Mike had a great idea.
We were gonna rob the cash box at the little grocery store on the right
hand side of the sweeping curve of Meyers Way as it heads north through Top Hat
and crests the hill that curves down to South Park and the First Avenue Bridge
to Seattle. We were young and dumb, of
course, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
That old store, at one end of a building that later would be
considered a strip mall that included Pat’s Top Hat Cycle, run by one of the
old Seattle legends from the days when Harleys and Indians duked it out with
Triumphs and Nortons on the main drags of places like White Center or the
parking lots of the Red Feather Tavern, was an important resource for those of
us in the neighborhood who were ready to party, but too young to vote. It was where we got our beer on a Friday
night when there was a dance at the field house in the old projects down on 8th
Avenue off 102nd.
Before it was a store, it was a bar, and the side door was
into the parking lot through a passageway that was not visible by the bartender,
and they put a cigarette dispenser right there by the door! We would slip in, put a quarter in the
machine and pull the handle, and out would drop a Lucky Strike or a Pall Mall
or a Camel, and we’d be outta there. I
remember being shocked when they raised the price to thirty-five cents. I swore I was gonna quit when they raised it
to fifty.
The way it worked with the beer, we would stand out in the
parking lot between the store and the barber shop, kinda leaned up against the
wall so as not to be too obvious. One of
us, usually the one who had the $2 it took to make this work, would size up the
customers as they came and went, and approach a likely prospect, usually a guy
old enough to buy a beer but young enough to remember standing in the same lot,
and say, “Hey man, can you do us a favor, and buy us a six pack? We’ll buy you one, too!” Nine times out of ten they would say, “Sure,
gimme the money,” and off they’d go inside, usually coming back out shortly
with a six pack of cold Heidelberg lagers, the beer that tastes the same
whether you’re drinking it or puking it back out. Once in a while we’d pick the wrong guy and
he’d buy a half rack with our money and slip out the back door, but that was
the price of tuition.
Then we’d beat feet down 108th to the schoolyard
where everyone gathered, stopping on the way to huddle in the bushes on the
southeast side of the park to slam down one Heidelberg each to give us the
courage to face those dangerous girls in there, and maybe even dance with
one. The room would be dark, with
various flashing lights, and one of the local garage bands blazing away at one of the latest top
40 tunes with the amps set to 9. “House
of the Rising Sun” by the Animals was a favorite, and “Louie, Louie”, of
course. The dance floor would be crowded
with boys and girls making with the latest moves from American Bandstand while
a steady stream of people circulated in a clockwise direction constantly,
feeding and being fed by the dance floor, while the walls were lined with
flowers, mostly of the male persuasion.
Everybody was there. All the
popular kids were on the dance floor, or gathered in their cliques. Outside, the bad boys and the tough guys
squared off with the occasional jock in a constant testing of status typical of
the young breeding male. After the bands
finished their battle – there was usually three bands on any given night, more
due to the fact that none of them had more than one set memorized than anything
else- there was always a fight or two in the parking lot. We’d gather to watch that, then we’d head
back through the woods to sit on a log and drink our second beer, which we hid
in the bushes when we went inside. One
time somebody found our beer, and that sucked.
After that we’d head for the lake to see who was there and play footsy
with the cops. Life was sweet in the
summer of 1967. We had it made…
But back to the robbery.
Mike was the ringleader of our little neighborhood bunch, most of the
time, and he always came up with good ideas.
He explained to us how it was gonna work. “Okay, you two guys”, pointing at me and
Lefty, “are going to walk in the store and get into a big fight. You have to really make it look good, maybe
one of you go in first and the next one come in, then you pass in the milk
aisle, and you slap him, then you deck him, then it’s on! Meanwhile, while
everyone is distracted, I’ll slip in the back door, which the old man always
leaves open in the summertime, and grab the cash box, which he hides under the
counter, then I’ll run out the back. After
a while, you two work your fight up to the front door, then you run out, and
you call him a name, then you run after him, and chase him down the
street. We’ll meet up later and divide
the loot! So whaddaya say, you ready?!”
Lefty and I looked at each other. The problem was, we had been buddies for so
long, grew up together, really, but we never had actually come to blows, so we
really didn’t know which one of us was tougher, and probably didn’t want to,
either. So I said, “It sounds good, Mike,
but how about you and Lefty fight, and I’ll grab the cash box?” Lefty said, “Bull Shit. You two are the same size, and I’m smaller
than either of you, so a fight with me won’t be convincing. I’ll grab the cash box, while you two fight.”
The longer we negotiated, the farther we got from a
solution. So we decided to wait until
dark and throw a rock through the plate glass window of the fruit stand/grocery
on the other side of the old Flying A gas station by the actual Top Hat
instead, and steal all the cigarettes and candy the old fool that runs the
place displays in that window. I tell
ya, life for a juvenile delinquent in White Center in the early ‘60s was
tough. You hadda be on your game. :-{)}
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