A Piedmont Porchlight Story by Ol’ Big Jim & His Faithful Scribe

The trouble with robbin’ the First National Bank of Piedmont ain’t the law, nor the alarms, nor even the vault, which hasn’t trusted anyone since Eisenhower. The trouble is doin’ it with two other men who both think they’re in charge and neither can remember why.

“Put the sack down,” Earl whispered urgently.

“I did put it down,” said Wilbur. “You kicked it.”

“I kicked it because you set it in front of the teller,” Earl hissed. “We’re supposed to be intimidating.”

“Well, she looked intimidated,” Wilbur said. “She’s crying.”

“That’s because you called her ‘Linda’ and her name tag says ‘Carol,’” said Clarence, who was holding the pistol and a Werther’s Original in the same hand, a choice nobody had thought to question until now.

Carol, who had worked at the bank for twenty-seven years and had seen three mergers, two divorces, and one incident involving a possum and the night deposit slot, dabbed her eyes with a tissue and waited. Crying cost her nothing. Waiting was a skill she’d perfected.

“Clarence,” Earl said, “why is the safety still on?”

Clarence squinted at the gun. “It ain’t on. That’s the… well. Hold on.”

There was a click. Then another.

Somewhere in the lobby, Mrs. Strickland leaned over to Mrs. Dobbs and whispered, “I told you this was going to be better than bingo.”

The three men had planned this robbery carefully, which is to say they’d talked about it every morning at Hardee’s for six months and never wrote nothing down. They had agreed on disguises, roles, and a timetable, none of which had survived contact with reality or Earl’s clodhoppers.

“We’re already behind,” Earl said. “We were supposed to be out by now.”

“We would be,” Wilbur replied, “if you hadn’t stopped to argue about whether it was a felony on account of it being a Tuesday.”

Clarence waved the gun, mostly at the floor. “Will y’all hush? I’m trying to remember the line.”

“The line?” Earl said.

“You know. From the movies. ‘Nobody move’ or ‘This is a stickup’ or something with authority.”

“You already told the security guard to ‘scoot,’” Wilbur said. “And then you apologized.”

“That was just bein’ polite,” Clarence said. “He’s a veteran.”

The security guard, who was indeed a veteran and had chosen not to intervene on the grounds that this was clearly sorting itself out, leaned against the wall and checked his fingernails.

Earl sighed, the sound of a man whose grand ambitions had been ambushed by arthritis. “Fine. Just give me the bag. I’ll handle Linda.”

Carol looked up. “It’s still Carol.”

“Right,” Earl said. “Sorry. I went to school with a Linda.”

“You dated her,” Wilbur said.

“She broke my heart,” Earl said. “That’s not relevant.”

Clarence finally remembered his line. He straightened up, cleared his throat, and announced, “This is a—”

The gun slipped from his hand, hit the tile, and skidded under the brochure rack advertising low-interest home equity loans.

Everyone froze.

After a moment, Carol said, “Well. That’s new.”

Wilbur rubbed his temples. “I told you to wear the gloves with grip.”

“These are the gloves with grip,” Clarence said. “They just don’t grip like they used to.”

Sirens wailed in the distance. Not fast. Not urgent. More like they were aware of the situation and taking their time.

Earl looked around the bank. At Carol. At the ladies whispering. At the guard. At the dropped bag, which contained exactly nine hundred and twelve dollars and a peanut butter and cheese sandwich.

“Well,” he said, “I reckon this didn’t work out like we planned it.”

Clarence nodded. “Still counts as getting out of the house, don’t it?”

And right there, in the middle of the First National Bank of Piedmont, the robbery paused, not because of courage or fear, but because three elderly men could not agree on whether to sit down and wait or stand up and regret it.

Which is how most important events in Piedmont tend to unfold.

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New Yesterdays can be found at: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.