Danger came in different packages, at different points in a lifetime. - Jodi Picoult
The first time he really felt it was that night when his mother didn't come back. Funny thing, memory. Every now and then, he'd get a glimpse. Stepping off the sidewalk and hearing a car horn. An alley, dark and smelly, and a big nasty dog that snapped at him. The only really clear memory he had was this tall black figure taking his hand and pulling him into the church. Only later did he know it was a nun.
But what he would always remember was the feeling that something, somewhere, was going to hurt him.
It was years before he felt it again. He was twelve. There were only four other boys his age at the orphanage then, and they'd gotten permission to go to a movie. A church volunteer had dropped them off, and was supposed to pick them up when it was over. She didn't show up. The group knew they weren't supposed to wander off, but the theater was closing up and they had to wait outside. He wasn't sure how long they'd been waiting when a larger group of bigger boys had shown up. He remembered several were smoking, and he could smell what he later knew was beer. They were loud and vulgar and then a couple knives showed up. His group had taken off, three going in one direction while he and Peter had gone in another. And of course catching two small boys would be easier than catching three.
He didn't think he'd ever run so fast in his life. Peter was ahead of him, getting further and further away every moment. They ran into the parking lot of a small strip mall. He'd tripped. Peter had disappeared in the seconds it took him to get up, and he could practically feel the bigger boys behind him. He ran around the corner of a store and immediately hid behind a garbage dumpster. He could hear the boys searching, the traffic from the street next to the mall, a siren in the distance.
And his heart, pounding out of his chest.
Eventually the boys had gone, and he crept out of his hiding spot. There was a phone booth on the corner. He called the orphanage number with the 'emergency dime' all the kids carried. He waited in the phone booth, his back against the door, watching. A police car showed up, a second moments later. All five boys were then taken home.
He didn't go to a movie again until he was a senior in high school.
Then came the Army. Vietnam. The bank job. Bragg.
He still felt it, now and then. But it was almost like he was getting used to it. He couldn't say he enjoyed it, but there was a perverse thrill in cheating death time after time. Challenging that sickle yielding specter and coming out on top. Like this last job. He smiled to himself as he and Frankie stepped away from the car.
"Think the food's as good as Murdock claimed, Face?"