“Bye, dick.”
This is our last night in the fortress. I can feel the hand of destiny upon me, steering me toward, well, something. I don’t know what. I’m feeling a little lightheaded and excitable as I go to bed. Rex is putting a few final things together for our journey, but he tells me to go and get some sleep. I do, because I am so wildly obedient.
I lie on the bed of skins and feathers, staring up at the fortress ceiling until sleep claims me, along with my dreams. Except they’re not really dreams. They’re memories. Vivid, brilliant memories of the stupidest thing I ever did. The last thing I ever did.
“Everybody be cool! This is a robbery!”
I left the bank a near penniless ex-client. I am returning in triumph, or at least, the closest thing I can think of to triumph. Ideally, I’d be Julia Roberts telling the teller big mistake, huge. But I’ve taken my cue from a different movie released in the nineties, when they still made movies. Now I’ve shrieked it, I’m wondering if I need to mention that this is a robbery. It seems like people can kind of work that out from context. I am, after all, waving around an airgun from which I removed the plastic orange tip that lets people know it’s a joke.
I’m overthinking this. That’s my problem. I shouldn’t be thinking at all. I should just be getting the money I need to pay my rent. I go to the window that’s all locked down with plexiglass and alleged bulletproof glass.
I shove a reusable bag with a recycling logo on the side of it through the little hole.
“Fill it up. Then bring it around that locked door and give it to me.”
There’s no way she’s actually going to do that. I’m basically powerless over here with my messy hair and disheveled everything. But sometimes, being thoroughly mental is the greatest power you’ll ever have.
If I were on the other side of that window, I’d just run away and leave me standing there like an asshole. But the teller doesn’t do that. She just does as she’s told. She puts the fucking money in the fucking bag.
“Don’t put any of those dye things in there. If you fuck with my cash, I’ll fuck you up,” I say, because I just remembered about dye packs.
Everybody else is just sort of staring. Nobody wants to be a hero. They want to keep their distance. They’ve always wanted to keep their distance.
She fills the bag with what’s going to be my money, and for the first time in a very long time, I feel a sense of power. She’s doing what I say.
Threatening people is way easier than I thought it would be. Is this what I've been waiting for my whole life? To go off the rails and just start breaking the law? Have I been a bank robber disguised as a disaffected millennial this entire time?
Then I notice that the woman’s hands are trembling. Well, now I feel bad. Maybe it’s not as easy being a bank robber as it seemed at first.
“STOP. POLICE!”
Oh no. Now there’s yelling. And it’s much louder and more aggressive and even more authoritative than me. Oh no. This isn’t going well now. I should have expected this. People call the cops when you rob banks. That’s how it works. I should have been prepared for this, but let’s not pretend I was prepared for any of it. I’ve never been prepared for life.
“Hands up! On the ground!”
I haven’t moved from the window. Maybe if I don’t move, they won’t see me. Maybe if I stay very, very still, they won't know I’m here at all. Even if I was to acknowledge them, I’m uncertain as to how the hell I’m going to get down on the ground with my hands up. I don’t have the kind of athletic prowess of most bank robbers.
“HANDS UP. TURN AROUND SLOWLY.”
“ON YOUR KNEES! HANDS UP! GET DOWN!”
There’s multiple people shouting now, as if making a lot of noise will ensure my compliance. In the process, they’ve added a couple of extra commands, which has not made any of it easier to follow. Do I just sort of throw myself on the ground and hope for the best? Or should I run? It’s hard to hit a moving target. Movies make it look practically impossible. I bet if I ran… no. They’ve come through the front door and I can’t run through them. And I can’t run to the locked door because obviously that’s going to be locked.
I’m stuck there, staring at the pretend plastic gun, hearing the strangest sound in my head, like a hollow ringing, as if I might not really be here, as if I might just be a shell…