The Spot Page 10
Idea was to avoid the following:
The silent-alarm botch, in which case some trigger-happy teller takes pleasure in knowing that a posse of jazzed-up cops is roaring through the streets, eager to get to the scene but keeping the sirens off and trying to avoid wheel screeches, all because he fingered the button at the first sign of a stickup.
The mix-up botch, in which preplanned roles become fused so that, say, the bagman, in the head of the job, finds it necessary to help with the herding, and in so doing opens up, as it were, a force vacuum leading (perhaps) to a silent-alarm trigger botch, and/or:
A heroic fallacy botch, in which one soul stands firm, gathering strength of will from some deeper source—a profound latent rage, perhaps, formed from an overly dramatic sense of fairness—and, seeing the gun muzzle, staring deep into the heart of the bore, feels compelled to side with the idea of authority and thus internalizes the onus of the crime—as he sees it—to the point of active rage, which in turn gives him the strength to stand firm and to resist barked orders. (In a nonbotch scenario the hero’s vision is lost when he’s shot or pistol-whipped. In the nonbotch the intuitive abilities—or the connection to some higher law—is short-circuited by a flush of fear. In the nonbotch scenario the hero lifts his heels from the floor or has an annoying tic: One way or another, all good intent and God connections—in the nonbotch setup—fade when his brainpan is shattered, and he then slumps off with the rest of the customers.) Let it be noted that the botch situation can only, in retrospect, be fully understood in relation to the nonbotch possibilities. Therefore, there is a deeply sentimental aspect to the whole matter. Nothing is sadder than the examination of a crime gone awry. Insofar as these things go, a nonbotch scenario (resistant-hero type is shot in the nick of time) can shift to a botch (gunshots alert passerby, or create uncontrollable chaos situation in which the disorder supersedes the ability to forcefully instill order) on a dime. So the idea is to play the two sides against each other to create a harmony between the two potentials. Idea is to avoid second-guessing and to maintain focus on the job at hand: getting the money and fleeing the bank, hooting and hollering in jubilation at a fate avoided, lead-footing it out of town and into the spectacular monotony of the open road.
When I turned from the window that afternoon, after watching the woman with those bags—those ankle-hobbling high heels! the instability of her gait! the afternoon sky firm against the brick facades!—I strained to reorient myself to the heist. But my attention was snagged on that beautiful vision in the street. This led to a classic error. Let me say here that I’ll never admit, as some might, to a split in my attention. What transpired was the opposite, actually. The effort that it took to cast the natural distraction factor away (and I did cast her away!) served to sharpen the acuteness of my attention when I swung my gaze back to the interior, and I locked with too much intensity on the resistant factor: the Old School Mennonite refusing Donnie’s orders, holding his hands out not with his palms up, but rather with his palms down, lifting them up and down in defiance, as if he were trying to shoo something away. At that moment my obligation—working hard to unsnag myself from the vision in the street—was to stay steady and calm. The idea was to keep cool. But instead I only saw the Old Order Mennonite. I fixed on him and he felt me looking and turned to me and presented his face: lean, long, gaunt around the chin, with a bristle of beard and agate eyes, cold and stony, set beneath busy black brows, above which were deep furrows leading up to a knobby forehead that drove itself into the heavy felt of his black hat. The look he shot me was on equal terms with mine—hard, ruthless, and blunt.
Idea is to push the botch as far it can go, to rally the chaos into an escapable situation, to arrange the disorder into itself, to affirm the oft-repeated phrase—by Carson, mostly—that a good botch ends not with a bang, but with the whisper of shoe leather on pavement. So when Donnie shot the Old Order Mennonite, I shot him at exactly the same time. Then all hell broke loose. One of the tellers in the back began to break away, running forward, and Carson tagged him one in the back of the head. Another dashed to the side—pure panic, no motive, no real intent—and I unleashed one in her direction. Needless to say, the bullets flew. Nothing but the roar and saltpeter in the air and the echoes in the high reaches as we drove the madness into shape and were left with nothing but bags of cash—the two of us—and a persistent ringing in our ears.
Back at the forge the idea was to do a point-by-point analysis and to tweeze apart the boiling chaos, the plumes of blood, the rattle of the tommy gun until it jammed, the inaudible pleas that had draped around us, unheard in the roar. Idea was to find the exact point at which the potential for a botch (hidden in that stalemate between the Old Order Mennonite and Donnie) was somehow nudged over into a genuine bloodbath. Idea was to put aside the residual urgency of the aftermath—the gunmetal tartness on the tongue, the old iron stench of the forge, our sweat-caked shirts—and find something instructive in the mess, the educational moment, so to speak. Otherwise, it was just one more smear of carnage on the floor of one more Ohio bank. Otherwise, it was simply three men going into a rage and spilling blood. To break down the scenario, in retrospect, and to figure out just where the human element had slipped in to ruin what otherwise—up to that moment—had been a purely mechanistic situation: everything moving smoothly along the grand traditions. In most cases—Donnie was saying—you could shave it down to a single moment, freeze-frame it to the precise second just before all hell broke loose, and in doing so locate the blame in one of the following:
A human failing. Nothing too big, nothing tragic, but some little error on our part. A sudden distraction in the form of a lament for a lost lover, or a stray thought. Some preheist factor, unnoticed before the chain of events began. A second cup of coffee that led to a poorly aimed shot, or a jittery trigger finger. (Good aim requires at least one dose of caffeine. Too much caffeine and you’re likely to succumb to the urge, so to speak.)
Some impromptu gesture, Ohio-related. Some improvised response to a gesture on the part of one of the customers—throwing the plan off for a fraction of a second.
We drew a blank that night, with the rain drumming down on the tin roof of the forge. We simply could not find the exact cause. Both of us had shot the Old Order Mennonite, we agreed, at about the same instant, arriving at a mutual conclusion and acting on our instincts in the same manner, and that seemed enough to justify what we did and to set it aside as the actual cause of the botch. We’d drawn from the same visual cues and responded to the best of our abilities swiftly and without too much thought.
In the end—after a lot of mulling, a lot of cigar smoke and pondering—we agreed that the botch might’ve been caused by some outside factor. Just one of those things. Just another afternoon heist gone bad. We shook hands and gave the forge one last slap for good luck and stepped out into the rain and went our separate ways: Carson headed north toward home; Donnie headed south to Florida; I drove west, staring hard through the swap of the wiper blades, shaking myself awake, doing my best to fend off the desire—and it was a strong one—to return to the bank.
Idea was to go back into the heart of that sad scene, to make an end run around fate by entering into the expectations of the law-enforcement officials (who knew in turn that we in turn knew that they had this expectation), because it was a given that at least one gang member would come stumbling back to the scene of the botch, the brim of his hat pulled low, keeping what he thought was a discreet distance from the scene, lurking in the shadows—so to speak—and holding himself in compliance with the traditions, scapegoating himself to regain some higher sense of order that had been lost in the maelstrom of the botch itself. Just thinking about it was a retreat into vanity. But the impulse was pure and hard. I wanted another shot at the Old Order Mennonite, a chance to fire a few seconds later, deeper into the unfolding drama, to shake loose the image of the woman on the street, who was probably now in bed, I thought, sleeping soundly next to her husba
nd, while in the bowels of the house—nothing less than a big Queen Anne Victorian—a screw rotated, drawing coal into the maw of the fire, keeping them warm and cozy against the chilly night. It was the kind of house a guy like me could only dream about, financed on war loot, backroom deals, and countless bootleg runs. In that house—I imagined, staring out through the rain and dark, trying to keep myself on the road—she slept the deep doze of an innocent. When she woke the next morning she’d go out into her life, sashaying those fine hips, flashing those fine ankles, released from the burden of the truth, never knowing that in the simple act of walking down the street yesterday, she had triggered a dismal botch, a massacre of epic proportions. No: In the morning she’d stretch her arms over her head and yawn, smelling the bacon and coffee downstairs, arching the delicate bones of her shoulders, dreamingly rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
Idea was to stake out the town for days on end, if necessary, watching over cups of coffee in Ralston’s diner, knowing full well she’d have to pass that way eventually. Women like that follow strict shopping patterns. A town like Gallipolis has a limited number of retail establishments. The idea was to catch her off guard, to poke the gun into her face and to force her into the car. The idea was to let her know that she had been moving through life the way a fish moves through the water, unable to see the fluid, unable to sort out the larger picture. The idea would be to somehow shift the burden of the botch from my shoulders to her shoulders, heaving it like a duffel loaded with bones of the dead. Then she’d have to raise her arms instinctually—seeing the bag heading her way—and catch it the way a fireman embraces a falling child, bending her knees to ease the weight, lowering herself as far as she could to the ground, staggering under the great weight of the botch itself, catching her balance on the back of her heels.
Oklahoma
Trying to make it look like we were going somewhere, we worked up and down the rows, holding keys in our hands, moving from one car to another in case the guy who monitors the security screens inside the store happened to glance up from his magazine, or his coffee, or his ball game, to catch sight of us. Anyway, no one has ever stopped me, Lester said, and the return policy is sweet because they’ll take anything back, no questions asked. You just get the receipt, go inside, find the goods, and then take the stuff to get your money back. In the parking lot that night we had three receipts, including one for a large load of groceries—three hundred dollars’ worth. I said, Jesus, this is a lot of food. Lester said, What do you think most people do, starve, you think they don’t go in and buy whatever they want? I said, No, I think most kind of save money and then go buy stuff. He said, No, no, they just go and pile it up like that. I said, Okay, okay. He said, You’re a dumb shit, for sure. I said, Shut up. He said, Talk more like that, you’re out. I said, Sorry. He said, Get looking. I looked, came up with a receipt for a Sony something, called him over, and he said, Bingo, that’s it, a bigticket item. Then, clutching his key, holding it out, he went back out to the edge for one last look along the curb where stuff might blow up. Augusta came hunching up, saying, Hey, Genevieve, we’ve got to try that Sony. I said, Keep looking.
Augusta was a horrible sight: hunchbacked, with pocks on her face, an Oklahoma harelip, Lester called it, and lithium teeth, all gone. The soles of her feet had calloused so thick Lester took his razor knife and whittled them out of boredom. Ugly enough to stop a clock, he said when we found her. Ugly enough to stop traffic. Yes, sir, a traffic-stopper indeed, he said, drawing her tight the same way he’d drawn me, making those soft kiss sounds, touching her cheeks, tracing the shape of her face. Oklahoma ugly, he added, lifting up one of her breasts. They’re gonna make a movie about this one, he said, taking a step back and boxing his thumbs and fingers to make a frame. Lester had his hopes pinned on being a film director. Post-cleanup, he was going to head to Hollywood. Nothing up in Red Carpet Country can match that for sheer ugliness, he said. I said, You’re getting redundant. He said, What? I said, The ugly thing, it’s getting old, fast. He said, What did you say? I said, Nothing. He said, I thought so, that’s what I thought you said, working a crick out of his neck, twisting it around and around. It was a cold wet October night, somewhere outside Tulsa.
An old farmhouse with a streetlamp attached to the back to ward off prowlers (like us), a huge orb of light casting itself into a mud-rutted backyard filled with whirligigs of all types attached to poles, heaving and rattling in the wind, creating a terrible shudder. Take out that light, Lester said. What? I said. He said, Get a rock and smash that out. I said, Okay, and went amid the whir of sound to find a rock, picking around for one, looking up at the seesawing figures, the whirling ducks, the swinging shapes. I found a nice round rock and heaved it up at the light and took pleasure in the loud pop and darkness. Get up here, get up here, Lester was yelling from around front. I stood for a minute in the dark and felt the wild ratcheting of the whirligigs in a burst of wind from the west. I knew how they felt. Stuck in eternal toil. I had to save at least one, so I gave a pole a hard kick: a small lumberjack boy in a little green hat, gripping a long saw, looked up at me from the ground and smiled. Get up here, Lester called again from around front. At the front door, working the gray rubber grips of a chrome walker, Augusta’s grandfather blinked into the darkness. As soon as he figured out what was going on, he lifted the walker up and used it as a battering ram to hold us back.
When the tape worked lose from his mouth he said, Augusta, my dear grandchild, you sweet thing. Augusta just stood with a bewildered look on her face. Give me a smoke. I need to catch my breath. Give me a cigarette from that pack over there on the counter, he said. Augusta went over and picked up the long green pack of menthols, shook one out, put it between his lips, found a kitchen match, lit it, and watched while he took a puff, blew and sucked, blew and sucked, blew and sucked until the cigarette fell to the floor. Put it back, he said. Please put it back.
I’d like to describe her face as otherwise, but truthfully Augusta’s eyes in the kitchen that night were flat and mute and silly-looking. They weren’t lifeless, exactly, but they were glazed over and sat above her fat cheeks like two raisins pressed into dough while Lester went back into the mudroom, rummaged around, and came out with a broom handle. Give him a whack, he said, holding his fingers up to frame the scene, taking a few steps back, trying as usual to find the right vantage, because from the start, when we met on the train up in Bartlesville, he was making a movie in his head. We were hiding—just two fucked-up kids pulling a ticket scam—in the bathroom, hunched up in there, listening to the conductor whistle as he passed between cars, going through the vapor-seal doors. Lester said something like, My name’s Lester and I could make a movie out of your life, leaning low into my face, pressing his beard against my cheek, keeping it there and then moving back, fumbling for a pill and scooping a bit of water from the tiny faucet into his palm—with the pill—and then flopping it expertly into his mouth. You could make a movie of my life? I said. Yeah, he said. I said, Okay. He said, Give me your life. I said, Girl named Genevieve, fucked-up Mom, boyfriend named Vernon, when I slept with Vernon Mom kicked me out of the house, street, street, more of the street, now here. He said, I could do that. I said, Yeah. He said, Okay, I got it, where’s all this take place? I said, I’m an Okie girl, all the way, and he said, Hey, me too, that’s weird, I’m from Oklahoma, too, the crank state, the old dust bowl state. I said, Okay, that’s where we’re at. He said, Try this, giving me one of his pills. I said, Okay, taking it while he nuzzled my face, saying, Guys named Vernon are always assholes, for sure. I said, You’re right, and we went into one of those high-powered laughing fits, you know, the kind that says we’re gonna be together united in love and joy forever, bound by this laugh and this laugh alone. He said, Yeah, I could film your life, leaning down and giving me a kiss, the smell of blue toilet water stinking between us, the coast clear, the train rocking. I said, Where you going and what for? He said, Chicago, to scam tourists on the tour boats. You go o
n and, like, sit next to them and when they’re looking up at the buildings, gawking at the superstructures, you just steal their stuff. I said, That’s the plan? He said, It’s not much but it works because they’re all hayseeds and leave their purses right there, under their chairs, gaping open when they go back to the snack bar to buy cookies and soda. Just reach in and take, take, take, he said, touching my cheek, running his hand while the pills took hold good and tight.
In a movie Augusta would lift her swing over the old man’s head and take Lester out with a blow to the temple. Then she’d get me in the brow, or the back of the head. A movie would give you the Bible reading she’d done; you’d get early scenes, in Sunday school, up in the church classroom, smelling of wood wax, of gardenias, Augusta studying the book of Jeremiah, the prophet looking upon Jerusalem, at the wretched state of things, the scorn of the people, saying: the prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them . . . Then while the camera panned the whirligigs outside (including the one that I smashed up) a voice would read: the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth . . . You’d see her in Sunday school, listening carefully, her face now beautiful and soft, her skin clear, her eyes bright, her hair held back in a ponytail. In the movie you’d see her growing up; you’d see her father trying to get at her; you’d see her own Vernon, Asshole #1, in the flesh. Then you’d see her trying her first, a pale greenie, and you’d watch as it filled her eyes like a fishbowl. Then she’d untie her grandfather’s wrists and rub them and cry and they’d do a little square dance of joy, a little do-si-do of happiness. (Because her grandfather had worked the Muskogee square dance circuit as Burt Wolverine. He was one of the best.) You’d see them dancing and then there would be a fade to a scene of him calling a large dance, people moving in and away from each other, hooking back, catching, arm in arm, flying out, making kaleidoscopic formations as they moved.