Belonging

Coerced into a sorority initiation, a young woman hides a blade to rob a corner store.

The blade was up against my butt, pressing down with every step I took on my left leg. I kept it hidden between my pants and my underwear. I wanted to grab at it when I needed it. I didn’t want to be in the store that long. Not long at all. Just long enough to get the gum, threaten the guy and run the fuck out.

That was the dare, the initiation. Hold up a store.

“Any store?” I remember asking when I first joined the sorority.

“Any store, but you have to have the clerk fear for their life,” they replied.

“How the hell am I going to do that?” I remember asking.

“Improvise,” they said.

The ding of the bell above the glass door sprang to life, reminding me of the misdeed I was about to commit. I tiptoed inside even though the clerk knew I was in there. He was an old timer. He was reading a newspaper. I didn’t think they delivered those anymore. He didn’t bother to look up as I entered, such was the lack of a threat I posed.

I walked over to the cashier. There was a makeshift fence of steel wire that separated the customer from the clerk. He had obviously had a few attempts on his life before. I stepped forward. My heart racing.

“I help you?” he asked, without looking up from his paper. “Cigarettes require ID,” he guessed before I could answer.

“No, thank you, I just need some…” I scanned the candy at my waist height. I scooped up the nearest gum I could find. “Just this please,” I said.

He looked up and held out a hand to scan the item. He was wearing a face mask, an expensive one covered over the ears, looped over and covering his mouth.

I handed him the gum, forgetting my purpose in the store. He snatched at it, ran it under the scanner and held it down on the counter.

“Two thirty,” he said. Waiting for me to pull out my wallet. Instinctively, I reached around and brushed past the handle of the knife. This was it. The moment of truth.

“Hold up!” he suddenly yelled. “Take three steps back!”

I was frozen in time. He was demanding of me now, rather than the other way around.

“Excuse me?” I asked in what felt like my most timid voice.

“Take three steps back. NOW!” he yelled.

I did as I was told. Zero authority. His frame towering over me as he looked down on me from above.

“There!” he said pointing to the floor. I looked down to see a circular sticker from a bygone age, weathered, torn and barely legible. ‘Keep distance from the counter, approximately one point five metres.’

“Keep back a metre and a half!” he yelled again.

“Why?” I asked.

“Don’t ‘why me’, young lady,” he said. “Just do it, my store my rules.”

I took another step back. This time I reached around and grabbed a hold of the handle and squeezed it firmly in my palm. I felt the grooves dig in.

“Oh you want to use that on me do ya? Just like your little college mates did,” he said. He knew. Somehow, he had known my true purpose.

“And what good do you think that puny knife will do from all the way back there?” he asked.

Then he reached under his counter and pulled out a metal baseball bat. He swung down hard as if he were hammering a nail and shattered the glass bench that housed the candy and other confectionery. I took another step back to avoid the spray of glass.

He took another swing at the glass that held up the metal rods. The shattering caused them to fall and he leapt over the counter and approached me with cautious steps.

“None of you kids respect me, respect my place of business. You just think I am someone you can come in and attack for your little ego boost. Not today!” he said as he swung at my head, causing me to fall backwards down the centre aisle. His bat hammering a rack of glass bottles of soda, causing them to smash all over the aisles and shelves.

“You don’t understand,” I said as I crawled on my backside, looking up at my hunter. The blade cutting something of flesh as I was leaving a trail of blood down the path with each crawl.

“They made me do it!” I yelled.

“You had no choice?!” He yelled back. He took another swing down from above and I got up and ran in time for the bat to clunk down on the linoleum floor. I ran to the back of the store and hid behind the last aisles, my path blocked by the refrigerators that lined the back wall.

“Please, I made a mistake, just let me leave!” I screamed. I could not control the cry, his fear was now my fear.

Another smash. I looked over and could see he had cleared the opposite aisle of bottled water, leaving the floor drenched.

“Goddam it you got me!” he said. He dropped the bat with a thud.

“I cannot resist the pleas of a young girl. You have found my weakness,” he said.

He dropped to his knees and placed his hands together.

“I ask that you forgive my intimidation tactics. I don’t mean them either; I just am so sick of being robbed. You have to understand that it is so difficult for a small business owner to go through one day… just one fucking day when their life isn’t threatened. That’s why I loved the pandemic! The distance! The space! People had to keep their distance! Give me distance once more, please! Oh God!” he said as he started to weep.

I didn’t wait for a further invitation. Taking my cue, I headed east down the far aisle and made a beeline for the exit. I pushed out the glass doors and heard the familiar ding of the bell above, and was confronted by Katie, Yvonne, and Maxine. They looked past me and saw the damage of the store and the clerk in tears as he rested on his knees.

“Jesus,” said Maxine. She gave me a smirk and a nudge on the shoulder.

“You’re in, girl,”

“We'd better get the hell out of here,” said Yvonne.

The four of us ran like the wind. We sprinted to the nearest cross corner where a train was waiting for the boarding of final passengers. It was not heading in our direction, but we needed an escape and this was the most obvious. They were all laughing, but I wasn’t. They had made me one of them, but I never would be.