I
Winston and I waited in the Hummer while Benny zipped into the Family Dollar. My brother was really starting to tick me off; all he was doing was trying to impress Winston. He was always like that. He always wanted to be ‘cool’. That was why he volunteered to go into the store and get the ski masks in the first place. Benny just wanted to be liked, but he was so annoying; it was hard not to squeeze his eyeballs out of their sockets.
He speed walked out of the Family Dollar holding a white shopping bag and leaped into the back seat of the Hummer. “You got the masks?” I asked.
“Hells yeah, bitch,” Benny replied.
“Do you really want to start something with me?”
“Yeah, maybe I do.”
I sighed and called him an idiot. I then told Winston to drive to the closest bank.
“What? You guys don’t even have a plan for this?” Winston laughed.
“The plan is,” I informed, “me and my brother are going to go into the bank, alright? Then we’re gonna come out with money. If we’re lucky we’ll have five million, but the chances of that are really slim. That’s why when we’re done with this bank we’re gonna move on to the next one. We’re gonna keep doing this until we have five million bucks.” That plan sounded like something Benny would conjure up.
“Sounds great, Maddox. This is gonna be awesome!” Benny exclaimed.
“You guys are morons. I don’t care, one hint of the pigs and I jet, are we crystal?” Winston asked.
“Just drive,” I said.
II
He parked across the street from a Fifth Third Bank. “Give me a mask, Benny,” I said, reaching my hand in the back seat. I felt the clothing of a ski mask drop in my palm so I brought my arm back. I took one look at the mask and turned around at my brother. “Benny, what the hell is this?”
“A ski-mask. That’s what you said to get, right?” Benny said.
“Yeah, I told you to get ski-masks. That is correct. But why did you get pink ones?”
“Well, have you ever bought ski-masks before, Maddox? They’re expensive as all hell. Those skiers must be loaded or something. And these were on sale; buy one and get one free. I would have been an idiot to not take advantage of this deal, man.”
“We’re gonna look like a couple of fags, Benny. Who’s going to take us seriously?”
“Well … umm … okay, I screwed up again! Can’t we just start the show already? I need a gun, somebody give me a gun.”
“What do you mean? Where’s your Beretta?”
“Damnit, Maddox, how many times do I have to tell you? I do not understand all this prison slang. Start talkin’ American or don’t talk at all, capisce?”
“Where is your gun from the trailer?” I asked, calmly.
“Umm … at the trailer? Now I need a new gun. Come on, somebody cough one up.”
I turned to Winston and asked if he had any guns we could borrow. His smile lit up the interior of the car as he reached for a button. He hit it and the door clear in the back of the Hummer unlocked. “They’re all loaded. Only take what you need.”
Benny and I hopped out of the car and made our way to the back. I opened the door and gasped at the sight of a full on arsenal. Pistols, shotguns, knives, and machine guns.
“Holy shit,” Benny exclaimed, “is this a fuckin rocket launcher?”
Surely enough it was. A RPG; a rocket propelled grenade launcher. “Maddox, who the hell is this dude?”
“Just shut up, Benny. Here, take this.” I shoved an Uzi into his hands and picked up a black revolver for myself, and then I slammed the back of the Hummer shut. We both slid the pink ski-masks over our faces. “Alright, Benny, just follow me, okay? You don’t do anything without my say-so. You’re just for show, so come on, let’s go.”
III
“This is a stickup, nobody move!” I screamed as I put a bullet in the ceiling and drywall collapsed on the marble floor. “Everybody get down, except for you!” I pointed my pistol at a bank teller that stood directly in front of me. She had long brown curly hair, too much makeup, and an exploded pink bubble smeared across her lips. I looked down and sighed. “Goddamnit, Benny, get up,” I whispered at my brother. He slowly got to his feet.
“But you said for everybody to get down.”
“Just shut up, okay?”
“Okay, fine. God …”
I rushed to the counter and tossed her a white laundry bag. “Go to the vault and fill it up. Now! You got thirty seconds to finish up.”
“Are you guys serious?” she asked.
“Do you think this is a joke?” I shouted.
“Well … what’s with the masks?”
“They were on sale …” Benny murmured.
“You got twenty seconds until I paint the walls with your brains, now go get the money!” I screamed. That seemed good enough to convince the bank teller.
The frightened woman grasped the laundry bag and hurried to the vault. She returned twenty-five seconds later and Benny and I headed for the front door. The bag wasn’t even a quarter of the way full. It was okay, though; I hadn’t really expected much from a small hick town. The robbery had actually gone smoother then I had expected --
A blinding red mist shot up through the opening of the laundry bag and into my face. Benny jumped back in surprised and exclaimed, “Holy shit, are you shot? Who the fuck has a gun? Huh? I’ll kill all you motherfuc--”
“I’m not shot, shut up,” I said. I turned around and stormed my way back to the teller. “Are you kidding? What were you thinking?”
“I-I-I-it was supposed to have waited ten seconds after you went past the door. It must have malfunctioned somehow … I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Was that all the money?” I asked.
Her teary face nodded. I threw the laundry bag across the room and shouted for my brother to follow me. Before I could react, though, Benny squeezed the trigger of the Uzi and the bank teller’s head caved in. She slumped to the floor. Scared and at the same time pissed off, I grabbed my brother by the shoulder and dragged him out of the Fifth Third Bank. I pushed him into the yellow Hummer and then ran around and leaped into the front passenger’s seat. Winston slammed his foot down on the gas peddle and we got the hell out of Dodge.
“What happened to you?” Winston asked, once giving me a once over of my red splattered body. “You get shot?”
“No, damn dye pack exploded on me,” I replied. I turned to the back seat and asked what was wrong with my brother. “Are you fucking nuts?”
“I’m sorry,” Benny said, “I just got caught up in the moment …”
“Oh here we go! Ole trigger happy Benny makes his return.”
“Come on, Maddox, don’t bring that up now. I already said I was sorry. What more do you want from me? I don’t know why I killed her.”
“Whoa whoa!” exclaimed Winston, “you killed someone? Good job, man.”
“Don’t encourage him,” I said. “He’s just trigger happy, always has been.”
“Shut up, Maddox.”
“Just like when we were little and you killed Buster with the BB gun --”
“Mom told you never to bring that up!” he whined.
“--and the time you broke your toe with the air rifle --”
“Maddox, shut up! I’m gonna tell Mom, I swear it.”
I tugged the pink and red ski-mask off my face and tossed it out the window. My eyes were burning as if I had Head and Shoulders shampoo rubbed in them.
“So … “ Benny said, “are we going to another bank now?”
“Hell no, man,” Winston replied, “there’s red shit all over the place in here, we gotta go to your crib and stay on the lowdown for awhile.”
I went to say something but my eyes were in too much pain. I clenched my teeth and punched the roof of the car. “Let’s just get there already.”
IV
When we got to the trailer I jogged straight to the bathroom. I heard the phone ringing in the distance but I had more important things on my mind, such as getting this horrid paint out of my eyes. I threw my red splattered clothes off and hopped in the shower. It took almost twenty minutes for the pain to cease. While I was in there, rubbing my eyes with warm water, I thought long and hard about how to resolve this predicament. There were many solutions I came up with, but ultimately I decided on something.
I asked Benny if he still had that newspaper of the family who got rich off of the lottery. He pointed to the kitchen table where it was still laying. I skimmed through the article and then read it again, but more carefully.
They were the Desperation family. They won eleven million dollars playing the numbers; one, two, three, four and five. Then a month later they won nine more million dollars playing the same exact numbers. It was something that nobody had ever seen nor heard of before. It was a little historical. I was surprised when the article in the newspaper mentioned where they lived. They had moved from Lake Station, Indiana to Cherryville, Indiana. They had lived in one of the most famous mansions in the whole state. Used to be the Warrick Mansion, now it was the Desperation Mansion. But twenty million dollars? No human should have that much money. Too many dead presidents and it rots your ethics, your conscious. Your heart becomes black and all you care about anymore is getting more and more money. You live a megalomaniacal life style.
I would be doing them a favor by taking their fortune.
V
The next morning when I woke up I stumbled out into the kitchen and popped open a brew. Winston was sitting at the table with the newspaper in his hand. “Found this on the door step,” he said. “Look at the headline.”
I glanced over and read in bold print; HOMOSEXUAL COUPLE UNSUCCESSFULLY ROB LAKE STATION BANK.
“Goddamn Benny,” I muttered, and took a sip of the beer. Winston laughed in amusement and I wanted to smash the bottle against the side of his head.
An hour later we got in the Hummer and headed out to Cherryville. It only took a couple minutes of asking around to find out where exactly the Desperation mansion was located. A long street with mansions all around. It was like some sort of Beverly Hills. Almost all of them were identical, but we still found the Desperation one without any problems. We drove down the long narrow driveway and came to a stop.
“Benny,” I said, “stay in the car, okay? Just stay here. The only reason for you to get out is if you see any signs of trouble. Otherwise plant your ass here and don’t move.”
Winston handed my brother a golden .45 pistol. “Take this, man. It’s a beauty; I have one just like it.”
“Cool,” Benny said, and stared at the gun with amazement.
I loaded the black revolver in my hands and shoved it into the inside of my red splattered light blue jean jacket. I then popped open the barrel of a sawed off shotgun and shoved two shells into the chambers. I snapped it shut and asked, “Ready?”
“Yep,” Winston replied. I was still kind of stunned that he had agreed to assist me on this, but of course he was going to be getting a cut; everybody was.
“Remember; stay here, Benny,” I said, and stepped out of the yellow Hummer. Winston and I approached the front door to the Desperation Mansion.
“Okay,” I sighed, “let’s rock and roll.”
