and he wasn’t going to be doing any manual labor for that honky. Yes Jr. was white but he felt black. My mother said she didn’t care if Jimmy or Jr. showed up or not. I was going to be there and that was that.
Mr. Krainbrink set us to our tasks and left in his truck to deliver candy. A few hours later his wife called us to the back door with sandwiches and lemonade, which were, unexpected but greatly appreciated. This went on for several Saturday’s until one morning when we reported for work, Mr. Krainbrink told us he felt that we were even and that once we finished that day we didn’t have to come back. To tell you the truth, Jimmy and I were both a little crestfallen since the yard work wasn’t that hard and the sandwiches were pretty good. That day when we left Mrs. Krainbrink came out and told us what a good job we had done and gave both of us a dollar each. We half-heartedly tried to return the money but she wouldn’t have it back. I thought about Jr. Who was constantly poking fun at Jimmy and me because we had to do menial labor for our transgressions. I was beginning to learn a little about human nature. I didn’t care what he said about us. Secretly, I was pleased that we had made amends to Mr. Krainbrink. Like I said, you play and you have to pay.
