Like Clockwork

Excellence Award in the 'Legendary 2012' competition

Truth be told I hated the west. I wasn’t some starry eyed kid seeking out fame at the barrel of a gun. I only ever came here because the work had dried up back East. People there were too civilised and street smart for my tastes. Here was different, if I was pitching snake oil and my shill put on a convincing performance hicks would believe it was the hand of god. What they didn’t know is the devil was marking the deck.
This town was something you’d read about in dime paperback books, hell if someone asked me back East to think of the West I’d have this picture hanging in my head. Kids chased down tumbleweeds tearing them to shreds, the Sheriff was too drunk to remember to shoot the bandit in the middle, and everyone knew your name.
Now that was a hitch in my little caper. The drunken Sheriff would suit this to the ground, but everyone in town seeing me as a complete stranger was a snag when I intended to walk into their bank.
I’ve been in town for just about three days now, which was long enough to know that 11 O’clock every-day, on the hour, the quack across the street went into the bank, past the cramped up lines, and into the vault room to count his little green blessings. Last year I read an article about some Freud who studied cases like the dear Docs, claimed that they had “Touching Phobia”. I really didn’t give a dime if the man had plague. What mattered was he was predictable, and with predictability comes interception.
As I strolled into that rustic little bank at 11:05 I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead. The heat was something I liked about the west, well not really the heat as much as heatstroke.
When I slammed to the ground I wish I could have seen the faces of the gullible clergy.
“JESUS! WHERE’S THE DOCTOR!”
When that fat little runt waddled out from the vault room they immediately dragged me in, you see I figured if a man needed medical attention the doctor would take him from the cramped waiting lines into the space of the vault room. What the dear doc didn’t foresee was that patient leaping up and putting a Lemat revolver to his pumpkin head.
The only men in that room were me, the doc, and the clerk at the bank.
“Now Mr clerk, be so kind as to open up that safe over there, because quite frankly trying to mop up expired doctor is laborious.” I then looked back at the now weeping doctor.
“Doc, I want you to get into that corner and I want to see you give me jazz hands, understood?”
The sobbing little man raised both shaky hands in the air and stood by the corner.
“W-What do you think you’re doing son”, he said half whimpering
I grinned, “Why doc, I’m making a withdrawal.”

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