Esther Meaney
The summer I was twelve, my father took off, going somewhere to do one of the dozen things he'd expressed an interest in during his marriage to my mother. Once the shock wore off, Mom seemed relieved. Most of his paycheck was spent on his vices anyway—both large and small. If other women took a baseball bat out of the basement when their husbands were away, Mom put hers down after Dad left.
My feelings were more mixed. It was Dad who'd taken me to the rodeo and to the stock car races out in Meadville. He made me laugh and taught me how to be a man—or his version of it. If Mom inspected my homework each night and played Brahms on her stereo, it was Dad who listened to Dizzy Gillespie or Miles Davis on the old turntable. There was something ineffably exciting about him, which was not compensation enough for my mother who was often left wondering where the two hundred dollars in her bureau drawer had gone, or who the guy leaning on the horn of his Cadillac outside was.
Though I didn't know it, I had a choice to make that summer. My mother, smart and still young, found a full-time job, something managerial in a hospital. She coped with the problem of a twelve-year old at loose ends in summer by hiring a babysitter, Esther Meaney, an older woman who lived in our neighborhood. Though neither of us knew it at the time, Esther was going to be responsible for the direction I would charter for the rest of my life.
"I can't do my job wondering what you're up to," Mom said, when the subject of hiring a sitter to watch me came up. I put up the expected fuss, saying lots of boys my age managed perfectly well on their own. It was 1975 and the term "latchkey kids" was just coming into use.
I was not the kind of kid to be up to much of anything, but before she launched into examples of what might happen, I gave up my crusade for freedom. She registered me in a day camp at the Y, where I did the sort of manly things for which I had no aptitude every morning, and Esther Meaney picked me up in my mother's ancient and somewhat unpredictable Buick Riviera after lunch.
It was easy to spot the Riviera in the Y lot flaking gold chips from the cheap paint job my father had begrudgingly paid for just before his departure. I could also see Esther too, standing next to the car, smoking one cigarette after another, rubbing each one out in a tin contraption she carried for that purpose. I kept her identity to myself at first, creeping out when the other kids were busy choosing their post-lunch popsicles at the snack wagon.
Surprisingly, it was the afternoons with Esther I came to enjoy. Esther, a large, red-faced, cheerful woman, didn't have children or even a sibling of her own. To her, a twelve-year old was as good as an adult. We watched a lot of R-rated movies, went to the Alibi Inn outside of town for an afternoon pick-me up: bourbon for her, coke for me, and spent hours in the neighborhood comic book stores. Esther collected any number of obscure series, ones that featured screaming women and knife-wielding maniacs on the covers. Her favorite shop was populated by skinny guys in black tee shirts and jeans.
Esther stuck out among the clientele and I stuck out even more. But since she usually bought one or two comics, and the pricier ones at that, the guy behind the counter never hassled her about me. As long as I steered clear of the tattered, filthy curtain with the adults-only sign pinned to it, things were copasetic—one of Esther's favorite words. She'd peer over my shoulder now and then, commenting on my choice of reading material.
"You're not gonna lay out good money for that dopey Richie Rich," she said one day, substituting a comic with orange bombs happily exploding from a woman's enormous chest. "Ah, it don't mean a thing," she said, when I looked up warily. "Just to catch your eye." That was the first purchase I ever hid from my mother. Esther was also willing to play war games like Risk and Battleship for indeterminate periods, and she never met a TV show she wouldn't watch.
The only source of contention between Esther and my mother was Esther's cigarette habit. Every fifteen minutes, she lumbered outside, or hopped out of the car, or stepped out the door at the Alibi Inn and lit a cigarette. The Alibi didn't give a damn if she smoked, but she'd promised my mother, she wouldn't smoke within 100 yards of me. I kept a paperback with me at the dining-room table or in the car so I had something to do while she took the sun in her own way. I read a fair number of books that summer.
During the school year, Esther worked as a cafeteria lady in the high school, but come June, she was jobless except for her Tupperware franchise. Mom's offer of a job came at a fortuitous time for Esther. She agreed that I could serve as Esther's assistant at Tupperware parties and I got pretty proficient in the technique of burping plastic tubs.
Esther was hopeless at math so I did that too. "Don't know what I ever did without you, Alex," she'd say after any one of my small accomplishments. I wasn't used to being complimented and it felt good.
Tupperware parties were nearly formal affairs in 1975—food was served, the women dressed up, party games were played. Esther did the best she could with her own attire, considering her weight and discomfort with anything girly. She usually arrived at the Y on Tupperware days in an ancient flowered dress of varying length, knee-high stockings, which were always sagging badly, and a pair of worn red espadrilles. Occasionally she'd top off her outfit with a red pillbox hat that she pinned to her hair with gold bobby pins. More than one Shelterville matron rolled their eyes when Esther walked through their door. I served as a buffer, looking as respectable as any of their own sons.
Unfortunately for Esther, this was an era when babysitting was considered little more than a hobby. I doubt Mom paid Esther more than a couple bucks an hour and Tupperware sales were an iffy proposition. Sometimes we'd load the backseat with pink and yellow and green and blue pastel, returning with just a few less pieces.
Ester knew I missed my father, despite his nasty temper and scalding words. His antics may have raised havoc with Mom, but the world had seemed tinted with brighter colors when he was around. So Esther introduced a new activity to our afternoons. On occasion, she'd rob a convenience store. I'm not going to pretend this didn't shock me when she first brought it up. But by that time, I was Esther's greatest fan, and if she needed to feed her piggybank, I wasn't going to stand in the way. It took me several weeks to realize this was not a new occupation for her, and I soon came to wonder if she basically survived on her take from these jobs. She introduced the idea slowly, leaving her holdup clothes in the car for me to find one day.
"Sometimes," she began, "a girl's got to do things she'd rather not." She looked at me closely. "Just to survive, that is." And then she told me the whole story—how she'd been robbing convenience stores off and on for years. "Whenever my old man took off, I had to resort to it—I didn't even have the cafeteria job at first. I never do more than one or two jobs a month—and never hit places near each other. Always check it out for a few days first, too. See what the clientele is like, who the clerk's likely to be, the lay of the land, so to speak."
The sun-baked concrete with its tar patches seemed to be cooking us in that car as we watched the activity at a store located ten miles outside of town. Esther kept the windows rolled up so there'd be less chance of anyone seeing our faces. Perspiration ran down her cheeks, but she didn't seem bothered by it. I got the idea robbing stores was fun for her.
"Why not banks?" I asked, once the subject was out in the open—once I'd watched her don her disguise and pull off a job. Floppy hat, sunglasses, baggy pants, and a man's jacket—she looked more natural than she did in her Tupperware getup. The only kink in her performance was her frantic dash to the car, which was awkward, obvious, and too slow. There was also the difficulty in slipping behind the driver's seat and throwing the car into gear quickly enough. I covered my eyes, worried that someone would come after her.
"God! No banks, Alex. Don't even like to go in 'em to cash a check." She ran her hands up and down her sides nervously. "Give me the old Stop and Rob stores. I fit right in. Plenty of cash available—nobody bothers using a credit card for a five-dollar purchase—you know—cigarettes, a newspaper, a bottle of Coke."
"Is there much money in the cash register?" I kept picturing the big vaults at a bank versus the Big Gulps at 7-Eleven.
"Lord, yes. They just let those little fives and tens add up till closing time." She paused. "And I'm not greedy—just looking to make ends meet. Now look at the windows on that place," she said. I looked. The plate-glass windows were covered as if wallpapered with ads for products the store carried. "See, no one can spot a robbery from the street." I nodded.
"Now, bank windows," she continued, "are frequently clear—often just displaying a tasteful sign that lists interest rates. And you know what else? The average clerk in a convenience store has been working there for about five minutes—no experience at all. The owners tell them just to hand the money over: don't make a fuss or be a hero. It's cheaper for 'em to take an occasional hit than to hire a security guard or pay for training for the clerks—like your better banks do. You can't rob a bank on your own." She shook her head.
Man, Esther knew it all. She'd never seemed this wily playing Risk. I nodded again.
"And they rarely keep guns," she continued. "Too much of chance one of them'll kill some innocent customer. Your basic 7-Eleven clerk is eighteen years old and a dope to boot. Or even younger and can't carry arms." She smiled. "So let's sum up the pluses in robbing a Stop and Shop or 7-Eleven—open most of the time, no security, fresh-faced clerks—and usually only one, the windows are covered with ads, and a similar setup in every one of 'em."
Esther seemed to have studied her subject well. "I just wait until the store is empty of customers—and that's pretty easy to see from the parking lot. No cars, no customers. Usually there are no pedestrians because they build these places on highways with no pavements. Or the stores I hit are like that anyway. Secondly, I make sure there's a female clerk. Women are much less likely to pull a gun."
"Anyone ever pull a gun on you?"
She shook her head. "I probably wouldn't be here if they had."
"How did you do it without a car all this time?"
"Oh, I had a car." She looked embarrassed. "Repossessed last month. One of the reasons, I like our little setup." She inclined her head toward me. "It'll take a couple good scores to get some wheels again. Probably be back behind the steering wheel before the end of summer. If things go right."
By the word "setup" and the inclination of her head, I realized she meant Mom and me. Our car, our offer. We'd put Esther back in business. She didn't take this job for the two bucks an hour Mom paid her, or because she was lonely, or because she liked kids. We provided the wheels she needed to rob stores. I couldn't dislike her for it though. What was a girl to do?
Several days went by and the subject of robbing Stop and Shops seemed to be put on hold. Thinking back on it, she was probably letting me get used to the idea. Or maybe she made a big haul without me. She had use of the Riviera for a good hour before picking me up; she could easily pull a job between twelve and one although it was not a good time for holdups. "Too many people coming in for lunch. Those stores got those wrapped hoagies, donuts, hotdogs, stuff like that."
I wondered what would happen if one of those fresh-faced clerks ran out of the store after her and saw the license plate. Would they haul Mom off along with her for providing the wheels? I managed to bury this thought in the recesses of my adolescent mind. Summer had grown less boring and I wasn't willing to return to Scoobie Doo and Monopoly just yet.
A few days later, Esther said, "I thought we'd go out in the country today so you could practice driving. What are you now—fourteen?"
"Twelve."
"In some states you'd be handling a big tractor or a baler at fourteen. Think you could do it?"
"Handle a tractor?"
She rolled her eyes. "Pick me up after a job. Do you think you have the chandeliers for it?"
After a second, I gulped and nodded, getting what she meant. I'd been driving in my head for years. Or driving at arcades on family vacations when we still took them. How different could it be in real life?
It turned out to be very different because one thing I hadn't thought about was my height. I was the shortest boy in my class and my feet barely reached the pedals. Rivieras were gigantic cars. I had to sit forward on the seat, which made the whole thing a little iffy.
"Look, Alex, you just have to pull up to the door when you see me coming out, and then drive us out of the lot," Esther assured me. "Once we're down the street, we can switch seats." I didn't say anything, but that seemed like a bad idea. Esther, in her man gear, and me, a pipsqueak kid, changing seats in a flaking gold car in the bright July afternoon would attract attention. Surely someone would spot us and put it together with the robbery.
No, I'd have to drive further away than that. So I bore down and learned to drive on the back roads outside of Shelterville. "You're gonna be a swell driver, kid," Esther said, bucking me up.
"Are you still enjoying your afternoons with Esther, Alex?" my mother asked, a day or two after my third driving lesson. She was hunched over the kitchen table, writing out checks. The one on top—to Esther—was as small as I feared. Shockingly small after I realized it was for two weeks of work.
"You don't talk about Esther as much as you did at first." I shrugged noncommittally. "It's nice," Mom continued, "that you've both found a new friend."
"I'm sure my little pin money comes in handy along with her Tupperware franchise," Mom said, probably imagining it was like owning a McDonalds. She looked up from her checkbook. "I couldn't really afford to pay her more, Alex. Maybe she could find something to supplement her income? In the mornings, perhaps?"
I didn't tell her, of course, that Esther had found something to supplement her income. She picked me up half-an-hour late the next day. The rest of the boys had begun making lanyards when she arrived, speeding into the lot too fast. Everyone looked up as she leaned on the horn. "What's wrong?" I asked, jumping in the car.
"Lost the Tupperware job," she said, red-faced and sniveling. "Some of the women complained that my Tupperware smelled like cigarettes. That I smell like smoke, too. And they said I short-changed them. You know I'd never do that kind of thing, Alex." I nodded. She didn't understand math well enough to short-change them without getting caught. "Now we're going to have to step up the other thing," she said, not looking at me. "I got rent and lights to pay this week. My cat likes food."
"Are you sure you're okay with this?" The hour had finally arrived. "I can probably pull this one off myself. I've scouted the place and there's just this lady older than me behind the counter. I don't think she could move fast enough to trigger an alarm or pull out a gun."
Esther didn't use a real gun, believing, perhaps wrongly, that if she were caught with a gun the penalty would be stiffer. She also didn't want to accidentally shoot someone. So instead she used a prop gun from the high school drama club's closet. "The kids did Guys and Dolls last year. Had this cute dance number where all the guys twirled these things." I looked at the prop in her hand. It looked real enough to me, but the only guns I'd seen were on TV shows like Mannix. "I used to use a BB gun," she went on, "but a lot of these jokers have them at home and recognize what they are in two seconds."
"Can't you get welfare?" I blurted out. Mom had looked into this when it became clear Dad wasn't planning to send a check very often. If Esther could get some food stamps or rent help maybe she wouldn't need to knock off 7-Elevens or sell that pastel plastic-ware.
"You think I'd be willing to take a handout?" She shook her head. "Not as long as I have two strong arms and a brain that works." Her standards were firm.
We drove out to the store she'd scouted and parked out of the clerk's sightline. "The register is directly opposite the door," Esther said. My stomach was doing flip-flops. "You don't have to do this today, Alex," she said. "Just hop into the backseat and hide under the blanket. Pretend you're asleep."
"That's okay," I said. I was too old to be hiding under blankets. She got out of the car and lumbered across the lot. In a few seconds, she was inside.
Those minutes, and it was must have been less than three, passed slowly. We'd chosen a bad place to park because the sun was in my eyes, beating down on the flaky gold paint and reflecting off it. I slid across the seat, hoping my vision would improve.
And suddenly, there was Esther, running out of the store at a good clip. I'd just slid back to the driver's side, and threw the car into Drive when I saw a guy running after her. He had a large gun in his hand. What had happened to the old lady clerk of the day before? What about the idea the stores didn't keep guns?
Esther waved me away, gesturing for me to take off. We had gone over this once: the signal she would use if something unexpected happened. I hesitated a minute and her arm churned even harder. She tripped then, perhaps intentionally, and landed on the macadam. The guy, gun in hand, stood over her a second later. I put my foot on the gas and sped out of the lot.
Esther had picked a store far from our house so it was a long drive home. Other drivers looked at me curiously, probably wondering if I was as young as I seemed. Once, a police car passed. Another time, a truck honked for me to get going when a light turned green. It was nearly three-quarters of an hour later before I turned into our drive. They say it's always faster driving home, but that day, it wasn't.
I'd no idea of what to do next, but before I could come up with something, Mom came in the front door, looked around and said. "Do you know where Esther is?" I shook my head truthfully.
"She's in jail, Alex. I just got her call. We'll have to bail her out." Mom went over to the desk drawer and pulled out her check book. "Do you know anything about this?" She looked around again. "Did she turn up at all today? Call even?"
I didn't know what to say, not being sure if Mom had found out I was the getaway man. I decided she couldn't know this and shook my head.
"From what I understand, she tried to rob a store. Some place all the way out in Jackson." Mom was herding me toward the car, gathering up her purse and an umbrella. The sky was growing dark.
"What do you think will happen to her?" Sliding into what was recently our getaway car gave me a jittery feeling. I'm sure my voice shook.
"I can't imagine. For one thing, how did she plan to get away from that store in Jackson without a car?" I shrugged. Mom was quiet for a minute. Then, "If Esther manages to get herself out of this, and goes for some counseling, perhaps we can find a way to help her. I think I took advantage of her, forced her into a crazy stunt like this by being stingy."
It never occurred to her that this wasn't Esther's first crime. That's what I was up against with Mom. "Okay," I said, but with no enthusiasm. We would go off then and rescue Esther, the woman who was supposed to rescue us, the woman Mom believed she had let down. Bail her out of jail, drive her to a counselor, and make her a part of our lives.
A feeling of horror began to rise up in my stomach. Maybe Mom was getting herself involved in Esther's schemes the same way I had. Maybe neither of us was very good at choosing friends. Mom had picked Dad, hadn't she?
Mom looked at me carefully. "Don't you think it's a good idea, Alex?"
I could see she was puzzled. "I don't think you should help her," I blurted out. I looked Mom right in the eyes for the first time in weeks. "There's other things about Esther Meaney, too. Things I didn't tell you."
She signaled a turn, pulled over, and I began to talk.
-END-
