Shame Week #3 :: What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever stolen?

When I was 13 years old I made friends with Raymond Moulding, one of my comprehensive school’s lower-echelon bad boys. Ray for short. And he was short.

Ray lived in the next street from me and used to enjoy picking on me every few months or so while we were growing up, just to keep his hand in. Then one day I lost my temper, grabbed him by the throat and pushed him up against a brick wall.

The reason I lost my temper – if I may be allowed to digress for a moment – was because Ray had discovered a repugnant and to his mind hilarious new trick with which to torment me. This consisted of him holding his hand against his bottom, passing wind into his hand and then thrusting said hand into my unsuspecting face whilst spitting the words ‘’Ave a fart’ at me.

We were sitting on a wooden bench along one wall of the giant sports hall at school. A game of indoor cricket was in progress and we were waiting for our turn to bat. So naturally I was already fairly depressed. Imagine by what degree my mood worsened when with the words, ‘’Ave a fart’, I found Ray Moulding’s foetid hand pushing itself into my face.

I don’t actually remember if there was any malodour to speak of, but I was certainly repulsed by the concept, and just the very idea of having this ghastly bastard’s sweaty little mitt in my face. I was disgusted. No doubt this showed on my face, causing Ray to dissolve in a small burst of rancid giggling. My disgust mounted. I really didn’t want him to do it again.

He did it again.

Up went the hand. Out came the same line. ‘’Ave a fart.’ (It repulses me just to have to write it.) On came the giggles.

To my left was Alan Dowell, a school non-entity like myself. When Ray had recovered from the desperate amusement he was causing himself, he said, presumably to himself, or perhaps to the devils in his head, ‘He’s dying to laugh’ – meaning Dowell – ‘and he’s dying to cry’ – meaning me. And what made that such an unforgivable thing to say is that he was absolutely right. There were tears pricking at the backs of my eyes. I swore at him. He repeated my curse back at me in a mocking voice even more childish than my own.

Then, maybe thirty seconds later, he did it again. That time, something in me snapped and seconds later I found myself pinning him to the wall, my right fist raised behind my head, ready to smash his stupid, flinching and suddenly quite frightened little face to a miserable pulp. But I didn’t throw the punch. I didn’t have it in me.

Whether it was the fact that I’d finally retaliated, or the fact that I’d shown some sense of restraint or control or whatever he imagined I was showing, I never discovered, but something in that moment made Ray decide that we would be friends. Not great friends, not by a long chalk, and not lifelong friends, but friends nonetheless. And the part of me that was desperate for any kind of friendship didn’t object.

For the most part, Ray’s and my friendship consisted of us playing darts in his bedroom. But also, and finally getting round to the point, it also consisted of going into the town centre, and nicking stuff from shops. Ray had been taught how to nick stuff by his older brother, Nick. Ray in turn passed on the arcane knowledge to me.

‘Pick up two things,’ he said. ‘Put one back.’

I lost my virginity in a local department store which at the time had a small U-shaped sweet section which was a shoplifter’s paradise. You’d walk in at one end, shuffle down the narrow aisle filling your pockets with all kind of goodies, then when you’d turned left twice, you’d reach the day-dreaming checkout girl and pay for a single packet of Polos. Then you’d sashay out into the street trying not to drop anything, take the first left into the nearest backstreet and stockpile your booty. I still remember vividly the feeling of joy when, after one particularly audacious haul, I slid a monstrously large Toblerone out of my sleeve and pulled a Terry’s Jelly Lemon out of the front of my underpants.

So that’s how it started. At first it was me and Ray nicking sweets. But I got a taste for it, so I started to branch out on my own.

After sweets came stationery. I’ve always absolutely adored stationery. Before I started nicking it, I used to just look at it in WHSmith and occasionally treat myself to a pen. When I started nicking I had no need to show such restraint. And what I was surprised to discover was that stationery nicked was twice as sweet as stationery bought.

It was also during this period that I discovered the full extent of how invisible I was. I was just the cowering, self-conscious ugly kid. I wasn’t particularly threatening. I clearly wasn’t going to cause any violence or anything horribly untoward. I was merely an unfortunate retinal sensation which was best, and quite easily, avoided. People either averted their eyes or simply looked through me. And I found I could get away with quite a lot.

From stationery I graduated to pocket-sized toys and games - Top Trumps were especially easy - and from there it was a simple and natural progression to books. Mostly I stole paperbacks I had absolutely no interest in reading. It was odd. Indeed, by the end of my petty criminal career, I was prone to increasingly inexplicable crimes. Anything that caught my eye would find its way up my sleeve or jumper, into my pockets or pants. A wind-up Woodstock. Juggling balls. Novelty pens. Horror novels. I was a regular little magpie, and I became convinced that I had something of a talent for it. Consequently, it became a habit.

Then one day, after having stolen an autograph book from the very same department store where the whole thing had kicked off around eight months earlier, I was sashaying down the street outside of the store, as per my MO, when I heard footsteps behind me. ‘Wouldn’t it be funny,’ I thought to myself, ‘if I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder.’ Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. I stopped and turned to face a tall blonde man who was already reaching into my inside pocket and pulling out the autograph book I’d just taken from his employers’ shop. He then slid one hand under my arm and led me back into the shop. I believe he may have used the words, ‘What have we here?’ and ‘I think you’d better come with me’, but equally, I may just have heard them on the telly.

What I have no doubt about however, is that I said, in a tiny, suddenly petrified voice, ‘What will happen?’ and he repeated it back to me, not mocking me, just echoing, stalling, playing for time. It wasn't his job to converse.

I couldn’t believe it was happening. Other shoppers stared.

I was led into a small back room where a middle-aged woman sat at a table with a phone and some papers in an untidy pile. The store detective sat me down at the table, handed over the evidence to the middle-aged woman and left us to it.

She took down my details. My name, my address, my telephone number. She told me she would have to call the police. As I offered to pay for the autograph book, I started snivelling. Couldn't stop. ‘You should have thought of that before,’ she said. I offered to pay double. She said that wouldn't be possible.

She asked me if I’d ever stolen anything before. I said I hadn’t. She asked me if anyone had ever stolen anything from me. I said that they had. She asked me how that felt. I told her it felt awful, but I was just going through the motions, telling her what I knew she wanted to hear, all the while willing her not to call the police.

‘It’s not nice, is it?’ she repeated.

I shook my head, staring down at the floor.

‘So why did you do it?’

I told her that schoolfriends had pressured me into it. She nodded. She understood. She'd seen it a thousand times.

‘Alright then,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to call the police this time, as this is your first offence.’ I managed not to put my hands in the air and start cheering. I continued looking at the floor. ‘But I am going to telephone your parents.’

‘OK,’ I mumbled.

Score!

My dad answered the phone. It was a short exchange during which I ascertained that he was being his usual scintillating conversationalist.

‘You can go home now,’ I was told. ‘And don’t do it again.’

'I won't,' I said. 'I promise.'

On my way home, I wondered what kind of reception I would get. In the end it was exactly what I feared most: almost total disinterest. ‘Oh, here he is,’ said my mum when I walked through the front door. ‘McVicar.’

My mum was an idiot.

Then she said, ‘What did you get caught for, softarse?’ I didn’t say anything. I shrugged and went up to my room. Thinking about it now though, it was probably something to do with a craving for attention.

Now we come to the answer to the question. The biggest thing I ever stole was not that autograph book. No. The biggest thing I ever stole I stole probably half an hour before that from a different shop, a book shop. The biggest thing I ever stole – probably both in terms of size and value – was a beautiful, sumptuously illustrated, leatherbound bible.

I was a funny boy.

Over the years, as my faith shrivelled away to nothing at all and eventually turned in on itself, becoming a rather violent anti-faith, I came across the stolen bible on a number of occasions. Each time I had a powerful urge to tear it up and throw it away. Partly out of anger, partly out of guilt, partly just out of some weird religious hangover shame thing. But I never did. Not because it was The Bible. But because it was a Book.

That evening, I sat on my bed and took the bible out of my school bag. I flicked through it, found the Ten Commandments, rummaged in my booty drawer and dug out a highlighter pen and a shatterproof ruler I’d previously liberated from Woolies. I found the commandment I was after - Thou shalt not steal - and using the ruler and the very tip of the nib of the yellow highlighter pen, I painted it yellow and stared at it.

And I never, ever stole again.

Much.

Here endeth the lesson.

Amen.

…

And you? What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever stolen? Spill your shameful beans in the comments...

Thanks.