Guilt

A bank robber struggles with his guilty conscience

Guilt

By

Andrew T. Gordinier

I rolled through the desert night. The engine of my car breathed fire in a single long roaring exhalation, a tamed dragon rediscovering its primal strength. I held the reigns in cold fingers that felt alien to me.

Out past the last lights of the world.

Out under a full bright moon that hung observant in the sky, unblinking yet unwilling to witness these tragedies. Unwilling or not she lighted the way, as I pulled off the highway and onto an access road that the desert had all but reclaimed with scrub and drift sand. The sports car was not built for that and its suspension creaked and groaned over the rough ground in protest.

I stopped the car when the boulder was squarely in the headlights. A cloud of dust washed past me, as if to clear the way and announce my return.

"He said he would never be back, he said he had no more need of these ghosts, but we were right! He has returned to us!"

I walked back to the trunk.

I didn't want to open it.

I didn't want to see her again.

But I had to get the shovel. It had seemed harsh to put the shovel on top of her in the small trunk. There was no other way though. So I opened it and pulled the shovel out without looking at her.... an easy task considering the tears in my eyes.

I shuffled to the other side of the rock and without ceremony started to dig. Repeating over and over in my mind that I had not killed her, that they had done it. Eventually those thoughts found breath and became words as I tore a wound in the hot sands that had taken so much.

The same hot sands that would still take so much more away from me.

We bury our dead; some also bury the memories of the past. The good and the bad. The pleasant and unpleasant. They all eventually find a home in the dark womb of the earth where they can rest. Till they must be dug up and made to dance again in a mockery of their last rites and the lives they lived. So as I dug I resurrected my past and the memories of it.

Ten years ago I had nothing to lose. A life out of control and a fate that seemed uninviting and cold. Forty years in the factories, retirement, and then death. I had nothing to lose except what would soon be lost anyways. So I formed a plan. I talked to three of my friends who thought as I did and they agreed it was a good plan.

We quit our jobs and left our “wasted” lives behind. We bought a van and the tools of the trade we had chosen. Then we spent a month driving up and down the coast learning the terrain and practicing.

When everything was perfect...

We started.

In a ten-day spree of driving, yelling, and the occasional warning shot we robbed twenty-six banks. Pulling in a total of four and a half million in good old “in God we trust” cash. Divide by four and everyone goes their merry way.

My first stop had been here.

To bury the past and a way out... just in case something happened that I couldn't predict. Just in case I had to run and hide from my past.

Who would have predicted they would kill my lover ten years later?

CLANK!

The sound of metal hitting metal put me back in my grave. Dropping to my knees I dug with my bare hands till the box was uncovered, and then I swung the shovel heavily at the rusted lock. Each strike sounding out an empty hallow tone.

Like the tolling of a bell announcing the arrival of the dead, not at their final resting place but at the doorways and windows of the living.

The lock broke eventually and the door drifted open releasing a faint musty smell into the desert air.

Was this how Pandora felt?

There were three bundles in the box each wrapped in heavy brown wax paper and string; one had heavy greasy stains on it. Cutting open one of the bundles I looked at my past, a few faded family photos, an old drivers license, and some old letters that I had not had the heart to burn. The next bundle held $10,000 in cash, a social security card and a birth certificate with a matching name. I had planned to use these if things went bad and I needed to go on the run with little or no notice. The third bundle contained what Sun Tzu once called “tools of ill omen”, weapons, a Colt 45 with a silencer and four clips.

My father had taught me to shoot at a young age. Out in the cold fall air, the crack of a pistol, the smell of burnt powder, and the feel of steel moving smoothly in my hand.

“Keep both eyes open and breath deep and even. Don’t fight the gun and the target, work with them, then when it’s lined up nice and tight; Squeeze don’t pull.”

He had been so proud of my skills at hunting and shooting; he would be chilled now to know what I had become. What I had yet to do.

I took the money, fake ID’s, and the gun back to the car. I dared not look at the old photos and letters. I was not so far gone that they could not turn me back by touching some ghost of my old self.

Then I walked to the trunk.

I lifted her out gently and reverently.

She had always joked that I touched her as if I was afraid I was going to break her. I had always felt that I touched her like a dream that might fade away if I looked at her directly or held her too tightly. I suppose it’s the same thing, different perceptions.

I carried her to my grave placing her on the side of it, climbing in myself, then gently pulling her in and setting her down. It was an irony that did not escape me, she would be alive had she not known me. I sat there with her holding onto her body, wrapped in blankets and a heavy plastic tarp. Feeling cold and lonely, again.

As if the warmth of the love we had shared was an errant ray of sunlight that had broken through the storm. Something that was not supposed to happen and the error had been corrected, the balances set right.

Perhaps for someone else they were set right but not to me.

As if by some compulsion, I reached in my pocket and pulled out my knife and fumbled the blade open. One last time, I had to see, to touch one last time. I gently cut away the outer layer of plastic, then the heavy blanket, and folded it back to look at her face.

I’ve heard people describe the faces of the dead like everyone else. Sleeping and peaceful, these are lies. There was no mistaking deaths touch here. Her once vibrant and smiling lips were limp and an unnatural pale, even her dark ebony skin had taken on a grayish tone, only her long thick hair was still its usual rich color. Though now it was matted and tangled, in life she would never have allowed such a state of disarray.

I held her empty body as I wept.

I couldn’t help but feel that I had stolen her future from her by being involved with her. Right or wrong the feelings of guilt were overwhelming. I had killed her by lying about what my past was, by trying to think that I had some right to live happily ever after with her. I had given up that right when I robbed my first bank, perhaps long before that. Her death was the price I paid for trying to cheat fate.

I wept for a long time as I held her in my grave.

No tears would wash away death though. No tears could change what had to be done.

I wrapped her still and empty body again, pulling the blankets tight around her, and wrapping her in yet another sheet of heavy plastic. It can get cold in the desert at night. Then I climbed out of my grave and began to mechanically shovel sand into its gaping maw.

Eventually her body would be found. There was a wealth of evidence buried with her. Hairs, fibers, blood stains, fingerprints, even the blankets and the plastic sheeting, then there was also the box I had buried with her. It held enough for even the most amateur of detectives to learn who I was and eventually what had happened. It would be over by then, perhaps by weeks, months, or even years.

She deserved better than this, better than the life I gave her and the way it ended.

I didn’t kill her though, they did. The chant returning to me, the grave was filled quickly.

I left the desert behind and drove back towards the world under the harsh gaze of the sun. I was dirty and I was tired, but there was still much to do and I dared not stop. I feared I might lose my momentum and not finish the task at hand. So I went about the work ahead of me.

An automated car wash to remove the red brown sand from my car.

A hotel room so I could bath and put on clean cloths.

Then in the privacy of that same hotel room I cleaned my gun. Slowly and carefully, inspecting each pin and spring. Ensuring that there would be no grit or sand to jam the mechanism at a fateful moment.

When I was ready to leave I stood in front of the mirror looking at myself. I was no longer the bank robber, I was no longer the gentle lover with a false past, nor was I the gravedigger. I was something pale with long cold fingers, I kept checking to see if I still had grave dirt under my nails. I had become someone who could not last long in the world. Things like me either burnt out quickly or were snuffed out, things like the one in the mirror were a sickness that could not be allowed to spread.

I practiced forcing some life into my face so that I wouldn’t look as burnt out and dead as I did. When I was satisfied that I could fake it enough to get by, I chambered a round in the gun and left. It was mid afternoon when I opened the door to the sunlight.

Searching the city for three people was not as hard as you would think. I knew where to find one and he slowly brought me to the others, a late night dinner at a fashionable restaurant by the ocean. They were there drinking and smoking in a still somber silence. Ray toying with his ever-present pocket watch, Tina gazing mutely into her wine, and Mike was slowly dissecting his desert as if it were a science experiment. Was it really all that long ago that I would have been sitting there with them? As I sat at the bar watching them I realized that I had never really been apart of that group, never really belonged.

I stepped away from the bar and walked up to their table, they didn’t seem to be surprised to see me. As I drew my gun Ray snapped his pocket watch shut.

“Don’t you even want to know why we had her killed?” Ray’s voice held the tone of someone who knew they held all the cards and had planned it all from the start. He seemed surprised when I shot him in the stomach, he would die slow. Mike started to stand and I put him back in his chair with a single shot to the chest. Tina was screaming almost incoherently and died on her back in a growing pool of her own blood, flailing and twitching to the last.

I used to wonder how people walked away from things like that. How they turned on their heel and found a new way to live. Its funny now that I think about it I never once wondered how people got to that point where walking into a restaurant and killing was a good idea. Just how they walked away and

Wake up.

“You were crying in your sleep again.” Her voice was soft and smooth in the darkness.

“Nightmare.” Was all I could manage through my dry mouth.

“If you talked about them it would be easier for me.” She sat up and turned on a small reading light. After a few moments of my not saying anything she got out of bed and went to the bathroom. I watched her walk away, allowing myself to get lost in the curves of her body as it moved.

I looked around the room and studied it, trying to imagine how it would look to stranger. The collections of books and photos on the shelves, the artwork on the walls, even the cloths hanging in the closet door were all evidence. Pointing to the nature and manners of the people who lived here. What would that stranger think of us?

“You’re not going to talk about it are you.” I had not noticed her return till she sat down on the edge of the bed.

I looked at her, her dark curly hair falling over shoulders. The way her body moved ever so slightly when she breathed and the fire in her eyes. I knew if I didn’t tell her about the nightmares I would eventually lose her, it had become too much of an issue.

Sitting up in bed I paused briefly before letting the dream unravel itself.

When I was done she looked at me for a few moments as if studying me, looking for some sign or mark that she had not seen before. Her scrutiny was so intense and so complete, I had to look away.

“That’s not how things are going to be. You know that don’t you?”

I couldn’t respond, I was still shaken by her scrutiny and the nightmare.

“You hate this town, you hate the desert. Why do you stay?” Her voice was soft like it was the first time she told me that she loved me.

“You know why I stay. You hold me here.”

We paused and studied each other in the half-light.

She broke the silence with a kiss and a whisper. “Lets leave then. You and I, lets cheat your nightmare.” I returned her kiss and knew that we would.

Authors Note:

Thank you for reading my story. This is one of my early works and experimental in many ways. If you like what you see follow me on facebook and explore some of my other works.

https://www.facebook.com/andrew.gordinier.3

Reviews

[gcp]

Interesting, tense and gripping :)

There are a few loose sentences and such in this (as you probably know) but it's really good. A little bit and tightening and polish and it'd be fantastic.

Good stuff :)

[Andrew Gordinier]

Thank you. This is one the three older works I've posted. It started out as a poem and REALLY got away from me.