Stealing as Obsession
My Brilliant Boyhood Career

To discern, especially in retrospect, to capture and describe the very moment when you cross some hidden threshold and simply must take that thing—when you must steal, when you really have no (more) say in the matter, no other choice but to take it—this is not easy. I will try though.

Setting out, I’m trying to discern what might have been (yes, have been is correct, I don’t steal these days, and haven’t for well over fifty years) the motivation; to discern what drove me. What was it? Was it the candy I’d often buy with these ill-gotten gains? Was it the thrill of it—the stepping out on very thin ice that might, that might indeed crack and sunder under my feet any moment?

Or was it the instant riches (if that’s what you might call it, the buck or two or, rarely, five—in Swedish 1960s currency, mind you, adjusted for inflation)?

It seems though, now that I scan that far away track of boyhood stealing, that each little bit of pilfering (I’m casting about for euphemisms here) was preceded by a wish, even a need to buy something; candy in the main, for yes, my teeth—fostered by an awesome cookie-baking mother and ditto grandmothers—were very sweet.

This wish was often, especially in the summer, for ice cream.

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The little town where I grew up had a nice public beach (with an ice cream vendor or two as well as a restaurant that also sold ice cream) and I see now that once the yearning for ice cream swelled in me, I’d head for the male changing shed to plumb for riches.

This changing shed was a quite large white, floorless structure (you’d tread on sand inside it), with room and hooks for perhaps forty or so boys and men to hang their regular clothes to then head out for water in their swimming gear. Once inside I began patting down each set of slacks or each shirt or jacket for the presence of a wallet or coin purse. It was amazing how trusty people seemed to be back then, for I would always find one or two such stashes from where to liberate a buck or so.

True, there was always the excitement (the rush even) brought by the chance of being discovered, even though I’d check outside for anyone heading in the direction of this changing shed before I’d help orchestrate the escape of some useful change.

As a side note, it’s amazing how many synonyms there are for stealing, both regular and colloquial ones. A fairly widespread activity, then, I’d say.

The buck or two safely pinched (there’s another one) I’d then head for the ice cream vendor or the restaurant to spend my newly-gotten gain.

Strange as it may seem (not sure whom to thank, for I’m sure Gabriel would have frowned on this activity and would have wanted no part of it), but I don’t recall ever being caught in the act. No, never. In fact, I had to devise other methods of getting caught—which I was very good at.

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One instance of this excellent self-catching skill that stands out is the morning that I lifted (see, another synonym) a two-konor coin from a friend’s bedside table. Well, not a friend exactly, more like an acquaintance, the son of one of my grandma’s neighbors. His bedroom was on the top floor of a large and tall yellow house the ground floor of which housed the little convenience store that his dad owned and ran. Now, what I was doing on the top floor of that house, alone, that morning, is anybody’s guess, but there I was, in that sunlit bedroom snooping around when I spotted the sparkling two-kronor coin (they are quite rare, by the way, these coins, bordering on the extremely rare as a matter of fact) and simply had to nick it (see, another euphemism).

So far, so good. No one saw. No one else on the top floor even. Now for the clean getaway down the stairs, and out the back door.

Undetected. Rare coin in pocket. Rich boy.

My money to spend as I saw fit, possession being one hundred percent of the law in my boyhood book.

And now, for the exquisite art of getting caught, presented by the master.

I walked around to the front of this big house and into the badly lit little convenience store where my victim’s dad was busy restocking some shelf or other. The door rang a little bell as I entered and he looked around and said Hi and I said Hi and he asked me how could he be of service.

Well, I was pretty good at math, even as a six- or seven-year-old, so I pointed out this and that piece of candy running the tally in my head until I hit two kronor on the nose. Fine, he said. That’ll be two kronor.

So, I handed the kid’s father the two-kronor coin (which he more than likely had recently given the kid) as payment, took my haul and left to consume.

Naturally—gravity is less predictable—it wasn’t long before my mom hauled me in for the third degree about where, precisely, I had gotten that two-kronor coin. She, of course, knew that I had not had one that morning, and now that she had been informed that (a) the kid was missing his precious coin, and (b) that I had just handed said (or a very unlikely identical) coin to his dad in the store as payment for a healthy load of candy—well, her math was pretty good, too—along with the logic of the thing.

The game’s up.

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I’d always, always start out flatly denying. And I’d always, always end up confessing. Once suspicion had, and for the most part correctly, landed on me for something or other gone missing and that I had nipped (another one) I always confessed in the end, sometimes sooner than later.

Probably the longest I held out asserting my innocence in the face of being rightly accused of stealing was after I had liberated (I like that one) a five-kronor bill from the wallet of one of my dad’s employees (Folke was his name). This wallet was to be found in his jacket, which hung in his locker. Truth be told, this was actually a daring operation since anyone could have walked into that room at any time (it was a walk-through room between the outside entrance and the entry to the factory floor, sort of a vestibule).

Of course, just to make sure that this misappropriation was discovered I took the only bill of cash Folke had in his wallet at that time. It wasn’t like he was not going to notice it gone.

Clever fingers lifted and pocketed said bill. So far so good. Shortly thereafter, we all went home for lunch, me and Dad to our house and some mini-feast (Mom was a great cook), Folke to his, by way of the store to pick up some milk, where he, of course, discovered this five-kronor-bill very much gone missing.

An hour or so after lunch my dad called me into his office and asked me point blank, had I taken Folke’s five-kronor bill? Uh-uh. No way. Not me. Was I sure? Yes, yes, very. I wasn’t lying? No, not lying. I did not take any money from Folke’s wallet. Not even close. Wouldn’t even know where Folke’s wallet would be, or what it looked like. Totally innocent. Absolutely. Not me.

My dad shook his head and grimaced the way he’d grimace when he was concerned or confounded or perhaps even sad. Can I go? Yes, he waved his hand in my direction, get out of here.

Now, just to prove my innocence beyond any lingering doubt, leaving Dad’s office I actually began to whistle (like totally innocent people do in situations like this, at least in Disney cartoons).

A little bit later, my dad stepped out on the factory floor and interrupted my whistling. Would I come back with him to his office?

He sat down, I remained standing. He grimaced again. Looked up at me. Well, he said. Folke had not stolen his own money, that was for sure. And he clearly remembers having the money in his wallet this morning. I nodded. Okay. Yes, I follow.

Nor had my dad taken it, that was also for sure. I nodded again.

And, I, my dad’s son, had not taken it either, right? Right, I confirmed. Nodding harder. Well, that particular day, there was only one other guy on the floor, Lennart was his name, and he then, obviously—by process of elimination—must be the thief, and Dad just wanted to let me know that he was going to fire him for stealing. He just wanted to double-check with me first.

That, obviously, did it, and here came my confession.

As an aside, I did apologize to Lennart for almost getting him fired, though now, writing this, I don’t think Dad had any intention of firing anybody. I think he simply wanted to press a confession out of me. Lennart drowned in a boating accident a couple of years later—which, of course, is neither here nor there.

In this case, too, there was something I wanted to buy. This time it was a bamboo vaulting pole (this was before the flexible ones entered the fray) that a schoolmate of mine was selling for, yes, five kronor. Oh, man.

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>>Looking back, I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time in empty (of other people, not of their clothes) changing rooms. The town’s bath house, for one. Fertile fields.

Many a piece of useful change was also swiped from hallway tables, (local priest, local organist), wallets (local farmer), backpacks (boy scout pal), cash tills (local football club), piggy banks, pockets (changing rooms), and various drawers—kitchen, bedroom (grandmothers).

The only time I can recall where I was simply overcome with the urge to steal money with no immediate acquisition in mind also turns out to be both my last theft and my largest haul. It was never discovered and I never had to own up to it to anyone. I’m glad that the confessional statute of limitation has run on this.

Here’s that sad story.

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Lasse was in his late twenties when I, in my teens, worked as a freelance journalist at a provincial newspaper. Lasse was in charge of advertising at that same paper. That, and he was also the manager of a local band who was called “The Five” in French, i.e., “Les Cinq.” On top of that, he was also a promoter of sorts and perhaps, because of that, even a local celebrity. Pretty well-known in either event.

Now he had rented the Saga, our recently built new movie theater that could double as a performance venue. He was putting on a show. As I recall, there were three bands on the menu: The Shanes (a nationally known band from way, way up north—Kiruna, I believe), The Panthers, a local band, and, of course, his own band, Les Cinq.

Admission, as I recall, was ten kronor (probably the equivalent of a hundred kronor today, so, about ten bucks, say). There was a little cinema cashier’s office just inside the main entrance (once you ascended three wall-to-wall, carpeted steps) where the Lasse-appointed cashier took care of all the folks lining up to come in to see the show—and there were a lot of them, the line snaked around the building. I believe the place sold out.

Now, somewhere halfway through the venue filling up, I was asked (by whom, I don’t remember) to fill in for the cashier (potty break or something) and take people’s money and hand them their tickets. So, I did.

And did, and did, and then something just snapped: all this money. This little mountain of money. Too much. Too much for anyone to notice if some was missing, surely? Yes, yes, I had to help myself to some of it, really, really. I had to. And I did. I grabbed a sizeable stack of bills and shoved them down into my pocket, that’s what I did, and then I shoved some more into the other pocket, and when I was relieved by the original cashier a short while later, I sailed down the stairs to the basement bathroom to rearrange the loot into my socks (just in case money would in fact be found missing and people searched—socks were at least better than pockets, yes, I actually thought of that).

No, I was not searched, but, once the show was over—perhaps this was the following day or so—Lasse told me that they had come up way short on the money, which he didn’t understand because the place was packed by the end of the show. However, and this is a big however—and perhaps a very saving grace for this thief’s impressive swan song—at some point during the show, someone or some ones had opened the side doors (fire escapes, I believe) to the cinema and let people in from the outside. Of course, there was no telling how many people had been let in without paying, and perhaps these gatecrashers did account for the shortfall; that was Lasse’s reasoning, anyway. Still, he was really bummed about this and probably ended up paying the shortfall out of his own pocket (which was empty most of the time, as I recall).

Looking back, I don’t see why he didn’t compare tickets sold (and handed out) to the total take, which could not have tallied either. Perhaps he had not counted how many tickets he began with—for they were torn off a roll of tickets and handed to the buyer. Then again, perhaps he did. I don’t know.

I made off with seven hundred kronor that night, which by today’s value would equal about seven hundred dollars. That’s not a pilfering or a nicking or a snatching or a lifting—that’s larceny, of the grand type. You would have been looking at jail time for that. I don’t know whether it’s surprising or not, but I have not taken as much as a penny from anyone since.

I think I kind of shocked myself out of the habit.

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All right, back to the lifting or pilfering category—this time: shoplifting.

I was a great shoplifter. One of my favorite targets was shrimp—boiled, shelled, smoked, and frozen in eight or so-ounce packets. I loved those things. I kid you not. Just writing this sentence makes my mouth water, literally. I must have lifted a packet or two of these glorious shrimps on a dozen or more occasions from one of our local grocery stores, where access to the frozen shrimps and the ten-foot-away access to an exit made for the perfect looting environment.

I’d also acquire chocolate bars, movie star cards, cigarettes (once or twice as I recall). Shops were made for stealing. If they didn’t want it stolen, they shouldn’t place it within a young boy’s reach.

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Eventually, I was fourteen at the time, spring of 1963, Mom and Dad had grown so worried about what seemed my more or less constant thieving that they made an appointment for me to see a shrink about it. I remember the evening before very well, lying on my stomach in our small living room watching television (a black and white Centrum) being quite nervous about the whole thing; and I remember the two-or-so hours' train ride down to Gävle, where the nearest teenage psychologist held the fort. Mom brought me. I was still nervous about this visit on the train.

Then we arrived and we spoke, the shrink and I, Mom waiting outside. He was a nice enough guy and I answered his questions honestly as I recall. Bottom line: he told my mom that I’d grow out of it. The stealing. She was relieved. I was relieved. And I’m sure my dad was relieved as well.

And I did grow out of it. I didn’t steal again, but for that one, thunderous finale of $700, just to put an emphatic period to that rather sad passage of my life.

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