Entry #654234, added on 06-12-09 @ 2:38 pm EDT
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| June 12--700 Words | Entry #654234 |
Convenience store tales continued:
I worked the midnight shift at one store. I loved it! All the interesting people are out in the night. I love the night. It feels mysterious. I was usually busyish until about two in the morning, sometimes three. Then it would die off. I loved that part too. It was like the night was mine while the world was sleeping. I could get my work done at my own pace and sometime stand outside and just enjoy the quiet that accompanies early morning.
One night, it had been especially quiet. We had had an ice storm and not many were braving the dangerous driving surfaces. It had been dead all night. I was grateful for a customer just to break up the monotony. About four, a man who I didn't know came in. He had walked, he said and needed the phone. I pointed out the inside pay phone as well as the outside one. He chose the outside phone. I should have had red flags going up right then. What kind of person would choose to go out in the bitter cold to use the phone when there was one inside where it was warm? Anyway, he came back in and talked for about thirty minutes then asked whether we had a public restroom. We did and he left to make use of it.
He had barely closed the door behind him when two men entered the store. Both were Hispanic, both in white trench coats, one with a mustache. That's all I can tell you about them. Well that and they had a gun. It was a small caliber six shooter. The one with the pistol came behind the counter and demanded money in a thick accent. He shoved the gun in my ribs and repeated his demand. I told them there was someone in the restroom. They couldn't understand. They wanted the register that we usually used opened. The problem was, it was broken and I couldn't open it. I tried to tell him the money was in the other register. He just kept demanding I open the one, and he pulled the trigger, once, twice, three, four times. The gun didn't go off.
By this time, I had one or two chances to find out if the gun was loaded or not. A car pulled up outside. In broken English, the man with the gun told me, "Don't call the cops. Don't tell anyone." And they left.
A man emerged from the car and walked in the door and I lost it. I started crying and begged him not to leave that I had just been robbed. He tells me, "Lady, I'm just on my way to work!"
To call the sheriff's department, I had to come out from behind the counter and use the inside pay phone. Nice set up, huh? The dispatcher stayed on the line while I waited for the town's police chief to show up. It turned out that the only deputy working deep nights was off in a ditch somewhere north in the county. The chief decides he needs to be in complete uniform (the dispatcher woke him up at home) so it took him about thirty minutes to show. Of course, the robbers are long gone by now. He took my statement, the one of the guy in the bathroom and the customer who came in and left. My boss came in while this was going on, my shift was over and she came to relieve me. She asked what happened and if they got anything. The district manager had the same concerns. No one asked if I was okay.
My theory on the whole thing is that the guy in the bathroom was in on it. He used the outside phone to call them. Someone had taught them just enough English to communicate their desire for the money. And, I believe, the gun was a prop. I think it was empty. I thought I recognized one of the men months later when he came into the same store. He kinda got a deer in the headlight look and left promptly.
I refused to work anymore midnight shifts after that.
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