Bank Job

by James Heneghan

Billy shrugged at me and smiled.

  When Billy smiled at me like that, I’d do anything for him. A spurt of happiness gushed through me. My heart skipped and my face flushed. As Jane A. would say, Billy was an exceedingly amiable young man.

  Then he smiled at Tom as well.

  Tom shrugged and looked down at his shoes. “Sometimes, Billy,” he said quietly, “I think you ought to be in a lunatic asylum, not in a nice sane place like the Hardys’.”

  Billy laughed and looped an arm round Tom’s shoulders and we all walked back to the house together.

  FOUR

  MARCH 11

  A whole week had gone by and we hadn’t come up with any other ideas for raising the money. Tom had spent some time on the phone, but judging from his tight lips, I didn’t think he’d managed to scare up the necessary funds.

  Billy tried talking us into his crazy bank robbing scheme again, but we told him to shut it. His smiles and persuasive manner weren’t working.

  Ten grand was on my mind. I had an idea Mom might be able to help out.

  My mom is Carolina Ford. She lived less than an hour away in a co-op apartment on False Creek in Vancouver.

  I set off to visit her. The SkyTrain was crowded, and I had to sit beside an old geezer who was reading The Province newspaper.

  I don’t like old geezers. I was in a foster once that had an old geezer in it. That one, I don’t ever want to think about. I tried to think about something else.

  Money. I thought about money. Lots of money. Billy wanted us to rob banks. Tom hated the idea. It was risky and dangerous. If my idea worked out we wouldn’t need to steal.

  I watched the Burnaby landscape flash by. A seat on the other side of the train became vacant so I moved. The old geezer stared at me over the top of his paper. Tiny pig eyes.

  Like Elizabeth Bennet, I definitely wouldn’t wish to make his acquaintance. He was not an amiable person at all—probably a despicable one.

  I ignored him. I could see the distant towers of Vancouver.

  I got off at Granville Station and took a bus to False Creek. My mom’s co-op apartment is on Commodore Road, close to the seawall and a short walk from Granville Market.

  I walked up the sidewalk edged with bright green ferns and colorful spring flowers—even if it wasn’t quite spring yet—and I let myself in with my own key. Mom was watching TV in her bathrobe, as usual, with a can of Coke in her hand, also as usual.

  Zero activity and sugary drinks were making her plump.

  “Hi, Mom. How are things? Did you remember to eat breakfast?” A quick glance around the messy apartment told me all I needed to know.

  Maybe Mom and I were alike in lots of ways.

  My mother is mentally handicapped.

  I have trouble convincing myself sometimes that I’m not mentally handicapped too. Take school. Except for English, I’m pretty hopeless. I hardly ever get things right, especially in math. Most of my grades are awful. I’ll be glad when I don’t have to go to school anymore.

  Mom’s got the mind of a child, even though she’s an adult. She is able to take care of herself only with the help of social service agencies. But she’s sweet and always cheerful.

  I sat beside her on the sofa and gave her a big hug. She hugged me back.

  I got up. “I’ll scramble some eggs. Your favorite. Would you like that? Scrambled eggs? And toast, if there’s any bread. Just relax. Breakfast will be up before you can say ‘as the stomach turns.’”

  Mom watched soaps most of the day, from The Young and the Restless in the morning through to Guiding Light in the late afternoon. I’ve watched them with her ever since I was a little kid, with the social worker supervising until I was twelve.

  So far, Mom had said nothing. She just watched me with her happy baby smile. But now she said, “Don’t trouble yourself about breakfast, Sweetie. I’m not so hungry.”

  “It’s no trouble. You don’t feel hungry because of all that sugar water you’re swilling. After you’ve had breakfast, I’ll do your hair. Would you like that? Would you like me to do your hair?”

  Mom’s hands flew to her dark hair, thick and tangled. “Oh, would you, Nell? I’d like that an awful lot. I love you doing my hair.”

  Mom was almost forty. When she was twenty-four, she married John Ford, also mentally handicapped. Then they had me, their first and only child. My father worked at the corner gas station at the time.

  I was taken away from them after only a month, because the government said they were incompetent parents. Social service agencies tried to help them care for me, but it was no use. When it came to babies, Carolina and John didn’t know what was the top and what was the bottom. They went to the Dairy Queen or the movies and left me alone. I was left unwashed and unfed for hours while my mother watched TV. She didn’t understand. She thought babies cried to exercise their lungs or something.

  The neighbors blew the whistle on them.

  How do I know all of this? Because I read the newspaper story years later.

  There was a court hearing.

  The paper said the new baby (me) was in danger and should be removed to a place of safety. That’s how they put it: “removed to a place of safety.”

  The experts described the baby (me) as “a normal little girl with normal potential.” I never believed that. I mean, how can two mentally handicapped people have a normal baby?

  Anyway, the judge decided baby Nell (me) could not stay with her parents. The danger to her health and happiness was too great, he said.

  My mother cried all through the hearing. All she knew was that they were taking her baby away from her. I keep a copy of the article as a memento of sorts. It was on the front page of the Weekend Sun under the headline:

  TRAGEDY WITHOUT EVIL—RETARDED PAIR FORFEITS BABY

  Retarded pair.

  No one says retarded now. Things have changed in thirteen years. Now they say “intellectually challenged” (yech!) or “mentally handicapped,” which I like better.

  I’ve read the newspaper story over and over. I know it by heart, every word. It was a long time before I could look at it without crying.

  Mom was talking to me, something about her hair.

  “Sorry, Mom. Was I pulling? I swear it’s grown two inches since the last time I cut it.”

  Mom giggled. “Has it really, Nell? Has it really?”

  I was pretty good at doing her hair. I was taking off about half an inch using the kitchen scissors.

  “So dark and thick,” I said. “It’s easy to see where I get mine.”

  Mom’s head swiveled around. “And your lovely green eyes, Nell. You got your eyes from me too, don’t forget. Don’t forget your lovely green eyes.”

  “Keep your head still, Mom. You wouldn’t want me to cut off your lovely pink ear now, would you?”

  Mom tensed, frightened.

  “Kidding, Mom, only kidding.”

  She relaxed and I massaged her head and brushed her hair.

  “Mom, could I ask you about your pearl necklace?”

  Mom thought for a few seconds. “The beautiful pearl necklace my mother left me?”

  “Yes. Will it be mine some day?”

  “Yours? Of course it will be yours, Sweetie. After I’m gone, everything will be yours. My music box with the little dancer. And my book of stickers from Expo 86. And my picture of your daddy on duty at the gas station in his smart uniform with the stripes. It was taken just a month before he died, you know. I remember I was out at the park that day.” She smiled her child smile at me. “Everything will be yours.”

  “Could I see it, the necklace?”

  Mom looked confused as she tried to remember where she kept it. “See it now, you mean?”

  “Yes, Mom. See it now.”

  “Is my hair finished?”

  “Come and see in the mirror. It looks great.”

  On the SkyTrain home, I hooked Mom’s necklace out of my jeans pocket and let the beautiful pearls run through my fingers.

>   She wouldn’t miss it. I hadn’t taken the box.

  Even if Mom opened the box and saw it empty, she wouldn’t remember anything. She would start looking for the necklace under the furniture. Thing was, it was really mine, in a way. I mean, she planned to give it to me.

  I got off at Metrotown Station.

  Ten minutes later I was in the mall, leaning over the counter of Pearson’s Jewelers as a baldy geezer took the necklace from me.

  “How much is it worth?”

  He reached for his eyeglass but stopped and smiled without even using it. “It’s costume jewelry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re not real pearls.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  He examined the necklace. Then he took the eyeglass out again. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but this is worth very little.” He shrugged apologetically. “Thirty dollars maybe. Certainly no more than fifty.”

  Fifty dollars! I slid the pearls back into my pocket.

  “Thanks very much,” I said, and took off fast expecting to hear the old geezer laughing at me, the mentally retarded kid.

  FIVE

  MARCH 12

  The next day, a windy afternoon in Patterson Hill Park, the three of us gathered around our usual picnic table. Beds of bright daffodils shook their yellow heads madly in—what—sprightly dance? Is that what the poet said? Except the daffs weren’t dancing, they were shaking their heads at us as fast as they could go. “No. No. No.” That should have told me something.

  “You have to do it, Billy,” I said. “You have to go in and hand the bank teller the note. You’re the biggest. You could pass for eighteen, maybe nineteen.”

  “That’s what I figured.” He grinned.

  Billy had convinced me that the only way we’d ever get our hands on such a huge amount of cash was to go along with his robbery scheme.

  I said, “You could get the money, then get out of the bank real fast, and Tom could be waiting…”

  “Not me,” Tom shook his head. “No friggin’ way. Forget it. Look, I’ve been thinking.”

  “You got a better idea?” asked Billy.

  “You could say that,” said Tom. “At least it won’t land us in jail for the rest of our lives.”

  I said, “What’s your plan, Tom?”

  “There’s a trust fund set up for me. I’m not allowed to touch it for…well anyway, I could try and get…”

  I felt like hugging him. “Oh, Tom, that’d be so wonderful.” I turned to Billy. “Wouldn’t it, Billy?”

  Billy looked disappointed. “Yeah. Sure it would.”

  Billy waited a few days before asking Tom about the money. We were on our way home from school.

  “Well? Did you get it?”

  Tom looked at the cars speeding by in the street. He said nothing for a while. Then without looking at us, he said, “Couldn’t get it. There’s money for university but nothing else. Not till I’m twenty-one.”

  I could tell Billy was trying his best not to look pleased.

  The next Saturday, we spent an hour shooting hoops at Patterson Hill Park. It was windy and cold. We took a break and sat at the picnic table.

  “So what’s it to be, Tom?” asked Billy.

  Tom stretched himself out on one of the wooden seats. “If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, the answer’s still no.”

  Billy turned to me, sitting on the other seat. “Looks like it’s just you and me then, Nails.”

  I shrugged.

  Billy came over and sat beside me, with his back to Tom.

  “So it’s back to my plan. I pull the holdup, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, “then I’ll take the handoff. You think it will work, Billy? You really think we can get away with it?”

  Billy smiled. “Trust me. I don’t see how it can fail.”

  Billy filled me with hope. I trusted him. He made anything seem possible. If he said we were going to jump over the moon, I’d believe him. We would get the money for the extra bathroom. None of us would have to leave the Hardy home after all.

  I appealed to Tom. “We need you as part of the team, Tom. If there’s three of us, we’ll be like the Three Musketeers. All for one and one for all.”

  Tom sat up and shook his head. “Friggin’ brainless, I call it.”

  Brainless. There it was again.

  I turned to Billy. “Okay, Billy. It’s just you and me. So I’m standing there with the bag of money. Now what do I do?”

  But Billy wasn’t giving up on Tom. He walked over to the other side of the table and laid a hand on Tom’s shoulder. “I’m thinking it would be safer to have a second handoff, Tom. We really need you, bud.”

  Tom stood, shaking his head. I could see he didn’t like saying no to Billy. He looked up at him. It was hurting Tom to refuse.

  Silence.

  “So I’m standing there with the bag of money. Now what do I do?” I asked Billy again.

  Billy’s usually sleepy face was flushed with excitement. He turned away from Tom and said to me, “You walk down the street, all calm like, to where Tom is waiting.”

  I said, “But Tom…”

  “Don’t worry. Tom will change his mind. He won’t let us down. As I was saying, you slip Tom the bag. We all head for the SkyTrain separately, taking our time and being sure to take different SkyTrains. We don’t want anyone catching us together. It’ll work. It’s got to.”

  Billy’s a pirate at heart, I’m sure of it. He’s a buccaneer. No one but us, his best friends, would ever guess from his sleepy appearance that deep inside he longed so much for adventure, excitement and danger.

  I swallowed. “If it means keeping all four of us together,” I said, “I’m game.” We knocked fists.

  “I knew I could count on you, Nails.” Billy smiled his gleaming smile and my stomach did a flip.

  Amiable just doesn’t cut it. Billy’s perfect, pure and simple.

  We headed back to the house. Tom was quiet. Billy is big, at least six feet tall with broad shoulders. He sort of rolled as he walked. Way cool.

  “You know what?” I told him. “From the back you even look like a bank robber. You’re like the bank robber in that old black-and-white western we saw, I forget his name…”

  He turned around and grinned. “Billy the Kid.”

  “That’s the one.”

  Billy Galloway was a kid on life’s skateboard, having himself a good time.

  “Were you thinking of some kind of disguise?” I asked. His face with its freckled nose and ruddy cheeks looked too young for a bank robber. It wasn’t just the freckles and cheeks, it was something else. Maybe the long curly hair that hardly ever saw a comb, or maybe the happy twinkle in his blue eyes.

  Billy said, “Disguise? Fake mustache maybe?”

  “What about some glasses with black frames? I got a pair from Value Village. I thought they’d make me look older, but they’re too big for me.”

  Billy nodded. “Fake mustache, glasses, maybe a cap to hide my hair. That should do it.”

  Tom didn’t say anything. Like the daffodils at the park the week before, he shook his head in worried disbelief.

  SIX

  We spent the rest of the weekend trying to persuade Tom to join the team. The thing was, except for us—me, Billy and Lisa, and the Hardys, of course— Tom was totally alone. Both his parents were dead, he had no other relatives. We were his only family, his only friends.

  Tom came to the Hardy house last September, a year or so after Billy and me. It was his first foster. He’s the same age as me but wasn’t in any of my classes at Moscrop Secondary. He was in the gifted program and I wasn’t. You had to look for me in the Learning Centre getting help with math.

  On Sunday night Lisa was in bed with a sore throat, so I hung out in the boys’ room. Billy and Tom were finishing their homework. I didn’t do homework. I was relaxing in their window seat, enjoying the romantic problems of Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey.
/>   Billy put down his book and stretched. “So I’ve got our first bank all picked out.”

  “I friggin’ told you,” said Tom, “I’m not robbing any bank.”

  “You’d rather leave it to chance that you’ll be shipped off to some insane foster?” I asked. “You don’t know what they’re like, Tom. Some of them are really gruesome.”

  “Yeah,” said Billy, “It’s crazy the kind of places they think it’s okay to send you.”

  “What do you know about crazy?” Tom asked.

  “More than you, I bet,” said Billy.

  “I friggin’ doubt that,” said Tom. “I know all about crazy.”

  Tom rarely talked about his life before the Hardys’. Janice told us Tom’s parents were dead, but that’s about it. We know his mom had died of cancer, and for the longest time all he would say about his dad was that he went funny. Billy and I didn’t bug him for details. Lots of kids don’t like talking about the reason they’re in a foster home.

  “I lived with crazy for a year,” said Tom.

  “Your dad?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” said Tom. “His doctor said it might be the beginning of Alzheimer’s. That’s the disease where your brain starts to get holes in it like Swiss cheese, you know?”

  I nodded.

  “But I looked it up on the Internet. Dr. Anderson was wrong. My dad didn’t have Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer people forget every friggin’ thing. They forget where they live, forget what year it is, forget their names, everything. Dad didn’t forget important stuff.”

  “I think he just missed Mom so friggin’ much. He stopped going to the office and worked in his garden instead. He was building a shrine to Mom. You should’ve seen it—azaleas, maples, bonsai trees, a pond with koi and a waterfall, lanterns hanging outside a miniature ceremonial teahouse. An authentic Japanese garden.”

  “Sounds nice.” I loved the words Tom used. No wonder he was in the gifted program.

  “I liked being in there and thinking about my mom. It felt like she was close by, you know?”

  I nodded.