 This story is part of a new web feature: the calendar Pinup Series. We'll be bringing you great new work online each month. —The Eds. Premises for an Action Plan
by Scott Garson
1.
Spencer Bray’s picture was not among the pictures of faces the cops had me look at. The cops, as of a quarter past ten last night, knew nothing of Spencer Bray. Or they just weren’t considering him as a person who might perpetrate a hold-up of the Boone Street Gas 'n Go. Five eleven, six foot, I said to the cops. Beefy. Black hair. All true information. Color? What? I said. Race, they said. White, I said. (True.)
Features? Eyes? Nose? Lips?
I don’t know, I was scared, I was the one getting robbed. I did my best not to look up. All true! The cops will not be able to say, Rory Jeffery, we know that you lied.
2.
Pumping gas outside as the money was taken: W. Voss, who was questioned too.
She may not have had a good angle. She was close but may not have been looking at us when Spencer Bray clapped his small firearm down, holding it to the counter like a mouse, and lifted his ski mask—which was mustard-colored, as I reported, and ribbed—to scratch at his face.
She may not have seen him, or recognized him as himself—the kid who had cheerfully terrorized us on the grounds of Wright Elementary.
Then again she might have. And if she did, she’d have given the cops his name.
She’s that kind of person. She’s never not paying attention in AP Economics. That’s why she can be looked at.
3.
And if she did give the cops his name and offer the fact that she and Spencer and I had attended the same elementary, the cops might wish to talk further.
If that were the case, would they dial my cell? Do cops call people on their cell phones?
They’d use the home number.
And who would pick up?
4.
Therefore I can’t be sure that by doing nothing I’m doing all that I can to prevent trouble with the cops, and trouble with M and D, who still don’t know what happened last month—how our Buick was backed into a Self-Service Island at the Boone Street Gas 'n Go on a super-cold night when I failed to push the button for rear defrost, and how, after that, I was able to forge a deal with the owner to work off the damage. (Knowledge of this would have to precede any sympathy I might get for being robbed.)
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