Unpaid Fare

Ed was walking towards the front doors of his town’s Chase Bank as a man in a ski mask was running out of it. Ed’s attention snapped to the handgun, followed by the drawstring gym bag brimming with cash the robber clutched against his stomach. Most of the robber’s face was covered with the exception of the eyeholes. Through those small windows into the armed man’s soul, Ed could make out that the robber was wide-eyed and panicking.

The robber slowed to a halt as he scanned the parking lot. Whatever ride he was expecting was not there. His vigor drained until his eyes landed on Ed. The robber shifted the gun, and Ed raised his arms in surrender. Ed’s car keys were still visible in his hand. The robber’s resulting grin was wide enough to be seen through the synthetic stretch of his ski mask.

“Unlock your car!” the bank robber screamed. He jerked the handgun at Ed to accentuate his point.

Ed fumbled with his keys and pressed the unlock button. His car, a dark green ’02 Ford Fiesta, honked in response. His front windshield was plastered with rideshare stickers from the competing companies he worked for. That clunker was his only source of income, but Ed would gladly give it away to get the man with the gun out of his face. Ed was twenty-nine years old, and he really wanted to see thirty and all the years after.

Ed held his hand out in a preemptive measure to give up his keys. Ed was ready to empty his pockets of his wallet, phone, and even the pen in his pocket should the robber demand it, but Ed didn’t dare reach for anything in case it provoked the man holding him at gunpoint.

“No, no, no. You’re driving,” the bank robber said.

“The car’s yours man. Just take it,” Ed said.

“Get in the fucking car and drive!” the robber said, again accentuating his point by thrusting the gun in Ed’s direction.

Ed couldn’t believe that today of all days, he decided to visit the bank. Almost every financial interaction he encountered could be handled through his credit card or phone, but his cheap apartment didn’t have a change machine for the shared washer and dryer units that required them. Ed visited the bank maybe twice a year to stock up on quarters, and today he arrived at exactly the wrong minute.

Ed’s legs began to move despite every ounce of his consciousness telling him to run away. He picked up his pace as the robber continued yelling. Ed opened his car door and sat on the cloth seat. He buckled himself in on impulse. There was no running now.

The robber kept his gun leveled at Ed as he stuffed his legs under the glove box and crammed his back against the side door. It would almost look ridiculous, if not for the fact that someone would have to be peering directly into the car to notice that Ed was being held at gunpoint.

“Toss your phone out the window, quick! Now drive!” the robber said. His voice was strained from his awkward angle under the glove box, yet he managed to keep the gun pointed at Ed’s face.

Ed lowered his window and slid his phone out of the opening as soon as the crack was wide enough. He cranked the ignition, backed out of the parking space, and turned onto the main road.

An adrenaline-induced hyperawareness overtook Ed, and he second-guessed every mile per hour above or below the speed limit as he drove. Despite all his worry, Ed merged with the flow of cars as a column of police and emergency vehicles rushed past them in the other lane.

The wide-mouthed gym bag tipped over as the robber struggled to find a comfortable position within the footrest of the passenger seat. The money spilled out of the bag and spread across the floorboard in loose bills. The robber tried to shovel the money back into the bag with his one free hand while he kept his other hand firmly gripped around the gun. His frantic attempts got the better of him and he collapsed the opening of the drawstring bag again and again. His frustration mounted as more money spilled out. Several stacks of hundred-dollar bills wrapped in currency bands tumbled like bricks among the smaller denominations scattered across the floorboard.

“Where’s the highway kid?” the robber asked.

“On-ramp is a mile away,” Ed said.

“Just when I thought my luck ran out, I got a lift from an Uber. Take the highway west,” the robber commanded.

Ed merged onto the highway and kept pace with traffic. Within twenty minutes, four lanes dwindled to two and Ed was driving through cornfields. There was an absence of cars around them, and the robber felt confident enough to crawl out of his nook under the glovebox. He sat in the passenger seat and kept the gun lazily aimed at Ed’s ribs.

Ed knew he would be asked to stop the car eventually. Part of him rejoiced at the possibility of this nightmare being over, but the other part of him worried that the moment he stopped, his passenger would pull the trigger and keep the car.

A few desperate possibilities crossed Ed’s mind. He had the pen in his pocket, normally used for jotting down daily reminders, but now taking up prominence in his mind due to the sharp tip. The more Ed thought about it, the more he was forced to reconcile with the fact that he had never been in a fight. His pen was just a writing instrument compared to the actual weapon held by the much rougher man.

Ed considered crashing his car, but every time he saw a tree or an object of mass he could run into, he could never commit to following through. He figured he would either curb the crash, sparing the robber and drawing his lethal ire, or he’d accidentally collide head-on at high speed, and they’d both be dead as a result. Even if he knew the perfect recipe to crash a car he was driving, the gun aimed at him could go off in the process.

As Ed continued to go over scenarios in his mind, his armed captor said, “Pull over here.”

Ed obeyed, slowly, but as his car continued to decelerate, he was brought to a halt. Ed continued pressing into the brake with more force as he waited for the robber to say something.

“Put the car in park,” the robber said.

Ed did as he was directed and devoted his attention to a short prayer. He had gone through the motions of religion as a kid, but he rarely considered the almighty in his day-to-day life. In what could be his final moments, Ed silently promised to be a believer if he survived this.

“Sorry about that whole mess back there. You holding up alright?” the robber asked.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Ed lied.

“Well, that was some really great driving. Honestly, if things were different, I would love to have you on the next job. Now get the fuck out, I’m taking the car,” the robber said.

Ed hesitated before his muscles clicked into gear and he reached for the door handle. He scrambled out of his car and stood several feet back, his hands raised while the rest of his body shrunk into as unthreatening of a stance as he could muster.

The robber jogged around Ed’s car and closed himself in the driver’s seat. Without buckling his seatbelt, the robber switched gears and sped down the country road.

The anxiety clutching Ed’s heart released in an immense wave of relief. His knees buckled and he lowered himself to the ground to let the fear pass. He heaved in air, and despite his attempt to tell himself he was okay, he sobbed from the residual terror of realizing how close his life was to ending.

Ed stood up, dusted off his knees, and took one last look at the spot where the tire tracks from his car imprinted on the side of the road. In the grass, right near the edge of the road, two stacks of bills lay crisscrossed on top of each.

Ed looked over his shoulders to see if he was alone. All he saw were stalks of corn. Ed walked closer to the money. The currency bands wrapped around the bills read ten thousand dollars each. Two tightly packed stacks of bank-insured cash that represented nearly half a year of Ed’s income, were just sitting there.

Ed heard the better part of his nature tell him that picking up that money would be the same as stealing it. A much louder voice encouraged him that the he didn’t steal the money to begin with, and he had earned this. Ed settled on this windfall being a godsend, a little karmic balm to get him through the ordeal he just experienced.

Ed grabbed the two stacks of cash and hurried back towards the direction of town. As the monotony of the cornfields continued to repeat itself, the realization struck Ed that he could not have the money on him when he knocked on the nearest door. He would have to bury the money out here, yet his surroundings were nearly the same without an intersection or landmark to differentiate the rows upon rows of corn. The only markers among his surroundings were the loose bits of trash that littered the side of the road.

Ed grabbed a plastic bag impaled along one stalk. Along the way, he found a rusted license plate and picked that up as well. He chose a hubcap embedded in the ground as his landmark. The hubcap was rusted and likely settled here years ago. Ed reasoned it would still be here for years to come. Ed retrieved the small black notebook he kept in his back pocket along with the pen tucked into the front of his jeans. He turned to a blank page and began marking little notches for each step he took through the corn stalks.

After twenty paces inward, Ed dug a shallow pit with the rusted license plate. He wrapped the twenty thousand dollars in the plastic garbage and buried it. Ed wedged the license plate sideways into the ground as a marker to recognize upon his return. He counted his steps on his way out of the corn stalks. Twenty even paces later, Ed was back at the hubcap embedded in the grass.

Ed walked in the direction of town. With every step he took, he made one more notch in his notebook. He kept his pace as even as he could. He would find the nearest farmstead, call the police, and tell them everything that happened. Well, almost everything.