Michael McGovern
Writing for Pub
The bright morning sun filled the room as John pulled the curtains back. He looked out into the city and began to feel very tense. He felt this way because the night before, he and two accomplices had planned a bank heist. They were going to break into the vault and steal five million dollars, and destroy as much of the bank as they could along the way.
This is because last week, John walked in on his wife having an affair with some guy who owned a construction company. Not only was his wife unapologetic toward the whole thing, but she told John that he drove her to do this with his long hours at the hospital, and the fact that he was “to laid back.” John, ever the gentleman, said nothing and left the house. That night he drove to his friend Steve’s house and John told him everything. Steve told John that he needed to find someway to get even with his wife. Then, John came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea. Very little people knew that John’s wife Marissa was the daughter of one of the richest bank owners in the city. Marissa was due to inherit the bank once her father died, and due to her father’s worsening lung cancer this was sure to happen soon.
So, as revenge, John and Steve came up with the plan to not only rob the bank but cause so much damage to it that it would take years to rebuild. They decided that they needed at least two more guys to pull this task off so John called his two brothers, who just got out of jail for tax evasion and could not have found a better reason to violate their parole.
John stood their, looking out the window of the hotel room that he rented and he couldn’t help but feel guilty for what he was doing. Not for his wife, but for his brothers and friend, who would be ruining their lives for him armed robbery usually isn’t looked upon that kindly. John then started to consider not doing it at all. This wasn’t worth it for his family to go to jail. He picked up the phone and called his brothers and Steve and told him that it was off. He was met with general surprise at first but they accepted it after he told them that this was not worth prison time.
After John was done calling his accomplices, he took a shower and left the hotel room. He decided to take a walk around the city to clear his head. It just so happened that his walk took him near the bank that he was supposed to rob later that day. As he was walking by, he decided to stop in. He walked into the bank and the cool air conditioning relieved his face from the morning heat. He wandered over to the teller and asked to make a withdrawal. She smiled and asked him for his account number. However, John was never able to answer her because at that moment, four men wearing masks walked into the bank with guns drawn.
“Everybody get down!” the bank robber yelled. John, slowly got to the ground and could not get over the irony of the situation.
“Ok, everyone just cooperate and this will be no problem at all.” Said the robber. The people on the ground were whimpering quietly and shaking nervously. The robbers grouped together and John took this opportunity to jump over the teller’s counter unnoticed. The robbers seemed to be discussing something. The leader then began yelling emphatically at another robber then all of a sudden, the wall exploded. One of the robbers’ charges had detonated prematurely and created a gaping hole in the wall. This caused mass confusion and all out hysteria. The robbers, realizing that they needed to act quickly ran over to vault and set another charge. The robbers told everyone to move away from the area, which no one heard due to the exodus of people through the gaping hole. The robbers blew the vault door off and ran inside.
John was still silently hiding inside the bank, waiting for his chance. Immediately after the bomb exploded, John had decided to steal his wife’s jewelry. After the robbers left the vault, he was going to go to his wife’s safety deposit box and take all of her jewelry. John got up from his hiding spot and ran over to the entrance of the vault. The robbers were once again in disagreement, fighting over who would get the most shares. Then, one of the robbers heard distant sirens. All four robbers ran out of the vault, leaving behind one of the worst robberies in history.
John sprang into action. He ran over to his wife’s safety deposit box, number 5-09, her birthday. He picked it up and threw it against the wall, breaking it open. Necklaces, diamonds, and gold poured out of the box and on to the vault floor. John looked around and found a brown paper that one of the robbers left behind. He thought about taking it with him, but he could never make it past the police with a bag of jewelry. John then came up with an idea; he scooped up the jewels into the bag and ran upstairs into the bathroom. He walked into one of the stalls and stood on a toilet, removed a ceiling tile and put the bag in the ceiling. Thinking he could just come back and get it later, he left the bathroom and walked down the stairs back into the main floor of the bank. There he ran into police officers who began to question him about the robbery. The whole time John sat there with a smug look on his face, for getting back at his wife and knowing he would never be caught.
9 comments:
I liked this because it was not what I had expected. It was an interesting idea to have John hide the jewelry in the bathroom, clever way to get back at his wife.
- I love the understatement you use at the beginning of the piece. You make very little of John’s wife’s affair and his plan to steal five million dollars. It gives the piece an interesting sense of melodrama.
- As Virginia said: a nice twist around paragraph five. It really catches your attention.
- Very good use of subtle humor: “The whole time John sat there with a smug look on his face, for getting back at his wife and knowing he would never be caught.”
i actually laughed out loud a little when i read this. John's nonchalance about the whole thing is funny, and your casual use of extreme detail is also very, very funny (so John called his two brothers, who just got out of jail for tax evasion and could not have found a better reason to violate their parole.) I like it that John has such a complex thing going on but he presents everything so simply. i sense multiple story lines that are classic- i like that Marissa's dad is super rich, and that the bank robbers fight amongst themselves, and that John is a classic workaholic who not to appear so. anyways, i really like it, i think it's funny and entertaining but also maintains a serious undertone that keeps the reader interested.
I loved the irony in the whole situation, how he was supposed to rob the bank later that day, but decided not to; to only go there and witness a robbery. I thought the way he got back to his wife was very clever and amusing, all in all it's a great story, very funny.
I really enjoyed this piece. It goes against the idea that only bad people do bad things and that all bad things have to be talked about in a serious manner. This piece makes it fine to find the humor in the awful situation the man has been put in. I think the entire piece is very clever and I'm interested to see what happens from here. There are so many possibilities. You can see something outrageous is about to happen but there are to many options to figure out which one it is.
I really like the straight-forward style of this peice, and how the speaker deals with the mundane things, like taking a shower, the same way as he treats the strange, like his reaction to the men robbing the bank. I think sentences like the one that reveals that John's brothers have nothing more interesting to violate their parole with are fantastic - keeping the same sound of nonchalance and straight-forwardness while also beig funny and insightful as to the type of characters these men are.
This was funny. I could hear your voice as the narrator for sure. It left me with questions as to where the story would go next. Will he return to the bank? Will this thrill spiral out of control into a full blown case of kleptomania? Will his wife take him back? Questions are good things to leave a reader with at the end of Chunk 2, I'd say.
I like this alot. It opens nicely with the "pulling back the curtains" and then bursts right into the big city and the bank heist feel. And it has revenge. Bank heists... revenge... stuff like that if done right can be fantastic and this one seems great. Very fast paced and intense yet still feels complete and not rushed. excellent.
This story is discreetly captivating.
The tone you use feels disconnected, like the narrator knows everything factual that's on the surface, but is emotionally and deeply unattached. This stands out to me the most when the narrator describes John's wife's reasons for leaving him, and John responds by doing something as extreme as to destroy her father's bank to get even with her.
To me John's attitude toward his wife is what creates tension. It's odd that he would automatically be able to feel completely unsympathetic towards her, and not feel any guilt. But it might just be that the narrator can't be inside John's brain.
Also, I love your use of the word 'exodus.' I think it would be an interesting title for the chunk.
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