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The line at the bank is unexpectedly long, and the people waiting in line are jammed shoulder to shoulder. Howard sighs. It’s not that he minds waiting. He’s always prided himself on his ability to be patient. The press of the people so close to him makes him claustrophobic. Lily bumps against him trying to be playful, offering a smile as she does so. Howard smiles and returns the bump, pretending not to pay attention to the crush of conversations going on around him.

A young woman in front of Howard pulls out her cell phone and makes a call. After a moment, she says hello. “No, Mom. Your other daughter.”

Behind him, an older couple discuss the menu for dinner. “I think a nice roast would be good,” the woman says. The man mumbles something about salmon.

All the conversations bounce off his ears and he has to fight the urge to put his hands over them. Still, Lily does her best to be playful. She knows how he can get in a line like this. The fact that only two tellers staff the row of positions doesn’t help. They take forever helping one customer at a time, and at one of the positions, an elderly woman is making a deposit and counting out a pile of loose change one coin at a time. Even the teller seems impatient, but she smiles politely nonetheless. And when she makes eye contact with Howard, her eyes imply an apology.

Lily reaches in front of her and grabs a deposit slip. Then using the pen chained to the counter writes “The lunatics are running the asylum.” She slides it to Howard who glances down and smiles, nodding his head.

He takes the pen from her hand and writes back “This is killing me. Could it be more boring?”

Lily writes “It could always be worse.”

Howard writes “knock on wood.”

Lily writes small on the bottom of the deposit slip “what if something exciting happened?”

Howard reaches across and takes out another deposit slip. One of the teller positions finishes with the customer and the line inches forward one step. Howard writes “We should be so lucky.”

Lily smiles at the comment and writes “we should, indeed.”

Behind them, the couple discussing dinner looks over Lily’s shoulder, but can’t seem to read the notes being passed. Howard writes “we’re being watched.”

“Oh, goody,” Lily writes.

Howard reaches up and grabs another slip. He writes “This is a stick up. I have a bomb!!!” and slides it to Lily.

Lily looks down and laughs out loud, one loud exhalation of sound. “Oh, that would certainly get everyone’s attention!” She shakes her head as she finishes writing and slides the paper back over to Howard.

Howard reads what she’s written, then also shakes his head, chuckles a bit, then wads up all the notes and slides them into the slot marked “waste” on the top of the counter. “Could this take a little longer?” he says. He says it mostly to himself, but loudly enough that Lily can hear him.

“We’ll be there shortly,” she says. “Then what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to get the money and run,” he says.

“Oh, yes,” she says. “Where are we going to run to?”

“I say we run to Mexico.”

“Hmm. I’m not sure I want to go to Mexico.”

“I hear it’s nice this time of year.”

“Yeah, but that takes too long to drive.”

“Well, we can park the car at the airport and fly down. Who’s to stop us?”

Before Lily can answer, the security guard pushes her against the counter. His gun is drawn and pointed at the back of her head. His other hand rests hard between her shoulder blades, pinning her to the counter. He keeps his eyes on Howard.

There is a general commotion as the line disperses. A woman screams, but it’s a short, startled sound, nothing terrifying. The customers move far away from the scene, but nobody leaves the bank. They all stare slack-jawed at the security guard and the woman pinned to the counter, and the man standing with them with his hands in the air.

“Don’t either of you move.” The security guard barks the order even though neither of them have moved.

“It’s okay,” Howard says. “Whatever you think—“

“Shut up,” the security guard says. He looks to the tellers and tells one of them to call the police.

“But you don’t understand,” Lily says.

“Both of you quiet,” the guard says.

“Look.” Howard reaches for the waste bin in hopes of maybe finding the crumpled notes so that he can explain everything that’s going on, but as he moves, the guard moves the gun and aims it at Howard.

“I told you not to move. Where’s the bomb?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Lily says. “It was a joke.”

Howard looks from the gun barrel to the guard then to the other customers. The older couple talking dinner stand closest to them. The woman looks scared. The man looks smug, an “I gotcha” smile distorting his features.

“I told you both to shut up and quit moving. The police are on their way.”

“Then just let me stand up,” Lily says. “You’re hurting me.”

“Tough.”

“Please,” Howard says, “we’re more than happy to move aside and wait for the police. Just let her stand up.”

“I’m telling you what’s going to happen here,” the guard says. “And that’s the end of it. Got it?”

“I can’t breathe,” Lily says.

The guard does nothing.

“Please,” Lily says. “I can’t breathe.”

Howard can see the edge of the counter biting into her abdomen. The guard’s weight leaning in on her. “You’re hurting her,” he says.

Lily tries to push up off the counter to take a breath, and the guard swings the gun back to aim at her head. His finger is on the trigger, and his hand shakes.

Time stops for Howard. He can see the stupidity of the situation, the misunderstanding of it all. It would be something to laugh at years down the line. A story they would share with family and friends. “Tell us about the time you guys robbed the bank” they’d say. And Howard would demure long enough to play up the moment, then acquiesce and tell the story, Lily laughing at his side, making little gasping noises and sound effects to help bring the story to life.

But Howard also can see the possibility of disaster. He can see the gun trembling in the guard’s hands. He can understand how what he wrote might have panicked everyone. And he can see how Lily pushing off the counter to catch her breath could be taken the wrong way, another misinterpretation on top of another misinterpretation. He can see so clearly Lily lying on the floor in a pool of blood, dead over a prank. The police. The news cameras. The funeral. One more thing wrong. One more thing he was responsible for. So he acts.

Howard isn’t conscious of his lunge for the guard. He doesn’t fully comprehend making a grab for the gun, his hand over the guard’s hands, the two of them falling to the floor. The wrestling. Both of them rolling on the cheap carpeted interior. Another scream from the customers, this time more fearful. A rush of feet toward the door.

He is aware only of the feel of the gun’s cold exterior, the sweaty flesh of the guard’s hands. The guard rolls on top. Then Howard rolls on top of him. They grunt. They both grit their teeth.

“Give it to me,” the guard says.

“No,” Howard says. It is the only thing Howard says. He repeats it over and over again.

Then there is a crack, like a baseball bat shattering, Howard thinks, or a wooden door slamming shut. Then there is a searing pain in his hand and Howard screams. He looks down at all the blood pouring from the back of his hand, which had somehow come to rest over the barrel of the gun. He clinches his fist, but thinks only “this guy is going to kill me.”

The guard is making a real play for the gun now. One-handed, Howard is no match for the man’s grip, so Howard pushes all his weight down on top of the guard, pinning the gun between them. “You don’t understand,” Howard says. “You don’t understand. Just stop it.”

The guard stops talking. Now he pumps his hands furiously, trying to dislodge the gun from between them. Howard pushes his weight down harder. They almost look like lovers locked together.

Then another crack. Howard recognizes it for what it is this time. And when the guard instantly goes slack, he knows that the man is dead. Howard gets to his knees holding the gun in his left hand, his right hand clinched, bloody and throbbing, tight against his chest. He sees Lily standing at the counter, trembling. Both tellers stand still at their positions, their hands up in the air.

“Please don’t kill me,” one of them says. “Take the money and go. Just take it.”
“I don’t want your money,” Howard says. The words come out loud and mean, the pain in his hands, the shock of the moment snarling his lips. “I didn’t…”

Lily stands looking down at him. He looks foreign. Bestial.

Howard looks at Lily and doesn’t know what to do. Is he going to go to jail? The electric chair? Good god, he’s just killed a man. And then the tellers. Their hands in the air. Their offer. Their request. Howard feels powerful and he thinks yes, he does want their money. He wants everything. He’s tired of it all. He’s tired to the responsibility and the rules. He hates everyone lording their position over him. He hates waiting. He hates not being in control. And now he’s a man with a gun. A murderer. He’s in a haze and not thinking any longer. He’s going by instinct only. “Yes,” he says. “Put it all in bags and hand it over.”