The next day, Mom took off with Barry early in the morning. They left in the RV with Johnny Cash. I heard the engine churning and saw a spit of exhaust as it barreled away. For one second, I worried that they wouldn’t come back. Free on the road without children bogging them down. But I knew they needed us for the bank job, that they couldn’t make it on their own from only knocking off liquor stores. I imagined them high and making love on the side of the road, pretending they were young again. They deserved that momentary fantasy.
As for Steph and me, we had plans to be picked up by Troy and hang out at his grandfather’s place. I couldn’t leave Jenny alone with Grandma Bernice, who herself had gotten up early and was meeting a few of her cronies for breakfast. Jenny didn’t want to get up, so Steph and I pulled her out of bed and propped her up in front of the bathroom mirror to brush her teeth. She got like that sometimes, Jenny’s moods. Mom shrugged them off. Barry was always working, so he didn’t really notice. It was like she didn’t want to do anything, just lie there like a blob. We combed her nest of hair and were grabbing a box of egg matzo to munch on when Troy honked the horn outside.
Heidi wasn’t in the car, but Jenny was acting so weird it was probably for the best. We had forgotten Seymour, but it was too late now to turn back, so she moaned and growled like a stray dog.
“What’s wrong with your sister?” Troy asked, fiddling with the radio and settling on “Fast Car.”
“What isn’t?” Steph snorted.
“I got a fast car,” Troy said, singing along and revving up the engine. “You guys ready to do some practice shooting?”
“FUCK YES,” Jenny screamed, and we all looked at each other uncomfortably.
Their home was a sad little, yellow-painted thing on a weedy lawn, the foundation tilting when you looked at it for too long. Metal roof and vinyl siding, a deck with a rusted bicycle, and two wicker chairs with a wicker table between them holding an overflowing ashtray.
“C’mon,” Troy said, waving us inside.
The place was a mess. Old magazines piled in stacks, Hunter’s Quarterly and Bait & Tackle going back to the 70s. The air somehow more humid than outside, another old Floridian who refused to use air conditioning. Fishing rods tossed aside, buckets of hooks, a tangy fish smell.
“Grandpa used to fish,” Troy said.
“Troy?” we heard from the TV room. Grandpa in his boxers and black slippers with old socks, a sleeveless undershirt, and a can of Schlitz. Cheers on the TV with warped reception, a rainbow line cutting through Shelley Long’s head.
“These are my friends,” Troy said. “We’re gonna borrow your guns.”
“Eh,” was all Grandpa replied. He blinked behind coke-bottle glasses but didn’t acknowledge our presence.
A room off to the side held Grandpa’s guns encased in a glass cabinet and kept cleaner than the rest of the house.
“He’s waiting for the apocalypse,” Troy said. “Although he can barely get out of his chair, so I’m not sure who he could shoot.”
Heidi popped her head in.
“Hey, shit sandwich,” she said to Troy. She wore a bathing suit top and short shorts, her hair slick.
“Hey, crackhead,” he said back to her, and she mimed taking a big hit of crack. Some inside joke between them, I guessed.
“Hey, Heidi,” I said with a goofy wave. I literally thought I must’ve looked like Goofy doing it.
“Yo,” she replied.
“We’re going shooting out back,” Troy said, and we followed him through a dark hallway that led to a busted screen door and their backyard. Cans had been set up along a moldy fallen tree that seemed like a feast for bacteria.
“It’s really not hard,” Heidi said, grabbing one of the pistols from Troy. “You aim like you’re certain you’ll hit the target. Don’t second-guess.”
She fired once, narrowly missing. She fired again, the bullet pinging off the can.
“See?” she said. “What’s this all for anyway?”
I couldn’t believe Troy hadn’t told her about our planned bank heist. I wondered why. To protect her? No, he didn’t seem the type. There had to be some other reason.
“Never can hurt to know how to shoot,” Troy said, putting on his charm. Even Heidi seemed to fall for it.
“My turn, my turn,” Jenny said, pushing Heidi aside and grabbing the gun.
“Jenny, I don’t think—” Steph began.
“I don’t remember asking what you thought,” Jenny said. “Ever! Just stand aside and look pretty.”
Jenny closed one eye and lined up the can. She fired and hit it dead-on, the can zinging off of the tree.
“Holy shit,” Troy said, clapping, but somehow, I wasn’t surprised.
Jenny blew the smoke from the gun like she was in a Western and passed it over to Steph.
“Your turn, big mouth.”
Steph barely grasped the gun and passed it back to Troy like it was a loaded diaper. “I don’t want it.”
“She doesn’t need to know how to shoot,” I said, grabbing it from Steph. I wouldn’t be shown up by my little sister. The steel, cool in my hands, heavier than I expected. When I shot, it had a kickback, the bullet spiraling into the grass. I shot again, missing by miles. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this.
“You suck,” Jenny said, and Heidi laughed.
“She got in your head,” Heidi said.
Troy had plopped in a plastic chair with Steph on his lap, canoodling.
“Who’s gonna take care of the men in the cubicles now, Aaron?” Jenny said and started clucking like a chicken. “Mom and Dad might have to assign new roles?”
“Shut up, Jenny.”
“You guys are so weird,” Heidi said.
I closed one eye and lined up the shot, feeling the can, willing the bullet to come into contact. I will hit this target, I told myself, like I did when I willed myself that I’d kiss Heidi. I pictured her whispering softly into my ear, the sound soothing like listening inside a seashell. I fired and heard a brilliant ping! The can flying off the dead tree, Troy hollering.
“That’s how you do it,” he said, lifting Steph off his lap so he could tousle my hair. “Looks like the Gimmelmans are all crack shots.”
We went back inside and ate Keebler Cheese & Sandwich Crackers around a table in their “dining area” that mostly held more magazines. Troy and Steph couldn’t keep their hands off of one another and soon migrated into his bedroom. Since we were pulling off the job tomorrow, this could be my last chance with Heidi. I wanted to make the most of it.
She sipped Capri Sun and eyed me.
“What do you guys and my brother have planned?”
I choked on my cheese crackers. “What? Nothing?”
“Jenny, could you give us a moment?” Heidi asked, sweetly petting Jenny’s hand.
Jenny stuffed her face with more crackers. “No.”
“I heard you like animals. I have a guinea pig in my room—”
“Bye,” Jenny said, darting away.
“Kids,” Heidi said, throwing up her hands, then she got serious. She grabbed my arm and dug her nails into my wrist.
“Oww.”
“Spill it, Aaron.”
I managed to yank my arm away. “Nothing, we’re not doing nothing.”
“That’s a lot of negatives. My brother’ll do anything to get out of Boca. But he’s got no options. He dropped out of school.”
“Who hasn’t?”
She got up and slammed her chair into the table.
“Playing with guns, do you think I’m stupid?” Her eye makeup started to run. “I know it’s not just for fun.”
I bit into my lip and caused it to bleed.
Jenny emerged from Heidi’s bedroom with a beige guinea pig trapped in her hands.
“We’re going outside,” she said, giving a whistle and scurrying out to the backyard.
“She’s gonna murder your guinea pig, you know,” I said.
“Fuck you.”
Heidi tore away and bolted to her room. Slammed the door and turned up the music. “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” by The Smiths. I tried knocking.
“Go away, Aaron.”
“Let me in, I’ll—okay, I’ll tell you what’s happening.”
The door unlocked, and she left it open. I went inside. Wall-to-wall carpeting that squished when I stepped. A tiny room with a twin bed shoved against the wall, a desk with books, and posters of Depeche Mode, The Cure. Morrissey watched over her bed with bedroom eyes. She was lying down, hugging her thin pillow.
“You don’t understand my family,” I said, sitting down next to her. I picked up a Jean Nate after-bath spritz from the bed stand and sprayed it into the air. “We’re not who you think we are.”
“So, who are you?”
“We’re robbers,” I said, proud. Likely, I was beaming. That was who we were—no mincing words. It felt good to have an identity. I used to say, I’m Aaron, I love the Knicks, I hate milk, but that didn’t really define me. Hey, I’m Aaron. I’ve robbed two convenience stores and hit a bank where we netted thousands, all at the ripe age of twelve. Didn’t expect that one, did you?
Heidi was intrigued. She tried to play it cool, nodded like, sure, sure.
“Why do you rob?”
I made sure to close her door, as if her grandpa could overhear us.
“We lost all our money in the stock market.”
She shrugged, not making the obvious connection.
“The RV is all we own right now. Everything else was repossessed. Do you know what that means?”
She crossed her arms. “Yes, Aaron, we’ve had plenty of stuff repossessed. Look at this shithole I live in.” She knocked on her wall to a hollow sound. “It’s practically plywood!”
“We started with convenience stores, liquor stores, all of us, Jenny included.”
“That child has issues.”
“Tell me about it. But this is actually giving her a focus. You might not have a living guinea pig in a few minutes, but that would be the first animal she’s killed since we started our trip. That’s progress.”
“Are you joking?”
“Of…course, I’m joking.”
“Okay, you rob stores, fine. Big deal.”
I blew on my fingernails. “The last job was a bank.”
Her mouth formed an O.
“In Virginia. We were on the news. I mean, we wore masks, so no one knew it was us.”
Heidi slinked off her bed and turned down the music on her portable cassette player.
“And now you’ve roped my brother into robbing a bank here?”
“Well, roped is a strong word. He was all for it.”
“Because he needs cash to get out of here. Like, goodbye Boca forever.”
“So, go with him.”
“It’s not as easy as that. I’m a minor. He’d have to adopt me from my grandpa. And he’s not gonna do that. He wants a new life.”
She rubbed her eyes until they were painted black. Now I saw where this was going. If this bank got hit, her life would be ruined.
“Heidi, I hate to break it to you, but nothing is gonna stop us from robbing this bank tomorrow.”
The silence was deadly. She burned me with her eyes. Vicious thoughts of her maiming my body churned. The tiny whisper of “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side” sliced through the tension.
“Get out,” she said quietly at first, and then when I tried to reason, she roared. Fists were upon me, punching and clawing. I took the brunt. Made sure not to fight back. Let her have this final say. I was destroying the little she had left of her family, but what she didn’t realize was that if Troy wanted to leave, some other opportunity would come along to help him go.
“You could come with us,” I said as she was pushing me out.
“I’m a minor, idiot. That’s kidnapping. And your parents don’t want me. I barely know you.”
I wanted to say that she was my first kiss and that for the rest of time, I would know her. Remember the taste, the swell in my toes.
“Everyone fucking leaves me. Everyone disappoints.”
We were nose to nose. I’d seen in movies where the heat of an argument caused the lovers to embrace. Not here, not with that dagger gaze.
“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” I asked, a nervous ball lodged in my throat.
“God, fuck you. Your stupid floppy hair and your dumb basketball shorts. The three hairs on your upper lip you think are a mustache. Your rich life. You all don’t know what it’s like to be poor. You were poor for two seconds and couldn’t handle it. I’ve always had nothing. Spaghetti-O dinners and hand-me-down clothes from Troy. A grandpa on dialysis that I have to look after because we can’t afford a caretaker. Parents dead before I went to kindergarten. And your family loses money in the stock market and can’t handle getting a normal job like anyone else? You asshole.” She pushed me into the wall. “Asshole, asshole, asshole.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, throwing up my hands and making for the door.
She gave a final push, and I landed on my ass in the hallway. The door slammed. The music turned back up, “How Soon Is Now?”
You shut your mouth.
How can you say?
I go about things the wrong way.
“I am human,” I said, as Morrissey continued with, And I need to be loved, just like everybody else does.
My first girlfriend and I torpedoed the relationship before it could even begin.
I slouched into the living area, the laugh track from the TV reaching full tilt. Their grandpa staring dead at the screen. Through the window, Jenny in the backyard, hands blood red. I ran outside.
She was sobbing over a ball of matted fur. A bloody rock the culprit.
“What did you do?” I asked, wrenching the mushed guinea pig from her hands.
“It was squirming.”
“Jesus Christ, Jenny. Don’t you know that’s wrong? Don’t you know right from wrong?”
She blinked without a response.
“C’mon,” I said, yanking her back into the house. Through the hallway to Troy’s room—I could still hear the sound of The Smiths pumping from Heidi’s. From outside Troy’s, a bed, squeaking. I slammed into the door until it banged open. Troy and my sister under the covers as she screeched and cursed at our arrival.
“What the hell are you doing, Aaron? Get out!”
I showed them Jenny’s bloody hands.
“Jenny killed Heidi’s guinea pig. We have to go.”
Jenny wiped a bloody hand on the carpet, making it look like a crime scene.
I stared at the little red handprint, looking like the tiniest murder.