The Great Kotex Burglary of 1975

Thirty years ago I stole something. I think the statute of limitations is up; I certainly hope so. I do remember it was 1975 because I do remember that I was 12 and beginning the 8th grade. Everyone was older than me as usual so I figured that was just the way things were going to be forever. But there was one place where I found some people around my age, outside of school, outside of my neighborhood. It was a block of houses, smaller than mine, in North Hollywood across the street from Madison Junior High School.

We used to play football on weekends there, on the grass in front of Madison. There was me, and John McDowell, he was Scottish and his brother Bruce was a cop. He always had to play center because he was big, doughy and slow. But you couldn't mess with John Mac because of Bruce. Mike Oda was Japanese, he didn't play with us too much, he knew karate and he could kill anyone. He was the only one who wasn't afraid of Bruce. About half the kids were Jewish but they all came from different places, Morrie Zladowicz's dad was from Russia, George and Alexandra Mykalishka's folks came from the Ukraine. The kids were almost all first generation in America and spoke other languages to their parents. I felt good there, those kids treated me OK, and we played lots of sports and wrestled. They weren't like the kids at school. At school they tied jockstraps around my face during gym and spat in the back of my head during class. I guess they were bored. I was small and young and always alone so that made it easy for them.

I did fix that situation, but only by accident. One day I was hanging around after school, I played a lot of sports, each one I could find, because at least there were rules and even the assholes followed the rules during the game, that was the only time I could get a fair shake it seemed. I was pretty athletic too, although I was small and wiry I was really fast and had good hands, so I hoped somehow that would get me in with the cool people but that was never realistic. So I was usually around the school after practice when most kids were gone. I remember one afternoon Scott Lewis and George Hildebrandt coming around by my locker, it was the same old routine. First they called me a fag and other things like that. They didn't seem to have a great variety. They started to take stuff out of my locker and mess around with it, nothing special. Then Scott Lewis took one of my textbooks and said he was going to throw it in the street. I couldn't have that, my father would kill me. Scott Lewis wasn't too big but he was bigger than me of course, and Hildebrandt was a huge teutonic son of a bitch who hit a lot of home runs for our baseball team. He could have hit me into the next world for sure. I figured I might as well try something though, so I went to slap Scott Lewis in the head. Only I had forgotten that I still had my combination padlock in my right hand and I clocked him fairly good, but really it wasn't much. He wasn't bleeding, I didn't even knock him down. The strangest thing happened then, Scott Lewis began to cry. I was amazed. How could he do that? I didn't even hit him that hard, and he cried, he cried just like a girl. How was this possible, he was one of the coolest kids in school! I was awestruck, he just kept sobbing, and asking me why I hit him.

Then I figured it was time to die, because Hildebrandt came up to me. But all he wound up doing was yelling at me and saying I was crazy and then he pulled all the stuff out of my locker, threw it on the ground, and they both walked around the corner. After that they left me alone, which seemed like a good way for things to be. I had no chance of being cool and there was no way I could be brave enough to talk to the girls, so it seemed best if no one talked to me at school at all except the teachers and the coaches.

The kids in North Hollywood weren't too bored and if they did anything out of hand their parents would knock the snot out of them. Morrie's dad even kicked my butt once but I had it coming. Me and John Hooper were peeking into Morrie's room at night and knocking on his window and running away. One time the old man was waiting in the bushes and I didn't run fast enough and he caught me and grabbed me by the collar and kicked me really hard, twice, in the ass. "You get the hell out of here you little bastard!" He could have beat me a lot worse, he probably should have; even the ass kickings around there had a certain decency about them, and they were never gratuitous. But I got the message. So we didn't mess with Morrie anymore after that.

It was an interesting area to me, there were things to do and kids my age, not like my street where all the kids were either much older than me or toddlers. The baby boom was over and the tattooed pierced babies were just being born, it is too bad they aren't born ready-made with that crap all over them. I was in the middle somewhere, no one ever thought of a name for us. Everyone listened to Led Zeppelin and had stupid looking hair and clothing. I even knew it at the time, and I still hate Led Zeppelin. I couldn't get away from that damned Stairway to Heaven, it followed me around for years like a saccharine shadow. It is no wonder I hate sweets. I didn't know it then but I was waiting for punk to be born. I would not have to wait much longer.

K Mart was near the block in North Hollywood, on Sherman Way, that was our playground. We would go in and play hide and seek, and when we got older we would play Wolfman, which was a game where the person who got kicked out of K Mart first won. McDowell used to win a lot because he had a switchblade, and he would go along the aisle where they kept the fertilizer bags and split them all open. The place would begin to reek and someone would come along and kick him out. His mom found out about the switchblade though and then Bruce found out about it apparently. McDowell wasn't around for about a week after that so I don't know what exactly happened but I don't think it was nice, and he no longer had the switchblade to help him at Wolfman.

The best place was Madison Junior High though. It was right across the street and we would hop the fence and make it our own private school on weekends. I remember there was a sundial in the center somewhere. It was nice being at a school when the regular kids were not around. But the best place was the roofs, just walking around on the roofs was fun. I don't even remember why, I suppose because it was more illegal than trespassing on the plain old ground. We would kick the transems in and then all take off running and if we were feeling really brave jump from the roof to the ground, there were bushes there so you could roll and it broke your fall pretty well. Plus you would get scratched up and a litte bloody so it made you look cool. The security guard was fat and slow, there was no way he could have caught us, especially me. I was always the fastest, that's why Mcdowell had to play center but I always got to be wide receiver. I caught a lot of touchdowns, that was a lot of fun. Since the fat security guard could not catch us, why did we jump off the roof, well I guess because there were only 5 channels on TV, so it was something to do.

One day we were walking around on the roofs at Madison, looking through the transems that we hadn't broken yet and were opened to the air. Most of the classrooms looked the same, desks, a flag in the corner, the chalkboard. It was a typical dull day, mild, wholly unremarkable. Not too hot, not too cold, sunny, utterly vapid. Most days in Los Angeles are like that. We were getting ready to do our kick and run scheme, but someone saw something and said "Hey, look at this!"

We all ran over--it was not a classroom we were looking at, it was a bathroom. No big deal but...it was the *Women's* bathroom, the one the woman teachers went into. Now this was something special to me. Females were still just an alien species to me so I was intrigued immediately. I was still waiting for one of them to talk to me. There weren't any urinals of course but there was some kind of machine in the corner, something that accepted money. I couldn't figure it out, what was it? Finally Morrie came over and said "That's a Kotex machine you dumbasses. Let's go". Somehow Morrie knew about that stuff. He was always studying, he had to or his dad would kick his ass. He became a doctor.

I figured something had to be done about this, so later on I got together with McDowell and Hooper, I said, "Hey, let's steal that thing, there might be a lot of money in it!" I really didn't care about the money of course. It just seemed like it might be fun. McDowell wasn't having any part of it, the switchblade thing was still a recent event and Bruce had him on a short leash. Bruce was a cop and he carried a gun around and he never, ever smiled or laughed. So I understood, but Hooper and I swore him to secrecy and proceeded with the conspiracy.

We made a lot of plans, I don't remember now what they all were. Black clothing, screwdrivers, a flashlight, black wool caps, things like that. A set time, an escape route, the works. This could be big after all, why screw it up? I think we even synchronized our watches. Once we got down into the Women's bathroom we had to get the Kotex machine open. That wasn't so easy, we had screwdrivers but we couldn't pry the thing open, damn, we hadn't made a backup plan for this! It would require a lot more force than we thought. Well, one of us could go back and get a hammer...no, too loud! Ok let's just pry the thing off the wall, carry it back to the garage, then we could work away until it gave up the money. That was it.

There was a lot of prying and cursing and sweating, it was a rare warm night. Finally though, with two of us going at it, we got it off the wall. It was made of metal and painted white, about twice the size of a computer these days. But it was awkward and we had to carry it like a child's coffin. The nice thing was, we could just walk right out the front door of the Women's bathroom; the bad thing was, we would have to take the long way around, through the school grounds and out the front gate. No way was this going up and over the fence.

It was a long journey, and we had to keep stopping every minute or so when we got to some bushes and hide and rest. But we finally got it back to Hooper's garage. Then we attacked it, hammers, tire irons, lots of prying instruments. He had a lot of tools and they were noisy. "What is that noise out there?!" his mom yelled. "Ah, we're working on the lawnmower, remember I gotta mow the lawn tomorrow." Hooper lied. He was a good liar, and quick. I was never good at that so I'm glad he was around and that his mom was so naive.

After about an hour of pounding and prying the coin box burst open. Three nickels. Fifteen cents. I don't even remember how we split it up or what we did with the money. Even back then it wasn't much, plus we had to get up early the next morning and wash cement trucks with Hooper's stepfather. We would get $5 for that. In 1975 that was a good amount of money for a 12 year old. I always did love working, it kept me out of trouble, most of the time anyway. And I figured it paid better to work since it did not really seem to pay too much to steal.