Casa Jonsson

The current issue of Hard Luck Stories features the work of two friends of Casa Jonsson. J. Mark Bertrand’s “The Inside Job” dissects the sclerotic heart of an ex-con who gets recruited for an easy bank heist.

I keep my head down in the parking lot. The point is to be nondescript and give the surveillance cameras nothing to work with. One set of glass double doors leads into a vestibule and there, pausing next to the table stacked with financial brochures, I pull the mask down over my face. The cotton knit might as well be a sensory deprivation chamber. The moment it goes down all I can hear is my breathing and the thump of blood in my head. Sweat swells from my pores like it’s being forced out by the pressure. I lift the revolver from the pouch pocket of my new thrift store duffel coat, then push open the second set of glass doors.

No one inside has noticed me up to now, and even as I walk across the thick green carpet with my gun arm extended, they all seem to be minding their own business. One of the loan officers is chatting on the phone. A secretary passes a few yards in front of me with a file open under her nose. I can smell her perfume as I cross her wake.

In the whole building, only Joan is looking straight at me. I see her and notice the smile on her face.

Walker Eugene Dollahon’s freshman effort, “Amends,” is a narration of conspiracy and deceit among east-Texas moonshine drinkers who plan to hold up a bank.

I continued along the cross streets of Carthage until precisely 11:02 when I idled to a stop behind the bank. I lodged the vehicle right behind the dumpster, hidden-like. I checked my watch—11:04 A.M. Any minute now. I made a quick survey of the environs. No one seemed to be was paying me any mind. Like a drooling goober I checked my watch again—11:06. Hellfire, that was it? I felt as if time had decided to stop around me.

I looked over at the bank and imagined that I could gaze through the red bricks and mortar and see Cap, Charlie, and Harper inside there, efficient and full of purpose, actually joking with the captives to ease their fear, stuffing big bags full of luscious green by the fistful. I imagined I could see behind the wall a well-oiled machine of larceny. The watch—11:08. I fiddled with my belt buckle, kept shifting in my seat, pulling up my socks, tying and retying my shoes. I couldn’t get comfortable. I glanced at the watch—11:09. I could barely stand sitting there prone and stupid behind the bank in my pa’s prized automobile, the most beautiful and expensive thing he ever owned in his short, sad life. And here I was besmearing his memory using the car for illicit purposes. I turned on the engine. 11:10. That was the time—any second now the blue door at the back of the savings and loan would pop open and my three associates would come tumbling out gripping at least two bags apiece of luscious currency. 11:11. Now they were late.

I love these guys but I think I may watch my back a little more carefully when I’m around them.