“Move, and I’ll blow your fucking head off,” Jodie said, holding a 9 millimeter to the clerk’s head. “This is a robbery. Give me all your money.”
The clerk licks her finger, turning pages in a Vogue magazine. “Let me finish reading the last paragraph.”
“Did you hear me?” Jodie asks.
“Look, lady,” the clerk says, “My father died last week.”
“And that’s my problem, how?”
“Shoot me. I don’t care about life anymore!” The clerk walked into the barrel. “Go ahead!”
“Gee, lady, sounds like you need a hug.” The robber took off her mask.
The clerk blows out her lips. “Can we not do this on Christmas?”
The would-be thief noticed the woman’s name tag, Anna.
“Anna, I’m Jodie.”
“This is my first Christmas without my dad,” Anna says as she pats her eyes with a tissue.
“I just needed the money for Christmas presents,” Jodie says. “Downsizing at the school district cost me my job.”
“Stealing isn’t the way to do it, though.” Anna chides.
“You do what you gotta do, girl. That’s what a mother does.”
Jodie opens her arms. “Come here, girl.” Jodie hugs Anna for several seconds. “My dad died when I was a kid. He died fighting for oil in Iraq.”
Anna pops open a bottle of cheap red wine, and they drink from the bottle. “A toast,” Anna said, holding her bottle in the air. “To dead dads on Christmas.”
Jodie tilts her head and shrugs her shoulders. “Sure, to dead dads,” Jodie says. Their bottles clank.
A man walks through the office door and says, “Hey, Anna.”
“Hey, dad,” Anna says.
He fills his coffee mug to the brim with Pepsi. “Another would-be robber?” He asks.
“Yeah, I told her you were dead.”
“It always works,” her father says.
Jodie’s mouth fell open, not closing.
“Young lady, what is it you need?”
Jodie clenches her fist and wants to connect it to Anna’s chin. “Christma presents for my kids, sir.”
“Do some work, and we’ll give you the Christmas money to the dollar you need for your children, deal?”
“Deal,” Jodie says.
(© 2020 Andrew Cyr)
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Short Stories| Poems 