Going in Style

by Robert Grossbach

  “Hey, Pop, you got a cigarette?” said the ponytail.

  Al kept on walking.

  The teen-ager stopped, then turned back. “Hey, man, I asked you something!”

  Al kept going. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “Hey, it’s not polite not to answer,” said the wrestler. “My friend asked you a question.”

  “Take your hand off my shoulder,” said Al.

  The boy did not move. Al brought his own wrist up suddenly and knocked the hand off. The boy quickly replaced it. “We got a tough egg here,” he laughed to his friend.

  “You’d better let me alone,” said Al. He tried to resume walking, but the hand on his shoulder tightened like a steel pliers.

  “First, you answer the question,” said the wrestler.

  “I didn’t hear,” said Al. The pain was beginning to spread to his chest.

  “You heard,” snarled the ponytail.

  “I didn’t.”

  “He says he didn’t hear,” said the ponytail.

  The bulky boy increased the pressure The pain was so paralyzing, Al could barely speak. “I… don’t… have any cigarettes,” he croaked through clenched teeth.

  “He don’t have any,” repeated the wrestler. The pressure eased.

  “See?” said the ponytail. “All we wanted was some courtesy.” He looked at Al through violent turquoise eyes. “How about lending me a dollar so’s I could get some?”

  “Go to hell,” said Al. He backed away.

  “Come on,” said the wrestler, advancing. “A dollar ain’t much.”

  Al knew another shoulder pinch would make his arm immobile for days. He looked around. The nearest people were a hundred yards away, what good would be an old man’s hoarse screams? Besides, there was the embarrassment.… Slowly, pain streaking down his arm, he reached into his pocket. He threw the dollar bill at the ponytail’s feet. “You should be ashamed,” he said.

  The boy bent to pick up the money. “I ain’ ashamed of nothin’!” he snapped.

  “Someday,” said Al. “You wait. Someday, you’ll be old.”

  The boys smiled at each other, and walked jauntily away. Al stood motionless for several minutes. At last he managed to reach around and massage the soreness in his shoulder. Bastards, he thought. Sonofabitch criminal bastards. He began to cry with frustration and humiliation. “Twenty years ago I would’ve killed those punks,” he said aloud. What good is it what you would’ve done, he thought. Twenty years ago, they weren’t alive. The only thing that matters is today and tomorrow. The past is a mirage in an old man’s mind, an image on a fading film, a ghost in the basement. He dried the tears from his cheeks and hurried along.

  Joe and Willie were sitting on their usual bench. Before them three little boys were playing cowboys-and-Indians. Two of the boys had toy pistols, while the third simply imagined a gun out of a forefinger and raised thumb. There was a great deal of shooting at point-blank range, although no one seemed to actually die.

  “Hey, I got you!” a blond boy protested to the gunless cowpoke.

  “You did not.”

  “I did! Right between the eyes. You’re dead!”

  “I am not.”

  “Are.”

  “Not.”

  “Are.” The blond appealed to Joe. “Mister, isn’t he dead?”

  Joe looked at him. “He don’t look dead to me.”

  “No, I mean, didn’t I get him with my gun?” whined the boy.

  “He did not,” said the thumb-and-forefinger cowboy. He hesitated, weakening in the face of the blond’s determination. “Maybe he wounded me,” he admitted. “I think I ducked and he wounded me.” He held his arm limply.

  “How could I wound you in the arm if you ducked?” asked the blond logically. “Make believe I shot off the top of your head… but you’re still alive.”

  “I don’t want to be shot in the head,” protested the other boy.

  “Then you’re chucked,” said the blond. He turned to the third boy, who was a bit older than the other two. “If he’s not wounded in the head, he can’t play, right?”

  “Right,” agreed the older boy.

  The gunless cowpoke moaned, but accepted his fate. “Well, make believe I wear a hat,” he said, “so you can’t see that part of my head is off.”

  This seemed a reasonable compromise. The game resumed.

  “See,” said Joe, “they’re like us. They have differences, they work them out.”

  “They’re not planning a robbery,” said Willie.

  “They’re dealing with guns,” said Joe. “And they actually use theirs. Ours will be just for show.”

  “Unless something goes wrong,” said Willie.

  “Nothing can go wrong,” said Joe. “What are we, crazy? We agreed, there’s no way we can come out on the short end here.”

  “There’s always risk. What if someone shoots us? I’d call that a short end. And your hat won’t cover the hole in your head, either.”

  “Willie,” said Joe, “there’s risk when you cross the street. At least, like this, we’ll be makin’ our future, not leaving it to chance. Ain’t you tired of thinking that you always got your finger on the action just because of the two bucks you throw away each month on them lottery tickets?”

  Willie grinned. “It supports education.”

  “Okay,” said Joe, not cracking a smile. “Well, then think how much more you can contribute from your share of the take.”

  “Bet you didn’t know your friend was such a philanthropist, did you?” said Willie.

  “It had escaped my notice,” said Joe.

  A fourth little boy had charged onto the grass in front of them. He was wearing an Army helmet and, weaponless, he was pretending he had a machine gun. With rapid eh-eh-eh-ehs, he sprayed the other players with a barrage of bullets. Their potency was evidenced by all his targets sinking to the ground. When Joe looked up, Al was sitting alongside him.

  “What’s going on?” Al asked.

  “Massacre,” said Joe. “Soldier killed the cowboys and Indians. Superior technology, looks to me.” He paused. “And what about our own armaments?”

  Al rubbed the shoulder where it still hurt. The pain had subsided to a dull, deep ache. “It’s perfect,” he said. “No problems.”

  “What’d you find?” asked Joe.

  “Four pistols. There are these four pistols right in the top drawer. We don’t want rifles, right?”

  “Right.”

  “’Cause Pete got a couple rifles too.”

  “No rifles.”

  “All right,” said Al. “There are these four pistols. One of them is a German machine type. Seemed a little heavy. I didn’t think it’d be too good.”

  “And the others?”

  “Thirty-eights, I think. The other three looked great.” He winced as his finger prodded an inflamed area that seemed to extend to his neck.

  “Bursitis actin’ up?” asked Joe. “Mine’s been kill-in’ me.”

  “Nah,” said Al. “Had a little run-in with some young punks when I come into the park. One of the little darlin’s grabbed me by the shoulder an’ spun me around.”

  “Bastards,” said Willie. “Takin’ advantage of an old man.”

  “Never mind,” said Al. “Soon’s I got my bearin’s I scared hell out of ‘em. You never seen kids run so fast. Twenty years ago I woulda chased after the little creeps and—“He stopped, conscious of their stares. “Anyway, the whole thing amounted to a heap of beans.” He stopped rubbing his shoulder.

  “Gettin’ back to the guns,” said Joe. “You think you’ll have any problem sneakin’ them out of there?”

  “It’ll be a piece of cake,” said Al.

  “When all this is over, we’ll give your nephew some money, okay?”

  “Okay with me,” said Al.

  “Willie?”

  “May as well,” said Willie. “One way or another we don’t figure to be around to spend it.”

  “Just one other thing,
” said Joe. “If—I said ‘if,’ Willie—we happen to get caught, we don’t tell where we got the guns, right?”

  “Right,” said Al. “Good point.”

  “You sure you wasn’t in the Mafia?” said Willie.

  “I taught the Godfather everything he knew,” said Joe.

  There was silence as the men drifted into their own streams of thought. The young mothers in the park began to collect their children. It was 5:15 in the afternoon, time to go home. Men would be returning from work soon and they’d be hungry, would want supper on the table. Only those people without families could afford to spend their lives on wooden benches.

  “What’re we gonna stick up?” asked Al suddenly.

  “I was just thinkin’ about that,” said Joe.

  “How about a liquor store,” suggested Al.

  “Oh, come on,” said Willie. “Some poor guy spends twelve hours a day in his place, six days a week, tryin’ to eke out a livin’, an’ you wanna hold him up? Forget it. A man puts his life savings in a store of his own, I ain’t about to rob him. That’s… that’s criminal. Count me out.” He turned away from the others.

  “Willie,” said Joe, “this is just a discussion here. We’re brainstormin’, tryin’ to get a fix on things. We ain’t actually doin’ anything until we agree. You got a better place to rob, let’s hear it. We got open minds.”

  Sullenly, Willie swiveled back. “How ‘bout a department store?”

  “Too hard,” said Al, shaking his head. “First of all, they got security guards all around, and also hidden alarm systems. Second, the cash is in thirty different registers, too much to collect from. Third, there’s too many people to be able to control. Fourth—”

  “All right, all right,” said Willie. “I get the point.”

  “Now, if you’re talkin’ holding up the payroll truck for a department store,” said Al, “maybe you got a different story.”

  “That’s not what I’m suggesting,” said Willie.

  “It would take too much planning,” said Joe. “We’d have to follow the truck on its route, see when the guards break for coffee, stuff like that. And how can we follow the truck when none of us drives?”

  “The whole thing is preposterous,” said Willie.

  “It just requires some thought,” insisted Al. “Any worthwhile project needs planning.”

  Again, the old men lapsed into silence. The park was nearly empty now; the sounds of laughing children had stopped.

  “A hijacking?” said Willie, after five minutes.

  “A hijacking of what?” asked Al.

  “I dunno. A plane?”

  “We can’t afford no plane tickets,” said Joe.

  “Something else, then,” said Willie.

  “What—a train?” said Al. “How about this: We get on one of them Metroliners and tell ‘em to take us to Cuba.”

  Willie waved down Al’s raucous laughter with a threatening motion of his hand.

  Joe waited until the byplay had ceased. “Might as well make it a bank then, right?” he said with exaggerated sweetness.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” said Al, as if he’d been considering that possibility all along but had refrained from broaching it until all other ideas were exhausted.

  “Willie,” said Toe, “what do you think?”

  “You’re asking the wrong person,” said Willie grumpily.

  “Yeah… well… I think a bank would be pretty good,” said Joe.

  “As Willie Sutton once observed, ‘That’s where the money is,’ “ commented Al.

  “I say, we might as well go all the way,” continued Joe. “Banks are often lightly guarded, their funds are concentrated, and you can find times when there’s hardly any people in ‘em.” He looked at Willie. “An’ one very important thing is that no little guy ends up gettin’ hurt. Banks are insured by the government for exactly the kind of thing we got in mind.”

  Willie tilted his head. “You wouldn’t rob our own bank, would you?”

  “Nah,” said Al. “That would be foolish. Why pick one in the neighborhood? They know us here. Besides, if we succeeded, I’d lose all my confidence in them. I’d never deposit any more money.”

  “We’ll take a ride into the city,” said Joe. “We’ll do it tomorrow. We can ride around the whole day. Must be a million banks there.”

  “Sounds good,” said Al.

  “To you, everything seems wonderful,” said Willie. “If I said, ‘Tomorrow, we all die of cancer,’ you’d say, ‘Sounds good.’”

  “Sounds good,” said Al.

  Joe turned to Willie. “You gonna come along with us for the ride?”

  Willie met his gaze for a moment before lowering his eyes. “Yeah… I’ll come with you.” He glanced up. “But no funny stuff!”

  “None,” said Al.

  “Serious business only,” said Joe.

  The three men stood up. “I bought some cans of stew,” said Willie.

  Forget stew,” said Joe. “I say, tonight we eat out. We celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?” asked Al.

  “Our coming good fortune,” said Joe.

  Willie shrugged. “Suits me,” he said. “I don’t have to tell you what we’ll be eatin’ all next week, but if you guys wanna live it up tonight, I’m in.”

  “Okay,” said Al. “Will it be 21 or The Four Seasons?”

  “I’d prefer McDonald’s or Burger King,” said Willie.

  “We’ll compromise,” declared Joe.

  They settled on a White Castle.

  4

  Family Album: Al

  It’s 1907, and Alan McGuinnes is born in Summer’s Point, a small resort town in southern New Jersey. Business in his parents’ luncheonette is not good that year and the number of free-spending vacationers is way below usual. Still, the family hangs on, and in the next years things get better. Al’s father works seven days a week, and in 1910 manages to acquire a small, two-story house, which he converts to a hotel. The mortgage is small, and the family is able to make ends meet.

  Amusements are simple: a short train trip for a day in Atlantic City, a walk on the beach, a perusal of the Sears Roebuck catalog. Alan learns to play the banjo and harmonica, does a great rendition of “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee.” After school, he helps out in the luncheonette, jerking sodas, waiting tables. His idol is Ty Cobb, the famous baseball player. The major issues of the day—corrupt city governments, labor abuses, tariff policies—seem remote and unrelated to his life, although one day in 1919 a strange thing happens. A group of belligerent, sign-bearing women barge into the hotel and demand that Al’s father stop serving wine at the small bar off the lobby. Al’s father is at first amused, then irritated, and he attempts to throw the women out. There is a scuffle; eventually the women leave. Through it all, Al notices a very pretty young girl near the rear of the lobby. She is holding a sign but, looks passive and out-of-place. He observes that she seems uninterested in the proceedings; instead, she watches him.

  Her name is Mary Doyle, and she and Al go together for four years. Al loves her. He tells her they will be married when he is eighteen, but in 1923 Al’s father abruptly makes an announcement: They are moving to Florida. A feverish real-estate boom is under way. He has made a deal to purchase a luncheonette in Coral Gables; in the back, says Al’s father with a laugh, are complete facilities for brewing now-illegal beer. Al is heartbroken. He and Mary say tearful good-byes, promise to write, to visit.

  The move is made, and business is good. Coral Gables is the “American Venice,” a subtropical middle-class paradise. The back room of Al’s parents’ store is expanded. Al is a singing waiter. He plays the banjo when Gilda Grey, the famed shimmy dancer, comes down from Chicago for a three-day booking. The homey luncheonette speakeasy grows increasingly successful; even millionaires from Palm Beach and Boca Raton come to visit to see what all the fuss is about. Occasionally, they and other customers throw Al money, but he refuses to pick it up. The owner’s son doesn’t take handout
s, he thinks. Let the other waiters do that. Wine is added to the beverage list (Al’s father mixes water with a processed grape jelly called Vine-Glo; after sixty days it is potently alcoholic), and then smuggled rum. Al sings, to the customers’ amusement:

  Mother makes brandy from cherries;

  Pop distills whisky and gin;

  Sister sells wine from the grapes on our vine—

  Good grief, how the money rolls in.

  And then, suddenly, it stops. One night, a certain rotund “millionaire” turns out to be wearing a disguise. He is actually Izzy Einstein, the famous Prohibition agent. During the raid that follows, the premises are reduced to rubble in an orgy of bottle breaking and furniture smashing. Under the provisions of the new Jones Act, passed in 1929, Al’s father is fined five thousand dollars and sentenced to jail for three years. He dies in prison after four months. Al, however, has made a connection. The “businessmen” who furnished the smuggled rum from the Bahamas need people to transport it to New York. Al’s mother and sisters have no income; it is up to Al to be the breadwinner. He makes fifty-four separate trips in three different Packards, their back seats and trunks bulging with bottled booze. Financially, he does quite well, especially considering that the country is in the Depression, and nearly everyone else is out of work. In 1933, however, the Twenty-first Amendment is passed. Prohibition is repealed, and the need for liquor smugglers is over.

  Al is nevertheless able to connect again, this time as a bartender at a Bronx speakeasy he formerly supplied. He has an outgoing personality, and the customers like him. He has arm-wrestling and headbutting contests with the patrons. The latter, in which two men stand inside a painted circle with their hands behind their backs and try to force each other outside the boundary, become a big local draw. Al’s boss increases his salary. Al bets on himself, wins a little money. He brags: “I take these popcorns for everything they’re worth.” This is meant in more ways than one; Al is not averse to relieving a thoroughly drunk customer of some extra cash. Occasionally, he even steals from the cash register. After all, he thinks, I’m supporting my family, and that comes first. In 1938, a Greek soccer player butts Al unconscious and fractures his skull. Al’s boss pledges to rehire him when he comes out of the hospital, but does not keep his word.