Stick ‘Em Up!

My father was a pharmacist. From 1935 to 1969, he owned and operated a drug store in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. It was a tiny corner store with two large windows facing the street's two corners. I used to love going to the store. It was like a playland for me. It was full of fascinating items and had two coin-operated telephone booths with closed doors to allow privacy for a phone call. Shelves holding everything from cosmetics to candy and gum lined the walls, and the counters placed in front of the walls allowed for a walking space that was only available to people who worked at the store. There was an equally crowded tiny room in the back where he made ointments and capsules and filled prescriptions. There were lots of hiding places, too. My dad took pleasure in decorating the two large windows. Even though he didn’t know what he was doing, the finished project was still eye-catching and usually humorous. I would usually go when my mother went to help. This happened on holidays and weekends. Sometimes, she waited on the customers but was primarily the bookkeeper.

One December, Dad started to decorate the store for Christmas. I was not present. I was home in Queens, probably doing homework. I had aged out of the fascination of hiding and playing in the store.

Business was slow that night, which suited my father. He had the time to enjoy and set up his displays while my mother was around to take care of customers who came in. Of course, he had to stop if there was a prescription to fill.

Two men entered the store shortly before closing hours. My father was working on unraveling a long string of Christmas lights. The minute he saw them, he knew he was being robbed. It was not the first time, but usually, it was a break-in after he left the store. My mother had been behind the counter and saw the two men enter. She felt terrible and quietly opened the cash register and removed most of the day’s money. My dad kept a large wastepaper bin under the counter near the register. Mom threw the bigger bills into the wastepaper basket and covered it quickly. She closed the register.

The two men were armed, and the store only had an alarm if someone broke in from the outside. The men ordered Mom and Dad to the center of the pharmacy and, using the Christmas lights, tied them up back to back. They removed my mother’s wedding band and a cheap Timex watch she wore. They tried getting my Dad’s wedding band off, but he hadn’t removed it in years, and it wouldn’t budge. They gave up on it. Then they went to the back room to steal whatever drugs they could find. Someone in the street saw something happening and quickly went to find a phone and call the police. The men ransacked the back room and plugged in the cord that bound my parents before leaving the premises.

The police arrived a few minutes later. My father was so thankful someone had called. They were shortly rescued from their Christmas cords. That year’s windows were sparsely decorated.

My son-in-law had an experience of his own. In the late 1980s, he was a supermarket manager. One of his duties was to be at the store at closing and verify the day’s receipts. He arrived about 15 minutes before closing and greeted everyone still there. He had to go to the bathroom. It wasn’t an option, and he had to go right then! He told everyone where he was going and disappeared from their view.

A few minutes after he went to the restroom in the back, armed men entered the store and robbed the people, tallying up the daily receipts. The robbers didn’t harm anyone; they just handed over the money. Upon their departure from the store, the alarm went out to the police.

One of the other employees got on the PA system and called out my son-in-law’s name. He wasn’t quite finished and had no way to answer. The person called his name several times, getting louder and more assertive each time. Finally, my son-in-law returned to the front of the building and saw a swarm of cops.

Because my son-in-law took so long to respond to the insistent calls from the front, he was sure they looked at him suspiciously!

Ultimately, it was determined that he had nothing to do with the robbery.

He considered the accusation par for the course since he has often been in the wrong place at the wrong time. All’s well that ends well, and he was cleared of involvement.