Taking It on the Lam by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

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It was my job to guard the outside door. No one goes out and those just coming in are strongly encouraged to do precisely that and to stay for the remainder of the brief show. Since it was our top priority to get in and get out fast, we wouldn’t be there for more than three minutes tops, I’d only have one or two people to deal with.

When Stoneyard came back out front with the bag, he’d give us the hi sign to blow the joint, and we’d pile into the hot git.

Stoneyard would never burn the road, but rather drive slowly, so as not to draw a stupid speeding ticket and a stupid cop, drive us back to where our own heaps had been parked. I would be on the backseat floor. In case there were any quick reports of three robbers, there would only be two guys seen in the jalopy,

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Breakneck riding shotgun in the front. If someone had tried to stop us it would be Breakneck’s and my jobs to put the chill on whoever that was with our warm roscoes. It would have been exciting I’m sure, but I’m glad that never happened. When we got back to the waiting heaps, we’d quickly divide up the cash, and Stoneyard would hang onto the stamps and passport papers, bringing them to the fence. We’d each go our separate ways to our homes and/or hideouts.

So, all in all I fully stand by my original statement that robbing post offices is a duck soup job. But, I didn’t say that it was without its need for quick judgements and a need for semi-flawless execution, and I definitely didn’t say that it was a suitable profession for retards and/or dinges.

I once asked my compadres why they didn’t use mug masks. They told me that a witness can identify a masked person if they are inclined to, anyway. And that masks are ominous, setting one apart as being dangerous. Given a few moments, the eye witnesses relate to an unmasked kisser, thinking things like; “Reminds me of my ding dong brother-in-law, Ralph.” Since then I have become aware of a seemingly strange dynamic my partners never mentioned. People invariably see things differently. That is if you ask ten people to describe someone they all saw

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simultaneously for a minute, you’d get ten different descriptions, even the rags worn.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, with this kind of garbage on my mind.

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