Last week, in Part I, Joey and Mike got the fake plates on the Ford Galaxie and are loaded up to go rob a gas station. We conclude the story today in Part II.
Enjoy!
Galaxie Under The Stars
We hadn’t talked about who was going in. I assumed Joey thought it’d be me since he was driving. I figured it’d be him because, well, because it was his goddamn idea. Back in junior high and high school, we sold the shit we stole. Worked out a hell of a lot better than keeping the junk we got tired of after a day or two. Joey made enough to buy the Galaxie. I made enough to buy weed.
I pulled the baggie of joints from my front pocket, passed one to Joey, and lit one for myself. He shook his head, but before he could actually say “no,” he was lighting up.
“How much you think they keep in the register at a place like that?” Joey asked.
“A thousand at most.”
“And you don’t think we can get the guy to pop the safe?”
“Can you fucking read?”
“Fuck you, Mike.”
“The signs outside every gas station in town make it pretty clear. The clerks can’t open the safe.”
Joey turned down a dirt road that led toward the main drag we’d take. There was a gas station off Fifteenth open twenty-four hours that saw almost no customers after eight at night.
“Seems kind of fucked up, you know?” Joey asked, blowing smoke out the driver’s side window. “They just leave these clerks there to get their brains blown out if some robber wants the safe?”
“Why would someone blow the clerk’s brains out?”
Joey stuck his arm out the window, flicked the joint into the night, and I watched its cherry glide across an endless sheet of stars before disappearing into the brush.
“Think about it. Guy comes in thinking he’s going to score big. Clerk says, ‘No, I can’t get into the safe.’ Guy thinks it’s bullshit, starts getting pissed. The clerk, he can’t do a damn thing, and that pisses the guy off more. All of the sudden, the guy’s got a gun to the clerk’s head, promising to pull the trigger he don’t get the money from the safe. Clerk is crying now, still can’t do shit. Guy pulls the trigger without thinking.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Joey didn’t say anything for a while, and I knew we’re both thinking the same thing. When we hit the paved road and started the mile long drive past old streetlights, beat-up trailer homes, and ranches that haven’t seen work in decades, I popped the glovebox. Pulled the .38 into my lap.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
Joey shook his head. “No, I have to.”
“Why?”
“My plan.”
“So?”
Joey sighed. “Look, my brother’s been locked up a few times now. We haven’t seen him in over a year, and I don’t know if he’s in or out right now. So, if someone gets popped for this, who is it going to hurt less, me or you?”
“We won’t get popped.”
“This isn’t stealing toys at the mall, Mikey.”
I didn’t say anything. I looked out the window. He knew I’d let him do it. He wished I would have argued more, but he knew all along I was going to stick him with the shit job. Because I’m a shit friend. I finished my joint, tossed it out the window, looked over at Joey, then handed him the gun.
“You didn’t load it did you?” he asked.
I’d forgotten Joey wanted the gun just for show. I’d loaded it a few days after we bought it downtown. But fuck it. He didn’t know what might happen in there. He might need to fire off a warning shot. Might need to blow a hole in the register if the thing got stuck. There were a hundred different reasons Joey might need the bullets in that gun, but he didn’t need to know they were there.
“No, it’s clear.”
When we made it to the gas station, there wasn’t a car in sight. The two pumps outside had dim, yellow lights overhead, and the brick convenience store was lit from the inside only. Joey pulled into a spot right out front. He looked at me and nodded.
I pulled the ski mask on, and he did the same. I didn’t think there’d be cameras, and even if there were, this was the type of station where they wouldn’t be recording. Still, no sense in risking it.
Joey took a breath, looked at me. “Slide over as soon as I get out. Keep it running. I have no idea how long this will take.”
Of course he fucking didn’t. We’d stolen toys and televisions and iPhones. We’d stolen from people’s apartments, their cars, their purses. Everything we stole had to be converted into money. This would be the first time we stole actual bills that we could spend right off the bat.
“Keep the gun in your hoodie pocket,” I said.
Joey nodded, slid the .38 into the front pocket of his hoodie, pulled the hood over his head, and climbed out of the Galaxie. I climbed over the console and into the driver’s seat and he shut the door. I’d expected him to hesitate. To stumble, then gather himself. But no. Joey was on the sidewalk out in front of the store in a second, his hand reaching for the door in two.
He walked into the gas station’s convenience store as a twenty-three year old with twelve college credits under his belt and hopes of at least nailing down an associate’s degree. But that’s not who I saw enter that store. I saw my fat friend from elementary school. The kid I met on the basketball court after my head came up into his nose and blood sprayed everywhere. I saw the kid who entered junior high with a his brother’s shadow following him around. I saw the kid who’d said “fuck it” and decided to live his own life. And I saw the kid who kept me from sliding down the drain when my mom went away.
They say you can’t blame your choices on other people, but fuck that. I decided I could blame anyone I wanted for anything I did. Had Mom not met that realtor up north, had Dad not been such a pussy, I wouldn’t be sitting here waiting for Joey to come back out with barely enough money for me to get a week’s worth of weed.
He pulled the gun.
I hadn’t noticed at first. But there it was, hanging from Joey’s right hand. I hadn’t expected him to need it. I thought he’d be able to tell the clerk he had a gun, and that’d be enough. But no, Joey had the .38 pointed at that pock-faced kid’s chest. The kid behind the counter seemed pissed, not scared, but he held his hands up and backed away a couple steps.
I saw Joey yelling something, and the kid turned toward the register. There we go. Get the money, get the fuck out of there.
I looked over my shoulder, half-expecting to see Tucson P.D. rolling up behind me, but the road was clear. I looked out beyond the road, into the desert across the street. In the sky, the clouds slipped past the moon, and the desert shed its darkness for a moment. Infertile land that gave us just enough to survive. An offering. A chance. But it would never be enough. Nothing would ever be enough.
When I turned back, Joey was looking out the glass door, looking at me. He nodded.
No, dumb fuck. Watch the guy.
The clerk noticed Joey’s distraction, seized the moment. The clerk reached beneath the counter, hit the alarm, then came back up with a shotgun in his hands.
Joey must have heard the movement, because he turned back at that moment. He saw the gun, jumped back.
And he pulled the trigger on the .38.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I said, pulling the shifter into the reverse, foot still on the brake.
The bullet tore through the clerk’s black polo. It hit the kid in the stomach or the chest. Fuck, I couldn’t tell. But it blew the clerk back against the cigarette rack. He fell to the floor, and Joey looked at the gun. Then he dropped it to the floor, looked out the window at me.
He would have been dead, I told myself. Had it not been loaded, Joey would be the one bleeding out on the dirty linoleum floor of that convenience store. But he was alive because I loaded that fucking gun. He should thank me. He would thank me when he got into the car, but Joey didn’t move. He sat on the floor, his legs half folded under him.
I reached for the door handle, considered dragging him out. But there wasn’t time. I didn’t know how long it’d take police to get there after the alarm had been triggered. Probably a few minutes. But everything had slowed down. It could have been a few minutes already for all I knew.
I slammed my hands down on the horn. Held them there. Waited.
Joey didn’t look. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, grabbed the top of his head, right through the ski mask. But he kept it on. Kept himself hidden.
I had to go, but it was Joey. It was the only person who’d ever really given a shit about me. He helped me ask Shelly Donaldson out on a date freshman year. He’d given me one of his old man’s beers when Shelly broke up with me three months later. Jesus, it was fucking Joey.
But it didn’t matter.
I opened the door, swung my left left out into the crumbling tar parking lot. As soon as my foot hit the ground, I heard the sirens. Joey heard them too—had to have—but he didn’t move.
Joey looked at the gun laying a few feet away. Looked at me. But he didn’t try to stand. I saw the other outcomes in that moment. I saw Joey, chest blown open, lying on the floor. I saw me and Joey in that Galaxie cruising back to his house, counting the money we’d just scored. I saw the police knocking on my door three days later. I saw Joey hopping a Greyhound as I was led through lockup to my new cell.
But no. Joey wouldn’t have left me. Even if I had to leave him.
Joey pulled his mask off, and I did the same. I tossed mine into the passenger seat and swung my left leg back into the Galaxie. Joey watched me shut the door, watched me ease back out of the parking spot. He watched me peel out and watched me leave my best friend.
The freeway east to New Mexico was flashes of white painted stripes under the yellow headlights of the Galaxie. Cacti and dust and three thousand pounds of metal carrying friend away from from friend. Chased by an ocean of stars that wouldn’t let up, telling me that they’d always be there.
Reminding me.