New Hope Road

Jim stood patiently at the counter, shifting his weight off his bad foot, and looked around the empty bank. It was quiet for a Thursday morning, just as he had hoped.

The front doors automatically slid open and closed as the security guard went outside to catch some sun. A breeze ruffled the plastic fronds of an artificial ficus just inside the entrance. Seconds blinked by on the wall clock.

He could see the clerk behind the counter, standing in the back office, tinted green by the reinforced glass. His eyes followed her as she buzzed herself back into the counter vestibule and greeted him with a bright smile.

“Sorry to keep you. How are you today, sir?”

He wanted to say: "Pretty bad."

He wanted to tell her his chest hurt so much he barely slept. He wanted to tell her about his slipped discs and his limp and the scalp condition that left blood under his fingernails when he scratched it. He wanted to tell her about his daughter who hadn’t spoken to him in seven years. He wanted to tell her it was his birthday tomorrow - he would be sixty, but it sure as hell felt like a hundred.

But Jim didn’t say anything.

His blue eyes beamed through the white mane of his hair. He could have passed for Santa Claus had he not been so gaunt, and his rosy cheeks been caused by eczema.

He smiled gently and gave her a handwritten note.

She was in her 30s, blonde, slightly overweight, with a round face and almost invisible eyebrows that made her look doll-like. She reminded Jim of his daughter - about the same age, but Natalie was brunette. Her badge said: Sheryl Armitage, Assistant Manager.

He watched her unfold the note. It was on hotel stationery with the logo of the Hampton Inn. He had written eight drafts this morning. It was only a few words, a few short sentences, but he wanted the words to be right. He didn’t want to confuse her or cause a panic. The note said:

I am robbing this bank. Please give me one dollar. I have a gun.

He wasn’t certain whether she’d finished reading it because she didn’t look up. But then the corners of the notepaper began to flutter in her fingers and her blouse heaved.

He realised she probably didn’t want to look up precisely because there might be a gun pointed at her. But Jim didn’t have a gun. He just knew the threat of weapons carried a heavier sentence.

He slowly raised his palms and backed away from the counter.

“I’m gonna sit right there.” He pointed to the window. “You tell the police I’ll be waiting for them.”

He walked calmly over to a deep sofa. It creaked as he settled in and he saw through the thick glass that Sheryl was watching him with a puzzled expression. She didn’t understand what he was doing. Perhaps he should have brought a gun, or a stick in a bag, something to point at her so she would really know he meant business.

But he also knew that the moment a physical gun came into the equation - whether actually a gun or not - the security guard would have carte blanche to use his own weapon. The guard was still outside anyway, Jim could see his fat fingers trying to text on his little touch screen.

When he turned back, the inner door behind the counter was swinging shut and Sheryl was out of sight.

Next to Jim was a stand of pamphlets advertising insurance, bonds, annuities, currency exchange and other banking services. A health plan offered him “Peace Of Mind For Less Than A Dollar A Day (*Conditions apply)”. He didn’t have to read it to know he didn’t qualify.

He’d worked his whole life driving trucks. There was something about the open road that chimed with his soul. He knew some guys used it to run away from broken families and criminal pasts, but Jim had nothing to hide. He had good family here, his sister Edie and her husband. Those times in his life when he was on the road nine months out of twelve, it was always Gaston that he called home. But when things went bad, when Christine left him and took Natalie back west, he didn’t follow. He stayed loyal to the only town he knew.

He’d driven every highway in the state (and almost every interstate in the country) and never had an accident, until three years ago. Coming down the I77 by Lake Norman where the escarpment broke away and the plains stretched out before him, he passed out at the wheel and came to with the truck up a gravel emergency ramp.

Minor stroke, no impairment and a very lucky escape. But lucky or not, he was out of a job. At 57, that was the end of his career.

He reflected on this as he noticed the guard struggling to clip his radio back onto his lapel and scramble back into the bank, drawing his handgun.

He was not far off Jim’s age, greying at the temples. His belly filled his uniform. His elbows were locked as he inexpertly held his weapon. He glanced at Jim slumped on the sofa, then continued scanning the room.

“Sir, there’s an armed felon on the premises. You should make your way outside. Law enforcement will be here soon.”

“You want me to leave?”

“Yes, sir.” The guard’s eyes swept the room. “Sheryl, darling, you in there?”

From the back office, Sheryl called out. “I’m here, Dave. Do you see him?”

“That’s a negative. If he’s here, I ain’t seen him.”

The office door opened and Sheryl stuck her head out and spotted Jim. “Dave! Jesus Christ, he’s right there!” then she ducked back inside.

Dave swung his gun round and realised his mistake.

“Were you attempting to rob this bank?”

Jim nodded.

“GET ON THE FLOOR!”

Jim struggled out of the deep foam of the sofa and got down on all fours.

“Flat down!”

“I can’t do that, sir. I have a tumor.”

The guard sidled up to him, aiming at Jim’s chest. “On your side then, and clasp your hands behind your head.”

Jim did so and now saw Dave’s face, nervous and perplexed at this turn of events. What was this bank robber doing sitting in a comfy chair? But the real puzzle was Jim’s expression. He wasn’t afraid, or agitated, like so many desperate would-be thieves. He exuded calm, like he had all the time in the world.

It hadn’t been long after he got fired that Jim first noticed the chest pains. Perhaps it had been what caused him to pass out. But without a job or insurance, no employer would look at him, especially when they realised he just needed a job for the medical. His lifetime of loyalty was immaterial.

It took Jim a year to burn through his savings. The only job he could get was shifting stock at Walgreens until his back gave out. Two ruptured discs. Flat on his back for a week, helpless, living off noodles and instant coffee until he could bear to move again.

He didn’t call his daughter Natalie. He knew she’d want to help him, but there was nothing she could do. He didn’t want to worry her. (She had called him proud more than once. She was right.)

One day he noticed a protrusion on his chest. It itched and bled and had an irregular shape.

County General turned him away. He didn’t qualify for Medicare. He tried some charities and shelters, but it all came down to the same thing: no job, no cover, no treatment. Mired in despair and his own self-imposed isolation, he found himself stuck inside the four walls of the motel. Up on bricks, so to speak. For the first time in his life he was going nowhere.

I guess this is some new kind of freedom, he observed bitterly. The freedom that comes with hopelessness. And it brought him to a new resolve: he was going to kill himself.

He didn’t want to be a burden, so he made sure he left nothing for people to deal with once he was gone. He sold his belongings, gave away his clothes, paid off his bills and gave notice at his apartment. He thought about calling his sister, telling her not to worry about him. But he knew Edie: telling her not to worry was a sure way to make her do just that. And Natalie, well, she wouldn’t miss him, but she’d certainly feel guilty when the news came around. He didn’t want to put that on her.

He planned to have enough money left for two nights at the Hampton Inn which was a block from the Gaston County Hospital. If he messed up, maybe somebody would find him in time.

During those final days, as he lay in the air conditioning and listened to the muffled convoys of trucks passing on the freeway, Jim became aware of an unsettled thought in his subconscious, a nagging intention which rattled around his mind demanding to be noticed. And the thought was this:

All this activity towards such an abrupt end felt wrong. It felt like he should be working towards something, not away from it. He’d never run away from anything in his life. The feeling grew stronger and it was telling him what he’d known all along: he didn’t want to die.

That’s when the idea came to him. There was another place he could get treatment, somewhere they didn’t care about health insurance, and it would cost him nothing. Nothing except his freedom.

He could barely contain his determination. He limped out to the lobby and found the RBC Bank in the hotel’s phone directory. It was about a twenty minute walk. His leg and his back wouldn’t get him there. He cashed a check at the desk and used the last of his money on a cab to take him over the Rauch Highway, down Aberdeen Boulevard and along New Hope Road.

Dave closed his cuffs around Jim’s wrists, even though it was obvious the old guy wasn’t going to be a danger. He could barely move as it was.

“Here, lean on me.” Dave crooked his arm under Jim’s and lifted him to his feet. They shuffled in tandem to the sofa and Dave lowered him.

Jim was quiet. He didn’t like talking much. Besides he’d said all he needed to.

While they waited for the police to arrive, Dave wandered between the chairs, occasionally shaking his head, trying to rustle up the right question.

“What I don’t get is: why don’t you just get a credit card?” he asked finally. “Anyone can get a credit card!”

“I don’t want money.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed you’re in a bank. That’s what we got here: money!”

“I’m sick.”

“They’ll still fix you up, they just bill you.”

“I need surgery, chemo, long-term treatment...”

“So what good is getting yourself arrested?”

“Because there's no charge for doctors on the inside.”

Dave regarded Jim closely as the brilliance of the man's plan dawned on him. That goddamn wily old fella.

“Well damn, if you ain’t figured this all out.”

Jim rested his head on the arm of the sofa and closed his eyes. There was one thing he hadn’t cleared up.

Jim called out, “Sir?”

Dave came close. “What’s that now?”

Jim looked over at the counter. “Tell your girl there, I didn’t mean to scare her.”

“Well, that’s… That’s OK.” He felt strange, reassuring a robber like this.

Then a thought occurred to Jim which made him smile. Dave noticed.

“I’m going to jail,” Jim said. “For life.”

I wrote this back in 2011, inspired by the true story of James Verone:

... but when I read this similar news item from August 2024, I realised how it is sadly still relevant today: