The Crystal Mall was the closest mall to my hometown, about a 20-minute drive away, or 13-and-a-half when I was running late to work. It’s called the Crystal Mall because a lot of people did meth in or around it. That’s probably not the real reason but it’s for sure the reason.

At the time, I was a sophomore in college and the assistant manager of the hat store. You know the one. I was spending a solid 39 hours a week slinging Buy One Get One Half Off deals, building my fitted collection, and listening to the edited version of Hov’s Blueprint 2 I kept in the 3-CD changer on an unending loop. Most likely, the third CD was a burned copy of Weezy’s Dedication 2 but it wasn’t clean so that was only for when no customers were around.

The store I assistant managed was right on the cusp of the food court, smack dab next to DQ and across the way from Journey’s, so it was nothing to buy shorty in the Etnies a Blizzard on a slow day. It was a pretty dead mall, so most of the day was spent talking sports, listening to music, and shooting the shit with my bookie, who also happened to manage the Sprint kiosk that was like 20 yards from my store.

Our manager at the hat store was a certified psychopath, just always on the verge of losing it on someone. Dude was hilarious when he wasn’t fucked up, but that was rare. Most of the time, he’d reek of booze on his shifts. And his smoke breaks lasted a little longer than the average person’s, considering he was smoking crack. It didn’t take long working with this guy to realize he was stealing. Like a lot. Whole boxes of hats would go missing from our shipments, change from the counter display for the cancer charity, etc. We’re talking about a super stand up guy. And the company knew, but he must have had dirt on someone because they were using more of a 15-strike strategy with my manager.

And if the company didn’t care what he was doing, what was I gonna say to dude? Someone who takes six quarters from kids with cancer every day so he can go cop a Rodeo Cheeseburger from Burger King isn’t someone you can necessarily reason with.

This went on for all eight or so of the months I worked with this guy. He never really tried to hide his handiwork, either. I’d park next to him in the parking lot and see entire sleeves of New Era fitteds in the back seat of his car. Zero fucks.

And then, one day, it all came to a screeching halt.

I had opened the store and was supposed to work until maybe 4:30 PM. My manager strolled in around 1 PM and our district manager showed up for a surprise visit not long after. My manager’s boss pulled up with purpose, walking straight to the backroom to watch some game tape for a little while before firing the shit out of my manager. I guess the final straw was a missing cash deposit from the night before when my manager closed up the store.

The manager was somehow stunned. Flabbergasted, if you will. Just completely floored that this company was going to treat him this way after all he’d done for them. He grabbed his things, told his homie Big Kunt, who was just hanging out when all of this went down, that they were leaving, and the two of them walked out of my life forever — or so I thought.

Oh, right. Big Kunt. I guess I should fill you in about this absolutely electric character in the story. So, not everyone who “worked at the mall” actually worked at the mall. Big Kuntry, or Big Kunt for short, was this dude who would walk around the mall with a messenger bag all day slinging bootleg DVDs and other assorted goodies. He was cleaning up. He had TV shows that hadn’t dropped on DVD yet, blockbusters that were still in the theaters, and more porn than anyone should be carrying at one time. Plus, weed.

Big Kunt was a good guy, great at what he did. If he didn’t have a pirated copy of the movie you had your heart set on, he’d find it for you. He’d come in every day, chat for a little bit, let us sift through his new releases, and be on his way. I honestly thought we had built up some serious rapport over my time at the unnamed hat store, as I’d become a frequent buyer of his goods. He would give me four movies for $20 and they were almost always HD as hell. We’re talking award season voter bootlegs, not some Handicam-in-the-theater bullshit. And if one of the films I took home was of shit quality, he’d throw me a little weed and let me swap it out for a new movie. Really outstanding customer service.

But on this fateful Monday afternoon, I would find out where Big Kunt’s loyalty truly lied.

Even though I opened the store that day and my manager was supposed to close, I had to stay late after the whole firing thing. The rest of the day went by without incident until the very end. Right before I’m about to count everything and lock up for the night, I see two guys walking up to the store from the employee entrance between the Dollar Store and the As Seen On TV spot. Sure enough, it was my now-former manager and Big Kunt.

I had the gate halfway down because it was like 8:50 PM and, even though we weren’t technically closed yet, I wanted anyone walking by that was even remotely contemplating browsing for a hat to know that I didn’t care and they should beat it. Standard operating procedure.

My manager and Big Kunt are walking with purpose, and my manager has a look on his face that doesn’t give off “hey just wanted to stop by and say it was a pleasure working with you” vibes. They bend down to get under the gate, in unison as if it had been choreographed, then shut it swiftly behind them. I gave a courteous “what’s good?” but knew that not much of anything at this moment was good. Big Kunt was keeping watch at the gate, but he knew better than anyone at the Crystal Mall that the security guards just hang out in the store that sells custom swords and statues of dragons with big tits.

All of a sudden, my manager pulls out a knife and tells me to empty the register. I tell him there’s like less than a hundred bucks and it’s not worth it. The look in his eyes disagrees. So I tell him, “Listen, we didn’t even erase you from the system yet. Go for it, open it yourself.”

I get out of the way and my manager starts trying to login. Can’t. Can’t again. Tries maybe five times and then goes ballistic, throws the computer, trashes the store, keeps threatening me. I told Big Kunt to let me out but he’s adamant that my request is being denied. The store wasn’t very big and I was outnumbered and knifeless. All I had within reach was the key to my 1997 Acura TL 3.2 and a bunch of bottles of hat protector spray.

Finally, after smashing the register like 20 times against everything in the store, it popped open and his $82-ish cash prize appeared. I had to do a return right before he came in or he would’ve gotten the full hundo. My ex-manager and Big Kunt took the cash, a bunch of hats, and — this is not a joke — the other half of my D’angelo’s steak and cheese grinder from the back room, and dipped. I was very pissed about the latter.

Thankfully, he left without slicing me open and I was able to continue my illustrious Crystal Mall career. For the next week or so, I was a made man at the mall. Everyone from the girl at Mrs. Fields Cookies to the guy from GameStop was checking in on me and asking what happened. And for the record, I have no idea who spread the rumors that there was a struggle and I wrestled the knife from my old boss and tied up both the assailants with the rope from the hat holder you put over your door.

In the end, we all lost something that day. My manager lost his freedom for about four months, Big Kunt lost the ability to service his Crystal Mall clientele, and I lost my bootleg DVD plug.

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