The Bankrobber I Knew - Part Eight

For the entire story, click the Bankrobber topic at the end of this post, in the sidebar to your right, or just click here.

“I thought you were dead.” 

That's an awkward way to start a conversation but that's what I said. 

“Oh yeah, I should have called,” Westley said.  “I didn't think about that after the explosion.”

“What happened?”  I asked.

He jumped into the truck and helped unload it while he talked.

“I was running a bit late and had just turned the corner when the explosion threw the Pinto clear across the intersection and into a lamppost.  I don't think it'll ever be drivable again.”

“As if you weren't in the Pinto at the time?” I asked.  Besides the Harley, Westley had a little Pinto hatchback with wood paneling.  He kept fixing it just enough to keep it running.

“I was shaken up but otherwise okay. When I got out of the car the place was a disaster area: cars were piled over the roads, some upside down; glass was falling from building windows like deadly rain; and there were fires, big and small, all over the place.  I started helping people out of their cars and then out of buildings.  Eventually I ended at the Murrah building with a cutting torch and a badge and I've been here ever since.  They set up cots for us to sleep.”  He paused while holding a box of medical towels and said, “It was the right place to be.”

I couldn't argue with that.  “Rhonda?” I asked.

“They found her last night.  She was right in front.  She had no chance,” he answered.

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Eventually things settled back to normal both in our lives and in Oklahoma. 

Westley moved out six months later when he took a job maintaining oil field pump stations and they gave him an R.V. in which to live.  I never found out how much money he'd robbed, how many banks he'd actually held up, or what he'd done with the cash.  All I know for sure is that some years later he bought into a company located in California that restores vintage aircraft for display and air shows.  He's not only a part-owner, but he's the chief mechanic.  When I knew him he didn't have the money for that sort of thing, but then when I knew him the statute of limitations hadn't passed.

He never expressed a lot of emotion over Rhonda's death.  She was important to him in a way, but he wasn't in love and he didn't bring any public postmortem attention to their illicit affair.  Once, I found a newspaper account of the tragedy with names and photos of the deceased in the kitchen.  Her face was smudged as if it'd been rubbed away.

Timothy McVeigh was caught, tried, sentenced and executed for the Murrah Building bombing.  Terry Nichols remains in jail for the same crime.  We didn't invade Michigan in order to topple the government of that out-of-control state, nor did we engage in a multi-billion dollar campaign to root out all those insurgent militias training in the Upper Peninsula. 

For years the media referred to the incident as Murder in the Heartland.  That's what it was, of course, murder and the culprits were treated as common criminals, not enemies of freedom.  Terrorists ought to always be treated like criminals and not validated by the recognition as military enemies.

I contact Westley every few years. Next time I'm in Cali, I'll have a beer with him and throw some darts. 

 

 

Comments

[a rose is a rose]

i'm sorry about rhonda (and everyone else lost in that act of terrorism). i'm so very happy westley is owning and tuning up planes. perfect!

next time you're in his hood, hoist up a cold one for rhonda

[jane]

Thanks for the great story, Rick! What's next?

[Cherise]

It was a great and very entertaining story, Rick.:)

[Sister Mary Lisa]

Nice, Rick. Very well done. I really loved this story, and am so glad he's alive and kickin. You can tell him as you throw darts that hearts across your blog beat faster for him, OK?

;)

[Cele]

What SML said, because she said it best.