by John Nichols
He was free! Tossed over the seats, Nancy lay in a painful heap on the front floor, dress wrenched up under her armpits, pink panties glossy as Salvation. Feathers clogged the air; Joe inhaled a bunch and sneezed. As usual, under duress, Lorin had evaporated. His remnant foliage swirled within the VW’s interior. Batting feathers away, Joe could only surmise, bewilderedly, that they had either run over a land mine, or been nailed broadside by the Wrath of the Monkey God.
A figure materialized outside the Beetle. And a familiar, Spanish-accented voice asked, “Is anybody alive in there?”
“Eloy?”
“Is that you, Joe?”
“It’s me, all right. What happened?”
“A miracle!” cried the old man, whose face Joe could not as yet make out—feathery turbulence created a wall between them. “An enormous bird jumped from your car and flapped off into the sky.”
“But what happened?” Joe insisted. “Why are you here?”
“I wanted to rob the bank,” Eloy said sheepishly. “I hated to do it alone, but I couldn’t find you anywhere. I heard a rumor that you had kidnapped your children and gone to Alaska. Another rumor says your wife flushed all that cocaine down the toilet. So I knew you wouldn’t have the money. And I figured I wouldn’t be a man if I did not at least try.”
“Did you get any money?”
“I was afraid. I parked outside for half an hour, staring at the First State People’s Jug. Finally, I knew I couldn’t do it alone. Then I decided to drive around town and pray that I might bump into you.”
“Are you hurt?” Joe waved his arms frantically, warding off feathers that threatened to enter his mouth in droves each time he spoke.
“Not at all. Are you okay?”
“I think so. What the hell happened?”
“I hit you. I was preoccupied.”
“With your truck?”
“Yup.”
“Did you hear that, Nancy? Nancy…!”
“I’m here,” she said calmly. “I’m all right.”
“You sure you’re not hurt?”
“Joe,” she said with soft chagrin, “am I ever hurt?”
“You double-crossed me,” he said meekly. “How could you do such a thing? I trusted you.…”
Abruptly, she was sullen. “Don’t feed me that garbage. You happen to be about as shallow, Joe Miniver, as any male I’ve had occasion to come across.”
“I need you to help me rob the bank,” Eloy rasped. “If you’re all right, can we do it now, before they close?”
“I don’t know … I’m a little groggy.…” Leaning over the driver’s seat, Joe banged open the bent door, kneed the seat forward, and pulled himself into the cloudless munificent day.
“We must hurry.” Eloy had disguised himself with one of those grotesque rubber gorilla masks. The front of his old pickup was totaled, the hood had erupted upward as it bent in two, almost blocking the windshield view. The left front tire, a mess of shredded rubber, had apparently burst upon impact. How fast had the son of a bitch been going?
Joe said, “I can’t rob a bank looking like this.”
“I brought another mask and a T-shirt.”
“If we fail, we’re goners,” Joe said, abruptly realizing that—yes—Eloy was serious.
“Granted. But when I saw all those monkey people in my front field, I knew I had to try. I’m an old man, and sometimes my brain doesn’t function so good. But I know right from wrong.”
Nancy crawled clear of the Bug and wavered for a moment, brushing feathers off her shoulders, shaking them from her hair. Then, with a soft whimper, she reached for Sasha’s limp body on the hood of the VW.
“Will you drive?” Eloy asked. “I’m tired. And I have the shakes.”
“But … we’re not prepared. We haven’t cased the joint, or made any plans.…”
“It’s our last chance,” Eloy reasoned quietly. “If we don’t have the money by Monday, everyone else gets to fight over my land.”
Joe gripped his throbbing head. “What can I drive—that truck?”
“It’s all I can offer.”
“Well … shoot.” Dazedly, Joe stared at the old pickup. His mind seemed unwilling to function. Eloy added up to the one beautiful person he knew. And Joe wished to help save his soul. But this surreal day had left him stymied. He seemed aimed on a collision course with disaster; no rational alternatives existed. Outlaw blood made his body tingle. Yet neither anarchy nor carelessly squandering humanity’s most precious resource—life itself—turned him on. Never had he sympathized with the cavalier bravado martyrdom of handsome, bitter fools. If he died robbing a bank for obscure reasons, he died in a vacuum—apolitical, useless. Only Eloy would understand. Yet, as his head cleared, the urge grew inside. For too long mountainous frustrations had clobbered his aching psyche. Down with his bleeding heart and bourgeois antics!—he could use a hint of revolutionary action. If an old man and his prep-school sidekick managed to relieve the First State People’s Jug of enough bread to salvage Eloy’s land, the symbolism of that tiny farm in Chamisaville—the values underlying its vitality—would far outweigh and outlast the fragile body of its caretakers. Should I agree to rob the bank, Joe thought finally, I’ll be acting without equivocation, courageous at last.
“All right,” he said quietly. “Get in.”
Eloy stumbled entering the passenger door and Joe caught him. It was like handling a body stuffed with silk handkerchiefs. Joe said, “Can you breathe okay? You should take off that mask.”
“I got bursitis, I can’t reach up with my right hand—could you help me?”
Gently, Joe tugged the rubber monstrosity off Eloy’s red, dripping-wet face. The old man’s eyes were pallid and drained, betraying fear, fatigue, desperation. In this absurd game, a real human being was hurt … maybe critically.
“Eloy,” he said gingerly. “Are you all right?”
“I am resolved.” He laid back his head, closed his eyes. “Take me where I want to go.” Eloy gritted his teeth. “Otherwise, I’ll know you’re a sinvergüenza like all the rest of them.” Then he murmured apologetically: “It breaks my heart even to think like a criminal.”
“You know we could die.”
Eloy opened one sad eye: “Who said I was afraid to die?”
Circling the badly wounded vehicle, Joe complained, “This truck ain’t gonna work.”
“It’s been running since 1945.”
Joe climbed in and fired it up. Sparks sailed skyward on either side of the jackknifed hood, but the engine caught and idled. So Joe killed it, hopped out, fetched the spare, a lug wrench, and a bumper jack from the rear bed, and changed tires.
Cradling Sasha in her arms, a bewildered Nancy said, “You two are really going to do it? They’ll kill you.”
Bitterly, Joe replied, “Why don’t you wrap us in a pink cloud? Or protect us with a Sanskrit chant?”
“Joseph, you’ll never understand.” Turning, she walked away, entered her house, and slammed the door.
* * *
JOE HEAVED TOOLS and the shredded tire into the rear bed, fired up the truck again, and they headed for town. Stoically composed, hands folded in his lap, the old man jounced stiffly. Joe slowed to make the ride more comfortable, but worn-out springs sabotaged this consideration.
Quietly, they inched through Chamisaville. Joggers decorated in ebullient costumes waved cheerfully—Joe ignored them. Bright shiny cars waited patiently in traffic jams, but Joe sought out a half-dozen winding side roads in order to avoid them. Eloy said, “Long ago, I realized it wouldn’t work out. My time is over. I’m a fool to want more than my share. Now, for a while, it’s the devil’s turn. But for some reason, I can’t go down without a fight.…”
The bank loomed. Joe felt silly, as if he were piloting Eloy’s ridiculous truck through a melodramatic gangster film, a forties western, a TV soap opera. Any moment now a British-accented fink in silk ascot and Abercrombie tweed would holler “Cut!” and bawl them out for being s
o stilted in their roles. Yet nothing happened: no deus ex machina dropped out of the sky or bolted around the cardboard false front of the bank to halt these potentially deadly proceedings.
Joe pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine. Cars shimmered silently in the glorious spring sunshine; on the First State portal, a kid, waiting for her mom, no doubt, unwrapped a stick of gum, letting the paper flutter away as she bent the Juicy Fruit into her mouth.
“Well, here we are.” Joe’s voice sounded the way an Italian sausage might look, squeezed through the latex rollers of an old-fashioned wringer washing-machine.
Eloy fumbled at his holster, removed a long-barreled six-shot Colt, and handed it over. Joe accepted the gun, but couldn’t believe it wasn’t a toy. “How do you fire it?” he asked.
Eloy arranged Joe’s hand correctly. “Don’t put your finger on the trigger yet. You cock it by pulling the hammer all the way back, like this.” He clicked it into lock position. “Then you simply touch the trigger.” Carefully, keeping his thumb on the hammer, Eloy depressed the trigger, and slowly lowered the hammer back down.
“Or, since it’s a double-action gun, you can just pull the trigger. But that’s not a very accurate way of firing.”
Joe said, “I don’t know if I could actually shoot at somebody.”
“I doubt that I could either.”
“That makes us crazy.”
Several pigeons fluttered clear of the azure sky, alighting along a false fire wall on the eastern parapet of the First State roof. Butterflies rampaged in Joe’s stomach; he had a strong urge to defecate. The tips of his fingers tingled, growing numb; a faint ringing entered his ears. He anticipated a holocaust, and the overall effect inside was one of lightheadedness, along with a curiously sensual laziness that he’d never before experienced, some metabolic alloy of real fear mixed with the timid exaltation raised by action—irrevocable and dangerous—at last. As if zapped by cold water, his scrotum had contracted into a tightly wrinkled pouch. His anus throbbed, but not painfully—the effect was almost pleasurable. Goosebumps rippled across his shoulders, they dived down along his spine.
“Are you scared?” Joe asked the old man.
Eloy was reaching into the wrinkled Safeway shopping bag at his feet. He hesitated. “I don’t know if what I feel is fear. I’m an old man, I have lived a full life. If I die, nobody’s taking that much away from me. It’s just that if I live, I want to live on my own terms, as always.”
From the sack he removed another rubber gorilla mask for Joe.
“I think I’m afraid,” Joe said. “I also have an urge to giggle. Now that we’re actually gonna do it, you know something weird? It doesn’t even seem criminal. It just feels like a natural thing to do.”
Eloy nodded and swung his rifle barrel sideways so that the muzzle touched Joe’s knee. He worked the lever, chambering a cartridge. Joe had absolutely no fear of the pistol in his lap or of the weapon in Eloy’s hands. Miraculously, in just minutes, the guns had become a natural extension of his emotional state, the logical tools of his upcoming trade.
Dizziness, then sudden euphoria … Joe welcomed a powerful sense of well-being in which he believed incontrovertibly that nothing could go wrong. Such an unexpected sensation floored him. All at once shot through with immunity, his muscles, heart, blood vessels, and shining skin had been washed in immortality. Though the brain knew he was on the brink of treacherous steps, his emotions decreed them both home free.
And the danger, as he slowly tugged on his gorilla mask, became luxurious.
Joe’s mind cleared, he knew exactly what to do. “I was in here last week.…” Or was it yesterday, or Monday, or a month ago? “And I sort of cased the joint a little. We’ll have to keep our eyes on a lot of people.”
His memory conjured a photographic copy of the room they were about to accost. The clarity of detail stunned Joe. The exact location of every person, every desk, every table, every seeing-eye camera, even every wastebasket focused clearly. Features of tellers and loan officers leaped to the familiar forefront, almost as if they belonged to dear friends instead of strangers. Five tellers held down the south side. If the vault was open, watch out for that lady who had gone inside. Don’t forget the folks working the drive-in window beyond the southern alcove. Too, somebody might climb the west-end stairs. And, of course, one of them would have to cover the seven desks and various officers on the north side. Beyond that? The seeing-eye cameras, naturally. Shoot them out at the start of the robbery?… or were they bullet-proof?
Mox nix. Eloy said, “Well, are you ready?”
“Almost. I’m just thinking about some things. We’ll have to disarm Tom Yard at the start.”
“Who’s Tom Yard?”
“The bank dick. The guard with the gun and the uniform inside. As soon as we enter we’ll have to spot him, rush to his side, order him to freeze. You point the rifle at him while I grab his pistol. Then you swing north and intimidate anybody at a desk on this side of the bank. I’ll ask a teller for money. We’ll empty all five cash drawers on the south side. Then, if the vault’s open, I’ll order somebody in there while you keep the others covered. A customer enters the bank during the robbery?—order them to freeze immediately. Somebody makes a dumb move, fire a warning shot in their general vicinity. Did you bring bags?”
“In the bed of the truck. Gunnysacks.”
“Good.” Joe’s heart raced: the exhilaration spreading through his body seemed almost sexual. He wanted to shout, laugh, perform arrogant pirouettes. For the first time in too long, he felt proud, domineering, invincible. This fierce and daring move would give him stature at last, a revolutionary act in the name of Eloy Irribarren—his spirit, his pastures.
Joe spoke calmly: “Can you think of anything we’ve overlooked?”
Frowning, Eloy ran a thumb along his rifle barrel. “I don’t know. Who can say? I hadn’t thought it out like you. I just want to grab the bull by the horns.”
“Afterwards, we’ll probably have to ditch the truck,” Joe said carefully. In control. My God, was he ever In Control! Not even Kryptonite could hurt them. “If anybody asks, you say it was stolen yesterday afternoon. In fact, what a brilliant move if we could have reported the theft on our way over here. But no matter, this is gonna be duck soup.”
“Where do we go afterwards?” Eloy asked politely.
“Your place. We’ll wrap the money in a garbage bag to protect it from moisture, tie a long string to the bag, and lower it down into your well until the heat’s off.”
“My knees are like jelly. I’m afraid I feel a little fainthearted. I want to do it right now.”
“Me too. Put on your mask.”
As the rubber slipped over Eloy’s head, Joe experienced new spurts heralding his own invulnerability. It was as if the Halloween gizmo awarding him anonymity had also made him invisible. Prying open his eyeholes, he faced Eloy. The old man peeped nervously at him through grotesque openings.
“I guess that’s it.” Joe’s voice now sounded almost stentorian—Nikita Smatterling, eat your heart out!—it reeked of absolute authority and confidence. Joe thrilled to these incredible feelings of power. “Don’t forget to bring the gunnysacks.”
Each opened his door: in unison they descended. Joe’s butterflies had disappeared. Another surge of invincibility further bolstered his courage. He closed the door gently. Eloy reached over the side of the bed, snagging two sacks.
“Let’s go.”
Joe wanted to dance. His heart sang. The purity of this solution to all their problems absolutely amazed him. They closed ranks heading toward the portal; beautiful sunshine chorused warmly from on high. Joe’s breath boiled beneath the flimsy latex, his cheeks tingled from the moisture. Back a little went his shoulders, forward a trifle went his jutted jaw. Up in a boom chair, the director gave orders, guiding the routes and angles of several large cameras filming their dramatic approach to pecuniary destiny. Background drums rolled; other instruments hissed dram
atically and rattled. Then, as their bootheels landed on the raised cement of the portal, every noise ceased. And the world, and especially the audience, held its breath.
The gum-chewing kid awaiting her Mommy said, “Hiya, monkeys—what’s funky?”
Ignoring her, they entered the bank. Joe stopped; Eloy took an extra step before halting. And the camera, filming from Joe’s point of view, did a quick pan across the entire scene, then zoomed to a close-up of the one person who stood between them and the money: Tom Yard.
Wide-eyed, the guard recognized immediately the purpose of their visit. Forgetting Tom couldn’t see his proper eyes through the gorilla mask holes, Joe figured he could hypnotize that buffalo into paralysis while he and Eloy strolled across the shiny floor to disarm him.
How much time elapsed: a second? half a minute? an eternity? Running fast, the cameras filmed in slow motion. Nonetheless, it took Tom Yard but an instant—from the moment he spotted Joe and Eloy—to reach for his gun. He slipped it from the holster, aimed directly at the two robbers, and pulled the trigger, all in the twinkle of a heartbeat. They hadn’t even announced their intentions! And, as smoke, framed in earsplitting noise, gushed from the barrel, Joe’s impregnable façade cracked under a feeling of petulant dismay. It wasn’t fair! The man had jumped to a conclusion. In America you’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty!
Talk about weird. Joe’s rarefied senses had become so acute he actually saw the slug leave the muzzle of Tom Yard’s Magnum. And here it came, in positively oozy slow motion, floating through the pellucid, benumbed air like a leisurely housefly propelled by a jet blast through a novocaine dream, apparently headed for his chest. But as the lazy projectile came closer, growing from BB tininess to the size of his pinkie’s fingernail, the angle at which he viewed it changed, and Joe realized the lead lump was headed for his elderly pal.