I was robbed at knifepoint about 2 weeks before my 17th birthday. I was working “swings” (until the store closed at 10pm) by myself when this guy with the Biggest Hunting Knife EVER came in. I’d been in the back washing coffee pots when I heard the bell ring and when I got to the front, no one was there. So I go back to washing coffee pots and I hear the bell ring again. Annoyed, I throw the towel into the sink and walk towards the front of the store, only to be met at the ATM with the aforementioned BHKE aimed right at my guts. He followed me behind the counter where I opened the drawer and just kind of stood there for about .2 seconds (right by the panic button, which I didn’t dare push) before he told me to lay on the floor. He was there for 10 hours, I swear (it was awful; I thought I was going to be stabbed in the back 100 times and he’d leave me in a bloody heap where no one would find me until 6am the next day) and when he accidentally (I think) kicked me while he was going for the phone, I knew I was going to die.
But then he took the receiver, hid it under the counter, and walked out. I stayed where I was, stunned and completely silent, for probably five minutes before getting the nerve to reach up and hit the button. I started crying a little, still on the floor, but I managed to talk myself out of it after a few seconds, convinced he was coming back. When I was sure he was really gone, I stood up and my eyes met with the eyes of a man peeping into the window with a gun in his gloved hands. I’m sure he saw the panic in my face, because he moved his arm into view and pointed at the county police patch on his arm. I waved him in (he was directly followed by 3 other officers) and, finally knowing I was safe, I started freaking out and vomiting uncontrollably. Good times.
But wait, there’s more. So I told my boss I couldn’t work nights anymore, which he understood, and that worked for about 3 days before he bribed me with a dollar an hour raise to resume my normal schedule. I hesitantly agreed while demanding that I be permitted to have another person working with me. Since the rest of the bitches on staff were too… whatever, I don’t know what their problem was, but they all had a real good excuse for not working with me. Anyway, he hired my mom part time and 9 days after I was robbed, this asshole in the ski mask with the Biggest Hunting Knife EVER comes back for more. Between the first and second robberies, my boss had ordered additional panic buttons (there was only one before, under the register) to be worn on the hip. As soon as I saw him coming, I pressed my button and told my mom to do the same. Before he made it to the door, I’d also pressed the button under the register, just to be sure the alarm company got the message. As soon as he opened the door, I hit the floor (to the amusement of my boss as he viewed the tape about 20 minutes later, fucking asshole). When he told her to get down, my mom kind of squatted next to me. She told me later that she was protecting me, concentrating on covering my torso with the intention of absorbing the impact of any attacks to keep me alive, which totally blew my mind at the time. I’m a mom now though, and I think I get it.
About 5 minutes prior to this, a friend had called to see if I’d shut the car wash down yet. She and her boyfriend showed up just as James (the bad guy) was running out the door. The boyfriend chased him across the street to his getaway car and memorized the plate number (DRE (as in Dr, so easy to remember) and numbers I can’t recall). The cops picked him up around 2 o’clock the next morning and called my mom and me into the station around 5am so we could identify clothing and look at various mug shots. My mom, being in casino security for about five years at that time and therefore trained to pay attention, was able to pick him out despite the fact that he was seriously whacked out on meth and looked completely different from the man whose eyes I’d now seen twice.
I don’t remember if I worked nights anymore after that, but I’m inclined to think I did. I started drinking a lot (like, a lot) and I became really paranoid (keeping the lights off, all the doors locked, the blinds pulled, etc.), and I just lashed out in general which pretty much caused the break up of my relationship at the time because my boyfriend, with whom I was living, didn’t know what to do with me anymore.
I’m not sure what James was charged with. All I know is he plead guilty to one thing or another because I never went to court. I called a while back to see if I could find out how much time he served, but the lady I talked to didn’t know. She said he was sentenced to 68 months, but she wasn’t sure he served the whole thing (not likely). I got a letter from him. So did my mother and our boss. You can read mine here.
I never did get that dollar an hour raise and I quit my job three months later (I think the ski masks during the snowmobile season is what really did me in; plus, I was pissed off about my lack of a raise and still drunk when I called the store 10 minutes before my 1 o’clock shift (so I was still working nights, and alone because my mom’s primary job was too demanding to allow her to stay at the convenience store) and told a coworker to tell my boss to jam it in his ass, I quit)). I’m still afraid of the dark; I won’t walk around outside by myself if I can help it, but I can walk around in my own (different) home without freaking out and I only close to blinds to cut down on glare during the day.
Well. That was fun. Holy shit, this is a long post and, believe it or not, I’m actually leaving some parts out. Like how about 10 minutes before the first robbery, I’d been outside shutting the car wash down and he was out there. Or how, when I came back inside from all that, I considered closing early because my instincts (or whatever) had been screaming at me all day. Or how 'bout the fact that about 6 months before this, a friend of mine was kidnapped from her job at a convenience store and killed? Little details, like the fact that he lived across the street from the store, and how my boss suspected it was James all along. I think I’ll stop now. Good thread, that felt good.
