Confessions of a Teenage Criminal

I must begin my recounting of these events with letting you know that I did not have clean hands in this matter.

In the spring time of 1995, around the month of February, we began studying Prohibition in our history class in junior high.  I admit that the first encounter with this era of our history did intrigue me, as any young man would have been with violence and the concept of fighting authority.  The brief chapters of Al Capone and Elliot Ness in the school books did little to satisfy each classes curiosity of the matter.  One is left to wonder if it was intentional or perhaps planned by God alone who knew of the events to follow.

In March, one of the candies we absolutely loved as kids became readily accessible to the school populace.  Prior to the opening of a candy specific store close to school, kids were forced to bring their own sweets from home.  Now though, with a steady supply of sugar only ten blocks away, we found our allowances being spent to supply a never-ending sweet tooth.  It was here the trouble begins, and with the candy know as 'Pixie Stix'.

As kids, with little more than a few dollars a week allowance, if any, the amount, rather than the quality, was what was most important when buying candy.  Though our parents had talked about it often when remembering their childhoods, our experience of the cheapest candy was never less than 5 cents.  Those were typically Jolly Ranchers at the local gas stations, but they were most annoying as a candy, since it took a while to eat them without breaking your teeth.  However, the new candy store sold generic plastic tubed individual 'Pixie Stix' candy at 1 cent apiece.  Suddenly we realized our parents weren't that crazy after all.

In the next few days, billions (that is an estimate of course) of them swept through the schools.  Candy, and generally eating anything at all, was forbidden in the classrooms, and the 'Stix' were a great way to eat sugar in the hall between classes, but usually tempted the user to leave the trash out in the hall.  (We did not have frequent hallway trash receptacles back then.)  Enter the Principal, and our greatest nemesis through this conflict.

Our Principal, who I had the pleasure of meeting with very often during my time as a student, was very concerned when he would walk down the hallways and see thousands of brightly colored plastic tubes laying on the ground.  As he was always in habit of doing, his announcement to cease the consumption of the 'Stix', in an effort to reduce the trash, was quick to come.  As we were in the habit of doing, most people listened the first couple days, but the users returned to their old ways quickly.  It was at this time that the Principal indefinitely banned the 'Stix' from school property.  Any student caught with one, or throwing out their empty tubes, would be given detention.

It was here that the line was drawn, and the factions divided.  It was here that, with the help of some of my close friends, my hands would become unclean.

As one of the poorer kids in school, our allowance was typically non-existent, but both of my friends received a steady income from their parents, and it was with that money that we would establish our little empire.  We had the usual competitors, as could be expected, but they were of lesser skill.

The business worked like this.  One person, typically someone with ties to a workplace downtown, would secure on a once or twice a week run, a significant amount of 'Stix' from the candy store.  Then, that person, the supplier, would hand them out in small batches to a couple friends, the distributors, to be sold at an increased price to students who wanted to have some 'Stix'. 

Fear of suspensions for possession of  'Stix' actually helped drive the prices up, and by the middle of  May, the going price for one in school was no less than 25 cents a 'Stix'.  In total, aside from our own little business of contraband, there were only two other major competitors, and the competition was fierce.  Fortunately, the town was fairly small, so everyone knew everyone else, and the likelihood of them slipping in an informant or spy to shut down your operation was nearly impossible.

The Principal's first major victims of the crackdown was actually one of the competitors.

The Principal, who had this entire time been biding his time and waiting for the handful of suspensions he had already handed out to take effect, decided that he had waited long enough, and began to fight back against the students he felt were disrespecting his authority.  Thus began the random locker searches, posted teacher lookouts both in the hallway and outside of the school, and suspensions for the first ringleader he found.

Now, the particulars of the business he busted were not very clear to any of the rest of us.  As rumor would have it, one of the kids had convinced his parents that he was buying supplies for a science project he was working on.  Apparently, after 5 weeks of paying and seeing nothing, the parents called the science teacher, who verified that no large project had been assigned, and the parents found out.  The student in charge was suspended for one week, and each one of his friends he ratted on got detention for a week.

It was now down to our operation and one larger one within the school.

With the added precautions against obvious selling and supplying that the Principal had invoked, it became increasingly hard to meet the demands of our operation.  Our competitor was still able to provide the product at the same rate, but we had to cut back.  Looking back, that seemed to be what saved us in the end.

At first, our operation ran fairly standard.  The three of us would take orders from our customers for the following day, then I would take money from one friend, and on my walk to meet my mother after school, buy the candy, and drop it off at the other friends house.  The next day, the other friend would bring in the product, and we would deliver it in the hallways between classes to our customers.

With the teachers watching outside in the mornings and after school, I began to realize that the teachers had began to figure out I was one of the best candidates for buying the 'Stix'.  Within the next week, my locker was searched twice, and I had several encounters with the Principal.  I knew I was made, but by not being the one who brought product into the school, I was never given a punishment.

We had to revise our plan, and that involved one of us making runs to and from the candy store during school.  It was very risky.  If caught, our whole operation would end, and we'd all get busted.  Our luck held, and so during lunch, or during one of our classes in the far wing, where the bathrooms took a few extra minutes to reach, we would slip out, run the ten blocks to the candy store, run back, and deliver the 'Stix' during the next break between classes. 

This new plan was a bigger risk to each of us as well.  In the past, when delivering the 'Stix', we would only use the friend who brought the candy, or myself to make face to face contact.  That way, if one of us was caught, only one person was punished.  But with the limited amount of time to deliver, and two seperate wings on each of the two floors, and about twenty deliveries in total, all three of us had to run the product about each day.  This also meant we could only take on a limited number of customers, and towards the end, we only had about 5 or 6 regular buyers, which was still a fair amount of profit but no where near what our competitor was making.

One particular day, I will never forget this, right after dropping off a pack of five 'Stix' to a customer, I turned around and ran into the Principal.  Since I was "suspect" due to my after school walks through downtown, I was dragged into his office, and asked to empty my pockets and bag.  Fortunately, I had just delivered the last of my product, and nothing bad happened.  Still scared me out of my wits though.

Over the next couple of weeks, the last competitor was picked apart.  All of the kids caught either buying or selling kept their mouths shut about the operation though, and even we never knew who was in charge of it.  Several of the suppliers were caught, and suspended, and a ton of detentions were handed out to everyone else, but still no one talked about who was in charge.  One kid even had his locker searched, where they found over a hundred 'Stix'.  Eventually, whether by choice or necessity, the operation folded, and we were left to stand alone.  It was a very scary place to be, and we were always concerned about getting caught, or one of our users getting cold feet and ratting on us.  With our limited customer base, the prices began to drop as well, since kids were taking the risks of buying their own again sicne there was no readily available supply.

In the end, by the end of the first week of June that is, the Principal lifted the ban on 'Stix' and just banned littering.  Within a day, all of our business stopped.  He made a big speech at the end of the year assembly about the lessons he had learned during the time, and what we should take from it as well.  I don't think there was a better bonding moment between us.

He talked about how he felt he had betrayed our trust as students by acting the way he did with the locker searches and that he was sorry for forcing us to try and act a certain way.  I think he actually started crying at one point.  He sent a letter home to our parents, also apologizing for his actions.  The parents backed him up though, and with a lot of kids, who did not keep their illict activities out of their parents eyes (afterall, what's suspicious about buying a ton of candy?) there were spankings galore.  Fortunately for myself, my mother never found out (I bet she is while she's reading this now though, sorry mom) during that time what we were doing.

I never told the Principal what I had done, even though there where many other trips to his office in the months and years folowing.  To this day, I don't believe he really knew I was involved.  We became friends the year afterwards, and to this day I still consider him on friendly terms.  But I'm still afraid of what he might do if I ever told him that I was one of the ringleaders behind the 'Great Pixie Stix Rebellion of 95'.

I hope he would just laugh along with me at what a bunch of crazy kids we were.