Taking It on the Lam by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Page 89

So when we were doing a job, we’d get the message through Pop’s bulletin board and confirm it. Breakneck Bill would glom a boiler, often a classy Packard,

and bring it to Pop Tate’s; where Stoneyard Steve, Pop Tate, and I would be waiting on the bench in front.

Breakneck would lead us to an isolated spot about a mile from the post office, where Stoneyard and I would park our heaps,

Taking It on the Lam Page 90

while Pop would take Breakneck’s before walking or hitching back to the store. Pop was a bit sheepish about this, though I don’t think he should have been, and would often defensively say that he had already done his bit and was too old to be doing any hard time in the cooler. He was open to charges of conspiring or aiding and abetting.

Stoneyard on the shotgun side and I in the back would get into Breakneck’s hot git and be chauffeured to the job site. We’d enter together, heaters drawn. Stoneyard would announce; “You’ll all be Jake if you just relax. We’re after the Post Office’

money; not yours.” He was pretty athletic and would then hop the lug-proof partition, which never reached the ceiling. He’d put a foot up on the counter and leap through that space like an Olympic high jumper, and be right in there with the Post Office clerks and the lettuce. I’m sure that he was the uncredited inventor of the noodle first Fosbury Flop. It was impressive to see as he did this feat with only one hand to balance; the other attached to his roscoe. When he was ready to exit with a bag lousy with loot, he used the door which was openable from the inside. He once told me; “I could have hopped it again, but I don’t want to be a grandstanding show off.” As that notion was consistent with the desire to not become famous, I believed him.

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Breakneck effectively worked the crowd. “Just stand still.

You’ll be Jake,” he’d say. He actually had a soothing voice, like a shrink. Things were copacetic the times I was there. But, Breakneck told me that there were a few uncomfortable ones.

“Kids can get reet irrational, and you don’t want to pop anyone, especially a kid. The danger is that going berserk becomes infectious; and while you are probably the only ones to have the guns, there are a lot more of them than there are of you.” I asked how he handled the situation, and he told me; “With outstanding luck. I chastised the brat’s mother, saying; ‘Get some control on that kid,’ and she must have been embarrassed into doing so. One other time the old buzzard with the broom who cleans up the place got all kinds of ‘heroic’ and morally offended, and charged me swinging the broom like a baseball bat.

This was kind of duck soup to handle as I was experienced in having been attacked by a young and fit person with a baseball bat. The dodge is to do what seems wrong to the uninitiated. If you get up close to the bat wielder they can’t do much with it.

It’s only from a distance of a few feet they can do any damage.

So, I did that and took the broom from his hands, gave him a shove, and he was on the floor on his ass. I said; ‘Keep that seat, grampa,’ and he did, as he had already demonstrated his bravery to the crowd.” For the first time, I had a real appreciation for the subtleties of alienists.

Taking It on the Lam