FICTION
Alice Will Never Believe This
Why in a lot of TV shows — the action kind I watched when I had my own set — do they make hostages strip down to their underwear? I’m thinking mostly of bank robberies because I’m in a bank right now, but on TV it’s not just banks. One reason I can think of is it makes it easy to distinguish between the robbers and hostages. You can spot the difference right away, no thinking required. Two, maybe it’s to discourage people from making a run for it. What lady wants to run into the street in her bra and panties, right? Three — and this one makes the most sense to me — to show who’s in control, who’s got the power. Plus, where are you going to hide a weapon or cell phone? “Hey, Ace, I see that Glock in your tighty whiteys! Hand it over!” So it could also be a precaution. Another reason: one of the first things they do on TV is cut the building’s power including air conditioning, so it’s always really hot (because hostage situations never seem to take place in winter), so maybe the hostages get down to their undies to beat the heat, although if it were me, I’d keep my pants on thank you, regardless of how hot it is. I’m used to it, man, this is South Carolina. The only other reason I can think of — and it’s stupid so it’s probably the real one — is ratings. Because people in their underwear probably get higher ratings.
The guys robbing this bank did not give a reason. Maybe they just watch too much TV.
I am glad I wore the boxers with a button fly today. And I wish the guy across from me had done the same. He is tubby and his drawers, which have seen better days and higher thread counts, are too snug, so the fly gaps. Every time I glance up, it’s peekaboo. We’re all sitting cross-legged in a circle with our hands on our heads, so there’s not much he can do. He raises his knees to close the gap, but he’s old and out of shape so he can manage it only for a short time.
I wonder if anybody here, as they got dressed this morning, thought, “No, I’ll wear this pair in case somebody sees me in my underwear today.” Other than the guy sitting next to me. You could see his boxer briefs before because his jeans sagged off his butt in a way that defied physics. When the order came, he just shifted his hips and his pants fell to the ground and he stepped out of them.
I feel I am not as worried about the situation as I should be. I can think of two reasons. One, things like this do not happen to people like me. My life is ordinary, very back-page or no-page really. So I guess I don’t believe I will get hurt or killed. It doesn’t fit with my life story. Two, I may be in shock.
I guess it’s not fair to say nothing exciting happens to me, but that’s how I think about it. I mean, I had a little run-in with the po-po myself, but nothing like these boys. But this shows you how my life is: the whole time they were robbing the bank, I was in the john. I came out at the beginning of the strip-down and was pretty confused. I thought it might be a flash mob or student film or something. Then Ski Mask was all yelling at me, waving his gun. I tried to ask Boxer Briefs what happened, but every time we talk they yell and cuss at us to shut up.
I gave up swearing for Boo’s sake. I know some toddlers who swear like sailors, and their parents think it’s hilarious. I wonder if it’ll be funny when their kid gets kicked out of kindergarten. No lie, that happened to T-Randall. His baby girl dropping the f-bomb during craft time, and he had to leave in the middle of his shift to take her home. I don’t hang with that crowd much anymore. I didn’t want my little girl’s first words to be cuss words, so I quit and Alice never swore much anyway. Besides, swearing on the floor will get you canned at Belk, where I am a floater. It surprises me still how I quit swearing so easy when I wouldn’t quit using.
Whoever is outside has not cut the power, and the air conditioning is going full force. At this point, it would be a favor if they would. My cheeks are numb. I feel even worse for Thong 1 and Thong 2. This floor looks cleaner than it is.
I have on a tank and two of the others are wearing undershirts, which I know from the store are not selling much right now (except for old business dudes). The other guys are bare-chested, and you can see the gooseflesh from across the circle. It’s not a big circle. There are only eight of us. It’s a small branch bank. How much money did these guys think they would get?
My boxers are navy with a thin plaid — royal blue and yellow — over it. The button on the fly is mottled black. A navy thread snakes out from the hem and tickles my thigh when I shift my weight. I will see them in my sleep for days because I have been staring at them for the last fifty minutes. Them and my legs — I discovered a tiny mole on the back of my left thigh just above the knee — and the floor, which is a nothing color and as soft as concrete and cold as a mother-in-law’s kiss. Not that I know mothers-in-law. Not exactly.
Alice and I never got hitched. Who needs it, we said. If you love each other, what’s it matter? I think about it a lot now, what it is, what it means. It seems to me it’s a promise you make to each other in front of the world. It’s another reason not to quit or give up on someone. Maybe if I’d made that promise to Alice, to myself, I wouldn’t be sleeping on my friend Jimmy’s couch.
Alice’s mother does not like me, by the way. Never did. I wish I had grounds to hold that against her.
When my neck starts aching, I steal a look around. I get flashed by Peekaboo Boxers before I remember to not look up directly. I try to check around the circle, but if the guys in masks — only two of them but they have guns — catch you, they yell. I feel like they should be wearing the same kind of mask, but they don’t match: a black ski mask on one and a white bandana tied over the other’s face. Poor coordination. They were screwed from the beginning.
Under Armor makes me nervous. He works at the bank. He is young and fit and always looking, looking to do something. Whenever I catch his eye, which I try to, I shake my head slow. I think he gets me because then he will look down for a while.
Who wears compression gear under their business clothes? It’s for working out, right?
Under Armor makes me think of this show Jimmy loves and made me watch. It’s about space cowboys. He has it on DVD because it got canceled too soon. Anyway, in one episode, the hot black chick or maybe the captain — I think it’s the woman — asks somebody, “Do you know what a hero is?” The man doesn’t know, so she tells him, “A hero is somebody who gets other people killed.” If someone in here gets us killed, it’ll be Under Armor.
If anyone was going to be a hero, you’d think it would be Underoos. A grown man wearing superhero briefs. The waistband says Captain America around it, and the blue crotch, outlined in red, has a shield on it. I guess if you could put a shield someplace that’s where you’d want it. He’s no hero though. Not fat really, but soft like a marshmallow and something of that color. He almost passed out earlier. I wonder if he fancied himself a hero before today or if he just likes the costume.
Come to think of it, that shield looks kind of like a bull’s-eye.
No, if someone tries something, it will be Under Armor. I’d be tempted to put money on Sports Bra; she looks tough but too smart. Her eyes focus on the middle of the circle, not on any of the rest of us, and I see her running for that finish line, the one where she lives.
I am not a runner, but I ride. I rode a liquorcycle for a while after I lost my license — actually it is only suspended, and not for alcohol. But I felt stupid holding up traffic on the main roads, so I got a bicycle instead. Riding a moped you get no respect. Unless you live in Italy, people think you’re a loser. When you’re on a bike, they think you’re athletic or green. A bike is a choice you made, not one that made you. It seems more purposeful. I feel like I am always riding toward something. I’ve lost ten pounds and my legs are like iron. And I’m not doping, Lance. I bought a helmet and everything. My clothes sit piled by the wall, khakis on top, and my ankle bands curl out of the pocket where I stuffed them. They keep your pant legs out of the chain. I don’t need them when I wear skinny jeans, which thankfully I did not today. If I had, I’d be wearing less right now. Boxers and skinny jeans don’t jibe in my book. Too much bunching.
Thong 1 is sniffling and Thong 2 whispers encouragement; they work here with Under Armor. Bandanna yells — because that always helps — and Thong 1 goes full hydro. I look at the clock. It is almost three. Nothing is happening, minutes and minutes of nothing. I’m supposed to pick up Boo from preschool soon. I have a little chair for her on the back of my bike but only for the park or side streets. Alice thinks it’s dangerous because Greenville drivers are nuts, not because of me. She knows I am clean now. I think she believes me. But she will never believe this is why I didn’t pick up Boo.
What’s underneath can surprise you. Thong 2 for instance — who would’ve guessed that? We’re all practically naked, and still we don’t know much about each other. I look around and wonder if anyone else has kids. Any of them might. You can’t tell from looking at a person. I don’t look like a parent, I know. Sometimes people think I’m still in high school. Peekaboo could have grandkids even. Maybe all of them are wondering if they will make it home to their families. I’m sure they — we — will, but it makes me wonder who’ll be waiting for me. Alice? With an earful maybe. Jimmy? I look at the clock. Boo is waiting. Does she think I forgot her?
When I told my mom Alice kicked me out and why, she gave me a big hug and then a slap. “I didn’t raise any drug addicts,” she said. I told her I wasn’t an addict, but the set of her mouth didn’t believe me. Still, she took me inside and fed me fried rice and chicken at the kitchen table. I felt like a schoolkid again, humbled but safe. Standing at the stove with her back to me, she said, “You are going to lose everything if you do not change,” and crossed herself. I knew that prayer as sure as she’d said it out loud. I didn’t feel like eating anymore, but when she gave me another plate, I did.
I bounced around before ending up at Jimmy’s. The stupid thing is I ended up someplace I can’t use anyway — not that I would now. Jimmy teaches science at a Christian school, so he is very straightlaced about drugs and such. It’s also why he likes to watch those sci-fi shows. He will tell you everything wrong with the science in whatever you’re watching, but then he’ll say, “But it would be cool though, if it worked that way.” I like that about Jimmy, how he sees both sides.
I wish I could do that. Maybe then I would still have my family. I always see the choice in front of me, minute to minute, but never down the road. Like my brain never stops to think where a turn could go. I always assume I’ll have it under control. Jimmy calls it a failure of imagination. Every action has a reaction, he says, and you have to think what all of them could be. It’s hard, but I try to do that now. And dream about what could be, how things could be better between me and Alice and Boo.
I asked Jimmy once why I ended up such a loser when my parents are good people. They go to Mass every week, sometimes more. I’ve seen it a lot where the parents do good but the kids tear it up and asked why he thought that happens. He called it moral entropy — he said that “learned moral behavior divorced from personal faith devolves.” Yeah, Jimmy talks like that.
Ski Mask stands close to the doors but behind a pillar away from the glass. Bandanna walks around and keeps an eye on us except when he’s yelling into the phone. Do they really think they will get away?
I have been waiting for someone to play the race card. We’re a regular little United Nations in here, pretty diverse for a small group, and I keep thinking someone the same race as the robbers will work that angle. No one has, although I thought Under Armor might. I know he wants to try something, but he’s too smart for that. He knows they will not see him as the same. The only brotherhood now is us sitting on the floor, tailbones driven up into our spines, and them standing behind guns and masks.
Jimmy says there is only one race: humanity. What normal people call race, he calls ethnicity, and he says it’s the result of inbreeding. He says one reason Boo is so cute is because she is mixed. He says mixed kids are always cutest. I said you can’t say things like that. He answered, “Well, they have greater genetic variability; you can’t argue with that.” No, Jimmy, I can’t. I think Boo is the cutest kid in the world because she is mine. But that’s how every dad feels or should.
Boo likes Jimmy, and so does Alice. She calls him a “good influence.” Sometimes I feel the need to point out I was getting straight before I moved in with him, but I never make it an argument. We’ve just gotten friendly again, and I want to encourage that. I was going to tell her tonight how I’m back at Tech finishing the welding program. And I will finish. No more jobs at the mall. I swear I’ve worked in every clothing store you can name. Except Victoria’s Secret.
For the record, Alice considers pot a drug, and she doesn’t care what Jimmy Kimmel says or if everybody does it. “You need to find a different everybody,” she says. I pointed out how it’s legal in Colorado, and she said, “This ain’t Colorado. You’re welcome to move there and smoke it if you want.”
She knows I would never move away from Boo. I want her to realize I would never move away from her either. I know how I make her sound, but that isn’t how she is at all. Well, she’s that way sometimes, lately, with me at least. I was ticked with her for a long time, and then one night when I came to visit Boo, I saw in her eyes that she was just scared, scared for Boo. Because of me, the kind of dad I would be.
So not even any pot. When I say I am clean, I mean clean.
Ski Mask and Bandanna bounce and bicker like hornets trapped in a jar, and I begin to wonder if I’m wrong that nothing bad will happen. Maybe my boring life is taking a dramatic turn right at the end. Just when I have pointed my handlebars in the right direction, I am going to get knocked off. Maybe I didn’t pedal fast enough. If I asked God to get me out of here, would He listen? Camisole, her eyes shut tight, has been moving her lips silently since this whole deal began. If she’s praying, I hope it is for us all.
Thong 1 is crying again. This agitates Bandanna and he yells at her, all the bad names I thought in my head when Alice kicked me out but took back before they parted my lips. Thong 1 cries harder now. Under Armor runs interference with a calm, smooth voice. He doesn’t realize how condescending he sounds. Then he stupidly tries to stand up. Bandanna smashes him on the side of the face with his gun. Under Armor goes down but not out. That’s Underoos. He turns whiter than white and peels backward. His head goes crack against the floor.
For a second, no one moves. Bandanna points his gun from person to person in the circle. Ski Mask yells, wanting to know what’s happening though he can see as clear as the rest of us. We all stare at Underoos laid out on the floor with his legs still crossed, his shield facing upward. We wait to see if blood runs from beneath his head, but nothing shows. Sports Bra asks if she can check to see if he’s okay.
Bandanna nods and can’t stop like he’s on speed. Sports Bra knees her way to Underoos, checks his breathing and pulse, and gently feels the back of his head, but her eyes shoot to me — fierce granite, and I know they are saying something to me but I can’t tell what. Do something. Don’t do anything. Help me. Stop this. Calm them down. So many commands they could be giving, and I want to say — I’m the same as you; I’m just trying to ride through this, to the other side.
But now I think I’m going to die in here. A gear has shifted in my brain, and for the first time I am truly scared. Bandanna circles us, heading for Ski Mask. He passes the clock, which says three-thirty. Is Boo — who will never see me again and in ten years will struggle to remember my face, my voice — still waiting for me? The split on Under Armor’s temple streams blood into his eye, but he blinks it away. He can still see. I realize I am giving him the same look Sports Bra gave me. He seems to understand what I don’t know I’m saying. He bobs his head for a microsecond as Bandanna strides behind me. My left hand drops on its own, swinging back to grab the cuff of his pants. His momentum jerks my arm up through the shoulder and I jerk back: action-reaction. I feel him fall, hear the interrupted curse as his gun hits the floor and explodes.
It is Boxer Briefs, not Under Armor, who throws himself, springing backward like a naked jack-in-the-box, onto Bandanna. Ski Mask bleeds from the middle, the middle that Under Armor crashes into. Then Thong 2 is there screaming, tearing the gun out of Ski Mask’s hand and smashing a fist into his face. I see the scream but don’t hear it. The air roars in my ears. Someone has turned the air conditioning to supersonic.
Everyone is moving now. Five-Os in navy everywhere mixing with the unclothed. But I still sit here, making sure I’m not dead. Because I’m not sure. Camisole and Peekaboo talk to a cop and point at me. A paramedic touches my arms. She wants to know if I’m okay. I nod. The cop takes her place, squatting in front of me.
I say my daughter is waiting. My life is waiting. I need to put on my pants; I’m supposed to pick her up. He understands but they must ask questions first; they need to get statements. They’ll call for me. What’s the number where my daughter is? I tell him the school’s name; I don’t know the number.
Alice will never believe this. I ask if it will be on the news. Maybe if she sees for herself, she will believe me.
Paul Michael Garrison (MFA) is the author of two mystery novels, Letters to the Editor and The Lies People Publish. His short fiction has appeared in The Windhover and Quantum Fairy Tales, and his one-act There Be Dragons Here was a semifinalist in Centre Stage’s 2023 New Play Festival.
Next (Brian J Doughan) >
< Previous (Hampton D. Harmon)
Image: Bank Robbery In Progress, photo by Henry Burrows, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.com. Modified by Veronica McDonald.
Heart of Flesh Literary Journal 