Remembering That Time I Tried to Stop a Shoplifter at the Wrentham Outlets

July 31, 2023. I hadn’t been to the Wrentham Outlets since before COVID and I was in the market for some new sneakers. Thus, I thought it was a good time to “hit up the outlets,” as the cool kids like to say.

 

The first thing I noticed about the gigantic outdoor Wrentham Outlet Mall, established in 1997 featuring such outlet stores as Nike, Old Navy, Burberry and Bloomingdale’s, was that it was a completely different scene from what I experienced a couple weeks earlier at the Emerald Square Mall (read about this in my blog HERE), which is basically located right up the street from the outlets, only about 15 minutes away. Where ‘The Emerald’ was basically a ghost mall (some even call it a “dead” mall), the Wrentham outlets were more alive than ever. It was around 4 o’clock in the afternoon in the middle of a Monday and there were TONS of people there and I mean TONS!

 

Most of these people appeared to be tourists and many of them appeared to be from foreign countries. They all smelled nice. Whenever I passed them by, I could get whiffs of cologne, perfume and/or body lotions—heck, maybe it was only their shampoo—but, whatever it was, it smelled great. They were all dressed nice as well. I’m talking designer clothing, designer sunglasses, designer purses, and designer sandals with well-pedicured toes and all.

 

Overall, the people at the Wrentham outlets were absolutely beautiful people. And I’m talking both the women and the men.

 

But especially the women. I don’t know if I’m going to sound like a male chauvinist pig when I say this, but I hadn’t seen so many hot chicks in one place at one time in quite a while. And a lot of them were dressed in rather revealing clothing. The style these days seems to be wearing extremely short denim shorts that ride up so high that you can begin to see cheeks, if you know what I mean.

 

Walking around the outlets, I felt both underdressed and somewhat outclassed or maybe completely outclassed. I was wearing a nice pair of plaid shorts that I got at Kohls, a Repo Man T-shirt (FYI: Repo Manis a cult film from 1984 starring Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton), a baseball cap that said O’Neill on it, Nike-brand prescription sunglasses and lemon-lime-colored Asics running sneakers, so it’s not like I looked like a complete slob or anything. Yet, I still felt underdressed and “below” all these people that were walking past me in their designer-looking clothing. I felt like I at least needed to be wearing a pair of salmon-colored shorts to fit in with these folks.

 

I went to basically every shoe store at the outlet mall. First, the Nike outlet, which was mobbed with people, and then the Asics outlet, the Converse outlet, the New Balance Outlet…

 

When I got to the Reebok outlet, I was hit hard with a flashback of an incident that happened to me at the Wrentham outlets, right outside the Reebok store about 20 years ago. One Saturday night, I think around the 2002 or 2003 area, I was at the outlets alone, shopping for sneakers (this was basically the only reason I went to the Wrentham outlets), and I found myself walking down the front walkway, adjacent the main parking lot, heading for the Reebok store.

 

Ahead of me, I saw a mall security cruiser pull up to the walkway. Two mall cops got out of the cruiser and confronted a man on the walkway holding an extremely large plastic shopping bag. They exchanged words for a moment, none of which were audible to me, but then the man suddenly dropped the bag on the walkway and started booking it away from the mall cops. Apparently, this guy was a shoplifter and he was on the run. Heading right towards me. Being pursued on foot by the mall police. But this dude was sprinting fast. They weren’t gaining on him.

 

I had about three seconds to decide what to do.

The scenario seemed familiar. I had seen it in movies and TV shows a zillion times. What would happen is some thief would run at the hero of the movie and the hero would trip the thief, the thief would fall to the ground, then be apprehended by the cops. It was that simple.

 

This was reality, though. And even though I had about three seconds to work this all out in my brain, I knew that this wouldn’t be as simple as the movies made it look.

 

I knew I was going to do SOMETHING. The thought of just letting this guy go didn’t even cross my mind and I don’t say that to make myself look like such a tough-guy hero. I simply don’t think I had enough time for fear and inhibitions to get the better of me. I saw a shoplifter running at me. Every movie and TV show I had ever seen told me that I needed to do something. So, yes, I was going to do something.

 

But the question was what I should do. I didn’t think I was slick or tough enough to trip the guy. I didn’t know any martial arts, either, so “sweeping the leg,” Cobra-Kai-style, was pretty much out of the question as well.

 

Nope, the only thing I could think of (again, in about three seconds time) was to get right into the shoplifter’s path and try to bodycheck him. 

 

And this is exactly what I did.

 

I got in front of the shoplifter and, for a split second, I could see a look in the man’s face, one that basically said, “Oh, you’re trying to stop me, are you? That’s what you think?” His eyes widened into an “it’s on” kind of look.

 

I braced myself for impact. And, boy, what an impact it was.

 

Keep in mind that this guy was a solid build, maybe weighing around 180-220 pounds while I was rather thin, weighing in at about 130-140 pounds at that point in my life (I was about 20 years old). Also, he was running at a full sprint. As for me? I was completely solitary, standing my ground with my arms out in front of me in almost a cross bones formation. I certainly didn’t have enough time to think about physics, not that I knew all that much about physics then anyway (I still don’t). My brain didn’t work out what would happen when this dude who was much bigger than me, running at full speed, would run right into me, the thin scrawny 130-pounder, standing absolutely still with no velocity behind me whatsoever.

 

Well, here is what happened:

 

The guy nailed me. And I went fucking flying. Backwards. I landed right on my ass and literally did about three backwards somersaults on the walkway there.

 

As for the shoplifter, he kept running, turned a corner and disappeared. The mall cops kept pursuing him. They ran right past me, said nothing and disappeared around the corner as well.

 

Despite getting nailed and taking such a tumble, it was a miracle (especially in retrospect) that I hadn’t been injured. I mean, that situation could have ended up so much worse, for both me and even the shoplifter. He could have nailed me, I could have hit my head on the pavement and I suppose I could have even died. Then, the shoplifter wouldn’t just be a small-time shoplifter anymore. He would be a murderer, not in the first degree of course, but he would have been a murderer and probably would have ended up serving some hard time. That is, unless, his lawyers could convince a jury that it was all my fault for getting in front of the shoplifter and it was actually ME who was doing the assaulting and the shoplifter was simply body-checking me in self-defense. I’m not sure if a jury would go for that back then in the early-2000’s, but these days it may be different because stopping shoplifters in this day and age is largely frowned upon. Shoplifting in many cities is basically only a measly misdemeanor as long as whatever you’re stealing is under a thousand dollars or technically it must be under $950.[i] You’re supposed to keep your distance and let them steal whatever they want and if you do anything to stop them, especially if you use any kind of force, YOU could easily end up becoming the bad guy doing something wrong.

 

Anyway, yes, other than maybe some bruising, I wasn’t injured in any significant way, at least not that I was aware of. I got up from the sidewalk, somewhat in a daze. I heard one bystander ask me if I was ok and I said “yes” and then proceeded to walk into the Reebok outlet. That’s right, there was nothing more to what happened. The cops didn’t question me or anything. The whole incident was over pretty much as soon as it started. Other than that one bystander asking me if I was all right, it was almost as though the whole incident never even occurred.

 

As for the shoplifter? Well, when I used to tell the story to people, I would say that, despite my attempt to stop the shoplifter being pretty much unsuccessful, I did SLOOOOW the shoplifter down and the mall police were able to catch up to and apprehend him after turning the corner.

 

However, I can’t say for sure that this actually happened. The truth is that I have no idea whether the shoplifter was ever apprehended. I assume that he probably was, but I never followed up on the incident. Again, I just moved right along like nothing had even happened, partially because I was so shocked and stunned due to everything happening so fast.

 

Now, if this same incident occurred today, a couple things would have happened differently. First of all, I’m pretty sure I would have gotten injured by such a hit. My body is not as young and elastic as it used to be. It has been ravaged by a bad case of Lyme disease and it doesn’t take much for me to get an injury. If I was, indeed, injured (and, again, I’m pretty sure I would be injured) I would likely be kind of pissed off about it and I would possibly pursue pressing charges, even though in this day and age maybe it was my fault for trying to stop the guy to begin with.

 

Also, if it happened today, I would probably try to get surveillance footage of the incident. In fact, I regret not doing this back in 2002/2003 when the incident occurred. Surveillance cameras weren’t as prevalent at the time, but the incident occurred in the very front part of the Wrentham outlets, so there must have been some surveillance footage of the incident. I would have been interested in seeing the footage, mainly to prove to myself that the incident actually happened the way I remembered it happening and also to confirm that I got hit as hard as I remembered getting hit.

 

Would I do it all over again? I mean, would I again try to stop the shoplifter today? Well, like I said before, the law is a lot more uncertain these days. You try and stop a shoplifter in the year 2023 and it seems like you can easily turn into the perpetrator. All store employees are trained to NOT confront shoplifters and civilians are basically told the same. If you do try and stop a thief and the thief gets hurt, you could be held liable for the injuries and you could even maybe be charged with assault or worse. Seriously, Google the question, “Should I stop a shoplifter?” and most of the articles that pop up will tell you it’s not worth the risk to your own safety, of course, but also not worth the risk of liability. Why? Because the force you use could easily be deemed too excessive. Even if it’s not your intention to injure the shoplifter, it could easily happen in your attempt to stop them and then, boom, suddenly the force you used, however minimal, could be seen as “excessive.”

 

That all being said, I think I would have to still do something. For my dignity’s sake. Because, honestly, if I hadn’t done anything way back in 2002/2003 and I had simply let the guy run past me…well, I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself. I think it would have haunted me, likely to this day, if I had done nothing. I would have felt like a total coward. So I’m glad I did something, even though that something kind of made me look ridiculous in the long run, going flying 10 feet or so, falling on my ass, doing backwards somersaults on the pavement etc. What I did was messy, certainly not slick like anything you see in the movies, and I’m not even sure I slowed the guy down and/or helped the mall cops in their apprehension of the shoplifter, but at least I did SOMETHING.

 

Sometimes I wonder if surveillance footage of the incident still exists. I wonder if the mall cops used it as evidence in their prosecution of the shoplifter. Maybe they always wondered who the mystery man was who tried to stop the shoplifter, got body-checked and went flying onto his coccyx. Maybe they wanted to give me a big award or something. Maybe they wanted to give me a free shopping spree at the Wrentham outlets where I could buy all the sneakers I wanted. Maybe they wanted to give me the keys to the city or…well…the town of Wrentham. Maybe they wanted to make me Time magazine’s “Man of the Year.” Who knows, maybe even the President of the United States would have wanted to meet me.

 

Or maybe the incident fizzled out as quickly as it fizzled in. No charges were pressed. They let the guy go. That is, if they even caught the guy to begin with.

 

I also wonder where that shoplifter is today. In the slammer for something else? Or did he change his ways? Did he feel bad about body checking me? Who knows, maybe he felt so bad about hitting me that he swore to never do crimes ever again and subsequently went on the straight and narrow. Maybe that was my purpose. Maybe I was placed there at that time to wake the guy up. Stealing is one thing, but hurting people? That wasn’t the man he was and he felt terrible about everything. And now, who knows, maybe he found Jesus and became a priest. All because of me.

 

In other words, it wasn’t my purpose to stop him that night. It was my purpose to change his life around.

 

Wishful thinking? Maybe. It’s probably more likely that the shoplifter is still out there in the world somewhere being a total asshole and general menace to society.

 

…

 

MATT BURNS is the author of several novels, including Weird Monster, Supermarket Zombies! and Johnny Cruise. He’s also written numerous memoirs, including GARAGE MOVIE: My Adventures Making Weird Films, MY RAGING CASE OF BEASTIE FEVER, JUNGLE F’NG FEVER: MY 30-YEAR LOVE AFFAIR W/ GUNS N’ ROSES and I TURNED INTO A MISFIT! Check out these books (and many more) on his Amazon author page HERE.

 

 

Other trending articles by Matt Burns that may be of interest to you:

 

A Love Letter to the Emerald Square Mall (about the death of the shopping mall age)

 

The Strange, Surreal Moment of Being Called a DILF Inside a Panera Bread Restaurant on a Wednesday Afternoon

NEVER FORGET the Fun-O-Rama (a traveling carnival memoir)

Weird Times en la Weirdioteca

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Charlie (a story about Burns’ recurring nightmares featuring Charlie Chaplin)

Some Wicked Good Times: A Love Letter to Newbury Comics

Video Store Memories

I Dream of Dream Machine (a memoir of the local video arcade)

Skateboarding in the 1990s

Revisiting the Blair Witch Project

 

WAAF Goes Off the Air

PROXOS IN THE PLEX: A Goldeneye 007 N64 Retrospective

 

100 DAYS of ZELDA: Revisiting Ocarina of Time

 

I USED TO BE A GAMER: The 8-bit Nintendo Years

 

RIP PowerBook G3

Getting Your Screenplay Done

 

Making Your Good Writing Great

 

Writing the Trilogy

 

Writing the Sequel

No-No, Learn to Love the Rejection: Some Sage Advice for Writers in Search of an Agent or Publisher

 

The Story Behind Supermarket Zombies!

The Story Behind The Woman and the Dragon

NOTES:

---

[i] Ohanian, Lee. “Why Shoplifting is Now De Facto Legal In California.” Hoover Institution, 3 August 2021, https://www.hoover.org/research/why-shoplifting-now-de-facto-legal-california. 

Why didn’t she wait for me to put the johnny on?

I’ve been putting it off for a while now. I know I have a couple things that need to be looked at. Minor basal cell carcinomas. Nothing crazy like a melanoma, at least I don’t think so. I need to make the call and set up an appointment. But I hesitate. No, not because I have white coat syndrome and fear doctors; ok, I do have a touch of the old WCS, but that’s not the problem here. Why am I hesitating then?

 

Because of trauma. That’s why. A traumatic experience that happened about three years ago.

 

It was supposed to be a routine appointment. I wasn’t nervous or worried about it at all. I needed more of the cream that was effective in getting rid of the basal cell carcinomas on my skin. I would tell you the name of the cream, but then you’ll look it up and discover that it’s the exact same cream that is used for treating genital warts. I assure you I was not using this cream for genital warts. It was for my basal cell carcinomas. Some sort of immunotherapy stuff. Better than the chemo cream that is often used for basal cells. Or at least in my opinion this immunotherapy stuff is better than the chemo cream.

 

The appointment was at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon or sometime around then. And we’re not talking at a small neighborhood dermatologist, either. This was at a reputable hospital that I won’t name in a city that I won’t name. In other words, this was a place that didn’t mess around and that’s why I liked them. Every other dermatologist I had been to needed to biopsy everything first and then, one-by-one, they would do a burn and scrape surgery and/or a Mohs surgery and the whole process of removing one basal cell carcinoma, let alone several, seemed to take for eternity. At this unnamed hospital, though? No bullshit, folks. They prescribed me the cream and they basically said put it on everything suspicious and see you in a few months. It was that simple. And, like I said, the cream was effective, too. That’s why I had gone back for this appointment. I needed more of the cream!

 

Well, as it turned out, there was a price to pay for that cream. A BIG ONE. O Lord!

 

As soon as I arrived for my appointment at 2pm, it was immediately apparent that they were very busy and behind schedule. I waited for more than a half hour—it could have even been 45 minutes—for them to call my name. This was no problem, though. Waiting for almost an hour was a small price to pay for getting me some of that nice skin cream. The BIGGER price came later. THE BIG ONE.

 

“Matthew?”

 

“Yes, that’s me,” I said and then I followed a nurse down a maze of bright, cold, sterile hallways.

 

Once in the room, which was basically a former hospital room with an actual bed instead of your typical medical exam table, I had to wait another 20 or 30 minutes to be seen. I think I spent the time listening to a podcast on my iPod or something, but that’s extraneous information that you don’t need to know about.

 

Eventually, a young, pretty Asian woman came into the room. See, this was a hospital where there are many med students and I think this young pretty Asian was a dermatological med student.

 

“Hi, Matt,” she said to me. And then she said, “Oh, you’re still dressed?” or something along those lines. Don’t hold me to these exact words because it was three years ago.

 

Apparently, the nurse who had shown me into the room was supposed to tell me to undress all the way down to my undies and she was probably even supposed to get a johnny for me. Yes, the johnny. If the nurse who had shown me into the room had actually done her job and told me to undress and also handed me a johnny then I would have had plenty of time to disrobe at a comfortable pace, get my druthers about me, put on the johnny and chill for a bit before I was even seen by the doctor or whoever this young pretty Asian was (again, I think she was a med student). Why is this all important?

 

You will see in just a moment!

 

So, anyway, I emphasize the fact that this young pretty Asian was in a hurry and waaaaay behind schedule. She didn’t have a moment to waste. So when she told me to undress to my undies and get into a johnny, I had to haul ass getting undressed. She didn’t even leave the room while I stripped down to my boxer briefs. Instead, she hung out in the corner, turned away from me, tapping her foot, checking her watch and twiddling her thumbs. While she HAD given me a johnny to get into once I was undressed, she DID NOT wait for me to get into it. Nope, as soon as I was undressed, she jumped the gun and began checking me over. Again, I stress the fact that she did not wait for me to get into the johnny.

 

In other words, she took my “boy” by surprise and “he” was confused as to the nature of this situation. Who is my “boy”? Well, without getting too specific, let’s just say he lives “downstairs” in my trousers. You know what I mean? Oh, this is so embarrassing. Should I even continue writing about this? Ok, I will.

 

While the “situation” was purely medical, my…er…boy…got confused and interpreted the situation as sexual. I had no control over what was happening and this is completely the young pretty Asian med student’s fault for not allowing me to take a few deep breaths and put a johnny on before she began examining every inch of my near-naked body. A professional would have waited for me to put the johnny on, but she apparently couldn’t wait the one or two more seconds it would have taken for me to put said johnny on. No, she basically pounced on me like a jackal as soon as I stripped down to my underoos.

 

It happened so fast. I swear I had no control over the situation!

 

She commenced the full body skin exam, analyzing me and making notes and gently touching me here and there. There was some light poking. And…almost…prodding.

 

I immediately knew that this “situation” was only going to get worse. I was so caught off guard, or, to put it more precisely, my “boy” was caught off guard. I could feel definite movement down there. Something had been activated. Blood was on the move, flowing with purpose. I can stop this, I thought. I’ve stopped it before. Why would this time be any different?

 

But this time WAS different. Why? Because everything happened sooooooo fast. I didn’t have enough time to take control over what was happening. My boy had a mind of his own. He was so confused. I tried, boy did I try, to talk him down and convince him that this was not what he thought it was.

 

“Goddammit, boy, this is a dermatologist appointment, not what you think it is!”

 

“Not now, Matt, I got business to tend to.”

 

“No, you dummy! Are you hearing me right now?! It’s not what you think it is!”

 

“Whatever Matt. Silly Matt!”

 

At that point in time, my boy and I might as well have been two separate entities with two separate brains. There was no convincing him to stand down. There was no turning him back.

 

The pretty Asian med student kept examining me. And all I could do was stand there, helpless to do anything about my boy whom I could feel continue to grow in length and width.

 

“Let’s seeeeee,” the med student said. “Oh, you have some acne here. Or is it eczema?” she said. She was referring to bumps she saw on my back.

 

“Forget about that shit!” I wanted to say. “We got a situation here!”

 

I could feel things growing and swelling all the more. I did not want to look down and see what-must-have-been a noticeable bulge by now. How obvious was it? Maybe she wouldn’t notice. No, I think it’s obvious, I thought to myself. There’s no way she won’t see this thing.

 

“Definitely seems to be some kind of rash on your back here,” the young and pretty Asian med student said.

 

Did she notice yet? Is she freaked out? Or maybe she hasn’t noticed and when she does, she’ll scream and run out of the room. Can I get arrested for this kind of thing? Is it considered an assault?!

 

“Ok, get on the bed now and lie belly-up,” she said to me.

 

Oh shit! Now I’m done for!

 

I headed for the bed, hoping that the walk would maybe cool things down with the boy who lives downstairs in the dark basement. Wasn’t happening, though. I still didn’t even have an ounce of control over my boy. He had usurped my authority. Shit, this was mutiny!

 

I lay on the bed with my belly up. I could feel the bulge intensify all the more because now not only was I naked except for my undies, but I was lying on a bed in my undies, belly and, thus, bulge-up. How could I blame my boy for mistaking this purely medical situation for something sexual? This couldn’t get any more “hot,” quite frankly. I mean, I was in my boxer briefs, bulge-up, on a bed and there was a pretty young Asian med student essentially “playing doctor” with me or so it felt like. Might as well just address the elephant in the room here and call a spade a spade. This was hot, I tells ya! Hawt!

 

I finally took a glance down to the situation and my fears were confirmed. There was quite a bulge down there for sure. I don’t think my boy was at 100% at this point, but I couldn’t tell for certain. It felt like he was at the very least 75% activated. But, again, I was in such shock that I felt numb and couldn’t tell for sure. For all I knew I was at complete Washington monument status.

 

Also, the flap to my fly on my boxer briefs had opened a bit and there was clear…um…jewels on display and I’m talking of the family variety. If I reached down and fixed the flap to my fly, I would have drawn too much attention to the general area. I had no choice but to simply pretend everything was fine and normal. Nothing to see down there! But there was so much to see. Would she see it?! Had she already seen it?!

 

The pretty, young Asian med student never acknowledged my “boy” in any public manner, ‘public’ meaning she never commented aloud that I had a suspicious bulge, one that had likely manifested due to sexual arousal. I suppose it’s possible she never knew what was going on or at least never thought that anything out-of-the-ordinary was going on. There is probably a .5% chance she just thought I had a big package and that was that. She may never have noticed that the package in my boxer briefs started out small…er…I mean, modest (it’s never “small,” at least not in the way you’re thinking) and then suddenly ended up really big. Yeah, maybe she thought I was big the whole time. Maybe she thought I had a naturally large package, which would be a good thing, I suppose, at least as far as my ego is concerned.

 

But this is highly unlikely. I think she must have known what was going on (i.e. that I was getting aroused), then hurried to finish up her exam and then quickly left the room. Because this is exactly what she did: she was really rushed in getting the exam done and then she booked it out of there. Granted, she was behind schedule and likely in a rush anyway, but I feel something else was going on. It seemed like she wanted to get the hell out of Dodge ASAP.

 

“I’ll send the doctor in!” she said as she disappeared into the hallway outside. And then I never saw her again. Also, this is when I realized she wasn’t the real doctor.

 

 A few minutes passed and, by the time the real doctor entered the room, I had calmed myself with deep-breathing exercises and my boy was under control from that point forward. I noticed the (female) doctor was kind of smiley while she spoke with me. I found this odd, because during previous appointments she was usually rather serious and stoic. Had the young pretty Asian med student discussed the “situation” with the doctor beforehand? Did all the dermatological nurses, doctors and med students gather in the back office and have a big laugh over the fact that there was a patient in Room C who had an uncontrollable Iwo Jima memorial moment?

 

The doctor was in the room for about three minutes and all she did was say that she would prescribe more of the basal cell carcinoma cream that worked for me in the past and that was that. Couldn’t we have just done this over the phone? Why did I have to be humiliated in the process?

 

Oh, something I forgot to mention is that the doctor had an entourage of med students with her while she was in the room with me. Not the Asian, though, as she was probably crying alone in a bathroom stall somewhere because of the horror I had subjected her to (look, I’m sorry but all she had to do was give me one extra second to put the johnny on and we could have avoided all this). I mention this entourage of med students (all female, by the way) because, when the doctor left the room, I noticed that one of the students was lingering in the corner. I saw her there in my periphery. What did this girl know? I wondered to myself. Had the pretty Asian med student told her all about me? Was she lingering so she could catch a glimpse of the dolphin show taking place in my boxer briefs when I got up to put my clothes on? Or maybe the Asian had raved about how big my package was and she told her fellow med student to stick around, linger in the room with me a while, and then her fellow dermatological colleague would see an amazing North Korean Intercontinental Ballistic Missile parade.

 

I got up from the bed and walked over to my clothes that were on a chair. I’m not sure if the med student in the corner of the room was checking me out, but I didn’t care anyway. My boy was fully settled down at that point and my degradation had long reached a saturation point where there was no more humiliation I could have possibly felt anymore. “You want to see my package?! Here it is! Tell the whole world! See if I care!”

 

I left the dermatologist that day completely mortified and, more importantly, completely traumatized. And now I have to go back to the dermatologist; I really have no choice because I know I have at least a couple new basal cell carcinomas. Believe me, I’ve tried every natural approach to getting rid of these basal cells—making homemade creams with baking soda, Vitamin C, A, D etc.—but NONE of them work.

 

What are the odds that such a mortifying incident may reoccur? Hopefully slim. But I’m still scared, just like any other trauma victim would be. I likely would have been back to the dermatologist already had it not been for the “incident.” I may have even been back several times. I would have kept on top of all my basal cell carcinomas. But, now, I may have allowed some mysterious speck on my body to go unchecked and, who knows, it could be a melanoma. Do you hear me?! I may die of a melanoma. And why?

 

All because she didn’t wait for me to put the johnny on.

 

Why didn’t she wait for me to put the johnny on?

 

…

 

MATT BURNS is the author of several novels, including Weird Monster, Supermarket Zombies! and Johnny Cruise. He’s also written numerous memoirs, including GARAGE MOVIE: My Adventures Making Weird Films, MY RAGING CASE OF BEASTIE FEVER, JUNGLE F’NG FEVER: MY 30-YEAR LOVE AFFAIR W/ GUNS N’ ROSES and I TURNED INTO A MISFIT! Check out these books (and many more) on his Amazon author page HERE.

 

 

Other trending articles by Matt Burns that may be of interest to you:

 

A Love Letter to the Emerald Square Mall (about the death of the shopping mall age)

 

The Strange, Surreal Moment of Being Called a DILF Inside a Panera Bread Restaurant on a Wednesday Afternoon

NEVER FORGET the Fun-O-Rama (a traveling carnival memoir)

Weird Times en la Weirdioteca

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Charlie (a story about Burns’ recurring nightmares featuring Charlie Chaplin)

Some Wicked Good Times: A Love Letter to Newbury Comics

Video Store Memories

I Dream of Dream Machine (a memoir of the local video arcade)

Skateboarding in the 1990s

Revisiting the Blair Witch Project

 

WAAF Goes Off the Air

PROXOS IN THE PLEX: A Goldeneye 007 N64 Retrospective

 

100 DAYS of ZELDA: Revisiting Ocarina of Time

 

I USED TO BE A GAMER: The 8-bit Nintendo Years

 

RIP PowerBook G3

Getting Your Screenplay Done

 

Making Your Good Writing Great

 

Writing the Trilogy

 

Writing the Sequel

No-No, Learn to Love the Rejection: Some Sage Advice for Writers in Search of an Agent or Publisher

 

The Story Behind Supermarket Zombies!

The Story Behind The Woman and the Dragon

PROXOS IN THE PLEX: A Goldeneye 007 N64 Retrospective

 

 

I am not sure I would have even bought a Nintendo 64 had it not been for the game Goldeneye 007, a.k.a. “Bond.”

 

My first introduction to RareWare’s Goldeneye 007 a.k.a. “Bond”—I will henceforth refer to this game as “Bond” and nothing else—was at my friend Adrian’s house in 1997. He played a mission for me and I was completely blown away. At the time, the 3D graphics were better than anything I had ever seen before. Up until that point, the best sprites (fancy word for graphics) I had ever seen were in the game Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo (also uncoincidentally made by Rare). What I saw in Bond was some next level shit.

 

I don’t remember whether I played multiplayer Bond with Adrian or whether he simply showed me a mission or two. I think at that point the game was so new to me that I either played it and was terrible at the game or may have simply preferred to watch Adrian play instead. However, when I left Adrian’s house that night, I had made a decision in my mind and that decision was that I had to purchase a Nintendo 64 as soon as I possibly could.

 

In the early winter of 1998, I was at a Walmart and I saw that they had a Nintendo 64 on sale for about $100 or maybe it was a tad more than $100 at that point. It’s possible it was even $150, but I think I remember it being around $100. If my memory is correct, I wasn’t working at my first job (CVS Pharmacy) at this point, but I did have a lot of money saved from the paper route I had since I was in the fifth grade (where my fellow Patriot Ledger paper boys at? Holla at ya boy!). I had the $100-$150 to spend on the Nintendo 64. I did discuss the purchase with my parents beforehand, but they pretty much said it was my money and I could do what I wanted with it. Thus, Nintendo 64 officially became the first video game console that I bought with my own hard-earned money. Up until that point, every video game system of mine had usually been a Christmas gift, although I think the original 8-bit Nintendo that my family got in 1987 or 1988 was not a Christmas gift. I think my brother may have paid for that with his own paper route money, but I’m not sure. All I know is that it wasn’t a Christmas gift because we got it in the middle of the summer. And I definitely didn’t pay for it myself because I was, like, five or six years old.

 

Indeed, the Nintendo 64 was going to be the very first game console that I could call my own. Of course, I would share it with anyone who wanted to play, but it felt good knowing that this video game system was something I bought myself and I owned myself.

 

The Nintendo 64 box

 

One unfortunate thing about getting the Nintendo 64 for such a bargain price was that no games came with the system. But I still had a good amount of paper route money to throw around, so I immediately bought two games that I knew I wanted from the get-go. One of those games was Mario Kart 64, and of course the second game was Bond. And those two games were all you really needed anyway. If you had those two games it would take a very, very long time to get sick of playing them. In fact, I would argue that the only other three games worth getting for Nintendo 64 were Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Super Mario Bros. 64, and Perfect Dark, the latter of which wasn’t released until the year 2000 by Rare and was an unofficial sequel to—that’s right—Bond. Although there were a couple other good games that came out here and there, I’m pretty sure you were good if you had the five games that I mentioned above, but you were even good for a while if you just had Mario Kart 64 and Bond.

 

Actually, screw it, all you really needed was Bond. Bond was a game that was so good that you didn’t need any other games to keep you entertained.

 

The box art for Goldeneye 007, aka "Bond"

 

In fact, Bond was such a good game that it may come as a surprise to learn that the first-person shooter actually came from very humble beginnings. Made by an extremely inexperienced team of about nine or ten people in a farmhouse in the middle of England’s countryside, Nintendo never expected Bond to be the blockbuster game it turned out to be.[1] In fact, Bond was originally going to be a game for the Super Nintendo and designed as a “rail shooter,” much like Virtua Cop and Star Fox, as opposed to the free-roaming first-person shooter game it ended up being.[2] Rare, however, had enough freedom to experiment and be as creative as they wanted to be, mainly because Nintendo never expected all that much from them. Had they not had this kind of creative freedom, Rare probably never would have ended up making the masterpiece they ended up making. To say Bond was an unexpected success would likely be an understatement. It was one of the best games ever made that NOBODY saw coming.

 

I remember playing the first mission in Bond as though it were yesterday: THE DAM. You start out with the silent PP7, kill a few soldiers as stealthily as possible, trying your hardest for the headshot, and then you make your way up the stairs of a patrol tower and get the weapon that blew everyone’s mind upon first playing the game: The Sniper Rifle.

 

Oh man. Think about how fun it was getting that first kill with the sniper rifle up on the patrol tower there. You zoom in as far as you can, or maybe not all the way because if you’re zoomed in all the way, your breathing actually makes it a little difficult to aim. You go for the head. And, if you’re a skilled marksman, you take the Soviet soldier out in one shot.

 

It’s only a few minutes into the game at this point, but this is basically when most people decided that they were in love with Bond. The rest of the mission is great, but it’s definitely that first experience with the sniper rifle that hooks everyone in.

 

Using the sniper rifle in the Dam mission

 

The next mission after the Dam, the Facility, was always awesome, mainly because of the very first part of it when you’re crawling through a vent, shoot a soldier who is on the john and then you drop through the ceiling into a stall that is in the middle of a large restroom. Then you have some fun opening and closing the bathroom stalls to see if any Soviet soldiers are hiding in there. There is something that feels so authentic about this opening sequence to the Facility mission. The environment feels very “real” and it’s no surprise to learn that the game’s levels were designed by an actual architect named Karl Hilton. In fact, Hilton had more architectural experience than he did video game designing experience.[3]

 

The first kill from the vent in the Facility mission

 

Another favorite mission of mine came four or five missions into the game: the Frigate. This was a hostage-saving mission and, admittedly, this was one of those missions that you only beat properly once or twice or at least enough times to advance in the game. Every other time you played this mission you basically picked up not just one phantom gun but the double-phantom (i.e. one gun in each hand) and then you went around the level shooting everything in sight (hostages included) and blew up every computer in sight as well. In short, this was a go-to mission of mine whenever I needed to blow off some stress. Play the Frigate. Get the double-phantom. Destroy everything. Ahhhhh ... goodbye stress. Serenity now.

 

Double-phantoms in the Frigate mission

 

Other favorite missions of mine included the train (probably my third favorite after the Facility and the Frigate), the Archives, the Bunker and sometimes the Silo or the Surface were fun to play as well.

 

My least favorite missions, only because they usually gave me anxiety, were Statue and the Jungle. Oh, and also the Control Room because that mission was extremely difficult, especially if you played it on 00 Agent mode. Come to think of it, I never beat that mission on 00 Agent mode. Never even came close. It’s possible I never even beat it on Special Agent mode, now that I think of it. Damn drone guns got me every time.

 

Speaking of modes, there were three different levels of difficulty that you could play missions on. The first level was Agent, the second level was Special Agent, and the third and most difficult level was 00 Agent. Each level of difficulty required you to achieve different mission objectives within the mission; obviously, the more difficult the mode (like Special Agent or 00 Agent), the more mission objectives there were to accomplish. I think the Control Room mission is known to be the most difficult level to beat on 00 Agent, second only to the Aztec level, which is one of the secret levels that opens up once you beat all missions on Secret Agent.

This is an excellent playthrough of all the missions on 00 Agent mode.

 

Like I said before, I never beat the Control Room mission on 00 Agent, nor did I ever beat the Aztec mission. However, I remember watching my friend Marc trying to beat both the Control Room level and especially the Aztec level on 00 Agent. The Aztec was so difficult that you literally couldn’t afford to take more than a couple hits of damage—especially if you had just started the mission—without needing to start over again. The second Marc got hit by a bullet near or around the beginning of the mission, he would restart the mission because he knew it wasn’t worth the time trying to beat it at that point. He had to accomplish the mission in basically a flawless way. I think it honestly took him a zillion tries before he actually beat Aztec. Once that mission was out of the way, though, the subsequent Egyptian mission was easier and I think he beat that one rather quickly.

 

The Aztec mission

 

So, yes, I was never all that great at doing the missions in Bond. I especially wasn’t as good as Marc was at the missions. He beat the game completely. I don’t even think I beat all the missions on Special Agent.

 

However, when it came to multiplayer mode, I was definitely a force to be reckoned with.

 

Oh yes, multiplayer mode. A mode in the game that almost didn’t exist to begin with. Can you believe that multiplayer was the very last thing the game designers added to the game and it was something Nintendo didn’t even want at first?[4] [5] In fact, multiplayer mode wasn’t even added to Bond until April of 1997, four months before the game was released in August 1997. If they’d had the time, the Bond designers would have spent more effort on the character animations in this mode. For example, they would have altered the animation we see when a character crouches on their knees and goofily slides around on the floor. This animation is cheesy, indeed, and they would have animated this crouching move into something more realistic, but they simply didn’t have the time. Rare had already spent about three years on the game and 2 million dollars or so. Nintendo said it was time to stop development and release the SOB.[6]

 

Multiplayer mode. Pistols in the Temple.

 

It is certainly ironic, however, that multiplayer mode, perhaps the funnest and most addictive part of the game, was something that was only added to Bond at the last minute. In fact, it was actually developed in secret by one of the designers just IN CASE Nintendo was interested in having it in the game.[7] I guess once they witnessed the mode firsthand, Nintendo realized this was something the game really needed to have as a feature.

 

As for my friends and I, we were about as addicted to multiplayer mode as everyone else was. After playing it for hours upon hours, usually in Marc’s finished basement on his late-1980s-style television (you know, the ones that were built into a wooden box), my friends and I reached a point in multiplayer mode where we became extremely good. We were elite. And we were incredibly competitive with one another.

 

Although there are several different scenarios you can play in multiplayer mode, like Man with the Golden Gun (where you find a golden gun within the level that enables you to get one-shot kills), License to Kill (one shot from any weapon and you’re dead), You Only Live Twice (where you only get two lives and then you get eliminated from the game) or the Living Daylights (which is basically capture the flag), my friends and I usually did either the ‘Normal’ scenario or License to Kill.

 

‘Normal’ mode was when you picked a weapon or group of weapons and then hunted each other down, killing your opponent once their energy bar and body armor ran out. There were several weapons to choose from and several levels to choose from, but there were only about three or four weapon scenarios that my friends and I would play with and only four or five levels that we would choose from: the Complex (known to my friends as ‘the Plex’), the Facility (known to my friends as ‘the Faculty’), the Archives (known to my friends as ‘the Chives’), the Basement (known to my friends as ‘the baaaaaaase-ment’ said like Madam Ruby in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure [that goes without saying, right?]), the Stack, sometimes the Temple, occasionally the Bunker and very rarely the Caves. The other levels, like Library, Water Caverns and the Egyptian, were garbage in our eyes.

 

We normally began our “Bond session” with something like proximity mines in the Complex, which we would usually call “proxos in the plex” for short. There is one area of this level where the proximity mines are located, which we would refer to as “the fort,” and usually whoever gets in this area first is able to dominate the game because you basically booby trap every pathway that leads up to this fort with proximity mines and then wait for all of your opponents to get blown to bits. If you knew that somebody got to this area first, the best thing to do would be to try and take them out of there with the badass AR33 Assault Rifle as quickly as possible before they got situated and booby trapped every surrounding area with the mines. If you failed to do that, you could also try getting mines in their second location on the opposite side of the level, throwing them into the fort from far away, eventually all the mines would explode from being in too close proximity with one another and the fort would consequently become one big fire ball. Once the flames cleared, not to mention the stench of roasted flesh, you could go up there and take the fort over for yourself.

 

A view of "the fort" from below

 

The other good level to use proximity mines in was the Facility. Much like the fort in the Complex, the key to succeeding in this level would be to situate yourself in the bathroom (one of the two areas in the level where the proxos are located) and then throw mines everywhere outside of the bathroom, and wait for everybody to get blown to bits.

 

Now, if you were really savvy with your proxos, you would rig the body armor, ammo boxes and even weapons with the mines, usually in ways that were the least obvious so as to trick your fellow opponents. You would also rig the areas in a level where players commonly “spawned,” meaning the areas in the level where players are born again after they die. If you rigged the right places, you could kill your opponent within seconds of their spawning.

 

Other popular weapon/level scenarios were as follows:

 

Rocket launchers in the Stack. I think this was one of my favorite scenarios because I was good at shooting a rocket launcher from long distances and successfully hitting my target. I also liked shooting people from below the catwalks. Or, from the next room over, you could sometimes see somebody’s legs or even feet in the very long distance, you could shoot a rocket that way and take them out.

 

Grenade Launchers in the Temple. I’m not sure if it’s because the Temple has those large open spaces, but grenade launchers worked very well in this level. The fun thing about the grenade launchers was using your geometry skills and banking the grenades off of walls, almost like you’re shooting pool, banking your cue ball shots in such a strategic way so that they hit one or two sides of the pool table first before hitting your target.

 

Power Weapons in the wherever. Power weapons basically worked in any and all levels. The RC-P90 was the weapon everybody wanted, but if you were good with the shotgun, you could take your enemy out with just a few shots or sometimes even two shots if you aimed right for the cabeza.

 

Now, all of the scenarios I’ve mentioned above were good for a lot of fun times. But, to be frank, hours upon hours could be spent playing one particular scenario and that scenario only:

 

That scenario would be License to Kill with pistols.

 

This was, I think, by far the most fun scenario and I think this was the scenario that separated the men from the boys. There was a level of skill and slickness that was necessary to be good at License to Kill (i.e. one shot and you’re dead) and my friends and I got REALLY good at ‘License’ and I mean REALLY good. 

 

You have to know how to lean around corners, how to strafe (with the N64’s yellow arrow buttons), how to quickly duck and you even have to learn how to crawl and/or slap if you find yourself in tight quarters and in a bind. In fact, sometimes it was actually easier using your slapper as opposed to a pistol. Using your slapper would often catch your opponent off guard … unless, of course, they already knew your habits and, in my case, my friends knew each other’s habits before long. In fact, I was known to do a lot of cheap shots with slapping and/or crouching while slapping, so they knew to expect such cheap shots from me. Let’s just say I was known to get the “Most Dishonorable” award more often than anyone else. I would occasionally get the “marksmanship” award as well (especially when playing Rockets in the Stack), so it’s not like I was a complete coward. I mean, if I were a total bitch, I would have chosen Oddjob for a character every time I played, which I never did. Oddjob was the most unfair character due to his short height that made him difficult to shoot. No, instead, I usually chose the female Moonraker Elite, whom my friends and I nicknamed “Emma.” Okay, she was on the short side as well, but nothing even close to the height of Oddjob!

 

Oddjob was so short!

It was difficult to shoot Oddjob due to his height

 

But, yes, playing in License to Kill mode took a tremendous amount of skill, no doubt about that. Perhaps the most skilled License to Kill player of all, however, was the one who knew how to use the Cougar revolver in a manner so that they pulled the trigger just a moment before they actually had their intended target in their sights. This was done because the Cougar was so slow in shooting that your target would be out of your crosshairs by the time the shot actually got off. Cougars also shot through doors so that could certainly come in handy. If you were behind a door or perhaps hiding in a bathroom stall (think Facility) and your opponent had a Cougar, you knew you needed to get the hell out of there. The door was not going to provide you sufficient protection from the Cougar bullet.

 

The best levels to do License to Kill in were the Basement, the Facility, the Archives (although the game only allowed you to play multiplayer in the Archives if you had three players or less; four players were apparently too much RAM for the Archives, I guess), and sometimes the Bunker or the Complex were good for ‘License’ as well.

 

The worst level for License to Kill and perhaps the worst overall level was the Library, which was basically a combination of the Basement and Stack. My friends and I never played the Library. In fact, whenever we set the level to “random,” which meant the computer chose a random level for you, once we saw that the ramp that led down to the basement was open and not closed, this meant we were dealing with the Library and we would immediately quit. What was wrong with the Library? It was too big of a level and it took too long to find people. Closer quarters was always better, like what you got in the Complex, the Facility or the Archives. The latter level, the Archives, was a two-floor level, but it was still small enough to be enjoyable.

This is a great multiplayer Bond session I found on YouTube.

 

Other honorable mentions as far as scenarios go:

 

Lasers (i.e. Moonrakers) in the Temple.

 

Throwing knives in the wherever (Basement and Facility worked well for throwing knives).

 

Grenade Launchers in the Archives, Basement and the Complex.

 

Rocket Launchers in the basement could be fun as well.

 

Remote mines in the wherever. These can be fun because, if you press the A and B buttons together on the N64 controller, you can detonate the mines right away, so you can literally throw the mines at your enemy and detonate without taking the time to take out your detonator watch. There are also good guns that come along with the remote mines scenario, including the AR33 Assault Rifle and the ZMG, which was basically an Uzi.

 

What is the worst weapon for multiplayer? 

 

I would probably say sniper rifles and maybe timed mines. A close third is grenades but those can be fun to use if you time the release right (you take the grenade’s pin out by holding the N64 controller’s trigger [i.e. ‘Z button’] and then release the button when you want to throw it but make sure you don’t throw it too late or you’ll blow yourself up). There are also some cool guns that come along with the grenades scenario, like the Dostovei (probably my favorite of the pistols) and the Soviet. Ok, there is the Klobb as well, but who out there actually likes the Klobb? I used to call it the pebble-shooter because it literally felt so weak you might as well be shooting small pebbles at your enemies.

 

Unfortunately, the aforementioned phantom gun—you know, the one I used to wreak havoc in the Frigate mission—is nowhere to be found in multiplayer mode. I don’t know this for sure, but I’m assuming that this may have had something to do with the fact that they added the multiplayer mode to Bond so late into the production process. They probably didn’t have enough time or maybe not enough memory to have the Phantom in multiplayer mode.

 

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that multiplayer mode also came with a whole slew of options, many of which enabled players to reach even greater heights in terms of their skill level. If you really wanted to be multiplayer elitists, you could choose to turn auto-aiming off (with auto-aiming, your gun automatically aims at an opponent when they’re reasonably close to your line of fire). You could turn sights off as well so you had to aim using your eyes with no help from crosshairs. Additionally, lowering everyone’s health in multiplayer was sometimes fun to do, maybe so that you had a half or even a quarter of a normal health bar.  

 

Along with all these different options, there were “cheats” as well. These game cheats were obtained by doing missions in the game on either Agent, Secret Agent or 00 Agent. For example, one cheat enabled you to turn radar off in multiplayer, which meant the only way you could know where your enemies were was if you peaked at their screen. Some people, however, would take things a step further and tape carboard dividers onto their TV, basically creating small cubicles for each player, just so nobody could look at each other’s screen. Now that we have more updated versions of Bond on Xbox and the Wii, online play makes it impossible for players to peak at their opponents’ screens. Add this on top of no-radar mode, not to mention ‘no sights’ and ‘auto-aiming off’, and the men of Bond are definitely separated from the boys.

 

The cardboard approach

 

As for my friends, I honestly don’t think we played no-radar mode all that often; we usually used radars. Also, I’m pretty sure we left auto-aim on most of the time and left sights on as well. So maybe we weren’t as elite as we thought we were.

 

In addition to no radar, there were other fun cheats in the game as well. DK Mode (obtained when beating the Runway mission on Agent) was one of the funnest cheats that made every character’s head the size of beach balls. Paintball mode (obtained when beating the Dam mission on Secret Agent) was another fun cheat where your gun essentially turned into a paintball gun; instead of leaving bullet holes if you were shooting a wall or blood if you were shooting a person, colorful paint stains would be left behind instead. Other cool cheats were Invisibility (obtained when you beat Archives on 00 Agent), Tiny Bond (when you beat Surface on 00 Agent), unlimited ammo (when you beat Control Room on Secret Agent) and all guns (when you beat Egyptian on 00 Agent).

 

Natalya in DK Mode

 

Add all these cheats onto another slew of options within Mission mode, like playing in cinematic 16:9 ratio screen mode, adjusting the volume of the sound FX and the music separately (for example, you could play missions with only sound FX, no music), not to mention having a choice of four different control styles to choose from (Honey, Solitaire, Kissy and Goodnight) and what you realize is that Bond was probably more jam-packed with cool options and cheats than you ever remember it having. Indeed, Bond was an incredibly dense game with so many things to do and you can tell the game designers put a whole-hearted effort into the making of it. For a movie-based game (games based on movies were usually flops),[8] Rare was NOT messing around when they were making this game. Were they aware that they were making perhaps one of the best video games of all time?

 

Probably not.

 

But I have to think that, at many points during the course of the game’s production, the main nine or ten designers responsible for making Bond likely realized they were making something incredibly special.

 

…

Did you enjoy this article? If so, you'll love my new podcast episode "A Nod to the Nintendo 64." Listen on Spotify below or search for THE BURNZO CAST on Apple podcasts:

 

...

MATT BURNS is the author of several books, including his bestselling Kindle singles I Used to be a Gamer and I Dream of Dream Machine. He’s also written several novels, including his ‘punk novel’ Supermarket Zombies! as well as Weird Monster, Johnny Cruise and The Woman and the Dragon. Check out these books (and many more) on his Amazon author page HERE.

 

 

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NOTES:

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[1] Ehrenworth, Mikey. “The Retrograde Podcast.” The Complete History of Goldeneye 007 (feat. Alyse Knorr), Episode #23, iTunes, 25 July 2023.

 

[2] “The Making of GoldenEye 007 (N64) | Documentary.” YouTube, uploaded by onaretrotip, 15 May 2021, https://youtu.be/tokaUo_m39M. 

 

[3] YouTube, “The Making of GoldenEye 007.”

 

[4] “The Making Of The N64 Classic Goldeneye | A 90s Gaming Masterpiece.” YouTube, uploaded by Wrestling With Gaming, 26 September 2020, https://youtu.be/ZhCKs7DDePM. 

 

[5] Riendeau, Danielle. “Multiplayer wasn’t planned in ‘Goldeneye’, and Other things I Didn’t Know.” Vice, 17 July 2018, https://www.vice.com/en/article/mb4eyy/goldeneye-n64-multiplayer-unplanned. 

 

[6] YouTube, “The Making Of The N64 Classic Goldeneye.”

 

[7] Riendeau, “Multiplayer wasn’t planned.”

 

[8] YouTube, “The Making Of The N64 Classic Goldeneye.”