Velociworld

The Wages of Sin

When I was a little tyke we used to visit Solomon's Drugstore after Sunday School. It was one of those great musty places crammed with sundries, with a huge soda fountain bar. It sat catercorner from our church on Monterrey Square.

Once, when I was six, we made our usual visit. As I browsed the aisles, I realized that I had rabbit-ear pockets, nary a coin to my name. That's when I decided to boost something. Not being a professional thief, and this being my first foray into disorganized crime, I decided to lift a single solitary Mary Jane:



A one penny piece of candy. The lowest common denominator in pilferage. One literally could not steal anything of lesser value in the Western Hemisphere. But I was proud of my heist, yes I was. And so as we drove home afterwards, I kept my hand in the coat pocket of my seersucker suit (with shorts, naturally), fingering my prize.

Now the game plan had been to wait until I was home and alone in my room to enjoy my bounty, but avarice being one of the compelling components of my pysche, I caved. I eased the Mary Jane out of my pocket, and commenced to unwrap it. That's when my big brother ratted me out. Blew me in. Threw me under the bus. My mother whipped the car into a U-turn and raced back to Solomon's. She then literally dragged me by the ear back inside, and made me confess all to old man Solomon. The tears were coursing in shame by now, of course. I was a little blubbering miscreant, busted and confessing my crime to my victim.

Old man Solomon was a kindly soul, though. He felt my pain, and told me since I'd been to Sunday School, and had returned to confess my sin, I was probably a pretty good little fellow as a rule. He then opened a huge jar of penny candy, and told me I could take as much as my hand would hold as a reward for repenting. I shook my head, of course, knowing what a hide tanning that bit of greed would earn me, but my mother had softened by now, and said it was okay.

And so I triumphantly climbed back into the car, nose still running, and proudly displayed my reward to my siblings. My mother kept her eye on me in the rear-view mirror, however, and so I magnanimously shared the candy with my siblings, even giving a piece to the Rat.

This was my first experience with morality, and good and evil, and responsibility, and doing the right thing, and as such would have a profound impact on me in later years. If I could distill the lesson I learned that long ago day, boil it down to its essence, it would probably be:

Crime. Sometimes it pays!