What a Catch

Use of the f word.

‘Gie me the money or ah’ll shoot ye!’

‘You will what?’ Mr. Anwar said, hand at his ear.

Black hoodie pulled low, hiding his face, the robber waves the gun menacingly. Mr. Anwar puts his hands in the air, American movie style. Mrs. Anwar runs out from the back-shop screeching like a banshee. Even Mr. Anwar, used to his excitable wife, cringes and drops his hands to cover his ears. The robber takes a step back when she starts pelting him with bread rolls.

‘For fuck’s sake, shut her up!’ he snarls.

Mr. Anwar puts his hand on his wife’s arm, but she throws it off. Hoodie runs round the counter and snatches the bag of money lying under it. Grabbing a mop lying nearby she runs at him, poking it at his face. He swings the bag at her, misses, and the mop hits him in the face. He drops the gun which falls into a display of baked beans sending them clattering to the floor. He tries to pull the mop from her. They tussle: the big woman vs the skinny hoodie.

Mrs. Anwar lets go suddenly and he stumbles back still holding onto the handles of the well-worn leather bag. Reaching down she grabs the handles and pulls. He clings on and she yanks harder pulling him to his feet. He has a can of beans in his other hand and he belts her on the forehead, instantly felling her. Blood oozing out of her head, she lies moaning.

Meanwhile, Mr. Anwar is shouting urgently into the mobile phone. The robber staggers around, tripping over the cans still rolling around, hood now fallen back, wizened face white and dazed looking. He bends over, searching for the gun among the tins rolling madly everywhere and drops the bag when his foot slips on a rolling tin. Mr. Anwar is now kneeling beside his wife, trying to pacify her but her moans get increasingly louder.

With a ping the shop door opened, heralding the entrance of a young couple arguing with each other. Glancing at the scene of mayhem then at each other, they shrug and walk to the freezer display at the back of the shop still arguing.

‘I want chicken crispies!’ she says.

‘NO! I’m sick of chicken.’

‘Well what do you suggest?’

‘Anything but chicken.’

‘If you’d moved your lazy arse off the couch and went to the supermarket, we wouldn’t need this.’

‘I told you. My back’s been killing me all day.’

‘Oh, and suddenly it’s ok cos you wanted a beer. Now we’re both starving.’

Mrs. Anwar’s moans were so loud it drowned out their bickering.

The ‘mee...maw’ of sirens silences her. Hoodie scrambles to his feet, stumbling over tins, kicking and cursing. Closer and closer the sirens came filling the air with their mad cacophony. He runs to the door, locks it, and pulls a magazine display unit in front of it.

‘Hey! What’re you doing?’ The couple, the woman carrying frozen packages, appear round the sweet and crisps display.

‘Get down on the floor,’ Hoodie roars. The man, a well-built, though small, tough looking guy make a move towards him. The robber scrabbles around the floor searching for the gun which has rolled under the unit. The couple gape, seeming to notice the carnage and Mrs. Anwar lying among the cans, blood leaking from her forehead, for the first time.

‘What the hell’s going on here?’ the man says. His girlfriend stands, mouth open, gripping the packages to her chest.

‘LIE ON THE FLOOR!’ the robber roared above the noise of the sirens, now deafeningly loud drowning out even Mrs. Anwar’s groan which have restarted. ‘OR I’ll SHOOT YOU.’

‘What with ... a tin of beans, mate?’

But Hoodie finds the gun and stands up, waving it at them. The girl drops the parcels, letting out a resounding scream, far eclipsing Mrs. Anwar, before dropping to the floor in a dead faint.

‘Wha...at,’ Mr.Anwar gulps, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Ah, don’t know. And shut her the fuck up,’ waving the gun towards his wife now moaning even louder.

‘You cannot keep us here. It is madness.’

‘SHUT THE FUCK UP!’

Pounding feet sound outside and someone hammers on the door.

‘POLICE, OPEN UP.’

Even Mrs. Anwar is silent as they watch the robber staring at the door swallowing nervously, his prominent adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Ignoring his girlfriend lying at his feet, the man stares at Hoodie.

‘Get down! Or else!’

The man very slowly, still staring, starts to kneel.

‘Right down. Lie on the floor.’

‘POLICE! OPEN THIS DOOR.’

‘AH’VE GOAT HOSTAGES HERE. BACK THE FUCK OFF! AH’LL SHOOT THEM AW IF YOU COME IN.’

The sirens stop and in the sudden silence it looks like a frozen tableau. Mr. Anwar sits beside his wife, cradling her head. The robber mutters, ‘Ah’m fucked,’ and rubs his head with the gun.

‘You sure are, pal,’ says the guy now lying on the floor. ‘Better give yourself up.’ Hoodie ignores him, kicks some of the cans out of the way and keeps muttering. He looks towards the door then round the shop and something seems to click.

‘I don’t think that’s a real gun, pal,’ the guy on the floor, now with his hands behind his head and looking quite relaxed, says.

‘If you open your fucking gub again, I’ll show you if it’s real or not.’

‘Don’t mind me, pal, but I think it’s a paint gun, or one of those air soft ones. It looks just like the ones you get at paint parties.’

‘SHUT THE FUCK UP! OR Ah’LL SHOW YOU IF IT’S REAL!’ Hoodie screams bending down and putting the pistol to his head. He turns to the shopkeepers. ‘You got a back door?’

Mr. Anwar nods, and Mrs. Anwar suddenly lets out an ear-piercing scream. It is followed by loud sounds of kicking again as a policeman tries to kick the door open.

‘OPEN THE DOOR! POLICE!’

Then another voice says, quite close to the door, ‘Fuck’s sake, constable is this what your hostage training taught you? You approach this gently. Get out of my way.’ After a longish pause and a cough to clear his throat the same voice calls out. ‘Hello in there. This is detective Donnelly speaking. Don’t do anything hasty, I’m sure we can work this out.’ Another pause before he continues. ‘What do you want?’

Hoodie gives a panicked laugh, ‘You think ah’m fuckin’ nuts. Like you care. All you want is for me to gie masel’ up.’

Putting the gun and bag into the same hand he grabs Mr. Anwar by the scruff of the neck, ‘Show me the back way out!’ he hisses and marches him towards the back of the shop.

*

Outside, twelve-year old Jimmy Caramour has been idly kicking a ball against the brick wall. He heard the commotion and was walking towards the corner to see what all the fuss was about. Mrs. Anwar was well known for her temper as he well knew, but it seemed a bit much for the police to be called if she had laid into someone for pinching sweets. As he nears the back door of the shop it flies open and Mr. Anwar followed by the robber stumble out. The robber has a gun at Mr. Anwar’s neck and a bag in his hand.

He gives Mr. Anwar a violent push which sends him staggering into the middle of the road, before turning and running towards Jimmy who sticks out his trainer, trips him up and sits on him. The boy is big for his age and the breath whooshes out of the hoodie like air from a balloon. Jimmy lifts the gun and looks at it, ‘Cool!’

Mellie Caramour, lifting toddler Titch out of the car, turns and sees Jimmy sitting on the robber.

‘What are you doing, Jimmy, get off that man!’

‘I’ve caught a robber, Mum,’ Jimmy roars. ‘He was stealing from Mr. A.’

‘Whatever!’ She sighs, rolling her eyes, and takes Titch into the house oblivious to the flashing blue light and the commotion as two policemen race round the corner. Rico was working late, again, and she has to make the dinner and deal with the kids.

*

When Mr. A, as the family calls him, comes to the door the following day, a first in all the years they have known him, Mellie invites him in.

‘Well, it really is beyond my apprehension,’ she says...malapropisms abounded in her vocabulary… ‘that he used a ... what is it called?’

‘An air soft gun, Mum,’ Jimmy pipes up sulkily, still miffed that he hasn’t been allowed to keep it.

‘You must have been very scared,’ Mellie continues. ‘And how is Mrs. A?’

‘Oh, she will be doing very well,’ Mr. A says. ‘She is one tough cookie.’ Mr. A is a big fan of American gangster movies. ‘But I am coming to offer Jimmy a reward. He can have all the sweets he wants now, for free.’ He could have added it would save him nicking the odd packet but the Caramours were good customers and he was a good shopkeeper.

‘Cool,’ says Jimmy.

Privately, Mellie thinks that Mr. A might come to regret his generous offer.