| |
Picture Credits: http://www.blwnscale.com/blwphotos/bl-87.jpg
I was only twenty when it happened. Looking back, I can see how lucky I am to still be here. But at the time, I just felt unlucky. Heck, it wasn't even my shift to work!
I was working as a driveway attendant at a Clark gas station. Not too many girls pumped gas back then. That was before the days of self-serve. I usually worked from 10:00 A.M. until 6:00 P.M. One of the guys who worked at night really needed that night off, and asked if I would switch. I thought it would be fine. Yeah, right!
Anyway, we sold a lot of chips, milk, and ice there, but the cigarettes were a big business. They ran fifty cents a pack back then (cheap, right?), and they were kept in a big white box on the drive. Cartons were kept in the back-room and they ran five dollars. Sure, you could get a carton cheaper elsewhere, but you couldn't beat the convenience. Everybody had to put gas in their tank, right?
The manager of the station was always there when I worked during the day. And he always got off work at the same time as me, so I never had a reason to feel like it wasn't safe working there. Tonight, though, I was alone after he finished his shift. Things seemed to be going smoothly, at least until just after dark.
It was kind of slow once rush-hour was over. There were no cars on the drive, and I opened the box that held the cigarette packs to see what I could fill in. Then I heard someone behind me.
"Do you have a carton of Camel, non-filters?" he asked.
I turned and smiled at him and said, "Sure, one second."
I went into the station, which is just a small building where the milk, chips and snacks were kept, along with the manager's "work desk," if you could call it that. Straight across from the glass front door was another door, this one solid and white. This led to the back-room. There we kept the cartons of cigarettes and the "bank" of bills and rolls of spare change that was supposed to add up to the fifty dollars that we would leave for the next shift.
Each shift started with $50 that was built up from the previous shift. As we accumulated money from sales, we would build the bank for the next shift. This would be kept locked up in a cabinet. The money that we kept on us for making change for customers was supposed to be no more than the fifty dollars we started our shift with. After that, we dropped any excess in the safe which was in the floor of the back-room.
Well, as I was saying, I went to the back-room to get those Camels for the guy. I reached up to grab them, and turned around to see the doorway trying to be filled by this guy. I say "trying,", because he was very thin. His hair was scraggly, he needed a shave, and his clothes reminded me of a homeless person. But the thing I noticed first and foremost, as he stood in that doorway, was the butcher knife he held in his hand. I swear, the blade had to have been eight inches long.
The first thing he says is, "Give me your money." Right away, my mind is racing. I remember being told that if any money is missing from my shift, it would come out of my paycheck. Here I am, a single mother, making about $2.75 an hour, and this guy is planning on taking at least one hundred dollars, though I knew it would top that. He couldn't have known that I didn't make the last drop in time.
I started to say something and got as far as "Look..." I saw the knife practically in front of my face, and heard in the distance, "Do you want me to HURT you???" There was a desperation in that voice, and I wanted to see my daughter again, so I just started giving him the cash on me. He already knew where the rest was, and he took that, too.
Okay, I thought, now he'll go. But what he said next almost made my heart catch in my throat. "Get on the floor!" I just looked up at him like a deer in the headlights. "Lay down on the floor!" he yelled, moving that knife toward me again. Now I was getting scared. I got down on the floor, but laid on my stomach, not wanting to imagine what was going to happen next.
Then he said, "Now don't get up, okay?"
Silence..."OKAY???" "Okay," I said shakily.
I laid there, hearing nothing. I didn't know what he was doing, but I wasn't about to get up and find out. I just waited...and waited...nothing! It seemed like forever, but was really only moments. Finally, I got up and slowly came out of the back-room. Another man was entering the building with a worried look on his face. "Did that guy just rob you?" he asked in an excited tone. "Yes," was all I could get out. He flipped a badge open and said, "I'm an off-duty police sergeant, call 911." and he ran off into the dark.
I did as he instructed, and I went outside, sat down, and just lost my cool. I couldn't help it, I just cried. I remember there were two brothers, around 12 or 14, that came in there to buy cigarettes. This was a long time ago, and it was "normal" then for kids to buy them. I'll never forget those two that night. There were a couple cars on the drive waiting for gas, and people were coming in for cigarettes, too. I couldn't do it. I was too shaken up. But those two brothers, they started pumping gas, bringing me the money and taking the change back to the customers. They were great! The off-duty sergeant came back and there were cops asking me questions.
Next thing I know, the manager drove up, as well as my boyfriend. I was so relieved. They had both heard about it on their Cb's and came right away.
It turned out that this guy had been robbing all the Clark Stations and some taxis in the area and had even shot a cab driver. He was doing it all to support his heroin addiction. In the end, I had to go to court and testify. I was the only one he robbed who had a witness, and I was lucky enough for it to have been a cop, and a sergeant at that.
He went to jail for a few years, and I stopped waking up in the middle of the night from bad dreams I could never remember. It's all history now. A very lucky history for me. I worked in other gas stations after that, but I never worked alone at one. I didn't want to find out if I used up all my luck.
|
Help Us Stop Plagiarism -
Nearly all works at PnP are original. However a few people choose to plagiarize.
To check, choose a phrase from the work, then either drag and drop to the search box or copy and paste.
click on search and works at Google will be shown which match. Just to be sure, please do this before
you recommend or rate the work highly...
|
 |
|
|
|
Select a Random Work
from Stories
|
|
Welcome !
