Train Robbery
"They'll remember
you as Baby Face Tommy," the tall one said.
He
had just been discharged from the Army after the war and looked huge and
threatening in his wrinkled old uniform.
Tommy twisted his face into a fierce glare that dramatized his intention
to use the six-gun. He had practiced
looking mean to make up for his small size.
They robbed from seat to seat in one car after another. Tommy held a gun on the passengers and the
soldier did the talking and scooped up the loot.
She
startled, "Hi, Tommy."
"Sorry
to wake you Ma'am," the soldier said softly. "I get off in Denver."
"Mommy
look, I got seventy-six cents," Tommy announced. "Sergeant and I robbed the train. We said, 'Stick 'em up!'"
"Just
playing, Ma'am. Hope it was
alright. Mostly we robbed my
buddies."
"Thank
you Sergeant. Long day on this
train with a six-year old . . . I really needed the nap."
"My
pleasure Ma'am. I didn't spend any time
with kids in Korea. I sure missed
'em. Tommy's a fine boy."
The
Sergeant got off in Denver and Tommy sat beside his mother and spun the
cylinder on his toy pistol. Outside
Tommy's window, the Sergeant ran to a woman on the platform holding a small boy
and enveloped them in his huge embrace.
Before the train left the station Tommy counted his pocket full of
pennies for the third time.
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