Over the Edge

A broke college graduate and his friends rob a bank.

“Hurry the hell up!” I demand, as Scott, Tyler, and Kim hurrily grabbed their guns out of the back of the Ford Explorer, beads of sweat dripping down our faces in the heat of the summer afternoon.

“Yo hold on,” Scott says, grabbing his gun.

“Yea dude,” Tyler says, fumbling with his weapon. “These things are heavy.”

            “You guys know the drill,” I say, “We go in, take care of business, and get out; just like we planned.”

            Just like in the movies: Run in the bank, hold it up, take the money and leave. That’s what we are gonna do, yep, me, my girlfriend Kim, a guy I know named Scott, and Scott’s little brother Tyler. I graduated from college about a year ago. I still can’t find work and my mom kicked me out, so I need the money. The four of us rush into the bank with our ski masks, bandanas, and all.

            “Get on the ground,” I shout, firing my shotgun into the air.

            Everyone in the bank does what I say. People rush to the floor, screaming and crying. Scott and Tyler block and guard the exit, as I and Kim have our guns aimed at the teller.

            “Oh my God!” The teller shrieks in horror.

            “Where’s your safe, lady?” I ask, pointing my shotgun at her face.

            Shaking, fearing for her life, the teller complies and runs to the safe.

            “Oh my God Cody,” Kim says. “I had no idea this was gonna be this easy.” She has this weird look on her face, putting on a smirk and licking her teeth.

            “Scotty, Ty,” I say, “Watch the entrance, got it?”

            Scott and Tyler nod their heads. As Kim jumps over the counter to follow the teller, I pull out a roll of trash bags I have in my backpack and rip off a bag. I opened the bag and jumped over the counter after Kim.

            The teller stood in front of the safe, crying, as Kim pointed her pistol directly at the lady’s head.

            “What are you waiting for?” Kim says, frustrated with the tellers delay. “Open the safe!”

“She has that weird look again,” I say to myself, looking at Kim.

            “Move it!” I shouted, firing my shotgun in the air again.

            The teller begins frantically putting in the combination in, she’s sweating bullets and she repeatedly looks at both me and Kim. Once she is able to get the safe open, the teller begins grabbing the money and throwing it into the bag. When she finished, I grabbed the bag. Then I nudged at Kim and we both jump over the counter. Scott and Tyler see us running out and open the door, and the four of us rush into the SUV and drive off.

            “Hell yea!” Scott shouts.

            Kim kisses me on the cheek as I speed down the road. I wink at her. She has this long, red, curly hair and this beautiful smile. I couldn’t wait to get her home.     

“Holy s**t,” Scott says, “There’s a crapload of money in here!”

“Yo,” Tyler says. “Can we count this now or nah?”

            “No,” I replied. “We’ll count it when we get back to my place.”

            We all get back to my house. I back into the garage, park the SUV, and open the trunk. Scott reaches for the sack when I grab him by the shoulder.

            “What the hell man!” I yell. “Did I say you could touch it?”

            “Dude,” he says, “My bad.”

            I shake my head and grab the sack out of the trunk. The four of us head into the house and close the garage. We go into the living room, sit down, and I pour the entire sack of cash onto the floor. They were neatly rolled in bands of $1000.

            “Guys,” I say, “Help me count this.”

            “Sure,” Scott says. “Ty you wanna help?”

            Tyler nods his head. The three of us count the money and it comes up to $50,000.

            “Alright,” I said. “We’re gonna split this four ways. Me and Kim are gonna take our cut, and then, Scotty, you and Tyler are gonna take your cut and leave.”

            “Leave?” Scott asks. “So, why can’t we all just spend it and buy a lifetime supply of coke and weed again?”           

            “Because me and Kim want to use it for our own s**t,” I says. “I mean, what’s the problem man?”

            “Nothing,” Scot replies, “I just figured that since we all did this together that we should all stay here and use it for something.”

            “What?”

            “So,” Scott asks, “You’re just giving us a cut and telling us to piss off?”

            Scott was starting to piss me off with all of his whining. The truth was, I thought the guy and his brother were both junkie pains in the a*s. Scott and I used to smoke weed together back in high school, and I hadn’t even talked to the guy since I went off to college. I figured that since they had a lot of guns and occasionally robbed people to buy drugs, I could just hit him up on Facebook again, and get him to help me and Kim rob this bank. I didn’t want to be a dick and flat-out tell him that I thought him and his Brother were lame and annoying, so I tried to be nice about it.

            “Look guys,” I tell them, “Thanks for all the help and whatever, but I’d rather we just split this between us and you guys just go your own way.”

            “Dude that’s ignorant,” Tyler says. “Yo Scotty, let’s just take it and go bro.”

            I give them both $12,500 and they leave. Thank God. As soon as they leave, I sit next to Kim and look at what’s left of the money.

            “So,” Kim said, “What did you wanna do now?”

            I slide closer to her and run my fingers through her hair.

            “That’s all up to you.”

            “Did you want to get high?” She asks.

            “Oh,” I say, a little disappointed. “Ok, that’s cool too.”

            I call the dealer up and asked for a pound of weed. He shows up, we buy the stuff, and he leaves. For the next two days or so, we smoke like half of it without stopping and get smacked out of our minds. Two nights later, we’re still there, smoking the weed. I light the bowl first and inhale; I hold it in for a few seconds, start coughing, then I exhaled. Then I pass it to Kim.

            “I’m pretty damn high,” I said.

            “Yea,” she replies, “Me too.”

            I put my arm around her and we start making out, and one thing leads to another. Then at 9 o’ clock that night, we woke up. We both put our clothes on and I turn on the TV. It was on Channel 45 News and they were talking about our robbery.

            “A Bank of America was robbed by four people who appeared to be in their early 20s,” the Anchorwoman on TV said. “Three of the suspects were males, and the other was a female with long red hair. If you have any information on this incident please call the Police Department.”

            “We should rob another bank,” Kim said. “This is actually kinda fun, even though we’re getting a lot of attention.”

            She continues, “You shouldn’t have told those two get lost.”

            “Babe,” I say, thinking she was completely crazy. “None of this attention is good attention. As a matter of fact, we might need to get out of here and warn Scott and Tyler.”

            “If they’ll listen to you,” she replies.

            “Look,” I panic a little bit, “I’m not trying to hear that right now! If they’re smart they’ll listen.”

            “Cody, babe,” she says. “Don’t tell me you’re going soft on me. Ok, we leave, then what are we gonna do? You wanna be on the run for the rest of our lives?”

            She continues, “I don’t wanna go out like that. Let’s take a couple more banks, I mean we don’t even have enough money to run off, there’s only like $10,000 left.”

            “Look,” I reply, “This isn’t up for discussion! We’re leaving, now!”

            She sucks in her teeth and gives me this really mean look. I pack up what’s left of the money and weed, and I opened the door leading to the garage. I put the stuff in the trunk. Kim is taking a bit long to come out, so I open the door again to see what she was doing and I see her as she’s coming out.

            She gives me another mean look as she was coming out.

Kim and I both got in the truck, and we headed down to Scott’s house. It was a pretty rough looking neighborhood As soon as we got there, there were a bunch of cars outside. Alcohol bottles and the smell of weed smoke fill the air, as people stumble out of the front door.

            “These idiots,” I think to myself.

            I ring the doorbell and Tyler answers.

            “What the hell do you want?” He asked.

            “Can you and your brother come out?” I asked. “It’s important.”

            “Tell me why you’re here,” he said, “And I’ll go get him.”

            “Look man,” I said, “You both need to get the hell out of dodge.”

            Just then Scott comes to the door, he looked pretty wasted. His eyes were bloodshot, he had powder on his nose, and his red flannel was unbuttoned, exposing his bare chest. As soon as he saw me, his face turned red and he slammed the door shut.

            “What the f**k do you want,” he asked, his words slurred. “You f****n’ a*****e!”

            The moron charges at me, being held back by his brother. He staggers all over the place. I put my palm up to protect myself.

            “Dude relax!”�"I sigh�"“The robbery is all over the news. We all need to get the hell out of here.”

            “What?” He asks. “We’re livin’ the life man! If I had known that robbing banks was easy money, I would have done this s**t years ago!”

            “Are you an idiot?” I ask him. “So you really want to stay here and get caught?”

            “Get caught?” He asks. “We’re not worried about the damn cops. We have a s**t-ton of guns, and a s**t-ton of bullets.”

            Scott starts staggering all over the place. He was acting like some type of big-shot-kingpin character; coke tends to do that to people.

            I look at Kim. She gives me a mean look, and then looks at Scott and Tyler. She gives them the weird look she had given the teller at the bank, smiling and licking her teeth.

            “He has a point,” she says. “I mean I don’t want to be a fugitive for the rest of my life. I definitely don’t want to go back to being broke either.”

            She walks away from me and stands next to Tyler.

            “If you want to leave fine,” she says, “But I’m hitting more banks.”

            She’s staring daggers in my eyes now. Then, she pulls her pistol on me. I didn’t know what to say or do. Scott and Tyler both pull pistols on me after she does. I’ve got three guns pointed at me and my dumb-a*s didn’t bring mine. What the hell was I thinking, trusting these junkies?

            “Kim?” I ask. “What the hell are you doing?”

            Her smile became more sinister. That chick was crazy, damn it! I should’ve known when I met her.

            “At this point,” Scott says, “You can’t leave. You know way too much, and we think you’re gonna rat us out.”

He continues, “Since you’re acting like a little b***h right now.”

I don’t know what to say or do, I’m helpless.

“You know what,” I say. “I’ll just leave. Kim you can stay here and do whatever the hell you want.”

I turn to Scott and Tyler, “I have $10,000 in the trunk right now. If you let me go, all of you can have it and I won’t go to the police. I promise.”

Tyler looks at Scott and they both chuckle a little bit, then they both look at me. Kim looks at the both of them and smiles, before turning that weird look back on me again.

“Okay,” Tyler says. “Go get it!”

As I’m walking down the steps, they pull out their pistols. I hear a bunch of loud popping noises. I feel something like hot metal go through my back, and I fall to the floor.

“Arggghhh!” I scream out in pain. I start bleeding out, I must have gotten hit, like, five-ten times. The burning hot metal was the worst thing I could imagine. As I lay there bleeding, I see a bunch of people come out.

“He was right about the money,” Kim said to Scott and Tyler. “There’s $10,000 in the trunk. I’ll give it to you, on one condition. You have to let me in.”

“Okay,” Scott said. “That’s fine.”

The three of them head towards the trunk. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything. They take all of the money. Tyler carries the sack of cash back to the house, and he, along with the entire crowd looks at me; no one was really panicking, they were all too wasted to care. Scott has his arm around Kim, as the two of them walk back towards me. They both look at me. Scott shakes his head slowly.

“Somebody come out and get rid of him.”

I just laid there. I could feel my life actually slipping away. You know that light people always talk about? The one you’re not supposed to go towards? I could actually see it, and I couldn’t stop myself from going towards it. Two bigger guys come out and carry what was left of me to the backyard. I was already like an inch away from the light, and by the time the carried me to the backyard, I was already on the other side.