Cherry

by Nico Walker

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  James was in the driver seat. I was in the passenger seat. I was well. I was wearing an Indians hat and eating an apple. James said, “There might be cameras on the light poles.”

  I said, “I’ve been looking and I haven’t seen any.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure. I don’t think they get many robberies out this way. It should be alright.”

  We were parked in front of the Whole Foods. I had a good view of the bank. I had a gun. It wasn’t my gun. I forget who had given it to me. Funny thing about guns. If you’re known to rob things people will just give you guns. It’s kind of like sponsoring missionaries.

  I discarded the apple; I said, “You ready?”

  James said he was ready.

  “Alright. When you see me come out, start driving toward the exit over there. I’ll walk through those two rows of cars and I’ll get in and we’ll go. Too easy.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Just remember that the back driver-side door is broken.”

  “Okay.”

  I fixed the hat so it was low over my eyes, and I got out of the car and walked into the bank. It was the first warm day of the year and the door of the bank was open so I went in and went about robbing it. But this didn’t go well. I got the first drawer but then the teller got to being obstinate and the manager wouldn’t shut the fuck up. He kept telling me to take my hat off, calling me sir the whole goddamn time, and when I didn’t take my hat off he hit a button. I didn’t know what the button was about. I figured it was a silent alarm. Then I looked behind me and saw the door was closing on its own. Hydraulics, I guess. The bank was full of people. This motherfucker was trying to lock me in with them. The people were all looking at me now, looking at me trying to rob this bank. I could see they were thinking, Is this all there is to it? I didn’t want to disappoint them. I pulled the gun and put three shots into the ceiling: BAM BAM BAM.

  “I DON’T EVEN WANT YOUR FUCKING MONEY.”

  BAM BAM—two more in the roof.

  I walked to the counter and pointed the gun at the manager. He either had pissed or was in the act of pissing. I said to him, “Open the fucking door, you bitch, or the next one goes in your face.”

  “Just go,” he said.

  The door was free. I walked out. I walked off the curb and through the two rows of cars in the parking lot. James was pulling around. I grabbed the handle of the back driver-side door and pulled it but the door wouldn’t open. I kept pulling. I knocked on the window. I said, “Unlock the shit.”

  James said, “IT’S. FUCKING. BROKEN.”

  Right. I scrambled around the back of the car and got in on the front passenger side. James hit the gas and we were gone.

  “What the fuck happened? Did you shoot somebody?”

  “Fuck no.”

  I was counting the money.

  “Fuck…Fuck…Fuck…I didn’t do so good, James. Those people were very fucking rude in there. They tried to lock me in the fucking bank. That’s never happened before.”

  “How much did you get?” he asked.

  “…Two thousandish.”

  “Shit.”

  “I know, man. I’m sorry. It was no good. The fucking manager was yelling at me. This old cunt didn’t give a shit if everybody died. It was fucking bad. Not at all how they’re supposed to act. Really reckless of them. Over pieces of paper.”

  I gave James half the money.

  “I’m sorry, man.”

  “It’s alright,” he said. “At least we got away.”

  “Yeah. Fuck. I’ve got to break this gun down and get rid of it.”

  * * *

  —

  THAT AFTERNOON Emily and I went to the dog park with Livinia. The weather had been lovely all day. It seemed it was a good day to go to a dog park, and it would have been if it weren’t for the other dogs. The other dogs fucked with Livinia, they ganged up on her and chased her around and got on her back and drooled on her and nipped her.

  “I don’t like this shit at all,” Emily said.

  A chow was in the act of dominating Livinia.

  “I think she’s alright,” I said. “I dunno. I think it’s how they play, but I can’t tell. Does she not like it? I get so worried. Fuck fuck fuck.”

  “Well I don’t fucking like it,” Emily said. “I think we should stop bringing her here. I think it scares her.”

  “But she gets so excited when we bring her here. It’s not bad when there’s no other dogs. I like it when it’s just the three of us out here.”

  Livinia got up and broke free and she was off and running. She was always the fastest dog at the dog park and she was hard to catch, but the ground there was deep with ugly pea gravel and it inevitably tripped her up and the other dogs would catch her; there were just too many dogs and they’d corner her.

  Another couple came over to us.

  “Nice dog,” said the woman. “She’s pretty and so fast.”

  “Thanks,” said Emily. “Which one’s your dog?”

  “The chow.”

  “Oh. He’s a frisky little guy.”

  “Do you live around here?”

  “We live in University Heights,” Emily answered.

  “What do you do?”

  I didn’t like that. I disliked what-do-you-do people. What kind of people were these?

  “We go to CSU,” Emily said, blushing. “I’m a graduate assistant there.”

  “Do you go to CSU too?” she asked me.

  I knew what she was thinking; you look a little old for that.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I got started late. G.I. Bill.”

  “You were in the military?” the man asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What branch?”

  “Army.”

  “You go overseas?”

  “Iraq.”

  “Jeff’s a cop,” said the woman.

  “Cleveland Heights Police Department,” he said.

  “Come here, Livinia!” Emily called. “Come here, girl! Come here!”

  “How do you like it?”

  “It’s a job,” he said.

  “Yeah. A job’s pretty hard to come by these days. You’re lucky.”

  Livinia came running and she stood between Emily’s legs. Emily asked her who was a good girl.

  I lit a cigarette: “It was a nice day today, wasn’t it?”

  The woman agreed that it had been a nice day.

  “What do you guys think of this dog park?” I asked. “Do you think it’s sanitary having all these dogs shit and piss all over this pea gravel? It seems like, you know, with grass or something, it would absorb it, process it all. But with this gravel…where’s it all go? It just gets churned up in the gravel, I imagine. I know you pick up the shit when they shit, but there’s still the residue. It can’t be healthy, can it? It has to build up over time. Do you think there’s such a thing as cholera for dogs?”

  It was dusk. The air was cold all of a sudden. Jeff went to pick up some dogshit from the chow.

  “We have to be going,” said Emily. “I have a paper I’ve got to finish. It was nice meeting you.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  I was in a cold sweat. I was driving; Raul and Emily were in the car with me. Raul had got sentenced for the heroin. The hearing had been that Monday. It was Tuesday. Raul said the judge had let him out because it was his birthday that week. He’d ordered Raul to turn himself in on Friday so he could go to prison. Raul would be gone for a year and a half. Possession with intent to distribute. It seemed like a long time to me but I didn’t know anything.

  Emily and I needed to find some heroin. We had been sick for two days. Raul was having no luck helping us. He was calling everyone he knew. No one was picking up. Probably because he was going to
prison he was making people nervous.

  I was throwing up in the little green trash can. I was always careful to keep an eye on the road when I did this. Emily said, “Hang in there, baby. Something’s got to come through soon. It’s been too long.”

  “I’m right as rain,” I said and wiped the vomit off my chin with the back of my hand, “close enough for rock and roll.”

  Raul didn’t give any sign that he minded my vomiting in the little green trash can while I was driving. He just sat there, calm as if nothing foul were transpiring. It was polite of him.

  “Hold on,” he said. “Here we go.”

  A silver Mitsubishi Galant pulled out in front of us.

  “Pull up beside that car,” he said.

  I did and Raul rolled the window down and waved at the Galant. “He’s about to turn,” he said. “Get behind him and follow him.”

  The Galant turned off St. Clair and onto a side street and pulled over. The passenger got out and came up to Raul’s window. I held up seven $20 bills and said, “I got one forty on a gram if you can help me out. I’m kind of desperate right now, you know.”

  After saying this I realized I might have fucked up Raul’s percentage. But then I needed to get this done, so fuck it. If Raul wanted a cut he could get it from them. Plus it wasn’t like he didn’t owe me money and it wasn’t like I was ever going to see a dime of that shit.

  The passenger said alright. He said to follow. He got back in the Galant and it went on. We followed it around a few streets. Raul’s phone rang. He picked up and said alright; and he turned to me and said, “Pull over. Park here.”

  The Galant went up a little farther ahead and stopped. The passenger got out again and walked down the middle of the street with his hands cupped over his mouth. Then a kid came out from around the back of a house and went out into the street to talk to the passenger. They talked and the kid went back and the passenger turned and waved to Raul.

  Raul said, “Give me the money.”

  He got out of the car and walked up to the Galant and got in the backseat.

  “That was so cool,” Emily said. “Did that guy do a little birdcall?”

  I agreed it was cool. “These guys don’t fuck around,” I said. “I wish they were our dope boys.”

  It wasn’t two minutes and the kid was back with the heroin. He dropped it off in the Galant and went on his way. Raul got out and brought it to us. The Galant drove off. I took the scale out of the armrest and put a card on the scale and zeroed it. I put the heroin on the card.

  I said to Emily, “It’s one over.”

  “Beautiful,” she said.

  “It smells like fire too.”

  And we got off. The heroin was good. Very good. Not stepped-all-over like the dope we were accustomed to buying, the dope we were accustomed to selling our souls for.

  I said, “Holy fuck.”

  It was hitting me hard like it used to.

  Emily said, “Hot damn.”

  It was hitting her hard too.

  I said to Raul, “I don’t suppose you’ll give me these dudes’ number.”

  “They told me not to,” he said.

  I didn’t believe him, but whatever.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  It was Raul’s idea to rob the bank at Warrensville and Mayfield. He wanted to put some money up before he went to prison. We were headed to the bank: Raul, Rider, James, and I. I was hoping that with three inside we’d take a lot more money and somebody could mind the doors, which would be a must as we were unarmed. I had asked James if he wanted to drive. I thought it was going to turn out better than it did.

  I wasn’t worried about what James would do. I wasn’t worried about Raul either. I was mostly just worried about what Rider would do. Rider didn’t handle pressure well. But he was Raul’s boy and I was hoping Raul’s presence would give him courage.

  There were bad signs from the start. We were driving around the bank and checking things out and I wanted to see it from the other side of the street.

  “Let’s just do it,” Raul said.

  “No,” I said. “Let’s take another look.”

  We crossed Mayfield on Warrensville. We were heading south and I could see the parking lot behind the buildings that were across the street from the bank and four police cars parked in the lot. They were all of them facing the same way, ready to roll out.

  “Look at that shit,” I said. “You see? We’d have been fucked.”

  “What am I doing?” James asked.

  I said, “Just keep driving straight.”

  We ended up driving over to Belmar and we tried to rally there. James traded Rider an ounce of loud for a few grams of heroin. I took Raul aside.

  I said, “What about this shit Rider’s always talking about in Bath? That’s a lot of money.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know. Killing that guy.”

  He said, “That’s some bullshit.”

  “Figures.”

  “That dude out in Bath is a state’s witness.”

  “Huh.”

  “Yeah. He’s a witness in a case against a nigga Rider owes fourteen racks to.”

  “Man, that Rider’s no good.”

  “So what’s up?” James asked when we got back to the car. “Are we doing anything or what?”

  Rider said he needed to go to Severance. I said I thought we could rob a bank on Chagrin Boulevard. James said that would be fine. Those of us who were junkies shot some heroin. We headed out and dropped Rider off. I was glad to be rid of him. We got to Chagrin and looked at two different banks and decided on the one that was in a shopping center. It was a newer bank, and I was sure that it would have man-trap doors. I said to Raul, “When we’re leaving it’s important that we hold the doors open. If we get caught between the doors going out they’ll lock us in and we’ll go to jail and it will be a terrible thing. So I’m gonna hold the inside door open while you get the door to the outside. Then you hold that one open and we go out together. This is very important.”

  “I got you,” he said.

  I said to James, “Let us out on the sidewalk. We’ll walk there and you pull into the parking lot without us. That way nobody will notice you till it’s over.”

  We drove up and down the street once more so as to have time to smoke a last cigarette. Then James pulled around and let us out at the curb. It was in the mid-40s outside, nowhere near cold enough to warrant all the winter shit that Raul and I were wearing. I had on James’s frock coat and his Shaker High School ski cap and his neck warmer. Raul was wearing a parka and a balaclava that covered his whole face like he was a ninja. We were halfway across the parking lot.

  “You good?”

  I heard a muffled affirmative.

  We got to the door and I had pulled the neck warmer up so it covered the lower half of my face. I went in saying, “ATTICA. ATTICA. ATTICA ATTICA.”

  Raul wasn’t saying shit. I looked over my shoulder, looked over the other shoulder. Raul wasn’t there. I looked back at the bank employees. They looked at me. I said not to tell anyone. I turned around and walked out. Raul was in the backseat of the car. James had waited for me.

  I said, “Let’s go.”

  We got out onto Chagrin.

  I said, “Raul, what the fuck are you doing to me? That was fucking embarrassing.”

  James said, “Fuck!”

  I turned around and saw police cars a little ways off in the oncoming lane.

  I said, “Pull over.”

  “What?”

  “Pull over to the side of the road. Just do it. Raul, lie down.”

  James pulled off to the side of the road.

  The police came on and they went by.

  James said, “Shit.”

  I said, “That’s what they always do.
But seriously, Raul, what the fuck? How could you do that. That was fucking infamous.”

  Raul said he was sorry.

  I said, “Forget it. I know another bank we can rob.”

  James said, “You want to try this shit again?”

  I said I did.

  I said, “Raul, do you still want to rob a bank today?”

  He said he did.

  “Are you sure though?”

  He said he was sure.

  I said, “Alright. Let’s go.”

  James said, “Fuck it.”

  We parked on Van Aken. We were up at Shaker Square. I said, “Raul, you go in first and I’ll follow ten seconds after you. James, when we go in you go around the curb to the right and we’ll get in around the corner. Raul, are you ready?”

  “Give me a minute,” he said.

  James said, “Are you gonna do this fucking shit or not?”

  Raul said, “You want to do this?”

  James called him a pussy: “Fuckin pussy.”

  “Everybody calm the fuck down,” I said. “Let’s not argue.”

  So James and Raul made peace. And James let Raul have his sunglasses to better hide his eyes. We drove up alongside the bank.

  “Alright,” I said. “Raul, you go ahead. I’ll be right after you. Count on it.”

  Raul got out and walked into the bank. I counted to five and said, “Well, here I go.”

  I went in the bank and Raul was standing with his back against the back wall. He was standing across from the counter. There was only one teller. It was a small bank. The teller was looking at Raul and she looked scared because he was dressed up like a ninja in a parka and it was 40 degrees outside.

  Then Raul ran. He ran past me and out of the bank. I was so goddamn depressed. The teller’s drawer was open and I leaned over the counter and cleared the money out of it. On my way out I passed a man coming in and he pretended that he didn’t notice me. Out on the sidewalk I went the wrong way at first; then I remembered what I’d told James to do and I went around the corner. Raul wasn’t in the car.