towed. Then me and Hank pushed it into the shed. I’ve been working on it here and there since.”
Stevie pauses, then somberly runs his hand along the rusty blue siding, like a horseman saying good-bye to a beloved steed that has to be put down.
“I was gonna surprise him. Surprise both of y’all. But tonight…after we talked…I couldn’t sleep, either. Figured I should finally start stripping it for parts.”
I know my brother isn’t much of a hugger, but I can’t help myself. I wrap my arms around his giant frame and hang on as tight as I can. He embraces me back.
“He would’ve loved it so much,” I say.
We pull apart, a little awkwardly. Stevie looks at his watch. “I should probably get some shut-eye. I can finish this up over the weekend.”
But as he starts putting away his tools, I look over the car and get an idea.
“Not so fast,” I say. “You really think you can get her running again?”
Stevie nods.
“’Cause you heard my plan,” I continue. “First thing we’re gonna need…is a getaway car.”
4 minutes, 25 seconds
I’d never aimed a gun at another person before.
“This ain’t a toy, Molly,” my father told me the very first time he taught me to shoot, passing his old Smith & Wesson Model 10 from his rough, giant hands into my soft, tiny ones. “Unless your life’s in danger, don’t never point it at nobody. Hear me? Else I’ll slap you so hard, your pretty eyes will pop right out of your skull.”
It was a warning I never forgot.
As I hold that same S&W now, feeling the cold wooden grip in my palm, I can hear my father’s words. What would he think if he knew what I was planning?
I wasn’t just about to point the weapon at another person.
I was going to wave it around at many.
And threaten their lives.
“It worked!” Hank exclaims, a nervous grin creeping across his face.
Of course it did. I thought of the idea myself.
Hank is sitting in the driver’s seat of a recently refurbished 1992 silver-blue Ford Taurus that has since been repainted black and has had its license plates removed and VIN numbers all scratched off. “They’re calling in backup,” he continues. “Y’all should go now if—”
“Hush,” snaps Stevie, from the back.
We’re all listening closely to a police scanner resting on the dash. I can’t make heads or tails of all the squawking and static. Thankfully my brothers and Nick and J.D. can. And apparently, they like what they hear.
“Here comes the cavalry,” says J.D.
And just like that, I hear a distant police siren. Then another. Then the glaring whine of a fire truck. The shrill alarm of an ambulance.
More voices crackle over the scanner, frantic. I manage to pick out a few words: “courthouse,” “suspicious package,” “evacuation,” “all available units.”
“Masks on,” Stevie orders. “Now we go. And remember: in and out, four minutes. Just like we practiced.”
The five of us don the cheap rubber Halloween masks we’ve been holding, each the cartoonish face of a different former president. Me, Stevie, Hank, J.D., and Nick become Lincoln, Washington, Nixon, Reagan, and Kennedy.
Hank stays behind the wheel of the parked car as the rest of us get out. I’m tingling with nerves as we cross the quiet street. And ready our weapons.
Five ex-presidents are about to rob a bank.
We burst in through the Key Bank’s front entrance—and Stevie immediately blasts a deafening round of buckshot into the ceiling.
“Hands up and keep ’em high!”
We quickly spread out and take our positions, just like we’d rehearsed multiple times in the old barn back on our farm, three big counties away.
People scream and panic—but obey.
Nick barks at the young, dumb security guard: “That means everybody!”
The kid must be barely out of high school—just a few years older than Alex was, I can’t help but think. The way his baggy uniform hangs off his rail-thin frame, he looks like a child playing dress-up with his daddy’s clothes. He flashes Nick a filthy look but meekly raises his hands.
So far, so good.
“Start emptying your drawers,” Stevie orders the three tellers. J.D. tosses each of them a burlap sack.
Then my brother turns to the stunned branch manager, a sweaty middle-aged Hispanic man in a cheap tan suit and bolo tie. “We’re gonna go open the vault.”
Stevie accentuates his point with a pump of his shotgun.
“Not a problem,” the manager gulps, then adds with a shaky smile, “Mr. President.” He and Stevie disappear into the back office.