I'm very excited and very happy and I just wanted to share this good news with whoever reads this. One of the best friends I ever had will soon be coming back into my life after literally disappearing 20 years ago!! George is still alive!! And married! And has a KID!!
Twenty years ... that seems so weird to say, to even think about, but I'm 43 now and it's been 20 years and he was one of my closest friends. A brother almost. I used to joke with him that he was the son my mother never had she liked him so much. I haven't spoken to him yet, I just heard through the grapevine that he's trying to look me up. What will I say? What will he say? And what, I'm sure you're wondering, happened that he disappeared? It's a long story .... 20 years ago in a far away land called North Hollywood .....
There were several of us in a pretty tight group, we hung out, did all the normal stupid crap young guys do in their late teens, early 20's during the early 80's. Went to parties, drank too much, stayed up too late, smoked too much pot, drove too fast and broke all the minor laws stupid young kids do in the big city. In short, we were immortal, absolutely sure of our superiority and the world was ours.
Naturally it went downhill fast. One of our group, Albert, got testicular cancer. He was barely employed at Kinko's (a photocopy center big here in Los Angeles, don't know if they have branches anywhere else) and didn't have medical insurance. He was also my roommate at the time John, another friend, worked as a teller in a bank, George was going to – I forgot the name of it, an electronics school getting an advanced degree in, you guessed it, electronics – and I was working as an X-Ray tech. We each had our roles in the group dynamic. Albert was the swinger, the ladies man, the Vinny Barbarino of the group. John was the nerdish dweeb with a pocket protector. George was the wild man and I was the sneaky and cynical joker.
Well, like I said, Albert got ball cancer, and with no insurance and 2 brain cells got it into his head that if he was going to die he'd go out with a bang. Somehow he got the other 2 to agree to rob the bank that John worked at. The first I hear of it was when George called me at work saying he HAD to talk to me right away. So I pick him up and while we're driving over to mine and Albert's apartment, he out of the blue asks me if I want to rob a bank. Naturally I thought he was kidding, but no, he wasn't. We get over to my place and there they all were and told me of their plan.
I told them they were absolutely crazy and no way in hell was I going to be part of it. I did my best to talk them out of it, but to no avail. Albert had convinced them that this was the only way to get the money needed to save his life.
So now let's skip ahead a bit, because the 'plan' they had didn't really work like they expected it to so there's no point in going over it ... this is what happened as I was told later:
George and Albert dressed up in 'disguise'. They wore gray jumpsuits, wigs and phony beards. John was the 'inside' man. He had told them exactly where to go for the money and what not to touch, so they knew the complete layout.
One of John's jobs at the bank was to raise the flag before the bank opened. G and A, dressed in their disguises took J prisoner on his way back inside after raising the flag, before the bank opened. G pushed him into the bank and announced “This is a robbery!” while A sort of went completely blank with fright, standing by the door with a blank look on his face. G tried to get him to adhere to the script, but A had lost it. The lights were on but no one was home. G, improvising, pushed J ahead of him as he went from teller station to teller station telling J to fill the bags up. They took no one dollar bills. Only 5's and up and touched no alarm triggers or the bank rolls that explode with dye. Still keeping J with him G turned to the bank manager and demanded the his car keys (for the escape car). Now, because of J's information, they knew exactly which car belonged to the manager. The manager said “I don't have a car, I take the bus”
Now this really through them for a loop! Adrenalin thudding, G wasn't thinking straight anymore so he turned to another person and demanded their keys. They also said they took the bus. He asked 5 bank workers and all 5 said they took the bus. PANIC time!! They had no getaway car! So, doing the only thing they could, they ran for it back to their car parked FIVE blocks away!
Now, to make matters worse, far far worse, J was so panicked by the whole thing that when G and A ran out of the bank ................................................ John ran after them!!! They ran for 3 blocks until they noticed John was chasing them. Quickly they decide that to cover this up they had to convincingly beat John up and leave him in the street. Only neither of them had the guts to actually beat up John, so they sort of pushed him around the street to get road grease on him and tore his shirt a bit.
Now, to make matters EVEN worse ... Albert banked at the branch John worked at. Guess what? Even with the lame disguise the other employees recognized him as John's friend who always waits in line until John is free to be his teller.
Can this get any freaking worse?
Why yes!
George and I find out the nest day that 3 weeks before Albert and John and already done a mild bank robbery there. Albert had gone up to John's window, and John gave him all the money he had. John waited a couple minutes then told the police that someone had handed them a note saying they had a bomb and to hand over the money and don't say anything until the robber had left.
As you can imagine the FBI pulled this whole thing apart in probably no more than an hour and the 3 were arrested the next day. At the time, it was the second largest bank robbery in Los Angeles history.
Can it get worse? Of course!
Since it was their first offense and all, they got off pretty light. John and George get a few months in jail and a year in a sort of half-way house. They get out during the day but have to be locked up at night. Albert because of his cancer gets off even lighter. All dependent on their good behavior of course.
Only thing was George, being the wild man, went wild. He broke too many rules at the half-way house and was sent back to a minimum security prison for 2 to 5.
One week later he and 2 other inmates simply walk out the front door and disappear. Because of their deception about the first bank job and a few other things, I never spoke to either John or Albert again. Not a single word, even though we still maintain certain friends in common.
20 years ago. And now, 20 years later I get word that George is trying to get in touch. I hear that he went to New Mexico and went back to school, took a job and tried to get his life back ... until they tracked him down. I hear they finally caught him and he served 3 years in Minnesota I think. He got out, put his life in order, got married and now has a kid.
Life can be damn funny at times.
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