by Ed Kavanagh
“I just can’t see them giving a lot of money to one defenseless girl for transportation,” I say to Schumann one night.
“Morris,” he says, “it’s the perfect plan. They probably don’t move enough dough to hire a Brink’s truck, so they give it to the girl. I mean who would suspect that that suitcase was filled with money? Nobody, that’s who.”
“We did, Schumann,” I remind him.
“Yeah, but we’re not your average jerk on the street. We got brains. Real brains.”
I don’t say nothin’ to that. I just hope to God he’s right.
So we lay our plans to snatch the money from the painted lady. I figure the best place is somewhere along Thompson line. There’s a stretch along there of about two miles where there’s no people, no houses, no nothin’. Just trees and fields. The traffic is pretty light, too—especially around four, because the evening rush doesn’t pick up until five or five-thirty. The tricky part was how to stop her. Once she was stopped, it was only a matter of reaching in the back seat, and presto! Pot of gold.
On the next Thursday we drive out to the Thompson line. We find this spot where there’s a couple of old logging roads leading up to the highway. It’s a good spot because we can see her coming when she’s about a half mile away.
“Now this is what we’ll do,” I say to Schumann. “When she gets close enough, you drive right the hell out in front of her. She’s got to stop. I’ll pull up behind so she can’t go back. You stay in the car, while I run up and snatch the suitcase. Then we’ll take the logging roads in opposite directions and meet back at my place.”
The next day we drive out to the point of no return, as they say. Schumann’s in a great mood. He’s babbling on about what he’s going to do with his share of the dough. We’re halfway there when I notice this object in the back seat. I take a closer look, and what do I see? A goddamn 12-gauge shotgun.
“Schumann,” I says, “what the hell did you bring that for?”
“Protection,” he says.
“Protection? Schumann, we’re just robbing a girl for God’s sake. We’re not going on a combat mission into Afghanistan.”
“Well, you never know,” he says.
“Never know what?”
“Well, maybe she’s got special training or something. I mean you never know.”
“Special training? Schumann, she’s a bank teller—not a Russian spy.”
“Yeah, well—”
“Look, Schumann, didn’t it occur to you that if we use the gun, and we ever get caught for this little enterprise, we’ll be up for armed robbery?”
Schumann wrinkles his brow. “But it don’t seem right if we don’t have a gun. I mean we’re not amateurs—are we?”
“Schumann, we don’t need it, and we ain’t usin’ it.”
“All right,” he says. “But if she pulls something fishy, you’re going to get the surprise of your life.”
“No I ain’t, Schumann, because the surprise of my life came on the day when I agreed to work with a maniac like you.”
We drive on. Schumann ain’t too happy, but there’s nothin’ I can do about that.
When we get there I go over the plan one more time. It’s so simple I’m sure he’s going to screw it up. I get out of Schumann’s wreck and climb into my own car that I’d driven out and hidden that morning. Then we wait. There’s no traffic, and if she’s on time she should be there by quarter past four.
And then I see her coming down the road. The coast is clear. I give the thumbs-up to Schumann, and he grins back. I see Schumann getting ready, and then he jams on the gas pedal and tears out into the middle of the road. All I can hear is screeching tires. I pull out and haul up on back of her. She’s so confused she don’t even see me. I jump out and run up to the car. I reach for the back door. Locked. I look at the other doors. They’re all locked. So I run around to the driver’s window and start knocking on the glass. “Lady,” I say, “open the door.” She just stares at me with these wide painted eyes. She doesn’t know what the hell is going on. I look up and down the highway. Still no cars. “Lady, open the door.” And then she starts screaming. That was bad enough, but then she starts leaning on the horn. “Lady!” I yell. “I just want the suitcase. I ain’t gonna hurt you.” She just keeps on screaming and leaning. Then I see Schumann come running up to the car. And guess what he’s got in his hands? The goddamn gun.
“What the hell is going on?” he says.
“All the doors are locked.”
“Great,” he says. I can hardly hear him over the horn. “Jesus, she’s making enough racket to raise the dead.”
“Come on,” I says. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“What! Leave it? After all we’ve been through? Not on your life.”
“Come on, Schumann! You can hear that racket for miles.”
“Yeah? Well they can hear this, too.”
Schumann raises the gun and points it at the back window. Then he lets go with both barrels. There’s glass and smoke everywhere. “Get the goddamn suitcase!” he yells.
“Jesus, Schumann!” But I reach in, unlock the door, and grab the suitcase. The girl has quit leaning on the horn. She ain’t even screaming anymore. She’s just staring straight ahead. She probably thinks she’s dead. “See, lady,” I says. “We just wanted the suitcase. We ain’t gonna hurt you. We just—”
“Morris!” Schumann yells. “There’s a car coming. Come on!”
I take the suitcase and run back to the car. We both get the hell out of there.
You know, I can’t even remember driving back to my place. But when I get there, Schumann is sitting on the couch with this big grin plastered on his face.
“So we wouldn’t need the gun, hey, Morris?”
“Schumann,” I says. “Shut up.”
He just grins at me. “Is it heavy?”
“What?”
“The suitcase. Is it heavy?”
“Yeah, it’s heavy.” Actually, it weighs about a ton.
“Well, let’s see how rich we are,” Schumann says.
I lay the suitcase on the table and try to open it. “It’s locked.”
“Pass it over,” he says.
“What are you going to do, Schumann? Use the goddamn gun on it?”
“Very funny,” he says, “but if I didn’t have that gun we’d have nothin’ now.” Schumann starts picking at the lock with his pocketknife. “You know, Morris, I always knew I’d find my pot of gold someday. The first thing I’m goin’ to do is—”
“Schumann, just open the case.”
“Take it easy. There . . . I almost got it . . . Acapulco here—” Suddenly the case snaps open.
“What the . . . ?” Schumann says.
I stare down into the open case. And what do I see? Bottles. Body lotion. Powder. Perfume, for God’s sake.
“There’s got to be . . . there’s got to be some mistake,” Schumann says. “This can’t be right. Where’s the money?” He turns to me. “Morris, where’s the goddamn money?” I don’t even answer him. I just sit down real slow. “Morris, where’s the goddamn money!”
I take a deep breath. “Schumann, you’re right. There’s been a mistake. And we made it.”
Schumann starts riffling through the suitcase. “Perfume? Powder? What the hell is she doing with all this junk?”
“Haven’t you got it figured out yet? She’s selling it, Schumann. Selling it.” He just looks at me. “Schumann,” I says, “we’ve just ripped off the Avon Lady.”
“The who?” Schumann says. I just shake my head. I don’t even bother to answer.
Schumann starts wandering around the room. “Perfume. Jesus Christ. We’ve just spent two months planning to rip off a case of perfume. I bet she doesn’t even carry any men’s stuff.” Then he turns to me. “Goddammit, Morris, why didn’t you think of this before?”
“Why didn’t I think of it? Why the hell didn’t you think of it?”
“Well, Jesus, I thought of all the o
ther stuff. I mean whose idea was this in the first place? Mine, that’s whose.”
It was at that point when I started to laugh. I mean there was nothing else to do. There I was in my living room with Schumann and a case of cosmetics. The only problem was that Schumann wasn’t in a laughing mood.
“Morris, you’re not laughing at me, are you?”
I was laughing so hard I couldn’t even answer him. And then I made a big mistake. I don’t know why the hell I did it, but I went over to the suitcase and took out this fancy spray bottle of perfume. Then I proceeded to anoint Schumann with it. It’s all a bit hazy now, but as near as I can figure it, that’s when the fight started. I do remember Schumann hitting me over the head with a bottle of bath beads. After that things sort of got out of hand. It was kind of nice, though, in one way. I mean the place smelled really good. And there was all this white powder hanging in the air. It was just like Christmas. I can also remember hearing this knocking from the floor. I knew it was old lady Hanrahan in the basement apartment beating on her ceiling with a broomstick, but I must admit I didn’t think she’d call the cops. But she did call the cops. I’ll never forget the look on those guys’ faces when they opened the door. For that matter, I’ll never forget the look on Schumann’s face either.
Well, what else is there to say? It’s just my own fault for working with a dope like Schumann. So I don’t care if they put me away for twenty years. I deserve it.
When they were taking us into the station, one of the cops was nice enough to mention to his partner that the girl only worked part-time at the bank. The rest of the time she spent peddling Avon products—mainly to her friends in different branches. So that explains one thing. But before they put me away, I hope I find out something else: I mean, how does that bank really move their money?
Dancing Fool
You’d think in a town the size of ours it’d be pretty well impossible not to know everyone. You don’t get much choice in the matter. You end up going to school with half the kids, and you see the grown-ups in church or at the Garden Party or at your mother’s card game. And you’re always in and out of everyone’s house. There’s a couple of exceptions I suppose: Harriet Milley, who’s ninety-six and hasn’t stepped outside her door since I was born, almost eighteen years ago; and poor old Walter Bussey who’s my age, but is all crippled up with cerebral palsy and lives in a wheelchair and can’t talk except to point at a board with a bunch of symbols on it, so it takes him about a year to ask you how you are. But everyone else you know. Or think you know.
Like I always thought I knew Lar Murphy. I just got a postcard from him. He’s up in Ontario in the Armed Forces.
I’ve known Lar ever since we were kids. Well, maybe I should say he’s been around since we were kids. I only got to really know him this last couple of years or so. I never used to have much to do with him. For one thing he went to the Protestant school, and he was always a bit of a loner.
Ever since I can remember, everyone always made fun of the way Lar looked and said he was foolish and not right in the head. I used to think that, too. I remember when we were real little kids he’d want to play with us sometimes— even though he was three years older than me and my friends. It wasn’t that I minded so much, it was just . . . weird. Well, sometimes we’d let him and sometimes we wouldn’t. Either way he took a lot of teasing—and I mean took it. He’d hardly say boo to a goose. After a while he got the message and quit asking if he could play with us. He just sat on the fence and watched.
We were studying stories in English class the other day, and Brother Greene was teaching us about irony. Well, there’s a whole lot of irony about Lar. I mean you got to admit he’s not the greatest looking guy in the world. Hardly anyone says he’s ugly (my mother says he’s “poor-looking,” but she’d say the same about the Hunchback of Notre Dame), but if he’s not ugly, he’s damn close. He sort of looks like a boxer who should’ve taken up a different profession. His nose is all flattened—looks like it’s been broke about four times. His teeth are pointy and uneven. He’s a demon chain-smoker, and his fingers are always stained yellowish brown with nicotine. His eyes are small and close together so you’d think he was mean if you didn’t know him. He’s got a lot of acne too, and he usually wears about a three-days’ growth because he finds shaving too hard on his face. The guy’s even bowlegged: he always walks like he’s leaning into a stiff wind. And he’s hardly got a fingernail left he chews them so much. Besides all that, he’s got this crazy hair. It’s thick and puffed out like a shaving brush and feels like wire. Every now and then he’d start horsing around and say to someone, “Pull my hair. Go on. You can’t hurt me. Pull it!” And some joker would take a fistful of hair and pull with all his might while Lar just turned red in the face and grinned.
But here’s the ironical thing. You see, Lar’s got this brother named Walt who’s a year younger than him. And Walt’s the heartthrob of our whole community. That’s God’s idea of humour for you: making the best-looking guy and the worst-looking guy brothers. Lots of times you’ll hear someone say that Lar must have been adopted. Once I got pissed off and said, “Listen, did it ever occur to you that maybe Walt is the adopted one?” Well, no one had really thought of that before.
I suppose Walt’s not that bad a guy. He’s not my favourite person in the whole world, but he’s all right. He hangs around with all the tough guys and he’s beatin’ the girls off with a stick, but he’s okay most of the time. What really bugged me about him was that he hardly ever talked to Lar, or even acted like he was in the world at all, unless it was to bum a smoke off him. “Louse, gimme a smoke, will you?” he’d say. Jesus, can you imagine that—calling your own brother Louse? But here’s the real ironical thing. Even though Walt’s so “cute,” and all the girls are mad about him, he always wears his hair long. Not because he likes long hair, mind you. Half the guys in our little one-horse town thinks you’re a fag if you’ve got long hair—mine gets mentioned all the time. No, he wears it long because he’s self-conscious about his ears. He thinks they’re too small. Jesus, what a tragedy! The guy’s got a brother looks like Lar, and he’s all worried because his shaggin’ ears are too small. I seen his ears plenty of times. They looked all right. His brain’s too small, if you ask me.
Anyway, about a year ago now, I had to stay after school one day because I’d shagged up my algebra again. I don’t know how I ever passed it in the end. I stayed in town for supper at my aunt’s and took the late bus home. Walking through the park I met Lar heading home after work. I didn’t say much to him; I never knew what the hell to be saying to him. He was pretty friendly, though. We were down by the tennis courts heading up the lane that leads out of the park and onto the road. There’d been a silver thaw that day and all the trees were hung with icicles, and when the wind moved through the branches they made a tinkly music like wind chimes.
“Listen,” Lar said.
It was pretty. We stood in the lane and listened. Then there was this wicked screech and I thought they must have dropped the atomic bomb or something, because the whole sky just lit up in front of us. I shouted out and raised my hands up to protect my eyes. When I took them down it was dark again.
“Jesus!” says Lar. “Look!”
Not fifty feet in front of us was a car. It had sailed off the highway and pitched down into a snowbank. I just stood there gawking like a stupid mannequin or something. But right away Lar ran towards the car, struggling through the deep snow, falling down and getting up again.
“Come on!” he says. “They might be hurt!”
Finally I snapped out of it and ran after him. There was a woman in the driver’s seat slumped against the wheel. She had a lot of blood on her face and she wasn’t moving. Lar tried to open the door but the snow was almost up to the handles. He dropped to his knees and started scraping the snow away from the door.
“Don’t just stand there,” he says to me. “We gotta get her out of there.”
I started to help him
with the snow. We must have looked like a couple of dogs digging up a bone. When we finally got the door open, the woman fell out into Lar’s arms like a limp old rag doll. She started moaning and sobbing.
“That’s okay, missus,” says Lar. “You’ll be all right now.” I just felt sick; I didn’t want to even touch her. But Lar started wiping the blood off her face with snow and telling her she was going to be all right.
“She’s in shock,” he says. “Go call the cops and an ambulance. I’ll stay with her.”
The woman pressed her head into Lar’s chest and kept on moaning and sobbing. I beat it up to Kenny’s store and called the police.
It was pretty exciting after that with the cops’ red lights lighting up the night sky, and about forty people milling around trying to get a look. The cops asked us a bunch of questions and told us we’d done good.
I don’t know. Lar really impressed me that night. He didn’t act like a fool. If anyone acted like a fool, it was me.
After that I sort of started hanging around with him a bit. It started off with us just talking more than we used to. Then we started walking home together after the Saturday night dances. The thing was, he was fun to be with. He always had a reputation for being half cracked, and it wasn’t hard to see how he got it. He knows more jokes and crazy sayings than you’ll find in a hundred books. At first I felt a little uneasy about hanging around with him. Whenever anyone brought it up, I used to deny it. Yeah, I was like that apostle in the Bible. I’d just say he was good for a laugh.
I found out that Lar was a pretty generous guy, too. He always had cigarettes and money because he was working and still living at home, and his mother wouldn’t take any rent. He’d always give you a cigarette if you asked him— even if you didn’t ask him.
Girls, though, were a problem. I mean even more than usual. Half the time when I’m talking to a girl I’m all thumbs. I’m not saying I don’t get my share, but I’m certainly no Romeo. And having Lar around didn’t help much. It usually takes girls awhile to warm up to him. I suppose you can’t blame them in one way. I mean what girl in her right mind wants to be seen with a guy whose nickname is “Louse”? Some of them never could manage more than a few words to him. A couple just ignored him altogether.