Bad Omens & Bowel Issues

Your Way Wednesday Prompt:

A bank robber with crippling diarrhea.

The plan was in place. Rob knew the bank inside and out, had a man on the inside, and was prepared for anything. 

Cops arrive on scene – he had an out. 

Someone got heroic – Quan knew just how to lay the idiot out without killing them. 

The bank codes were changed – Elliot was the best hacker on the streets. 

He hadn’t, however, planned for Papa Neo’s daily special from the day before to come back with a vengeance at 3 am the morning of the job. 

“You know what we call that, my fren?” Quan said in his thick accent. He was walking past Rob as he was rinsing his face in the bathroom sink. There were three candles burning on the counter to mask the stench of the special’s revenge. It wasn’t working. 

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” Rob said, feeling like his insides were trying to become his outsides. 

“That,” he said, waggling his finger at the toilet and the trashcan sitting in front of it, “is the double headed dragon.” 

Rob would’ve laughed had he not felt like death itself. 

“Thank you for that.” Rob said flatly. 

“It’s a bad omen.” Elliot yelled across the hall, his face sounding muffled. When he finally emerged in the doorway, his long dingy blonde hair was in a messy, low ponytail and his face was halfway hidden beneath the collar of his shirt. His bright blue eyes were solemn. 

Rob rolled his eyes. 

“If my bowel issues are a bad omen, then your face is a sign of the apocalypse.” Quan laughed and shoved Elliot making him loose his footing and scowl as he readjusted his shirt to cover the lower half of his face. The two were complete opposites in both coloring and build. Where Quan was dark complexioned, broad, muscled and athletic, Elliot was fair, narrow, scrawny and weak. 

It was then that Rob’s insides groaned loudly, his jaw set and he slammed to door in both of their dumb faces. 

I can work through this. Just a small set back is all. That’s what Rob was repeating in his head as he spent the next half hour on the toilet. 

________________________

By the time they slid out of the unmarked, nondescript car Rob had acquired with their full, blank, low-profile black masks and hoods in place, weapons and tech stowed in their jackets, Elliot and Quan were on point. Rob felt like he could hold things together until the job was done… Scratch that. Rob was praying he could hold it together until the job was done. 

They entered the bank calmly and while Quan barred the doors and was moving around the place to eliminate all possible exits, Elliot pulled out some speakers and began blaring an alarm sound. The bank guests exchanged looks and when they realized that the tellers and bankers did not recognize what was going on, their eyes finally landed on Rob displaying a large gun and Elliot with the speakers.

“This is a heist,” Rob said loudly and evenly. His stomach lurched and if his mask was off, he knew he’d look green. “Sit right there,” he said, pointing to the floor in front of him, “and no one will get hurt.” 

A handful of people began to panic then. Just as planned, both Quan, now on the other side of the bank, and Rob simultaneously shot their guns at the roof. It was a complete show – no actual bullets were fired. Bullets leave behind too many clues, Rob had said when they’d run though the heist. Regardless, it did the job. People listened and scrambled forward. 

Rob’s stomach lurched and he turned to Quan, sweat appearing on his head with the effort of holding his literal crap together. 

“Give me a minute and I’ll…” 

“Lock down the bathrooms?” Quan asked. Rob knew he was smirking beneath the mask. He swore under his breath as he ran as fast as he dared towards the restroom. 

A little kid was standing there, staring at a urinal when Rob burst into the place. They held a split second of awkward eye-contact when the snot-nosed brat registered the gun and his body jerked back in surprise. Rob ignored him and rammed into one of the stalls.

It was loud. Rob had to take off his mask to catch his breath he was so uncomfortable, the smell gag-worthy. Then he turned and cursed under his breath when he saw the toilet roll empty.

A small hand appeared under the stall door holding a wad of toilet paper a second later. After staring at it for a second, surprised, Rob snatched at it gratefully and mumbled a thank you. 

“That was the stall I came out of… I hate drip drying. But you REALLY couldn’t have done that. Did something die inside of you?” 

It could’ve been the lack of sleep, the general discomfort that comes from crippling diarrhea or the stress of dealing with it in the middle of a job this big or maybe just the fact that this kid – THIS KID – just went out of his way to give him toilet paper despite him being a very obvious bank robber, but Rob lost his mind. He began laughing and it built up to a loud, belly bursting laugh that reverberated off the walls. Soon, the freckle faced kid outside of the stall was laughing too.

“Hey kid. Any way you could hand me more? That thing inside me dying…  it likes to put on a show.” He handed more under the door and this time, offered up a joke. 

“Hey mister, why did the hero flush the toilet?” 

“I don’t know. Why?” 

“Because it was his duty!” Rob laughed more than he should’ve, but given the situation, the joke was the funniest thing Rob had heard all year.  

By the time he finally made it out of the bathroom stall, he’d found out the kid’s name was Jake and he was in the fourth grade. He loved jokes and math and his teacher was old and ugly, but nice. 

“Thanks for that.” Rob said from behind the mask. Jake nodded, hesitant now that he remembered Rob was holding a large gun and a mask. Jake watched him quietly as he washed his hands. 

“So are you robbing this bank?” He finally asked. 

“Trying to…” He looked at himself in the mirror and sighed. He put his gloves back on his hands and ruffled the kid’s ruddy auburn hair. “Stay in school, Jake. Stay in school so you don’t end up like me.” He turned to go and stopped to take one last glance at the boy. “And stay in here for the next thirty minutes. We’ll be gone soon.” 

The rest of the heist went off without a hitch. After it was all said and done, they walked away with $8,000. Not bad for a one day haul. 

A week later, a detective was on Rob’s front door. 

“We wouldn’t have caught you, Mr. Robert Lend. It was actually this kid who was at the bank that day. He claims he lifted your prints from a sink you used during the robbery.” The older gentleman chuckled, his dark skin contrasting against his white goatee nicely as he sipped his mug of coffee. “Couldn’t manage to hold it in there, ‘eh Robert?” He chuckled. Rob scowled in disbelief. He wasn’t mad at the kid. Jake was too smart for his own good, but so was Rob at that age. No. It was Papa Neo’s and it’s devil special that would burn once all this finally blew over. 

Bad omen bowel issues, indeed.