From My Uncle Vellanoff’s Journal Never Rob This Bank On Tuesdays 

    We were playing at the Edgewood Theater in Blue Gill, Florida. The producer paid us on Tuesdays for our previous weeks work, so on that day some of us would go to the nearest bank and turn our checks into cash, before moving on to a Post Office where we would get money orders, to send home or to pay bills, etc. 

    On this Tuesday, three of us had walked from our hotel a couple blocks to the Blue Gill State Bank -- Larry, Janet, and I. (Larry did a ventriloquist act at which he was very good, and Janet was a dancer.) 

    When we walked inside the bank we found the place to be rather busy. And by the looks of the uniforms, several of the customers were policemen. 

    Janet stepped up to the window, and was just in the process of handing over her check when four guys came bursting through the front door. They were all wearing masks, baseball caps, and carrying guns. The first guy through the door fired a shot into the ceiling and yelled, “This is a hold up, everybody down on the . . .” 

    His speech and forward motion came to a sudden stop as he looked around and saw the uniforms. His companions piled into his back. They were confused, and obviously disappointed at finding themselves sharing the premises with so many police. 

    There were some mumbled curses from the robbers. The leader lifted his cap off his head, reached behind him and hit one of his fellow robbers over the head, while giving him some instructions. 

   If the police had responded quickly they probably could have stopped these guys. However, they seemed as surprised as the rest of us, and didn’t move. The robbers got themselves sorted out and the leader yelled again, “Down on the floor!” 

   It turned out that there was a police station right across the street from the bank and that yesterday was the day the policemen got their checks for the previous two-week’s work. It was easy for them to step across the street and do their banking. What neither we nor the robbers knew was that some of the customers were plain-clothes detectives, but to a casual observer they looked just like other civilians. 

    So what these robbers had was a bunch of bank customers of whom probably fifteen were carrying guns of their own. 

    After the last yelled demand by the leader of this gang, and after he had fired his shotgun and demolished a wall clock on the back wall of the bank, we all settled down on the floor. 

   One of the robbers said, “Well, Joe, that was a dumb thing to do, now we can’t tell what time it is.” 

   Joe turned on the speaker and hissed, “Jerry, don’t use my name, and what? you’ve got someplace you gotta be?” 

   Another robber asked with a chuckle, “Joe, did you pick this bank because of the police being here, or are they just a bonus?” 

    “Bill, just keep your eyes on them, and save the comic remarks for later, okay?” 

    We started to get the impression that this bunch was not well organized, nor too bright. They still had guns aimed at us, so our impressions were not worth much. 

    About this time the front door opened and two more uniformed policemen came strolling in or at least started to--- but when they saw people on the floor and masked guys with guns, they quickly came to the conclusion that something was not right. They turned and dove out the door followed by two shotgun blasts, one of which blew all the glass out of one-half of the front door and all over the two prone policemen. The other blast blew out one of the front windows. It was comforting to see that these Blue Gill police were so quick to figure things out. 

    The two officers scrambled on hands and knees to the sidewalk and around the corner, and disappeared. In two more minutes, there were probably two dozen cops out front of the bank with guns leveled at the front door.         Pretty soon we heard somebody saying over a loudhailer, “This is the police.” (I guess just in case the robbers thought all the men in blue, with their guns pointing at the door, were a bunch of streetcar conductors). “Lay down your guns and come out with your hands above your heads.” 

    In response, one of the robbers shot out another of the bank’s front windows. The leader was first astounded, then angry. “Bill, what are you doing? You think they’re gonna go away because you shot out the window?” Then even louder, “Nobody shoots anything---well, except maybe people---unless I tell you to. Got that?” Bill, Jerry, and the fourth robber who hadn’t been identified yet, mumbled that next time they were gonna elect a new leader. We figured it was only a matter of time before we knew the first name of the fourth, and so far, unidentified, robber. 

    Up to this point, no one had said anything about money, which we guessed was what the robbers were there for. Suddenly the leader realized this. Approaching the first teller he demanded, “Empty your cash drawer into this satchel.” She did. He looked as only a handful of bills fluttered to the bottom of his bag. He looked around and said, “What’s the deal, is this a real bank or what?” 

    He went down the line and got the same result with the other three tellers. Then grabbing the Bank Manager by the back of his collar, he demanded, “Let’s look in the vault.” 

    The Bank Manager led him into the vault. After about twenty seconds, we heard a loud wail. The leader, who we had learned was named Joe, came running out. He looked around frantically, then yelled, “This is the poorest excuse for a bank I’ve ever seen!”

    Bill asked, “So how much have we got?”

    “Oh, maybe ten grand.” 

    “And that’s how much? I keep forgetting,” asked the unidentified one. 

    Adam, how many times do we gotta tell you, a grand is one thousand dollars.” (Now we knew the name of the hitherto unidentified guy.) 

    Adam’s eyes got big, “And we have a couple of those? WOW!” 

    By this time, several of the policemen were snickering. 

    Joe was mumbling, “Next time I’ve got to get a better crew.” 

    One of the policemen raised his hand, cleared his throat to get the attention of the robbers, and when that was accomplished said, “I’m Mel Gibbons, a police officer, maybe I can help.” 

    Joe, aimed his shotgun directly at police officer Gibbons and said, “Who asked you?”       Mel hadn’t been shot yet so pushed on. “Joe, you’re in more trouble than you can imagine.” 

    “How can we be in trouble? We have the guns, and all of you are lying on the floor, so why are we the ones with the problem.”

   “Well,” Mel said, “you guys are trapped in this bank, with not much money to show for your efforts; and talking about guns, you have about twenty-four guns out there waiting for y’all to show yourselves so they can blow you away. To me that sounds like a problem.”

    Bill, Jerry, and Adam were nodding their heads. Jerry offered his opinion, “Joe, he makes sense.” 

    Joe shouted, “I’m the one in charge of this robbery. We’ll do what I say. This cop just wants us to give ourselves up, and go to jail, is that what you want?” he asked his coworkers. By this time he was shouting. 

    In all this the four robbers never dropped their vigilance. They kept us customers well aware that they had the guns. I was lying next to Larry, and whispered to him, “Could you do a ghost, or several ghosts, here in the bank?” He assured me that it would be piece of cake. 

    I raised my hand, “Sir,” addressing Joe, “with all the shooting and shouting, you might have disturbed the ghosts that are believed to haunt this bank. I’ve been told that they can be mean when bothered.” 

    Joe laughed, and said with a sneer, “That’s a lot of bunk. Nobody believes in ghosts.” 

    Just then an eerie voice came out of the vault saying, “Who is this that’s shouting and shooting and disturbing our peace?” 

    Joe and his three helpers, as well as all of us on the floor, whirled around and stared at the vault. 

    While the vault had their attention, I took off a shoe and tossed it behind the teller cages, where it made a clattering sound. Everyone turned in that direction. The next eerie voice came from that location. “Yes, who is so careless as to bother our rest?” 

    Then the voice from the vault chimed in, “Ah, I see who it is. It’s Adam. He’s let Joe talk him into doing something stupid.” 

     White faced, Adam squeaked, “Joe, let’s get out of here, I don’t like this.” 

    Joe sneered and said, “It’s just someone in the vault I didn’t see; watch this.” And Joe walked over to the door of the vault and fired three loads of buckshot into the all steel vault. We could hear little lead balls ricocheting around. In the midst of that was Joe saying, “Ouch, oh, ouch, and several four-letter words. Joe backed out of the vault wiping blood off several superficial wounds he had sustained. This did nothing to improve his mood. 

    Bill asked, “So, did you kill the ghost?” He was trying not to laugh. 

    Joe opened his mouth to respond, but another voice beat him to it. This one came from the back of the bank in a different but still eerie, hollow sounding voice. 

     “Well, Joe, how did that work out for you?” followed by laughter. 

    Then a very loud voice full of authority came from the front of the bank, “Here come the cops!” 

    The four robbers, who had been looking toward the back of the bank trying to find the source for the voice, whirled around. Adam fired a shot through the front doors and one of the policemen in the street collapsed onto the pavement, holding his leg. 

    Whoever was in charge out there yelled, “Hold your fire!” 

    It was obvious that the robbers were scared. They were jumping around, wondering where the next voice would come from. 

    I whispered the next line to Larry. The quavering voice came out of the vault, “Gentlemen, for disturbing our peace one of you must pass over and join us.” 

    The four robbers got noticeably paler and looked at each other. Bill squeaked in a high-pitched voice, “Pass over?” Then after clearing his throat tried again, “Pass over?”     “Yeah, dummy, he means one of us has to die.” 

    “Are you kidding?” yelled Joe. “That can’t be right. I’m too young to die. I promised my Ma I’d rob fifty banks, and I’m only up to six---and I’m not sure this one counts.” 

    Another voice from behind the teller cages shouted out, “Let’s take Adam.” 

    The four spun around toward the sound of the voice. Once they digested what the voice had said, Bill said, talking to the bodiless voice behind the teller cages, “Well, if you insist, Adam would be a good choice.” 

    Joe and Jerry were nodding their heads. Adam, wailed, “But I donna wanna go.” 

    The voice from the back of the bank added, “And then for the other one we should take Jerry.” 

    Jerry jumped, whirled around and fired his shotgun toward the back of the bank. The load of buckshot hit the banks logo, which was hanging on a rock wall, knocking it down. The logo fell onto the manager’s desk, splitting it in two. 

    The voice said, “Well, nice going, Jerry. On second thought we don’t need jumpy people like you here, I suggest we take Joe instead.” 

    The other three voices agreed. 

    Jerry was ecstatic. Joe was shaking and jerking around, still trying to see the ‘ghosts’. 

    He yelled out, “I don’t want to go, what’s wrong with Jerry, or Bill, for that matter?” 

    Bill aimed his gun at Joe and shouted, “One more suggestion from you like that, you SOB, and I’ll help you cross over.” 

    Joe aimed his gun at Bill, and said, “Yeah, just try it and it will be the last thing you do.” 

    The voice from the vault shouted out, “Hey, you idiots, we’re going to take all four of you. It will take us forever to get over this disturbance. Either prepare yourselves to cross over and join us or get out of here. NOW!” 

    The four robbers bolted for the front door. One of the cops said, “If you run out there carrying those guns they’ll gun you down. 

     The robbers caught on quickly. They dropped their guns and with their hands in the air called out to the waiting police that they were unarmed and coming out. Then they eased out the front door. 

    Inside the bank we all slowly stood up, relieved that the ordeal was over. One of the detectives looked around and said, “Now all we need to do is figure out where those voices came from.” 

    The voice from the vault said, “Don’t bother, but if you want to see a good ventriloquist act, go see the show now playing at the Edgewood Theater.” 

    The police and other customers looked around and when what had happened started to sink in, they begin to laugh and applaud.

    Sure enough, all these people did attend the show, with their spouses and family members. Evidently they told their friends also. It was a nifty bit of advertising, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a normal way of attracting an audience.