The Fall (part 2)

I looked around and saw we were on the outskirts of Memphis.  There were a lot of secluded houses in the area, and I thought it would be easy to rob the people living there without anyone knowing.  We would take money, jewelry or whatever valuables might be there.

            I began to play out all the different scenarios in my head, and all of them ended with the family we robbed calling the cops and giving them our descriptions as soon as we left.  No problem, we’ll just kill all the witnesses, were the words that swirled around my head.

            As horrible as the thoughts were, the more I thought about it, the more it became real to me.  This was actually something I was going to do.  Of course I had no idea if Sarah would be willing.  As a joke I mentioned my idea to Sarah stressing that we needed more money desperately.  I made it sound like a joke, though, just in case she freaked out.  It would leave me with deniability.  To my surprise she agreed quickly that robbery and murder were our only options.

            We began planning the crime and decided we would find an isolated house, knock on the door and ask for directions.  It seemed to me people would feel less threatened and willing to open their doors with Sarah beside me.  Pretending to have car trouble, we would try to get inside by telling them we needed to call AAA.  Once inside, I would pull the gun and kill everyone in the house taking cash or whatever else we thought we could easily sell.  Sarah had only one condition, we couldn’t kill any farmers.  I wasn’t sure why but didn’t ask.  It was a bizarre statement but we had fully crossed the line of reason long ago, so I just agreed—no farmers.

            Just outside of Memphis’ city limits, Sarah pulled the car over so we could get the gun out of the trunk and prepare for the home invasion.  We found the gun where we had left it but after frantically searching the trunk and the rest of the car we couldn’t find the box of bullets.  We thought it wouldn’t be a big deal to buy more but it proved to be difficult indeed.

            Entering the city, we located a gun and ammo store.  Inside we found a box of the right caliber and brought it up to the counter.  The manager put the bullets in a paper bag and began to ring up the purchase when a cop walked in.  The manager acted real nervous and conveniently remembered he hadn’t checked either of us for identification.  Neither of us were twenty-one which was the minimum age to buy ammunition for hand guns so he turned us away.  We tried a few more stores with the same results.  Deciding to try one last time we went to a K-Mart hoping they might be more lax in enforcing the age limits.  Just like the others, we were turned away.  We decided to try to get another customer in the store to buy the bullets for us.  Sarah left me to woo someone with her feminine ways.  She did and it wasn’t long before she was back with the prize.  With that out of the way, we headed back out of the city to begin the search for a house.

            Once on the highway, we took a random exit and found ourselves outside of Hernando, Mississippi.  At the time we had no idea where we were or that we had even left Tennessee.  We passed a small office building on the side of the highway.  There was only one vehicle in the parking lot, a truck.  I took note of it but we were looking for a house.

            Not far from where the office was, we took a right turn onto a gravel road.  There were a few trailers scattered haphazardly but nothing looked worth robbing.  The road ended so we turned around and headed back towards the main highway.  Sarah told me I should take a couple of practice shots to make sure the gun worked properly.  We were in an isolated spot except for the trailers and an old barn so nobody would take notice.  Rolling down the window, I stuck my arm out and shot a couple of times at the barn.  The blasts were louder than I had expected and my ears rang for a few minutes.

            We passed by the office again.  Taking another look at it, it seemed more and more to be the perfect place to rob.  There were no other buildings or houses around and the single truck in the parking lot probably meant there were only one or two people inside.  I told Sarah to turn around, “I know the place we’re going to rob.”

            On the short drive back we decided both of us would go in and ask for directions, pretending to be lost.  Then, I would pull the gun and kill whoever was inside.  As we pulled up to the building, I was surprised that I was calm.  Sarah took a knife she kept in the glove compartment and stuck it in her back pocket in case something went wrong.  I had expected to be nervous but that was not the case.  I gave Sarah a kiss and we got out of the car.