UNFINISHED BIZ'NESS

It has happened before. In fact, it has happened quite a few times, but this morning it felt somewhat surreal. I still want to rob an armored truck! Not that I would, but yeah, the thrill of the heist still lingers in the depths of my soul. And this morning when I stumbled upon a parked Loomis Truck, I felt ready to make a move. For some odd reason, all those hidden instincts kicked in and I was instantly zoned in. In the early morning fog, the truck seemed so vulnerable.

And my instincts weren’t off base because when I walked into the store, the guard loading the money from the safe looked exactly like the person I would want to see if I was planning a heist.

I don’t even remember now what I went in the store for, but that armored truck bought back a reminder that I never made it to the pinnacle of the “Stick-up” game. By my own admission, I submit that despite getting busted, I was a damn good practitioner of the craft, but I never made it to The Big Dance.

And like any other journeyman practicing his trade and bettering his craft, the thought is always there to make a play for he biggest prize offered in your line of work. For stick-up kids, knocking off an armored truck was The SuperBowl on steroids.

Robbing an armored truck was personal to me. I cannot begin to count the countless times when I was a broke-assed teenager who prayed that a sack of money would fall out of the back of an armored truck. How many times did I utter that prayer, and trust me, I really wanted that money, but guess what? I didn’t get shit. Not a single dime.

So I got mad, and somewhere along the way, I figured that I would have to take the money since it didn’t want to fall off the truck into my waiting hands. You know something, I almost got my chance. As luck would have, a friend of mine from the old neighborhood got a job at Wells Fargo, and he drove an armored truck! And as soon as he had got settled into his new, guess who he came to see? I was overjoyed. This was like an answer to my prayers, and though we tossed ideas around, we never got off the launching pad due to my misfortune in a bank robbery where I got locked up.

As a bank robber, I always gave props to the guys who actually went for the big prize. My partner shared the same respect for those who made the leap, and he was as equally dismayed as I was that we ourselves had never “went for it”.

I would have reveled in all the mental prep work that would gone into the planning of the heist. Yeah, that’s what I dig—-planning the robbery. Banks were not that much of a cerebral challenge so there was not a lot of meticulous planning involved, and now, looking back, most of what we passed off as ‘master planning” was nothing more than ‘luck being on our side’. But there is no denying that adrenaline rush, that jolt of electrifying energy so intense you feel otherworldly.

When I was inside a bank, time seemed to slow down, and I seemed to be hyper-alert. I’m numb to the point where I feel nothing, but sense everything. Inside my head, there is a suffocating silence, and I’m unaware of my breathing. There is no outside world. This is a moment and I’m trapped within it.

And then it is over. The first thing I always do when it is safe to remove my mask is to take a big gulp of air in order to start breathing normally once more. What transpires next is the most nerve-wracking time of all—-the drive back to the safe house.

Hardly has there ever been any talk of the robbery on the way back to the spot. Know why? Niggas be scared they might jinx themselves because it ain’t all good until you safely inside the safe house. Then, you celebrate.

Another thing is this. It makes no difference how much money you get, you always wished there had been more, and as per our usual agreement not to do any lavish spending so as not to draw heat, we definitely always found a way to get rid of the money almost as quickly as we had stolen it.

Okay, now you have it: The confession of a robber who didn’t graduate.