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Ben Franklin

When I was in junior high, I hung out a lot with a guy named Art and two girls, Mandi (she spelled it with the “i” to be ironic, see) and Jenny. In a time of my life where nearly everything that happened confused me for one reason or another, it was nice to have people like them around. Thanks to the magic of marijuana and LSD, they were able to cut through the bullshit and really help me understand what was going on.

I have a lot of stories about Art, Mandi, and Jenny (and others), and many of them are much more sordid than the one I’m about to tell. But this story has been in my head for the past few days for some reason, so I figured since I’m not planning on blogging about anything that’s happened to me over the past few weeks, I may as well throw my loyal readers a bone and write about something that happened many years ago.

So, unofficially, Art and I were in a band. Not a good band, by any means. In fact, it wasn’t much of a band at all. We had four guitar players, a bass player who couldn’t actually play the bass (but owned one), a drummer who didn’t own a drum set (but could play), and no singer. Needless to say, we played a lot of speed-metal, and we didn’t play it well (or fast).

On one of the three occasions during which we actually rehearsed — the last one, if I remember accurately; sometime shortly thereafter, we disbanded and pursued solo careers — we decided to take a break mid-way through and go up to our little “downtown” area to fuck around. We did this often, and despite the fact that we rarely did anything interesting, it never got old.

Essentially, our downtown area stretched over two blocks (it has since expanded to two-and-a-half blocks): on one side was a delapidated shopping center, and one the other side was a bustling strip-mall. Fascinating local trivia: the dilapidated shopping center thrived when I was a kid, and the strip-mall across the street was a wheat field. Jewel, which is owned by mega-chain Albertsons (a chain that people outside of Chicago may have actually heard of), was the shoppinf center’s — my God, am I actually using this pun? — crown-jewel (zing!).

At some point, they bought half of the wheat field, developed it, built a new Jewel, but kept the lease on the abandoned property so they wouldn’t have any competition. Because the Jewel was now across the street, along with several other new stores, the original shopping center lost most of its business, and most places closed down. Since then, Jewel gave up its lease, the shopping center was leveled and rebuilt as a Dominick’s (Safeway to out-of-towners), and it’s actually a nice little strip-mall now.

When I was in junior high, the focal point of the delapidated shopping center was a Walgreens drug store. Nestled behind it was the abandoned Jewel, an abandoned alternate grocery store (Michaels Finer Foods, my sister reminds me), an abandoned video store, a cocktail lounge that may or may not have been abandoned at that point, an abandoned laundromat, a Goodyear, a Ben Franklin five-and-dime, a clothing store, and an Ace hardware store. There was also a dollar movie theatre (formerly a dollar porn theatre) and a Burger King, but I don’t think they technically counted as a part of the shopping center.

We used to go and fuck around at the Walgreens, the Ace, and the Ben Franklin. We live in the suburbs; there’s really not a whole lot to do. If we were feeling ambitious, we’d go shoplift from Jewel, or the 7-Eleven down the street, but mostly we targeted the delapidated shopping center because it was just more feeble.

We mostly bought candy and soda and shit; if funds were low, we’d shoplift (OMG!), but mostly we were honest. Sometimes, we’d pull pranks, like taking the magnetic stickers out of wallets and attaching them to customers’ coats so they’d set off the alarm. Imagine the fun!

We also used to have quite a time at the Ben Franklin, which was independently owned and one of the very few Ben Franklin stores around. It was owned by this terrifying, elderly Polish couple who happened to live down the street from Art. They also owned the clothing store next door, which was conjoined via an open doorway. On a few occasions we’d rip stuff off and make our escape through the clothing store, which never had any business (and usually didn’t have any clerks).

Mostly, though, we’d just go there and pretend to steal stuff, just to harass the Polish couple. The husband would follow us around, watching us like a hawk (and not just because we were teenagers — my parents used to complain about the same thing happening to them), so we’d pretend to steal stuff, and then they’d try to catch us at the front door as we left and demand that we empty our pockets. When they found our pockets empty, baffled, they’d let us go.

When you’re 13, this is a rockin’ good time. Looking back, it all seems extremely silly.

So, on this final rehearsal day, we went down to Ben Franklin to fuck around for awhile. This was one of the times we had actually decided it would be in our best interest to do some shoplifting. We didn’t see the Polish husband, and the wife was lazily leaning against the checkout counter. We figured it would be a great day to grab some random shit.

I don’t remember what all was grabbed, but in particular I snatched a few Lego sets I didn’t have (I obsessively collected Legos until I was about 15). When we were all ready, purloined goods shoved under our puffy winter coats, we made a mad dash for the conjoining doorway.

And then we got caught. The Polish man, sunken eyes attempting to bulge out at his, leathery face melting as he leered down at us, stood blocking the doorway, hands on his hips in a Superman pose.

“Yoo haff tehngs,” he said. The comical Polish accent was somehow no longer comical. In fact, we were all scared shitless.

Art, our fearless leader, attempted to explain. “Uh…” he said levelly, his quaking body betraying the steadiness of the nonsense syllable.

“Gheff dem beck pliss,” the Polish man said. I looked around to find another method of escape and found his wife down the kitchenware aisle, blocking our only other path.

“What?” Art said dumbly. This was the first time I questioned Art’s leadership ability. Normally, he was the big alpha-male, dictating nearly everything we said and did. I was proud to be his second-in-command/best friend, but at that point, things started to slip.

“Gheff dem beck pliss,” the Polish man repeated, and added, “err I kohl peliss.”

“Oh, shit,” one of our bandmates, Mark, muttered.

“Yoo dahm rett,” the Polish man agreed.

Mark cracked immediately, pulling several useless trinkets out from under his coat and handing them to the Polish man. Imitating what my bowels threatened to do, I simply sucked in my gut and allowed the Lego boxes to drop to the floor with a dull thud. Art and our other band members also returned their almost-stolen merchandise.

“Tehnks,” the Polish man said. “Yoo dent came behck.”

“No,” Art said, speaking for all of us. “No, we won’t.”

“Yoo meh go,” the Polish man said, pointing at the front door.

“Yeah,” Art said. “Let’s go, guys.”

Bummed, we walked down to Ace and took advantage of their free Dum-Dum sucker policy. With approximately 780 million Dum-Dums divided between us, we solemnly walked home, contemplating the gravity of the situation. Sure, they weren’t gonna call the police — or worse, our parents — but the idea that we were caught made us all uncomfortable and…guilty.

We didn’t shoplift because we needed things. We did it because we wanted things (and even then, not so much) and because it was fun. There was no guilt when it was fun. Who really cared, and who did it really hurt?

But getting caught…it put a damper on the whole thing, and I don’t really remember ever shoplifting after that point. I may have, but I honestly think that was the last time.

By the time we got back to Art’s house, we were reliving the entire story mockingly. Art did a pretty dead-on impression of the Polish man, and it made the guilt ebb away a bit when we put a comical spin on it. We all sort of acted out the scene as we walked down his street, and by the time we got back to his house, all six of us were giggling like women.

We sat around the kitchen, drinking sodas and telling the story to Art’s sister and her semi-live-in boyfriend. As Art, Mark, and Nick (our drummer who didn’t actually have a drum set) acted out all the parts, I stared dully out the window. Art’s dog, Brandy (actually, I think Brandy was the name of our fourth guitarist, Mike’s dog, but I can’t remember the name of Art’s dog), wandered around the backyard, randomly shitting.

“What’s wrong?” asked Steve, the bass player who couldn’t technically play.

“I think I have an idea,” I replied.

In fact, I did. Not an original idea, but a functional one nonetheless. When the story was done, we went back into the garage and I unveiled the plan.

We followed Brandy around for at least half an hour as it shit. Seriously, the goddamn thing was a machine. It was really disgusting.

We filled up about half of a brown lunch-bag, which was more than enough. Once that objective was completed, we waited until nightfall. To pass the time, we listened and attempted to recreate Metallica’s Master of Puppets album. We failed miserably.

When it got late enough, Art went down the street and confirmed that the Ben Franklin owners were, in fact, at home. Vengeance was at hand.

The six of us snuck stealthily down to their house, all but Art hiding behind bushes, trees, parked cars, garbage cans, etc. Art was the daring one. He tiptoed up the front walk, placed the bag on their welcome mat, pulled out his Zippo, and lit the bag. He then tapped the doorbell and ran his balls off until he was safely hidden behind an oak tree.

The Polish man yanked the door open, and for some reason I vividly remember the strange, creaky chunk it made when it open. That’s about the only detail that’s still sharp in my head. Weird.

The old man was wearing an old robe that looked like silk (but it was night and he was pretty much backlit by the light inside the house, so I may be wrong). He stared down at the flaming bag and, instinctively, he stomped down on it with one ancient slipper. With a sickening, wet “pleck” sound, the fire was out, and shit was all over his feet.

I stifled a giggle, but Mark wasn’t so lucky. He started laughing out loud, but was still obscured by the bushes. Heard but not seen.

The old man looked around for a second, saw nothing. He stared back down at his shit-covered slipper. He looked like the saddest human being who had ever lived, and suddenly I felt extremely awful about the whole thing. What the hell were we doing? I mean, Christ, we were trying to steal from this guy’s business, his livelihood, so we decide to take revenge in possibly the most juvenile way possible. Whose idea was this, anyway?

Oh wait.

Fortunately, the Polish man assuaged my guilt (for a little while, anyway) immediately thereafter. He raised his arms, stared up at the heavens, shook his fists, and screamed, “YOU ANIMALS!”

We all burst out laughing, and as if in mental sync, we all decided it would be an extremely good idea to run away at that point. So, we rushed back to the relative safety and comfort of Art’s garage and continued to laugh for at least half an hour.

Later that night, the guilt set in once again. I wasn’t the only one who felt it, I know, but I was the only one who said anything. I was told by Nick to “fuck them; they brought it on themselves,” despite the fact that they really didn’t. Later, the non-sociopaths in the group agreed that we were being retarded, we shouldn’t have done it, we shouldn’t have even been shoplifting, and after that we dropped it.

I like to think this experience was a turning point. At that time, I was headed on a somewhat rough path, but when I actually had a brush with doing something that was really pretty retarded, I labeled it as such (after the fact, of course, but that’s better than nothing) and really made a concerted, overall successful effort to not continue down that path.

Art and I sort of lost touch after freshman year of high school, and after the end of sophomore year I stopped seeing him around school entirely. I always assumed he went ahead with his plan (which at one point was our plan) and dropped out. In fact, I was right. I started running into him quite a bit between my senior year in high school and sophomore year in college — sure enough, he dropped out, got his GED, and got a job in some factory or something. He was still waiting for his big break to come, so he could be a heavy-metal star.

He’s basically Jack Black without the tongue-in-cheek irony.

Sometimes I wonder, had I felt no guilt — or even a tinge less guilt — after the experience with the Polish proprietors, if I’d be on the same path Art is on. If I’d still be a directionless burnout waiting around to be a star, instead of trying (and failing — but, hey, at least I’m trying!) to make it happen. I think I probably would be.

Not entirely interesting side-note: The reason I kept seeing Art so much from 2000-2002 was because he was in a band in our senior-year variety show, in which I was an actor, and because he started dating some 14-year-old girl when the rest of us went to college, so I kept seeing him at local functions for the next few years.

Posted by Stan on October 4, 2003 4:38 PM  | Permalink | Friends: Can’t Live with ‘Em | Digg It