A SHOT IN TIME
All events and characters in this essay are fictitious and any resemblance to any events or real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The names have been changed to provoke the paranoids.
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I heard a noise. I jumped up and ran across this huge empty shed and hid in a dark corner. I heard whistling. It had to be Joey. But I waited. It might be really bad people who'll hurt me.
"Benny, where are you?" Then a sing-songy voice. "Comin' to get you."
"Over here, Joey. I'm hidin' just in case---"
"Nuthin' to worry about, Benny-boy. It's just me and I've got some good news."
"I could really use some - good news, that is. I'm freezin' and hungry. Oh, And I've smoked the last of my weed."
"Look at what I got, Benny"
"Is it food?" I asked. "If it's not, I'm not really interested."
I hurried over to our so-called cosy corner that was lined with big cardboard boxes and some old clothes that we scavenged from one of those charity places.
"Yeah Mate, a treasure chest fulla food." He was carrying two big, coloured bags. "I jacked a woman loading her car in a Woolies car park. Never knew what hit her. Pow! Right on the back of her head. She went down like a bag a'crap. I got her purse with the car keys and money and drove off leavin' her hidden among all the cars. Let's see what we got."
"Gees Joey, you mighta killed her."
"Never hit her that hard, just a love tap."
We took a bag each and dug into 'em. "Lotta bloody toilet paper," Joey grumbled.
"I gotta lotta canned stuff. Have we gotta can opener, Joey?"
"Yeah Benny, the world's best," he said and pulled out that bloody, big knife.
"Joey, you didn't stab that woman, did'ja?"
"No, I told you. I tapped her head," he said then stabbed and pried open a can of beans and a can of spag. Bloody lovely!
"Benny, I spotted an easy mark. We can clean up probably big time," Joey told me. "No risk, only two girls in the place after about 8 o'clock at night. I been checking it out. A piece a'cake, Mate."
"We're not gunna hurt the girls, are we?" I asked 'cos Joey worried me sometimes. He loses his temper really badly. He's even been angry with me a cuppla times and hit me but he gets over it and says he's sorry.
"Nah, Mate. Just frighten 'em a bit. We'll empty the till and grab all the ciggies and be out the door in 60 seconds flat."
----
Later that night, dunno how late 'cos Joey borrowed me watch and lost it. But he found me some weed that made up for it, I suppose. Anyway we cruised the servo on the edge of town in the car that Joey jacked. We went past it a cuppla times and when there were no customers there, we rushed in with our covid masks on and caps pulled down. There were only two teenage girls wipin' things down and sweepin' the floor.
"This' a hold-up, bitches!" Joey said loudly enough to frighten 'em.
They didn't seem too frightened. Just stared at us.
Joey ran behind the counter and pulled out the till. "It's empty! Where's the money?" He demanded in a frightening voice.
I knew the girls "Hi Lola," I said.
"Hiya, Benny Howya doin'?"
Joey turned on me and screamed . "You idiot! We're undercover."
"Oh yeah. Sorry about that."
"Don't say nuthin' more," he snarled rudely at me.
"Okay, Joey." Oopsie.
The ignorant bugger swore in front of the two girls then asked them where the money from the till was.
"The security bloke comes through at about eight o'clock every night and takes the cash to a bank safe deposit box. All sales after that are on cards." Lola told him.
"No money?" An enraged Joey screamed. "Well where's the cigarettes?
"In a steel cabinet. The security bloke locks that, too. Oh, he leaves four packs out for any desperates."
"Well I'll take 'em for a start." Joey was gettin' really upset now.
"You can only have three," Lola told him. "I've paid for one for my dad."
"Bugger your dad. He's gunna miss out."
"Joey," I said. "Don't swear at the girls. It's rude."
That was it, Joey went bonkers. "No dough! Bugger all cigarettes. I'm gettin' somethin' outa this."
He grabbed Lola and bent her over the table.
"What are you doin'? She's my friend."
"I'm gunna give her a table-top tussle. Watch and learn."
"Don't you dare hurt my friend." I grabbed Joey and tried to pull him off the outraged, bellowing Lola and looked around for help. I'm wondering where Lola's sister, Pat, is?
A loud voice said. "Gawd, I have a long day so I go to bed early and you lot are staging a three- ring circus." She looked around and saw what was happening. "Get off her, dummy or I'll kill you."
I let go of Joey and turned to see who's doing the loud talking. It was an angry old woman, maybe fifty or sixty standing in the doorway with Pat.
"Back off, bitches or I'll kill her," Joey yelled.
The old woman said, "What are you going to do, talk her to death?"
"No. I'm gunna slit her throat if you lot don't back off." Joey's sounding really crazy now.
The loud old woman said. "You'll need a knife. Have you got one?"
Joey was too busy trying to hold the angry, struggling Lola down to look around but he did say. "What do you think this is? A magic wand? And waved his knife in the air.
Boom! An explosion and Joey's hand and knife disappeared. Joey collapsed on the floor. Bleeding. I've gone deaf. Can't hear nuthin! I looked back at the old lady and she was holding a shotgun to her shoulder, talkin'.
The air was a pink mist.
"Benny, is it?" She yelled, pointing the shotgun at me.
I heard her yelling and nodded.
"I've got another cartridge in the breach. Am I going to have to shoot you?"
"No Granny." Pat wailed.
I shook my head.
"Good, sit on that chair and don't move."
"Can't. I gotta go to the toilet. Now!" I told her.
"C'mon Benny, I'll take you," Pat said.
"What the hell are you doing?" The old woman asked her.
"Benny's okay, we've known him for years. It's just that Joey bullies him into doing stupid things. Doesn't he, Benny?"
I nodded.
"All right, off you go."
"Lola, your boyfriend's bleeding to death," the old wonan said. "Go and get that ball of twine off the back bench and we'll make a tourniquet. Better hurry, he won't last long the way he's pumping blood out. I'm going to call triple O."
I heard all that. I asked Pat through the toilet door."Pat, am I gunna go to jail?"
"No Benny, Granny'll sort it out. You'll be okay."
----
And she did sort it out. I was bound over to her while I was on a three month good behavior bond. She had Pat and Lola move me into the storeroom in the back of the service station and gave me a servo shirt and odd-jobs around the place. Sweeping out the front. Tending her veggy garden out the back. And even painting. What's more, she fed me. And paid me a bit of money on top of my pension.
"Cheap labour, Benny and I can keep an eye on you. Oh, by the way, your mate Joey's going down for a long time. He's got too much history."
I thought Granny might have got into trouble for having a shotgun but she was a member of the town clay-pigeon shooting society and so was her friend, the local magistrate.
Granny had me doing a late shift with the girls. "Less chance of a hold-up with a tough Benny on the premises," she said.
I practiced looking tough and the girls rolled around laughing. Very rude, I thought.
"Just look nice, Benny," They said. "And we'll look tough."