Chapter 7

 

Alfred Long was immersed in an uncontrollable rout. Every payday, without exception, he deposited, always in person, his bi-weekly check in the County Bank. He could have much more easily transferred his check electronically or dropped it off in the outside depository, but Alfred had a hidden motive. Betty Kies was one of several clerks manning teller cages every Friday afternoon. Alfred was happily married, so his thing with Betty was certainly not an affair; it could hardly even be classified as an acquaintance. But Betty was extremely attractive, the type of woman that men lust for and wished they had married twenty years earlier, had circumstances not altered their life’s path. 

Betty invariably smiled at Alfred and greeted him with, “How are you doing, sweetie?” When she finished his transaction she would discreetly reach under her cage, gently put her hand on his and say, “Now you be good, do you understand, and if you’re not good please, please be careful, honey!” Her hand would softly linger on Alfred’s for just a titillating instant before she let go and moved on to the next customer.

Alfred knew that some people in this world, most likely including Betty, were simply social touchers. Touching was just their special and innocent way of communicating with the world. Deep down Alfred knew that, but whenever he entered the bank at 4 p.m. every other Friday, he predictably moved to the extreme left side of the bank of teller cages waiting patiently until the line in front of him cleared so he could spend one glorious moment with Betty. In the past, tellers with no waiting customers would signal him to move to their cages so that he could be served more expeditiously; but by now they all knew of his hidden objective. Some people would consider his behavior very foolish for a happily married man, fifteen years Betty’s senior, who had never entertained a thought of asking her out. But for Alfred, that single concentrated moment of happiness, replicated every two weeks, was well worth it.

Finally, Alfred was next in line and he prepared to smile as he always did when he greeted Betty and say, as he invariably did, “How’s my best girl?” That greeting was as personal as Alfred ever got and ever would get. Had he said anything more intimate than that, he would have become totally embarrassed and worse yet, with his strict moral structure, he would be on the teetering edge of committing some terrible type of verbal adultery. In fact a year ago he had changed his greeting from, “How’s my girl,” to “How’s my best girl?” And the first time he uttered it, he had stuttered so badly that Betty had to ask him twice what he said. With its slight modification, he had used that same trite greeting from the third time he spoke with Betty almost two years ago. Normally his smile would be returned and Betty would respond, “How are you doing, sweetie?”

This time, however, her hackneyed response never came. This day, as Alfred slowly advanced to her cage wearing a large grin, Betty greeted him with a face frozen in terror. When Alfred was with Betty, his concentration was total; all other inputs to his sensory system were turned off. Alfred was mystified, “What’s the matte—”

Before he could complete his sentence, Betty dropped down out of sight below her cage. Alfred was dumbfounded. Had he not brushed his teeth, not used his underarm deodorant this morning, was a piece of his morning’s soybean sausage still stuck in his teeth; what the heck was going on? Maybe, he thought, God forbid, Betty had suffered a heart attack or a stroke. Stretching as far as he could on his toes, he peered over the cage and observed Betty sitting on the floor with her head between her legs, her arms wrapped protectively around her body.

At that moment in suspended time, Alfred became more bewildered. He experienced a sharp pain in the left side of his back. Instantly his shirt felt damp. He looked above at the bank’s sprinkler system plumbing. No water dripping from there, he thought, so where the hell is it coming from? Shifting his orientation, he tried to locate the source of his pain. He pulled open his suit coat, and felt his back. Bright red liquid appeared on his hand. “What the hell!” he muttered out loud. His prevailing thought was, damn, this is a brand new shirt, it will be ruined forever and my wife will be really pissed. Then his confusion amplified. His peripheral vision recognized rapid movement behind and to the right of him. With disbelief, he for the first time recognized that someone not more than twenty feet away was aiming a large gun directly at him. Like all mammals, Alfred was born with an instinctive self-preservation capability manifesting in the form of fight or flee. Alfred knew that fight was out of the question since the indisputable advantage had to be assigned to the stranger holding the large gun. But he had been the county high school champ in the 100 yard dash not that many years ago, at least it didn’t seem that long ago, and he knew instinctively that he could make it to the front door, and once there he could escape from this strange threat. 

As his mind started communicating the command, RUN, RUN, thru neural pathways to his extremities, he now heard the distinct sound of multiple bullets striking the thick Plexiglas surrounding the teller cages. His body, in one last vain effort to preserve life, released copious amounts of adrenaline and cortisol which were now cursing through his veins. Another hormone, norepinephrine was freed, kicking the body’s autonomic nervous system into full speed; muscles tensed, his heart beat faster, his respiration quickened.

In the interim he had successfully taken one step forward; he smiled, he could see in the distance light streaming through the bank’s glass door. But suddenly a bullet penetrated his upper leg bone, immediately snapping it in two, sending bone fragments throughout the fleshy part of his leg. Alfred dropped down to one knee. He was experiencing severe pain but his mind continued to say RUN, whatever you do, RUN! His body tried to obey but an instant later five more bullets struck their mark; one destroyed his left kidney, four more shredded his lower intestine. 

Alfred’s vain effort was too late and too little; he would never enjoy another innocent rendezvous with Betty again.

The last word he would utter on earth was, “Damn!”