Copyright 1995(c) 
 
              IF YOU'RE GONNA SHOOT SOMEBODY, SHOP AT WALMART 
                              By B. J. Higgs 
 
     "Eddie, you want this Mennen?" she asked, packing his 
overnight bag for their trip. 
     "Do I have any more?" he asked, coming from the bathroom with
a towel about his waist. As always, she started in surprise. His
good looks never seemed to fade, whereas she looked like an old 
lady. His hair was silver, the deep, brown eyes were as chocolate
and smouldering as ever and he worked out three times a week on a
local track to stay trim. He looked really good. 
     Of course he was in excellent physical shape, as was she. 
     No matter where they were, she worked out to her own regimen
of yoga and dance. She wore the appropriate costume to do so, 
insisting that this was all a mental thing, anyway. It seemed to
work for her. She got her exercise and enjoyed it somewhat. 
     It inspired her to a shower and dressing with a minimum of 
make-up and lots of imagination. She was having a blast with this
'track look'. She and Eddie went at least once a week, and she 
dolled up in the hats she collected, and which were her passion,
each more outrageous than the last. She dressed from WalMart, but
bought her hats at out-of-the-way consignment stores, boutiques 
and, often, thrift stores. 
     She got her picture in the paper, in fact. 
     A folio mag person spotted her two weeks later, and put 
another photo in that magazine. Eventually, the local paper came
around to find out who she was. And she was made. 
     They'd told her later, that that was how they were 
apprehended. She'd lived in Jacksonville once and it had been the
recipient of a charitable anonymous gift. That she turned up there
was pure luck, since they were being tracked, but it wasn't thought
they would make it so easy to be caught. 
     They were of a height, and she met his brown gaze with her own
blue one. They decided to put off packing and make love. Yes, one
does still do that, thank you. 
     They spoke to her daughter from Tulsa and drove on toward 
Kansas City. There, they donned their costumes and robbed the First
Kansas-Topeka Federal.  
     "Well, my dear," he asked as they drove to Minneapolis, what
shall we do with this batch?" 
     "It's almost $157,000," said she. "We can do the trailer, 
rental lot thing again." 
     "No, I think I'd like to do a little farmwork. Let's buy some
acreage and rent to own the trailer." 
     "Can we have donkeys?" she asked. 
     "Why not?" he asked. 
     They approached the attorney and signed him to a contract to
represent them in the bequest of the money. "To the Jacksonville
Humane Society," said she, "in Florida." They always chose some 
relatively small recipient who would be delighted at an anonymous
gift. That was, after all, one of its conditions. 
     By the time they did so, they were known to be solid citizens,
hard workers and good neighbors. It was obvious they had money, but
nobody knew how much. Once the gift was bequeathed, they set aside
a given portion for future travel and lived normally until 
financially forced to pull another job. 
     She was sure their daughter suspected them of something, but
she'd have been speechless to know what. Dinah believed they might
be claiming too much social security or something of that nature.
They always lived quite modestly wherever they settled for any 
time. "Tiptoe through this world," his grandfather had said, and
it was good advice. Nobody suspected a thing when a couple of old 
folks showed up and wanted to buy a little land or shelter. Old 
people that could sometimes moved far away from people they knew,
like they wanted to end up their lives among strangers. 
     Not she and Ed, though. They wanted adventure. They didn't 
want luxury but they didn't want to eat cat food, either, and live
in somebody's den, converted or no. They kept themselves strong and
healthy in order to enjoy life, not to eat peanut butter three 
meals a day and turn the air conditioner off when they didn't want
to. 
     It was strange, the way they had come to this idea. He'd 
hardly believed it when she voiced agreement with some of his 
ideas. 
     "I've supported myself all my life," he said. "I've done what
I was supposed to do and society has not. I have paid for people
to live out their days in relative comfort, with competent medical 
care, and it is being denied to me. I gave and I do not get," he
said, bitterly. 
     "Today," she said, "I was watching the leader of the Christian
Coalition on television. He can't be a day over 25, and looks 17.
He is earnest and fresh-faced and scares the hell out of me." 
     He raised his eyebrows. "They say you get more liberal as you
get older," she reminded him. 
     He got to thinking about it. What did they do? They went 
garage-saling sometimes on the weekends and Friday mornings. They
played bingo one night a week. They watered the lawn and watched
the news, politics, and the Discovery Channel. Why shouldn't they
have some excitement? The money in this world wasn't distributed
correctly at all. They could be sort of a Bonnie and Clyde to 
handle that. He snorted at his vision, but it came back. When the
Mickey Mouse bandits turned up, he knew that was it. Well 
constructed, there was no indication of sex in the costumes, and
it was possible to conceal height, as well. The robbers could be
made to look like a male team. Even, if careful in body language,
two women. They had done both with ease, and had once even gone in 
alone, each of them, more to see if they could than to succeed. 
      They made a pact, first. They did not want to become
dependent on their children. They had the means to prevent it
without it making a great deal of difference to their existence.
They didn't want much -- they were people who happily shopped at
WalMart. They always planned to surrender, if apprehended. They had
always known what the odds were and what the outcome would be. 
     They succeeded, and donated the bulk of any take to some 
ignominious charity or another. "My former boss once told me that
he had the solution to welfare," Ed said early in their adventure.
"He suggested everybody who was working take on a family that was
not. That's sort of what we're doing," he said. 
     "Well, nobody should have to eat cat food," she said, as her
final word on the matter and one oft-repeated. 
     "Yes, I know you say that, but who'd have thought you'd have
the adventure to do something about it? Something pretty unique,
too?" 
     That had been last week in Miami and this week they were in
Jacksonville, Florida, the very town that had been the recipient
of their last donation. It was pure chance and certainly not a 
pattern, but the Barnett Bank still stood and it was irresistible. 
     They were expected, and apprehended. Dinah was aghast and 
refused to have anything to do with them. The trial was swift and
there was no question of anything but life in prison since they had
never harmed anyone. Ed, the young hearty hale one, died quietly
just three years later of natural causes, a content man. She lived
on for another five years, regretting only that she had no 
daughter. She was housed, clothed and fed decently up until her 
death, and was often heard to say: 
     "No one should have to eat cat food." 
                              END