But the obligations of friendship could not be avoided.
He
called me two days before Christmas, and my heart was immediately filled with dread. I had not heard from him for over a month, had gotten no more postcards or letters, and I had not tracked down Susan since the Sheraton, so his absence was total. In fact, it had come to seem as though he had never been in my life, that he was a heroic character I’d created, not a reliably unreliable friend. The phone call was collect, and because of this, I assumed he was calling from overseas and that made it easier to put enthusiasm into my voice. But then he told me he was at Halifax International Airport. He needed to repeat himself before I understood.
Then why are you calling collect? I asked, still unable to understand.
Because I don’t have any money, he said.
Not even a dime?
His laugh was the sound of my doom.
I told him I would be right there.
I did, after all, have his Fiero.
When I arrived at the airport, he was standing outside. A foot of grimy snow edged the sidewalk and most people were hunched over to avoid the cold, wearing hats and mittens, scarves and boots. Chris wore a T-shirt, dark sunglasses, and sneakers. He was also holding an enormous surfboard.
I didn’t greet him or pound his back, I just asked how I was supposed to get the board into the car. There was no way it would fit.
Don’t worry, you fucking nancy, Chris said.
We drove the ten miles or so back to town with the passenger window open. I shivered, shook, and sniffled. Chris held the board flat to the side of the car, without complaint, and seemed unmoved by any pain.
School
began again. We both returned to our studies. And we resumed, in a stilted, awkward way, the pattern of our past friendship. One evening, a week into the semester, Chris asked me if I wanted to walk to the mall. We had given up walking anywhere years before, and this invitation seemed so innocent that it was appealing. My heart opened up a little. He met me on the street as we’d done a thousand times before, and we walked through the cul-de-sac, into the woods, and across the parking lot. I tried not to think about the bank job we’d done five months before.
But Chris, apparently, wanted to think about it.
There’s something about that job I’ve always meant to tell you, he said.
I did and did not want to hear more.
Remember the two kids who saw me that day? he asked.
In the woods?
Yeah, coming up the path, he said.
What about them? I asked. I feared the worst. Had one recognized his face?
They were us, Chris said.
I didn’t understand.
I saw us on the path. The two of us, you and me, walking back from the lake. We were just younger. Twelve or thirteen. But it was us, no doubt about it.
I waited for him to break into a grin and admit he was joking.
Okay, I said.
Weird, huh?
You mean like we travelled through time or something?
Another shrug. Maybe. Anyway, when I saw us, as kids, I knew everything would be just fine. You know what I’m saying?
And I said that I did, as any good friend would.
We pumped quarters into the video games at the arcade, like we would have years before. We played Asteroids, and Tron, and Missile Command.
Susan said you looked in on her, Chris said, after we left the arcade. Thanks for doing that.
I nodded, knowing this was the conversation that preceded my execution.
I missed her like crazy when I was gone.
She missed you too.
I got pretty serious with someone though. She owned a dive shop. We lived together for two months.
Wow, I said, and thought about Susan.
If I knew Chris was never coming back.
She had a cute little girl who started calling me daddy.
I laughed. No shit.
Yeah, it felt really good.
I didn’t know what to say. I wondered if he was telling me that he was moving back to Australia. Maybe he wanted me to break the news to Susan.
I told her I was a doctor, just out of med school, and taking a break before doing my internship.
Why?
He shrugged. I don’t know. I just did.
We left the mall and walked across the field toward the forest, the barrier to our neighbourhood.
I think I lied to her because I wanted it to be true, Chris said.
You want to be a doctor? I was surprised.
No. Not a doctor. I want to do something serious. I want to accomplish something.
I was reminded of a night when we lay on our backs on the frozen lake, staring up into the snowflaked sky. Before all this shit started up. The causal event.
Like what? I asked.
I’ve decided I’m going to get serious this semester, get some kick-ass grades, get my application in for police academy. I can keep studying for my degree while I’m at the academy. Dad says it’s a lot of work, but a few guys manage it, and I know I can be one of those guys if I apply myself.
I was impressed, if unconvinced. That’s a good plan, I offered.
We stopped in front of my house to say goodbye.
I just need some money to get me through the next twenty to twenty-four months, he said.
And because he was sincere and I was his friend, I nodded at this too.
He
had in mind the Brinks job, and I could not dissuade him. At least we did not talk about my involvement, and it occurred to me, with incredible relief, that he wasn’t asking for it. Perhaps a Brinks job didn’t require my services? This made discussing the particulars of his strategy more academic. If I was merely a consultant, I had less at stake, less need to steer him away from particular ideas.
The critical question in Chris’s mind was, How do you neutralize the guards? He said it so often, to himself, that I began to make fun of him.
Would you like to get a coffee, I’d say, or do you need to neutralize the guards?
Or, I’m going to take a giant shit now, unless you need me to neutralize the guards.
Or, I was jerking off the other night and suddenly I thought, How can I neutralize the guards?
Ha ha, motherfucker, Chris said. He was a good sport but he did not like to be mocked.
Then, one afternoon at his house, Chris asked me to come into his parents’ bedroom and try something out.
I did not know what to think as he led me down the hall and
opened the door. The room was remarkably neat and orderly, with a sort of military precision to it, but there was a prissy quilt on the bed and overly stuffed pillows.
Chris went to the closet doors and opened them up. It was the first walk-in I’d ever seen.
Like the Batcave, I said. I stood on plush carpet, surrounded by rows of suits. Before us was a shiny walnut door with a combination lock.
What’s that? I asked.
Gun safe, he answered.
Chris did the combination and pulled open the heavy door. The interior was slightly smaller than a fridge, except loaded with weapons.
Three rifles with dark metal stocks stood at attention in a nest of green velvet shag, as though someone had used them to club a pool table to death. There were flat shelves and drawers as well. Chris slid out one of the shelves and showed me the handguns resting inside.
Recognize this bad boy? he asked.
It was Chris’s preferred weapon, the one guaranteed to blow the head right off the shoulders.
Mr. FV himself, I said.
Indeed, it is, Chris agreed.
Then he opened a drawer and took out a mini spray can.
Right Guard? I asked.
It’s mace, you stupid fuck.
I’d never seen mace before. I expected it to look different.
Otherwise known as guard neutralizer, he added.
Oh shit, I thought. But said, Cool.
I want you to spray me with it, Chris said.
What? I asked him.
I want you to spray me, he repeated.
I could not fathom why he was asking me that.
Because if I’m going to neutralize two armed guards with it, I want to make sure it works.
Why don’t you spray yourself? I said.
I can’t pull the trigger. I tried. So I need you to do it. Blast away, big boy.
Jesus. What do I do?
Just point it at my face and press the trigger.
At your face?
Where else?
I held the can and hesitated. Really?
Chicks do this, he insisted. Don’t be such a pussy.
The magic words. I took a step back and lifted the can and aimed at his face.
His eyes were absurdly wide open.
At least close your fucking eyes.
No, he grunted between clenched teeth. Do it!
So I did. It was not unlike my first frog kill from long ago. But unlike then, when my aim had been true, this time I was way off. The spray shot out from the can in an unexpected arc over Chris’s shoulder like a stream of confetti. When it landed, it struck a navy pinstripe suit hanging from the rack.
In slow motion, I saw this, but in real time, I wrestled with the spray can like a fire hose. I tried to get it under control but the nozzle must have been stuck, and I sprayed all the suits from that first suit on, a steady flow cutting across each shoulder in turn.
I could hear Chris yelling, Fuck! Enough!
I could barely breathe let alone respond. My lungs had seized up. My nose and mouth were smeared shut with melted skin. My eyes were boiling in their sockets. The air was hellfire eating into my hair follicles.
I collapsed. I plunged my face into the cool waters of the carpet. I wanted to dive below the surface and escape the corrosion of the chemical fire. I did slow swimming kicks with my feet. I tore at carpet tufts to diminish the agony.
Chris, it turned out, was doing the same thing.
When we could finally see and breathe again, we sat up in wonder.
Holy shit, Chris said.
I’m sorry, I blubbered.
Fuck that, he said. I asked you to do it. If you’d hit me, you might have killed me.
Chris was not the kind to dwell on mistakes. He pronounced the mace perfect.
Perfect? I asked.
No guard is going to have the wherewithal to shoot me if he gets a dose of this.
Oh, I said. Great.
Now how are we going to clean these fucking suits? he asked.
All
along I’d assumed this was a solo gig, and I was merely a sounding board, or a chronicler of heroic, legendary deeds. But, of course, I was not to get off so easily. Chris wanted me to drive. Like I’d driven the other jobs. He’d assumed all along
that I’d wanted to drive. So he hadn’t even bothered to mention that part.
Rather than acknowledge my shame—rather than spare myself the possibility that I’d be sent to prison for the next twenty-five years, and that my parents would die while I was still inside, and that my education would end, and that my writing career would never start, and that I would be man-raped on a casual but frequent basis—I acted as though I too had been intending to go all along.
We did it on a Tuesday morning. Unlike the previous two jobs, Chris did not bring me along for any dry runs. For this, I was grateful, if a little surprised by the laxness. I was familiar enough with the location, but I did not know it from the point of view of someone casing the joint, as they say. I have found, in my limited though pertinent experience, that you never truly know a place until you have planned to commit a crime there. Absent that concentration, you do not see the physical details, the flow of pedestrian traffic, the angle of sight around corners, even the most decorative features.
We arrived a half hour early. Chris knew the precise time that we needed to be on hand. I did not. We were running on his clock. In reaction to my fear, I had become abnormally quiet and calm, and did not show any outward signs of panic. My hands did not shake. My skin did not sweat. But my reactions were imperceptibly delayed. Each moment of delay was a private eternity.
He directed me to park behind the mall, out of sight of the doors. This was my waiting zone. He acknowledged that this particular parking lot was the worst one yet. It seemed exposed in every direction to lines of sight from a multitude of other cars
and store windows. What’s more, there were no easy exits. We would need to drive a hundred yards or more in any of three possible routes to reach a road, each of them easily cut off by a single car—no matter if it was a cop car coming up on us fast or a granny in a Nova fucking up on a parking job. Once out of the lot and onto the street, the roads lacked quick branches and off-ramps. Even a single red light could render us stuck as the police converged. Our best hope was acting in contrast to the confusion. If the turmoil within the mall drew enough attention, the parking lot would be less scrutinized. If we were calm enough in leaving, we might go unmarked. If you can keep your head when others around you are getting theirs blown off, you’ll be a man, my son.
When you see me come around the corner, it’s go time, Chris said.
I nodded.
You got everything you need? I asked.
Got the gun and my helmet, Chris said. What more can a fellow ask for?
And the mace, I said.
Chris checked his watch, noted some important increment in the passage of time, and popped the door open. He looked at me before he got out.
I decided I didn’t need the mace, he said.
What are you talking about? I almost grabbed his arm.
His voice, ever calm, hypnotized me again.
I found out from my dad that Brinks guards are actually paid bonuses to shoot robbers. If you couldn’t squirt me in the eyes when I was standing still, how am I going to hit them in the middle of a heist? Way too risky.
So what are you going to do? I asked.
But he had shut the door. And that’s when I understood how wrong everything was about to go.
I
watched him walk toward the back of the mall, its grey aluminum siding capped with the red trim of a flat awning, a bit like an elongated Pizza Hut. He put on the motorcycle helmet and reached into his jacket pocket, probably to check on the gun.
He did not need the mace.