Mask

Mickey wasn't a criminal. Sure, he'd done a few bad things but who hasn't? He'd do an honest days work any time, take a job tomorrow if there was one. He'd even let Sarah do a CV for him to send off to local companies.

Everything he did was for Sarah. The odd petty crime, nothing serious, just to put food on the table, buy her the occasional treat.

There'd been plenty of money recently. It had been Eric's idea, holding up diners like they did in Pulp Fiction, robbing the till and the customers at the same time. It needed the whole gang though, six of them, to make sure that any rogue 'heroes' were outnumbered, but it brought in enough cash to make it worthwhile. Cash, cards and car keys - they usually stole a couple of cars each time to make their getaway and sold them to a friend of Eric's. Jed had a contact who would play a flat fee for every credit card they took. Altogether they were raking in over a thousand dollars each per diner, sometimes taking out two or three diners a day.

They wore masks for each job, cartoon masks. Jed wore a Mickey Mouse face, Carter a Jimmy Carter mask (he has a sense of humour does Carter) and Mickey wore an Obama mask. After all, he reasoned, Obama was the real crook, if it weren't for him I'd have a proper job.

But Sarah still complained, even though Mickey was bringing in regular money now. She'd hassle him with constant questions about where the money came from, made out he was some sort of crook.

"How can you think that," he'd shout, "I just did a job for Dave." Dave was a friend who ran a removals company, he sometimes earned a few bucks on the side helping him with a job, though in truth he hadn't done anything for him since he started hanging out with Eric and the gang.

Sarah even started complaining about the amount of time Mickey spent with the boys. Every night she'd moan that he'd been out drinking, that he no longer cared about her, she'd sit up waiting for him to get back, seemingly just so that she could shout at him. Of course, not knowing about the gang, she didn't understand how important they were, his only source of income. Plus, doing jobs together brings people close, especially where there's so much risk attached, you have to trust each other totally.

The local police and restaurants soon became alert to the spate of robberies and the last one they did in town they were nearly caught, the owner must have had some sort of system to alert the police, as they had upwards of thirty cars chasing them as soon as they made their exit. It was like something from the movies, took thirty minutes to shake them off.

After this they had to travel further away to find new, safe places to rob. Often they were away for a few nights, made a weekend break out of it, got some drinking done while they were there. Sarah complained even more, asked even more questions, but what could Mickey say, just made out that Dave was doing distance removals these days.

Mickey did everything he could for Sarah, brought her gifts and made promises about looking for work, but she still complained all the time. Then one day she just walked out, packed her things in a holdall, stashed it in the boot of her car and drove out of Mickey's life forever. She didn't even leave a note. All Mickey found when he got home was a President Obama mask left on his pillow.