valentine

Confession

New York, 1972

Ricky was shaking in the confessional booth, hands clutching a rosary she bought from the dollar store. Wave after wave of nausea crept up her throat, and she did her best to keep the bile down. “How does this work, actually? I was raised Protestant, so I’ve never set foot in a Catholic church before. I’d go to therapy, but I can’t afford to go on my salary, which is, well, nothing.” She attempted a laugh. The priest cleared his throat. 

“Well, what you do is confess your sins, and I will provide guidance. After, you say a few prayers in the cathedral and repent.” 

Ricky itched to smoke a cigarette or a joint. She adjusted her hands and crossed her legs. “It all started a couple weeks ago when my boyfriend, Vinnie, and his friend, George, were in need of some money since they owed someone in the neighborhood. This wasn’t a typical debt situation, where, you know, you eventually get the money and bygones are bygones. Nah, this was someone big in the neighborhood. They needed cash fast. They started planning, and one night I overheard their plan—they were gonna rob the Grand Local Community Bank—does it matter that I used that name?”

“No, it doesn’t matter. Names do not matter here, use them if you wish.”

“Oh, okay. Anyway, I confronted Vinnie right after George left, and I cried to him, ‘Do you really want to risk your life and rob the bank, Vin?’ He got upset that I knew and said, ‘I’m risking my life either way, Ricky—don’t you want me to be alive? Don’t you love me?’ And I said, ‘Of course I love you, Vin, but you’re talking about a robbery. Do you really want to be that guy?’ And he said, ‘I don’t have a choice, baby.’ And I said, ‘Of course you have a choice. We could skip town and go to my mother’s in Virginia, it’d be best for us and the baby. Don’t you want him to grow big and strong and handsome just like you?’ And he said, ‘One, we don’t know if it’s a boy yet, we just found out that we were having one last week. Two, it’d be best for you to go alone if you’re going to leave, I don’t want you to get hurt.’” Ricky took a deep breath. “I couldn’t sleep that night. The next morning, though, I looked myself in the eye in the mirror and said, ‘You’re gonna help ‘em, Ricky.’ I wanted to make sure my Vinnie wouldn’t die.” Ricky swiped at a fallen tear. She couldn’t cry, at least not yet. She had to get the story out. “Of course, I felt bad that I would be committing a crime—you know as well as I do, Father, that robbery is a big sin. But, Vinnie was right—I wanted him to be alive. Of course, he used the baby to object to me helping him. ‘I don’t want the kid to get hurt, and I don’t want you to get hurt either,’ he said. But I eventually wore him down—he knew he needed the manpower. Afterall, it’s the 70s, and women should be able to do anything, even commit crimes, amirite, Father?” She attempted another laugh, and it faltered as easily and as quickly as the first one did. 

“Please continue,” the priest said coldly. 

Ricky bit her lip. “I thought I would be the getaway driver until Vinnie told me that George was the driver, and that if I were to truly help, then I would have to be on the inside. He gave me a gun and asked if I knew how to shoot, and when I said I didn’t, he took out the bullets and taught me. He told me to use it as a last resort, but to also not be afraid in the event that I would have to actually use it. The days leading up to it, I got more and more queasy, but I couldn’t tell if it was my guilt or the baby. The day of, I took some Bendectin and hopped in the car. The whole time in the car I stared at the back of Vinnie’s head, hoping that I could continue to wake up to that head of hair after the money got dropped off. I also hoped that our son would have the same fullness of it, too—my side of the family has a history of baldness, even among the women.” Another attempt at a laugh. Another failure. 

“I’m sure the Lord appreciates your humor,” the priest said, and Ricky couldn’t tell if he was trying to be funny or trying to usher her to continue speaking without interrupting herself. 

“We drove up to the bank, and we took in four bags. They would be filled by me, Vin would hold up the people, and George would be waiting in the car for us to come back. It was simple—we would walk in, have everyone sit in a corner, get the money, and leave. So we go in with our masks, and things go as planned—we get everyone, including the security guards, who were thankfully incompetent, into a corner, and Vinnie had held them there while I took a clerk to the vault behind the desk to open it for me. She was clearly scared, and I felt bad while I pointed the gun at her, but I did what I needed to do. Once I filled the bags, I was supposed to switch off with Vinnie, this time me staying in front of the crowd holding a gun to them. The bank was mostly empty, too, so it was just three clerks, the two dumb guards who didn’t have guns, and five civilians: an old woman, a mother and her daughter, a middle-aged man, and a young woman. When I switched off bags with Vinnie, I saw the fear in their eyes as he pointed the gun at them. The little girl looked at me through my ski mask and I can’t describe it but I felt a pang of guilt, unlike any that I’ve ever felt before. I walked the clerk back over to the vault, but once I filled the bags and turned around, I saw her reaching towards something under the desk, and before I registered it, she pressed a panic button. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I asked—wait, am I allowed to say ‘hell’ as an expletive?”

“I’d rather—and the Lord would rather as well—that you would not.”

“Well, I said, ‘What the blank are you doing?’ And she said, ‘Nothing.’ I clearly didn’t believe her. Vinnie looked over at what was going on. ‘What happened?’ he asked. I said, ‘I think she pressed a panic button.’ Vinnie started yelling, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck—’ I mean—sorry, father. He started swearing and waving his gun around in a panic. I tried to get him to calm down from over where I was. ‘Wait, you’re Ricky Alberta, aren’t you?’ the teller asked me a few seconds later. ‘No, I’m not,’ I said. I got scared when I realized that I had gone to high school with this bit—I mean woman. She could identify me to the cops. The people in the corner weren’t paying attention, and I had hoped that there was no one who had heard my name. ‘Yes, you are, I recognize your voice! Ricky from FDR High! Why are you doing this? What would your mother think?’ I panicked. I remembered what Vinnie said about last resorts. I started hearing sirens. If I didn’t do this now, the cops would show up and would be able to identify me because she knew my name. I couldn’t risk it. The sirens got louder and louder. I raised the gun to her, Jenny Walker, captain of the high school cheer squad. I closed my eyes and squeezed the trigger. The recoil was something I wasn’t prepared for. Neither was the idea that I would shoot someone. I looked down and I saw the bullet hole between her eyes. Vinnie yelled, ‘We need to go, now!’ And we booked it out of the bank. Vinnie shoved me into George’s car in the back seat, and put the bags on my lap. Before he could open the door to the front passenger seat, he fell—a cop had shot him.” Ricky’s voice started breaking and more tears started falling. “Before I could get out to at least put him in the car, he got swarmed by cops and who had ripped off his ski mask and were letting him bleed out on the sidewalk like an animal. George started the car and drove off, and a couple cop cars started following us, but George was faster—it wasn’t his first time driving away from cops. I, on the other hand, was sobbing in the back seat. George kept yelling at me to shut up, and I kept yelling back that Vinnie was fucking dead and that I was having his fucking baby and he wouldn’t be around to fucking raise him. S-sorry.” She wiped her eyes, but it was no use. “George said, ‘Why don’t you go to church and pray about it? Don’t keep yelling at me about it!’ So, I came here. Father, can I ask you a question?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Do you think Vinnie went to heaven? He didn’t believe much and never stepped a foot in church in his life, but other than this he was a good man. He was honest, when he wanted to be—and don’t get me wrong, he almost always wanted to be. He wanted to be better, and didn’t mean to take so much from the guy, but he did and tried to repay his debt. That’s gotta count for something, right? A-and, I’m not a terrible person for killing Jenny, right? I know, murder is a big sin, but I did what was best for my baby and my Vinnie, and I wanted to go and get married and be a proper family. And I—I—” Ricky was sobbing. “And Vinnie went to heaven, right?”