However, Victor couldn’t know anything about that. He’d jacked “dude” for five hundred eighty-seven bucks and some change. Not a lot, but it’d buy something. It would also mean that “dude” would have to dip into his savings account this month to pay for his mother’s prescriptions, but Victor couldn’t know that either. He just happened to have had good timing when he’d robbed him because the guy had just gotten cash from the bank. He’d been headed to the drug store to pick up his mother’s prescription, when he realized he’d left her id card at the house and detoured home to pick it up.

Victor’s second and third robberies were house jobs. Old folks. He knew most of them didn’t really trust the banks with all of their money, so he did two house jobs that netted a few thousand, plus some jewelry he knew he could knock out a few hundred for through a friend that was a pawnbroker. He’d done exactly that earlier in the week and now kept all of his money stashed in his bedroom.

Victor accidentally stumbled onto his “old folks” theory when he’d overheard a conversation while simply walking past one of his neighbor’s porches one evening last summer. He thought it was somewhat funny, because had they not been talking so loud, he’d have missed it. But both of them where hard of hearing, so between the “huhs” and “Say agains”, he picked up the conversation about not trusting banks.

That’s the problem with folk, he’d thought, especially old folks. They were always running their mouths, never knowing who was listening and never thinking that what they were saying could be used against them. He laughed to himself again. Man, I’m smart, he thought. I always find an angle. That’s why I’ve been able to whip up on so many brotha’s on the basketball court. I can out think them.

He had another name for old folks: old fools. Too old to do anything and too dumb to die. They always got on his nerves with all of their “yappin”.

Always wantin’ somethin’: “Can you help me with this?”, “Can you help me with that?”, “Say ‘please’”, “Say ‘thank you’”, “Say ‘yes, ma’am’”, and all the rest of that foolishness. His mother, Corliss, was always on him about that crap and his grandmother had been even worse.  And what did it get them? Nothing. His grandmother didn’t have a dime when she died and his mother wasn’t far off. All those “required” manners and hard work and nothin’ to show for it. Most old people I know are broke anyway, so why respect them? Why respect anybody who don’t have no money? That was his thinking.

Ain’t nobody tryin’ to hear that mess anymore, he thought. It’s played out. Which brought up a reminder of another problem he had with old folks;they don’t know when to move on; move on from the past and move on from this world. Hangin’ around, suckin’ air, using up all the world’s resources for medication, canes, wheelchairs, walkers, oxygen tanks, and for what? Half of them can’t do anything anyway. He continued thinking and laughing to himself as he recounted the money from his latest heist.  Wouldn’t it be cool, if old folks had their own sidewalk and their own highway? Or even maybe just their own path or lane on the sidewalks and highways?

They always walk and drive so damn slow anyway. Just like they have the HOV and Express Lanes now on the highways, they could add another one called “OFL”, for Old Folks Lane, or “MCD”, Mentally Challenged Drivers, with a speed limit of 35 mph, cause they never drive faster than that anyway. That way, the rest of us could move on with our lives.

Even worse, they act like they were never young, and they know good and damn well they rushed around when they were young, but now that they can’t, they want everybody else to slow down. Bump that.

Yeah, Victor was tired of them. He’d taken it upon himself to take advantage of every opportunity he could in life; and right now, that was by helping himself to old folk’s money. Old folks and young suckers too, he thought. He wasn’t much for discrimination. Except that, it was admittedly easier to rob the old than it was to rob the young. The older were much less likely to put up a fight and even if they did, he was much less likely to get hurt. He felt that having the odds in his favor for this type of work wasn’t a bad thing to focus on.  He used his conscious to devalue the older generation’s worth so that it was more acceptable for him to continue stealing from them.

He usually wasn’t violent. Nor did he think of himself as being an uncompassionate person. Then again, most criminals don’t see themselves as they really are.  To him, this week’s robberies did seem a little different though. He’d had to pistol whip this last lady because she tried to fight him.

Well, he didn’t really pistol whip her. That’s an exaggeration. She had really been a rather large and strong older woman with a very sturdy grip and a bad attitude. He’d had to hit her with the gun a few times just to get her to let go of him. That’s how he’d wound up with the blood on his gun.

The last time he’d been violent before this, was a few months back, when he’d punched an old man in the jaw because the man looked at him as if he was mad or something. Victor took no prisoners. What he wanted he got, when he wanted it.  For the most part, people seemed intimidated by him and just gave up the money. But lately, it seemed, some folk were feelin’ froggy. Must be the heat, he thought.

Overall, this week had netted him about forty-two hundred dollars for about twenty minutes worth of real work. That’s what he was reflecting on now. Life was great. Only thing was, every week wasn’t like this. If he could do this every week, he’d be the man. What made the week even sweeter was that this was only Thursday, so he had a few more days left to fatten his pockets even more. He figured he might as well do one more tomorrow, just to finish out the week right.