The bond between Wally, Melina and another girl named Natalie was initiated on an unusually busy Friday evening.
All three were working at the front end of the store. Wally was cleaning up cardboard and straightening up displays along the main wall. Melina was stationed at register one (the express checkout) and Natalie was overseeing the customer service desk.
Inside, the store was packed with customers.
It was the after work rush. People were buying something to eat for dinner, or picking up food staples like milk, eggs and bread to hold them over for the weekend.
Outside, it was abnormally hot and humid.
The skies were gradually turning an emerald green; the wind was picking up from the southwest and there was lots of lighting and thunder in the distant western skies.
A severe storm was obviously approaching. One could feel it in the air.
Around five -fifteen Mitch instructed Wally to neaten up all the store displays, but changed his mind a few minutes later and told him to first clear the parking lot of all shopping carts before the storm hit.
It was just starting to sprinkle and the thunder was still a ways off.
Pushing carts is not a pleasant job, but for Wally, at that moment, it was better than being stuck inside the crowded store.
Clerks were expected to clear the parking lot of all shopping carts at the beginning and end of their shifts, as well as when there were none in the store.
The worst time to push carts was during the winter when the parking lot was not plowed. Snow and slush made it a lot harder to push carts. The job was also challenging when it rained in the fall or spring because it was still cold. On top of getting soaked to the bone, Wally hated the feeling of wet shoes and socks on his feet.
Summer nights at the end of the 7-11PM shift was when Wally liked doing it most. He enjoyed the fresh air outside and the sensation of his hectic day finally winding down. The task was sort of relaxing or meditative for him at that time
Within his first month at Tops Wally gained a lot of muscle mass and easily lost thirty pounds. He attributed those physical changes to the fact that he was not allowed to sit still and pushing carts for many hours on some days.
Wally became so proficient at the task that he eventually learned to push up to twenty of the carts at the same time without losing control of the line.
Wally finished bringing all the carts into the store just as it started raining harder and began to hail.
When the brunt of the storm hit, it turned dark as night outside the store.
The sky was lit up by frequent lighting. The building shook from the thunder. You could see how windy it was through the front entranceway. The hail and rain were falling sideways. Water completely filled the gutters on the roof and was pouring over their sides. Several nearby lighting strikes caused the lights in the store do flicker for a few seconds.
Wally was glad to be inside at that point. After pausing a moment to look at the freakish weather outside he started restacking cans and boxes of Hy-Top products and breaking down empty boxes from the front end displays.
The whole thing passed over within ten minutes.
Three weeks earlier, a convicted murder, Hugh Cullum, escaped from a prison in somewhere in Illinois.
The man was traveling around Western New York at the time in a stolen car with another convict he met along the way.
The pair drove to the supermarket. Cullum was dropped off and he robbed the store within minutes of the storm ending.
Wally was working on organizing the stacks of Bounty napkins near the section where the displays transitioned into the produce section of the store when he was called over the intercom system.
“Wally Wilson. Please come to the front desk to assist a customer.”
He completed the task a minute or two later then went up to the service desk to see what they wanted him for. Instead of a customer he found a skinny middle aged man wearing a John Deere cap. The guy had a crazed look in his eyes and was pointing a gun at Melina and Natalie.
The customer had lost their patience and left the store before Wally could help them.
Wally inadvertently walked into an armed robbery. The offender immediately swung his pistol towards Wally then back at both cashiers coldly stating, “We don’t need no heroes here.”
Grashole saw everything from a distance and fled. He allegedly locked himself in the manager’s office and hid under a desk until the police came and informed him that it was safe to leave.
Everyone could hear Ken, the store manager, yelling at him the next day for not following company policy.
Mitch was supposed to call the police and then store manager. Gary, the dairy department head, saw Grashole run away and called Ken as soon as he could get to a phone. Ken then called the police from his home.
According to Gary, the manager’s office smelled like shit for several days afterward too.
Wally and the two girls were taken at gun point from the customer service area to the loading dock. The man appeared to be familiar with the store layout.
Once in the back storage room the felon demanded all three kids give him their shirts and smocks, and then locked them all in the opening space of a nearly full trash compactor.
Natalie gave the man money from several registers hoping he’d just run off with it, not stick around and threaten hers or her co-workers’ lives.
Cullum paused for three or four minutes to plan his escape. They could hear him mumbling to himself on the other side of the hatch.
He needed to exit the store unnoticed. His buddy was waiting for him on a nearby side street.
It was presumed that Cullum changed into Wally’s clothes, put on a store cap and just walked out of the building before the local police department had a chance to account for everyone at the chaotic scene.
The trio’s wait in the trash compactor was the longest hour of their lives. All they could do was huddle together and reassure each other that everything would be fine.
Natalie was pissed, but Melina was scared and silently crying. She held Wally’s left hand and squeezed it hard. He put his right arm around her and pulled her close to try to comfort her some. They knew that they were safe as long as no one turned the machine on.
Federal Marshalls eventually found Hugh Cullum, a year later, in Minnesota.
He was caught holding up a bank in Hopkins, a suburb of Minneapolis, with a sawed off shot gun. They never found the person he was driving around with.
The police used bolt cutters to remove the lock from the trash compactor door when freeing the trapped adolescents. No one could find the key.
Grashole had it in his pocket, but since he was still holed up in the Manager’s office it was not readily available. People were more concerned about the missing kids’ welfare than letting Mitch know he could stop cowering and come out of the office.
Once released, all three were quickly examined by paramedics. The girls were given sweatshirts to wear before everyone was escorted by two officers to the station across the street.
It was getting late. Wally started worrying about what time it was. He did not have a watch.
His mother was adamant about enforcing his curfew of eleven PM. He was supposed to call her to let her know he would be late.
After Festus was arrested last year, Wally’s mother bluntly told him that if the police ever called her for ANYTHING he was involved in that she would not bail him out. She also added that when he came home she would make his life a LIVING HELL. Wally knew that she really meant what she said.
While giving his deposition Wally asked Sergeant Steffano what time it was. It was quarter to eleven.
He then asked how much longer it would be before he could go home. The policeman said it would probably take another hour before everything would be wrapped up.
Wally then became very concerned ab
out how he would call and explain what was going on to his mother. As soon as he told her that he was being questioned by the police she would no doubt-ably stop listening then tell him to get himself out of the mess he created and hang up.
Wally decided to explain his dilemma to the cop who was interviewing him and asked him to call his mother for him. Sergeant Steffano laughed at the boy’s no-win situation and agreed to call Mrs. Wilson.
The woman did not listen, as Wally suspected would happen.
She gave the policeman an earful of loud blatherings about her ungrateful sons and their ridiculous antics. Wally could hear his mother yelling on the other end of the phone from where he sat on the opposite side of the room. The cop held the phone away from his ear and flashed a look at the boy that said he understood exactly why he was asked to make the call.
The teen had to admit it was sort of funny listening to his mother rant at patrolman rather than him. Eventually she calmed down, allowing the officer enough time to explain what happened; that Wally was not hurt, or in trouble, and that he would be late getting home tonight.
She was OK at that point and thanked Sergent Steffano for calling, then asked to talk to her son. He handed the phone to the teenager and Wally talked to his mother for a minute or two confirming that he was alright. The boy told her that he would be home as soon as he was done at the police station and clocked out at work.
Wally was home in bed within an hour and a half. Mitch punched his timecard for him a couple hours ago.