...now where was I ?
Oh yeah....
"I just locked the safe and I don't know the combination".
So I turn around and reposition myself so that everyone is still comfortable with me staring directly down the barrel of that damn gun
and I say to my new friend, "Sorry (still polite), we just locked the safe and NO ONE (I emphasized no one, like there was ANYONE but me) has the combination to open it".
So Genius says, "Excuse me?" (see now even he decides to be polite...you catch more bees with honey than you do with vinegar, right?). Since I just repeated myself he apparently felt like he had to as well (obviously low self esteem issues)...YOU NEED TO GIVE ME ALL THE MONEY IN THE STORE (note the caps on every word now).
Since we seem to be playing anything you can say I can say better, my response is, "Sorry, I can't open the safe"...even I'm feeling a little embarrassed by the lack of rapport the two of us seem to have.
Genius didn't like this...and this is where it gets good.
Genius decides he no longer likes the service desk being between us so he decides to climb over it to get a little closer to me...me being a likable guy and all. Now don't forget the total picture here. Skinny guy, all dressed in black, wearing a full face mask, with a gun in his hand, climbing over the counter of a service desk ...why?...to get his gun a little bit closer to me because, obviously, he thinks I'm lying about the safe situation.
(This , by the way, would have been the perfect time for Bill (or whatever that bagger's name was) to maybe give him a little ooomph when he has climbing over that counter...sending Genius ass over tea kettle, but then again, I don't think he would have successfully have been able to finish peeing his pants if he had...because he had to have been doing something like that or I would have at least remembered his presence throughout this entire episode, which, coincidently, I do not).
Alright, now genius is next to me inside the service desk. He tells me to turn around. "Turn around", he says.
I do.
He puts the gun against the back of my head. I can feel it, Right at the point where the back of your skull ends and your neck begins. Go ahead, take your hand (right or left, makes no difference) and feel that spot I'm talking about.
Got it?
Now, with the muzzle of the gun touching the back of my head he tells me to "put your hands up". Really? "Put your hands up"? Everybody knows "putting your hands up" is the first thing you are supposed to say when initiating a robbery. Amateur. I actually think that when he tells me to do this.
So I put my hands up.
This is what he says and does..."GIVE ME ALL THE MONEY IN THE STORE", but with an added twist this time. Genius punctuates each word by pressing the gun into my skull (or neck, or whatever that part of your body that technically is) with every word he said.
Nice.
So I clear my throat and say, in the calmest, evenest tone I can muster, "I really can't do that. Nobody here can open the safe after it's been locked. Believe me, if I could I would, but I can't". I said it just like you would tell someone that you forgot to grab them that cup of coffee they asked you for...just like that. Then I added for good measure, "You can take my wallet out of my back pocket and take anything I have in there". This was an offer that he opted not to take me up on, which is probably a good thing, because except for my license, a library card, and probably a note I had written myself as a reminder of something I needed to do, I'm sure there was nothing else in there. If he had taken my wallet, that is probably what would have gotten me shot.
Now let me tell you something. If you think you've got pressure in your life or at work...have to make an important presentation at work...have an unpleasant meeting with your boss...have a deadline you have to hit...all that is nothing. Having a gun pressed up against the back of your head and telling the person on the other end of that gun exactly what he does not want to hear is pressure. But that's what I did.
...and somehow, after telling him to reach in my pocket to get my wallet, I had a sense of calm come over me. Somehow I now felt I was in control, not that skinny little runt hiding behind a mask and gun. I also had a revelation. I'm sure Genius and his getaway driver waiting out in the parking lot (at least that what I had envisioned...I never really found out for sure if he had an accomplice) had worked out an ingenious plan that went something like this...
- Be at the door when they are closing the store
- Get to the place they keep the money
- Demand the money
- Get the money
- Run out of the store
- Total time , maybe 90 seconds
- Spend the money on candy and comic books
He was.
He told me to "Get on the floor". No way in hell was I getting on the floor. No effing way am I getting on that floor, I think to myself. I get on the floor and he shoots me, I also think to myself.
So with him behind me and the gun still pressed against my head I say to him, "I'm not going to get on the floor" and that was it. I wasn't.
Genius is rattled now. "I said get on the floor"...and although the gun was still on me, I don't remember feeling the emphasis of him pressing it into my skull with each word.
"I'm not doing that".
Now the bastard, I mean Genius, really does not know what to do. Things had clearly not gone as planned. Now he was scared and I could hear it in his voice.
The gun comes off of my head and this is what he says, actually sort of announces, because let's not forget Tori was behind the short glass wall and Bill was standing in a puddle on the outside of the service desk (although for the last few minutes , for me, it was just me and genius), "Nobody moves for five minutes and you won't get hurt". Really, that's the best you got? Christ, you better go back and watch some of those gangster movies for the forties or fifties again and get some better lines.
And with that he bounds over the service desk, takes a quick turn to the right , and sprints out the front door. I watched him, he was gone.
He was gone for less than a minute and a half when Westbrook's finest come barreling in through the front door, guns drawn. Turns out Mickey (do you remember Mickey?) saw Genius walking across the front end after she had handed me her till, bolted up the stairs just to the left of the service desk. grabbed a phone, hid under a desk, and called the police to tell them the store was being robbed. I do not think she peed her pants.
If he had just been in the store for 60 seconds more, who knows what would have happened? Personally I'm glad I didn't have to find out. The outcome would not have been the same. May not have been as pleasant.
After about ninety seconds of them realizing that none of us were the bad guy, they tried to find Genius outside. This is where the store being near the old exit 8 comes in to play (I told you it would). He was literally 30 seconds to the turnpike and had the choice of going either north or south for his escape route. That was the smartest thing he did all night, well, that and not shooting me. He was gone, never to be seen again.
So there were lot's of other details to tell...me calling home to tell my family about what had happened...staying at the store for hours going over every detail with the police...me working the very next night, closing the store again (which to me is a very relevant point...I was at the tipping point of letting this scar me for life, or facing my fears head on and putting it behind me..I chose the latter), going to some therapy sessions with my comrades and on and on and on.
So, next time you see me, think of my calm demeanor and how it saved my life.
...and know I'm one tough son of a bitch that stared down the barrel of a gun and lived to tell about it.
Peace and Love
