The Black Bear

I suppose I’ll tell you (whoever reads this, if anyone ever does besides myself) about the Nicolet Bank in Boise, Idaho. If anyone does read these half-remembered scribbles they’ll probably most want to know about the last day of John Blake, or as the scum of the news media called him, “The Black Bear.”

It was early winter morning on a Friday. There were four of us then, including John and me. Nicolet wasn’t a big score. (We are, after all, talking about Boise.) We just needed a little extra money for our upcoming travels to Canada. But, as you can imagine since I’m writing this to you from a gray, windowless cell and not Canada, things got fucked.

It started out well enough, I guess. There’s an assumption of bank robberies (perpetuated by movies and television) that it’s always men in masks blazing in shouting at everyone to get on the floor while shooting into the air. With John, though, this was generally unnecessary. However, that’s not to say we didn’t have fun with our work.

Especially in the later days, when Blake’s reputation became well-known all over the country, just the sight of the behemoth walking through the doors was enough for the employees to respectfully do as they were told. Bank employees—as you’ll see later—knew John Blake. They had nightmares about him walking into their branch location. He was like the boogeymen for dudes with tie bars.

John’s reputation was well-earned. Over the year I spent with him, he racked up a sizable body count. Though, to be fair to John, he wasn’t some sadistic murderer. He and I always made the rules of the situation clear to everyone involved—try to be a hero and you’ll die as one. It’s not his fault some pushed him to choose between his freedom or their lives. I’d wager most men would do the same.

But, I’m getting off-track. That morning, the job started as they usually do—with myself entering first and alone. As we expected, it was empty besides two bank employees. No security guards. It might as well have been an open trough of money for us to slop up. 

It was snowing that morning. I remember dusting the flakes off my shoulders and hair as I entered, stomping my boots on the carpet. I approached the teller like I was any other customer, besides the .357 magnum resting inside my jacket. (Although, in Idaho, maybe this isn’t that uncommon.)

“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” the young teller responded. She was pretty and alive like life hadn’t beat her down yet. “My name is Amy, how can I help you?”

“My, oh, my, is the snow coming down out there,” I said, still brushing my jacket.

“Yeah, it looks like it,” she said, craning her neck to look out a nearby window. “I think the weatherman said we’d get two or three inches today.”

“Don’t you people believe in spring around here?”

She giggled. “We do but it doesn’t always believe in us.” (I still don’t know what this means.) “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No, and I’m glad of that right now, no offense.”

“Well, my name is Amy, how can I help you today Mr…”

“Williams,” I lied. (I always used Williams as my fake name for jobs—a stage name, if you will—as it was an homage to my favorite TV show, The Sopranos. Kudos to you if you understand the reference.)

“Mr. Williams.”

“Well, Amy, I actually need to speak with your manager.”

“Oh, you need to talk to Stephen?”

“That’s right.”

“Uh, sure. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“No, that’s all right, Amy. It’s actually a personal matter between us.”

“Oh,” she said, a little confused. “Well, let me just call him for you, then.”

She picked up the phone on the counter and dialed. I could hear some garbled talk on the other end of the line and then she hung up.

“He’ll be right out.”

We waited for a minute, politely standing in silence, before the manager known as Stephen appeared. I checked my watch.

Stephen looked annoyed. He adjusted his round eyeglasses that rested on his tiny nose. He was skinny and gangly with a boyish face and a cowlick sticking out the back of his hair. Amy stepped away.

“Stephen!” I said before he could say anything. 

“Hello,” he said weakly. He looked me up and down. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

I pulled out my magnum hand-cannon and rested it on the counter. 

“No, we haven’t. But, I don’t think you’ll ever forget me.”

I pointed the gun at Amy without taking my eyes off Stephen.

“Hands where I can see them, Amy,” I said calmly. “We don’t want any silent alarms going off. Right, Stephen?”

The blood went out of Stephen’s round face. He slowly raised his hands.

“Okay, okay, just stay calm.”

“Don’t I seem calm?”

Stephen let out a shaky breath.

“Amy, darling, come join us over here, would you?”

She did as she was told, her eyes glued to the floor and her hands shaking above her.

“Listen, we don’t want any trouble, okay?” Stephen was barely able to say. “We’re going to cooperate.”

“That’s good because I don’t want any trouble either. Now, Amy, you’re going to take this bag and start filling it with the cash from the drawers, understand?”

I whipped the canvas bag out of my jacket and slid it across the counter to her. She gingerly picked it up.

“Please don’t do anything stupid like put a dye pack or any other trick in the bag, okay? I will know and be very upset.”

She nodded and began to open the drawers.

“Now, Mr. Stephen,” I said, lazily pointing the .357 at him. His eyes followed it back and forth like it was a coiled snake. “I’ll need the keys to the vault if you please.”

He stammered some more, never taking his eyes off the gun. “I can’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“I left them at home. They’re not here.”

I sighed. (This was a common excuse one heard in my line of work. Why managers thought any self-respecting thief would accept this excuse is beyond me.)

“Stephen, have you heard of John Blake? Or, ‘The Black Bear’ as some call him.”

His eyes left the gun and met mine for the first time, wide with fear.

“Do you know how many people my friend John has killed?”

He shook his head.

“Twelve,” I said. “Most of them thought they were very brave and very smart. Now, they’re dead. I don’t want you to be unlucky number thirteen. Do you?”

Again, he shook his head. I checked my watch.

“Now, in exactly—let’s see—twenty-three seconds, John Blake is going to enter your bank. Then, he is going to ask me for the keys to the vault, because that is my job—to get the keys to the vault from the bank manager—you. Now, I will be forced to tell him that you won’t give them to me, even though I asked nicely. Stephen, my friend John will not ask nicely.”

He looked at the gun and then me.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know you’re not just bluffing me? I mean, shit, you could’ve just seen his name on the news.”

I rubbed my eyes and checked my watch.

“Well, I guess you’ll see in eleven seconds.”

I rested my elbow on the counter and propped up my chin. I rapped my fingers on the counter and stared at Stephen. Eight seconds. Seven seconds. Six… 

“Last chance, Stephen.”

He straightened his posture with his arms still raised.

“I’m sorry, but I left them at home.”

The watch ticked away the seconds until it reached 8:09 a.m.

The thing about John Blake is that he’s as much a showman as he is a criminal. He liked to make an entrance. He liked everything about the legend that surrounded him. He embraced it and used every opportunity he could to enlarge his infamy to mythic proportions.

John also hated banks for reasons never made clear to me. He considered himself a Robin Hood-type figure by stealing from them. Except, he didn’t give his money to charity (unless you consider hookers and drug-dealers charity-cases). So, he wasn’t like Robin Hood at all.

To him, notoriety was more important than money. He saw jobs less as opportunities to get rich as they were to perform. John, to his core, was an entertainer.

So, exactly on cue, a huge black boot kicked open the front door to the bank with such force the glass shattered when it smacked. John entered his trademark sawed-off pump-action shotgun in hand, flanked by Dan and Erin.

“GOOD MORNING, BOISE, IDAHO!” he bellowed with the exorbitant righteousness of a hellfire-and-brimstone backwoods preacher.

As much as I despise journalists for their sensationalized reporting of John and us, I have to give them credit for the fitting nickname they gave John: “The Black Bear.” Thanks to his massive figure and thick, curly black hair that poured out of his skull and chin, John looked closer to an animal than a man. Many times I marveled that he and I were the same species. 

The only part of his face that wasn’t covered by tufts of hair were his beady, sky-blue eyes. His tree-trunk forearms—which were always on display—were also covered in black fur. If one were to see Blake out in the wild they’d be forgiven for thinking they spotted bigfoot.

When John made his entrance, Stephen jumped and looked upon The Black Bear in stunned amazement. Dan and Erin scurried behind the counter, pointing their guns at the screaming Amy, who dropped to the floor. 

“Ian! Keys please!” John roared.

Stephen still seemed unable to speak.

“Sorry, Blake,” I said, backing away from the counter. “The manager—that’s Stephen here—won’t give them to me.”

“Really?” he asked with palpable glee. I heard the cha-chunk of John cocking his shotgun with one hand. As he approached, I could see there were still flurries of snow sticking to his hair and beard.

Stephen hurriedly began going through his pockets as I stepped back and Blake moved closer. After fumbling for a few seconds, he managed to pull the keys out and dropped them on the counter.

“I’m so sorry,” he pleaded. “There they are. There’s no trouble, no trouble, sir. No trouble at all. Please, forgive me. I didn’t…”

“Are you a hero, Stephen?” John boomed, his eyes wild as a lion’s that’s cornered a gazelle.

“No, sir.”

“Sir? Do I look like a sir to you? Do I look like a respectable gentleman?”

Playing with his food.

“I—uh…”

“Come on, Blake, we don’t have time for this,” I chimed in. He could toy with employees for hours if one of us didn’t speak up.

He growled and curled his lips into a smile. He leaned in closer, inhaling Stephen’s scent and lowered his voice to a whisper.

“Are you gonna be the one to bring me down, Stephen? You want to be the one that catches The Black Bear, don’t you?”

“No, no, sir.”

“Who are you calling sir?” he boomed.

“John!” I interrupted again.

He snorted.

“Where. Are. The. Keys.”

Stephen slowly pushed the keys already on the counter towards John. He picked them up. I looked away. I didn’t enjoy watching this. John trained his beady eyes on the keys as he held them up.

“Thank you,” he said without moving his eyes.

He dropped the muzzle of the shotgun on the counter and fired.

The strength of the blast blew the frail Stephen backward three feet and smacked him against the wall. He stumbled forward for a step before collapsing face down on the carpet. Amy screamed.

“Danny boy!” John hollered. “Keys!”

He threw the keys to Dan who went to the back to open the vault. Amy was still screaming, cradling herself on the floor behind the counter while Erin shouted at her to shut up. Blake turned to me.

“I warned him,” I muttered.

John roared in laughter. 

“Erin, go help Dan! Ian, grab the drawer-cash and go get the car started!”

“What do you think I’m doing?”

Erin left Amy and went to the back with the vault. I hopped over the counter and approached Amy, still hyperventilating on the floor. I picked up the bag of cash.

“I warned him, Amy,” I said. “You heard me.”

“Fuck you,” she wheezed before going back to sobbing. 

“You sure there’s nothing in here that’ll surprise us?”

She shook her head vehemently and kept crying. Then, she went quiet. Her eyes focused behind me, on the floor. I turned to follow her eye line and saw him.

There was Stephen, his chest half blown off, underneath the counter. Apparently, he was barely alive and turned on his side. His right arm was raised and his fingertips grazed the bottom of the counter.

I followed his fingers and saw they were pressing something. The silent alarm.

His arm collapsed on top of him and he seemed to die right there.

I looked at Blake, who was watching Dan and Erin as they prepared the vault. He turned to me, still standing there.

“Ian! Come on! Go get the car ready!”

At this moment my brain clicked into one realization: we’re fucked.

I grabbed Amy.

“No! I’m not going anywhere with you!”

I leaned down into her ear.

“The cops are coming. Do you want to be here when the shooting starts?”

The understanding hit her face and I saw her brain click too. I was her best hope of getting out alive. She reluctantly got to her feet and I shoved her toward the door.

“What are you doing?” John asked.

“We might need a hostage,” I said without breaking a stride. In a second, Amy and I were out the door and that was the last exchange of words between myself and John Blake. Not much of a goodbye.

Outside, it was still snowing. I could already hear police sirens in the distance closing as we moved to the car on the far end of the parking lot.

“Please, just let me go! I won’t say anything! I swear!”

“Please be quiet, Amy.”

I shoved her inside the shitty car that we stole yesterday. I climbed into the driver seat but when I started the car they were already there.

Two squad cars bolted through the parking lot entrance and skidded to a stop directly in front of the entrance to the bank. Four pigs got out with their guns drawn and aimed at the entrance. I heard shouting but they didn’t seem to notice us on the other side of the parking lot.

Amy was whimpering. I pressed the gun against her knee.

“Amy, if you make a sound, I will put a hole in your kneecap, understand?”

(I wouldn’t really do it. That’d be gross.)

Amy muttered a confirmation. I put the car in gear and began to slowly roll towards the squad cars and front entrance.

Maybe it was because I had already accepted my fate, but I decided to simply play a game and see if I had any luck left. I already knew at this point Blake would eventually be dead. (He always said he’d never be taken alive—that would ruin his myth.) 

I rolled behind the officers, who still hadn’t noticed me with their constant shouting towards the bank. I didn’t hear any response from Blake.

“Hey, is the bank open?” I asked in my most casual manner.

One officer looked at me like I was a lunatic.

“Get out of here! Armed men—”

Before he could finish, the windshield of his cruiser exploded courtesy of John’s shotgun. Everyone ducked and I floored it out of there. As I peeled out, two more squad cars went into the parking lot after me.

I turned and headed toward the interstate, North, where we were going to cross into Canada.

“Okay, you escaped, just let me go now! Please! You can just drop me off right here! I won’t say anything!”

“Amy, I’m driving.”

“I don’t know where you’re going! There’s nothing I can say to them!”

“Amy, you’re distracting me, and distracting the driver is very dangerous.”

We made it pretty far, all things considered. By the time we got on the interstate, the radio was already reporting a breaking news story about a bank shootout that left a couple of people dead. I found out later John was one of them. 

I think you can surmise, however, that we didn’t make it North. Crossing into Canada with a hostage isn’t as easy as you’d think.

I’m not sure the purpose of all of this was: my recounting of the experience that resulted in my present incarceration. Shit happens, I guess.

It was the prison psychiatrist who recommended this exercise, saying it would help us process our trauma and move past it.

The thing is, I didn’t find anything traumatic about the experience. It was a bummer to get arrested and it was a shame what happened to Stephen, but there’s some tragedy in every good story. Plus, I’m pretty certain I saved Amy’s life by getting her out of there. So, even-steven if you ask me. Although, she doesn’t seem to have any gratitude toward me and won’t respond to any of my letters.

If nothing else, it helped pass the time, writing this. Shit, maybe I can sell it or something. True crime is big now and for a while, John was one of the most famous people in the country. I’m sure some people would like to read a first-hand account of his exploits.

He was a pretty good guy, besides the killing and stealing. I don’t hold that against him.