Russell Banks - Continental Drift

“What do you want to kill the lights for, man? We gotta see.”

“Hit the fucking light. We got enough light from the sign.” The man with the shotgun speaks in a slow, patient manner, as if worried about being misunderstood. The light goes out, and the store drops back into soft, gloomy semidarkness. “Now, what you got to do,” he says to Bob, “is let us make your deposit for you tonight. You understand me?”

Bob nods his head up and down, but doesn’t move the rest of his body. His feet feel bolted through to the floor, his arms bound to his sides. His heart is pounding like a pile driver, but his blood is congealed in the veins, thick and heavy, moving like cold syrup, sluggishly, reluctantly, against the frantic, terrified beat of his heart.

The man with the shotgun regards Bob quizzically. “Did you hear me, man? We going to make your deposit for you tonight.” The man has delicate, small, excellent teeth, and his skin is a yellowish color, the dimly golden shade of a pair of Italian loafers Bob was thinking of buying as soon as he got paid.

“I …” Bob carefully clears his throat. “I already made the deposit tonight. Earlier.”

The man with the shotgun motions with his head for the other man to come forward. This one’s chinless, with skin the color of brown glass, and his head is covered with tiny plaited cornrows laid in parallel strips from his forehead back to the nape of his neck, an elaborate hairdo that, to Bob, looks more like a skullcap than hair.

“Look, man,” the first one says to Bob. “Just open the fucking register, don’t be cute, and nobody gets hurt. We in a big hurry, so if you cute, motherfucker, we just going to blow you away. Now gimme the fucking money. All of it. Checks and all.”

“I really did. I already made the deposit. Early, at nine.”

“Blow ’im away,” the younger man says. His hands open and close quickly, as if he’d like to get them around Bob’s throat. “Go on, blow the sucker off. I hate the sucker already. I hate the way he looks.” He laughs suddenly. “I hate ’im!”

“Shut up. Get busy and find us a case of Scotch, a case of Dewar’s. I’ll take care of …”

“Fuck ’im, fuck the pig! Just blow off his fucking head!”

“Look, I’m telling the truth. I came in to make a phone call. My car …”

“Oh, man, you are so fucking stupid!” The man lifts the barrel of the shotgun and places it lightly against Bob’s chest. It’s a twenty-gauge pump with a choke, Bob notices. He looks down the long black barrel to the man at the other end. The safety is off, and the man is handling the gun firmly, but with ease. He is familiar with the gun. The stock is buried snugly under his right arm, and his right hand curls around the trigger guard, index finger laid against the trigger, while his left hand carries the weight of the gun.

The man with the cornrows has taken a step away and is watching his partner excitedly. “ Do it! Go on, do the motherfucker! We can get the money without him.”

“Shut the fuck up and get the Scotch.”

“Listen, I’ll give you whatever you want, everything in the store. I don’t give a shit, it’s not my store. I’ll help you load up, even. But the register’s empty. You gotta believe me. I already made the deposit, and then I went out with my … with my girlfriend for a while, and then my transmission got jammed, it does that a lot, so I came in just to make a phone call, that’s all. We closed up at nine.”

“You’re closing now, man. We seen you closing up, which is why we come in here. But I don’t want to argue with you, white man, I just want to stop a minute in my travels, get me some change and a case of Dewar’s, and keep moving. But you making it hard for me. We in a hurry. You understand me?” He pokes Bob’s chest with the muzzle of the gun.

“Yeah, sure, okay, fine.”

He’ll kill me if I argue, Bob decides. The information comes to him like the rule of a game he has been struggling to understand.

“Here, look,” Bob says, waving an arm in the direction of the cash register. “See, cash drawer’s wide open. Empty. Nothing. You want my watch? It’s a fucking Timex, but you’re welcome to it.” He peels off his watch and slaps it onto the counter, smashing the crystal. “Here’s my wallet. Empty too. Not even any fucking credit cards. I just work here! I’m a peon, a clerk, a nobody !”

Holding the gun level with Bob’s chest, the man steps carefully around the counter and looks down its length at the cash register. “Gimme the bag. You know, the night deposit bag. I don’t want your fucking tin watch, man, so don’t get so excited. Just gimme the bag.” Glancing toward the back of the store, he calls to his partner. “You got that case of Dewar’s? Hurry the fuck up, man!”

“It’s too dark. Ask the guy where the fuck it is.”

“In the stockroom in back,” Bob says in a low, almost confidential voice. He and the man with the shotgun, the man who will kill him, are alike, Bob thinks. They’re different from the man with the crazy hairdo and the wild eyes. “No shit, mister, I really did already make the deposit tonight. I left the store at nine because I had to meet a girl.” Bob wants to tell him that his girlfriend is black, that she lives in a black neighborhood and knows lots of black people, and even though she’s a nurse, she comes from a poor family. “My girlfriend …” he starts.

“I don’t give a fuck about you, man! Or your girlfriend! Just gimme the bag!”

“Forget it!” the other man hollers. “I found it. Dewar’s.” Then, after a few seconds, he says, “Shit! Empty. These’re just empty cases here, man. Ask whitebread where the fuck the Dewar’s is. Do you got to have Dewar’s? There’s some other kinds here on the shelfs. I could fill one of these empty cases with one of these kinds.”

“Look in the fucking stockroom!” the man shouts, angry now. “And hurry the fuck up!”

“It’s dark back here, man. I can’t see no Dewar’s, I can’t see nothing.”

“Where’s the light switch for the stockroom?” the man asks Bob.

“On the wall on the right, by the door.”

The man relays the information. Then he raises the shotgun and aims it directly at Bob’s forehead. He says, “I’m going to blow your fucking head all over that wall behind you.” His voice is as cold and calm as the ground. “I’m going to splash your fucking brains, you white sonofabitch, unless you get me that money bag right now.”

“All right, all right. Relax. I’ll get it.” Bob moves slowly to his left, keeping his eyes on the muzzle of the shotgun, as if planning to duck when it goes off. “I’ll get it.” He reaches under the counter by the cash register, gropes around, finds the gun and flicks the safety off with his thumb. He draws it slowly out, inch by inch, thinking, in a howl, Oh Jesus, Elaine, my poor babies, I’m going to die now. The man is going to kill me because I lied. But I had to lie, he wouldn’t believe me when I told the truth and he was going to kill me for that. So I lied. And now I’m going to die for lying. The man will kill me, and maybe I’ll kill him too. Oh, Elaine, oh, my babies, oh, Jesus, I love you, Elaine, I don’t love the nigger girl, I never did, I just love you, Elaine, you and my babies. I’m a good man.

He half faces the silhouetted figure of the man cradling the shotgun. Crouched over the pistol, as if shielding it from rain, Bob squeezes the trigger, hears the explosion, hears Silhouette’s roar of pain, then hears the deeper explosion as the shotgun goes off, hears glass behind him shatter, and suddenly notices the sweet taste of gin on his mouth, all over his face, or blood, he can’t tell, because it’s warm like blood and he’s never tasted warm gin, but there’s no pain, just a numbness in the hand that fired the.38 and a ringing in his ears, broken suddenly by the sound of the shotgun firing again, and at the same time there’s a yellow flash near the door, and smoke and the smell of gunpowder and burning cardboard and the clatter of broken glass above and behind him. Then silence, except for the slosh and trickle of liquor spilling from broken bottles down the shelves to the floor. He hears a noise from the stockroom — Cornrow bumping against cases in the dark — and from the front of the store, the sound of the door latch, Silhouette trying to unlock the door. Bob stands and holds the.38 out in front of him with both hands, the way he’s seen it done on TV. He aims through the rear sight and fires. Sihouette grunts and gurgles and slams against the door. The shotgun falls, and then the man falls too.