Sometimes at the bar my friends and I will have the conversation "If you had to be a criminal, what kind would you be?" Some people answer quickly, which is kind of scary; I've had a friend and an acquaintance blurt out "arms dealer" and "sex offender" before I'd even finished asking the question.

At first I thought I'd be a cat burglar, if they even have those anymore, because it sounds glamorous. But it wouldn't take, on account of I'm afraid of heights and have shitty night vision. I'd have instructions to go for the diamond and I'd come back with a sparkly perfume bottle that looked like a diamond and a little vomit on my shoe because the vertigo made me puke.

Then I thought I'd like to be a bank robber because I like the hours. You spend a couple of weeks or months planning the heist, pull it off, then lay low for months and enjoy expensive things in the privacy of your own home. That kind of schedule appeals to me.

But the bank robber thing wouldn't work, I don't work well in teams. Organized crime in general would be a no-go for me, I'd totally piss the wrong person off and my execution would be summarily requested and green-lit in some underboss' office, with more deliberation spent on what to order for lunch. Plus I'm a man of routine--there isn't a morning I'm not getting my coffee down at the same diner--and so easy to track my hit would be a cakewalk.

So finally I settled upon Wheel Man. Getaway Driver, now that's a job. While the crew is in the bank sweating through their ski masks, loading sacks and encouraging everyone to stay horizontal, you're laying in the cut reading a magazine and having a cigarette. You don't have to interface with the consumer, you just make sure the engine's running and the tank is full.

Then you hear the alarm, the crew bursts onto the sidewalk and it's steady action. Bodies and sacks pile into the car, doors slam shut and you kick the gas like you’re trying to break the pedal off. The smoking tires scream like a teenager in a horror movie, you feel that lurch in the small of your back and everything gets fast in the windshield.

Spin the wheel left and right, slap the stick north and south while the cops sway wildly in your wake. You rocket through the intersection like there’s an afterburner in the trunk. Your car starts making that smell cars make when you abuse them, that burning stench of metal friction and rubber igniting in layers. Make the right moves and the flashing lights get smaller and smaller in your rearview mirror while your passengers curse and cheer. You dump the car in Brooklyn, count the bread up in some warehouse....

#

But that's all talk, Walter Mitty and gin. You're a grown man in a bar in Manhattan having drinks with your friends. Tomorrow all of you are going to go back to work. You'll stop at the bank, sure, but it'll be on your break and you'll withdraw cash from no one's account but your own. And you take out the cash so that later that night you can go back to the bar and talk about something else.

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