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Let's Learn About the Proper Way to Rob a Bank!
by Amy Frushour Kelly, the Acrobat
The plan was simple. And brilliant.
Leave work at 10:30 coffee break. Exit through front reception. Cross street to bank. Outside bank, out of range of security cameras, slip on ski masks and draw guns. Enter bank at 10:36, just as the armored car agent walks in pushing the dolly full of currency. Rich holds gun to agent’s head. Frank pushes dolly through bank to rear parking lot, where Rich parked stolen van evening before. Rich follows Frank, covering the crowd with his weapon, opening the van’s back door for Frank and the money. Rich closes the van door, still holding people at bay, and drives around block, across street to access office parking garage from behind, and parks at 10:41. Retrieve soda and pretzels from cooler in van, remove masks and weapons, locking them in van with money. Walk into office at 10:43, with two minutes to spare before break ends.
Leave at end of day with fifty thousand dollars in cash. Each.
10:30: Exit through front reception. Flo from Marketing tries to talk Rich and Frank into buying Girl Scout cookies for her daughter’s troop. Frank orders “Thin Mints.” Exit office at 10:35.
10:37: masks, guns, enter bank. Armored car is late. Fat woman with small child begins screaming. Security guard approaches. Rich spins around, accidentally knocks him in the face with his gun. "Sorry!" Rich says, before he remembers he’s not supposed to speak. Frank sees armored car agent walk in with dolly, sprints to intercept. Slips on newly-waxed floor. Falls, fractures tailbone. Gun skitters away. Small child with screaming fat mother points at Frank and laughs.
10:38: Rich points gun to agent’s head. Agent is a fast draw; he already has his own pistol aimed right back at Rich. From the floor, Frank rolls to grab for his gun. Screaming fat woman gets to it first and points it at Frank. Small child giggles.
10:39: Frank rolls away from screaming fat woman and gasps in pain from pressure on his tailbone. Screaming fat woman shoots. Bullet grazes Frank’s big toe. Frank screams again. Rich and agent are in a standoff. Rich reaches slowly down to grab Frank by the collar, pull him up from the floor and edge toward the door.
10:40: Rich and Frank get to bank door, turn, and run. Followed by the security guard, armored car agent, bank employees and screaming fat gun-wielding woman with giggling child. Rich and Frank dodge a car to get across the street.
10:42: Rich and Frank stumble into front reception. Flo and Melinda, the receptionist, stare. "Break’s not over yet," Rich explains, panting. Frank faints from loss of blood. Flo and Melinda are still staring.
10:43: Rich realizes he is still wearing a ski mask and clutching a gun. "Oh, this. Uh…"
10:44: Security guard, armored car agent, bank employees and screaming fat gun-wielding woman with giggling child arrive in front reception.
Break’s over.
Break
© 2004 Amy Frushour Kelly
For Frank Eberling and Rich Herring
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Today's Circus Performer, Amy Frushour Kelly, has never robbed a bank, but she thinks about it every time she steps into one. Like Gloria Steinem, Katie Holmes, Daws Butler and P.J. O'Rourke, she was born in Toledo, Ohio. And like Steinem, et al, she moved elsewhere. She recently completed a project in which she wrote a short story under 500 words every day for one year, and has yet to come up with a rational explanation for embarking on the project in the first place. Ms. Kelly lives with her family in Long Island, a good seven minutes away from the nearest bank.
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