“Hey, I need you to pay for these items that you two stole. ” I didn’t know that this random guy had been watching us throughout the whole store. My entire life I never imagined I would get caught up in the criminal life. I have been in major trouble with the law once before, and that was a minor violation of driving without a license when I was 17. In this narrative I will tell you how I ended up in jail overnight with my best mate. This passage involves just two people, my best mate James and me. Ever since I moved to Brunswick for college, I knew I didn’t want to be in an unfamiliar area with no one to really call my friend.
I lived at Coastal Apartments by myself because my roommate never took the opportunity for what it’s worth and never lived at the apartment. Now, I’m a Christian believer of God, but throughout my life, I always had problems with school mostly because I wanted to be liked by everyone. I would cause trouble at school just to stand out in hopes to fit in with my friends. We viewed getting in trouble as a child being confident in doing whatever he or she wanted to do, because in truth no one really wanted to be at school listening to adults all day.
I enjoyed having friends around mostly because those being around gave me the confidence and ability to do some of the things I wouldn’t do if I were alone. One of the first friends I made when I was here was James. Now James was my type of friend, he was a confident and strong guy who also shared a passion for sports. We both were athletes and we got along really well. We shared a lot of similar interests and he was from Brunswick. That made him an insider to this city that I was new to. We got to know each other pretty quickly and started hanging out and sharing new experiences all over the Golden Isles.
When we were together though, we were two miscreant college students who wanted many things that were not possible. College is where teenagers go to discover themselves. On this day in July, I found myself acting in a manner that was deviant and far from who I was raised to be. On this day mostly what I remember before the incident was us wanting to do something at my crib. In Brunswick there isn’t much around for teenagers to entertain themselves. Whenever we were bored, we would ride around the city and go inside stores and pocket things that we wanted.
While we were riding through the city we decided to shoplift from Wal-Mart. We had stolen from there before and had even been warned by our friends to watch out because the store had hired many secret shoppers to report suspicious activity. When we heard that we thought “We’re way to suave for that; the way we steal from Wal-Mart is an art. ” We thought we were pretty good at what we did for looking at our record; we had stolen many objects and hadn’t been caught before. So we entered the store confident as always “let’s get in and out,” I said.
James followed me as we went over to the electronic section with random boxes in our hand to not look suspicious. I saw this case that would look really nice on my phone. James said “Get it if you want it. ” So I grabbed the case and he grabbed a wall mount for his charger. We needed to take them out of the packages. So we headed over to the sporting good section to do so I made sure there were no cameras in sight. I told James “I’m good,” So was he, so then we headed to walk out through the garden section. As soon as we walked past the garden center checkout, James and I looked at each other and said “This is getting too easy. We even made it out of the store, until about three seconds later this guy called us back and said “Hey, I need you to pay for those stolen times. ”
I looked at him and thought, “You will have to catch me,” but I noticed James turn around and start to head towards the secret shopper security. I am the type of friend who doesn’t leave any man behind even under these circumstances. I have loyalty to my family and friends and will do the upmost for them, and expect they would do the same for me. The security guy who caught us was this tall guy who looked like a military soldier off duty; I suspected that they would be in plain sight.
So we headed back in the garden center where we were greeted by more security who were dressed in the same type of clothing we had on t-shirts and shorts. They knew James because when we met he said “James, really” and James replied “Cole. ” It wasn’t that much of a surprise though he was a popular guy. I had seen these guys in the store, but I didn’t realize they worked for Walmart’s security. They were the secret shoppers we were warned about. They escorted James and I into the back of the store during which we passed by a few Walmart personnel who looked at me like I was a terrorist to their company.
That feeling made me think how I got myself in this situation to where I became addicted to stealing; it really was uncontrollable. “Is this where my life was lead to,” I thought to myself this isn’t what I came to college for. The manager met us in the back of the store where we questioned. The manager of the store was a younger guy who looked like Eminem. I was confident because I had someone I knew with me, but I was still scared of what would happen. They asked us for the stolen items. I quickly pulled out the phone case and gave it to them; James tried to act like he didn’t have anything on him like I was the only one who stole.
That made me suspects of him then because why would you continue to lie, we were already caught. Then the security guys searched James and then the charger fell out of his pants, he lied about the charger. This infuriated the manager his face started to shrivel up in disgust. The manager then proceeded to take down our name and information and then they started to talk about paying a fine. I said “No problem, we can pay that,” even though it was triple the price of the items we stole. I thought we were going to be let off with a warning I was cooperating and I acted respectable unlike James.
James was acting disrespectful and telling them how much he hated cops and didn’t want to answer their questions or even cooperate wit the security. A police officer came in and I knew we were going downtown. The manager took a face shot of me and then placed me in handcuffs and the police escorted me to the back of his car. They did the same with James, but put him in a separate police car. I noticed he had a dog riding with him barking the whole ride to the jail. We then made it to Brunswick’s jail where we went through booking and were placed in a holding cell for what seemed like forever but was really only about five hours.
They were extremely overcrowded and were processing us at an extremely slow pace. While in the holding cell, I was with James and a guy named Caesar who worked at Sea Island and a few more guys whose name I didn’t know. I was talking with James and we were talking about how we were getting out and he told me “I called my dad, but he said he isn’t getting us out and that his cousin was coming. I told James “He would have to get me too and I would pay him back the bail, because the bondsman wasn’t answering the phone. ”
After the holding cell, we were placed in a cell where there were a lot of other criminals who were watching the football game. I went to my bunk and cried because I couldn’t call my mother; she was so far away. I also was embarrassed of what she would think of me stealing. After a while in our bunks, James was called to be released, and I thought I would be released soon after. I then waited all night and nothing. I couldn’t even call James because I didn’t know his number. I realized my loyalty and bad choices had gotten me in this situation and now I was in this jail that really was remotely unappealing.
I did not like being looked at by all these guys who would do nothing but tell stories, play cards, and wait for chow. I asked myself” is this the life I’m going to live? ” I then toughened up and called my mother who came and released me from jail and I disgraced our family. This made me feel horrible because my mother is the one person who believes in me and wants me to have a better life. Everything I do is in her name and I love her for not keeping this over me. I learned my lesson from stealing and I don’t need friends around me who aren’t having positive motivation in their life.
