By Ron Barton
Whenever we heard sirens
grandpa would leap behind the couch and yell,
“you’ll never take me alive”
and I always thought it was
silly old grandpa
playing silly old grandpa games.
But, when I was older,
the police came to our door
looking for him.
Apparently the pension
didn’t cover cost of living
so grandpa robbed a bank
and he did so in such a specific way
that they tied him
to a string of bank robberies
from back when I was a kid.
I don’t know how they caught him now
when they didn’t catch him then.
They didn’t say;
cops, like magicians, don’t reveal their secrets.
Grandpa wasn’t a magician though.
It seemed gramps would enter the bank
with a small bag
hidden under a large coat.
No one noticed;
what they did see
was the balaclava and the gun.
Grandpa would make people empty their pockets
and take their money instead of the bank’s
because banks had ways
of protecting their purse.
Then he’d make them all lay down,
set off a smoke bomb and…
instead of leaving
he’d take the coat off,
put it inside the bag
and lay down with everyone else.
He said he never took much
just
enough.
He said all this
then when the police said it was time to go
he just looked at me and winked.
“They’ll never take me alive,” he yelled,
dived behind the couch
and never got up.
Image by Frantzou Fleurine