Chapter 5

Here's how it was. The Man owes Another Man 10,000 dollars. The Other Man has given him until today to come up with the 10,000 dollars.

Here's how it is. The Man does not have 10,000 dollars.

Here's how it's gonna be.

Crack in the sky. Ashen grey clouds have rolled in pell-mell from the sea. The sun splits the crack open wedging in just wide enough, like when an axe fails to split a log but instead perforates just enough to let a slit of light through. Astringent metal smell mixes with salty ocean air diesel fumes. The clouds bunch up like revelers outside of a late-to-start concert hammering at stadium doors, foam and froth and the words “RIOT” sluicing from damp lips. The sky is a riot.

The Man pulls his collar up as the first stinging drops fall. They smell of failure and fear and ozone. A crack of lightning hangman-noose-neck-snaps across the sky, reminding The Man of the task at hand.

The Man approaches the Glass Building where the Coverall clad Workers chase off a group of pre-teen Boys and Girls pierced through with metal and glass wearing a sheen of leather and Vinyl. Chains and Filth. Spray cans and stencils jut out like cybernetic appendages from too small tiny fists and sharpies and pipes and straight razors are hidden amongst cracks folds and hair greased and glued and held tight by the same chemicals that leave their mark like dog urine on Glass Buildings and Concrete, Chemicals that are condensed into bags and inhaled until vomit and euphoria drive young minds to the edge of psychosis and into the abyss. The mean age of the Street Children is 16 and those that live to adulthood are either incarcerated or babbling insane degenerates writing Thompsonian novels and Burroughsesque poetry in the care of The State. They are instant bestsellers and their authors are lauded and talked about over cocktails and canapés at high end parties attended by Men in Charcoal Grey Suits and Women in Pencil Skirts and Artists in whatever the trend is that day.

This building is a Bank. There may no longer be Summer, but there will always be Banks. And Bankers.

The Man is wearing his least dirty clothes – tight black jeans and a collared cowboy shirt with real mother of pearl buttons- and has slicked back his dark hair with a pomade that causes it to glisten like an otter pulled from Prince William Sound.

The Bank is a Hive.

Charcoal Grey suits and Pencil Skirts rush this way and that passing documents, filing files, authorizing, rejecting, investing capital, investing themselves in a System that fails to recognize them. A System that demands homogeneity and growth. And knives. Sharp sharp sharp sharp knives.

The Man has a gun. He doesn't know what kind of gun it is, only that it was cheap and it is noisy. It is the type of gun with a revolving chamber and a long long long barrel. The size of barrel excites The Man and he maintains an erection whenever he carries it. The Gun holds 8 bullets, brassy and rounded and blunt. The man often wondered how such a dull point could penetrate such dense masses as the walls in the alley behind his Apartment. Flesh will be no problem for the rabid bloodthirsty rounds.

His erection throbbed as he drew the gun from his coat. Of course no one noticed as he wore neither Ivory Prada Suit or Black Pencil Skirt. The roar of the blast however drew an audible silence. A sharp tableau was drawn across the stage of the bank. The aging security guard who was nodding off at his post, awoke with a start, suffered a massive heart attack and died on the floor.

“Well, would yah look at that,” chuckled The Man.
“This here... Is a robbery.” The Man drawled as he approached a tellers window. He placed a cracked and aged leather valise upon the counter ledge.
“Fill it,” he demanded, “and no one has to die.”
Being well insured and trained in how to deal with the demands of a variety of robbers, terrorists and ultra-violent individuals, the Black Pencil Skirted Teller took the valise and duly filled its contents with paper money slipping her slim well manicured thumb onto a small red button and depressing it. The colour of the button matched that of her nail polish and she cracked a wee smile at the thought of it.
“What the fuck are you smiling at!?” demanded The Man, sighing once again. He really did not want to fire the revolver again as he'd only been able to afford 1 bullet and was relying on the fear factor of the massive weapon to get him through this ordeal.
The Teller in the Black Pencil Skirt passed the valise to The Man.
“Have a nice day,” she caught herself intoning and cut her lips shut at the last second. The Man just stared
“You too...”

It was 11am

* * *