Pootie Game Revived #2: The Kid

Twitchy and bitchy... that's how she felt whenever her gun was drawn. It's how she needed to feel. And whoever happened to be on the business end of that gun had best be giving her his undivided attention, or twitchy might just get the best of bitchy. And that's how she felt now; the adrenaline running like an electrical current, the peril perfectly balanced against the thrill, the heightened sense of awareness. Oh yes, the awareness... he was nearby! She had no doubt of it. Her connection to him could never be called into question, but be that as it may, it might not be the best time for him to make a sudden entrance into the bank just now.

"That's all there is, ma'am." The bank teller. Her peripheral vision had never been any wider than it had before this exact moment, but her eyesight tunneled its way back to the faux leather briefcase being snapped shut in front of her. Her ice blue eyes conveyed nothing but a world of malice, and the teller mustered his courage to speak once again. "Honest. I grabbed every hundred and every fifty within reach. And you got more twenties in there than you could spend in a year's time."

"I'll be the judge of that," she replied, and grabbed the briefcase. In one fluid movement she turned, her gun-hand went to her waist, and the briefcase was in the other hand, slightly higher than the gun hand so as to call attention to the case rather than the gun. Standing by the door, Wally Greve was again confusing his responsibilities as bank security with official greeter, but he knew a H&R 929 Sidekick when he saw one, and he caught a glimpse of one now... in the right hand of the woman with the briefcase. Angie missed nothing (well... except for Mr. Greve). She saw his eyes widening, and immediately the gun came up. "And the winner is - Twitchy," she said. Greve stumbled and then fell backwards against the glass door, Angie's gun following downward as she fired, the bullet missing its intended target, punching a hole through the glass, and on its way to a Cardinals ballcap at the bottom of the bank steps.

George Bayh (affectionately known as By George to all his friends) grabbed Treelore Gump's nephew by the arm; the boy had been sitting quietly next to his uncle. George yanked him to his feet and yelled, “Run Forrest run!” He then turned to John Deere and said, “Run and get Dr. Pepper!"

Although nothing ran like a member of the Deere family, it was also true John could sometimes be a little slow on the uptake. "By George, he's been shot! The last thing he needs is another bottle of soda."

"No, John! Not more soda! Go and get the doctor!" George nearly screamed. "He should be in his office! I'll stay with Treelore!”

As it turned out, the local physician was Edgar Pepper. A medic during World War I, Dr. Pepper would not be easily cowed if the bullets were still flying when he arrived. John Deere found Dr. Pepper in his office chatting with his neighbor, Mr. Pibb, who had recently married Joy Almond, Dr. Pepper's office nurse. The three of them had been idly wondering if perhaps the bank might be testing their alarm system, what with all the racket.

[Lurker]

Even as Zeke pondered his ironically good fortune, he saw that he was the only lucky one. Old Man Gump was leaning to one side, his Dr. Pepper smashed on the ground into a sharp puddle. The bullet that had grazed Zeke had landed in Gump's shoulder, perilously close to his neck.

Zeke turned around to look for help, which was when he saw who had fired the bullet. It had not occurred to him until then that it had to come from somewhere. The robber was headed down the steps of the bank, as the alarm started to ring.

“As I approached the bank's front door – it was a little before 11:30 AM, I suppose,” Zeke began, and Evvy was all ears... and then Zeke found himself immersed in 1956 all over again.


It was the same old joke, told by and hooted over by the same old teller of the joke, that being old man Gump as he sat on the bench outside the bank sipping his Dr. Pepper, “You gonna be able to get all them quarters up to the bank teller today, Zeke?”
Zeke, at 11 years of age and all of 4' 6” tall, wished he were about two feet taller so he could drop the sack of quarters on top of old man Gump's head. Instead, he politely answered, “I expect so, Mr. Gump.” The quarters (and nickels – and dimes – and pennies) were the sum total of coins Zeke had collected from his newpaper route customers over the past two weeks. The coins were inside of a tightly drawn drawstring bag, and the bag was inside of a faux leather briefcase from Sears and Roebuck. Zeke's father, in a mix of pride and humor, had purchased the briefcase for his son.
“So my son wants to be the little businessman about town, huh? Well then he ought to have a businessman's briefcase to carry all of his important items,” his father had said when he presented it to him. Zeke never seemed to have any important items other than the money, but he did prefer carrying all of his silver with a handle in his hand instead of a drawstring that occasionally rubbed uncomfortably against his palm. Hoping he could step into the bank without any further comments from Treelore Gump, Zeke pondered the inadequacies of his height for about another half-second when in the very next instant the Saint Louis Cardinals ball-cap sitting loosely on top of his head was suddenly blown away... along with a fair amount of hair and a line of skin from his scalp as well. The crack of gunfire was all the confirmation Zeke needed to realize that it was the lack of height that had just saved his life.

“Grandpa, did you hear the bank alarm too?” Evvy asked. “Were you there that day?”

“Well, yes I was,” Zeke replied. “In fact, Evvy, it was probably on that very day that you came the closest to not ever having me for a grandpa.”

Next - Lana paled. "Trevor," she barely exhaled as the realization of who was standing before her became clear. Precisely at 11:22 AM, Lana then managed to say, "What do you think you're doing?"

At exactly 11:22 AM, the horrified bank teller stared directly into the barrel of the pistol and, barely above a whisper, managed to utter, "What do you think you're doing?"

Trevor/Caitlyn, reaching for the earrings he/she was wearing, paused for a moment. Vertigo gripped him momentarily, and his hands instead went to cover his face rather than to pull the earrings. It had happened just like this so many times before. "She needs me, Ma," he said. "She needs me."

"Yes, she does," Lana replied, knowing intuitively of whom Trevor was speaking. Two blocks away, the bank alarm began ringing.

"Angie?" Lana said as she turned her head and saw the young woman standing not far down the sidewalk. It hadn't sounded like Angie, though. Still, when she'd heard someone cry Ma!" she had turned to see who it was that sounded so distressed. The young lady was the spitting image of her daughter Angie, Trevor's twin.

[LLapp]

"Keep in mind, I told you this would be a humdinger," Zeke said. "The woman crying in front of the bank was the birthday girl herself, your great-aunt Shanah. The very person who Donna bought those earrings for."

"Oh! And Trevor stopped in his tracks because he felt bad that he stole them?"

Zeke pulled his granddaughter onto his lap. "Yvette, you have a good heart. The truth is, I don't think Trevor even saw Shanah. There was another women there too, and Shanah was crying and hugging her like she had just found all the lost diamonds in the world. I guess it was that other lady who Trevor saw, but he may as well have been looking at Shanah. Those two women had one and the same face."

Evvy stared at her grandpa with wide eyes. "They both had the same face?"

"I don't suppose you've heard about Aunt Lana," Zeke said. "We still don't talk about her too much."

* * *

Frozen in place on the sidewalk, the diamond-earred Trevor -- or Caitlyn; at this point he wasn't sure which -- cried out louder than he meant to: "Ma!"

"Your grandmother has had the very same 49th birthday now for... well, maybe I'd best not disclose that, Evvie," Zeke said, one eye still winking from the sting of the juice.

"That's not what I meant," replied Evvie. "Anyway, who was crying in front of the bank?"

[LLapp]

"Halfway down the next block," Zeke continued, "Old Trevor . . . uh, Caitlyn, stopped in his I mean her tracks! Because, Evvie, right up ahead, standing smack in front of the Silverado Savings and Loan, was -- OUCH!" Zeke's hand flew to his face.
"Oops, sorry!" Evvie said. She waited, orange juice and pulp dripping down her arm, as Zeke dabbed his left eye with a handkerchief.
"As I said," he continued. "Right up ahead, right there in front of the bank, crying her poor eyes out, was --"
"Graaaamps," Evvie said slowly, "how many people can have the same birthday?"

"You almost had him," Ike Green murmured to himself. "I should have given that train hopping trash my old why all you have here are a couple of fake diamonds, son, routine." Ike, the owner of Universal Pawn gazed out the front window. "Maybe he'll be back. Sure hope he didn't steal them from anybody local though."

"Exactly what did that man take me for, a fool?" Caitlyn asked him/herself. "These are diamond earrings, and all he offered was $7.00? He took them to the back of the store and examined them himself. He had to know what they're worth! Maybe he thought I would believe him if he tried to tell me they were fake. These aren't fake... are they? "

[gryhnd51]

Reaching the corner, Trevor took a sharp left and entered a secluded doorway. A moment later he emerged as Caitlyn and was wearing the beautiful earrings. He just couldn't take a chance that the pawn shop owner would recognize him. He strutted purposefully toward the nearest UPS office, intent upon getting these gems to his mother for her birthday. He was so proud of this decision to act unselfishly for once.

Placing the earrings on the counter at Universal Pawn, Trevor paused. He hadn't thought of his Mom in a long long time, but he realized in that moment that today was her birthday, and he wondered if he should keep the earrings instead and try to get them to her as a gift.
"$7.00 sir?" the clerk asked.
"What?" asked Trevor, returning to the matter at hand.
"Would $7.00 be acceptable to you?" the clerk asked.
"Hmmm," Trevor hesitated. "Tell you what," he said. "Maybe I'll be back tomorrow." He snatched the earrings from the counter and walked out the door.

"Goes well with my eyes - the earrings, that is" thought Caitlyn. That was the name Trevor sometimes thought of himself as. He admired them a bit longer, and then slipped them into his pocket and wondered where he might find the nearest pawn shop.