MY TIME AS AN AMUSEMENT PARK UNDERCOVER SECURITY GUARD

One summer in the 1990s, during my college years, I worked as an undercover security guard at Adventure World, a medium-sized amusement park in Prince George’s County, Maryland, just outside the DC Beltway. Thirty years later, the press release that announced the permanent closure of the park hit me pretty hard and occasioned my reflection on that summer, on what proved to be a less than eventful stint in policing and a more than memorable boss.

Undercover security guard remains one of the stranger job titles I’ve held. Some years prior, I’d been a fan of Fox TV’s series 21 Jump Street, and, just perhaps, I may have envisioned my undercover gig as akin to that of Johnny Depp and his cohort of undercover newbie police officers whose youthful appearances allowed them to pass for high schoolers. Somehow, my experience undercover wasn’t at all similar to that, though I did grow rather proficient at nabbing middle schoolers trying to steal erasers and keychains from gift shops.

Growing up nearby, when I visited the park as a child it was Wild World, which became Adventure World, which became Six Flags America not many years after I worked there. The shuttering of Six Flags America ends a half-century run of an amusement park on that site.

In addition to preventing theft of souvenirs, my duties consisted of catching employees sneaking money from their tills and park guests smoking weed or, on more than one occasion, trying to increase the rate of teen pregnancy in PG County. Perhaps I was nothing but a low down, snitching rat, but I suppose an amusement park, like civilization itself, will falter if order isn’t maintained, so I did my part that summer.

My uniform consisted of unremarkable shorts and t-shirts, as if I was a park guest, much better than the polyester pseudo-police getups the uniformed security guards had to wear. I’d saunter around the park, making regular stops in the gift shop. There, all too often, some little souvenir would venally find its way into the pocket of, almost always, a teen or preteen. Subtly getting the attention of a uniformed security guard and nodding toward the offending guest, a pat to my front left or right pocket would let the guard know where the stolen good was hidden. He’d approach the would-be burglar and escort him or her to the security office.

Once there, the security manager would try to put the fear of God into the kid so that, just maybe, this would be his or her last ever encounter with any kind of law enforcement. That was a long term goal that my boss regularly talked about. In the short term, the culprit would be banned from the park for the day or, if there was belligerency or if it was a second offense, for the rest of the summer.

Normally, the cost of the stolen item was minuscule, and I’d wonder if all the fuss was worth it. Sometimes the pilferer would show some real ambition and try to steal one of the more expensive items in the gift shop. Those catches made me feel that I was earning my hourly wage.

Once or twice per week, a supervisor would suspect an employee in the games area of stealing money from the till. I’d be given some marked bills and go to work. Acting like a park guest, I’d pay for a couple tries at the game and miss the mark, not a difficult task. In fact, my greatest fear was that I’d win a prize legitimately on those impossible games.

After failing a few times, I’d ask the worker if I could just buy one of the gigantic stuffed animal prizes. If the answer was yes, I’d slip him the marked bills and walk away with the booty.

A few minutes later, the supervisor would collect the employee’s till—the fanny-pack-like apron thing the employee would wear to keep the cash paid by guests. When the marked bills weren’t there, questioning would ensue, and the employee would eventually empty his pockets, turn over the marked money, and be fired.

For big events, like the Independence Day fireworks show, my job was similar to that of the uniformed guards: look for any rule breaking, basically alcohol, drugs, fighting, and sex. Fortunately, enough of the people doing those things were even more conspicuous than the fourteen-year-olds stealing from the gift shop, so I earned my pay at those events, too.

Mainly, the bulk of my job was walking around on the sweltering walkway all day, every day, strolling through the park again and again as my senses were constantly saturated with the wonders of an amusement park. The smells of funnel cake and heavily-chlorinated pool water. The sounds of roller coasters rushing along the tracks and the accompanying screams of children laughing and crying, and of teenagers at the height of adolescent, pack-animal, lusty ebullience. Colors and lights and cartoony signage everywhere. Everything in motion.

All that, and I was not in any rush to get in line for the next ride or to keep up with an itinerary. In contrast, my job was to slow down and observe. Even if I was watching for bad behavior, the abiding atmosphere was one of summer fun.

Yet walking that heat-shimmering asphalt was grueling. A few times a day, when the line was short and to maintain my cover, I’d get on one of the rides. At the time, there were only two roller coasters, a very old wooden one and a newer metal one where the riders’ feet would dangle below the seat. It went upside down and had all the loop de loop stuff. That’s the one I’d normally ride, avoiding the wooden coaster, The Wild One, which, in the 1980s, had been bought from an early twentieth century amusement park somewhere and reassembled at Wild World.

The Wild One’s historical wooden construction gave it the special quality of being slightly less than what some might call a smooth ride. I assume it was just as brain-rattling when I rode it in my youth, but I was an eighties kid, so we probably just accepted that what we now refer to as concussion symptoms were part of the fun and got back in line to do it over and over. I mean, with World Wrestling Federation star Big John Stud doing local commercials for The Wild One, I could definitely ignore any dull headache I may have had the rest of the day. It was nothing that getting knocked around the park’s overly crowded, gigantic wave pool couldn’t fix.

I wish I could remember my boss’s name. What I do remember is who he reminded me of. I’d recently watched for a college class the World War Two movie, A Soldier’s Story, starring Denzel Washington. One of the characters in the movie, Sergeant Waters, played by Adolph Caesar, was who my boss resembled: a wiry tough, middle-aged black man with a gravelly voice—a voice that made you hurt to hear it, like barbed wire scratching the sides of your throat.

He talked candidly to us about race and the security office, the dynamics of how guests of different races reacted to security guards of different races, and the implications of those contacts. He wasn’t worried about political correctness, not if it got in the way of us performing our duties, and understanding the racial politics of the job would help us to do that. When he expressed those sentiments, in that voice, I listened. I liked his bluntness, needed his bluntness.

When he was the supervisor that an offending park guest would get to meet after being caught stealing, I knew a good show was coming. He sounded terrifying and mean. Maybe he really was mean. His demeanor certainly conveyed it, and I never wanted to be on his bad side. He’d light into the culprit like some medieval torture was imminent, yet he remained professional. Harsh and loud, but never out of control or physical.

I saw him put some berserk moms in their place, too. They’d arrive at the park as angry as could be to pick up their kid, and some would direct their anger at the park or at him, yelling and cussing, accusing him of being out to get their kid. But arguing with Adolph Caesar was unadvisable. Sternly, he’d let them know that their darling child was kicked out of the park and wasn’t allowed back and there was absolutely nothing more to discuss. And with that gravelly yet stentorian voice, there was nothing but to believe him.

One time he had all the undercover guards in for a meeting. There were fewer than ten of us, though we usually just had two or three working at a time. He had me and another guy stand up in front of the group because we regularly stopped far more thefts than the others.

Pointing fervently at me, he explained that I was a good undercover because, as either a black or white young teenager took a quick glance around the store to see if anyone was watching, I would immediately register as a status quo, straight-laced, young-but-a-little-older-than-them white guy, and that impression translates into naiveté regarding illicit activity. I was simply too law-abiding and boring to be savvy in any way about their bad behavior. Thus, they’d dismiss my presence without thinking about it, allowing me to observe them in their stealthy efforts at theft.

He pointed to the other employee and said that his strategy was just the opposite. He was black, looked like he was high school age, and acted, dressed, and talked like the majority of the black teens at the park. Black kids would steal stuff in front of him without thinking twice because they figured he was just like them and wouldn’t care one way or another if they stole anything. The white kids saw him the same way but would also in no way think of a young black person as any kind of authority figure.

I don’t know how accurate his assessments were, but they seemed reasonable. And anyway, how often had I ever gotten such high praise for my nondescript blandness.

“They get out there and beat the bushes! They get the job done! What’re you doin’ when you’re out there?” Adolph Caesar said in that raspy voice about the two of us to the other undercovers. It was embarrassing to be in front of the other undercovers like that, but I appreciated that he noticed I was doing my job.

I know nothing about how Adventure World’s version of Adolph Caesar came to have that job or whether it was full time or part time to augment another salary. Even back then, I don’t think I knew anything about him beyond what I saw on the job. But here’s what’s important. He treated that job as if it mattered and was important. He took the job seriously, and because he did, I did, too.

I don’t remember his name, but I’m grateful to him for teaching me those lessons: to take the job seriously, to discuss touchy subjects forthrightly and plainly, and, as a leader, to establish expectations and attitudes through your own actions. It may not have been quite as sexy or exciting as 21 Jump Street, but I’m thankful for my summer at Adventure World and its endless miles of hot asphalt.

Derrick Spradlin grew up in Maryland inside the Washington Beltway and is now a husband, father, and English teacher in West Tennessee.