Page 54 - Vol.VI#5

It’s the Real Thing (continued from preceding page)
wants today Coke is, it’s the real thing. Jesus, it was railroad payday too, which meant extra cash in the register for cashing checks. Now I too was down on the floor, face down, my forearms under my chin so I wouldn’t get my face dirty. They were calling now for the men’s watches and wallets. I started to tremble a little. My legs were shaking nonstop. Stand up, they were saying, and I saw the regular Daddy had nicknamed Rabbi, Mr. Riley, with a scared look in his eyes, and Paddy Sanders, Bernie Zalitis and my dad shuffling towards the men’s room.
As I stood up slowly and shakily, the stranger nearer to me waved the gun at me. You too, he said, and he herded us into the men’s room. Don’t any- one leave here for ten minutes, one of them said. Do you understand, you bald motherfucker? He pointed the gun at Daddy’s head, really close, may- be six inches away. Daddy nodded, said nothing. Inside me there was a throbbing. I kept expecting to hear an earsplitting noise and see brains fly ev- erywhere. To steady myself I tried to notice things. The toilet seat left up. The walls in need of paint. The sweetish smell of the room deodorizer, a twin to the one in the ladies’ room. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a tall white metal condom dispenser mounted on the wall. I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company, it’s the real thing.
The door to the men’s room shut with a loud thump, but quieter than my heart’s pounding. Paddy was helping my dad up to his feet. We heard the front door open and then swing shut and we waited. We waited for what seemed a
half hour. Then we waited longer. Finally, my heart stopped pounding, but I kept on trembling, couldn’t stop. Somebody called the police on the payphone. They were there within minutes, the uniform cops, but it seemed we had almost noth- ing for them, nothing specific we could remember. Two guys, not very tall, not heavy, not thin. They wore hats and raincoats, or maybe topcoats. A couple of detectives showed up a little later and took statements from each of us. Paddy told them he knew the guns were German lugers.
Anyone unusual in here lately, maybe casing the 45
place, Charlie? one detective asked. My dad just shook his head. He was anxious to get me out of there and home, and he was not looking forward to facing my mother and her wrath.
At home the repercussions were worse than he may have feared. My mother was furious. There were many I-told-you-so’s heaped on my father. She went up to their bedroom, he followed, and she closed the door tight. I could hear her voice, not yelling exactly, but very animated and angry. I strained to hear that day and many days after that, to find out what they were saying. There was the revelation that this was the third or fourth holdup, not the first. There were mur- murings late into the night from their bedroom. On my way to the bathroom for my shower, I might catch a phrase or two of Mom’s—“inside job,” “ cops on the take,” “she could have been re- ally hurt”—but neither of them would talk about it in front of me.
A few times the same pair of detectives came to our house with binders full of mug shots for me to look at. What could I tell them, every photo looked like it could be one of those guys, and yet none of them really matched my memory of them, all shouting and hats pulled down and black guns pointed at us. In the end they just stopped com- ing. I went back with my unsuitable older boy- friend, the one I had dumped a few weeks before. Having him back made me feel safer, and he was willing to listen to me tell the story of what hap- pened over and over. Eventually I told it to him so many times I became sick of it.
Spring came, and the senior prom and gradua- tion, and then a summer job at Fort Holabird, where I translated petty crimes committed by GIs into code and got paid handsomely for it. The robbery faded more and more into my past. I only spoke about it once or twice, years later, to get out of jury duty. The boyfriend faded into summer, then slipped away, and I started dat- ing a young soldier who was waiting to get his orders for Vietnam any day.
That afternoon was the last time I ever set foot