Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [110]
“The beginning and the end of my life in crime,” he told me, after a few moments, “involved a Milky Way candy bar. When I was a youngster—in fact, when I was in Catholic school and before the time, I’m sure, that Gary started stealing things—I went into a grocery store and stole myself this Milky Way candy bar. Grabbed it, put it in my pocket, took off. That is, I almost took off. The guy working there, he had been watching me. He stopped me and took the Milky Way candy bar from me and said: ‘Where do you come from?’ Wanted my name and everything. I was real scared, and I told him: ‘Well, I go to this Catholic school up the street.’ So he called them up and one of the nuns came, down and said: ‘Yes, that’s Frank. What did he do? He stole a candy bar? Well, we have got to do something about this. You can’t let this go.’ And the man said, ‘I’m not going to let it go.’ He had me dump all these garbage cans, then he had me take the dust mop and dust all the aisles, up and down all of them. Had me go out front and sweep the sidewalk. Man, for a little kid it seemed like a mountain of work. I took all the stuff back in and I said: ‘Well, I think I got everything done, and I’m sorry about what I did.’ And the man said: ‘Okay. By the way, here’s your candy bar. You finally earned it.’
“I said, ‘Thanks,’ and I took my candy bar. I went back home, ate the candy bar, and I wasn’t going to say anything. When I went to school the next day, the sister made me go to confession and tell what I did, and when I came back I had to write ‘I will never steal again’ on the board two or three hundred times. I said to myself, ‘Now I know I’ve earned the candy bar—I’ve done all this.’ When I got home that night one of the school’s priests had called Dad and told him. On top of everything else I got the razor strap for stealing that candy bar. So, you want to know why I never became a thief? That was the reason. At the time it really bothered me, but to this day, when I think about it, I wonder: What if I got by with that candy bar? I think I would have kept stealing candy bars. And who knows—it might have wound up being a lot worse for me.”
If punishment deterred Frank, I asked my brother, then why had it never deterred Gary?
Frank thought about the question for a long time. After a bit, he said: “In a way, I would have liked to have seen Gary get that just to see what it would have done. At the same time, he did get punished all the time. Not only did all that punishment fail to deter him, it actually seemed to make him act worse. In fact, I think something in Gary wanted all that punishment. Something in me, though, definitely did not. I don’t know why. I sometimes think that Gary and Gaylen got the crazy side of Mom and Dad, and you and I did not.”
Frank looked at me, smiled, shrugged, and went back to eating his soup.
As GARY PURSUED TROUBLE more, and got into worse fights with my father, Frank Jr. found himself trying to hold the peace at home whenever possible. But it wasn’t easy. My father would go to Frank Jr. and Gary and tell them: “I want the garbage out and the lawn mowed tomorrow.” The next day, Frank would take the garbage out and mow the lawn, but Gary wouldn’t. To save hell for everybody, Frank Jr. would do Gary’s share of the work. But none of that seemed to count for much with my father. Apparently he only reacted if you defied him or somehow failed his instructions. If he figured out that Frank had done the work and Gary hadn’t, he’d punish them both anyway—forbid them their allowance or their weekend movie or some other promised privilege or reward.
“One time,” Frank said, “Dad wanted the basement cleaned up. At that time I had some allergies and I didn’t want to go down and clean it up—there was too much dust and dirt down there. I knew I’d get rashes all over me, and when you’re a teenager, it’s important to look your best. But I didn’t know how to tell him. I just said something like, ‘Couldn’t Gary do it this one time?’ Dad said, ‘No, I told you to do it, and I want it done.’ So