Too Late

Arthur Barrow walked into Frost Bank wearing a hoodless sweater, although now that he felt everyone else’s eyes burning into his face, he wished he had a shield to hide him from their stares. Of course, nobody was looking at the young man yet. He was fumbling around with the bubble-wrapped object in his pocket, trying to find an opening where he could tear it off when the time came. He decided he couldn’t stand to know how many people were looking at him, so he fixed his attention on his feet as he waited in line behind other customers. When he reached the teller, his eyes only managed to reach as far as the desk, so he rested his gaze on the interstice between his sweater pocket and the bank counter.

The teller spoke, “Hello?” 

Arthur’s uneasiness mounted as he one-handedly removed the bubble wrap from the object in his pocket, a task with which he attempted caution but was hindered by his nerves. During this period, he staved off silence with a series of ums, stammers and chuckles. 

“Excuse me, sir?” asked the teller, a bit concerned. “How can I help you?” 

By now, Arthur had finished unwrapping. 

“Here,” he said in a voice too subdued for her to hear. “I’ll uh, I’ll show you.” 

He took a couple of steps back, now looking the teller in the eyes, as he took the pistol out of his pocket and shot at the ceiling.

  * * *

While the police settled around the bank, Arthur finished ensuring that all of the doors were locked and that his hostages were all sitting on the floor. As he spotted the chair he wanted to sit in during this affair, he got a call on his cell phone. 

“This must be it,” he said, grinning. He picked up the phone, dancing over to his chair in the middle of the circle of hostages to the music of police sirens. 

Putting the phone to his ear, irritation set in as a tinny “Hello,” spoke through the phone. “This is…” Spam. It was a random spam call. Not at all what he was waiting for. He was about to hang up when another call came in, but his mind didn’t process this information in time to stop the motion, so he accidentally declined the new call. 

“Oh shit,” he said tensely, fumbling around with his phone, trying to find the recent calls list. He clicked on the first red number. As it rang, he took one final deep breath, swung around his chair, and as he sat down, opened the conversation with a jubilant but cool

“Hello.” 

“Hi. Is this Arthur Barrow?” said the phone. 

“It sure is,” Arthur responded confidently, proud that his plan was going smoothly.

“My name is Kevin Anders. I work with the police, and I’m here to help you.”

Arthur looked at his audience, their eyes now actually fixated on him, something that no longer bothered him. He didn’t mind their stares now that he was the main event. 

“Kevin?”

“Yes?”

Arthur smirked.

“How are you?”

There was a slight pause. “I’m well. How are you?”

“Oh, you know, fine. Just robbin’ a bank.”

“I know you are,” the phone answered softly, no chuckle or anything. If Arthur was to realize his plan, Mr. Anders would have to loosen up.

“You gotta loosen up, man,” Arthur said, smiling.

“I am calm.”

“No, you’re not.” For a moment, Arthur’s smile vanished as he looked at the crowds’ scared eyes, briefly understanding the reality of his situation. But with a laugh, he plastered his smile back on, suppressing any acknowledgment of reality into the back of his mind. “I get it. You’re uptight because you think I might shoot someone. But don’t worry. I don’t wanna hurt anyone.”

“Then you have no reason to keep them here. Why don’t you let them out?” Mr. Anders said smoothly. 

“But then the cops would just come in and arrest me.”

“So then why don’t you put the gun down so nobody accidentally gets hurt?”

“But then the cops would just come in and arrest me.”

Mr. Anders sighed. He began to speak, but Arthur interjected, only to stop once he heard Mr. Anders start. “Sorry,” said Arthur, “go ahead.”

“Usually,” Mr. Anders said, “hostage takers have a set of demands. Do you have any?”

Arthur’s face lost all color. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. He knew it would come to this, but his actual demands weren’t something he thought through. 

“Uh,” Arthur said weakly, before swallowing and saying “Uh” once more. 

He looked down at his feet, then at the marble walls of the bank, the large windows through which wide rays of sunlight shone, and the crowd onto which the rays fell. Their eyes, once more, started to burn through his skin, incinerating his confidence. He put his elbows to his knees and spoke into the phone with exasperation. “I don’t know,” he moaned. “It’s not money. I mean, money would be nice, but I don’t know how much is too much. Is 50,000 dollars good?” there was a brief pause. “Okay, sorry. Stupid question. Shit.” 

“It’s ok,” Kevin said. “If you have no demands, why don’t we call it a day? You say you don’t intend to hurt anyone, so maybe there’s no crime at all if you come out now.”

“I don’t…” Arthur was tumbling over his words. “I don’t have a lawyer.”

“Let’s take this one step at a time. Don’t come out, just put the gun down.”

“Are you still on that? I told you, nobody’s in danger.”

“I believe you. But still, I think everyone, including you, would be a lot calmer if you weren’t holding the gun.”

“You’re right. I’ll put it down.” 

The hostages watched, anticipating the relief of their captor no longer holding “it.” However, such relief never came. “Ok, the gun’s down,” Arthur said. 

“I know you didn’t. I can see you through the security cameras,” Kevin said. 

“Yeah. Sorry. Listen, I think I’m gonna stop bothering everyone.”

“ So you’re gonna come ou..”

“I think I’ll just kill myself,” Arthur said casually, admiring the gun as if it were fine art.

“No!” Kevin yelled. He almost thought he heard the unstoppable thunder of a bullet ripping out of its chamber, turning Arthur into something gruesome.

“It’s just as important that you come out alive as the rest of the people in the bank do. Do you understand?” 

Arthur sighed. “I get it. But there’s no point. My life is basically over once I leave. I don’t want to go to prison. If I just kill myself… Poof. I’m gone.” Arthur sat back in his chair. “Killing myself will make a good story. How many bank robbers ask for no money and then kill themselves?”

“Is that why you’re doing this? For a story?”

Arthur widened his eyes so he could get a clearer view of his soul. He licked his lips and stretched his mouth. Then he said: “I feel like I’m dying,” Arthur said. “I mean, I’m not, but I feel like it’s already too late to be happy. I’m gonna die, maybe soon maybe when I’m old. Fuck, maybe even today. I’m gonna die and I’m not gonna be happy. Nobody’s gonna remember my name. Nobody’s gonna carry on any profound legacy. There’s so much shit flying around in my head, shit I think is smart until I remember I’m an idiot. I thought I would be ok with the fact that I can’t be great, but now I realize I can’t be anybody. I want to have an impact, and for people to talk about me. I don’t want to be useless. I don’t want to die and for nobody to know or care. You know, I could’ve done something really awful. I could’ve killed a bunch of people or something. But I don’t wanna hurt anyone.” He paused. “It’s not fair. Why do monsters who hurt people get to be immortalized? Why do they get to be interesting? I thought if I did this,” Arthur swallowed, and his voice stumbled as he said “I thought that if I did this,” and just before Arthur’s self-hatred reached a new high, he completed his confession. “I thought that if I did this, I could be interesting. Hold up a bank, stay calm on the phone, be affable, not ask for any money, and then have the story end in some unique way. But I never settled on the ending. I never even thought about it. But now it’s too late. I’ll be forgotten. I’ve inconvenienced a bunch of people for no reason.” He looked at the hostages, finally understanding the fear their eyes reflected. “Look at what I’ve done to good people. I’ve done all this for nothing, and now I’m going to prison for nothing. Or I’ll kill myself for nothing. Either way, it doesn’t matter.” Arthur went silent. Everything had unraveled. All of his thoughts, his entire life, were now naked for everyone who was listening. He saw now in the corner of the fear-filled eyes of his hostages, a glimmer of disgust. A feeling that, had he not taken them hostage, could have been pity, maybe even sympathy.

They sat in silence for a while, Arthur, the hostages, and the voice on the phone. Finally, it spoke. “It’s very easy, and very common, to believe your life is over when you’re young. But you don’t have to throw everything away. You can still live a normal life if you would just come out.”

I’ll be fired.” Arthur said.

“Where do you work?”

“Here. I’m a security guard.”

For another moment they were silent, taking in the irony.

“Every day, I do nothing. I sit there, watching people walk in and out with money I don’t even make in a year every day. When I was young, I thought I could be something. I wanted it so badly. I needed it. But now I can’t have it. And I hate it.” Arthur’s head was spinning. He was clutching the phone hard, pressing it into his cheek while sweat crept down toward it. 

“What did you want to be when you were young that could make you great?” Kevin asked. This was the question that Arthur didn’t want to be asked. But now that he had heard it, felt the vibrations from the phone across his face, he broke into an answer. “I never figured it out. I just wanted to make my parents happy. I wanted to prove anyone who looked down on me wrong. But at the end of high school, while everyone else was getting into these big fancy colleges, I got nothing. A mediocre school, and I graduated mediocre, and now I’m mediocre. I see other people my age, online and on the street, and they’re happy. They’ve figured it out. But I ruined it for myself. I didn’t work hard enough or I wasn’t talented enough or both. And now there’s no way I can do anything because I didn’t work hard enough to think it through. Maybe now someone will talk about me. I’ll famously become the loser who broke down while trying to rob a bank.” Arthur looked around again at the hostages, feeling more pathetic with each pair of eyes he met. “I don’t want people to talk about me for doing something like this. I did before. I thought as long as I became immortal, became an idea, I’d be happy, but I don’t want to be remembered as pathetic, or as a monster. I don’t want to be mocked or spit on and stoned even after I’m dead. I don’t want to be judged by people who don’t even know me and who I can’t defend myself to.” 

“Don’t worry,” Kevin said, with just the right tone to soothe Arthur, even if just for a moment, “This can all be confidential. Nobody’s recording, and if your family doesn’t want any information made public, it won’t be. I won’t tell anyone what you’ve said.”

“But they might,” Arthur said, pointing with the gun at the hostages, who reactively cowered or crawled back as if there was a real danger. “Stop that!” Arthur said sharply, leaning forward. “I won’t hurt anyone.” The hostages he spoke to were now cowering even more, and Arthur leaned back in defeat. He put the phone on speaker and then on his lap and put his clasped hands behind his head and elbows on his knees. He let out a sigh which was stifled by the ringing of a bullet that escaped from his gun, caused by an accidental pull of the trigger. Out of surprise, he dropped the gun and the phone from his lap, both hitting the floor behind and in front of the chair, respectively. Arthur briefly choked on his breath, before quickly snatching up the phone. “You see, Arthur?” Kevin said, speaking just right, as if he had a camera inside Arthur’s brain and knew how it worked. “Nobody’s coming in to arrest you.”

“That’s because the gun’s right behind me,” he said as he quickly snatched up the gun. “I could’ve easily picked it up if the cops came in. I still haven’t decided if I’m gonna kill myself, anyway.” For some reason, talking of suicide immediately calmed him. But now he looked at the gun again, the prospect of suicide becoming more real and less enticing. Paradoxically, however, it was still more tempting. 

Arthur tried to commit, and with a gasp pressed the gun to his chin. He knew that dislodging a bullet in his brain was the only surefire way to fix this situation. “Please,” Kevin said, watching Arthur with bated breath through the security feed, “Put the gun down.”

“I don’t want to anymore.”

“Please. There are children in there. It’ll scar them.”

He looked around. In the corner was an around seven-year-old girl, whose eyes were the only ones filled purely with fear. He wanted to thank her for not looking down on him but knew nothing good would come of that. The man who it seems was her father noticed Arthur staring at the girl. “Keep my daughter out of this, psycho.” Arthur’s heart and Kevin’s jaw dropped. ‘psycho?’ Arthur thought, mortified and ashamed. And angry.

There was now something supernatural within Arthur. His blood was pumping faster. It felt hotter, too, like it was about to boil. He put down the phone and erupted from his seat, stomping quickly over to the man. He pressed the gun to the man’s forehead, seeing only red. “I’m not going to hurt anyone. Fuck you!” finally coming to his senses, he took a small step back, lowering his gun. Just low enough to fire another accidental shot at the man’s torso.

The ensuing bellow that the man emitted was unlike anything that anyone in the bank had ever heard. Arthur dropped the gun and dove toward the phone. “I didn’t mean to do that. You have to believe me. Oh god…”

“I do,” Kevin said, his calm voice ruined by a tremor of uneasiness. “But that man needs medical attention, and so you need to let people come in and get him out.”

“No!”

“Arthur…”

“It’s not fair. I didn’t mean to.” suddenly, Arthur’s eyes lit up. He was suddenly overtaken by a bombardment of relief. “I can hide,” Arthur said. He spewed a subdued, quiet laugh. Before Kevin could get a word in, Arthur had dropped the phone and ran off. He couldn’t see Arthur too well through the cameras, but he thought he saw some inexplicable, indescribable smile begin to form. He also held the gun close to him as if it were his most precious item. They could track him through the cameras, even if he didn’t have his phone, and arrest him once he was alone and cornered before he could kill himself. But Arthur barged into the security room and shut off the power. Within minutes, the police had gotten the power back up, but by then, it was already too late. Arthur Barrow was lost.