The Bank Robbery (a serial novel in progress)
Chapter 2 — Nina
Afterward, she lit me a cigarette, even though she knew I didn’t smoke. She didn’t either.
“I started in med school,” she said. “That makes no sense does it?” I laugh so hard and got dizzy.
It began so fast, and it seemed to last for years. I was not in her league and didn’t really care. It is good that way. Don’t think. Just do. Be. Happen.
Nina.
Nina Tee.
“This doesn’t change anything, does it? I hope not. I have been thinking about you all the time, wondering what you were doing with yourself.”
“I have been thinking about you.”
“It was so great to run into you. When I saw you, I felt like we were back in that economics class with you in community college and going bowling. Remember bowling? Remember that last night when you couldn’t miss and almost got a perfect game?”
I inhaled deeply on the cigarette Nina lit for me and got even dizzier and smiled. Both of us were naked. I just looked at Nina. Who cared what happened after this?
Nina Tee, as I knew her, proved to me that men, like women, can be multiorgasmic. They always say women can have multiple orgasms but men can’t, and I can accept that. Except for that one night. That night was evidence of something between here and there. And it didn’t matter to me. For once, things had fallen in place. I mean really in place.
It had been seven years since she walked out of my space. She had gone west and had gone to medical school. Nina was almost a doctor. That's all she said the last time I saw her.
I met her one summer when I was taking a summer class in community college. Nina was in my class. She sat right next to me. She was beautiful. And funny. She kept a smile on her face.
Economics was the class. Nina knew all the answers. Every time the teacher asked one, up went her hand.
“Thanks, Nina, great answer,” the teacher would say.
I just smiled. I wanted to stand and clap. One time, I snapped my fingers as people do at poetry readings when they think the poem is really good. She saw and heard me and smiled back. I could barely look her way. You know that feeling. You say he or she is out of my league. I have no chance with her.
Eventually, she came up to me and started chit-chatting after class. She could talk and she had big eyes and beautiful skin. She was just gorgeous. I am not even sure why she came up to me. I rarely said anything.
“You should talk, some in class,” she said. And before I could even respond — “I’m Nina. Nina Tee.” I watched her lips move slowly as she spoke.
My luck with women up to that point in my life had been haphazard. They ran circles around me. Most of the time, I moved slowly. Cautious like a rabbit at night. They didn’t wait either. You think about being alone, Mr. Rabbit.
But I was mesmerized by Nina. And she didn’t really disappear or anything. We were, shall we say, undefined. Elusive. It was better that way.
Eventually, we met for lunch after class a few weeks into the session. It was her idea. Everything was always Nina’s idea. I was like a sous chef taking orders from the head chef. I just wanted to work in her kitchen and be ordered around. I was in love. Was I? I had to be.
On the way home from class, I could not stop thinking about Nina. I barely thought about the reading assignments or anything. I would start studying and then daydream. I wonder what Nina was doing. I stopped myself from calling her or anything. I knew if I did she would know I was crazy about her.
Yet, she probably knew I was ‘cray cray’ about her.
I made every excuse in the world that summer to spend any additional time around her. I would intentionally try to accidentally run into her. When class was over, I would walk her to her car.
I would call her pretending like I didn’t understand economics even though I did. I just wanted to hear her voice. She probably knew because she would immediately start talking about something else.
But then I even signed up for a bowling league when she asked me to even though I couldn’t bowl worth a shit. Who cared? I got to see Nina and watch her prance slowly down the bowling lane, kick her leg out, bend deep, and fire the ball from her heart and soul. As if she was saying a prayer when she released it.
All I did mostly was toss gutter balls. I didn’t even know how to kick my leg out I was so bad at bowling. I was glad to be there though. I just watched Nina make strike after strike. Just like in economics class she was the star.
Then one bowling night, I found my mojo. I am not even sure why or how but every ball I threw down the lanes, was a strike. It was the last week of bowling and it would be the last time I would see Nina for who knows.
The moment reminded me of summer camp when I was a kid and it was the last day. Everyone you got to know that summer you had to say goodbye to in a few hours.
I was so hot that night, the whole bowling alley gathered around my lane to see if I would bowl a perfect game. People were cheering. I was sure someone had rigged the lane for this to happen.
It didn’t matter. I bowled one of the ten highest scores ever. And afterward, there was Nina smiling and laughing.
“I told you that you could bowl,” she said hugging me. “You have been playing possum on a girl.”
It was the only time we had been that close to each other. Then she kissed me. Deep and long like I was in the army and was about to ship out. I knew that is what it was anyway. Classes were over, this was the last bowling night, and Nina was headed out west she said for a few months.
“I’m gonna miss you, babe. I had fun this summer. Community college? I thought it would be more boring than doing my taxes. How can I thank you?”
Thank me I said to myself. Thank me? Is she kidding?
“I will miss you too, Tee.”
I should have said I am crazy about you, Tee. Don’t leave. Or, can I go with you? Can I come to see you? Can we keep in touch? But I froze and just smiled at her. All could do.
Then seven years later, I had run into Nina at last at the Club Shuffle Along out in the county one hot night. Club Shuffle Along was out from the city far enough that you didn’t have to worry about running into familiar faces. I wasn’t worried about that but I didn’t want to be bothered just the same.
I started going to the spot after I had to drop out of law school because I had no more money. I was broke and burned out. I was so tired of Latin phrases like “caveat emptor” and “res ipsa loquitur” that I wanted to learn Swahili.
I would go to Club Shuffle Along and my introverted self would sip a gin and lime at the bar and watch the people dance their worries away and then drown themselves in cheap whiskey sours and cold glasses of white wine.
I would make my drink last watching the spectacle trying to figure out the way forward. A college buddy, Mario showed me how to do it.
“Ask for the lime and club soda on the side and the gin in a separate glass,” Mario told me once.
“Why so?”
“Wait, wait. And ask for no ice.”
“What?
“You get ice they short you on the gin. No ice you can work your buzz. You will see.”
Mario was right. I could just sip my drink for an hour. Two glasses. If I wanted the buzz to kick up, just drink gin. Then for a little while, just drink club soda and lime. It kept me free and focused. Buzzed, as if I was plugged into a wall like a toaster.
I always went on ladies' night at Club Shuffle Along because the ladies had all the fun. The men are so revved up looking for cheap sex they can barely control themselves. The women were there for all of it. Not just the men but the experience.
I felt lucky being an introvert.
And one of those nights, in the beauty of that, Nina walked up to me smiling. After all those years. As if she had stepped through some time warp. She looked the same, smiled the same, and hugged me the same.
“You want to go bowling?”
I cracked up. We probably hugged for 10 minutes straight. It was like the music in the club stopped. I couldn’t hear. All I could see was Nina. All of her. We were the only two in the club, spinning, twisting, and laughing.
“Shall I call you, Dr. Nina, now?” I asked after she told me of her med school travels.
“Call me whatever you want, I am just so glad to see you. Let's get out of this pick-up spot.”
“Really?”
“Yes, by all means. I just came here to get out the hotel”
But for that night, (No, we did not go bowling), I would not be lying here on the floor of this bank either with a guy who looks like the Rev Jesse Jackson with a 9 mm Glock standing over me and four other people. Nina was part of this but mostly in a good way, until right now.
Where are you now, Nina? I wanted to yell. Why don’t you just burst into the backdoor with an AK-47 and tell this unholy Mo Fo to drop his gun? Come on, now.
Nina helped me get the job. Shit, she got me the job. After our night, I told her about my law school sojourn. My almost two years of legal studies stalled because I was out of money. I could borrow some but I wasn’t going to borrow all of it.
She was happy for me but also she wanted to help.
“I am going to fix this for you, babe.”
“Law school?”
“Yes, or whatever you want to do. You said you need money, right?”
“It would help. But don’t do that. I will work it out.”
“Nonsense, babe. Leave it to me. Just keep your eyes and your ears peeled.” Then she kissed me again, I set down the cigarette that was making me dizzy, and here I am.
The very next day, after one more trip around the world with Nina, in the sack, I got a call from someone at the Bank of Washington’s corporate office.
“Yes, this is him,” I said when they asked for me.
“Can you come down for a quick interview today or tomorrow; we are looking for some tellers to start immediately at some of our branches?”
And just like that, my immediate troubles were postponed. Nina was somewhere out there in the world becoming a doctor but still took a moment and tossed me a rope.
I remember thinking I had forgotten even to get her phone number last night. I could not even thank her for what she had done for me. I wonder if she understood that.
But I still wished she would come through that door as Jesse Jackson kept dumping more money into his satchel with that 9 mm Glock in the other hand. Get me the fuck outta here.
“Nina!” I yelled internally to myself. “Can you save me again?”
“Nina,” I said to myself actually talking, “can we go bowling?”
The Rev. Jesse Jackson-looking bank robber swung around and looked my way for a second.
“Nina? Who the fuck is Nina?” he said.
Strange things that imminent death brings to mind.
(To Be Continued)…
The Bank Robbery is an online serial novel.
copyright © Brian G Gilmore 2022
