by Gibby Haynes
I can’t do anything but look down at Cigar to hide my laughter. Poor Dave . . . Sweet guy. He’ll know what hit him in a few years.
Seems obvious the best bet is to go back to the truck and wait for Lytle, but before we get there, Cigar barks to announce his arrival, and I hear a breathless, “Hey, dude . . . that was kind of awesome. What the fuck happened?”
“It ran out of juice, man. I don’t get it. The battery was fresh; I put it in back at the hotel. I guess it really eats ’em up. I don’t remember anything about projected battery life in the manual. Anyway, you’re safe, we’re cool—plus, it was kind of hilarious. Dude, you should have seen it. It was like . . . a naked guy running, then you would disappear then reappear in a sort of unexpected place. It was like there were a bunch of naked guys just kind of popping on and off in a bunch of different places. It was funny. Like eventually-had-to-look-down-to-change-the-battery funny. Fucking mesmerizing. Were you scared . . . I mean . . . where you were running, man?”
“Dude . . . I was just running. When I realized I was totally invisible again, I stopped. In between all that . . . I was just freaking out. I hadn’t really considered the long game up to that point. I’m glad it was funny . . . so glad.”
I take a breath. “Dude, I gotta know. You didn’t get the money, did you? Heh heh heh.”
“No, man. Ha. I was standing near the keypad waiting for this lady who kept going in and out of the tellers’ room. Dude, it’s so freaky being around people who don’t know you’re there. You see things.
“Throw in the fact that you know you are naked. IT’S LIKE PHANTOM VISIBILITY. Some profound psychological disruption is bound to occur. It’s like the freakin’ Lord of the Rings, man. Don’t wear the ring unless you have to, man . . . You could become its slave. It’s twisty, I swear.”
“Dude, that’s heavy . . . Mr. Invisible Man.”
“Anyway, it was weird. I didn’t realize I was visible for a while, I guess. But then all of a sudden this fifty-year-old white lady looks at me and screams. I’m kind of used to that, but we never made eye contact, and I hauled ass. By the time I got to the front door, I figured out I was pulsing on and off. Then I started to zigzag for some reason. I guess I was trying to maximize the finite space within which I’d been allowed to operate. It was perfect nick-of-time-type shizzle . . . I was totally at the end of my options and parking lot . . . then that flash . . . It was pretty bright, man, and the security guard kept saying, “What the fuck?” It was sort of funny at that point. Good to be unseen. Apparently, his name was Dave. Man . . . CRACKS ME UP.”
“Yeah, man, I heard him too. ‘Hello, Dave? Come in, Dave.’”
Much laughter . . . I instinctively head for the highway north. Turn on some tunes, then ask, “So what do we do? Go to Graceland or hit the road?”
“LET’S DO BOTH,” Lytle says.
I nod. “I’m hungry, man.” As we exit the parking lot, sweet Dave the security guard (now looking under cars with a flashlight) barely registers our departure. “Put on your clothes, Lytle. Let’s go get a taco . . .” I laugh until the British air raid siren screeches from my phone.
SUBVERT THE DOMINANT PARADIGM
“Hello?” Rachel on speakerphone. Not drunk but sort of weird. “Hello, Oscar?”
Really, really, really weird.
“Are you guys coming? These guys are kind of getting impatient. But it’s not bad, I mean—”
A man’s voice with a vaguely from-somewhere-else accent interrupts, “Hello, Oscar. I hope you are okay. It’s just your sister owes me some money, that’s all. But everything’s okay . . . We are having fun. You are on the road, no? From Texas? I know a great BBQ place in Memphis open twenty-four hours. Anyway. We are having a little party, and we want you to come. Tomorrow at happy hour. Sunset till whenever. On the roof at your sister’s place—it’s gorgeous. We’re here right now. See you, Oscar? Can we count on you?”
With a fake-jovial laugh, he says, “YOU MUST COME!”
I don’t know what to say.
“Bye-bye, Oscar. It’s thirty-five thousand. I know, I know . . . fake pleading . . . but it’s for your seester . . . It’s for your seester . . . Oscar, I know you are coming. Take care. Bye-bye . . .” Click.
WHAT HAS GONE WRONG IS STILL GOING WRONG
Cigar barks. Lytle, now clothed, has that what the hell just happened, we gotta go, get out of my way look on his face . . . so I assume he’s all gung ho and shit. It’s about fifteen hours from Nashville to New York City . . . It’s noon now. We got just enough time to rob a bank, get to the Big Apple, and even catch a few hours’ sleep before the big party. That guy did sound sort of creepy, and it does sound like she’s kind of being kidnapped. But all he wants is money. I know about her ex . . . It’s that simple.
“Lytle, buddy . . . I actually can’t wait to rob a bank. Naked. Invisible and rich. Sounds like a groovy thing to me.”
“Yeah, but we’ll only be rich for a couple of hours.”
“Well, you know what they say. It’s better to have loved and lost . . .”
“Than never to have gone totally undefeated?”
I blow him a kiss. “That’s so romantic.”
THE INDIAN IN THE TOOLBOX
Highway 81 is the longest odd-numbered interstate highway in which the number does not end with a five . . . It traces the paths created down the length of the Appalachian Mountains by migrating animals, American Indians and early settlers. Once a major corridor for troop movement during the great Civil War is now used for human trafficking and the War on Drugs. For clarification purposes, I capitalize “War on Drugs,” but I am not referring to the war Richard M. Nixon declared back in the ’70s, a war that ended in dismal defeat for the US. No, I am not speaking of a war against drugs. I’m talking about a war high on drugs. Now however, on this very day, I-81 is more a byway for magical dogs, bank robbers and teenage geniuses with a plan than for any other kind of war. Whether high or not!
The plan is to get to New York City with thirty-five grand by sunset tomorrow.
Truly genius in its simplicity. However truly lacking in substance.
But who needs substance when you are going invisible, naked and willing to put your foot on the gas until you get to where you think you wanna go? We take 40 out of Nashville to hook up with 81 outside of Knoxville. Google says there’s a couple of banks close to the highway in the downtown area of Knoxville. Good enough for me.
We stop at a Starbucks, as one does. Lytle waits in line, and I go to the restroom, take off my clothes and get invisible. It’s like a physical rush. Super weird. Like vertigo. No one notices as a slightly obscured bundle of clothes floats out the back door of a Starbucks and makes its way to Lytle’s truck.
Cigar barks a hello as I hop into the back. Lytle returns with what he calls a sugar coffee, and we make our way to the Bank of America on Main Street, just a few blocks away. I’m naked and invisible, and the wireless controller has a fresh battery.
I figure I have at least forty-five minutes.
And, man . . . Lytle was right: there is a certain state of mind that one reaches by experiencing self-invisibility. It’s not necessarily an all-powerful, beyond-all-other type of sensation. But more of a holy shit . . . they can’t see me, and I’m naked deal. It brings an instant smile to your face—a smile of wonder, and friendly wonder at that. It really doesn’t feel negative in any kind of way.
TWENTY-MULE TEAM BORAX
Despite the evil that could be perpetrated with such a device, I feel oddly confident that I’m doing no wrong. But most certain, despite the overriding bank-robbery thing, deception (clinical deception) is at the core of this power. And deception as a concept just doesn’t feel like the golden ticket to heaven. Elation and regret in an emotional sense, logical in the real, but I’m leaning toward Lytle’s Lord of the Rings theory. It’s devilishly delicious.
Car
la must truly be from outer space. I mean, really, the woman who fell to earth or something. First the water sheet and now the video net. She’s on a roll and has been telling me for the past year or so that she’s working on another subatomic machine system . . . but this project she said had more of an analog feel. More organic. Imagine a lens that could be almost an infinite number of discrete focal lengths at any particular moment. Faster than you can think it . . . times a googol . . . or two. Then a generation faster even than that. In a spray-paint can at pico scale
“I want my car to go a generation faster.”
“No, Oscar . . . Indeed you don’t.”
I love Carla.
For some reason, I remember eating fried pies with my father. When at our lake house we would drive up into the Arbuckle Mountains and eat lunch at the same place, outside of who-knows-where, for dessert my dad always had a fried peach pie and I had chocolate . . . and peach.
TIC-TAC-PTOMAINE
Lytle parks in a lot next to the Bank of America. I’m naked and motivated. As good a time as any to rob a bank.
Crossing Locust Street to the front entrance, I notice cars don’t slow down too much for invisible people. I walk in the front door, not caring at all about doors just flying open, and negotiate my way to the money room. Having to wander just a bit was something I had anticipated. For some reason, floor plans for Bank of Americas are mysteriously unavailable online. Especially for the downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, branch. Anyway, the going was powerfully good. I couldn’t resist blowing on a stack of papers in front of a copy boy standing at a printing kiosk in the middle of a room full of cubicles.
Making my way to the center of the hive, I find the most obvious candidate for the door that leads to the queen and a handful of her royal jelly. You can hear lots of buzzing around it, and it is actually propped open about 8 inches. You can see right through to the tellers seated. A guard is walking around the opposite side of a metal rolling cart, preparing to wheel it out of the room.
Holy shit, this is a no-brainer. I can make it through that space in like seconds. I glance down to get cursory assurance as to my invisibility then slip easily inside the pit of cash in front of the cart and guard. The door barely moves. The guard is either taking something away or has just delivered something in the cart. My guess is the “something” is cash, but either way I can see the only supply of stacked hundreds is sitting in the tellers’ drawers who in turn were sitting in rolling swivel chairs, belly-up to the trays of dough.
I need thirty-five thousand–ish for the mission, and I can plainly see there is easily that much in bundled hundreds. The problem there is, no one teller has that much in their drawer. I will have to get it from two drawers. So I might as well grab $40,000. No difference to me.
I’m comfortable, I’m clearly invisible and for once I give thanks to Kenny G, whose soothing licks, pumped into the bank’s overhead speakers, mask the sound of escalating breathing and any crinkling my feet might make on the impossible-to-describe-colored carpet. I’ve been invisible for about ten minutes. I do have a good fifteen left in my self-imposed limit of twenty-five. However, my battery, like everybody’s, eventually will die, and I really want to avoid another Nashville Lytle shuffle.
Pretty soon, I’ve got to make a move.
YAHOO MOUNTAIN DEW
“Wahoo” is the word. As a noun, it could be a Scombridae fish found worldwide in tropical/subtropical seas, or a shrubby spindle tree from eastern North America also called “burning bush.” As a verb, a southern United States (meaning Texas, and by Texas I mean Texas and Oklahoma combined) term for a variation of the classic smash-and-grab burglary technique, an in-your-face style of robbery that is characterized by a surprise-then-take-it-by-any-means-but-leave-a-tip mentality. Closely compares as well to the time-honored bum-rush, an overwhelming strategy characterized again by surprise, relying then on outnumbering security (whatever that might be).
Also, when used in a sentence, it doesn’t describe an actual technique but more correctly a lack of technique. The plan is that there is no plan. You do what makes sense in the moment, and generally speaking any planning is done during the crime itself or in the few moments leading up to the actual commission. The most common things to wahoo are smaller items that when purchased are under some kind of restriction either by age of customer, the hour of need, the actual penal code or any combination thereof.
Wahooing doesn’t rely so much on flashy violent gestures, threats or numbskull brutality. It’s more of an artistic sort of endeavor or perhaps even a dance. This gives it a spiritual characteristic that further separates it from most other similar endeavors. Often with a comical theme, it’s a true southern tradition, but if ever you expect to have any sort of longevity in your career as a wahoo dancer, do it maybe once or twice in your entire life, use only as a last option and make sure you tip the ride operator . . . on the way out.
So things like beer and cigarettes are commonly wahooed.
Example: A seventeen-year-old walks into an appropriate convenience store after legal beer-buying hours. As he walks to the cooler section, an accomplice enters the store, slightly stumbling to the lone cashier. The accomplice clutches his stomach, and his white T-shirt stands in stark contrast to the fake blood in his midsection—the clutched area. He mumbles, “I, I’ve been . . .” while looking directly into the eyes of the person behind the counter. The first guy in the store now has a couple of twelve packs of Miller Lite in his hands and is making his way back to the front door. He jogs outside while a third accomplice holds the door open, partially blocking the “beer man’s” escape route. The horrified cashier can’t take his eyes off the apparent stabbing victim when suddenly the bloody accomplice completes his belabored sentence—“I’ve been . . . I, I’ve been dishonest with you”—and as he straightens up . . . the hands once clutching his midsection suddenly reveal a couple of twenties, which are tossed on the counter as the bloody fake victim sprints out the front door laughing. The stunned clerk takes the forty bucks, sticks it in his pocket and typically never calls the police. The fake blood was Big Red soda that “stabbed guy” happened to spill on himself in the car on the way over. Beer-less to beer-full in just shy of twenty seconds.
Classic time-studied perfection. No plan, unintentionally synchronized comedic action and victory. A sacred obligation realized with a mutual flow of consideration: the dude got money, the party got beer, everybody laughed . . . the funny trifecta.
As far as the here and now is concerned, I’m following my own recommendations. Aside from actually being the fake-bloody guy in the story, it feels like I have no other good option. I’m naked and invisible (that’s the comedy part), and my plan consists of ending up in the truck safely with thirty-five thousand under my arms. The no-plan plan is in full effect. In this case I won’t be able to tip the ride operator on the way out. So it looks like I’m just gonna have to go in and wahoo it without the tip.
COLD NIGHT FOR ALLIGATORS
Standing in the middle of tellers two and three, I grab the inside of their back supports and rotate both forward and inside about thirty degrees. I pause for a moment then firmly (as hard as I can) pull both straight back while screaming at the top of my lungs. The tellers tumble harmlessly out of their chairs, more out of incredulity than out of angular acceleration. Then, relying more on theater as opposed to physical violence, I grab handfuls of dollar bills, whirl around, facing the gaping audience then throw both fistfuls into the air above them.
Just for good measure, I give one more bloodcurdling scream, making sure they can all hear and see where it came from. All four tellers get a huge, wide eyeful of dimly lit flying teeth and wildly gesticulating tongue, a view of the action. They totally lose it and fall back to the wall. Stepping toward the cash, I grab four stacks of hundreds. Then, pivoting toward the exit, I’m gone . . . before the last thrown bills settle to the ground. I jog carefully around the sca
ttered bodies, flinging the door wildly open, scooting out, Kenny G still wafting through the workplace as a woman’s voice breaks the drone with a horrifying disgusted southern drawl, mournfully lamenting, “You could see its may-outh,” followed then by a deeply soul-questioning male voice: “My Lo-werd.”
LASER TAG
I can’t help but laugh out loud while making my way through the cubicle room. Tossing a trash can in the opposite direction and heading to the front door, I hear the same woman’s wildly pathetic moan-scream. A simple but desperately desperate “I don’t nay-oh” adds little hope to an obviously collapsing belief system . . . floating off into the great unheard.
Out the front door, turning the corner, I’m gone.
Lytle and Mr. Cigar come into focus, sprinting across Locust Street to the parking lot . . . I’m there.
“Check it out, man.” I reveal armpits full of Franklins. “It was crazy . . . I had to show my teeth! Duuude, it made the Circle K Big Red wahoo look junior high.”
“That was junior high, dude.”
“Yeah . . . but forty-K junior high.”
“Ahhhhhh . . . I seeeee.”
“Check it out, L . . .”
Smelling a stack of hundreds, thumbing it like a deck of cards, Lytle chuckles.
“Lytle, I’m thinking maybe you should go back into the bank and get some money from the ATM so we don’t look like . . . bank robbers bookin’ with the spray. I’ll just stay invisible in the truck while you go. Cool?”