simplism

I’m in the car with an ex-girlfriend, Nina probably, in the backseat of a car, on the way at the beginning of a trip, and I need to take out some money. The parents, maybe based on Claudia’s parents, who are giving us a lift somewhere, park on the side of the street for their own reasons, and tell me there’s a bank on the either side of the road, a small shopping centre. I’ll be just a minute.


It’s night time, the bank is still open, but there is a problem at the row of around 5 ATMs inside. There are short queues behind only 2 of the machines, so I look closely at the other screens without losing my position. As I notice that the other machines are going hay-wire, the two other machines also go out of order, the screen messages also disturbed by interference, like the TV last night while watching a dvd, freezing separately in two pixelated hemispheres, then to black momentarily before trying to refresh. The tall, chubby guard reiterates.


I swear when I step outside and look around for an alternative, a brief sense of urgency. There are two ATMs on the walls either side of the bank entrance. I put my card in, and wait for the next prompt to ask for my PIN, taking the chance to look at the people walking passed behind me, when a guy my age comes around me and presses the keypad. I berate him and cancel the asterix he's entered on the blue screen, but the machine ejects my card.


The guy, in a cap and darkly coloured junky sports apparel, then goes for the card. I push him off and begin fighting with him and his friend, too close and scrappy to throw any big punches, when another guy, unrelated, makes a move for my card still sticking out halfway. I manage to take it out and stuff it down my back pocket, like I have been doing lately with my bus tickets after I buy them, returning to the action, but shouting now in Spanish for the police, directed towards the guard inside.


Eventually I get free and run for safety within the bank, explaining to the guard, in Spanish, that they tried to take my card and so then we fought, that I was shouting out to him, Policia, Policia! but he didn't hear me. John (best friend from Colombia) sees me and comes over from the phone booth, like in a generic call centre with Perspex windows on the doors, coming into the story halfway, repeating from the start for him, my 2 attackers standing around, having followed me in closely, leaning against the counter not saying anything.


When I come to the end of the story and the guard says to them exactly how they’ve broken the law and that they will be dealt with, they apologise, although too easily, and even offer me a $20 note (Australian currency) from their pocket, with a sense of cheap consolation, like if they’d taken $70 from me but had already spent the rest.

22/1/2011