How to rob banks

This is just a first draft for a story I'm going to write. Thought it might be kinda cool to put it up.


I must have been crazy when I decided I was gonna to rob the bank. The CWB was the biggest bank on the planet and everyone knew it. People said that it was impossible to break into. There's no such thing as impossible. 'Cause I like the risk, I decided to expand on my sudden impulse. Why not, after all? It was a reputable bank. The gesture on it's own was enough for me.

I wouldn't do it for the money; I would do it for the fun. Just for the fun. Melanie, my red-headed, slim bodied and pixie-faced wife had just gotten a new job downtown. She wasn't sure if she could keep it for long. She turned redder than her hair when I told her what I wanted to to.


"Max, don't do it. You'll never pull it off. We've just gotten some stability in our lives, and you want to go and ruin it for us both? Why?" 'Cause you haven't produced anything in six months. 'Cause you're just dead weight, I thought, but stayed mum all the same.


I left my wife in the hall and walked out onto the street. The slab of rock I was walking on had a kind of poka-dot pattern to it from chewing-gum. My feet stuck to the ground as I walked. I looked into the window of the nearest closed shop I could find. Next to it stood a Ukrainian Catholic church. I was kinda surprised; I thought almost all religion had been destroyed in the twenties.

"Oy xloptche!" One look around this desolate road told me I was the only xlopets in sight.
"Chtcho ty xotchesh?" An old man with brown hair, black robes and a cross on his chest walked over to me. The bottom of his robe was muddy and torn. This was surely not a priest? His face was worn by age and by storm. His eyes were tired by years of confessions.


"I don't want anything father. I was just lookin' at your place here."


This could be the opportunity I had been waiting for. Any robbery needs a planning space and a getaway plan; the latter also needs someplace to meet up to distribute bounty.


"Aah. You are English, I did not see that! Please, let me help you. What is it you are looking for?"


"I'm lookin' for a place where me and my friends could hang for awhile. We got money, and wouldn't be any trouble at all." I walked briskly to the Father, whose eyes had lit up when I said the word "money" and I put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm a Ukrainian Catholic. I pray night and day for our brothers."


He told me that my friends and I could stay as long as we wanted. Or as long as we payed. I told him my friends weren't going to be here for a few days. Then I turned 'round, and went eastward, to gloomy Old Kiev.


The sky was greyer than usual. The streetcar cables over my head buzzed with the eery sound of electricity. I could see a pub in the distance, the sun lowering itself down into the horizon. A blue and white tram passed by, sparking as it touched the wires. I ended up in front of the pub.


The name "Oukrayinski Stravy" in large, red letters hurt my eyes as I looked upwards, into one of the second story windows. There was a hanky in the window. "It's safe," I whispered to myself. Moments later I was in front of a door. The shining brown wood contrasted sharply with the pale yellow walls of the soviet-era apartment building. Knock-knock, went my fist.


A voice broke the hum of a failing air-conditioner. "Zaraz ya preydou, xolera!" a rhaspy, smoker's voice called. Finally, the door opened. Slowly. A man in his late thirties stood there. His face was not considered pretty, but wasn't ugly. Thick, curly brown hair that went down to his shoulders covered most of his head. The rest was mostly just a nose that looked as if it had been sharpened on a grinding stone, as well as inset red eyes, characteristic of users and abusers.


"Xto to?" He was a stickler for safety. His own safety, that is. He didn't care about anyone else's.


"It's me."


"Who's me?"


"It's Max and you know it, Roman."


"Aaah! So it is. I knew that. Anyway, ya, sorry I didn't open the door. I was on the telephone with a whore who owed me money." He rasped, smiling.


Before I continue with my story, there's something that you gotta to know about Roman. He was one of the only person I knew well that I didn't believe to be above me. He was a great guy. We had had a lot of times together, most of them good. All the same, there was also the other side of Roman. The side he only let loose on people who crossed him. The side no-one wanted to be on. The side where, if you saw Roman on the street, you'd better have run, 'cause he would have would have snuffed you out like candle in a hurricane.

I talked to Roman about my plan. We sat in sooty, wooden chairs that needed a good paint job, fast. Roman had dust all over his floors, 'cause if a creep ever walked in, Roman would know. We talked as the hands flew past the numbers on my watch. Every time I'd shift in my weight in my chair it would creak loudly. Every time I shifted my weight in my chair, I was afraid to fall off.

Time flew, but soon the deal was made. I had to move on to the next constituents of my team. As I walked out the door, Roman stopped me.

"I heard you were in jail, all the way in Siberia."

"I work for the police here now. You know me. I'd never rat no-one out, let alone anyone on my team. I'm the guy on the inside."

"That is true. Anyway; a man on the inside is better than one on the out."

"I know. See ya soon, Roman. Real soon." I said slowly, then left.

The rest of my team were guys who I had never worked with before, but they seemed nice. Nice, but crooked in each his or her own way. Korpanov, the Russian safe master, sat at a table in the basement of the church. He had a shot of black hair, thick glasses and figure Fatty Arbuckle would have been proud of. He was also the one talkin' now. He was blabbin' about some safety system. I must o' missed the first half of what he said, 'cause I sure as hell didn't understand the second. The bank robbery he helping plan was trivial, anyway.

The seven men watched a slideshow that had drawing of the bank's insides. One security camera for the entrance, two for the offices, two for the booths, one for the entrance to the "Employees only" part of the bank and four covering the vault. It was tight, but not perfect. Nothin's perfect.

"So, how do you want to do it?" I asked.

"We will get the tech guy, shut off the cameras, then we will point guns and make lots of people very scared." He said, showing yellow teeth as he spoke.


"Are the chairs connected with the tech room too?" One of the thugs asked. I was surprised that he could even make a sentence that made sense. The guy must have been thinking about it during all of Korpanov's speech.


"Aaah, yes. The chairs are a problem, dear Korpanov. You do not think the police will come if a teller hits her button?" Roman stated the obvious.


"Yes they will. In swarms." Another thug answered the rhetorical question. I started thinkin' that this could be could be a competition of whose answer more blatantly stated the obvious.


"Then we cut the wires going out of the building. Simple as that." Yah, 'cause that's gonna pull off the crime of the century. Cut wires. I kept that myself, though.

I haven't seen stuff like that since '92. Everyone was rejoicing. We were gonna rob the best bank in the Ukraine. . Drinks were passed around. I don't like the things the hard stuff does to people, so I left along with the priest, whose name was father Yanukovych, Roman and two others. We walked ourselves home, and after sayin' 'bye to Roman at his doorstep, I went home to hit the sack. We'd rob this bank, Lord willin' and the creek don't rise.

End of Part one of two.

100 Word Story

Here's a one hundred word story I did for school. Just a tidbit, because I have nothing else to add, and I think there's too little written down here.

"It was a dark and stormy night. The superheroes couldn't find the Crystal Flask anywhere. Between flashes of lightning, The Fist thought he had seen it on top of a drawer. Everyone crowded to look for it, but no-one found it. In fact, we all went home without our bounty.
What they didn’t know was that I had it. I, the head of the entire agency, had stolen the Crystal Flask. I was the very best villain the world had ever seen. I was supposed to be the example tight-man, but hey. Nobody’s perfect."

The first and last sentences were required. The rest was strait out of my brain.
I think I'll be using BR to "publish" my stories a little more now. Maybe that's what I'll be using it for now. We shall see...


Editorial note: I just realised that this isn't actually 100 words. It's more like 96. Sorry!