keith

I'm sick as a dog.

I had a really, really scary experience last night. It was the first time I've ever been afraid since I started working the graveyard shift.

Our store has two doors. The "front" door faces busy NW 63rd, and the "side" door faces the north tail of Portland right before it dead-ends in Lake Hefner. I have always kept the side door locked at night until about 4:30-4:45, when the morning people start rolling in.

This morning a few minutes after I unlocked the side door three late-20s-ish hispanics, one female and two males, came in through it. I mention their race because it's a key element of the story. I was immediately suspicious of them not because they were hispanic, but because I didn't see any car pull up before they came in through that side door, and because they just looked shady as Hell.

My first thought was "beer run", because I've had those before. Those don't scare me. So I'm trying to keep "casually" between the beer and them, and also I'm being pretty obvious about watching them. I also walk over to the side door and peek around to see if I can see a car, but I can't see anything.

The female immediately notices that I'm watching them, and starts mouthing off about how I'm racist and I wouldn't watch white people like that (untrue, my last two beer runners were white kids). She doesn't fluster me, though, because it's really, really obvious that she's just trying to keep me off balance.

Around this same time, a few customers came in to get coffee, newspapers, etc, and the Tulsa World delivery guy came in. Both he <I>and</i> one of the customers noticed these three shady people, and both asked in a low voice, "Are you alright?" I told both of them, "I don't know." and tried to plead with my eyes for them to hang around for a second.

Now the female is still pacing back and forth around the store, muttering about how she "can't get no justice" and the two males are coming in and out of the doors and generally looking like they're just waiting for me to be alone again. After I ring up the last customer, the female says something about how, "My money is more important than hers." Now, I'm thinking this is more than a beer run -- I'm thinking they're going to rob me.

I try to <I>discretely</I> pick up the phone, lay it out of their line of sight, and dial 911, but the female notices what I'm doing. "Oh, now you callin' 911. We ain't done nothin'." One of the males, the biggest of the three, comes back in, and she says to him, "He's callin' 911." He looks at me and puffs out his chest and says in a chilling tone, "You better hang up that phone."

I don't. I'm so scared at this point that my hands are shaking, but the guy doesn't come behind the counter, they just immediately dart for the stacks of beer displays and start loading up their arms. At some point -- I didn't notice exactly when -- they also finally pulled their truck into the parking lot in front of the side door.

I hear the 911 operator pick up, and I immediately tell her where I'm at and I start describing them as I'm watching them run out the door. They jump in the truck and back straight out to the street and whip around so fast that I can't get a tag, or even tell anything about the car other than it was a maroon Chevy truck or SV. As soon as they got out I ran and locked both doors and then got down behind the register. At this point I'm just crying my eyes out, shaking.. it was horrible.

Anyway after the police are on their way I call my manager, and I'm sure scare the shit out of her because I'm sobbing so hard I can't even talk, but I manage to croak out, "I'm OK." and what happened. She says she's on her way.

Three police cars are there in minutes, including two that are regulars every night. As soon as those two make sure I'm OK, they take off in different directions I guess to see if they can see anybody, while the third stays to get my statement. I was so embarrassed at this point because I was still a wreck. I know now why they say eyewitness testimony can be unreliable, because even minutes later I could hardly think straight to tell the cop any details about what they looked like.

Anyway my manager and the night supervisor get there in a few minutes, and they're both really sympathetic. Even before this happened I was going to ask for the night off because I'm sick, but after that I told her straight out I was going to go to the doctor and get a note so I wouldn't have to come in tonight.

I know one thing -- this just confirmed the truth of my gut instincts that have been, so far, 100% accurate when they tell me that someone is up to no good. I think I will start keeping that side door locked until the sun comes up or until the next shift gets there, and I think next time I will definitely call 911 the instant someone comes in who strikes me as shady. One of the officers told me that if I'm afraid, all I have to do is pick up the phone and dial and not even say anything, just leave it on the line. I guess if anything I'm glad that I could immediately tell that these guys were dangerous, and that I had enough guts at least to not hang up the phone when that guy told me to.