The Spot: Stories

The flex of time against unmitigated factors. The intrusion of the unknown into the idea of the heist in such a way that you cannot possibly attribute the botch that transpired to a failure of planning. It came with the folks who were there from the start, not only the old security codger — named Ed, Earl, or Ike — but also those in line, including the Old Order Mennonite who turned at Donnie’s commands to present placid eyes and a grim mouth. He held the look of a man who was obligated to only one commander. A few of the farmer types stayed put until they saw the gun barrel. Then the line bowed — a small towheaded boy, two women who were just about to shriek — until Donnie went up to the Mennonite and put the gun close in, not touching but close enough to give him something to really think about. (And the man did think. You could see it in his pale, serene gaze. In the way he lifted his shoulders slightly. He had that neat, tidy composure that came from the grace of God, I thought at the window, glancing out at the street and then back inside, trying to keep my head clear, to see both sides of the coin, so to speak.) Donnie moved close and a tension formed. Meanwhile, in the back, Carson was working the bagman routine, hefting his tommy gun, scaring up some cash. In those first few moments everything unfolded. The security codger was on his side, on the floor. (We’d pistol-whipped him first, taking him by surprise and from behind, sending him down to the floor for a few kicks, his gun pinwheeling away. He was there for a reason, we knew, and that reason was if not to resist then to look startled and frail, to make us feel a bit more of the guilt that came from our obligations; just as the small kid, the towheaded one, was there to remind us that we had a duty to avoid the botch, to make things run smoothly, if possible, and to keep order.) But the Old Order Mennonite stood firm and absorbed the orders — Donnie was barking hard at him, his neck straining — while the ladies cried, tipping their heads back slightly, exposing the napes of their necks, making birdlike motions, as if waiting to be fed, while back behind the counters Carson bustled. Everything was smooth from my vantage. Everything was moving neatly along the general plan, even the Old Order Mennonite, who was a factor already factored in. Bags were being filled up, and Carson’s talent for getting action out of the tip of his gun, of turning fear into motion, was in full play. He rocked the gun against his hip and worked it slowly in relation to his thin, lean, whiplash Okie frame, carrying himself with a formality, a politeness that was tight to his jaw. Just hearing the snap in his voice you know that everything sluiced down into a particular moment, a void of air where money slipped into those bags. The tart tension of those bags! The feeling in the air of transaction! Time fluxed around a point in space near Carson. It bent around the fear and fluxed smoothly around the Old Order Mennonite (or Old Order Amish), pouring around him as he held his ground, his spit-shined shoes tight to the floor.

Idea was to glance out at the view — the clean vista of Third Avenue to the west, and Cedar Street to the east — and then inside for a few seconds before glancing out again, finding the right balance and speed to hold both (inside and outside) in mind at the same time; never really taking my eye off the ball, so to speak, and in that manner backing up Donnie and maybe even Carson, who might need me to run back to help with the loot. Idea was to find a groove and to stay in it, not losing the sense that the outside world was inside, too, in a way, and in that manner also — and this defies logic, but then so does a good heist — assure that no one would come wandering in to disrupt the job.