Nightwings

- No way you did that, you're lying

My friends don't believe me when I'm telling them about what I did last summer.
We're hanging about outside a grocery store, whiling away the hours in the middle of summer.

 - I'm telling the truth and just to prove it I'll do it again tonight...right here. 
- Yeah, you do that and then you bring us back something to actually prove you did it.

We part, each of us going back home for dinner. Before I return I slip inside the grocery store and unlock the back door in preparation for the evening's activities.

Dinner time comes and goes without incidents, I'm starting to have second thoughts about the pending mission but at stake is my 14-year old pride and desire to prove myself to my friends.
Because you've got to, mister.

After dinner I slip outside unnoticed and head downtown again on my bike, the grocery store closed at 18:00 so the coast should be clear by now.  I'll pop inside, pick a trophy from some of the merchandise in there and then return triumphant to my friends.

The back door on the grocery store opens silently when I try it, I slip inside, close it behind me and survey the battlefield within.

My thoughts return to last summer, to making a conscious choice as a 13-year old child to travel 5 miles in the middle of the night across gravel roads just to satisfy a frustrated desire for adventure, excitement and challenge by breaking into the local supermarket/gas station.

I almost got caught back then before the episode even began, people apparently stay behind after work doing things I had no idea about.  I was forced to jump headlong into a recess between two flag poles and press myself into the ground there to avoid detection as the headlights of the last car to leave passed over me.

Detection is partly based on expectations, my advantage was that nobody was expecting a minor to be prowling around the premises and if they did spot me at all they didn't jump to the conclusion that I was planning on breaking and entering anything.

In either case, the car pulls out of the parking lot and heads home without slowing down. I wait around for a few minutes more just to be safe and then stand up again, confident that I'm alone now.

In preparation for the night's activities, I had brought a screwdriver with me when we visited the supermarket earlier that day. From the inside of the restrooms I had unscrewed the hinges of a window on the backside of the building but left it closed in such a way that a quick glance at it from the inside would leave you thinking it was safely closed.

I climb up to the window, pry it open and squeeze myself inside the narrow frame that a grown-up would never fit through. The toilet inside serves as a platform that I can slink down onto and I soon find myself standing upright again inside the building.

To cover my tracks I screw the hinges back on and wipe away any signs of entry, mostly just dirt and grime but fingerprints as well just in case the police gets called in.

I move into the building itself and feel like I'm Ali Baba with all the treasures of Aladdin laying before me, waiting to be plucked. I quickly fill my backpack with loot and sneak back outside using a side entrance.

Afterwards, during a nerve-wracking ride home on a dark, moonless night I find myself talking to God for the first time in a long while.

I promise her I'll be good for the rest of my life if only I can make it the whole way back to the farm before the Nightwings take me and consume my soul and devour my body alive.

I made it back in one piece then, unnoticed and unmolested... with or without divine intervention.

As I'm reflecting on this in the present I hear the sound of footsteps coming from inside the grocery store, the owner hasn't left yet and I'm about to be discovered.

The store was the kind that carried just about every item anyone would possibly be willing to pay for. This included a rack of thick winter clothing that I use to duck behind just as the owner comes into view and walks into his back office where he sits down and starts counting money and balancing the books for the month.

The owner was notorious among the younger boys in the village, he had a reputation for inviting small groups of boys into his back office where he would talk to them about strange things they didn't quite understand.

Some said he had a video cassette player and a TV in there, a Betamax. His was also one of the few places where you could actually still rent a Betamax tape.

Some of the other boys said he had porn videos there also, although none would acknowledge that they had seen it themselves.

The unspoken myth we shared amongst us was that he liked young boys and gave them gifts and even boys want to be liked and pampered even if we couldn't imagine the whole truth behind what that attention would have meant.

All this goes through my mind as I'm hiding there behind the clothes rack, I'm not talking to God about this but I am making a plan B for what to do if the owner discovers me.

I'm frantically considering offering to let the owner do whatever he wants with me in trade for free passage in case of discovery.

In the meantime I'm barely breathing behind the clothes rack and completely immobile for what seems like hours.

Eventually, the owner is done with his chores and stands up. He walks to the back door that I came in through and finds it to be unlocked. He locks it, then stands silent for a few moments as if pondering something or listening for someone.

He walks by within a yard of my hiding place and further on into the store itself, then he's gone and I hear the front door open and shut as he leaves.

I've had enough excitement and adventure for today and I don't stick around for loot or trophies this time. My friends don't get their proof but I'm just happy to have dodged whatever bullet was hiding in the gun I had dug up and relieved to be climbing into bed at home without any other thoughts accompanying me.

In comparison, the loot from last year's heist was that much more rewarding to a 13-year old boy with rampant hormones dancing around.

A couple of Coke bottles, 4 chocolate bars and the piece de resistance.... a copy of every single pornographic magazine and book sold by the supermarket.

Totally worth the effort, value is in the eye of the consumer.