The Plodder’s Mile -- Chapter One

The Plodder’s Mile

by Dane Allred

CHAPTER ONE

Tommy loomed over the bank teller; a giant compared to any other customer Judy had helped that day.

He was taller than anyone she had seen in a month or two, yet the innocent eyes and gentle demeanor softened the effect. Tommy looked like a big teddy bear, waiting for a hug, but today he stood filling the teller’s window with his massive frame. He held a note in his hand, and though he handed it to Judy without hesitation, the writing belied the intent of the transaction.

Judy had worked for the bank for several years now, putting her husband through college and waiting for the day when she could quit, follow him to his next chapter in life and… Do what? Probably get work at another bank, have children, build a home and settle into married life.

As she mechanically went through the motions of each day’s work, Judy didn’t really engage the mental powers of her business degree, and didn’t invest much emotion in the performance of her job. She wanted the paycheck, and wondered at times if this was all there really was to life. She read the note, and her life changed in an instant.

Tommy pushed back a shock of blond hair. He didn’t really understand what was going on, and had pushed the note to the teller under orders from Ray, his new best friend. Tommy usually did what other people told him to do, not thinking through the consequences. This gentle giant had been placed in state care early in his life by parents who couldn’t feed or care for someone with his needs. The state then placed him in several institutions trying to find the right fit for a massive man-child who wanted nothing more than to please. Ray had found the combination of trusting child-like passivity and Tommy’s massive frame irresistible as a partner in crime.

If Ray could only get Tommy to just pass the note without speaking.

Tommy spoke. “We’re going riding on a train.”

Judy looked up with fear in her eyes, never expecting this to happen to her, never expecting a man like Tommy to do something like this in a place so well protected with guards, cameras and secret alarms. She looked down at the note again. “Go to the vault and bring out one large package of 100 dollar bills. A gun is pointed at you to make sure you don’t cause no trouble.”

Judy looked at Tommy, and he looked blankly back.

She did a quick survey of the lobby, and there against the wall under one of the cameras was a short dirty looking man. He was looking directly into her eyes, and seemed to be poking the pocket of his jacket toward her. She glanced at the jacket, assumed there was a gun, and the man under the camera slowly shook his head up and down. Judy looked back at Tommy.

“We’re going on the train to Rockwood. Have you ever been to Rockwood?”

Judy was at once terrified and mystified. The giant in front of her was unaware of her agitation, but the man with the gun knew she faced a decision. One large package of 100 dollar bills meant the hundred thousand pack most banks receive from the federal reserve. She took a deep breath and tried to remember what she had been trained to do in this situation. She glanced once more at the pocketed gun and then slowly went to the safe.

Judy’s teller training had included several responses to just such an attempted robbery. She was to push the silent alarm button under her desk, or if prompted to go to the safe, to push the notification button in there. No alarms would sound, but the management would receive notification, and the guards would be put on alert.

Bank officials rarely lost any cash in robberies, and most companies worried about personal injury and the death of spectators, employees, or criminals more than the cash. The money that was lost was insured and could be replaced, but a life couldn’t be brought back. With the advanced technology available, robberies were usually a failure. Face recognition software, bank cameras, street cameras, and an alerted staff were usually all that was necessary for recovery of the cash.

But Judy was still unnerved. A threat had been made against her life, and the threat of the huge man at her window only drove the point home. She followed protocol and walked to the safe, pushed the button, grabbed the heavy package and walked back to the window.

Judy handed Tommy the money. She held it with both hands and placed it in his massive right hand. He palmed the package like a ball, and tossed it up in the air. A thousand one hundred dollar bills. The brown paper wrapping had official markings, but Tommy wasn’t impressed. He looked at Judy and only said one word.

“Football.”

One foot plodded after the other as the endless railroad ties passed under John Graham’s feet. The man whose breath cut a jagged path behind him as his feet thumped the ground liked to think of this type of running as plodding. Not really running, or even jogging, but more simply plodding along. He had even developed a name for this pace. He called it the plodder’s mile. One foot in front of the other. Plod on, mighty exercise king. Keep plodding and imagine that it is running, and tell everyone else it is jogging. But to yourself, never be ashamed to plod along this path. One foot, and then another.

Plodding along on the west side of town was always good for reducing stress, and John Graham liked the railroad tracks. He always thought back to the days of running through tires for the one year he played football, although the team probably didn’t really use tires, but was just a cultural imprint from all those football movies he had watched. Bill-paying stress was one of the usual causes of jogging on the tracks, and at least once a month out came the “plodding” shoes. He and his wife Reba had just finished the “you spend too much money” discussion which usually followed the monthly bill payment routine. Heated discussion. Argument. Battle. World War III. Funny how the person doing the accusing always said the other person spent too much, which was answered with, “No, you spend too much.”

Both of which were probably true. As a high school drama teacher, the money wasn’t bad now after 20 years, unless they had to live on only that money, which they didn’t. Reba was a high school administrator, and although they had spent the last 25 years wondering where all the money went, there was never enough even when they were making six figures between them. With part-time work, selling things on E-bay and extracurricular pay, they really didn’t have anything to complain about. But they both still complained. Loudly. Once a month.

It was probably a good thing they were only paid once at the end of the month, since this tended to limit the argument to the first few days of the next month. The rest of the time was spent in a truce where they both waited for the final days before payday, reconnoitering on just how to spend some of the money on an absolutely necessary item to which the other spouse could not possibly object. There were good days, and bad ones, and bad months, (especially August) but most of the other 365 days were spent monitoring each others borders like North and South Korea, waiting for an infraction.

“There’s no more money in the account,” had been one of his last salvos, which was followed by a broad shot by Reba, “Why do you keep writing checks when you say there is no money in the account?”

The strategy board after all these years now included five different checking or savings accounts – more places to hide money. They both had plenty, and there was no argument about the fact that there was plenty to go around. The war was only about “where does it all go”?

John crossed over the river and looked out at the fields which were white with the new snow. It had melted some as the afternoon snow had turned to rain, and the slush left in the fields looked like a freshly cut white alfalfa crop ready to winnow and then bale. The air was crisp and the temperature just right, cold enough to balance the heat created as he plodded along wondering why he felt so crummy. He really didn’t have anything to complain about, and if money was the biggest problem they faced this year, it would be a good year indeed. Breathing in the frosty air, John thought back ten years as he was sitting at Reba’s bedside in the hospital, where he had been telling her to keep breathing, to wake up, keep breathing and keep trying.

The cancer treatments and the pain medications had left her numb in the fingers and toes, but ten years out she was still “free and clear” of any recurring cancer. But those days back in the hospital had changed him forever, even to the point of welcoming her restless tossing and turning at night which kept him awake while she slept. Better to be kept awake by tossing and turning than sleeping alone. He was grateful to still have his wife and the mother of his children around.

So why the discontent? He looked at a perfectly contented horse eating out of a trough at the side of a field. As he jogged past, he noticed the light rain had again turned to snow. The back of the horse was steaming while the snow fell slowly. The horse’s dark coat contrasted with the light of the snow on its back helped him to summarize this train of thought — while there is life, there is opposition — and that’s what makes life worth living.

Even the exercise of jogging opposed the sensible idea of sitting in the house while the snow fell fed the thoughts of opposition. Gravity and weight versus the muscles, which would undoubtedly be sore tomorrow, would produce better health and flexibility. If the literature was to be believed, and John actually kept running during the year, and he completed a fourth marathon, his risks of heart attack would decrease over the next five years. But there was always the uncertainty. Jog on the railroad tracks, get lost in your thoughts, get hit by a train, and all that exercise was for nothing. He thought of a bumper sticker. “The light at the end of the tunnel is from the oncoming train.”

Which made John realize there was a train in the distance, and if he wanted the benefits of this particular cardio-vascular exercise, he would have to get off the tracks for a couple of minutes. He turned aside at another bridge and went under the tracks, jogging comfortably on a running trail which ran by the river. There was a water fountain at a park just half a mile ahead, and then, after a long cold drink, it would be time to jog back home.

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