We got almost no money from our first armed robbery, but the robbery itself was fun and funny, so we knew we were going to do it again. I started to take my gun to work. After work, I drove around with it in my belt, thinking about robbing various stores. Never did. Having a gun in your belt changes the way you feel.

Ray and I cased several places in Baltimore for the second robbery. Neither one of us really wanted to do it again, so one or the other would find something wrong with each place we looked at. Then I had the bright idea it would be easier to drive to York, Pennsylvania, and rob one of their places. I chose York because Mudge Paper Company, whom I’d worked for, had an office there. We drove up in Ray’s tiny foreign car.

The same thing happens all over again: one or the other of us chickens out, keeps finding something wrong because we really don’t want to do this. Then we decide it’s do or die with The Turkey Hill Minit Market. We park in the worst place to park a getaway car, in the alley right in back of the store. There are customers in the store, so Ray roams around, picks up a can of Campbell’s mushroom soup, puts it back down, then decides it has his finger prints on it, so puts it in his coat pocket.

After the customer leaves, I pull my gun on the terrified teen-age girl clerk. When I see the fear in her face, I know the whole thing’s wrong, that I’ve really screwed up. We take a whole bunch of money. I stuff my raincoat pockets with it. Ray stuffs some in his pockets. We run out the door just as a bunch of teenagers come up. We run around back by our car. The kids run after us. I stop, yell, “I have a gun,” and fire straight up. They keep on coming, so we run by the getaway car, our reasoning being we don’t want the kids to see us get in the car and describe it to the police. Instead we run up the dark dirt alley, burrow under some hedges into a back yard, sneak by the side of the house, and dash across the busy street into the next block. Some driver sees us, notices all the cops at the Turkey Hill Minit Market, pulls in and tells them where we went.

We run through more yards and into a garage, where we’re safe. There’s an antique car being restored in the garage, and I’m sitting in it. Ray keeps peering through the window. I take wads of money out of my coat, put them back. My partner’s convinced the owner of the house knows we’re in the garage and freaks out, and says we have to leave. Just as we step out the back of the garage into the alley, a cop car screams by the end of the block. There’s no way he could have seen us that briefly while going that fast, but his tires squeal as he stomps his brakes. We run, try to hide, but the entire alley is locked garages and eight foot fences, so we hide under a blue school bus.

The cops secure the alley. Check every back yard, all the garages. There’s nothing left, but the blue bus. I hear a cop say, “They couldn’t be under there. Nobody’s that stupid.” We crawl out. They treat us roughly because they don’t know we’re harmless. Smash us up against the blue bus, pull our arms behind us, painfully handcuff and throw us into cars. The detective takes all the money and my gun from me. The money somehow reduces itself to $145 by the time it’s officially counted. I do all the work, cop takes most of the money.

At the station, the police ask my partner why there’s a can of mushroom soup in his pocket. “It had my fingerprints on it. I didn’t want to get caught.” Then he asks, “Can I call somebody in Baltimore because I’m a Scout Master and I have a meeting this week I need to cancel.” Now the cops think we’re the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. They treat us nicely. They laugh a lot.

Between the fear of what might happen and the shame of what I’d done, it was the lowest I’d ever been. A turning point. I finally got caught for something and had to pay the price.

To read Part III, see Armed Robbery – Part III