Mook

I had to rob the bank at exactly 3:35 pm on the Friday afternoon. I knew that because that was when I was sitting at the ballpark with my face plastered on the Jumbotron. A guy couldn't be at two places at the same time right? So it had to be some other mook. Someone who looked like me.

I even have the ticket stub from the game. The Yanks lost, but what do I care?

Marvin came up with the caper. He had this thing where he could send somebody back a day. Only a day, but that was enough to make both of us rich. He had his lab in an abandoned subway tunnel in Brooklyn. It was creepy, but he stole juice from the transit people without them even knowing.

So, Saturday at 3:00 pm he put me in his chair and turns on the juice. It looked a little too much like an electric chair, but he let me watch him send himself back. So, no sweat right?

The chair goes buzz and I'm sitting in an empty station shaking like I'd gone cold turkey. I have thirty minutes to get to the bank where we happen to know there is an unusually large amount of cash being moved. It helps being from the future and all.

Twenty minutes walk to the bank, a few minutes waiting for the right time and then I get to rock it old school. I look at the bank and shake my head. They just don't know how to build a bank anymore. The old days they had pillars and white marble. There was class to robbing a bank in them days. Now you might as well be knocking off a gas station, only the gas station don't have security cameras and armed guards.

A gas station also don't have three million in bills from a charity drive.

The watch on my wrist beeps slightly. It's time. I pull my piece and run into the bank. Marvin has told me where the guards are and what they are doing. I knock the first one flying with my shoulder and shoot the other in the leg before he can think of getting his gun out.

"Everyone just stay put," I yell and put a couple of rounds in the ceiling. Not even plaster, geesh.

The bags are just sitting there. I'm supposed to grab them and run out of the bank.

Only they have the game on TV and it's almost my big moment. There's a long foul ball and the kid next to me catches it and gives me a high five. How many times am I going to get to see myself on TV?

That's when the guard goes all hero and tries to shoot me. Only he misses on account of he's shaking from the bullet in his leg. Instead, he hits the TV and I see the kid miss the catch and that ball smack into my head. All of a sudden I don't feel so good, like my head is going to burst, so I grab the money and run out of the bank. I don't make it very far before the world turns black.

I'm sitting in an empty station shaking like I'd gone cold turkey. I'm supposed to be back with Marvin, but he isn't here. It's just me and the shakes. I decide to take a walk and maybe clear this headache I still got.

I just get out of the station when I see this mook walking along the sidewalk. He's about my height and build, but he couldn't be more obvious if you gave him a dancing monkey. He already had his hand in his pocket where his piece bulged just like he was happy to see someone.

Come to think of it, I should move mine, the back under the jacket is less obvious if you don't have a job. The mook stands in front of the bank watching traffic. It's still an ugly bank. Now, he's running across the road and kicking the door of the bank open. He shoots the guard and shoots the ceiling.

What a mess, who stops a bank robbery to watch TV?

I do. My headache gets worse as he grabs the money and runs down the road toward me. A guard pops out of the bank with a gun so I draw mine and shoot him first. I can't let him shoot me in the back, even if that me is a mook who deserves to get shot in the back.

"Get away from me," I say as I approach. I'm not thinking that I still have a gun in my hand and next thing he drops the bags and pops me between the eyes.

I'm sitting in an empty station shaking like I'd gone cold turkey. Angry that mook got the drop on me. He might be me, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from finishing him off the next time I saw him. I headed out the door and saw I wasn't the only one following the guy. The guy in front of me discretely moved his piece to the back of his pants and I knew. He was the other me. I mean the other me that got shot by the first other me.

"Hey," I yell to the first other me, "watch the guard, he's a hero type."

You'd figure that I'd be thankful for a little advice, but this other me must be nervous or something, cause he turns and starts shooting at me, so of course I shoot back. Both of us, at ourselves.

There's screaming and people running, and a guard comes out and plugs me.

I'm sitting in an empty station shaking like I'd gone cold turkey, but I'm up and out of that chair hopping mad. What kind of mook shoots himself when he's just giving good info? Me, that's who, but I got it figured now. I shoot the me and the other me and that first other me and run into the bank. Only now with all the shooting the element of surprise is kind of gone. I'm in a full-blown shootout with the guards when I see that kid miss the catch and the ball hit my head.

Then the guard's bullet finishes the job.

I'm sitting in an empty station shaking like I'd gone cold turkey. I swear and shoot the walls and kick the chair. What an ugly mugged up farce of a job this is! I'm still smashing things when a mook me shows up in the chair. I slug him good, but he's still loaded and all my bullets are in the wall.

I'm sitting in an empty station shaking like I'd gone cold turkey and watch while two of me are fighting over in one corner of the station. The only thing I can do is shoot them both and get out on the road. I figure I'll run the other way, but there's a gun battle on the street and I don't want to take any bullets to the back.

I'm sitting in an empty station shaking like I'd gone cold turkey while dozens of me are fighting and shooting it out. I hear more gunfire on the street so I head down the tunnel. Maybe none of me has thought of the tunnel yet.

One, but a bullet takes care of me. I figure I need to get to the ball game and catch that ball. I hear gunfire behind me and run faster, but I can't outrun a bullet.

I'm sitting in an empty station shaking like I'd gone cold turkey.

I'm sitting in an empty station...

I'm sitting...