About a week before graduation, I found myself riding the college’s shuttle bus, which chartered students to and from the different campuses located in Cambridge and Boston. Usually I refrained from riding the shuttle because it was primarily used by rambunctious freshmen, and riding around with them made me feel like a field trip chaperone. Worse, the shuttle was decrepit and seemed to lack any sort of shock absorbers. It wasn’t unusual to see students bouncing a few feet into the air when the vehicle crossed especially rough terrain. On this particular day, I’d just wrapped up a meeting with my adviser and was forced to utilize the shuttle since it was free. Earlier that morning, I’d crammed my backpack into my locker in a hurry, forgetting to grab my wallet before I left for my meeting. I had a habit of procrastinating and scrambling to be on time, and being flustered made me forgetful. Likewise, I’d been so busy trying to tie up loose ends before the close of the school year that I’d forgotten to eat anything all day, and sitting on the shuttle, I realized I was ravenous. I’d gone from being merely hungry to feeling shaky and light-headed in a matter of minutes, and I felt that if I didn’t get food in me soon my stomach might start consuming itself. This must have been how Karen Carpenter felt, I thought as I gazed out the window.
I sank into the scratchy, faded fabric of my seat and closed my eyes, imagining crispy, golden chicken nuggets falling from the sky like big deep-fried raindrops. I could almost taste them. I was devising a mental list of food I’d devour when I got to the cafeteria when I heard a loud bang that sounded like a gunshot and felt the shuttle lurch to the right. The driver cursed and quickly parked. He pulled out his cell phone.
“Mi llanta se explotó!” he barked into his phone. I don’t speak Spanish, but I didn’t need a translator to tell me what explotó meant. We’d obviously blown a tire. A few moments later, the driver hung up and notified the passengers of what we already knew. “Everybody off!” he instructed, motioning for us to exit the vehicle and wait on the sidewalk. We did so, grumbling. “New shuttle soon. Half hour,” the driver shouted.
I immediately began to panic. Perhaps my blood sugar was dropping too low and clouding my judgment, but I felt like I didn’t have time to wait around for a new shuttle. I needed food. I broke away from the group and made my way down the street, keeping an eye out for a deli or a food cart, or even some discarded takeout in a trash can. In my soft suburban upbringing, I’d never experienced real hunger, and it made me nervous to feel so jittery and dizzy. Fortunately I found a supermarket only a couple of blocks away. In my heightened awareness, the blue-and-yellow neon sign seemed to pulsate with vibrancy, more colorful than I remembered. Once inside and overwhelmed at my food prospects, I wandered through the aisles, searching for something cheap and easily edible—anything that might hold me over until I could get a proper meal. I started taking inventory: Hot Pockets would have to be microwaved, and everything at the deli’s hot bar had crusted over under the heat lamps. But there was so much else to choose from. I was starting to feel relief at the plethora of food I saw when it dawned on me: I didn’t have my wallet. Even if I chose something to eat, I wouldn’t be able to pay for it.
Well, that’s it, I thought. This supermarket shall be my final resting place. I found Rome built of brick… I leave her clothed in marble.
Certain death was close at hand, so I considered my options. I thought about my friend Agnes, whose favorite pastime was shoplifting, and how she’d never been caught. In fact I’d watched her blatantly leave clothing stores, her coat bulging with pilfered goods, and nobody had ever lifted a finger to stop her.
I decided that if Agnes had always been so flippant about it and had never suffered any repercussions, I could get away with it too. Something small, I thought, would surely go unnoticed. Who would I be hurting? The giant chain grocery store? They wouldn’t miss anything. They probably wouldn’t even notice. Besides, it was a life-and-death situation. I walked the aisles a bit longer, searching for the right item.
It didn’t take me long to find something suitable.
Chocolate milk! Protein and sugar. Perfect. I lifted a bottle off the shelf and hesitated, unsure of what I was about to do. The only other thing I’d stolen in my life was a couch from the Harvard student lounge, and that was in the middle of the night and under the influence of at least nine beers. This, I figured, would be easier.
The intense hunger I felt acted as its own sort of drug. Almost involuntarily, I reached for the bottle with trembling fingers that hardly seemed like my own. Quietly and discreetly, I sheathed the bottle of chocolate milk in my jacket’s front inside pocket. It fit perfectly, as if the jacket were designed for this sole purpose.
As I walked toward the giant exit sign at the front of the store, I felt like there was a spotlight on me. I maneuvered as casually as I could, swinging my arms, hyper-aware of my movements, like a robot learning to walk for the first time.
I made it to the door without detection and was just reaching to push it open when I felt a firm hand on my shoulder. Alarmed, I spun around, and my heart sank. A scruffy-looking guy, short and somewhat disheveled, stood behind me holding a tiny, silver badge.
His badge was smaller than any I’d seen a policeman carry, so I assumed he was just a security guard. For a brief moment I considered making a break for it, but in my weakened state I wouldn’t have made it far. I knew I had no alternative but to face the music. My best friend in high school had once gotten out of a trespassing fine by crying, but that wasn’t an option for me. (I’ve only cried twice in my life, and both times occurred while watching Homeward Bound.)
The security guard instructed me to follow him and led me into a tiny back room with a little metal table and a wall of television monitors. Already my mind was racing with thoughts of exorbitant fines and possible jail time. They’ll make an example out of me, I thought. I’m headed for the big house. I’ll never survive, I’m too soft! Oh God, my eyebrows will grow back together! I envisioned my future incarceration, complete with orange jumpsuit and prison tattoos, my heart sinking lower and lower.
“ID please,” the guard instructed, but since I didn’t have my wallet I had to give him my information verbally and it didn’t even occur to me to lie. He copied my answers onto a cream-colored form attached to a clipboard. When he asked me where I lived I gave him my local address in Cambridge, but told him I was graduating soon and wouldn’t be living there much longer. He made a note of it. “So young man, why were you stealing chocolate milk?”
“I was starving, and I don’t have any money,” I said. I paused and added, “Just like Aladdin.” He gave me a look of absolute pity and wrote down a few more scribbly lines. He then set his clipboard on the table, and I braced myself for punishment. Instead he told me I could leave, but added a final warning for good measure.
Trembling slightly, I rose from the table and left the store, shamed but relieved. I felt like I’d dodged a bullet, though in reality I was probably just one of many shoplifters the security guard had caught that day. I’d missed the shuttle back to campus and had to walk, but somehow I no longer felt as hungry as before.
I graduated a few weeks later, moved out of my house in Cambridge, and returned home to Montana for the summer before making my move to Portland. I only had a few weeks there, but the days passed like any other vacation spent at home. I lounged around in the basement and zoned out on junky television. I’d put the shoplifting episode behind me, eager to start the adventure that would be my life in Oregon.
I was sleeping late one afternoon when I awoke with a start to my mother shrieking my name in the furious tone of voice I’d heard only once before as a teenager when I’d accidentally left the stove on for an entire weekend. I shot out of bed with a start, and emerged from my room half-asleep and very confused. My mother stood in the kitchen holding a piece of paper and a newly opened envelope. She was clearly livid.
The grocery store I’d stolen from hadn’t quite forgotten the incident as I’d hoped. They had sent a damages bill to my apartment in Massachusetts to the tune of two hundred dollars. It had arrived after I’d moved out, and since they’d received no payment, they’d escalated the bill to five hundred dollars. My school had finally forwarded it to the only other address they had on file: my mother’s home in Montana. She, unfortunately, had been the first to receive the mail that day. She frequently opened my school mail since it was usually about tuition and my loans were under her name. This was obviously not the kind of letter she was expecting to open.
“What the hell did you steal that cost five hundred dollars?” she roared, outraged that she had raised a thief.
“Nothing!” I croaked, “I mean, I tried to steal chocolate milk, but only because I was about to die! I was just hungry, I swear!” For a moment it seemed like she didn’t believe me, but when my embarrassed, guilty expression made it clear that I was in fact telling the truth, her face rendered the same look of pity I’d received from the security guard.
“This is ridiculous, Adam. What is wrong with you?” She set the bill down on the counter and picked up the telephone, then dialed the number of the grocery store. “Yeah, hi,” she said into the receiver a few moments later. “We just received a bill for five hundred dollars, for chocolate milk… Adam Ellis… Yes… Yes, I understand it’s for shoplifting, but five hundred bucks is bullshit… I don’t care, it’s bullshit… Yeah, we’re not paying that. How much does chocolate milk cost in your store?… Mmhmm… Okay, then we’ll send a check for $1.49… Okay, great. Goodbye.” She set the receiver down and glowered at me. I felt like a child, not like a newly graduated twenty-two-year-old ready to start a grown-up life.
“I would’ve paid it…” I said meekly. I would have too, and I’m sure my mother knew that, but I think she was secretly thrilled at the opportunity to argue with someone in retail. After all, this was the woman who once convinced Target to accept a return on boots she’d purchased at Payless. Still, I could tell she was disappointed in me, and I was embarrassed for myself. Not a month into my post-college life and I’d already done something idiotic. Worse, my mother had bailed me out of the situation. What a wonderful start to my adult existence.