free.
“Fuck this.”
He pulled the trigger, and the top of Martha’s head disappeared from the nose up, splattering wetly onto the wall behind her. And onto the ceiling. And onto the floor. And onto Roy. She rocked back and forth on her feet. Her lips moved, with nothing but red above them.
“Oh my . . .”
She swayed one more time, then crumpled to the floor.
The screams and confusion were instantaneous. Sharon and Kim and Oscar shrieked at the top of their lungs. Roy cried out that he was blind, not comprehending that it was the inside of Martha’s head that covered his eyes. Benjy cringed against his mother, screaming for it to be over, crying that he couldn’t help the old lady; that she’d already gone to meet Jesus. John yelled too— but I couldn’t understand what he said. My ears were focused on the sounds from the lobby. There were more of them. Coming closer. Coming fast. Coming hard. The sound of booted feet and harsh, barking voices. There was more breaking glass, too, as windows were shattered by tear gas grenades.
Smoke still pouring from his barrel, Sherm spun around again and pointed the gun at me.
“Fuck all of this,” he growled. “Fuck it all.”
I aimed with the .38, but before I could squeeze the trigger, Dugan brushed past me. Sherm shot him in the chest. Dugan hunched over, his eyes squinted shut in pain, but he refused to drop. Stumbling forward, he slammed into Sherm just as Sherm fired again. The explosion was muffled at point-blank range. The back of his shirt turned red. Shuddering, Dugan cried out. He pressed forward, and managed to knock Sherm to the ground, pinning him beneath his wounded and bleeding body.
Tear gas began to flood the vault. My eyes felt like they were on fire, and the acrid smell stopped my lungs when I breathed it in.
“Go,” Dugan roared at us. “Sharon, get the hell out of here. Roy, get them out.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Sharon cried, but the others were heeding his words. Kim and Oscar sprinted past me while I stood gasping, trying to catch my breath. Screaming, they ran out the door.
“Wait,” I shouted, then broke into a coughing fit. Between the tear gas and the cancer, I couldn’t breathe.
“Tommy, they’re getting away.” His eyes tearing, John started after them in confusion, then took a step back toward Sherm, who struggled to free himself from Dugan’s crushing weight. Dugan clutched his wrist, slamming it again and again onto the floor, attempting to knock the pistol from his grip.
In the hall, stern voices shouted “Police officers! Down! Get down!”
“Tommy,” John hollered again, his voice frantic.
I couldn’t answer him. The cough I’d been battling to contain rattled my chest. My lungs and throat exploded, filled with raw, red, unbearable pain. I sank to my knees, praying for it to end. Deep inside me, something moved, dislodging itself from my body. As it tore free, long ropy strands of bloody saliva dripped from my lips. The loose piece pushed upward, then stopped. Gasping for breath, I found that I couldn’t breathe. I was choking on a piece of myself. Half-blind from the tear gas, John ran past me, intent on chasing down Kim and Oscar. He still had my pistol in his hand. I tried to cry out, tried to warn him not to go outside, that the police were there, but I just choked. My ears started to ring, and my heart and head were pounding—craving oxygen and threatening to burst. Dropping my pistol, I waved an arm at him but he never saw me.
“Police! Drop your weapon and get on the ground, now!”
He froze in the doorway and the roar of rifles shook the vault. A second later, I heard his body hit the floor. Inside my head, I screamed his name.
“T-tommy . . .” John wheezed.
The ringing in my ears grew louder. White spots appeared at the edges of my vision.
“Mr. Tommy,” Benjy cried out.
Weakly, I tried to wave him away, tell him to stay down. I sank lower, thrashing and clawing at the floor, trying to breathe.
“Benjy,” Sheila screeched, her face red from the gas, “get back here!”
“He’s dying, Mommy. Jesus is coming for him.”
Jesus is coming and boy is he pissed, I thought. Later my niggaz. Peace out. I’m going out to find myself now . . .
With one hand still clutching Sherm’s wrist, Dugan grabbed his face and slammed his head against the floor. Enraged, Sherm bellowed in pain and managed to latch on to Dugan’s ear with his teeth. He tore his head away, taking a chunk of flesh with it. Dugan screamed. Their blood covered each other. Struggling, Sherm rolled him over and landed on top. Straddling the older man, Sherm finally ripped his pistol hand free and raised the gun. Then my vision blurred completely. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t smell. But I could still hear. I heard voices. Sherm and Dugan. The cops. The hostages. And other voices too. Squeaky voices, sharp and cruel. They were coming closer.
Suddenly, there were hands on me, tiny hands. I rolled over and my vision came back. Benjy stared down at me, his eyes filled with fear and sadness.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Tommy. Mr. Dugan made me do it. He made me untie him so he could get your gun. I didn’t want to. I tried to tell them you were a nice man but they wouldn’t believe me. They said it was the only way we could get out.”
My constricting throat bulged as I struggled to answer him.
“Lie still, Mr. Tommy. Lie still. We have to hurry.”
I felt his fingers wrap around my throat. They were warm— so warm. The panic and fear vanished, as a wave of calm washed over me. The shouts, the struggles, the gunshots and voices— all were distant now, muted. Even Benjy’s voice seemed to come down a long tunnel. The only thing I could hear clearly were those other voices, the ones I couldn’t see. I knew what they belonged to, and I was afraid.
Then, suddenly, I could breathe again and the voices vanished. The warmth continued to spread through my body, flowing like water. I could feel it burrowing, hunting out the cancer cells and destroying them as it went. It flowed through my head and my chest, my lungs and my throat. The tightness in my jaw disappeared and my throat was soothed. The persistent, crippling headache that I’d lived with for the past few months vanished. The warmth filled me, making me whole again.
And there was a light . . .
“You’re all better, Mr. Tommy.”
Looking down at me from above, with the fluorescent lights glowing over his head, he looked very much like an angel.
I was all better. I knew it instinctively, deep down inside. The cancer was gone, just like John’s gunshot wound and Roy’s heart attack and Sandy the dog and all the others that Benjy had helped in life.
My cancer had been growing. Growing at an alarming rate. I’d been dying. And now I wasn’t anymore. That meant I would have to face the music, face the consequences of what had happened since the moment I’d decided to rob the bank. All the lies and deceit. All the pain this would cause Michelle and T. J.— and the pain I’d caused these poor people around us. John. Keith. Martha. Lucas. Mac Davis. Even Kelvin. So many people. So much pain. So much death. Dead because of me. They’d done nothing to deserve it. They’d just been living their lives. And because of me they were gone. The weight of it all crushed down on me.
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed to Benjy, and he smiled.
“It’s okay, Mr. Tommy.”
Then Benjy lifted his hands and the sounds came rushing back. There was a gunshot; close enough to rattle my teeth. Sherm succeeded in ramming his pistol under Dugan’s chin and pulled the trigger.
Sharon’s wail filled my ears. She clawed at her face in complete despair while Roy and Sheila cowered against the wall.
Throwing Benjy beneath me, I crouched over his body, sheltering him with my own, and raised the .38. Sherm pushed himself up from Dugan’s bloodied remains and clambered to his feet. He was unsteady, shaking his head and working his jaw back and forth. Snot and blood ran down his face.
“Get out of my head,” he screamed.
I got the feeling he wasn’t talking to any of us.
