by Mark Dunn
That sits in the middle of town.
Everyone laughs politely. Even the two men who have just stepped inside the bank unnoticed by anybody but me. They laugh and then almost in the same breath they order us all to drop to the floor because, you see, they aim to rob this bank. Pops the security guard goes for his gun and the younger of the two men cold-cocks him with his revolver, and Pops is put temporarily out of commission right on the spot.
We drop to the floor as we’ve been instructed to do, and the older of the two bank robbers motions for all the employees to come join us, so within a couple of minutes we’re all spread out mostly face down on the floor while the younger robber goes to empty all the tellers’ cash drawers.
Well, one of the tellers must have pushed the silent alarm button, because all of a sudden we hear the sound of a police siren (I guess there’s no such thing as a silent police siren), and the older robber gets the bank manager up and has him lock the door and then he reminds the rest of us to stay right where we are if we know what’s good for us. The younger robber is at the window now and he goes, “We’re surrounded,” but the older robber doesn’t seem all that upset. The phone rings and it’s the police chief and he wants the bank robbers to know that there’s no way that the two of them are going to be allowed to leave the bank with both the money and their lives and they had best give themselves up.
The older robber smiles and scratches his itchy forehead with the muzzle of his gun and says that he has a baker’s dozen worth of hostages, and just like something out of a Humphrey Bogart picture he makes it clear that he’ll kill every one of us if the cops storm the building. So don’t try anything.
On hearing that she’s a hostage, Billy’s mother starts shaking like she has the St. Vitus lay-down dance and one of the tellers tries to comfort her and the evangelist starts to pray over her.
“That’s good,” says the older bank robber, whose name is Cutler. “You pray for all these folks, because they’re gonna need God on their side if they’re ever gonna see the outside of this bank building with living eyeballs.”
Whatever that means.
“And what if God ain’t on their side?” asks the preacher, fairly conversational in his tone.
“What do you mean?” asks Cutler, who seems a little put out over having to deal with a problematically philosophical man of the cloth.
“I mean,” says the preacher, pulling himself up into a seated position, “if it comes down to negotiating over which of these poor innocent children of our good Lord get to go free and which must remain behind as your human bucklers, who are you gonna release? Those who live by the word of the Lord or those heathens who deny Christ’s love and habitate in the province of sin?”
The two bank robbers share a look with one another that says neither has ever considered criteria for which hostages should get their freedom and which should have to stay behind, other than the usual setup that says women and children and old men in need of heart-saving nitroglycerin pills should get first dibs.
I study the face of that revival preacher to try to understand for myself if he’s working a plan to get us all released under the general umbrella of Christian mercy, and I get to wondering, even in my own far-from-developed fourteen-year-old brain, if there might be brilliance behind his piercing blue-eyed gaze, the kind of God-given gaze that people farther east who care a little more about such things would be slightly more susceptible to.
“My father was a preacher himself,” says the older robber named Cutler, “and he taught me a thing or two about the prerogatives of strong faith.” The strangely well-spoken bank robber interrupts his confession by boot-kicking poor Pops, who had just begun to rouse himself from his temporary stupor. “And the rewards that come to he that lives a good life in the spirit. So I say this unto you, Parson: If you want to use the faith and spirituality of your fellow captives here to decide who gets out of this place alive and who gets to stay behind and share my fate and the fate of my partner Codges here, by all means you go right ahead. Why don’t you start your assaying with that bank officer over there? He looks like a Jew.”
The preacher looks over at the bank manager, Mr. Lanell. “You, sir: are you a Jew? Are you a denier of the divinity of Christ Jesus?”
Mr. Lanell shakes his head. “I’m not a Jew.”
“But do you deny Christ, nonetheless?” asks Proctor.
“Of course not. I accepted Christ as my personal savior when I was eleven.”
“And what a joy it is to hear it,” says Proctor as the telephone begins to ring. The younger robber Codges answers it.
Codges says, “Yeah, yeah,” into the phone and then turns to Cutler and says, “The police chief wants to know if we can send out a couple of the hostages in a show of good faith.”
“It’s them who oughta be showing us good faith!” the older bank robber rails. “What kind of back-asswards cowboy town is this?”
“A Christian town,” offers Miss Philpot, the bank manager’s secretary. “We’re all Christians. I know all these folks except for that uranium man over there. We’re every one of us good Bible-believing Christians. Except for that uranium man, whom I don’t know.”
“So what are you?” inquires the preacher of the man in coveralls who works for an out-of-town uranium prospecting outfit.
“I’m a—a Christian Scientist,” the man admits in a slightly stuttery voice, his head barely raised from the floor.
The preacher puckers his lips in thought. “Those Christian Scientists are a good bunch. They got faith all right. But I don’t much trust ’em.”
The uranium man emits a pained sigh.
“Come to think of it, I don’t much trust any of these folks to be dyed-in-the-wool followers of our blessed Lord,” Proctor continues, “until they show me their religious bona fides. I’m gonna need a little time to talk to these folks and find out what kind of Christians they are. I haven’t seen a single one of them at my tent revival.”
The younger of the two female tellers raises her hand. “I was at your tent show—last Friday night, in fact.”
“You were?” Proctor smiles, pleased.
“Reverend Proctor, we really don’t have time for—” Cutler taps his foot impatiently. “I need to give up two hostages, and as soon as possible, if you please.”
“Well, naturally, my lifelong journey down the highway of righteousness,” replies Proctor, “should dictate my inclusion, although I would leave it to you to make the final decision in that regard. But allow me to cogitate for a moment over which of these lovely young women deserves that second spot.” Proctor turns to the young female teller. “Were you really there, missy? Why didn’t I see you? I hardly ever forget a face as pretty as yours.”
The frightened, yet undeniably beautiful, blond-haired teller whose tasseled leather vest, a uniform of sorts for this cowboy bank, does little to restrain her large Tetonical breasts, answers in a high, tortured register: “I was there. I was sitting in the third row. I can tell you all the hymns we sang: ‘Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling,’ ‘Old Time Religion.’ I can hear them now in my head. The memory of them fills me with the wonder-working spirit!”
“But why didn’t you come down during the invitational? Why did you not rededicate your life to Christ at that most blessedly opportune moment, my darling girl?”
“I was shy, I suppose,” peeps the teller.
“Honesty, child. Your mind wasn’t on the Lord, now was it?”
“It was on the Lord, Reverend.” And then with a glance over at the two bank robbers and their guns, “Oh for the love of all that’s holy was my mind on the Lord!”
Proctor clucks and shakes his head. The security guard is shaking his head at the same moment, trying to bring himself back to full consciousness. Cutler kicks him again hard with his boot, right in the left temple, and returns him to dreamland.
Codges shakes the phone receiver in the air and cries, “We simply do not have all day!” His older partner Cutler
nods in agreement.
“Reverend,” says Cutler, “my colleague-in-crime reminds me that we need to deliver a couple of hostages to the police A-S-A-P. Now if you can’t make up your mind whose faith is worth a get-out-of-bank-free card, we’ll just have to go back to the old standby: women and children and old men with heart ailments first.”
“My heart! My heart!” cries Mr. Lanell, dramatically clutching his chest.
“Oh please, I beg you!” weeps Mrs. Sherman, both her son Billy and the Hollis twin pulled protectively to her sides. “Let it be women and children first!”
“Spoken like a true Latter Day Saint,” hurls the other teller, Mrs. Witemeyer, a woman in her fifties with Mamie Eisenhower bangs. “Let it be known here and now, gentlemen, that Mrs. Sherman is, in point of fact, a Mormon. She calls herself a Christian, but she’s a Mormon, all right. And Mr. Reese over there is, in fact, a worshipper of the Pope, and Cornelius McIntire and his daughter—” She’s looking straight at Cornelius and me now. “They aren’t any kind of believers at all. I think they’re either atheist or Buddhist or something else Asian and heathen. I’ll tell you who the true Christians are. I’ll put them in any order you like, and I can be fast about it. Just let me get some paper and a pencil. Don’t leave it to this tent preacher to decide. He doesn’t know us. I know every hostage here except for that uranium man over there, and good Heavens, you already know he’s a doctor-denying Eddyite. Give me some paper.”
As the younger bank robber goes looking about for some paper, the uranium man, who is on the floor not far away, suddenly grabs the young man by the ankle and jerks him off his feet. The young criminal named Codges fires upon the uranium man and wings him before his gun goes flying out of his hand. At the same time Pops, the security guard, having come once again to his senses, draws his own gun and puts a fatal bullet into the back of the older robber Cutler. Codges’ gun, by luck or miracle, lands within a couple of feet of me and I roll right over to it.
Then, I don’t know—maybe it’s mischief or maybe it’s rancor over the fact that Mrs. Witemeyer had called my father and me atheists, I aim the gun at Mrs. Witemeyer and shoot her in the knee. Then I draw a bead on the revival preacher who had clearly manipulated our dire straits for his own benefit, and I plug him in the arm. I’ve been shooting tin cans and barn rats since I was six; a runny-mouthed Pharisee’s a pretty easy target.
There are several of us either dead or severely wounded when the police, having heard the various shots, come storming in from the back offices of the bank and take Mr. Codges into custody, and various ones of us away to the hospital (or in the case of Mr. Cutler, to the morgue)—even the uranium man, who protests the medical attention.
I spend six months at a camp for juvenile delinquents and learn to rope calves and how to release my bean farts for optimum dramatic effect. I don’t regret what I did for a second.
Amen.
1954
FAMISHED IN TEXAS
Tessie was in her slip. Her ten-year-old daughter Regina stood next to her. “I won’t wear the jumper if I can’t find the belt,” Tessie said to her daughter. “What do you think about these Bermuda shorts? Are they too casual?”
“It’s a barbecue, Mom. It’s supposed to be casual.”
Regina handed her mother the purple cinch belt that went with the purple jumper.
“Where have you been hiding that? Go check on the au gratin.” Tessie laid the matching cinch belt and jumper on the bed. She crossed to her dresser and looked at her image in the mirror. She gave gentle pats to her Maggie McNamara pixie cut, which was probably too young for her by about ten years. “Go on, Regina. I don’t want the cheese to burn. Where’s your father?”
“I think he’s out on the patio.”
Tessie went to the bedroom window as Regina left the room to look in on the spaghetti-broccoli au gratin.
“Rory! Rory!” Tessie called through the window screen. “Can you come over here?”
Tessie stole back to the bed to set her violet print blouse against the cotton jumper. “I don’t like this,” she said to herself. “It doesn’t look insouciant. I want to look insouciant. Like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. Where is that sundress with the bib halter front?”
“Are you talking to me?” asked Rory. He was now standing just outside the bedroom window, holding his grill brush.
“This won’t do,” said Tessie, taking up the jumper and blouse. “I’m going to wear my salmon floral print sundress. Any of our guests who think I look too casual will just have to keep it to themselves.”
“What did you want, Tessie? I have to finish scraping the grill.”
“You should have done that already. I want you to promise me you’ll keep the TV off. It will absolutely ruin the party if everybody goes into the den and starts watching the hearings.”
“The Army–McCarthy hearings aren’t held on Saturdays, Tessie. Weekends is when the whole country gets a break from the ravings of the ‘Distinguished Senator from Wisconsin.’”
“Well, I don’t want you even talking about those awful hearings. I want this party to be a success. I don’t need rancorous political debates over my broiled fish with celery sauce or your vermouth-basted sirloin steaks.”
“Translated, Tessie: you don’t want me to do anything that will bring even a moment’s discomfort to our new neighbors. I know how important membership in the River Oaks Country Club is for you. I know how much you’ve been aching for a recommendation, regardless of the fact that your husband—your husband, the butcher—has absolutely no interest in hobnobbing with the Hobbys and the Hoggs.”
“You have no interest in doing anything,” said Tessie with a frown.
Rory didn’t reply right away. Then he said, “I’m in the bowling league.”
Another silence.
“I have to finish cleaning the grill. Then I need to go pick up your Aunt Irma.”
“Why? I didn’t invite Aunt Irma.”
“I did.”
“Without asking me?”
“She’s your only aunt, Tessie—your only living relative, not counting Regina and me.”
“You know she doesn’t mix well with our friends. And Dr. Crowley and his wife are an unknown commodity. What if she’s in one of her moods?”
“What if Vivian Crowley is in a mood, for that matter? What if your new patio furniture catches fire from one of Maddie Jorgenson’s foot-long Fatimas? What if Russia drops a bomb on our house right in the middle of the angel cake and plum ice cream?”
Tessie turned away from the window. “I can’t talk to you anymore. You go out of your way to make my life a daily trial.”
Rory finished brushing and scraping the backyard grill and then drove across town to pick up his wife’s aunt Irma.
Irma Chambers was in her early sixties. She had never married and lived alone in the small house she’d inherited from her mother. Irma had once been a schoolteacher but had to retire after a couple of years because of her nerves.
Rory had seen her only three days before, when she came into the Piggly Wiggly supermarket where he was employed as head butcher. He had caught her out of the corner of his eye in the pet aisle, holding a can of Ken-L-Ration dog food.
Aunt Irma didn’t have a dog.
“Howdy, Irma. How are you?”
Irma quickly returned the can to the shelf. “I’m doing well. It was a lovely morning so I thought I’d do my marketing.”
“How’s that old Chevy Clipper of yours getting on? Time to put her out of her misery?”
Irma shrugged, then shook her head. Her skin was pale; the over-application of rouge to her cheeks gave her a slightly clown-like appearance. She wore a scarf over her hair, which looked upon the margins as if it hadn’t been washed in a while. This was a woman who didn’t expect to be bumping into her nephew-in-law, or anyone else she might know, for that matter.
“Is she still running?”
“No. I think the battery’s dead.”
“I sho
uld come take a look at her. How’d you get over here?”
“I walked. It isn’t far, you know.”
Rory glanced at the cans of Ken-L-Ration dog food lined up on the shelf. Then he nodded in the direction of the meat department. “We just got in some really fresh ground chuck.”
“Did you think I was going to eat that?” asked Irma, pointing with a slightly quivering finger at the dog food cans.
“They eat horse in Europe,” said Rory matter-of-factly.
Irma didn’t respond. Rory looked down at her grocery cart. It held a small carton of milk and some over-ripe bananas that he was certain Irma had gotten from the “reduced” produce bin. “Let me get you some of that chuck. It’s on sale. In fact, we got a new thing here at ‘Mr. Pig.’ Ground chuck is free to family members of employees every other Wednesday.”
“Thank you, Rory, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that.”
“Then at least come to our house on Saturday. We’re having some friends and neighbors over. I’m grilling some prime-cut T-bones and sirloins, and Tessie’s making something with broccoli and cheese she got out of McCall’s.”
Irma’s response was another shrug. She seemed tired. What she seemed even more, though, was weak.
Weak with hunger.
“No ifs, ands, or buts, Irma. I’m picking you up at one.” Then, with a sly wink: “And you’re taking that ground chuck.”
It was one o’clock. It took a full two minutes for Irma to come to the door. She was still in her robe. The robe looked old and unwashed. Irma herself looked as if she hadn’t had a bath in weeks.
“Is everything all right?” asked Rory. Irma didn’t invite him in. In fact, she seemed to be blocking the door in case he had a mind to come in on his own. “Are you sick?”
Irma nodded. “I’m not feeling well.” Irma’s face seemed even paler than it had on Wednesday at the Piggy Wiggly. And there was a skeletal angularity to it. Formerly the face had appeared rounded, even doughy.
“Is there something I can pick up for you at the drugstore?”