The Lipstick Thief

 "Welcome to S**** Department Store!"

Dressed in a white blouse, light blue vest and a matching skirt, the lady at the door smiled brightly at me. She offered me a basket. I pulled the corners of my mouth into a smile, shook my head politely and made my way further into the store. I just felt like browsing today.

Christmas was just around the corner and decorations have been up all around the city for well over a month now. Huge signs that said The perfect gift for your partner! or Running out of time? Last minute gift ideas! were posted on the walls over racks of winter clothing. A group of high school girls crowded around one of the jewelry counters, admiring the newest winter collection from Jill Stuart. Tinsel and ornaments hanging overhead swayed slightly to yet another version of "Jingle Bells" playing in the background--it was definitely the air of Christmas.

 

It had been a long day of work at the office, though not anything out of the ordinary. Making coffee, photocopying, typing away at the computer--the usual. My coworkers and I shared a short lunch break earlier at noon. A girl from another department had just found out she was pregnant over the weekend and was ecstatic in sharing the news with us. So we had spent the entire hour talking about how baby rooms should best be painted yellow and not grey, and how she will have to cut back on a lot of food this holiday.

Speaking of which, I haven't had any holiday desserts or anything even mildly festive so far this season. I suppose we have a Christmas tree set up at my workplace, complete with snowflake ornaments and a star on top. There were flashing, rainbow LED lights strung around the tree at the beginning of the month, until one coworker a few seats away from me complained that she had a history of epilepsy in her family, and the lights were gone the next morning.

Anyway, so I guess it was a good thing that I decided to drop by the department store after work this evening. I don't usually give out Christmas presents, so I skip out on holiday shopping and crowd pushing every year (plus it's more economical this way, you start to see how much you save after a few years!), but I suppose I could buy a box of chocolates for my neighbour, who graciously gave me a hand when one of the water pipes in my apartment broke last week.

I loosened the button on my suit jacket and fixed the handbag straps that were starting to slide down my shoulder. The red heels I was wearing today went clack, clack, clack on the tiled floor in a rhythmic but relatively dignified manner (I thought) as I strode quickly to the stairs. I went down to the basement level where the bakeries and cafes were, eventually deciding on a box of Godiva chocolates. It was a special Christmas set with white and milk chocolates delicately crafted into shapes of snowflakes and mini snowmen. I picked up the box, paid for it at the counter and had them package it nicely for me in a gift bag. The girl in the apron behind the counter tied a ribbon on the handles of the bag, and handed it to me with a big smile and a "Thank you, come again!".

I took the escalator back upstairs and wandered absently into a few stores, nodding or shaking my head politely at store attendants who approached me asking if I needed any help. Running my hands over some of the winter coats and trying on a few pairs of gloves, I eventually wandered over to the cosmetics section where racks of foundation, liners, mascara, lipsticks, along with any other kind of make up in existence were neatly lined up in every aisle. Mostly women browsed through the section, though there were also a few couples and some middle to high school students.

Truth is, I had accidentally dropped my salmon pink lipstick into the toilet a few days ago at work, so I was in need of a new one. I found the lipsticks aisle and took one of the samples from Maybelline, trying it on the back of my left hand. Not quite the colour I was looking for. I put it back. As I took a step back to get a better look at the whole collection, the side of my bag bumped into someone standing behind me.

It was a man in a black, fleece jacket and beige trousers, wearing a large green t-shirt underneath and a navy baseball cap on his head that read "F1 WORLD CHAMPION 2007". He had an average face and looked to be at most thirty. I murmured an "excuse me" and bobbed my head in apology. He nodded in return and we both turned our attention back to the display of lipsticks. I bent down and reached for a pink lip gloss on the bottom rack.

"Why are there so many shades of lipstick?" the man suddenly said.

I raised my head. Looking around, there was no one standing in this aisle save the man and myself. I placed the lip gloss back on the shelf and gingerly straightened up. My right knee cracked.

"Sorry?" I asked hesitantly, unsure of whether he had been speaking to me or not.

"The lipstick," he said, gesturing to the shelf in a sweeping motion. "Is it really necessary to have so many colours?"

He crossed his arms, leaning forward and peering at the top rack. "Each person only has one pair of lips, how many colours does a girl need? Why does it matter if your lips are"--he picked up a lipstick from the rack and read--"misty cloud pink or"--picking up another one--"forever peachy? I just don't get it." He glanced at me. "Sorry to be rude, but how many lipsticks do you have?"

"Er," I said, taken aback at the sudden question and trying to think how many lipsticks I have crammed into the drawer in my room. "I have a few…"

"But you want to buy another one," he pointed out.

"Well… yes."

"Why?"

I shifted my weight to my other foot. "I dropped my lipstick last week and lost it, so I want to replace it."

The man looked puzzled. "But if you're looking to replace something, shouldn't you already know which one you're getting?"

"I don't think they make the one I used before anymore," I explained defensively. "So I'm looking for a similar colour. Or maybe I'll find a new colour I like and get that instead." I shrugged. I don't even know why I'm explaining this to a male stranger.

The man looked unsatisfied by my answer. "So, what you mean is," he said slowly, looking thoughtful, "that you enjoy shopping for a new lipstick, like it's not an obligation but a leisure activity."

I thought about that. "I guess so," I replied. "I had a long day at work, so why not? Taking a walk around a department store sounds like a mighty good idea to me. They've got the music and everything." I waved my hand overhead as I said this, although I'm not sure why I did that since the background music is technically all around us and not over our heads. I quickly put my hand back down.

"So shopping is just a leisure walk. What about that bag in your hand?" The man looked pointedly at the Godiva bag I had looped around my left wrist.

"I bought this as a Christmas present because I want to give one," I said stubbornly, trying to push out of my mind that I did, in fact, buy the chocolates more out of obligation for my neighbour than anything.

The man shook his head a little mournfully. "I would bet," he started saying, "that you bought those chocolates out of obligation.” He scratched his chin. “First of all, chocolates are almost always an obligatory gift. Friends don't give friends chocolate. Second of all, Godiva is an awfully expensive brand of chocolate to buy for 'leisure' when you're obviously working an at most average, office job." He raised his eyebrows pointedly at my attire as he said this. "Lastly, if you really enjoyed shopping for someone else, you would take the time to do it on a weekend and not on the way home from work."

I stared at him with my mouth slightly agape, offended. Who does this man think he is? I opened my mouth wider to say something back.

"Of course," he continued, "you might be thinking, 'What right does this man have to talk in such a way about me? He doesn't even look like he has a job or a life!' And you're right about that." He uncrossed his arms and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "I went to a junior college and studied engineering, but my grades weren't up to par so I had to eventually drop out. It's been five years since and I still haven't been able to find a proper job, getting just enough money to pay rent from my part time job, and some from my parents who live out in the country. My parents must be thinking why they even bothered raising me, they aren't getting anything back for it." He was now looking down, distractedly rubbing the tip of his sneaker on a mark on the tiled floor.

At this point, I wasn't sure of what to say to that, so I kept silent for a while, also staring at the mark on the floor.

He sighed. "It's not like I like this kind of life, or that I don't want to go to school or work," he said. "But I guess I just don't have the luck needed to survive in this kind of society. I wasn’t born into a rich family. I don't have the brains, or the looks, or the physical capability to do physical labour, or even dream of playing for a sports team, anything. But it seems you need at least one of those things to earn yourself a space in our world. People who have found this kind of space in their work or social life, or maybe in their family, are so lucky. They're worlds apart from me."

He stopped as a particularly loud couple walked past our aisle, the sound of giggling and the clack, clack, clack from the girl's shoes fading in and out of our hearing. Has the clacking of own my heels also made someone feel this miserable before? It just occurred to me.

I pursed my lips. "It's not like everyone who has a job feels like they have a place necessarily," I said.

The man looked at me and smiled sadly. "You would say that. People who already have some sort of place, a comfortable routine, always say that. It's because you do have a place that you can say it so effortlessly. You don't know the fear in falsely blending in with everyone, but actually wanting to scream at them, 'Look at me! Give me a place too!' But no one will pay attention, because they're too preoccupied with their own daily routines that provide that feeling of security for them, without them even knowing it."

He leaned lightly against the shelf and pointed to the banner hanging overhead a few aisles away from us. I stepped to the left to look at it. The banner had a red background with a smiling snowman, and snowflakes floated around rainbow letters that read It's Christmas! The feeling of happiness is everywhere!

"It's not that I want to be bitter during Christmastime," the man said. His expression was not of resentment but more of resignation. "But I'm just not feeling the vibe. 'Happiness is everywhere', yeah right. Who made up such an irresponsible phrase?"

He straightened up again and reached out to take a few glitter rose lipsticks off the shelf. He turned them over in his hand, studying the shiny, silver box packaging of each one. "It's not that I feel angry from people celebrating everywhere," he said, more quietly this time. "But it's the feeling of being estranged from such happiness that everyone but me seems to see, the act they put on of being part of something big and illuminating yet abstract. And this kind of confusion just ties a knot inside me, like something tightening and choking me yet I can't seem to loosen it. Eventually you'll get tired of trying to untie it. This whole unseen Christmas thing, the suffocating atmosphere of it just builds up a little each day, until one day it'll just come crashing down."

He closed his fingers over the lipstick boxes and looked up at me. He gave a gloomy smile. "Sorry, you don't even know what I'm talking about and I'm probably disrupting your schedule."

I shook my head. "It's all right. Everyone needs to get things off their chest sometimes."

"Yeah," he said. "At least you're not too openly judgmental, unlike some other people. A minority, if you will."

"Well… I don't think I'm all that sympathetic," I said uncertainly, "but I suppose I try not to. Anyway, you can't stop people from feeling how they feel."

The man chuckled. He reached up to pull his navy cap down to cover his eyes. "Well then, in that case. I suppose I can't be blamed for this either, right?"

And before I could ask what he meant, he grabbed a few more lipsticks from the shelf and stuffed them into his pockets, taking some from the top rack and then reaching down to pull a few more lip glosses off the shelf. At that moment, a store attendant happened to walk past our aisle and saw the man taking the things off the shelf. She almost tripped over her own shoes from the surprise before starting towards us. "Thief!" she cried.

The man glanced up at the sound of her cry. Then he turned and, hurriedly pushing past me, broke off into a run. "There's a thief!" the attendant cried again to her coworkers who were hurrying over. "Someone call security!"

I watched as her coworkers closer to the cashier scuttled about. One reached for the phone and pressed a button, tapping her pen on the counter impatiently while waiting for someone to pick up. Two other women in uniforms stood off to one side and, huddling together, tried to explain to each other what each of them thought was going on. The store attendant who had seen the man run off with the lipsticks marched back and forth, making it her business to tell any passing coworker that there was a thief on the loose, and then watching them scurry away to tell the others.

"This always happens during Christmastime," I heard her mutter under her breath to the pair of huddling women. The women nodded sympathetically. All this I observed in under ten seconds, and having stood here unmoving for that long, I suddenly made a decision.

Tightening my hold on the straps of my bag, I started sprinting in the direction that the man had run towards. I had seen him go past the escalators and into the jewelry section, no doubt trying to make it to the front doors.

Luckily, what I didn't mention before was that although I work an average, nine to five office job, I also sleep early and get up at six every morning for an hour of jogging before I'm off to work. That is a routine I had set for myself--something I added to my average lifestyle, perhaps as a sort of rhythm setter for the rest of the day. I'm not particularly good at running, mind you. But when I run, I feel as if I've created a closed space around myself and that I'm the only one in this space. It's all in my head of course, but it makes me feel relieved, and relaxed enough to go through the rest of my day in an office that's perfectly capable of causing claustrophobia.

I put all my amateur athletic training to use and ran as fast as I could. I could see the man now, not thirty feet away from the doors. Impressively enough, the man maneuvered around other shoppers and was making his way across the store without jostling anyone else. But I was determined to do this. As the man passed by the Max&Co. eye wear counter, he suddenly skidded to avoid bumping into a little girl who unfortunately happened to wander into his path. A lipstick flew out of his pocket. The man looked down, saw the lipstick but didn't stop to pick it up. Instead, he regained his balance and was about to close the last fifteen feet between the doors and himself. I took this slight pause in his running to speed up, my red heels going clack, clack, clackclackclack as I dashed my fastest towards him. Throwing aside the Godiva gift bag, I wound up and swung my Céline tote as hard as I could right into the side of the man's head.

Fortunately, the project my team at the office was working on this month was marketing our client's product in Frankfurt, so I've been carrying a hardcover Oxford German Dictionary in my bag everyday. That's probably what made the dull clunk as my bag made contact with his skull.

With the wind knocked out of him, the man toppled over onto the ground with an oomph, landing on his left arm and with his baseball cap knocked off his head. Before he could even make out a groan, I pounced onto his back so he wouldn't be able to get back up, digging my knee firmly into it, and smacked my heavy bag against the back of his head to keep him down. He yelped slightly and twisted his neck back to see who his awkward captor was. When he saw that it was me, the random woman whom he had unfortunately picked to talk to in the lipstick aisle, his eyes widened for a second. 

"Wha-what in the world do you think you're doing?" he sputtered.

I didn't answer right away, trying to catch my own breath while keeping my knee pressed into his back. I honestly hadn't thought about what I was going to do after I caught this man. I was just another fellow shopper; whether he stole or not wasn't really my business at all. People browsing in the jewelry section all had their heads turned to see what the ruckus was about.

At that moment, one thing I did want to say came to mind though.

"I think," I panted, trying to speak as fast and as discreetly as I could while still out of breath, "that you should try running."

He blinked in a moment of shock and gave me a look like I was insane. I don't blame him. "It's really good for stress," I added, ignoring the surrounding stares.

The man, too, stared at me for a moment longer. Then he started laughing. Not in a maniacal way, perhaps just at how preposterous this whole situation was in addition to what I had to say after. He coughed a few times from laughing and trying to catch his breath at the same time after running. I almost broke into a slight smile myself.

But three security guards decided to arrive at the scene before I had the chance to, and my attention was drawn elsewhere. Two of the security guards bent down, one of them painfully twisting the man's arms behind his back while the other held down his legs, both of them shouting at the man at the same time (in a rather incomprehensible manner, I thought) which rendered the shouting to be rather ineffective. The remaining guard touched me on the shoulder and said, "It's all right now, ma'am, we've got it under control." I let him take my arm, pulling me to my feet and gently urging me away from the man who was still struggling with the security guards.

"Stay down, I said stay down!" barked one of the guards.

"Where are the stolen items, thief? Hand them over!" the other one ordered the man, although I didn’t see how the man would have been able to do so with his arms bent behind him like that.

More store staff arrived at the scene and surrounded the struggling men, including the woman who had caught him stealing. "He took some lipsticks!" she said to a female security guard at the side. "I checked the stock data, what we have missing from the shelf are two glitter rose, three forever peachy, three majick mania glosses… possibly one of the grapefully yours lip balms…"

Another staff person, one of the managers I'm guessing, relayed this to another security guard, who then went over to the man. "Do you know what you've done, sir?" the guard asked. "Why did you do it?"

The man didn't answer, but he was still chuckling a bit to himself. I wonder if it was from our short exchange just now. The security guard became impatient. "Do you realize," he said more menacingly, "that because you decided to steal a few petty, feminine products, that you've disturbed what would have been an enjoyable Christmas shopping experience for everyone in this store?"

The man continued to ignore the security guard. Annoyed and obviously unused to being ignored, the guard shooed the other guards off and roughly turned the man over. "I'm asking you why you stole the items, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"he roared, grabbing the man by his shoulders and shaking him.

Surprised, the man shoved back away from him but the guard grabbed him by the wrists. Helpless, the man finally took the chance to look at his surroundings, as he had been unable to do so while being on the floor.

Shoppers stood frozen in their places, looks of fear and distaste on their faces. About ten staff members were scattered around the scene, and five security guards stood attentively. All for this one man. The man surely must have come to this realization too, because a crooked smile grew on his face and he began to laugh again. He laughed loud and clear, his voice booming and echoing off everything in the store.

"So, this, is what attention is like," he gasped hysterically. "All my life, I've wanted this." His expressions switched between contentment and disbelief, as if he couldn't decide between the two. He kept laughing.

The guard, clearly taken aback, didn't know how to react to this sudden outburst. I could hear murmuring all through the crowd. "Haven't we gotten a lot of these crazies lately? I’ve seen them on TV," an older lady whispered to another woman, perhaps a little too loudly for it to be discreet.

"I can understand that he feels miserable, but why does he have to bother everyone? We've all got our own problems," another man said to his friend.

His friend nodded, frowning, and said, "Serves him right, don't know why you have to steal and throw a tantrum when you can just pay for the damn thing."

The boy next to them laughed at this, his high pitched laugh piercing through the low murmur. He exclaimed, "He freaking stole lipsticks! This dude is desperate!" A pause, and small chuckles all too readily rippled through the shoppers, like it was a shared joke that everyone pretended to reluctantly find amusing.

I also stood there, frozen to the spot, the horrible lynch scene dawning upon me. I was flooded with a sense of shame.

At this, the man finally snapped. "It's true!" he shouted over the growing din, and the crowd immediately stopped talking to stare back at him. "I'm not married and don't have my own family at my age! I don't even have a girlfriend--in fact, I never have!" His lopsided smile was still plastered on his face, and his voice grew incrementally louder.

"I stole the lipsticks because I wanted to see how it feels to hold a women’s product in my hands, and to leave with one. Pretending that someone is waiting for me outside to hand it them, like I am needed by someone else. I wanted the thrill of peering into a different world, even if that's just stepping into the cosmetics section of a department store and leaving with something in hand." He looked around wildly, looking pleased with what he was announcing to the world.

"There, are you happy now? Have you heard what you wanted to hear from me? I'm exactly the sort of person you are thinking me to be," he finished, chuckling to himself.

The crowd did, indeed, look satisfied in their looks of pure disgust. They have their evidence now; this pitiful creature said it himself. He is indeed what they had assumed him to be: the dirt under their feet that they were all going to go home, clean up and forget about--but in the meantime, rub under their shoes.

The guards, recovering from the surprise at his outburst, quickly shuffled over and, grabbing the man by his arms, hauled him up onto his feet in a less than gentle manner. The guards laughed to themselves, probably at what the man had just said, and continued to shove the man towards the open side exit of the store without another word to him. Beyond the door, I saw a police car with lights flashing red and blue.

The man never resisted. Instead, he put his hands in his pockets and turned them inside out, the several boxes of lipsticks dropping out onto the floor. Clack, clack, clack. I counted ten in total. The store attendants hurried over to pick them up without giving the man a second look, looking down and avoiding his gaze. Then the man, too, put his head down and resigned himself to the pulling of the guards.

I was standing at the Elizabeth Arden counter near the side door. As I watched the guards urge the man past me, the man, who had his head drooped low, suddenly turned his head in my direction and looked up.

"I recognized your shoes," the man said, and grinned. We held each other's stares for a moment, my face expressionless.

"Thanks for listening to me earlier," he said.

He then turned his head back towards the door and followed the four security guards past the cosmetic counters, and out the side door. A police officer from outside took a single step in the door, only to reach for the handle and pull the door closed so I couldn’t see the man anymore.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I turned to see a man in a light blue vest and matching pants. Pinned onto his uniform was a badge that said his name, and the word Manager boldly printed under. He smiled warmly at me.

“I saw how you tackled that thief!" he said enthusiastically. "I was thoroughly impressed, and would like to express our staff's sincere thanks for all your assistance…" He chattered on rather like a wooden puppet for a minute longer. I could almost see the hinges at the sides of his mouth. I continued nodding and smiling back at his profuse compliments.

But truthfully, I had blanked out after hearing what the man had to say to me before he was taken away. Now I just wanted to leave the scene as soon as possible.

The manager said his final thanks and I nodded, exchanging a firm handshake with him before heading towards the front doors myself, eager to get out. I could already feel some of the refreshing cold air from outside seeping through as I neared the automatic doors. I took a deep breath.

As I was about to take my first step out the door, I heard a woman's voice calling from behind me, "Miss, you forgot your gift bag!"

Darn those chocolates.

I whirled around and stepped back into the store, striding quickly across the tiled floor with my heels going clack, clack, clack, the tinsel still swaying and Christmas music fading back into my hearing as I am surrounded yet again with holiday cheer.