Fast Times at Ridgemont High - A True Story

The All-Night 7-Eleven Man

Brad could see it. He could hear it in the way people said goodbye and good luck to him. He could read the expression in their eyes. They looked at him and thought, Here’s a guy I’ll have to visit—when I come back.

Everyone was leaving, all his friends. Even the ones who said they’d never go near college. Well, they were all talking about applications and acceptances these days. Even Linda Barrett, and that had been one of the big surprises for Brad. The way he heard it, Linda had come home from school after the Annual Signing Party when her mother broke the news. She had been dealing with Paula Crawford, Linda’s RHS counselor, since last semester. No wonder they’d all talked her into taking the advanced classes.

Linda had been accepted into Students International, the program that allows a select few to study in any college throughout Europe. Linda had thought about it for three seconds, Stacy told Brad, and decided it was exactly what she wanted to do. She started crying right there in her living room.

Doug Stallworth had come over from work at Barker Brothers right in the middle of her crying fit. The Barrett family told Doug the news, expecting him to get all excited for Linda, too. And Doug, unbelievably enough, did get excited. Even though he knew he’d been left behind. They probably would become friends now, Brad thought. Ridgemont guys for life.

“Life,” Brad had become fond of saying, “I just don’t know . . .”

It was a joke and it wasn’t a joke. These were the worst of times for Brad. He had now been reduced to the lowest position in teen life. He was right where, if he recalled correctly, he once said he wouldn’t let . . . well, a dog work.

He was the all-night man at the Ridgemont 7-Eleven.

It was a slow night and Brad was wide awake. He figured that was the best way to be, especially if you had the kind of job where they showed you where the shotgun was. He had too much time to think on this job. That was the problem. But, it was bucks. It was bucks.

Brad had taken to napping in the afternoons after school, and then powering down the coffee once he hit the 7-Eleven. He once said he hated the stuff, would never drink it. Now he couldn’t get enough. He reached for the pot without even thinking about it. Drank a cup without even realizing he had.

By 4:15, when Brad got home, he was ready to sleep. When friends asked him how he functioned on three hours’ sleep, he told them all the same joke: “I sleep my ass off.”

On this particular night he had been leafing through the magazines, listening to the Muzak.

It all happened very quickly. Two men pulled up in a black Camaro. One man in a nylon mask came running into the store and immediately spray-painted the automatic scanning camera above the door. Brad was too stunned to be scared. It had to be a joke.

It was no joke. In another instant, the nylon-masked man stood in front of Brad with a .45—just like in the movie Dirty Harry. “Give it to me,” he said. “Let’s GO.”

“They empty and close the big safe at midnight here. I’m just the all-ni . . .”

“BULLSHIT!” the gunman bellowed. “I know this store. I know where the safe is. Why don’t you just move over there, real slow, behind the donut case, and GET IT.” He waved the gun at the donut case.

It was true, about the hidden safe. Any big bills that came in after midnight—when they closed the big safe in the back—went into the hidden safe. And that was behind a panel at the back of the donut case.

Hamilton walked over to the donut case. He caught a whiff of the fresh coffee he made and felt nauseous.

“I’m instructed to tell you that we are on a video alarm system and there are other hidden cameras in the store . . .”

“JUST CAN IT, OKAY? GIVE ME THE MONEY OR I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING BRAINS OUT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?”

“Okay,” said Brad. His legs were now shaking uncontrollably. “I just started here, and they just taught me about this one thing. I don’t care if you take their money. Just let me figure this out.”

“MOVE!”

Brad opened the phony back of the donut case and fiddled with the strongbox combination. On his finger was the new class ring he’d picked up the other day.

“YOUR TIME IS RUNNING OUT, MR. HIGH SCHOOL . . .”

Brad was just about to get it open, just about there, when the phone rang. The gunman tightened.

“OKAY, ANSWER IT, QUICK!”

Brad looked up at the gunman. He wasn’t nervous. He was pissed. Pissed at everything. Pissed at life. All he had wanted was a decent senior year. All he wanted. All he wanted was to keep his job, his car . . . but that had been too much to ask. He got fired. He got caught beating off. Bad grades. And this guy! This asshole who waved a gun at him and called him Mr. High School.

Tears welled in Brad Hamilton’s eyes. “You motherfucker,” he said. “Get off my CASE!”

And then, just like it was the most natural thing in the world, Brad Hamilton reached for the hot, steaming coffee he had just made and poured it onto the gunman’s hand.

“AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!”

The .45 rattled to the floor. The gunman was still looking in horror at his red, swelling hand when Brad snapped up the gun.

The gunman’s accomplice, poised behind the wheel of the black Camaro, spotted the foul-up and screeched out of the parking lot.

“There goes your ride home, mister,” said Brad, gun trained on the 7-Eleven robber. “Look at the big man now! Look at Mr. I-Know-Where-the-Strongbox-Is!”

The gunman managed, in all his pain, to heave a carton of Butterfingers at Brad as he howled around the front of the store. But Brad was on a roll, now.

“Why don’t you just show me where the police alarm is now . . . come on, guy.”

And that was the story of how Brad Hamilton got his old spot back on lunch court. There wasn’t that much time left to enjoy it, but it felt good nonetheless.

Even better was how the local reporters started hanging around, and Janine Wilson from local news, and all the stories started coming out. Even Mr. Hand told him he’d done The American Thing—when your back is against the wall, all you can do is fight. Brad won. And damn if that phone didn’t ring at the Hamiltons’ late one night.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Brad!”

“Yes? Who’s calling?”

“Bradley, this is Dennis Taylor down at the Ridgemont Drive Carl’s. Listen, I hope I’m not bothering you right now.”

“I’m pretty busy,” said Brad.

“Brad, listen, I’m going district here in a couple weeks, and I was wondering if you wanted to come back down here and work with us again. You can have your old fryer back. We’d love to have you here. Everyone wants you back, buddy!”

The nerve. The ultimate nerve of the guy.

“Last time I talked to you,” said Brad, “you wanted me to take a lie-detector test. Now it’s ‘Am I disturbing you?’ ”

“I know what’s eating you, Brad. That incident with the money. Well, that money turned up in the dumpster after you left. I am sorry. I should have called.”

“Yeah, you should have.” Brad paused. “And I probably would have taken your lousy job back if I hadn’t taken a district supervisor job myself—with 7-Eleven.”