Sunday Story- Eidetic Part 2- Bedlam

This is part 2 of the eidetic story. If you don’t have an eidetic memory, click on that link for a recap of how this tale began. Yea, that’s right, I’m still weaving in the word’s definition all these days later. I really do this. I’m really bout this life. Merriam Webster’s been real quiet around these parts ever since this newsletter began. Coincidence? Nay, me thinks.

Bedlam- a state of uproar and confusion

Ex: After the whole Terrance Poconopis situation I was understandably on thin ice with the management at Antique Addicts. Thankfully I had my jerky hut bouncing credentials to fall back on. Had I been a less experienced hire they probably would have just cut me loose following my faux pas. But they trusted me. And there was no way I was about to get back on the job market. I knew full well the dearth of security gigs around Sheboygan that didn’t involve standing out front of ramshackle bars and breaking up whiskey fueled spats between Hells Angels members.

As a preventative measure, I decided to work overtime all week in order to review the security footage in the back room. Like an NFL cornerback studying film to prepare for his upcoming wide receiver matchup, I was going to be ready for whatever nefarious game plan these crooks were going to try to execute.

As soon as I walked into the store on Monday morning I conducted my regular inventory check: a sweep of the showroom floor to make sure everything was in its correct spot. Japanese Maple desks with double narrow drawers for dainty little hands, check. Goat bladder lampshades from New Zealand, check. An ottoman with an A Man Called Otto movie poster embroidered into its upholstery, check. Tall pine cabinets, uh where were the tall pine cabinets? I hesitantly knocked on my manager’s office door. He got up from his worn brown leather chair that looked like it had had a past life as one of those seats in front of a fireplace that a narrator sits in while puffing on a pipe and telling a yuletide tale. “Well, what is it?” he asked. “Sir, I don’t want you to freak out, but the tall pine cabinets are missing. All of them are gone. There’s a big empty gap on the showroom floor.” I responded nervously. “Oh yea, I cleared out some space this weekend. We’ve got a couple of brazen bulls coming in today. Real shiny bronze pieces. Turns out there’s a real demand for ancient Greek torture devices in Sheboygan. Who knew?”

I was unfamiliar with the brazen bull. “Boss, what the hell is that?”

“It’s pretty much just a pressure cooker for humans. Neat, huh? Think air fryer with a little bit more pizazz”

“Oh! I love air fryer’s. I use one of those at home to make Ore-Ida crinkle cut fries and they come out so crispy every time!” I responded like a bit of a spazz.

My boss gave me a disgusted look and shooed me away. “Work on your small talk. The cadence and subject matter are a little bit spectrumy” He said as he slammed the door shut in my face. Damn, that was kind of a blow to the self-esteem. If I hadn’t been in hot water for the false accusation I would have chirped back with something clever, something like “Yea? Well the reason you never get the invite to Buffalo Wild Wings anymore is because we can’t get you to stop talking about varnish during the game.” That would have gotten to him. I knew deep, deep down, down under 62 coats of wood paint sealer, way down beneath the floorboards, deep in the recesses of his telltale heart, that all he really wanted was to just be considered one of the boys.

So I took up my station in front of the store. I gave warm greetings to everyone who entered, making sure to exchange a few pleasantries in order to afford myself some extra time to conduct ocular pat-downs and assess individual threat levels. After last week’s incident, I was a little hypervigilant. I forced a round man in a Tommy Bahama short sleeve button down to undo his buttons so I could examine his pacemaker to see if it had been fashioned into some sort of suicide bombing device. It hadn’t been. I was there to protect the building and its contents, and I wasn’t above humiliating a customer in order to honor that duty.

Around 12:30 a massive 18-wheeler pulled up in front of the store to drop off the brazen bulls. The truck driver climbed down from his cockpit with a clipboard and asked if I could sign off on the torture devices. I obliged. With the help of my boss and a few floor employees we cleared out a path to the empty spot where the tall pine cabinets used to be kept so that the brazen bull guys could wheel the bronze beasts into their resting place in the showroom. During this process, I instinctively turned towards the jingling bell at the front door to get a good look at the customer that was entering. Immediately I got the sense that this guy was going to be trouble. He looked like if Ted “the splendid splinter” Williams had had his ass kicked by Master Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In other words, this was a skinny dude with bruises all over his body and two swollen black eyes. He was wearing a Kirkland Signature box logo t shirt with what appeared to be either ketchup or blood stains on it, and I got the sense that the stains weren’t the result of him sloppily eating the $1.50 hot dog and soda combo meal. I kept my eyes glued to him as he went to examine a stainless-steel workbench sourced from a GMC plant circa the auto industry bailout of 2008. I knew what he was thinking. The piece could certainly tie together a meth lab.

Just then a pickup truck pulled up outside the front door. The gaunt Costco shopper signaled to the driver to come inside. The driver left the car in neutral as he got out and hustled over to the front door. I had seen this play a million times during my film sessions. It was a classic two-man give and go heist maneuver. “NOT SO FAST!” I yelled at the two perps like I was in some 80’s action flick with shitty dialogue. The two men threw their hands up to protest their innocence. “GET ON THE GROUND” I yelled again, asserting my dominance and cementing my role as the archetypal cop figure in any show or movie ever. I strode over to the two men and got out my zip ties, as was standard procedure. They saw the plastic cuffs and tried to plead their case. “Woah! What are you doing? We’re just checking out a work bench! We own a chop shop down the street! I swear, man!”. Yea, right. These guys looked like they just came off a week-long bender. I bent over the Costco man and yanked his hands behind his back in order to detain him. Just then, the other friend, who was lying prone on the ground next to him, leant over and sunk his teeth into the flesh above my ankle. “OWWW! WHAT THE FUCK!” I screamed as I kicked my leg free from his clenched jaw. The manager, who was still guiding the brazen bulls into place in the back of the showroom, sprinted over to see what this bedlam was all about. Still clutching my tender leg meat and swearing under my breath, I looked up in the direction of my manager. I wasn’t looking at his face but rather over his shoulder as, HOLY SHIT! THE BULL WAS OPENING UP! A MAN WAS GETTING OUT OF THE BULL! But no…surely it couldn’t be…could it? In all my hours of film study and late-night YouTube video binges of amateur robbery attempts I had only ever come across one instance of…THE TROJAN HORSE TECHNIQUE! How could I have been so naïve as to think that nobody in Sheboygan would have the gall to attempt such an advanced maneuver!? This was the one style of robbery that I was unprepared to handle. You could say it was my…Achilles heel (lol Greco-Roman humor!)