If you were working a shift with Mark and Bob , and someone had the misfortune of stealing from our store, you only had to point and yell “Runner!”…and it was ON!
It was something about how quickly Mark and Bob were able to drop everything and just get outside, almost with magical speed, blowing by fellow employees and customers, then using their combined knowledge of the gradual upslope of the parking lot, knowing that would quickly torch the legs of even the most physically fit shoplifters, who almost always initially ran straight up the lot before darting between the cars, which was only sauce for the goose, because the boys knew to split and run unimpeded up the parallel main aisles for closing speed before cutting hard and crossing their patterns, ending any car darters hopes of escape with a grab and smash sandwich technique.
Mark, even being seriously baked, had the quick, high stepping long strides and reach to at least get a hand on the guy, and then it was lights out as Bob came in from the other side meeting at the brutal vertex for the kill tackle. It was calculated justified violence in our minds and I just thought those two guys were the greatest. They were Ralphs Royalty in my opinion, a couple of real male role models.
Looking back now, I see these so-called “Runners!” as just people down on their luck in one way or another and all the romance of it drains away, but back then, it was intoxicating to my all too easily intoxicated 16 -year-old self.
One summer weekday night, after the store had closed, Mark, Bob and I were stocking the bag inventory up front. Doug, the diminutive and Napoleonic M.O.D., Manager On Duty, stood atop the manager stand, slowly counting money in his tight red vest. Suddenly, Mark and Bob stopped to talk to each other in low tones out of earshot. I didn’t dare attempt to listen in and just focused on loading bags into the back end of the cashier stands. That’s when it happened. Mark and Bob walked over to me and I tried to appear nonchalant. While Big Bob kept an eye on Little Doug, Mark said: “We’re gonna go over and fuck with Pat Doyle in produce. You want to come along?” I was breathless. I couldn’t believe they had invited me along to go do something to a fellow employee, and a department head at that! It was high praise indeed, and I jumped at the chance. Would I like to tag along and go fuck with Pat Doyle? Well yes…yes I would.
As we were to be informed later, big, quiet, mild mannered blonde Pat Doyle was a former Minor League relief pitcher. He certainly looked the part, tall and broad of shoulder, with big gnarled hands from years of gripping baseballs, I assumed, followed by years of ripping open boxes of pineapples and bok choy. He was also the produce manager of our Ralphs Grocery Store.
With the floor free of customers, we silently entered the produce department like three phantoms. Bob and Mark were moving low to the ground and gave me the “shhh, be quiet” sign with their fingers up to their lips, then pointing in the direction of where Pat was stocking some bananas in one of the center displays. They seemed to know where we were going, as we passed the peaches, nectarines and finally stopped at the plums. Bob and Mark each quickly grabbed about 4 or 5 plums each and signaled for me to do the same. They then slowly stood up, and nodded to each other, then to me and Bob yelled: “Hey Pat!” and I watched as Bob and Mark unloaded their fruit payloads in the direction of Pat Doyle, who turned around just in time to take the fusillade of plums in his chest and upper body. He didn’t flinch or even try to move away, but just stood there and took it…thun, thun, thun, thun, thun. I quickly followed suit and threw my little purple grenades somewhere, but nowhere near Pat Doyle. Bob and Mark laughed really loud and pointed at Pat, and so I did the same, before tearing straight up the side aisle of the produce section to keep up with them. They told me to “go hide, go hide” so I started to think about where I was going to “go hide” and how awesome it was to be a part of all of this.
Had any of us turned around and looked back over our shoulders, we would have seen big, gentle, mild-mannered blonde Pat Doyle walk over to the mountainous russet potato display and just start clawing them down into the large front pockets of his green apron until they were overflowing with what we would come to know as payback, because Pat, with the ice water that flows through the veins of a relief pitcher, then calmly and systematically hunted us down, one by one, with russet potatoes.
I was first on the menu. He found me cowering and shivering in the walk-in produce cooler, thinking I was being clever, hiding in the same department where the ambush took place, but apparently not clever enough. Pat Doyle parted those clear, vertical slats and stepped inside the refrigerated room, his apron pockets so full he looked pregnant…pregnant with punishment. He saw me almost immediately, crouched on a pallet of cantaloupes, and from a distance of about 25 feet or so, and from the stretch, he got right to work. I remember the hissing sound of the potatoes as they came in, pummeling my midsection with a dull Ssss-pomp, Ssss-pomp, Ssss-pomp. How fast do you have to throw a potato to make it hiss like that, I don’t know, but I guess Pat Doyle did. He mixed up his pitches to keep me guessing, probably a slider, then a curve and finally some filthy off-speed potato junk just to play with my head…and speaking of my head, to his credit, no chin music. Pat Doyle was a Gentleman, there was nothing personal, at least not with me. I think he sensed I was as apprentice, an AIT, an Asshole in Training, so he left me crumpled in a heap after only 3 or 4 Ssss-pomps!
Why? Why of all people did Mark and Bob decide to fuck with former Minor League relief pitcher Pat Doyle? Not that any us knew this at the time. Due to his gentle demeanor, I’m sure they were thinking he might run away or just answer plum with plum, or maybe at the very most toss some Yukon Golds in our direction. Mark and Bob didn’t even remotely consider he might answer back with the biggest, hardest, oblong vegetable he could find, being discharged at an average velocity of what felt like in the 60 to 70 miles an hour range.
As I was to find out later, poor Mark was humiliated after being riddled with russets in the middle of one of the aisles, these being delivered obviously from the windup, and with some gas, as they say.
Pat Doyle kept up the barrage and poor Mark was propelled forward by the thunderous impacts across his cardigan sweatered back as he tried to flee, eventually taking out a free-standing cardboard battery display. I heard that battery packages were everywhere and it was kind of sad to see a class act like elegant Mark sprawled amongst his puka shells and probably missing a topsider.
The only thing I heard about Big handsome Bob’s takedown was that Pat Doyle took him to school over near the deli case, and that he made him cry a little.
In retrospect, it was chilling to consider what full and complete command Pat Doyle had over his pitches that night. I mean, did he rehearse this scenario, in preparation for just such an inter-departmental attack? To propel an oddly shaped object with such speed and accuracy, surely must have required some sort of practice, or perhaps it was simply what happens when muscle memory is coupled with the revenge instinct. I always admired that Pat Doyle never reported us, he never took it upstairs to the business office, but instead, just decided to handle this “in store”, between us.
I slinked out to my so-called car that night, holding my still throbbing abdomen. I drove home and walked in the door of our condo and found my mom watching Johnny Carson. I told her what happened and I lifted up my shirt and showed her what I would come to know as welts. I had never seen a welt on anyone, least of all me. I told her that it was all Mark and Bob’s idea and she asked me “If they asked you to jump off The Home Savings building, would you have done that too?” “No” I shot back, but I knew I probably would have. My mother was no nurse, like her mother, but she told me to go to the freezer and get some ice, but knowing my mom, I think she probably told me to bring back a large Swanson Hungry Man frozen tv dinner and just hold it directly on the welts on my side and they would start to feel better, which they did not, but it did feel good to be home with my mom that night. That much I do remember.
We watched Charlie Callas come out and impersonate a fly before heading over to the desk, lighting a cigarette and chatting with Johnny.
My First Real Job