He was wearing three hoodies and two pairs of pants with his hood over his face holding a shopping bag.
I couldn’t see his face in the dark.
We were outside the Flatiron Mall in Broomfield Colorado.
I was 18.
He told me to
“Put the money on the ground”
So I put twelve hundred bucks on the ground.
Then he put the shopping bag he was holding on the ground and told me
“Now we switch places.”
So we switched places.
He grabbed my money off the ground as I grabbed the bag… Hmmm. Feels a bit light.
Inside the bag was a shoebox. I stuck my hand inside the shoebox to make sure the pot was there.
But it wasn’t.
There was nothing but tissue paper. I had just lost the only money to my name, the money my grandma gave me for getting my GED and the little money I had saved slanging timeshare appointments for Sheraton Hotels.
I turned around and he was gone, nowhere to be found. He disappeared into the dark parking lot and I stood there… Depressed.
How was I gonna tell my girlfriend about this?
The next day at my kiosk in the mall, the Sheraton Kiosk, the really tall dude working at the toy helicopter stand next to me called me over.
What’s up? As I looked up to his seven foot above the ground face.
I know who robbed you.
Who?
Abe.
Abe also worked at the helicopter stand. He and I had been working together selling pot for a while now, and the last package I grabbed from him was a quarter ounce short.
So I phoned him.
Dude! It’s a fucking QUARTER OUNCE SHORT!
Calm down Greg. My bad. I’ll make sure my guy gets it to you on the next one.
Whatever… Who cares anyway.
Cut back to now.
Abe?
Yup.
What? How do you know? I asked the friendly giant.
He told me.
He told you he was gonna rob me?
And he told me how he was gonna do it. I figured you’d handle it. I don’t want anything to do with it. You didn’t hear it from me.
And he went back to spinning his helicopters up into the middle of the mall ceiling in front of all the little kids who ooooooooooooooed and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhed him every time the helicopter came back into his hands.
Well… I was a bit perturbed to say the least. So the next day at the helicopter stand, I showed up early before my shift at the Sheraton Kiosk to make sure I didn’t miss Abe, who I knew was getting off right as I was starting. He was talking to Goliath, the giant who told me Abe had dunnit.
The situation seemed odd. I approached them both.
Hey dude.
Abe seemed tense. The tallest dude in the world walked away and started spinning his helicopters.
Hey, Abe replied, obviously nervous.
What’s wrong?
Nothing, why? Everything go okay last night?
Yeah. Everything went just fine.
He looked confused.
See you around, I told him.
My plan was to wait for him after work the next day when I knew he was working the night shift and beat the living shit out of him in the vacant parking lot right as he was getting into his car. I’d just jump out and like.. You know. Fuck him up!
But that never happened. I’ll tell you why.
Cause later that night, he came back to the mall and he robbed the helicopter stand after they were closed and never came back ever again. That was the last day I ever saw Abe.
It had been two years and no one had heard or seen him anywhere around…
Rumors soared the air with his whereabouts.
I heard he stole a car… nah he robbed a store in Aurora… Nuh uh, he bought a gun and robbed his own parents… but no one ever knew what really happened. All I know is I never got my revenge.
He won.
But then this one day, my friend Jai told me a little story about Abe…
So you know what I found out today? Jai asked..
Nah Jai, what’d you find out?
Abe’s dead.
What?!
Yeah. He’s for sure dead.
Who told you that?
Trust me dude, he’s dead.
How?
He got drunk at a party and shot himself in the head, by accident.
And that was the last of Abe.
I guess the moral of the story is… And please send all hate mail to my personal gmail after I say this…. But I guess the moral of the story is this:
Karma’s A Bitch.
but check this out…