Ed Ferguson, the only guard the bank had had in its forty-year
history, was trying to lock the door for the day when the
four men forced their way in. They looked like extras in a
bad Ninja movie. They all wore black jeans, black gloves,
and black pullovers. They also wore different colored ski
masks. The man in the blue ski mask grabbed Ed's gun as he
fumbled to unholster it and then pushed Ed into the bank toward
the counter. Mrs. McGillicuddy, the head teller who had been
at the bank as long as Ed, saw the men force their way in. "You
can't come in," she said. “We're closed." Then
she saw the ski masks and the gun pointed at her by the man
in the black ski mask, and she fainted on the spot. It became
quickly apparent that the men were using the colors of their
ski masks for identification. The one in the black mask appeared
to be the leader. "Watch the door, Blue," he said
to the man in the blue ski mask.
"Got it, Black" said Blue.
Then the men started barking orders for the people in the bank to raise their
hands and back away from the counter. Mr. Jenkins, the bank manager, Tom Morgan,
the loan officer, and Margaret Adams-Cromwell, the junior teller, quickly raised
their hands and backed up. Morgan gasped audibly. Sweat broke out on his forehead
and he began shaking uncontrollably. Margaret, the newest member of the bank
and a newlywed, was trembling, too. Her eyes were closed and her lips moved rapidly
in a silent prayer. "Watch 'em," said Black to the men in the red and
green masks. Then he came around the counter and tossed a cloth bag to Jenkins. "Put
all the money in here," he said. Jenkins began to empty the drawers at the
teller stations. "We're gonna get the stuff in the vault, too," said
Black.
As Jenkins finished emptying the drawers and headed for the vault followed closely
by Black, suddenly the man in the green ski mask began to gasp and shake his
head. "What's wrong, Green?" asked Black. "What the hell is wrong?"
Green shook his head violently and ripped off his mask. " I can't breathe,
I can't breathe," he said and bent over with his hands on his knees.
"Get him out of here," shouted Black, "quick." He ran around
the counter toward the front door leaving Jenkins at the entrance to the vault
with the bag still in his hands.
The man in the red ski mask grabbed Green by his arm and dragged him out the
door. Blue followed them and Black backed out last waving his gun at the bank
employees. After he left, Ed Ferguson ran to the door and saw the men jump into
a late model Chevy and drive away. He turned back to the other employees, "Was
that Bobby Daniels?" he asked.
***
“Why did you do that, Bobby? Why in the hell did you do that?”
Bobby Daniels stared at his older brother. “I couldn’t help it, Johnny," he
said. I couldn’t breathe. I was smothering. I was dying. I had to get some
air.” And, in fact, he was still panting and gasping for air. Sweat poured
down his face, which was red and distorted. He shook his head violently and said, "I'm
sorry, Johnny, but I really couldn't help myself. I really thought I was dying."
“You shouldn’t have pulled off your mask, little brother. There’s
people in that bank that know you. Hell, Daddy used to do all his banking there.
Somebody’s gonna tell ‘em it was you.”
“I’m sorry, Johnny, I'm really sorry. What’re we gonna do now?”
Johnny frowned at his younger brother. “Boy, you get me in more trouble
than you’re worth,” he said drily. “We’ll just have to
come up with such a great alibi that the cops’ll think those folks in the
bank are wrong.”
“Yeah,” said Bobby, “I got a couple of girls that will swear
to anything I tell them.”
“You get more than one girl involved in an alibi and you automatically
got problems,” said Johnny. “We need to go somewhere we can think
and work this thing out.” He turned to Jake, the Snake, Vincent who was
driving. “Jake, let’s go over to the state park.” Jake had
gotten the car, the getaway car for the bank job Bobby had just screwed up. Jake
said the car wouldn’t be missed before Monday, maybe not even then if he
could sneak it back in to where he got it. That was part of the plan for the
job. They’d planned it down to the last detail, and all that had gone into
the toilet when Bobby pulled off his ski mask inside the bank.
“Don’t go too fast, no quick starts or stops, stay on the pavement,” Johnny
said to Jake. “Drive to the pavilions at the back of the park. Nobody goes
there even during the daylight this time of year, much less this time of night.”
The other guy, sitting up front with Jake, was Bo Linsky. He was Jake’s
friend, and Jake brought him in on the job. He had done well, no hurry, no excitement,
no panic. Cool and efficient, he would probably make a good career criminal.
Unfortunately, Bobby’s panic had kept everyone else from doing a good job.
As soon as he pulled off his ski mask, the emphasis shifted from getting the
money to getting out before anybody saw Bobby. They didn’t get any money.
And worse, Johnny was sure they didn’t get out before anybody saw Bobby.
After they left the bank, they just drove as far away as Johnny thought they
could safely go in case anyone was looking for them already. Then they pulled
off the road into the woods to wait for dark.
Jake pulled up to one of the park’s pavilions. “Not too far, stay
on the pavement,” Johnny cautioned Jake. Then to the group, “Let’s
go sit at the table and see what we can figure out.”
They sat around the picnic table, staring off into the gloom of the surrounding
forest. “Maybe I can get just one of my girls to swear where I was today,” said
Bobby.
“Well, that’s a possibility,” said Johnny. “But I think
the cops are gonna automatically tie me and Jake to you and Bo to Jake so we
gotta come up with something airtight for all of us.”
“I don’t know, Johnny. If my alibi is so good they can’t tie
it to me, then they can’t tie it to you. After all, I’m the only
one the people in the bank saw.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Johnny nodded at his brother. He didn't
sound convinced. He stared off into the distance apparently lost in thought.
After a long time in which nobody spoke, Johnny asked Bobby, “You still
got your gun? We’re gonna need to get rid of it.”
Bobby took the silver 32-caliber revolver from his pocket and handed it to Johnny.
Johnny turned the cylinder to make sure there was a round under the hammer. Then
he placed the barrel against Bobby’s right temple and pulled the trigger.
The gun made a small popping noise, Bobby didn’t make a sound. His head
dropped to the picnic table, and he was still.
"Omigod," said Jake as both he and Bo snapped upright, staring first
at Bobby and then at Johnny. They looked wide-eyed at Johnny wondering what he
might do next. After they decided that he probably was not going to shoot them,
too, Jake asked, “Man, why’d you wanna do that all of a sudden?”
Johnny sat staring at Bobby’s head on the table. The odor of gunsmoke still
hung in the air and blood was pooling around Bobby's hair. “I didn’t
want to do it,” he said slowly. He looked up at Jake, “And it wasn’t
all that sudden. I been trying to figure out what would be the best thing to
do ever since he pulled off his mask back there in the bank. I just couldn’t
figure out anything else to do. I just don’t know what I’m gonna
tell my mom and pop. He was their baby. This is gonna kill them.”
“Yeah, Man,” Bo finally spoke up. “I don’t know how you
could do that to your own brother.”
“They wasn’t no other way out,” Johnny shook his head slowly
as he spoke. “He was caught the second he pulled his mask off. They was
people in that bank that knew him. I know some of them saw him. He was caught,
so he’s better off now anyway. He’s my brother and I love him; but
I knew he can’t hold out when they start to pressuring him. He’d
told on all of us. We’d all been caught. I just done what was best for
the whole group. But I still don’t know what I’m gonna tell my mom
and pop.”
Johnny looked down at his hands. He was still wearing the gloves for the job.
They all were. They’d agreed they’d keep them on until they were
done with everything, so there would be no inadvertent fingerprints left anywhere.
But now he picked up Bobby’s right hand from the table and pulled the glove
off. He reached over the body and pulled the left glove off, too. Then he wrapped
the fingers of Bobby’s right hand around the butt of the pistol, put Bobby’s
index finger on the trigger, raised Bobby’s arm straight up and squeezed
the trigger, firing a round into the sky. Then he lay the hand back on the table
with the gun still in it.
“I gotta make it look like Bobby killed hisself. He knew they was gonna
catch him, so he killed hisself.” Johnny looked at Jake and Bo, “What
else do I need to do?”
Bo said, “They’s two rounds fired out of that gun. Ain’t that
gonna look funny? Think you ought to put one back?”
Johnny thought a second, “Naw. I don’t think so. I don’t want
to handle that gun anymore than I have to. I believe they’ll just think
he fired a test round into the air before he shot hisself. I think I read somewhere
that people who shoot themselves outside do that a lot.”
Jake asked, “You just gonna leave him here?”
“I don’t wanna move him. I think anything we do has a risk of leaving
clues. I just wanna keep it as simple as possible.”
“Yeah, but ain’t they gonna wonder how he got here?” persisted
Jake.
“They can wonder. Probably his accomplices, whoever they are, dropped him
off here. We just got to be sure we can’t be tied to him today.”
“Nobody saw all of us together before the bank. That was in the plan,” Bo
said. “But you left home with him. Where’d your folks think you were
going?”
“We just told them we was going out. I’ll tell them I dropped him
outside Rasty’s. A lot of young people hang out there. They oughta believe
he’d go there.”
“But nobody at Rasty’s is gonna remember him today,” said Jake.
“Hell, I don’t know where he went after I dropped him off. Maybe
it was just a meeting place with his accomplices. Maybe they picked him up there
or around the corner or somewhere.”
The three men sat around the table all staring down at Bobby as the blood that
had surrounded his head began to thicken and darken. "I don't feel real
good talking about this with him laying there dead," said Jake, "Can't
we go someplace else to figure this out?"
"No, no," said Johnny. "I wanna get this settled fore anything
else comes up to screw it up. We gotta do it here and now."
“Okay," said Bo, "so how about us?” “We gotta be
each other’s alibis, don’t we?”
“Yeah,” said Johnny. “We gotta say I hooked up with you guys
after I dropped Bobby off and we spent the rest of the day together - what -
playing cards, shooting hoops, fishing, hunting - what?” The original plan
had called for them to split up after the bank and establish four different alibis
that would make it hard to tie them together. When Bobby pulled his mask off,
he threw the whole plan off.
“Okay,” said Bo, “let’s say we were playing cards, poker.
There are some people who know we do that sometimes.”
“Where’d we play?” asked Johnny.
“Jake’s place,” said Bo. “There’s less chance anybody
would have seen us there.”
“I don’t know,” said Jake, “what if somebody came by
there today looking for me. They’d know there was nobody there, they’d
know we wasn’t playing cards there. They’d know there was no cars
there, neither.”
“Well, it was a nice day,” said Bo, “so let’s just say
we went out to the river and played cards and drank beer all afternoon.”
“That might work,” agreed Johnny. “Nobody much goes out there
that could say we weren’t there. Where’d we get the beer?”
“I brought it,” said Jake. “I had a case at the house that
I was holding for an occasion.”
“What kind of beer was it?”
“Bud, what else?”
“What’d we do with the empties?”
“Put ‘em back in the case and threw ‘em in a dumpster on the
way back.”
“Whose car did we take?”
“I think we better say we met out there to cover all the cars. If we say
we took one car, they’re gonna ask about the others.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. How’d the poker go? Who won?”
“Hell, I did,” said Jake. “I always win.”
“How much?” asked Bo.
“Last time we played, I won $12.50. Probably would be safer if we used
those numbers, real numbers we can remember.”
“Yeah, I lost five bucks,” said Bo. “How about you, Johnny?”
“I think I won a couple bucks. We had Cougar Williams and One-Eye Johnson
playing, too. I think they both lost a little. I think it would be a good idea
to use real numbers. There would be less chance we’d get them screwed up.
What else do we need to cover?”
“I don’t know,” said Jake. “Me and Bo never saw Bobby
today. We just went out to the river to meet you and play cards and drink beer.”
“Yeah, we gotta say we agreed on it earlier, yesterday, okay?” said
Johnny.
“Why didn’t we tell anybody else we was gonna do that? They gonna
ask folks if we told them.”
“We didn’t want nobody else along. We just wanted best buddies together,” said
Bo.
Johnny wondered if this might be a weakness in their story. He never considered
Bo his best buddy, and he didn’t think Bo considered him his best buddy.
But he didn’t want to question this now. It might cause friction they didn’t
need. “What did we do before we went to the river?” he asked.
“I think we can just tell them what we really did before we met for the
bank,” said Jake. “I didn’t do nothing, just hung around the
house, nothing wrong with that.” He gave Bo a quizzical look.
“Me neither,” said Bo. “I just hung around the house.”
“What else?” asked Johnny, raising his palms with the question.
Jake shrugged his shoulders, Bo shook his head.
“Okay, that’s it then,” said Johnny. “Let’s get
out of here.”
Without a backward glance, they got into the getaway car and drove away, leaving
Bobby where he lay.
***
“Bobby, is that you?”
“No, Mama, it’s me.”
“Oh, Johnny. Is Bobby with you?”
“No, Ma’am. I ain’t seen him since I dropped him off at Rasty’s
this afternoon.”
“Oh, I thought you was going somewheres together.”
“Naw, he just said he wanted to go to Rasty’s. I thought maybe he
was meeting somebody there. I just dropped him off outside and went on to meet
Jake and Bo.”
Well, Bobby ain’t back yet, and I’m beginning to get worried.”
“You wasn’t worried about me?”
“Well, yeah, but I thought you two was together. Now I know you ain’t,
I’m really worried about Bobby.”
Geez, Johnny thought, if she’s this worried now, how's she gonna be when
she finds out what really happened to her little boy? Aloud, he said, “He’s
probably with some of them kids down at Rasty’s, just having fun. Probably
just forgot the time.”
“Well, it’s some of them kids at Rasty’s that makes me worry.
I think somebody oughta go down there and check on him. Your daddy’s not
here or I’d send him. Why don’t you go down there and see if Bobby’s
okay?”
“I don’t know why you worry about that boy so much. I don’t
think you ever worried about me like that.”
“Well, you was different. I didn’t have to worry about you like I
have to worry about Bobby.”
“Well, Mama, did you ever stop to think the difference might just be in
your own head? Did you ever stop to think it might just be that you love Bobby
a little more than you ever loved me?”
“We sure ain’t got no time for foolishness like that right now. We
need to go check on Bobby. Are you going or am I gonna have to go myself?”
“I’m going, but I think you ought to think about what I said a little
bit,” Johnny walked out the front door to his car.
He didn’t see any sense in going to Rasty’s. He knew Bobby wasn’t
there. It would probably be just as good to go park somewhere for a little while
and then go home and tell Mama he couldn’t find Bobby. He drove down the
alley with his lights off until he came to the school bus access road. Then he
followed that to the back of the old high school he’d gone to until he
dropped out in tenth grade. It was a middle school now, but that hadn’t
changed its outward appearance. All the old memories were still there.
He parked on the other side of the football field and stared at the building
which had been such a source of frustration for him. He’d spent three years
there, and he had never fit in very well. There were some fun times, and there
were a few girls that hung around him just because he didn’t fit in. But
the work and the rules and the teachers and the principals finally made it not
worthwhile to keep coming here, so he quit when he was 16 and stayed home. His
folks didn’t like that too well, they preferred having him out of the house.
But it wasn’t worth a big fight to them; so, except for an occasional hint
that he should get a job, they let it go.
He stared into the darkness and remembered that Bobby had also tried to follow
his lead when he became 16. Bobby told him that he’d gone to their father,
always safer than going to Mama, and told him he was quitting school. “I
don’t think your mama’s gonna like that too well,” Daddy said.
“But Johnny quit,” Bobby protested. “Nobody stopped him from
quitting.”
Johnny always thought Bobby relished the next line of the story a little too
much in the retelling. After what he probably considered an appropriate level
of resistance to revealing an unpleasant truth, Bobby had told him that Daddy
said, “You gotta realize, Son, your mama looks differently at you and Johnny.
Johnny can do some things she don’t care about, but it ain’t the
same with you. She wants you to have it better than the rest of us. She cares
about you too much to let you do some of the stuff Johnny does.”
Bobby let it drop after that. He finished high school, first in their family
to do that, just last year. Ever since then, he’d been trying to figure
out what he wanted to do with his life. I guess he doesn’t have to worry
about that anymore, thought Johnny as he started the car back up and headed back
toward the house.
Johnny followed the streets this time, not the alley; and when he turned onto
his street, he saw the police car parked in front of his house, headlights on
but no flashing lights. As he pulled up behind it and turned off his engine,
he said, “Showtime,” softly to himself and stepped out. Mama was
on the front porch, Daddy was back, too. They were talking to Marty MacPherson,
the deputy sheriff who mostly worked this part of town. Marty had been in Johnny’s
high school class. Of course, he’d fit right in and had stayed to graduate.
He also did his couple of years at the local community college and got an associates
degree in Criminal Justice. Now he was the epitome of the upstanding citizen,
young man on his way up. Johnny had had a couple of run-ins with Marty already
- minor things, public drunkenness, speeding. “Hey, Marty,” he said. “What’s
up?”
“Johnny. How you doing, Man? I’m looking for Bobby. You know where
he is?”
“No. We was just wondering that ourselves. I was just out looking for him.
But I expect my folks already told you that, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, yeah, they did. They said you were looking at Rasty’s. He
wasn’t there, huh?”
“No, nobody there knew where he was.”
“You dropped him off there this afternoon, right?”
“Yeah, I dropped him off in front of Rasty’s, but I didn’t
watch him go inside. That was the last time I saw him.”
“Well, let’s hope not,” Marty grinned. “We’ll find
him. We always do.”
“Why are you looking for him anyway, Marty? My folks didn’t report
him missing, did they?”
“No, I just found out he was missing when I showed up here looking for
him. Fact is we got a report he was involved in something we’re checking
on. We need to talk to him about that. Matter of fact, there were three other
guys involved in the same thing. You got any idea who they might be?”
“What is this thing you’re talking about, Marty? What do you think
my brother was involved in with three other guys?“
“Well, we really need to find out a little more about it before we can
reveal too many details. You say you dropped him off at Rasty’s. Anybody
there you think he might have hooked up with? Anybody he hung out with?”
“I don’t know those kids down there, Marty. I think kids more Bobby’s
age go there, so it probably could be anybody.”
“Listen, don’t take this the wrong way, but just to help me tie up
the loose ends, where were you today? What did you do after you dropped Bobby
off at Rasty’s?”
Johnny wondered if he should show outrage, annoyance, or some other emotion at
being questioned as a suspect. He thought fleetingly that it’s hard to
know how to act when you know more than you’re supposed to know about what’s
going on. He decided to try to play it straight. “I just went out to the
river and played cards with some guys I know.”
“Who were they? If you know them, I probably know them, too.”
“Sure you know them - Jake Vincent and Bo Linsky.”
“So there were three of you? Playing cards all afternoon at the river?”
Was it time to be outraged yet? “Yeah, three of us, playing cards, all
afternoon, at the river,” Johnny punctuated each phrase with a jerk of
his outstretched palms.
“Okay, okay,” Marty’s palm was pointing toward Johnny. “Look
it’s getting a little late, and I think we’re a little tired. So
let’s pick this up later. Maybe by then we’ll know more about where
Bobby is.” He turned away and moved toward the steps. When he got to the
sidewalk, he turned back, “Oh, by the way, Johnny, how’d you do in
the card game? You win or lose?”
“What in the hell has that got to do with anything?“ asked Johnny,
then shrugged. “I won a couple bucks,” he said.
“Good,” Marty said, “Oh, and I left my card with your folks
in case any of you want to call me.” He walked on out to his car and left.
Johnny slept late the next morning, nothing better to do. But when he did wake
up, it was to his mother’s screams. “Oh, no, no, no, no,” she
cried in a voice that pierced Johnny’s sleep and brought him instantly
awake to the knowledge that someone had found Bobby’s body.
He pulled on his pants and went out into the living room. Marty MacPherson was
back. He stood, hat in hand, with a look of condolence on his face, in front
of Johnny’s parents. Johnny’s mother continued to wail, tears rolled
down her cheeks and she kept saying “no” over and over.
“What’s going on?” asked Johnny, looking at Marty.
“They found Bobby’s body,” said Marty. “He’s dead.”
“Who found Bobby’s body? Where? How’d he die? What happened?” Johnny
was screaming now, too.
“Calm down, Johnny,” said Marty. “We don’t know much
yet. Some state maintenance guys found the body out at the state park at one
of those picnic tables. I’m sorry to tell you this, but it looked like
he killed himself. The medical people have him now, and they’ll have to
do an autopsy to confirm that.”
Johnny’s mother was still screaming, “No, no, no,” but now
she added, “My boy didn’t kill hisself. He wouldn’t do that.
No, no, no.” She finally quieted a little, sobbing and mumbling to herself.
She collapsed onto the couch where Johnny’s father had been sitting quietly
all along. Now he put his arm around her and started rocking slowly, still saying
nothing.
Marty motioned for Johnny to accompany him to the front porch. When they got
there, he turned toward Johnny and said, “The reason I was looking for
Bobby yesterday was a robbery at the First City Bank. It’s going to be
on the news today, so I might as well tell you what we know. Four guys tried
to rob the bank with handguns. They were all wearing ski masks; but right in
the middle of it, one of them pulled his mask off and started gasping for air.
That sort of broke up the whole thing, because the other guys grabbed him and
pulled him out of there. A couple of people in the bank are sure the robber who
pulled off his mask was Bobby. They said he’d been in there before and
they’d recognize him anywhere. They’re going to broadcast that today.”
“So then what’s your theory?” asked Johnny, “that Bobby
knew he was gonna be caught so he shot hisself?”
“That’s one theory,” said Marty. He paused a moment, then added, “But
I don’t think I said he was shot, did I?”
Crap, thought Johnny, he didn’t say Bobby shot himself. Man, I can‘t
afford any of these screw ups. He decided to bluff it through. “Sure you
did,” he said. “Anyway you said four guys tried to rob the bank with
guns, so it stands to reason.”
“Yeah, well like I said, that’s one theory. But some of the guys
who have been around awhile said another theory might be that the guys who were
with him knew he was going to be caught so they shot him and tried to make it
look like he shot himself. They say there’s ways of telling that, and they’re
checking on it. They let me come to tell you because I told them I‘m a
friend of the family.”
Yeah, some friggin' friend, thought Johnny. He had never liked Marty very much.
Unlike the Daniels boys, he was too damned perfect. But Johnny had to go along
this time. “That was nice of them,” he said. “Sort of break
it to us gently, huh?”
“Yeah. Oh, and one other thing that’s going to be on the news today
is the descriptions of the three guys who were with Bobby. Frankly, Johnny, those
descriptions, height and size and stuff, fit you and Bo and Jake.”
“Come on, Man, you kinda reaching now, ain’t you? I guess me and
Bo and Jake are about the most average sized guys you’re gonna find anywhere,
so it ain’t surprising that we’d fit the descriptions of somebody
whose face you can’t see.”
“I don’t know if it’s reaching or not,” said Marty. "Finding
three such average sized guys together in the same place at the same time is
a little bit of a coincidence in itself.” He paused a moment to let that
sink in. "But I assume you three would be willing to be in a voice lineup
to help clear it up, wouldn't you?"
"A voice lineup?," said Johnny. "What the hell's a voice lineup?"
"We'd just get the folks who were in the bank to listen to you three's voices
to see if they can identify anyone from that. We'd ask you to say stuff like
'Raise your hands and get away from the counter' and 'Put all the money in here.'
You know, stuff the robbers said. You wouldn't mind that, would you?"
What the hell can I say, thought Johnny. Out loud he said, "Hell, no, I
wouldn't mind."
"Good," said Marty. “Now I have to get back to the office and
see what else I can do in the investigation.” He turned toward the steps.
This time he paused on the second step and looked back, “Oh, I asked Bo
and Jake about the poker game. I can’t seem to make the numbers match up.
You said you won a couple bucks, Jake said he won over $12, but Bo only lost
$5. Where are the other losers?”
“Well, we probably just got it mixed up,” said Johnny. “Jake
probably didn’t win that much. Hell, maybe I didn’t win.”
“Funny, I never knew a poker player that didn’t know exactly how
much he won or lost in a game,” said Marty.
Another little screw up, thought Johnny. But he had this one covered. “You
ever know one who might lie about how much he won or lost?” he asked.
“Yeah, I guess so. But it’ll all come out in the wash. It always
does. One little inconsistency leads to another, leads to a bigger one, and finally
it all comes out. We’re still talking to Bo and Jake. Jake seems to get
a little nervous talking to cops. Sometimes he gets to talking and can’t
seem to stop.” Marty walked down a couple more steps, and then turned back
again, “And I’ve got to go back to Rasty’s. We can’t
seem to find anybody who saw you there looking for Bobby."
"Why in the hell are you looking for somebody who saw me there? You oughta
be looking for somebody who saw Bobby," snapped Johnny.
"That's just routine, Johnny. Don't overreact, might make people think you
got something to hide. Anyway, it was probably just a different crowd than when
you were there.”
“Yeah,” said Johnny, “Maybe that’s why I couldn’t
find anybody who seen Bobby, a different crowd from when I dropped him off.” Now
he realized that he should probably really have gone to Rasty’s and pretended
to look for Bobby instead of just parking on the school grounds.
Marty paused and looked Johnny straight in the eye. “I’ll see you
later, Johnny,” he said and walked slowly on down the sidewalk.
Johnny thought that last statement sounded a little ominous. He watched Marty
all the way out to his patrol car and on down the street until the taillights
disappeared. Then he turned to go back inside the house. His mother and father
were standing inside, just on the other side of the screen door. He opened the
door and squeezed in past them, heading down the hall toward his room.
“Johnny,” his mother called behind him, “Is it true what that
policeman said? Was it you and Jake and Bo with Bobby in that bank?”
Johnny turned back. “He didn’t say that, Mama,” he protested.
“Might as well have said it. That’s what he meant. You boys been
a problem for me ever since you was born. You was always in some kind of trouble.
But always before it was little things. The kind of stuff I could just pass off
by saying ‘Boys will be boys.’ But not this. This is real bad.”
“It‘s real bad okay, Mama,” snapped Johnny. “Whatever
Bobby got hisself involved in this time is real bad. But another thing, Mama,
you know you only said, ‘Boys will be boys’ when Bobby did something
bad. When I did something, you had other stuff you said about how bad I was and
how stupid and how useless.”
His mother didn’t give any indication that she even heard what he said. “You
know what else that policeman said. He just as good as said you killed your own
brother, too.”
“Now you know that ain’t true, Mama,” said Johnny trying to
summon anguish to his face. “You know I wouldn’t never do nothing
like that.”
“What’s tearing me up as a mother is that I don’t know it,” said
Mama, twisting her apron between her hands and staring down at the floor. “I
got one boy, my baby boy, dead, and the police are talking like my other boy
killed him.”
“Well, Bobby may be gone, but you don’t have to worry none about
me,” said Johnny. “They’ll never prove I killed him.”
His mother’s eyes snapped up from the floor and glared at him. “That’s
a long way from saying you didn’t do it, Boy,” she rasped.
“Mama, I can’t talk about this no more. I might say something none
of us wants to hear. I’m going to bed.” Johnny spun around and walked
on up the hall to his room.
He didn’t sleep much that night. Even when he fell into a fitful sleep,
he tossed and turned. And disturbing dreams came almost immediately. He saw Bobby's
head lying on the picnic table with the blood slowly spreading around it. That
brought him back instantly to a restless consciousness and troubling thoughts.
Marty was right. Jake did get nervous and talk too much. And his own mother didn’t
believe he didn’t kill his little brother. There were too many little inconsistencies
popping up in their stories.
Sometime before dawn he lay smoking a cigarette in the dark, watching the red
glow on the tip when he finally decided the best thing for him to do would be
to get out of there, just leave and go somewhere they couldn’t find him.
He snuffed out the butt and grabbed a laundry bag from his closet. He stuffed
his clothes into it and started out down the hall.
He wanted to leave quietly, not wake up his parents, and get a long way away
before they knew he was gone. But as he tiptoed down the hall, he heard a noise,
a tiny stirring in the kitchen. He peeked in and saw a form sitting at the table
in the dark. She couldn't see him, but he realized that it was his mother. In
the meager light from the outside street lamp, he could also see that she had
his father's pistol, a .38 caliber revolver, lying on the table in front of her.
He could tell she was sobbing, her shoulders shuddered and her head bobbed slowly
with the effort. As he watched, she reached for the pistol and held it in front
of her, sobbing a little louder and saying softly, "Oh, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby,
Bobby." She raised the gun slowly to her head and Johnny reached around
the doorway and flipped on the light. His mother looked up at him, blinking in
the harsh brightness.
“Mama, I didn’t know you was up already,” Johnny said, trying
to sound casual. “What’s the matter, couldn’t sleep?”
“I ain’t been to bed,” she said. “I just been thinking
about things.”
“What in the world you doing with that thing?” Johnny pointed to
the gun. “That’s dangerous. You could get hurt.”
“Yeah, well, that’s one of the things I been thinking about,” she
said and put the gun back down on the table in front of her. “Another thing
I was thinking, Johnny, was that if Bobby was in that bank to rob it like they
say, he wouldn’t been there without you. That boy would never do nothing
like that on his own. And he wouldn’t done it with nobody else but his
big brother neither. If Bobby was in that bank, I know you was in there, too.” She
paused and looked at Johnny as if waiting for a rebuttal. He didn’t say
anything. After a while she continued, “I been wondering all night about
how Bobby died. They said it looked like a suicide, but I just don’t believe
that boy could kill hisself. I just don’t think he had it in him no matter
how much trouble he thought he was in.” She paused again, stared at the
table, shook her head, and said, “No, he wouldn’t kill hisself. But
the people who was with him, who thought he might get them caught, maybe they
could do it.”
Johnny couldn’t restrain himself any longer, “But you said you think
I was with him. So you’re saying you think I killed him.”
“Did you?” she asked. “Did you kill your little brother? Did
you kill my baby boy?”
“You’re saying you don’t believe he’d kill hisself, but
you do believe I’d kill him. My own mama believes I’d kill my own
brother. I guess that sort of tells us where I stand around here. And that’s
the way it’s always been. Ever since Bobby was born he’s been number
one. If we got the situation you think we got, maybe that’s what made it,
Mama.” Johnny was talking fast and loud now. “Maybe the way I was
treated all my life made me into the kind of person who’d kill his own
brother.” He glared at his mother.
She was silent now, tears streaming down her cheeks. She reached out and touched
the gun before her. In almost a whisper, she said, “I got this out because
it made me feel safe here in the dark. But during the night while I was thinking
about what was going on, about Bobby and you, I wondered if I could ever use
it. And I wondered how I’d use it, what I‘d do with it. My pain at
losing Bobby is so bad I can’t stand it. But I think my pain at knowing
I raised a son who’d kill his own brother is worse. Maybe I thought I could
ease my pain with this. Maybe I thought I had no more reason to live after all
this that happened.” She picked up the gun and stared at it. She raised
it as if to bring it to her head again.
Johnny moved quickly toward her. He grabbed her arm and pulled the gun away from
her head. As he did, she pulled the trigger, and a gaping hole appeared in the
middle of Johnny's forehead. His momentum carried him onto the table, and he
lay there still and quiet. His mother stared at the hole in his head for a long
time as his blood ran down his brow onto the table cloth. Tears continued to
stream down her face, and her body jerked spasmodically as she sobbed. Finally
she stood up and reached into her apron pocket. She withdrew Marty MacPherson’s
card and stared at it for a moment. She took one more look at Johnny’s
body sprawled across the table and then moved slowly toward the telephone.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam Douglas is a former military man who served in Air Force Intelligence
all over the world including several combat and Cold War stations.
He is now a freelance writer living in the southern US. He has a BS
from the University of Maryland and an MS from Webster University.
His work has appeared in various university, small press, and online
publications.
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