The Dude Is Ripping Off The Man!

(After all, I was OFD…)

By Detective (Retired) Marty Swirko, Manchester, NH Police Department

I had made it through my freshman year at Northeastern University in Boston, but just barely. My lifestyle had started to take a toll on my studies. It wasn’t because I was partying or having fun. It was just the opposite. I got to the point where I was becaming very resentful of the students that I had gotten to know that had their way paid, living on campus, having a good time and not really putting a lot of emphasis into their studies. Was I envious? Absolutely! But there wasn’t much I could do about it. I didn’t feel sorry for myself, but I was never a kid that quit when things got tough, so the decision to leave wasn’t easy for me. 

I was carrying a full academic load, I believe it was either 4 or 5 classes per semester, and I was working two separate part time jobs as well. At one point during my second semester I became homeless again, and this time it appeared as though I was truly out on the street. I had parted ways with most of my high school friends so “couch surfing”or in some cases car surfing for days at a time at their homes was no longer an option. To add to all these problems was the fact that I had to commute to and from school and to my jobs by subway, adding hours onto my days that were already full. 

Anyone who has read some of my earlier stories knows that one of my jobs was with the Grocery / Dairy chain in the Northeast and Florida called Cumberland Farms. They would also know during that year in college I was robbed at gunpoint twice, and in both incidents hostages were taken and to this day I feel fortunate that we all survived those incidents. 

My second job, which the university obtained for me as part of their co-op work study program was as a security guard with the former Burns International Security Corporation. That job had me doing overnight shifts each Friday and Saturday at a women’s residence in Boston. My plan was to study during those shifts, but like many things the job didn’t turn out that way. When I wasn’t making rounds I had trouble staying awake at my post in the lobby. Saturday mornings I got off, took the subway to Cumberland’s in Quincy Point and open that store  for the day. 

Sunday mornings I’d get off duty once again, take the subway home, sleep until two and work at the store from three until 9 PM when I closed it. Then it was back to Northeastern first thing Monday mornings. In addition to supporting myself, there was tuition and related expenses which is why I had to keep the two jobs. 

I also went out for both Cross Country and Winter Track, which was the main reason I chose Northeastern University over my other opportunities. However, the coach had very little sympathy for the fact that I had to work and couldn’t devote enough time to practice every day, so ending what had started as a promising collegiate career as a runner was the first casualty of my post high school plan. By the spring of that year I knew something had to give, and eventually I decided it was going to be college.

I decided not to go back to school the following September. It wasn’t really a hard decision to make. I still owed Northeastern money (as it turned out, I wasn’t able to pay them off completely for a few years after I got married) and my academic achievements, although satisfactory, weren’t outstanding. So, I was done with college and at the time I figured if I ever got myself stable, I could always go back. As an aside, I will mention here that during my time at Northeastern I took mandatory courses in both Economics and Political Science, and surprisingly I found both interesting and I’ve always had an interest in both subjects during my entire adult life. Also, the credits I did earn I was able to apply to my promotional packets during my time in the Army, so my single year in college wasn’t a complete waste. 

During that timeframe I met a guy working at Cumberland Farms that I would go on to become a life long friend with, and we were close for many, many years, until his untimely death a few years ago. Patrick Houston and I finally got an apartment together in West Quincy (Massachusetts) And so began one of the strangest and life defining years I may have experienced during my entire lifetime. That year took many strange twists and turns. I was 19 years old when that year began, and I found myself trying to scratch out an existence and figure it all out. Looking back on that year, it seems as though I was at rock bottom in life, then somehow I soared to new heights and the beginning of what became the life I enjoy today just 18 months later!

Pat and I got an apartment, and because I was going to work full time, I needed a car to commute and I was eventually able to accomplish that. I asked my supervisor at Cumberland Farms if I could go to work full time. He thought I was a good part time employee, dependable, hardworking and honest so I had no problem there. I’d been with the company for about a year so he brought me on for the summer as a Vacation Manager and committed to me that if I worked out he would recommend I become a regular full time manager somewhere. That was fine with me. I had my next plan.

My first assignment was to run a store in suburban Rockland Massachusetts while it’s manager took his vacation. It was a beautiful store, friendly people, modern, clean, actually air conditioned and running it was pretty easy. This store was not like the older stores located in crime ridden neighborhoods within and around the city of Boston. Already a veteran of two armed robberies, if all my assignments were like this I thought, I’d have it made. But it wasn’t to be. 

One nice thing that happened during my time in Rockland was that I met a woman named Diane who was also a Cumberland Farms store manager in a nearby town. She was a few years older then me, pretty, and she walked in wearing jeans and a halter top. I found I liked her and liked being around her. One afternoon she stopped in the Rockland store on her way home from her store, struck up a conversation with me, hung around and finally when I was relieved she offered to give me a ride to the bank with my daily deposit. I said sure, why not? 

I climbed into her red Mustang convertible, top down, and headed to the bank. After making the deposit, she then informed me that she was kidnapping me and I was stuck with her for the night! I was still pretty shy around women, but I knew a good thing when I saw it so we hung out together for the rest of the evening. We hit it off immediately, and we dated for a bit. She was fun loving and for some reason she liked me. We had a good time. One day I told her that I really liked her a lot, and her response to me was “Marty, I like you. I like you a lot. I love hanging out with you and you’re a lot of fun. But I have no interest in becoming involved in a serious relationship. And that was the end of that. She left me shaking my head, but we remained friends especially since we worked for the same company. I know she left Massachusetts shortly after that and I never had any contact with or heard anything of her since. They say things happen for a reason, and in this case, especially when I look back on it today, I came to believe it. Later that summer I met a woman I fell in love with whom I would marry and am still married! 

I think my time running the Rockland store was a test, and when I was done I was sent to store number 3418 (I don’t know why I remember all these store numbers but I do) which was located on Hyde Park Ave in Roslindale, which is a neighborhood in the southwestern part of Boston. The previous manager had been fired and I was made the temporary manager there and asked to clean it up and get it running good again. Another test. I was fine with that and did my best. All the inner city stores at the time were open from 9AM and closed at 7 PM, and this store was no exception. The crime rates in these areas at that time were so high that we had to lock up the store, steel grates and all and get out of Dodge before it got dark. Apparently, I did a decent job because my supervisor used to bring supervisors in from other areas to see my store and brag to them about the job I did. He also took credit for finding me. The truth was I loved running that store and I really bought into working for Cumberland Farms during that time. 

I was lent out to different supervisors and sent to stores that needed to be cleaned up, and to hire and train employees at those locations. It was a lot of responsibility for a 19 year old, at least I thought it was. As time went on, I was sent to the Cumberland Farms Corporate Manager Training School, and after completing it, I was assigned as a real, full time manager, commission and all. The only problem was that I didn’t stay in Roslindale. They moved me down the street to a tiny, filthy, low volume store, located on the same street, Hyde Park Ave, but in Hyde Park. 

Store number 3398 was on the corner of Hyde Park Ave and Arlington Street. It had been run for many years by an old timer, but he was very unorganized and had lost his edge. They moved him out to another assignment and decided I would be the one to clean up and get this store back up and running to company standards. Old Joe Driscoll was a character. He’d been around for a long time. He had been shot three times during armed robberies, and led the district in armed robberies which was saying a lot! One time, a local kid came in and tried to stick Joe up with a shot gun. Joe recognized the kid, despite the mask he was wearing, then dumped his trash can over the kids head and chased him out the door telling him not to come back! I asked Joe about that incident and he just told me he knew who the kid was, so he just chased him out. He said the kid was harmless! 

I was disappointed about losing the Roslindale store, and even more disappointed with this dump, especially after having worked at such a nice store in Rockland during the summer. But, I sucked it up and did my best. In fact, I had done so well that after a few months they decided to move me back to 3418 in Roslindale, and I was ecstatic about that!

My “managerial” career took a strange twist. We had stores all around Boston that were very difficult to run. Dishonest and lazy employees, high crime rates, shoplifting, burglaries and armed robberies were common. So, throughout my time running the Roslindale store, I would be sent for a week or two at a time to a problem store, hire a staff, clean it up and getting it running well again. Managers that were willing to work in my store, often would refuse to work in these stores that were in pretty bad neighborhoods throughout Boston. I came to embrace this role and became to be known as the district store fixer. The bosses would send a temporary manager to my store, I’d go to the problem store, get it up and running and still get the sales commission for 3418 that was increasing steadily. 

Things were getting crazy in Boston. Forced bussing started that year, our store on Blue Hill Ave near Morton Street was firebombed one night while it was closed and burned to the ground. We lost another store to a fire on River St. in Hyde Park, a store manger in the other Roslindale store on Washington St and Archdale Rd. was shot and killed during a hold up. If that wasn’t enough a customer had been shot and killed in one of our stores on Bussey St. in Dedham.

There was another store in particular (one of many) that was an on-going headache for the company, and it was store number 3374, which was located in Codman Sq. in the Dorchester section of the city. Most managers refused to work there, and the few that did either quit after a week or two, or, if they stayed on for any period of time they would eventually get caught stealing. So, I was asked regularly to go down there and “clean it up”. So I did.

3374 was located in an all black neighborhood. Like all the Boston stores it was open only 9AM-7PM, which was a good thing.  It was small, newer than my stores either in Hyde Park or Roslindale but cramped for space and although newer, appeared tired and worn out. It did have an incredibly high sales volume. It was located in a small strip mall on Washington Street across from Robert Hall’s Clothing Store and the next unit contained Lawson’s Barber Shop. The proprietors and customers were all black, and after they got to know me we all got along well enough. In fact, every time I came back to clean up the store, the owner and barbers would greet me and welcome me back to the neighborhood. We often talked about the problems we had in common operating in that location and as a result became pretty friendly.

The first day I arrived and opened the store I realized that with the exception of a few employees from near by Dorchester District Court during court hours, I would not see a white customer from open to close. It was an adjustment for me, but I had no problem with it. The other stores I had worked at were located in low income and often mixed neighborhoods, but here in addition to the operational problems I was faced with, I had to get used to the idea that I was the only white guy around.  I immediately saw how challenging this would all be. All day, I had to chase the local kids around the store as they attempted to steal from it, and I figured they were testing me. The customers were, at first, mostly unfriendly, not really rude but cold and clearly not welcoming.

That first day, as I locked up the store and headed out, I got stoned by a bunch of black kids who were on the roof of the store waiting for me. They threw rocks at me and my car, calling me honky and white MF and telling me not to come back. Where they got the rocks from I don’t know, but they had quite a supply of them on the roof which they generously showered me with. I got out of there fast! I now understood two things: One, I knew why no one would work there, and Two, if I was going to hire a manager and part time employees, they had better be Black. At least that was the conclusion I came to. The kids who stoned me were about 12 or 13 years old at the most. They were mostly the same kids that busted my balls all day.

As unhappy as I was, I went back the next day and the day after that, and each day became a challenge in itself to get through. I guess I was too hard headed to be intimidated. As time went on, and after me chasing those kids around and threatening to kick their asses, they started to behave themselves and once they realized I was staying, they’d eventually come and go without giving me a hard time. I also had to get the various vendors in line as they were used to having their way with whomever happened to be running the store up to that point. 

The regular black customers become a bit more friendly and accepting, and it didn’t hurt when I started stocking various items that black customers preferred that we didn’t usually carry in white neighborhoods. Customers would ask for something, and when I got it, it really helped. I remember that grooming and hair products that were marketed specifically for Black people along with certain foods and snacks were some of the things I was able to stock that previous managers did not, and the chain never carried in their stores located in white neighborhoods. I got a little help from the barbers next store, introducing me to their customers and so forth. 

As far as the kids went, they eventually became less hostile and often stopped by multiple times a day just to hang and chat. Things started to calm down but it was still a tough place to run and I wanted to get back to my own store, the sooner the better. I did several stints at that store throughout the next year, so I was never a stranger when I did return and the locals would often ask me where I’d been, sometimes with a twinkle in their eyes.

One Saturday morning I opened the store, and by this time things were running smoother and I was looking forward to my next day off. Around 10 AM a black guy I had never seen before came in and asked me for a pack of Kools (cigarettes). Kools were the highest selling brand in that particular store, and I turned, got his pack from the cigarette rack that was behind me. When I turned to hand them over I was facing the business end of a .38 Caliber revolver. Here we go again, I silently thought. I’m not sure how many times I’d been robbed before that day, there were the two times in Quincy, for sure. 

Much to my surprise, the robber was very calm and collected. He told me everything would be OK as long as I did what he told me to do. He told me he wanted all the money in the cash register and in the safe. I emptied the register and put the money in a paper bag as he directed. At that exact moment the group of kids that threw rocks at me on my first day and I became friendly with burst through the door. They looked at the scene that was unfolding and one of the kids ran out the door screaming to announce “THE DUDE IS RIPPING OFF THE MAN! THE DUDE IS RIPPING OFF THE MAN!’ More kids then flocked to the store. And as I opened the safe and emptied the TOP compartment only, the kids all lined up and started giving high fives to the gunman who, with one hand kept his gun pointed at me, and returning the high fives with his other. 

After the celebratory greetings slowed down and petered out the gunman calmly told me to walk to the back room, not turn around and count to ten before I came out. 

I started to walk as he directed when suddenly one of the 12 years old burst out with this beauty “Make sure you get he money from the bottom of the safe! Thats where they keep it!” The gunman then yelled at me, no longer calm “FREEZE MOTHERFUCKER!” I froze, put my hands up, cringed and waited for the bullet which was surely coming to my back. I truly believed for that moment I was a dead man. The gunman paused for what seemed like an eternity, then exclaimed “FUCK IT” and ran out of the store. I was spent. My hands started to shake and I was some kind of pissed at those kids. They took off and I called the police. Eventually two Boston cops showed up. They sauntered in and gave me the impression I had intruded on their coffee break and passively listened to my tale. 

After What I had dealt with previously, in Quincy with the Quincy cops, as well as Boston cops at other stores, I was a bit taken back by their attitude and behavior. Clearly they had no interest in what had just happened to me, took my information and the only words of consolation they had for me was to chastise me for working there and inferring that I brought this upon myself. “What did you expect, working here” they asked me. They took my information and left. That was the only thing I ever heard about that robbery. To be fair, I figure those cops were probably burned out working in a tough neighborhood, but still their attitude and lack of empathy for what I’d just been through irritated me. I always remembered it later, during the 28 years I spent as a cop.  

I went back to work there that day and a few more times after that. When I saw the kids later I was kind of pissed at them and told them they could have got me killed. That didn’t seem to bother them, but they did ask me what I expected them to do? And anyway, It wasn’t my money. Talk about a blasé attitude. 

Well, I continued to work for Cumberland Farms but eventually left them due to a pay dispute. But it wasn’t before I was robbed several more times and got into confrontations with various characters that, when I think about it today, I feel both lucky to have survived each of those robberies. At the same time I shake my head about some of the crazy confrontations and things I did to keep those stores running and protecting them. I would never say I was fearless back then, but I was certainly more than happy to take on and challenge all the local thugs in those neighborhoods.

I was never a tough guy by any measure, but after all, I was OFD (Originally From Dorchester) and spent my teen years in Quincy Point. Maybe, for those reasons and a few more, it was just in my DNA…