The night before the big job, James went to a bar where nobody knew him.

Ordered a whiskey . More expensive than the  liquor store . But reasonably priced, all bars considered.

He traded remarks with the bartender. Had a chat with a few strangers who sat down alone by him.

The first...

It was the first cold morning of the fall. The summer must be over for good, thought Carol as she tugged her shirt trying to keep warm. Usually she got hot easily. Was the one trying to turn the thermostat lower. But today she had not anticipated this chill. Had...

"I might get some espresso myself. Not the sextuple deal of course. One might is enough for me."

"Oh dang. You know. I actually didn't end up drinking my quadruple espresso. I couldn't handle it. I threw it out just before I came here actually. Had I ran into you sooner,...

Jared couldn't drink all four espressos. He looked into the cup. Guessed that he had drunk perhaps half. Decided he was too nervous. Looked both way on the street to make sure nobody was watching him. And dumped it out.

He was already a nervous guy. Had he drunk the rest...

It was 9AM.

Big Joe had stayed in. Like he always did the night before a job.

He had drunk two shots of whiskey. Like he always did the night before a job.

It helped him fall asleep. Knew it didn't help him actually  sleep . But shit sleep wasn't his big concern,...

The till was on the left side. Always.

There was so much that could go wrong in this business. When it came to the details. You needed to keep things predictable. Reliable. Otherwise when shit went left, nobody would know what to do.

When things went haywire there were no guarantees of...

At the dinner he had been anxious to leave. Immediately after leaving the parking lot of motel he felt like he lost something. This phase was now over. It was goodbye to Sammy. The Motel. And those dance lessons he used to do. He would never see them again.

But there...

That evening I checked into the motel late. The man, who I only could assume to be the owner, looked upset. Downtrodden. Didn't know if it was because he just hated being there or if he was genuinely having a bad day.

I say he had to be the owner because...

"Who even reads books   these days?"

"Nobody."

"So why are you writing one."

"Plenty of people still write books."

"So let me get this straight. You're telling me nobody reads. But people still write?"

Jack's autobiographer nodded.

"Also what's this mess with Jackoff calling you his autobiographer? Doesn't he know what an  autobiography even means?"

"I don't...

The work wasn't chaos. In fact Keith liked it. There was some bitter that came with the new fruit. Nearly half his previous coworkers were laid off. And he was doing double the work as before. But he was barely doing anything before. So the doubling didn't affect him much....