Bandit
Page 20
A $50,000 early retirement payoff covered the money I owed your sister plus some other bills. So, here I was, 63 years old, retired, earning $1,700 a month from Social Security and $1,000 a month from my pension, but I still couldn’t pay my bills. I was still gambling every day.
In January 2009 I decided to stop visiting the casinos and I returned to a mission of stealing money from banks so I could catch up with my debts and finally break even. I wanted your sister to be able to stay in that house.
As you know, my plan did not work.
I was locked up again. When this happened I was certain that your sister would be there for me and that Carol would be out of my life forever. Quite the opposite happened, though. I deceived Carol about my past (lie of omission), her house was raided by the FBI (they smashed the front door, confiscated her personal property) and she was interrogated.
To my surprise, Carol forgave me for lying and supported me after my arrest. It was then that I learned this: had Carol known about my debts she would have paid them off and there would have been no need to rob banks.
This revelation changed my love for Carol. For five years now she has waited for me. The fact that Carol has committed herself to me has changed me. From now on the rest of my life will be devoted to this angel of a woman.
Thus, as far as I’m concerned, the rest of my life has a new meaning. A devoted, loving woman waits for me. We will share our remaining years together and I will also try to be a good father, grandfather, and sibling when possible.
In the interim, I’m hoping to complete this, my final time here, soon. If all goes well I’ll transfer to Milan, Michigan, where I can be closer to Carol for the purpose of her visiting me. Then I’ll be returning home—my real home. I’ll be with Carol again.
By the way, once I’m home again, I’ll continue my retirement. Perhaps I’ll join Carol and we will sell birdhouses as a hobby. We are talking of becoming snow birds, do some traveling and investing in property up north.
Out of room. Hope that answers your question.
Love,
Dad
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“These might tell you something!” Mom had written on a piece of cardboard bound with a rubber band to a few photos she wanted me to have, sent in a manila envelope covered in HAVE A NICE DAY stickers.
Thick, orangey photos with rounded corners and a faraway matte finish, photos I had never seen before, of their wedding day. Dad is wearing the gray-collared polo shirt he wore in the square portrait he’d sent to Mom. They sit together for one photo over a forest of beer and pop bottles on the table in front of them, his arm around her shoulder. Mom is the most beautiful I have ever seen her. Sharply pretty, with a perfect ruby smile like my sister’s. In her eyes, a little tiredness, or drunkenness, or something worse. On her shoulder, Dad’s hand is pressing hard, the gold glint of his wedding ring a bright point of light. His chin is up, eyebrows raised, mouth curling in a goofily proud grin that could be real or just kidding, I can’t tell.
Another photo, a firework, a ground bloom spraying up and off to one side in the wind like a fire feather against a bank of dark apartments. No one is in that photo, just the wires of sparks, the shadows behind, and a pale evening sky.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Blake Butler, Bill Clegg, Amy Hundley, Amy McDaniel, Kathryn Stockett, Paul and Barbara Brown, Lindsey Duvall, Christiana Worth, Ed Haworth Hoeppner, and most importantly, thank you Mom, Dad, and Boo.