The Pineville Heist (3 page)

The group surrounded the two main characters of this portion of the scene, Hamlet and Horatio, played by Pete and Mike. The two stood facing one another, ready to act out the final scene.

Mike, who played Horatio, was certainly not a modern day gentleman. He wore baggy skater clothing, and his shaggy dirty blonde hair hung in his eyes. Out of character, every move he made was slow and indecisive, but when immersed in his role, Mike became a quick, decisive leader.

Pete had stepped in as Hamlet in Aaron's absence, and he was a poor replacement. Perhaps to challenge the name given him, Peter George Cornelius III, Pete outfitted himself entirely in black and was poked full of more holes than seemingly possible. Three lip rings, a bull nose ring, two eyebrow barbells above each brow, and one large gauge lobe stretcher in each ear were the more prominent piercings, but he boasted of others in places no one–except maybe his girlfriend -wanted to see.

Pete breathed an audible sigh of relief as Aaron approached to take back the Hamlet role. “Thank God, man. Miss Becker is a slave driver,” Pete said as he left the stage, winking exaggeratedly and blowing kisses at Miss Becker as he took his seat next to his equally holey girlfriend, Charlotte.

The class laughed at Pete's antics, and Miss Becker hushed the class. “That's enough class. Let's get down to work. We only have a few days until opening day, and we still haven't gone through the entire dress rehearsal.”

Miss Becker turned her attention to Aaron and Mike. “Ready to take it from the top of Hamlet's death encounter?”

Mike nodded and threw himself into the Horatio role before Aaron could respond.
“Never believe it. I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. Here's yet some liquor left.”

Aaron jumped in, saying,
“As thou'rt a man, give me the cup. Let go; by God. I'll have't—”

“By heaven,”
Amanda interrupted.

“What?” asked Aaron.

“As thou'rt a man, give me the cup. Let go, by heaven. I'll have't,”
Amanda corrected.

“Oh. Okay,” said Aaron.
“By heaven. I'll have't. Oh good Horatio, what a wounded name, Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me! If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from…from…from…”

Aaron began thumbing through his sodden book while the students around him whispered. He tossed his book aside in frustration and plucked Mike's from his hands. Aaron furiously sought the line, and when he found it, he forcefully pointed at the line in the book and yelled “Felicity!”

“Aaron, are you prepared for Monday's opening?” Amanda asked, her brow furrowed in concern. “Pete can always step in as understudy.”

Aaron glanced at Pete, who looked as horror-stricken as if he'd been offered up as a sacrifice to the Gods. “No, I know my lines,” Aaron said quickly. “I just blanked on 'Felicity'.” Aaron paused a moment before continuing. “Will you be there Monday to prompt lines if we get stuck?”

Amanda opened her mouth to answer just as a loud rattling cough erupted from the doorway. Amanda looked to the interruption in relief. Sheriff Jay Tremblay was standing there,
filling
out the doorframe. Even at 54-years-old, he cast a terrifying silhouette, with his tall looming stature, domed bald head and untamed black moustache draped over his crooked
mouth. Having caught Amanda's attention, he adjusted the fit of his hat and checked the holster strap over his Colt 45 pistol.

“Alright, gang, put away your scripts and props and listen up. Sheriff Tremblay has been kind enough to drop by and give us a few words,” Amanda said, clapping her hands together.

Aaron and the other cast members quickly took their seats. Amanda nodded her head for Tremblay to proceed.

Tremblay looked around the various boys and girls, as if he were scanning them for criminal records, or even inclinations of criminal activity. He raised his furry, graying eyebrows, like a pair of caterpillars growling at each other as they battle for the coveted position of the bare skin in between the eyes. Then, with another rattling cough, he finally spoke, “Don't take drugs.”

A geeky student, complete with black glasses, braces and acne, let out an unfortunate and likely involuntary snort, bringing Tremblay's gaze to him. Feeling the heat of the glare, the student dropped any semblance of a smirk and lowered his head in shame.

“You may think Pineville is some kinda Shangri-La and immune to all the crap that happens down in the big city,” Tremblay began to rant, almost spitting at the mere mention of the 'big city.' “But I can assure you that drugs are permeating our community here in Pineville just like disrespect to your mothers is ripping apart the nuclear family.”

Aaron rested his chin on his arm as he slumped over his desk, suddenly exhausted by his morning. Yet, he kept his eyes fixated on Tremblay who was moving over to the blackboard where he picked up a piece of chalk.

“Pop quiz. What's the biggest threat to you kids today?”

“Reality TV,” a foreign student said, causing the whole room to burst into nervous laughter. Tremblay remained silent, with his lips held tightly shut.

“Twitter,” a pretty girl murmured, leading to more giggles. Aaron smiled over at her, but she didn't return it.

“Alright, people,” Amanda said, crossing her arms.

“My father.”

Aaron's words killed the laughter and drove the room into a sudden silence–except for the sound of Tremblay breaking the end of the chalk off on the blackboard.

Mike grinned at Aaron while the other students looked scornfully in Aaron's direction, before turning away from him. Aaron's attempt to win praise from his fellow classmates had failed. Amanda made eye contact with Aaron and frowned. She wasn't impressed either.

“Please continue, Sheriff,” Amanda urged.

“Ten million have tried it,” Tremblay said accusingly as he continued to eyeball the classroom of stony faces. “The majority of users are under the age of twenty.” He paused for effect before snapping, “Anyone?”

His word echoed off the walls. “Marijuana,” volunteered the pretty girl.

“Masturbation,” Aaron joked.

Dead silence. Then suddenly laughter erupted from the desk by the door. It was Steve, a bushy haired seventeen-year-old, with equally bushy sideburns and a soul patch spurting from beneath his thin lips.

“Office,” Amanda said sternly, her finger directing Aaron to the door. This immediately erased the smirk from his face and eliminated the short victory celebration of at least making Steve laugh.

Expressing his dismay with a loud hiss-like exhale, Aaron rose from his chair. As he scuffed along the aisle, he stole a glance at Tremblay and regretted it instantly. He found himself on the receiving end of Tremblay's iciest of glares. Not a good idea to be on the wrong side of the law, Aaron thought to himself. And this lawman was as prickly as the points on his Sheriff's badge.

Tremblay didn't miss a step and went on to answer his own question: “I'm talking about a fairly new drug called methamphetamine, also known as speed, crank or ice.”

“It's not new. Hitler used it,” Steve said with all the condescension he could muster, leading to a few chuckles from
students. Aaron shook his clenched fist in a 'jerk off' gesture to Steve, and then hurried out the door, suddenly glad to have Tremblay and Miss Becker in his rear-view. They could talk about drugs and crap all day long. He was outta there and free as a bird.

“You want to go too, Steve?” Amanda said, her voice carrying into the corridor.

“It's true, Miss Becker, the Nazis made it out of fertilizer. The Kamikaze pilots used it too, to stay awake and…” Steve's explanations eventually faded into muffled echoes as Aaron kept walking, smiling like he'd won the trip of a lifetime, instead of a one-way trip to detention. Still, there was time for a detour. Aaron deviated to the right, entering into the boy's bathroom.

Just as Aaron disappeared inside, Officer Carl Smith rounded the corner with a lollipop in his mouth. The white stick dangled dangerously from the corner of the young man's mouth, like a cigarette in a Dirty Harry movie. Nevertheless, with his tousled brown hair and lightly-stubbled chin, while he fancied himself as a Harry, he wasn't quite Dirty enough.

Carl stopped dead and tick-tocked the lollipop stick left and right in his mouth, with the flick of his tongue. He breathed in the pine-fresh scent of the freshly mopped corridors. Brought him back to his glory days. He used to rule this school. And now he ruled the town, as the Sheriff's right-hand man.

After a quick reminisce down memory lane, Carl pulled himself together, tugged the lollipop out of his mouth and strolled towards Miss Becker's classroom. He stood by the door watching for a moment. He found Tremblay in the middle of drawing a crude picture of a skull on the blackboard. With an irritatingly shrill and piercing scratching
sound, Tremblay meticulously shaded in the brain area with a nubbin of chalk, then turned to face the kids again.

“This is your brain on meth,” Tremblay said matter-of-factly. A muted groan arose from the corpus of students. They'd heard this all before…

Amanda was distracted by a light knock at the door's window–Carl was tapping with the end of his lollipop. She smiled at him, a sparkle dancing across her eyes, which she tried to hide, but failed miserably.

“I thought we were meeting after work?” Amanda whispered through gritted teeth, attempting to smile like a teacher robot, and not a girl talking to a boy. Steve looked over appraisingly at Amanda and Carl. Normally pleasant, there was something brutish about Carl's demeanor.

Carl blankly gazed at Amanda's face for what seemed like ages. For a man usually focused and charming, Carl looked tired and irritable.

Amanda looked deeply into his face the entire time, trying to read his expression. To Steve, she looked like a love struck puppy denied attention.

Carl finally turned his head, ignoring her question, ignoring her imploring gaze. Without a word, or an offer to enter, he pushed the door open wider and stepped inside the class.

Amanda stepped back and tried to hide her emotions from the class. Steve watched as Amanda's face fell, as she wiped what appeared to be a tear from her eye, as she turned away, eyes downcast and saddened.

“Sheriff? Can I speak to you a sec?” Carl announced to the entire room, including a slightly bewildered Amanda. He had his hands on his hips, holding onto his belt, like his dignity required it.

Tremblay gave Carl a “what are you doing here” kind of scowl, then crossed the room, barging past Carl out into the
hall. Amanda looked back at Carl, waiting for him to say something to her, anything, but instead he turned on his heels and walked out, closing the door.

Amanda studied the closed door for a moment. Carl didn't need to speak. The back of the door seemed to be saying everything to her. She then turned around to find Steve watching her, blinking after a long stare. Did he also hear what the door had intimated to her?

Defensively, Amanda snapped, “What?”

Aaron leaned over the sink, face to face with his reflection in the cracked mirror.
“But to my mind, although I am a native here, and to the manner born, it is a custom. More honored in the… in the… BREACH! In the breach, than the observance.”

He smiled, fairly pleased with himself. Then he turned on the faucet and splashed refreshing cold water over his cheeks. Aaron took two paper towels from a rusty dispenser, dried his face, then stopped–he could hear two voices, right outside the bathroom. The first one sounded like Tremblay? What was that old bastard doing now?

Aaron opened the door an inch, holding his breath as he eased it, hoping it wouldn't utter a creak and give him away. “So, where are we at right now?” Tremblay asked gruffly.

“It looks like they got away with four, maybe five-million,” Carl answered, slightly aroused by the size of the numbers.

Holding his silence, Aaron mouthed the words “holy shit” and closed the door again.

“Holy shit,” Tremblay balked, seemingly sharing Aaron's sentiments.

Aaron went back to the mirror, grinning to himself. He didn't want to get caught eavesdropping–especially information that was so incredibly interesting! Maybe five million. Even his Dad would consider that a lot of dough… Wait! It probably was his dough! Aaron couldn't resist listening in, just for a while longer. Carefully, he pushed the door ajar again.

Meanwhile, Carl crunched on his lollipop. “Rosie called it in–as soon as she got back from lunch.”

Tremblay nodded soulfully. “Good old Rosie. Any witnesses?”

“Someone saw their van leaving the bank. There's already an A.P.B. out on it, but so far nothing.” Aaron stiffened in surprise as he remembered seeing a van, next to the bank. The bearded man! Aaron clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a gasp and he vanished inside the bathroom, accidentally releasing the spring-loaded door too quickly, causing it to bang ever so lightly.

Tremblay's head flicked around, like a rattlesnake. His hearing was damn acute for an old timer. Lifting his hand, he pressed his palm flat against the bathroom door, ready to push, when suddenly the end-of-class bell rang loudly in the corridors. Tremblay looked disconcertingly at Carl and they both walked away, right before they were up to their necks in spotty, snot-nosed teenagers.

A chorus of slamming lockers harmoniously illuminated the corridor. Mike put his sad excuse for a sword into his locker, with a shrug. Then he closed his locker door with a booming bang, revealing Aaron standing behind it. Grinning, Aaron announced, “You'll never guess what happened!”

“You finally learned your lines?” Mike remarked, sarcastically.

“Someone robbed the bank!”

Steve emerged from behind his locker door, plastered with sexy bikini babe posters. “Get out.”

“Seriously. But, we can't talk about it here,” Aaron added mysteriously. Aaron turned around and walked away without another word.

“Looks like we are bailing on History,” Steve said with a cheeky grin. He exchanged glances with Mike and then the
pair followed Aaron down the corridor, past a gaggle of giggling cheerleaders and through the main doors.