I watched this old guy struggle with the heavy outer door and finally make it into the bank. He crossed the marble foyer and looked like he was going to end up at my cage. I could see he was dressed in some baggy pants, a checkered shirt, and was wearing a hounds tooth fabric hat like the ones I’ve seen on old guys driving a Mercury Marquis in the fast lane at about thirty miles an hour. He was carrying what looked like an ecologically friendly supermarket shopping bag. Sure enough he came up to my position.
“Can I help you sir?”
“You look like you are able to do that.”
“Excuse me sir?”
“Well you asked if you could help me and I made the judgment that you looked able. Now if you had said, ‘may I help you sir?’ I would have said ‘Yes you can.’”
“Yes sir. I get it. Bad grammar on my part.”
“Don’t feel alone son. I hear bad grammar all the time.”
“Yes sir. May I help you?”
“My name is Frost. Jack Frost.”
“Yes sir. . . er Jack Frost?”
“Yeah kid and before you go on, let me say I’ve heard them all over the last eighty years.”
“I’m sure you have sir. What can I do for you?”
“I would like to make a withdrawal and I don’t have any of the forms.”
“No problem sir. I can help you right here. I’ll fill them out for you. Do you have an account number?”
“No I don’t. Can’t remember where I put the darn card with numbers on it.”
“Here I’ll just look up your account under your name. Could I have your address as well?”
“Sure it’s. . . Damn I can’t remember it either.”
“Oh sir don’t worry, I’ll just look up your name and then maybe there will be only one Jack Frost.”
“Yeah I don’t imagine there will be a lot of them.”
“Okay sir. I don’t seem to be able to find your name in our system.”
“Well that is real strange isn’t it? I could’ve sworn I had an account here.”
“Looks like you don’t. Maybe it is another bank that looks like this one.”
“Yeah you may be right. At my age everything pretty much looks the same.”
“Can I help you any further?”
“Yeah you can. As long as I am here why don’t you open your cash drawer and pull out all the money and pass it to me.”
“You must be joking sir. You know it is a federal offense to rob a bank.”
“So who’s robbing? I am making a withdrawal like I said I wanted to do.”
“But sir you have no money in this bank so you are taking someone else’s money which is robbery.”
“Have you touched the silent alarm button?”
“No. I don’t think you are serious and you should just turn around and leave. No one has to know.”
“Good. Now what do you think I have in this bag that I am eventually going to put the money in?”
“I have no idea sir.”
“Does dynamite ring a bell with you?”
“Dynamite?”
“Shush. Do you want it to go off?”
“No for heaven’s sake.”
“Here take a look. What do you see?”
“Well some sticks and wires.”
“That’s right. Notice this wire that is wrapped around my finger? That’s the one that makes this whole shebang go bang if you catch my drift. Even if I drop the bag the wire will pull the trigger, so be real careful and give me the money.”
“Yes sir. I must say I hope you are very proud of yourself by coming in here and scaring me to death not to mention putting everyone at risk.”
“Yeah sure. I’m a bad one alright. Keep shoveling the money.”
“There is no more in my drawer.”
“Okay so you need to give me about five minutes to clear the bank. You don’t want to be responsible for people getting hurt if the bomb inadvertently goes off. After five minutes you can call in the Marines for all I care.”
“One more question before you go.”
“Yeah what?”
“Your name. Is it really Jack Frost?”
“Kid, I hope you have a strong person in your life.”
“Why’s that.”
“You have to be the most gullible person on Earth and you need someone to watch out for you. See ya around.”
This week is to see what everyone can do with the word “Yesterday …”
Interpret it as you will, but the word yesterday must appear somewhere in your work, be it the title or in the middle of a sentence. Write poetry, prose, fiction, or memoir it is yours to create.
My response to the Community Story Board September 8th prompt: Horror Friday the 13th has been co-awarded a “Featured Post” badge. I say co-awarded since Marie Ann Bailey was also given the badge for her submission (long) short story. You can go visit her and read her story. In case you missed it my story is here. As you know, Marie and I co-publish Ten Things Not to Do each Monday (like today)
Now all you other writers, make a visit to The Community Storyboard, submit a story, a poem, a photo, an essay to that week’s writing prompt, and you too may become a recipient of the CSB Featured Post badge! There’s a new prompt every Sunday, lasting for the whole week. Join in the fun!
