Listen instead

If you want money quick and easy rob a joint.
+++++If you want to rob a joint quick and easy try a diner. Try it between two and four in the morning. Make sure it’s open 24-hours. The bars close at one. Everyone’s drunk and hungry, don’t wanna go home. They stay out to eat and chill, sober up. They sit for an hour. They pay and leave. The staff’s bare. Nobody wants to work the shift. They’re fighting sleep. They’re dead men walking. In back two cooks who take turns sleeping and a dishwasher who speaks no English. No busser on weekdays. In front one waitress diddling on her phone and forced to clean her own tables. She’ll do her shit far from the register-top up the syrups on the table, keep the coffee pots brewing, count her tips.
+++++The kid behind the register’s young. Small for his age, no muscle on his body. He’s a pretty boy, clearly-good shirt, clean black slacks. A hard worker. He might be eighteen or nineteen but looks fifteen. He’s braindead. They all are. He keeps the register locked, even if he’s right behind it, so no one can jack it. He stands behind the long granite counter, eyes half closed, waiting for a customer.
+++++The windows perpendicular to him are glass, wall high, the ceiling one giant skylight to let in the dark night. They bounce lights off of them like a prism. Pull up and flash your highbeams. Keep them on. Park close. The lights travel far in the long night. They’ll blind him, daze him. Grab your gun, keep your car running, keep the gun hidden in your jacket, a smile on your face.
+++++No matter where the joint is act quick. Bring that gun. Get him behind the register. Get the waitress to panic and run away to call. Keep the cooks behind the walls. Get the manager to lock himself in the office. If he’s even there.
+++++Hope he isn’t. Hope the kid isn’t pissing his pants.
+++++Try to keep the gun level. Try to remember everything you’ve heard. Try to keep yourself calm. Try to pretend you’ve still got this.
+++++Pretend you’ve still got a chance when something hits you and you black out, cold.
+++++Wake up in a hospital, cuffed to a gurney. Stay there two days tops. Go to jail for a long time.
+++++The kid didn’t just work the shift because he can stay up late. Just because he isn’t big doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to kick your ass.
+++++Sorry I forgot to tell you.

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Matt Mattila

Matt Mattila has had his fiction and non-fiction in numerous magazines, anthologies, and live events online, in print, and in person. He lives on the wrong side of a Connecticut city where he moonlights as a Hotel Night Auditor. You can find him both on Facebook and his blog: http://mattmattilawrites.wordpress.com/

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