A Memoir: Theatre Robbery

Back when I was in school, I often worked the evening shift at the local movie theater. That typically meant that I had to clean up in the snack bar at night's end, and other than a final mass exodus after the last movie got out, nothing much else ever happened.

Usually.

One night, Jerrold and Tony closed the snack bar with me. Jerrold was quick and clean, and he had a really laid-back dry sense of humor that was rare among the other employees. Tony was the usher that night; always the perfect gentlemen, he helped out when he could by moving heavy things for me.

The managers overseeing us that night were Bernie, Chris, and Matt. Bernie, who was very down-to-earth, stayed in the snack bar with us as she audited the registers, while Chris and Matt, our two token white guys, did the audit and safe drop in the box office with Lupe.

We were all remarkably efficient for once, and everything seemed to fly by without event... that is, until we got robbed.

I'm not even sure how it started; I must have had my head in the icebox or something. I was busily washing the dishes in the back before I even noticed anything out of the ordinary... when a strange guy in civilian clothes opened the door connecting the back room to the front of the snack bar and looked at me.

He appeared completely harmless, really. Eyes blank, a little confused, a little uncertain and almost stunned, he merely looked at me; and I, being the mindless little chronic pleaser that I am, I smiled brightly at him and asked, "Hi! Can I help you?"

Never mind that no one except employees were ever allowed into the snack bar, and never mind that he clearly did not belong; I saw nothing extraordinary at this point. I thought he must have been a friend of Bernie's who'd been allowed to jump the counter and socialize among those of us closing for the night.

And as for that stunned look on his face? Well, maybe he was lost.

Then he mumbled something incomprehensible.

"I'm sorry," I said pleasantly. "What did you say?"

"I said, 'Get down'. This is a robbery."

I actually frowned in thought when he said that because I was sure I'd heard him wrong. He couldn't have said what I thought he said because he simply didn't say it with enough conviction in his voice. He sounded so lost and so scared; I was sure Bernie and the guys were putting him up to it. I scrunched up my face and gave him the only response I had.

"Huh?!" I shook my head and smiled. "Is this a joke?"

At the back of my mind, I noticed that one of his hands was holding on to something; I couldn't tell what it was, just that he had a red bandana wrapped around it, and it could have been anything from a gun to a handful of jelly beans.

He looked really sad for a moment, almost grim. "No," he said. "Get down now. This is a robbery."

My first instinct was to move forward and push him aside, all the while calling out to the guys and telling them to cut it out with the jokes; but I couldn't hear them snickering through the open door, and I thought to myself... well, what if this guy really IS serious? I supposed then that I should play it safe, do what he said, and just get down.

"On the floor?" I asked him incredulously. Mind you, I'd just been washing the dishes, and the floor was a mess; the last thing I wanted to do was get my uniform--and possibly my hair and my face--dirty.

"Just get down," he said. He was beginning to sound a little anxious.

By this time, I realized that if this guy was serious, I'd better get down or I could get hurt. Still, there was that nagging thought, this image of the guys laughing at my expense because I was so gullible. The lost robber didn't smile, and he didn't move. I placed my yellow-gloved hands on the floor and got down.

"Keep your head down," he advised, but all I could do was keep it up and stare at him with what I'm sure was a puzzled look on my face. All that time, I kept saying to myself that he looked so ordinary, and I continued to stare at him, even when he looked down the hall and back down the front of the snack bar to make sure that his accomplices were in place.

"April," I heard Bernie call in a stage whisper from the front. "Are you okay?"

"Be quiet!" I heard an unfamiliar voice order.

For some reason, I just couldn't get it into my head that there really was a robbery occurring, and all I could think about was how ridiculous I must look lying face down on a soapy wet rubber floor mat and how inconvenient it would be to have to wash my uniform again so soon. Then, God help me, the absurdity of my thoughts struck me, and it was all I could do not to smile. I was about to do just that when the lost robber spoke up again.

"Get up and get in here," he told me, opening the door to the front wider.

"Huh?" I asked.

"Get on the floor here with the others," he clarified.

"Oh." I got up and moved towards the front of the snack bar, staying low because I thought it was what he wanted.

The first thing I noticed was that the others were all on the floor, too. Jerrold was on the floor by the register, Tony was by the door, and Bernie was on the floor below the hot dog grill. All were face down and helpless; not one of them was laughing.

That's when the enormity of the situation finally struck me, and that's when I started getting the urge to laugh.

"It'll be okay, April," Bernie assured me soothingly. "Are you alright?"

The question seemed silly somehow. Of course it was okay, and of course I was alright. The idea that anyone would be worried about me, when all I faced was the lost robber with the imagined gun cum jelly beans, only tickled me, and I found that I couldn't even answer her; I was trying so hard not to laugh out loud, I buried my face in my arms to hide my amusement.

The last thing I needed was to be the robber's focus; with my luck, they'd rage at me for not taking them seriously before they accidentally shot me in the foot or some equally inconvenient body part, which naturally meant that I wouldn't be able to work at the theater the next day.

It was a stupid thought, but there it was; it was exactly what I was thinking in that moment, and it was my greatest fear. I buried my face even further in my arms and shook silently with laughter at the absurd thoughts going through my head. I was more afraid of pain and inconvenience than I was of getting killed.

Concerned for my well being, Bernie spotted my shaking shoulders and immediately put a reassuring hand on my head and shoulders. "It's okay, April," she soothed. "They won't hurt you."

That did it. I was lost. I started laughing uncontrollably. I actually had to muffle my mouth on my sleeve to keep from making any sounds, and it was a while before Bernie finally realized that I was laughing, not crying.

By this time, the crooks got what they wanted, and I finally got to hear the real power behind the perpetrators' group. The lost robber's much stronger and more aggressive accomplice burst out of the box office and yelled at everyone to "Stay down, or I'll shoot your f-ing head off! I ain't kidding!"

He sounded like an incredibly bad movie, one with dialogue written by the writers of "Baywatch" or something. I would have howled in laughter if I wasn't so suddenly concerned that one of the robbers might actually trip over my outstretched legs on their way out.

I was lucky, though. The crooks made their run without touching a hair on my head, and instead, they used Tony and Jerrold as launching points to leap the snack bar's counter. The guys' resounding "oof!" was a sign of my luck that night.

When we could no longer hear the running footsteps of the perpetrators, I allowed myself the luxury of giggling a little. Still prone, Tony groaned and complained about one of them having stepped on his back, and Jerrold countered it by complaining about one of them having stepped on his butt.

"I think they crushed my balls," he elaborated, and I broke into full-fledged laughter.

...

The crooks were never caught. They took about $1500 and ran out through the back hall, across the back parking lot spaces, over a fence, and into a car that zoomed up the freeway on-ramp without incident. They had ripped out all the visible phones in the snack bar and the box office except for one that was fortunately hidden beneath Lupe's cash box, and Matt used that one working phone to call the police. It took only minutes for the cops to get there, but by then, it was too late.

When the pieces of everyone's stories were put together, I realized just how lucky I was. I never got to encounter the leader of the criminal group, and apparently, he was the one who had the temper and was obviously armed. It was he who ripped out the phones and manhandled Chris and Matt, pushing them hard against the wall by their collars and reducing them to walking tremors of fear. Had he been the one to tell me to get down on the floor, I doubt I would have ever stayed so calm, let alone laughed.

And even if I did manage to laugh in his presence, I'm sure he really would have shot a bullet through my foot--and deliberately--so that I absolutely couldn't work at the theater the next day.

Just my luck, I guess.

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