skonen_blades | Entries tagged with robbery

As soon as my burger was served, I got the premonition that things were about to go horribly wrong. Now, I usually follow my instincts with these premonitions but they usually comes in waves of ‘turn right at this intersection’ or ‘leave the party early’ rather than ‘get the hell out of the building NOW’ when I’ve just been served a tasty burger.

And I was hungry. So I ignored it.

The men with the guns came in to rob the place just as I ate my first delicious bite. The leader was a thin man with the harried eyes of someone who was not only flying high on some sort of mind-altering chemicals, but was totally insane to begin with. I had the worrisome realization that they might not even be here to rob the place. They might just be here to have a little fun. That was much scarier to me.

Those damn premonitions. Whenever I ignore one, it usually turns out bad but this was way worse than I was expecting. Food poisoning at the worst was what I imagined.

There were four of the thugs. Two of them were muscled and giggling. One of them was deadly serious and fat. The leader was bright-eyed, thin and dangerously capricious. He was having trouble holding his heavy gun straight. They looked like they could shoot anyone in the place.

They shot the waitress. Then they shot Bill who was here on his lunch hour just like always. The leader pointed his gun at me.

“Stand up” he said. I had ketchup on my chin. For one absurd moment, I was embarrassed that the paramedics would see the ketchup on the chin of my corpse when this was over and make a judgment call about my eating habits and my life. They’d be packing up a slob and they’d never realize that I’d been interrupted in the act of reaching for a napkin when I had been executed.

“Turn around” the leader said. I turned around and looked out towards the city street through the front windows of the bar. Amazingly, no one that walked past the bar seemed to notice that anything was wrong on the inside. It was busy out there. Only a matter of time before someone noticed and called the police but probably too late for me by that point.

“I’m looking at a maze. Can you see the maze?” he asked me. I squinted. I saw the cars, the buildings.

“Do you mean the city?” I asked.

I heard the click of his revolver being cocked. “Turn around.” He said.

I turned around. He was standing in front of me with a pensive look on his face. The gun was pointed at my knees.

“Now can you see the maze? I can see the maze.” I stared at him.

My mind. He was talking about my mind. And maybe his mind as well. He was insinuating that our minds are mazes. He was crazier than I thought. But I understood what he meant. That scared me as well. Was he just broadcasting his insanity so much that it was easy to understand him?

Or were we both insane?

tags

“What are you, crazy? What are you going to do, bleed on them? The live in deep gees, dumbass, they’re hardbloods!” ranted Mack.

“Yeah, but they’re stupid.” I said with a gap toothed smile.

Mack took a deep drag on his cigarette and nervously adjusted his goggles. He licked his lips and looked away from me and back again in an attempt to figure out what kind of plan I could possibly have.

“Nope. It’s suicide. Forget it.” Barked Mack. He threw his hands up and turned his back on me. Through the webbing and keyrings that criss-crossed his back, though, I could tell that he was just standing and waiting for me to tell him the plan.

“Mack. Maaaaack. C’mon, Mack.” I whined. “I’ll give you six dollaaaars.” I said in a sing song voice that I knew would drive him crazy.

I could see his shoulders shake with restrained laughter.

He turned around back to me. “Okay, your crazy bastard,” he said to me, “What’s the plan?”

I pulled my shorts up and stood straight at attention, mimicking our early army days together.

“Sir! You know how they change shift every seventeen hours, vacuum or not?” I asked.

“Yes….” Mack answered, brow furrowed.

“Well, that door is unguarded for twelve seconds while that switch takes place.” I said.

There was a pause while Mack waited for the rest of my plan.

“Uh, I don’t mean to be rude,” he said, “but is that it? Try to get in and out in twelve seconds? Undetected? With the loot?”

I leaned back with a smile.

“Yup.” I said, chewing my gum loudly.

Mack closed one eye and looked at me with his head cocked.

“What the hell, I’m in.” he said.

tags

His hands fluttered like butterflies. He couldn’t hold a pen to write. He couldn’t hold on to a drink without spilling half of it before it got to his lips. The tremors were constant. Sure he had a substance abuse problem but I don’t think that was what gave him the shakes. His hands were creatures that were separate from him. They shook and cried and looked unhinged when he could not. Years of standing at attention and doing the jobs that he had been ordered to do kept him wound up tight and unable to lose control. His hands were the barometers of his inner state of mind that kept him from lying to the rest of the world.

His name was Jake. I met him and his hands in a bar in Texas with a lot of red. I had been falling for months. I guess you could say that I landed beside Jake since that’s when my memory kicks in and actually lasts for a while. His mother had just died. I’m not a preacher and I don’t believe in serendipity or providence but I’m willing to believe in coincidence. There was a moment when our eyes met and it was like we found each other. It was a moment that made all the talking we did afterwards just details.

In me he found a pupil. In him I found a job and a reason to stop drinking.

His hands stopped and were still like marble when he held the gun. I put the cash into bags in over two hundred stores. His military background worked for us and we were never caught.

I came into the hotel room in Virginia after we’d done almost a complete tour of the United States. He had sent me out to get some ice. He was dead when I came back to the room. He had a smile on what was left of his face. I almost expected his hands to still be shaking.

From the year that we’d spent together, I knew that I was his only family. I’m sitting in the waiting room of a funeral home now under an assumed name getting him cremated.

I think I’m done robbing. I have the money in the suitcase. His share, too. I have enough to rent a small place for a year and maybe get a job here.

It all feels perfect.

tags

What you need is a point of reference. Something to focus on.
When dancers are doing pirouettes, you can see their head whip around to come back and focus on the same spot. This keeps them from getting dizzy. One thing that astronauts need to get used to is that there is no up or down in space. The human brain has a lot of trouble with that. Pilots who can do barrel roll after barrel roll as long as there is a horizon whipping around in their field of vision will lose it and vomit in panic if faced with basic manouvers in space. They need to pick a star or a planet and use that as a point of reference. It's also like a night light. The room can be pitch black but as long as the child can even slightly see the tiny greenish light low to floor plugged into the wall, the monsters will be kept at bay. As long as there's something to focus on, the human mind can cope with almost anything.

Bad people are made. There is a combination of society, surroundings, upbringing and opportunities that collide to form cruel or generous personalities. Why are the bad people in many films ugly? They have become embittered to the world as a result of being victimized by it. That plus being taught that there is no fairness, cruelty wins, trusting results in pain, and hope is worthless except as leverage makes a person into a sociopathic creature. The moral compass points south. It points down.

The three people standing in front of Mary were bad men. They were very ugly. The expensive suits they were wearing could not cover up the evil. These were men that had to pretend to be normal. The tall one in the middle has a glass eye. The one on the right hunched and constantly looked side to side for witnesses in a habitual tic. At least they were smiling. It was the third one that made Mary really scared. He looked directly at her with a dead face. His ugliness came almost entirely from the fact that he looked switched off. There was no emotion playing across his craggy features. He didn't blink.

The restaurant was closed. She had locked the doors. She was the only person there. They had come out of the shadows and into the light like butterfly wings stretching out, drying, becoming what they were meant to be. Three men threatening one woman in the dark.

This wasn't the first time. This was a bad part of town and she was pretty. She didn't recognize these ones. They stepped towards her. She grabbed a knife. They laughed. They kept walking towards her. It was an acient dance as old as predators. As old as the food chain.

Later, lying on the counter and tasting blood, she concentrated on the light on the coffee machine with all of her ability.

Bad people are made.

As long as there's something to focus on, the human mind can cope with almost anything.

tags

Current Mood: sloppy
Current Location: sams place
Current Music: coldplay

It’s under me. Wait. I mean, it’s beneath me.
His eye is missing. He’s begging. There’s been a bank robbery. There’s a
giant painting of a rearing horse on the office wall. It’s not an abstract.
The boss is into realism. I wonder how ‘real’ he feels right now. His
eye is in my hand. I have the money I owe him in a bag beside me. I robbed
a bank to get it. He’s begging.
I’m beyond deals.
There’s a certain freedom in having no limits.
The fireworks have a long fuse so the tension is unbearable. But nothing
happens when the spark finally hits the base. There’s supposed to be an
explosion. Nothing happens.
The bass from the sound system in the car outside thuds its way through the
walls like a washing machine.
His begging comes back into focus again.
How long have I been standing here?
I sway a little.
His begging increases and then stops. There’s a gunshot in there somewhere
and my arm hurts a lot. I realize that my arm hurts from the kick of the
handgun. I realize that his begging stopped because he no longer has the
ability to beg. I took that away.
I leave the money with him. Or with his corpse, I mean. I think. Did I
just shoot someone? I think I robbed a bank. I’m a man of my word.
I’ve heard that there’s a point that all paraplegics or quadriplegics need
to get to. This is the point where they have to realize that they won’t get
better. They will not walk again. It’s a hard thing to realize because
society tells us to never accept defeat. Society tells us to never give up.
Then they have to realize that accepting that they’ll never walk again is
not defeat. It’s not giving up. It’s a new beginning.
I’m at that point.
Wild dogs don’t hide from the rain.
I’m making snow angels in the zen garden.
It’s beneath me.

tags

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: closer to the center of it
Current Music: Soundtrack to The Apostle

Redbeard was talking to Greyhound outside of the jackport.
“I swear to God, Grey,” Redbeard was saying, “I was down in San Lucas and when I asked the bartender for a tequila, he said ‘Which one?’. I was like stunned. They have like seventy two kinds of tequila down there.”
“No shit?” asked Greyhound.
“Seriously,” replied Redbeard. “I had this one called Tres Mujares or something. It means Three Women. It was like drinking a dry white wine. Or a, a mojito or something.”
“Aren’t mojitos made with tequila?” asked Greyhound.
“Oh. Uh, I don’t know. But like the point is is that you didn’t have to have salt and lime with the shots or anything,” said Redbeard. “You could just drink it like you were sipping, uh, wine. Or something like that. You know what I mean.”
“Wow,” said Greyhound. “I remember drinking Jose Cuervo at parties in high school and nearly dying a couple of times. The only reason to drink was to prove how hard you were and the only way to drink was copiously until you go so hammered you didn’t mind the taste.”
“Yeah, exactly. This was so smooth though.” Redbeard said, with a faraway look in his eyes.
Redbeard was about ten years older than Greyhound. Redbeard, as his nickname suggested, had a red beard. He had a thick frame with bushy red hair all over it. His thick hands held the killswitch on the taser while Greyhound busily squirreled brass-headed bullets into the clip of the stolen handgun he had tucked into his jeans. Greyhound was tall and thin, late teens, open to suggestion, and in need of money for drugs.
“Awesome” said Greyhound.
“Hey did you know that Tequila isn’t an alcohol?” asked Redbeard.
“What?” asked Greyhound.
“Seriously. It’s a drug.” Said Redbeard with conviction.
“Huh. I thought it was made from cactuses.” Said Greyhound while loading the gun. “Y’know, like vodka’s made from potatoes, Tequila’s made from Cactuses.”
“Cacti.” Said Redbeard.
“Huh?” asked Greyhound.
“Cacti. The plural of cactus is cacti” said Redbeard.
“Oh.” Said Greyhound, slipping the clip into place.
“Well” said Redbeard, looking at the taser that he had in his own hand.
“Well.” Greyhound agreed.
“Let’s do it”
“Ok”
They pulled down their masks.
Two deep breaths later they burst into the jackport. They’d gotten their planning wrong and were cut to shreds by the security systems.

coat check

Current Mood: apologetic for the music
Current Location: drowning in your waterbed
Current Music: Avril Lavigne - Unwanted

Profile

skonen_blades

June 2023

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

Syndicate

Style Credit

Base style: Leftovers by sforzinda
Theme: Elegant Brown by krja

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated 7 July 2025 00:43