Jimmy felt the impact of the water on his backside, but the slap on the bottom of his feet assured him that the cannonball was perfect. His lower back touched the rocky bottom and he pushed off with his feet, propelling himself back to the surface.

He broke through, wiped the water from his eyes and looked for his older brother’s approval.  He couldn’t see Frankie at first, but then spotted him climbing above the diving ledge, his stark white bottom out of place against the dark, brown surface.

“Frankie, what’re you doing?”

“Shut up. You’ll see.”  Frankie’s voice sounded flat against the embankment.  He continued climbing until he reached the uppermost cliff and sat for a moment, breathing deeply, almost three stories above the water. He stood up and grinned down at Jimmy.   

“Think that was a jump? Watch.”

Jimmy recognized Frankie’s grin –that indefinable feeling it conveyed—and for a fleeting second he questioned his knowledge of his own brother.

Frankie stepped back from the edge, disappearing from view.  Jimmy watched the vacant edge until his brother reappeared, launching himself into the open air above the pool. Frankie hung in space, his legs and arms churning to find equilibrium. He pulled his knees up against his chest a split second before smacking into the water’s surface.

A huge spray hit Jimmy’s face and the water swelled and pushed against him.  He looked for his older brother, scanning back and forth as the surface calmed. He counted a long, one…two… three… four…

Frankie broke the surface, laughing and spitting water.

“Now that was a jump,” he laughed.

“That was amazing.  Frankie…you were floating in air.  It took you forever to hit.  Weren’t you scared?”

“Hell, yes.  But if you just do it…well, you know. But my ass hit bottom pretty hard.”  Frankie laughed again, splashing water at his younger brother.

They looked up at the original ledge which now appeared old and familiar.  Its memory would soon pale alongside the danger of the upper rock. At fourteen, Jimmy was barely a year younger than his brother, but doubted he himself would be up to the challenge.

“How long we been here?”

“Don’t know. It’s one, two o’clock.  The old man could be home by now.”

They knew the implication of that. They swam to their clothes and boots lying in the sun by the wide pool.

*     *     *

They ran.  With each stride, dust puffed up and they zigzagged through the juniper brush. Their pant legs whisked at each bush and the warm air quickly dried their close-cropped hair. With an awkward leap over a bush, Jimmy passed his older brother. He ran, enjoying the lead, however briefly. He came to the neighbor’s barbed wire fence and angled off, paralleling it. Looking back, he saw Frankie stopped by the fence.

“Hey genius,” Frankie nodded to the fence. “This way’s shorter.”

“Maybe,” Jimmy said, walking back. “But that’s Johnson’s place.”

“So what? It’s not like we’re breaking into his house or something.”

“I don’t know, Frankie…”

“Don’t be a chickenshit.”  Frankie lifted the second wire and stepped down on the third, creating a gap for Jimmy.

Jimmy hesitated and then stepped through.  He held the wires for Frankie who slipped through and hit Jimmy on the shoulder.

“Let’s move.  The old man will be crappin’ nails if we’re not there when he gets home.”

The boys continued at a steady jog.

“Bear off to the left there,” Frankie said.

They moved over a small rise.  As they crested the rise, they startled a small herd of cattle, scattering them. The Hereford steers kicked up dust, ran a short distance and stopped to look back.  Two bellowed their complaint as others shook their dusty, red coats and shifted further away.

The boys were around the base of the ridge before they saw the house.  They came upon it unexpectedly although a good portion of the herd was visible from the building.  Frankie stopped and nodded toward a stand of juniper trees to the left of the house.

“Cut over and we’ll circle around.”

But they were too late.

The front door swung inward and a stout, middle-aged woman stepped out onto the porch. She wore a blue dress with a large, white apron encircling her waist.  Drying her hands on the apron, she squinted into the bright sun. She lifted her hand, peering out from under it at the boys.

“You boys come on over here.”

Frankie looked at Jimmy, shrugged, and walked closer to the house. As they came closer, the woman pointed to the steers on the hillside.

“You boys don’t be cutting across here. Those steers could end up scared and break down a fence or something. This is private property and you’re trespassing.”

Jimmy looked down at his worn boots, waiting for Frankie to apologize. The moment dragged on. Finally Frankie spoke.   

“I’ll make you a deal ma’am,” he looked over his shoulder at Jimmy and grinned –the same grin as at the swimming hole, but now Jimmy understood what it meant. It was a combination of what if and whatever; it’ll be worth it. Frankie turned back to the woman. “You go back inside and I won’t tell you to stick it up your ass.”  He looked at Jimmy again, the grin breaking into a wide smile.

For reasons he didn’t understand, Jimmy felt Frankie’s strength, his invitation to jump in. The woman’s eyes widened and her jaw hung slack. She shook her head, her chin wagging.  The comical look, combined with Frankie’s implied invitation gave Jimmy an odd feeling, as though this was a movie in which he both acted and observed.

“Yeah, waddle your fat ass back inside.”  He heard his own voice, defiant, yet detached – a kid’s voice saying a bad man’s words.

The woman stomped her foot involuntarily and with each stomp the color grew deeper in her face, until it reached a faint purplish hue.

“You…you…wait until my husband gets home.  You little bastards.  That’s no way to talk to a lady.”

“Hell, if he had to settle for a cow like you,” Frankie laughed. “He can’t be too damn much.”

The woman stared.  Her shock hadn’t diminished, but her fight was gone. “Just get off our property” she said and moved into the house, slowly closing the door. Frankie grinned at Jimmy.

“Time to make tracks, boy.”

They broke into their steady jog, not bothering to skirt around the house. Jimmy forced a laugh, but wondered at what he’d done.  While in the moment, the daring sense of power was intoxicating. In those brief seconds, Frankie admired him. But the reality of what he’d done and its probable consequences slowly seeped in.

“Jesus, Frankie. What we just did…”

“Don’t worry. Old man Johnson won’t do anything and dad may not even be home.”

Frankie seemed confident, but in his gut Jimmy held his newly realized fear in a tight, acidic wad.

*     *     *

They came from the south side of the milking shed, moving furtively now. The small house stood beyond the ramshackle building and as the boys peered around the corner they saw their father’s old Model T truck in the gravel yard. The afternoon heat pulsed off the gravel.

“Shit. He’s home,” Frankie said.  They eased back, concealing themselves behind the shed.

“Frankie…”

“Shut up.  Let me think,” Frankie took a deep breath. “Okay, he’ll ask where we’ve been, so we tell him we were at the spring on the south flat, checking the calves and digging out the mud.”

Jimmy looked skeptical.

“It’ll work,” Frankie insisted. “I think he might have told us to do that last week before he left. Just don’t start looking guilty.”

Jimmy nodded and together they stepped around the corner and walked toward the house.

They were through the yard’s gate when the front door opened and their father pushed past the screen door. He stood on the porch as the screen door slammed shut.  He wore work jeans and a heavy, cuffed shirt: A road-worker’s shirt. His hair was cut short –shorter around his ears— and the white of his forehead contrasted with his sun-scorched face. He spat into the yard, watching the boys approach.  He leaned his head to one side, looking down on them with a furrowed brow.

“Where you boys been?”

“Hey dad,” Frankie said. “We just come back from the spring. The calves are good. We dug the mud out, like you said, so the water could stand deeper. How was work this week?”

The man stood silent, looking from Frankie to Jimmy.

“Hi dad,” Jimmy smiled briefly before lowering his eyes from the stare. The man turned his gaze back to Frankie.

“So where are your shovels?”

“Just hung ‘em up,” Frankie said, jerking a thumb toward the shed. “Made sure to rinse them off at the spring. Take good care of your tools, just like you said.”

Jimmy’s heart pounded. Frankie was smart in his lies regarding the tools.

The man’s eyes moved back to Jimmy who continued staring at the ground.

“I told you boys before I left that I wanted that hen house mucked out and the roof fixed on the hog’s shed. Why ain’t it done?”

“Sorry dad.  It took longer than we figured to clean up the milking shed and make the rock cradle for the corner post of the fence. And then there was the spring to clean out.”

The man’s eyes narrowed further.  Frankie met the glare, his face blank, almost pleasant.

“Well, supper’s not for awhile, so there’s time to start on the coop. I want the floor raked out and clean straw put down.  Get the shit scraped off the perches, and get some clean straw in the roosts.”

“Yes, sir.” Frankie said.

“Yes, sir.” Jimmy echoed.

“I’m not happy about these jobs not getting done,” the man said. “But your mother says you’ve kept up your regular chores and have stayed out of mischief. Leastways you ain’t been caught anyway. That’s all that’s keeping you from trouble. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Look me in the eye,” his gaze shifted from one boy to the other. “Now, do you understand what I mean by ‘trouble’?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now get going on that coop. I want it spotless.”

The man turned and walked back into the house. The screen door slammed as he disappeared inside. The brothers went back through the gate and walked to the shed.

“Good job, Frankie,” Jimmy said. “He was wondering though. I couldn’t look him in the eye. But you did it. You pulled it off.”

“Did I?” Frankie’s smile flickered. “Just shut up, Jimmy.”

*     *     *

They ate supper around the worn table that sat in an alcove just off the kitchen.  The evening summer sun was bright through the window of the alcove, which overlooked the gravel yard and its long gravel drive snaking down to the main road. An occasional puff of wind came through the window, stirring the heat. The man talked, gesturing with his fork between bites.

“The problem’s with the workers we’re sent. Hell, the WPA won’t let you fire ‘em, so they lean on a shovel and get paid for the privilege.”

The boys sat on either side of the table, the man on one end, their mother on the other. Now and then the brothers’ eyes met, but quickly moved away in conspiratorial guilt.

“Jimmy, take your elbows off the table,” his mother smiled, watching as the boy slid his elbows off the table, leaving his forearms to rest on the edge.

“How much longer on this job, hon?” she said.

“About a week, but hell, with the shovel-leaners it could take longer. It’s just…” his voice trailed off as he looked out the window. “Now what the hell is this?”

A Model A truck had turned off the main road and was barreling up the drive.  A plume of dust boiled up from its wheels as it came.  Jimmy looked across the table at Frankie, who stared back, as though mentally willing his younger brother to remain quiet.  Then Frankie gave him a flicker of a grin. The man glanced from one boy to the other, his confused face relaxing into cold realization.

“Okay boys, what the hell is this?”

No answer.

The car was nearer now, the dust rising in a huge cloud above it. “Well, whoever it is, the son of a bitch needs to slow down.”

The car’s brakes locked as it slid to a stop in the gravel yard. The dust cloud rolled over it, drifting into the house through the open window. The boys’ mother coughed, waving her hand in front of her face.

“Well, now the son of a bitch’s dusted our damn dinner,” the man stood. “Looks like Johnson.”

The car’s horn blared for a count of three and stopped.

“He’s honkin’ his horn? Are you kidding me?”

The horn blared again.

“You mean the son of a bitch can’t even walk up to the door? He’s calling me out there like a trained dog?” he glared at each boy in turn. “Alright. Now we’ll find out what’s going on.” He walked out the front door, his boots heavy on the porch.

Jimmy watched from the window as his father crossed the gravel yard.  Dust still settled as his father reached the car, rested his arm on the top and leaned down to talk to Johnson through the car door’s window.  Frankie moved to the front door of the house. His mother continued watching from the window.  Jimmy eased to the front door and he and Frankie slipped out and down into the yard.

The boys stood together hearing the men’s voices, but were unable to make out the words.  Jimmy walked over to the fence by the side of the house and eased forward. Frankie, however, walked straight toward the car, but stopped in the middle of the yard.  As Jimmy moved closer, he heard the rage in Johnson’s voice. With a few more steps, he could make out the words.

“…talk to my wife that way is bullshit.”

“I understand,” his father’s voice was even, his eyes steady on Johnson. “The boys will be punished.”

Jimmy knew full well what that meant. He looked at Frankie, but his older brother simply stood as if in a trance.

“On my property,” Johnson shook a finger. “That’s trespassing. The law will back me on that.”

“I understand. They will be punished.”

“That kind of language… They should both get a good whipping.” Johnson’s voice grew louder.

“You’re right. There’s no excuse. They will be punished.”

With each reassurance, Johnson seemed to swell in his anger.

“You’d better see to it.”

“Rest assured. They will be punished.”

And then Jimmy watched as Johnson pushed too far.

“If you don’t take care of it, goddamn it, you and I’ll have to step outside.”

His father’s back stiffened. Then, in a blur, Jimmy watched him reach into the car and grab a handful of Johnson’s shirt.

“No need, you chickenshit bastard. Right now works for me.” His father took a half step back and jerked on Johnson’s shirt.  Johnson snapped forward, his head slamming into the corner post of the car’s door. Jimmy’s father pushed Johnson back, still clinching his shirt and jerked him into the post again. Johnson’s eyes widened, his head making a dull, thumping sound against the post. He fumbled for the car’s gearshift as his head slammed forward again and again. He somehow managed to grind the car into reverse and stomp on the gas.  The boy’s father lost his grip on Johnson’s shirt as the car shot backward and spun, enveloping the yard in dust.  The car’s tires threw gravel and propelled the car back down the drive.

In the haze, Jimmy saw Frankie still standing in the middle of the yard. His father emerged from the cloud of dust as though sifting in from a dream. He walked steadily, his fists at his sides. Then, as he came alongside Frankie, his fist arced up against the boy’s head.  Jimmy heard the knock of knuckle against skull as Frankie’s head bounced away.  In the same motion, his father pivoted, following the strike with a backhand to the boy’s face. Frankie spun from the blow and fell to the ground.  He pushed to his knees and moved his cupped hand up as if to catch the blood that ran in a steady stream from his nose.
    
The man stood over his son, his breath as rhythmic as a bellows.
    
“You’re goddamn lucky that sonofabitch had a big mouth. And I’m goddamn lucky it’s his word against mine.”  The man’s teeth clinched harder.  “If I ever hear of you disrespecting an adult like that again, I will beat the ever-lasting shit out of you.  There ain’t no hole deep enough for you to crawl into but I will find you and then you’ll know what hurt really means.”

Frankie kept his head down, staring at the blood cupped in his hand.  The man started again for the house and then stopped and turned on Jimmy. “The same goes for you.  Never again.”

Jimmy cast his eyes down, away from the glare. The sound of boots crunching on gravel resumed, and then faded. 

Jimmy waited until he heard the front door slam shut before raising his eyes.  Frankie was still on his knees in the gravel, the dust still settling around him, the blood running down over his upper lip and chin. Jimmy took a step forward as Frankie turned his head toward him.

​And then, with bloodstained teeth, Frankie grinned.

     When I was eight years old I engaged in a deadly battle with a clown.
    Well, perhaps “engaged” is a bit misleading, unless you counted my crawling under the covers or entirely under the bed as an engagement.  But the clown was real enough, and he possessed supernatural powers, although I was the only one in my family who was aware of it.
    The clown took the guise of a painting—a garage sale gift from my mother.  In the full brightness of the bedroom ceiling light, he looked harmless enough, even somewhat benign.  His head was cocked curiously to one side while his bright red lips tugged gently, sadly down at the corners of his exaggerated mouth.  Horizontal lines of melancholy carved his white painted brow in spite of the small, jaunty derby hat perched atop his bald head.  A bright budding flower protruded from the band encircling the clown’s hat and arced listlessly down beside his ear.  The flower’s bright blue color matched the large diamonds painted over the clown’s sad eyes.  He looked as though he was frozen, perpetually on the verge of crying.
     There is something unnaturally disturbing about a sad clown.
    Although I was pleased to receive the gift and thought its bright colors would brighten my small bedroom, I soon discovered its supernatural secret.  That first night, in the dim light of my small bedside lamp and in the gray-black sheath of night, the clown began to change.  The horizontal lines stitched across his forehead faded slowly away, but were soon replaced by the deep, vertical lines of anger.  The melancholy darkness of the clown’s eyes began to gently sparkle with a hint of malevolent madness.  The sad, red lips gradually, almost imperceptibly, arced upwards into a malicious grin.  The jaunty, derby hat only lent a more macabre essence to the ghoulish transformation.
    In my mature, eight-year-old reasoning I attempted not to look at the cursed clown, but its grotesque shape shifting compelled my eyes to it.  Knowing that its power was unnatural as well as unreasonable, I kept my eyes glued to the portrait, intently defying it to transform in front of such a stolid, rational witness.  Then a sudden, ever-slight change occurred, causing me to blink, which only provided the clown with an added instant to shift even more.
     However, before the clown achieved complete transformation and was able to perpetrate unspeakable acts of terror upon me, I raced headlong for the wall switch and dissolved him with 60 watts of GE power, back into the sad portrait from whence he came.  Of course, I tried calling my father to me in order to share the eerie phenomena and obtain his reassurance on the occurrence, but surprisingly, he chose to remain in bed, unimpressed with the supernatural.  My mother quickly came to me, but the clown craftily maintained its front of sadness so that she remained unconvinced.  After the second night, she too refused to come to my aid.  I was left with the sole option of sleeping with the ceiling light on which inevitably led to a morning of teasing from my siblings and a stern reminder from my father that he “didn’t bust his hump all week to support the electric company.”
    The battle continued for four nights.
    On the fourth day after receiving the clown portrait, I sat listlessly in my third grade class too deprived of sleep to even enjoy gazing at the curly-haired beauty of Patricia Wellinguard, a fellow classmate and unknowing receiver of my undying adoration.  When we had finished the math portion of our day the teacher announced that we would be reading some poetry and then writing poems of our own.  The assignment was an “open-write,” we could construct a poem on anything we wished—whatever came to mind.
    Whatever came to mind?  That criminally insane clown was the only thing dominating my mind since receiving the portrait.  I lived in a continual state of the clown staring at me with angry glee from within my mind’s eye.  I ate, drank, slept, breathed, and even went to the bathroom while the clown stared, plotting his vile acts.
    What else could I write about?
    I used the poem to attack the clown.  I exposed him for what he was.  I revealed his evil intentions and thwarted those intentions with scathing rhymes.  I made a joke of the whole horrific situation and in so doing, made a joke out of him.  The humor of my poem also illustrated my inherent bravery in dealing with the clown.  The teacher loved it.  She shared it with the class.  The class loved it.  I became the center of attention for the first time in my scholastic career.  I stood apart.
    And when I got home, the portrait still hung on my bedroom wall, but the evil clown had gone, vanquished without the courage to even say goodbye.
    Such is the power of writing and such was my first realization of that power.

     After I vanquished the clown I suddenly became the “go to” guy for writing.  Other students asked for my help with their writing assignments.  The teacher used my work as examples for the class.  People sat in wonder at how quickly I could make up stories and rhymes.  One of my class writings even won a place for me to attend a play with my teacher and one other student.  There was an eminence and confidence that came with being “the writer” of the class that I had not known before.  It was too good to last.
    And it didn’t.
    My family moved from that area of California, to John Day, Oregon, home of loggers, mill-workers and cattle ranchers.  In John Day, imagination and writing were as valued as a steel saddle in a lightning storm (you see how quickly just the thought of the town brings on a bad, down-home simile).  My newfound eminence and status abruptly vanished and with it my desire to write.
    My re-engagement with “real writing” (as I called it) did not happen again until high school.  By then my family had relocated once again and I was struggling with all the usual perils of adolescence.  Writing allowed me a voice with which to release my teenage social fears, confusion, and angst.  At that awkward age I rarely shared my writing with anyone; it simply existed as a comfort, a safety valve.  The few times I shared my writing, it was viewed as a curiosity, a novelty or trick that not every one could do—like juggling.  Others seemed to appreciate the finished product, but did not quite understand it or my inherent need to write.  As high school blurred into adulthood, writing slowly became a private, isolated thing I did, then a private, isolated thing I occasionally did, and ultimately, a private, isolated thing I used to do.  The reality of the world and how to survive in it gently pushed writing aside.  Had I possessed a greater level of awareness, I would have realized that writing contributed greatly to my survival up to that time.  But awareness is a slow dawning for many people and when the light hits them they often simply pull the shades.

      I encountered the clown again when I was thirty-four.
    This time he stood at the foot of a hospital bed.  His features, at first fuzzy, came into sharper focus as I drifted out of my morphine-laced sleep.  I had been crushed in an industrial accident.  The accident left me with three broken ribs, broken blood vessels from my neck up, and a lung in danger of collapsing due to the burst air sacs within.  The whites of my eyes shone blood red and I was sore to the point of feeling pain within a six-inch radius outside of my body.  I remembered the doctor telling me of my “luck”: had the angle of impact been slightly different, my heart might have been crushed.
     As my eyes regained focus, the malevolent clown at the foot of my bed slowly grinned.
    “How ya doin’?” he said.
    “Okay.”  My mouth felt thick with cotton.
    “When can you be back at work?”
    I ignored the clown for the time being, but he remained inside my mind, grinning, wanting me back.  When I got home four days later, I began to write.  Although I had turned my back on it, writing had not forgotten me, and writing had not lost its power.  It kept me sane as I spent six weeks semi-confined to a recliner that allowed a comfortable position in which to breathe.  It kept my spirits up as the lung damage slowly healed, suddenly turned to pneumonia, and then healed again.
    Since then I’ve walked away from my previous work and my ill-conceived idea of what life was suppose to be (hey, I may be slow to learn some lessons, but I do learn).  I returned to school and re-embraced the written word.  Although my “real writing” is still primarily for personal pleasure and fulfillment, I enjoy sharing what writing has done—and continues to do—for me in spite of the times I turned my back on it.  Even though I didn’t know it, it was always there.
     We all write even if we don’t realize it.  We all stage scenes, add descriptions, write dialog in our minds—even though circumstance and our own sudden fancies prompt constant revisions.

     Writing is here, within you and me, even now.
     But the clown is gone and I know he won’t return again.

           The kid stood in front of the bank doors reading its hours of operation and other information: please remove helmets, sweatshirt hoods, and sunglasses; Do not leave car unattended for long periods of time.
            He had no car. He had walked the entire way to the bank, his baggy jeans barely hanging onto his thin frame, yet still able to hold the .38 revolver in the center back of his waistband. He could feel the weight of the gun now as it rested there, the four inch barrel just touching the crack of his ass. He reached behind him and withdrew the gun. It felt heavy and powerful in his hand and he tossed it up – just a bit – to get a better feel for it and its weight. He looked back at the sign on the door.
            He still had his sweatshirt hood up, his aviator sunglasses still on, but it didn’t matter. The bank was closed. It was closed every weekend and closed weekdays at 5:00 p.m., Fridays at 6:00. It was Saturday and nearing dusk.
            He stood frowning at the front doors, his gaze shifting from the doors to the gun in his hand, as though trying to make up his mind. Then he stepped over to the ATM to the far right of the front doors.
            He stood in front of the ATM, but back about 12 feet. He planted his feet in a combat stance, raised the gun and pointed it at the glowing screen.
            “Okay, motherfucker, give me all your cash.”
            The ATM squatted in front of him, its screen glowing and silent.
            “I’m not fuckin’ with you,” the kid said. “Get those fuckin’ hands where I can see them and start handing over your cash.”
            The ATM’s screen continued to glow in response.
            “Okay, fucker,” the kid fired off three quick shots into the ATM screen. The gun bucked in his hand and two bullets hit the screen, one above the other. The third bullet wanged into the metal above the screen, leaving a small, black hole. Pieces of the heavy plastic cover flew out while the rest of it cracked into a spider web. A small spark sputtered beneath its remaining surface, but otherwise there was no change in the machine.
            The kid, on the other hand, felt as if his ears had been pierced by ice picks. His head ached and his ears rang as though clapped by a pair of stove pot lids. He shouted his next words as much to be able to hear himself as to warn the machine once again.
            “See? I’m not fuckin’ around here. So hand over the fucking money or I will empty this gun into you and fuckin’ kill you.” The kid’s ears began settling down and he could hear sirens, but the ringing kept him from being able to tell how far off the sirens were.
            “Last chance,” he warned. Again, the machine failed to even acknowledge the kid’s existence. The kid fired his remaining shots into the ATM, bursting the plastic on the machine and killing its steady glow. The shots also burst his ears back into a faint, whining pain. He ignored the impulse to reach up with his hands to cover his hears. Instead, he held his hands straight out from his body, like a forgotten scarecrow or Christ giving it up on the cross, the now empty gun dangling from the index finger of his right hand.
            The first of the three police cars came screaming into the bank parking lot. It slammed to a stop in behind the kid and both its occupants bailed from either side of the cruiser. One cop scuttled out of the driver’s seat and to the rear of the patrol car. The other cop bailed out of the right side of the cruiser, using its front end and passenger door for cover. The driver leveled his pistol at the kid’s back, while his partner rested a short barreled shotgun between the cruiser’s door and window frame.
            The two other police cars were soon on the scene as well, bouncing over the parking lot entrance, their tires screaming to a stop. They hung further back and to the outside of the first car. The doors flew open and the two additional officers settled into position with their guns on the kid.
            The driver of the first patrol car took charge. He had a small microphone attached to the front shoulder of his uniform shirt and he reached up to squeeze the handset. As if by magic, his voice boomed from the bullhorn of the cruiser.
            “Put your hands out away from your body,” the voice commanded –unnecessarily, because the kid’s hands were already in that position.
            “Let the gun drop from your hand.”
            The kid did as instructed.
            “Now put your hands behind your head and lace your fingers together.”
            The kid complied.
            “Now get down on your knees and do not move. I want to see those hands remain right where they are.”
            The kid eased down, the asphalt hard on his knees, but before he had even settled into the position, something seized his right wrist, pulling it down and behind him, while his body was slammed forward onto the asphalt. He barely had time to move his face aside, avoiding losing some teeth to the pavement. His aviator sunglasses clattered across the asphalt. His other wrist was jerked behind his back and he could hear the handcuffs snapping into place, pinching the skin on his wrists. A knee found the center of his back while one of the cops pulled his hood back and grabbed a fistful of his hair. They lifted the kid to his feet and walked him to the patrol car.
            “What the hell was that shit?” The cop in charge asked. “What did you think shooting an ATM would get you? I mean, besides arrested?” He slammed the kid over the hood of the patrol car and gave him a quick but thorough patting down.
            The kid smiled. “Aren’t you going to read me my rights before you question me?”
            “Son, you just shot the shit out of an ATM. There’s enough evidence to prove your guilt ten times over. We’ll let the detention officer go over the Miranda crap with you.” The cop put his hand on the kid’s head and eased him into the backseat of the cruiser. “Mind your head now.”
            “What do you think they’ll charge me with?”
            “That’s up to the prosecutor’s office, but let me see,” the cop feigned rubbing his chin as if in deep thought over the issue. “Well, there’s attempted robbery of course, destruction of property, illegal carry of a firearm, illegal discharge of a firearm within city limits, probably illegal possession of a firearm…hell, I haven’t even began to go into what the feds will do. Should have stuck to robbing quickie marts, Paco.” He looked over the top of the cruiser to his partner. “Any other charges that come to mind, partner? I’m sure there’s a shit ton of others.”
            “The biggest one that stands out to me,” his partner said. “Is illegal employment of massive amounts of stupidity.” 
            The two cops laughed as they pulled from the parking lot, leaving one cruiser behind to secure the scene of the attempted robbery.
            The kid sat in the backseat of the cruiser and smiled.
 
*****
 
            The two officers stood on either side of the kid and led him through the back door of the station house, down a long gray hallway, down a flight of stairs, and into the booking room. Beyond the booking room a row of 12 jail cells stretched to the end wall and then made a 90 degree turn with four more cells. For the most part, the inmates in the cells were quiet. The drunk drivers, drug addled, and homeless made up most of the residency, however four of the cells contained inmates arrested on more serious charges. Three pairs of arms stuck out between the bars of three cells, their tattoos illustrating stories that only the inmate could tell with certainty.
            The kid said nothing, but continued to hold his half-smile. The officers led him past the booking agent and to the front of a holding cell to give the kid a more thorough search.
            “So this is the badass bank robber I heard about over the radio, huh?”
            “Yep. Shot the shit out of an ATM. If you take cards up your slot, you could be in danger with this one.”
            The detention officer laughed. “If you’ve given him the once-run, bring him on over here and we’ll get him booked.”
            The first officer directed the kid to the desk, his hand on the kid’s elbow. “How about we do a handoff here and you can finish up?”
            “Oh no. You are officially the ‘arresting officer of record,’ so you get to stick around with me so Dan Dangerous here doesn’t go all kung-fu on my ass. Your partner can go book the gun into evidence and get a head start on your paperwork though.”
            “Great,” the partner said. “I’ll catch you upstairs where the humans still dwell. No offense D.O.”
            “None taken. Give the land of the living my regards.”
            The arresting officer walked the kid to the detention officer’s table, which was bolted to the floor. He unlocked one side of the handcuffs and locked it to a steel ring set into the table.
            “Okay,” the D.O. said. “Empty your pockets. Put everything on the table here and we’ll do an inventory.”
            The kid smiled as he dropped his wallet on the table, some coins, and a single key.
            “You’re a happy little bank robber, aren’t you son?” the D.O. said. “What were you trying to gain by shooting the crap out of an ATM? You do know it’s a machine right? And that it can’t listen to what you tell it to do?”
            The kid met the D.O.’s eyes, but only widened his smile.
            “That’s okay,” the D.O. said. “I prefer the strong silent types myself. It beats listening to the same old bullshit from every suspect. Let’s see who we have here.” He flipped open the wallet, took out a few small bills, and then removed other cards, pieces of paper, and a single condom. “Well, at least he’s a safe-sex bank robber, which is good. We wouldn’t want the ATM bandit here to be reproducing.”
            “So who do we have here?” said the arresting officer.
            “One of those from the southeast side. You know those apartment complexes that look like a city within the city, only they smell a lot worse? That’s where Bandit here hails from.”
            “Shit, that would have been my first guest,” the arresting officer said. “I should have tried to bet you before we found out for sure.”
            “Those asshole spics come out of the womb with a knife in their hand ready to rob and rape their own mothers.” The D.O. looked over to see if he had struck a nerve. Usually, any comments towards an inmate’s mother got some kind of reaction, but the kid simply kept his smile on the D.O.
            “Can I ask, sir, how long you’ve been doing this job?” The kid said.
            “This is my twelfth year.”
            The kid looked around at the gray painted walls and jail cell bars. “And do they let you out into the daylight much? Hell, you’re as much in jail as any man here, except you draw a shitty paycheck at the end of the week and probably go home to a fat wife every night. Does anyone really even know who you are?”
            The D.O.’s smile dropped. “Okay, smartass. We’ll get you fingerprinted and get your mug shot and then you can make use of one of our exclusive accommodations. There won’t be an ATM for you to fuck up, but there’s a television in the corner. If you can’t see it from the cell, you can listen to it and try to form mental images in that pea brain of yours.”
            The kid smiled. “I appreciate that, sir.”
            “Yeah, whatever. Now pull out your shoelaces and give me your belt. We can’t have a world-class bank robber going for the easy way out, can we?”
            The D.O. inventoried the kid’s belongings, had the kid sign a receipt for the items, finished processing him, and then felt an even greater sense of satisfaction than usual when he slammed the cell door shut. The kid’s cell was in the middle around the corner and he could see most of the other cells and their occupants.
            “You just rest easy Bandit,” the D.O. said. “The prosecutor will have your charges drawn up sometime Monday morning. Meanwhile, enjoy your lovely cot with single pillow and blanket and your exposed commode. Try not to shit on yourself if you use it.”
            The entire time the kid said little to nothing, but held his pants up by gripping the front waist and continued to smile. The D.O. walked back to his desk with the arresting officer.
            “Fucker keeps on with that weird smile,” he said. “Put that with his shooting up an ATM and you’ve got a mental case for sure. Now his lawyer will step in and use that to get him off. Then we repeat the cycle. Load, wash, rinse, repeat. Fuckin’ head job.”
            “To protect and to serve,” the arresting officer said. “It’s the code I live by. But tonight I think all I did was serve to protect a mental deficient from hurting himself. It’s times like these when we should stay the hell out of the way of Darwin and let these kind kill themselves off with their stupidity.”
            “It’ll be interesting to see what the ATM video shows. Who knows? Maybe there was an accomplice,” the detention officer rounded his desk and sat down with a sigh. “Although it’s kind of depressing to think there might be some others of his mental caliber out there in this world.”
*****
            The kid sat on the edge of his bunk, looking down at his lace-less shoes. He slept restlessly the night before and the day had dragged by. He had passed on the food that was served.
            “Going on a starvation diet?” A new D.O. had come on duty, but the kid found him as snide and condescending as the first. “That’s going to gain you about as much as shooting up an ATM.” The D.O. had laughed and some of the other inmates had joined in. The D. O. seemed to like having an audience and since the kid said nothing, he became an easy target.
            The jail was full. Over the course of the night the kid watched four drunk drivers go through processing, each one managing to get someone to come bail them out and take them home. A vagrant also came through, but had both pissed and shit himself at the beginning of processing. The other inmates were quick to show their disapproval.
            “Oh, come on now,” one said. “Do not put that guy in the same fucking building as us, let alone in one of these cells.”
            “He’ll probably get a better place to stay by pulling that off,” another laughed. “Maybe we should all shit ourselves.”
            “Go ahead, asshole,” the first answered. “They’ll just leave you to sit in it until Monday.”
             The kid had no idea where they took the guy who had shit himself, probably somewhere with a strong hose.
            The television played constantly. Apparently, the other inmates were used to the incessant noise, because the kid heard more than a few snoring off and on through the night. He couldn’t see the television from his cell, but it was tuned to some classic television channel that ran a marathon of situation comedies, the canned laughter beginning to scrape along the kid’s nerves. The irony of the television’s tuning wasn’t lost on the kid.
            The news had come on three times since the kid was placed in the cell. There was one report of an attempted home invasion, which earned one of the inmates a smattering of applause, but there was no mention of the attempted ATM robbery. The kid wasn’t surprised. You fuck with a bank, it’s federal, and they don’t broadcast any federal shit until the feds had the whole thing sewed up as tight as the stitching on a baseball.
            Still, he stayed awake and through the second night kept his ears open to any change on the television.
            Just before breakfast on Monday, the news came on again. The newscaster presented a few pieces of national news, but then her tone changed and the kid knew this was it. He stood and stepped to the front of the cell. He held one of the bars with one hand and held his pants up with the other, straining his ears to hear.
            The announcer’s voice came across, feminine, suddenly light-hearted, but consummately professional.
            “In other news, a local bank robbery with a strange twist. The suspect, a young Hispanic man, approached an Automated Teller Machine as you can see in this film from the actual ATM. Watch what transpires in this strangest of armed bank robberies.”
            Other inmates began to point towards the television beyond the kid’s sight, shouting to him and laughing.
            “Shut up!”
            The inmates fell silent as the sound came from the ATM and through the television video. “Okay, beeeeeeeeeep, give me all your cash.”A pause.“I’m not beeeeeeep-ing with you.  Get those beeeep-ing hands where I can see them and start handing over your cash.”A pause. “Okay, beeeep.”
            Three muffled pops came from the television. The inmates remained silent as they watched the scene on the screen unfold.
            “See? I’m not beeeeeping around here. So hand over the beeeeping money or I will empty this gun into you and beeeeeeping kill you.”
            Another pause and then, “Last chance.”
            The next three pops sounded and, although the kid couldn’t see, the picture blurred and diagonal lines waved through it. The other inmates watched the video as the kid spread his arms out, the gun dangling from his right index finger. The picture froze and recessed into a background shot behind the newscaster.
            “The video, now being dubbed as the “Armed ATM Bandit” surfaced from police evidence and has since went viral, garnering over six and one half million hits in only 36 hours. The previous record for a viral video pales in comparison and if this one continues, it will surely surpass all previous views for a viral video on YouTube. It is now being broadcast in Britain, France, and other countries throughout Europe and Asia. News agencies and entertainment sources from around the world are already lining up to interview the “Armed ATM Bandit.”
             The other newscaster’s comment faded in the murmurs of the other inmates’ sudden chatter. Their voices rose in volume, but then fell to a few furtive whispers.
            The cell block lay still for a lone, silent moment…
            And then exploded into whistles, applause, and cheers…
            The kid, his fists held high, jumped up and down on the balls of his feet like a prize fighter. “Yeah, motherfuckers!” he screamed. “I am fucking international!”
            As he jumped up and down, his unsecured pants fell unnoticed around his ankles. The inmates of the cell block cheered as though meeting the latest, greatest rock and roll sensation.