Ed Gorman - Short Stories, Volume 1

Guy inside his car. Nice and warm and dry. Inserts his card, gets all the money he wants, and then drives on to do a lot of fun things with his nice and warm and dry evening.

While I stood out here in the soaking rain and—

Of course, I thought.

Of course.

There was only one thing I could do.

I started running, really running, splashing through puddles and tripping and nearly falling down. But nothing could stop me.

The bald man had parked too far away from the ATM to do his banking from the car. He backed up and gave it another try. He was concentrating on backing up so I didn’t have much trouble opening the passenger door and slipping in.

“What the—” he started to say as he became aware of me.

“Stick up.”

“What?”

“I’m robbing you.”

“Oh, man, that’s all I need. I’ve had a really crummy day today, mister,” he said. “I knew I never should’ve come in this neighborhood but I was in a hurry and—”

“You want to hear about my bad day, mister? Huh?”

I raised the coat of my raincoat, hoping that he would think that I was pointing a gun at him.

He looked down at my coat-draped fist and said, “You can’t get a whole hell of a lot of money out of these ATM machines.”

“You can get three hundred and that’s good enough.”

“What if I don’t have three hundred?”

“New car. Nice new suit. Maybe twenty CDs in that box there. You’ve got three hundred. Easy.”

“I work hard for my money.”

“So do I.”

“What if I told you I don’t believe you’ve got a gun in there?”

“Then I’d say fine. And then I’d kill you.”

“You don’t look like a stick-up guy.”

“And you don’t look like a guy who’s stupid enough to get himself shot over three hundred dollars.”

“I have to back up again. So I can get close.”

“Back up. But go easy.”

“Some goddamned birthday this is.”

“It’s your birthday?”

“Yeah. Ain’t that a bitch?”

He backed up, pulled forward again, got right up next to the ATM, pulled out his card and went to work.

The money came out with no problem. He handed it over to me.

“You have a pencil and paper?”

“What?”

“Something you can write with?”

“Oh. Yeah. Why?”

“I want you to write down your name and address.”

“For what?”

“Because tomorrow morning I’m going to put three hundred dollars in an envelope and mail it to you.”

“Are you some kind of crazy drug addict or what?”

“Just write down your name and address.”

He shook his head. “Not only do I get robbed, I get robbed by some goddamned fruitcake.”

But he wrote down his name and address, probably thinking I’d shoot him if he didn’t.

“I appreciate the loan,” I said, getting out of his car.

“Loan? You tell the cops it was a ‘loan’ and see what they say.”

“Hope the rest of your day goes better,” I said, and slammed the door.

And I hope the rest of my day goes better, too, I thought.

“Good thing you got back here when you did,” the man with the gun said. “I was just about to waste her.”

“Spare me the macho crap, all right?” I said. I was getting cranky. The rain. The cold. The fear. And then having to commit a felony to get the cash I needed — and putting fear into a perfectly decent citizen who’d been having a very bad day himself.

I handed the money over to him. “Now you can go,” I said.

He counted it in hard, harsh grunts, like a pig rutting in the mud.

“Three goddamned hundred. It was supposed to be four. Or five.”

“I guess you’ll just have to shoot us, then, huh?”

Laura gave me a frantic look and then dug her nails into my hands. Obviously, like the man I’d just left at the ATM, she thought I had lost what little of my senses I had left.

“I wouldn’t push it, punk,” the man with the gun said. “Because I just might shoot you yet.”

He leaned forward from the backseat and said, “Lemme see your purse, babe.”

Laura looked at me. I nodded. She handed him her purse.

More rutting sounds as he went through it.

“Twenty-six bucks?”

“I’m sorry,” Laura said.

“Where’re your credit cards?”

“We don’t have credit cards. It’s too tempting to use them. We’re saving for a house.”

“Ain’t that sweet!”

He pitched the purse over the front seat and opened the back door.

Chill. Fog. Rain.

“You got a jerk for a husband, babe, I mean, just in case you haven’t figured that out already.”

Then he slammed the door and was gone.

“You were really going to tear it up?”

“Or let you tear it up. Whichever you preferred. I mean, I know you think I still have this thing for Chris but I really don’t. I was going to prove it to you by showing you the letter tonight and letting you do whatever you wanted with it.”

We were in bed, three hours after getting our car towed to a station, the tow truck giving us a ride home.

The rain had quit an hour ago. Now there were just icy winds.

But it was snug and warm in the bed of my one true love and icy winds didn’t bother me at all.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “about being so jealous.”

“And I’m sorry about hiding the letter. It made you think I was going to take him up on his offer. But I really don’t have any desire to see him at all.”

Then we kind of just lay back and listened to the wind for a time.

And she started getting affectionate, her foot rubbing my foot, her hand taking my hand.

And then in the darkness, she said, “Would you like to make love?”

“Would I?” I laughed. “Would I?”

And then I rolled over and we began kissing and then I began running my fingers through her long dark hair and then I suddenly realized that—

“What’s wrong?” she said, as I rolled away from her, flat on my back, staring at the ceiling.

“Let’s just go to sleep.”

“God, honey, I want to know what’s going on. Here we are making out and then all of a sudden you stop.”

“Oh God,” I said. “What a day this has been.” I sighed and prepared myself for the ultimate in manly humiliation. “Remember that time when Rick’s sister got married?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I got real drunk?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And that night we tried — well, we tried to make love but I couldn’t?”

“Uh-huh.” She was silent a long moment. Then, “Oh, God, you mean, the same thing happened to you just now?”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.”

“The perfect ending to the perfect day,” I said.

“First you find that letter from Chris—”

“And then I can’t concentrate on my job—”

“And then Ms. Sandstrom threatens to fire you—”

“And then a man sticks us up—”

“And then you have to stick up another man—”

“And then we come home and go to bed and—” I sighed. “I think I’ll just roll over and go to sleep.”

“Good idea, honey. That’s what we both need. A good night’s sleep.”

“I love you, sweetheart,” I said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to... well, you know.”

“It’s fine, sweetheart. It happens to every man once in a while.”

“It’s just one of those days,” I said.

“And one of those nights,” she said.

But you know what? Some time later, the grandfather clock in the living room woke me as it tolled twelve midnight, and when I rolled over to see how Laura was doing, she was wide awake and took me in her sweet warm arms, and I didn’t have any trouble at all showing her how grateful I was.