Adam Thirlwell - Lurid & Cute

to rob a very bright nail salon

Because, said Hiro, people have a very complicated idea of heists and other steals, like if you want to break into some major art museum it probably seems natural to think you will have to do something ultracool, like borrow the uniform of the gallery security, then make your way to the control room and shut off the surveillance cameras, then deactivate all the electrics in the rooms with gold-leaf art and have your sidekick do his sidekick thing with lifting pictures off the walls then smashing on the sprinklers. That’s how people might argue but really, said Hiro, you should just burst in and do the place with assault weapons and balaclavas. You have three minutes before any Black Maria is going to turn up, and that’s a lot of time when you know what you’re doing. The most complicated things, in other words, said Hiro, are often the most simple — and I believed him. That was why we made no major plans or diagrams of entrances and exits, we just entered the nail salon like any other client wanting a quick colour and polish — except that we were in baseball caps, and sunglasses, against the afternoon light, because the time we had chosen was that absence of the early afternoon, a time which is really only known to those who are parents or unemployed. The receptionist was on the phone and very much engrossed in her efforts at conversation:

— So she wasn’t two weeks late, I think she was a couple of days. And the reason she was a couple of days was she was stressing. Yeah thank you. She’s lying. Ly-ing. This woman has issues. Very unstable.

There was then a pause then something like:

— The fuck that got to do with things? The girl thinks she cool because she married an Asian. She never liked a black girl in her life.

I mean, I cannot remember exactly. I’m just mimicking from memory. That was the tableau as we entered, and it was happy in its bright way and I did feel this regret that we might be the agents of lessening this happiness, of being causes of concern and fright which was why I very much wanted to be doing this for as little time as possible. Also therefore I was glad that we had such a gentle look overall, because although perhaps it was a problem of heist authority, it surely would go some way to allaying their natural terror and unease. Just as also, I wondered, it could add an even greater element of surprise when you do indeed pull out the gun than if you entered with a balaclava and menacing cries, and while the shock may be greater to other people, the nail technicians and single customer with one hand in a chemical bath, then perhaps the fear is less. And as Hiro did this, I mean took out the gun and raised it in the air, I realised that my heart was not staying still at all, it was gigantic inside my body. That was one more effect that I would not have predicted, when contemplating the event from the air balloon or weather plane — and in many ways this event, as I now remember it, or as I now try to record it, was an entire network of unforeseen effects. According to our sketched-out plan in the cafe, my job was to be the lookout or sentinel — although were I to have seen a security guard with wolfhounds or some other police agent, I now realised, I was not sure I would have exactly known what I should do. Therefore I tried to ignore this gap in my knowledge and instead stayed by the storefront, with mannequins displaying their gorgeous nail designs. Their hands were very large, as if in some dream or other hallucination where your will is not in control. And it was at this point while I was observing these hallucinogenic hands that Hiro started to shout — in a way which seemed to me just slightly exaggerated, and it worried me, this exaggeration, because it did seem to give away that we were scared and not exactly in control of the situation. In fright the girl stood up and her chemical bath overturned, and instinctively I wanted to find a cloth to mop it up — because mess in any form distresses me — but then I thought no, I needed to stay still. And so I did. Instead of the pool of chemical, I considered the gun, because, I was discovering, it’s very interesting what happens if you bring out a gun in public. A sudden stillness happens and I can see how the serial criminals operate, it must be such a delight to have this every day, and also addictive, to watch how you becalm people with a single heavy gesture. To discover a power you did not think you had, this is definitely an interesting feeling. And OK, yes, my friend Álvaro, I know he is used to waking up to discover that his children’s kindergarten has been decorated with bullet holes caused by a passing machine gun, and is now accustomed to the bribes and threats and protection and whatever other ways the criminal activity reaches the average taxpayer — like the way the Broadway shows eventually show up at the quiet provincial theatres, like the ones to which my mother took me to watch the pantomimes — but me, no. Whereas now I was realising that maybe the criminal and dark could also involve me. It was a new metaphysical step. But still, I also understood that this was not the moment for my reflections, and in fact I am not sure even that these were indeed reflections I had then — it was more like they were there inside me, awaiting pollination.

which they accomplish hyperfast

Everything was happening hyperfast. Hiro was pointing the gun at the woman behind the cash register and demanding on the one hand that she should not move, because if anyone touched a phone then he would not hesitate to shoot, and on the other hand she should move, but very slowly, in order to open the cash register and deliver all its money. I suppose these things just happen because you’ve seen them happen, I mean in the usual miniseries. But what I was not expecting was how slow it was, this hyperfast activity, even this five minutes, or how outside the window I could see people softly walking their dog or doing other small things — there was a man having a conversation with a very beautiful woman, and I could tell that he wanted to impress her because he had taken out a cigarette, and also taken out a lighter, but each time he was about to light the cigarette he let it pause there, while he kept on talking, then slowly lowered it again, and it was really lovely to see, that attention to another person. Then I noticed that at one of the mirrors there was one woman and she was crying very much, not violently or loudly but tears were on her face and there were smudges of mascara on her cheeks, like she was smearing her face with ashes in the manner of an ancient mourner. I wanted to comfort her very much and also I was not sure if Hiro would approve. So I called over to Hiro something like:

— Hiro, I said.

— The fuck, he said.

I think he was annoyed that I used his name but I wasn’t sure that really mattered, I mean outside the movies — but still, he was annoyed so I wanted to apologise.

— Sorry, I said.

— It’s OK, he said.

I knew that he was angry but I guessed this was not the moment for apologies, and I did appreciate at least that he acknowledged my mistake.

— It’s just, I said, this girl is crying.

Hiro looked over at me.

— We’re going to be done so fast, he said to her, and he said it softly so that she might calm.

She was not so calm but I had done at least what I could. And I was sad for her because, after all, so little was really happening, just two hoodlums with their gun, and we were not even hoodlums really, just as the gun was not even a true gun, not some.45 Magnum ready to be fingerfucked by the coked-up assassin, but then I realised that the girl at the counter was seeming agitated too.

— I said don’t move, I said.

— I didn’t move, she said.