(Over at As the World Stearns, I’ve begun posting a few stories I’ve told at the Moth StorySlams these past few years. No, they’re not about teen books or publishing or any of that tedious business, but they are storytelling—and true stories, at that.  —MS)

The gunman came out of the bushes as I rounded the corner and pressed the muzzle of a silver-plated .38 automatic against my forehead. “Give me your money,” he said, “and we won’t have a problem.”

“Dude,” I said, “here’s my wallet.”

As he thumbed it open with his left hand I said, “But there’s no money in it” at the same time as he said, “There’s no money in here!”

“Right,” I said.

“You’ve got an ATM card,” he said. “So we’re going for a ride.” I offered to tell him the code, but he said, “That ain’t gonna work. Come on. You’re driving.”

Later, my girlfriend would ask why I didn’t run away, why I didn’t scream, “Yaaah!” get people’s attention. I mentioned the whole gun-to-the-head thing, and she told me that I should have just let him shoot me, that I had a better chance of survival that way. She’d been a police dispatcher and knew all sorts of frightening statistics about what happened to people who got into cars with strangers and guns. But I was tired—I’d been teaching all day and night—so what I said was, “Sure. I can do that.”

He politely waited while I manhandled my bookbag into the back seat and unlocked the door, and then we were off.

Now, it was a short drive to the bank, but there were lots of stop signs, so he and I, we had some quality time together. “You know,” I said, “I don’t really have any money in the bank, either.”

“You gotta have some money.”

“I’ve got, like, sixteen bucks,” I said. “I’m a graduate student, man. I only get paid once a month. Next week, I’d be flush. This week, I’m eating spaghetti.”

“No way,” he said, “you’re lying.”

We drove in silence for a moment, but typically for me, I just couldn’t shut up. “It isn’t like I don’t want to give you my money,” I said. “If you need the cash that badly, I’m happy to give it to you—I’ve got a couple of brothers in prison, and man, if I could have given them money when they needed it, I would have.”

“You’ve got brothers in prison?” He didn’t believe me, I could tell, but when I glanced over at him, he was turned toward me, listening. I had him.

“My oldest brother, Jack—he robbed a few banks. Something like a half-dozen before they caught him. But you know, he was homeless, and, like, a junkie at the time, and it was something he could do. So he wrote notes and gave him to bank tellers and looked all menacing, and they gave him money. He’s done five years already.”

My mugger shook his head, whistled.

“And my other brother, Robert, is this con man guy who’s been on Hard Copy like four or five times.”

“Bullshit,” he said. And laughed. “For what?”

“They call him the Rock-and-Roll Heartbreaker,” I said, and quickly sketched out one of his favorite scams involving him pretending to be a member of Metallica, and limousines, and test-driving motorcycles for three days.

By the time I finished, we were turning into the bank parking lot, and my mugger was laughing and saying, “No shit!” again and again and slapping his legs with the side of his pistol. “Oh, man, that’s awesome,” he said, and then he was all business again. “So, yeah, okay, go get the money.”

I went to the ATM and my mugger slid up alongside, hugging the wall like Spider-man. I took out ten dollars, the most I could remove from my account. My balance was now $6.38.

“Ten bucks? That’s it?”

He reached around to punch the buttons on the ATM. No savings account. No money market. No linked accounts. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

“Aw, shit. Here.” He handed my money back.

“No, man, keep the money,” I said, and meant it. “Maybe it will get you through tonight and then something better will come along tomorrow.”

“No, seriously,” he said, shoving it at me. “I don’t want to take your money.”

“No, really. Go ahead. It’s not a big deal.”

“Look, I’m not going to rob you over ten fucking dollars! You need it more than I do!”

“All right,” I said, and I pocketed the ten.

He gestured at the car. “How about you just . . . give me a ride back to where we started?”

At this point, someone began crossing the parking lot toward the ATM. He was an African-American man in his forties, in a suit, his tie loose, probably married with kids, stopping to grab some cash before morning. Probably had more in his account than I did, but my mugger wasn’t thinking that way. He turned to the man, held up the pistol, and yelled, “There is nothing here that concerns you! Get the fuck away!”
The guy paused mid-step, nodded a few times and, raising his hands up palm out, walked backwards out of the parking lot.

Well, that kind of freaked me out a bit, but all I said was, “A ride? Sure. I can do that.”

On the drive back, I told him more about my brothers, about how one was getting out in three months with training in heating, ventilation, and—

“Air conditioning!” he spat out. “Everyone gets that crappy training. But no one on the outside wants to trust a felon.” He started in on all the ways people mistreated him, judged him for being a bad guy just because he’d been to prison. He told me he’d been unable to find a job, that his grandma thought he was a slacker and so had kicked him out.

To all of this, I just made nice little listening sounds. You know, appreciative crap like, “Man, that sucks.” And, “That’s just totally unfair.” And whatever else came to mind. I don’t know what I was talking about.
About halfway back, he said, “You know, you’re okay people.” He stuck out his hand. “My name’s James,” he said.

So I told him my name and we shook, and by the time we got back to my apartment, he’d become my new best friend.

“Sorry about all this,” he said, “But I didn’t rob you.”

“I know,” I said. “And I appreciate that.”

“I’m just kind of having a hard time right now.”

“Man,” I said, “so is everyone. No harm done. I’ve got my money. All we did was go for a ride.”

“That’s right,” he said. “So there’s no reason to call the cops.”

“More trouble than it’s worth,” I reassured him.

Then he reached out to shake my hand again, and when I took his hand he did something unexpected: He pulled me forward into a hug, and wrapped his arm around my shoulders in a quick tight embrace. “Thanks, man,” he said, all husky voiced. “This means a lot to me. It’s going to be okay.”

“It is going to be okay,” I told him, and I squeezed him back, and before I knew it, habit had taken over, and I was telling him, “Thank you, thanks a lot.”