THE GREAT GI JOE HEIST

The summer of 1987 continued to yawn over Minnesota. It was a bright and sunny Friday at the Fairmont Family Splash n’ Play. Walk Like An Egyptian was playing over the PA system again. Some grumbled that that song would never go away but then when the post-solo break came up, everyone whistled along. The pool was roiling with splashing, screeching children. Their exhausted parents lay cooking on vinyl deck chairs. A bored lifeguard fought to stay awake in a high wooden chair at the pool’s edge. Behind the dying palm trees and bushes, a crime was being planned.

“This isn’t going to work,” Butch said.

“It’s going to work,” Mugsy replied. He looked at Four Eyes, who had concocted the entire heist, and glowered menacingly. “It had better work.”

“It’ll work, it’ll work!” Four Eyes sputtered. “It has to be today, it has to be now. We won’t get this opportunity again. Everyone just stick to the plan.”

Butch looked around, wild. The others met his eyes, but no one seemed afraid. He swallowed. “I just don’t want to get caught. I… I’ll get grounded!”

They were all eleven, except for Four-Eyes, who was nine. Dollface popped her gum. “What, are you going to piss yourself, Eric?”

“No real names,” Mugsy hissed. “Code names only.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sor-ree.” 

“Look,” Four Eyes said. “There he is.”

The mark walked onto the patio with his mother, holding a dribbling rocket pop in one hand and the case in the other. Kevin Fletcher, age 12. The chubby little jerk smiled happily over the pool as if it were his domain. His mom plopped her bulk down on a lounger, and Kevin sat on the ground beside her. He opened the case, and it seemed to the children watching him that it opened in slow motion. It was an Actionmaster™ Collector’s Case, and it was filled to the brim with GI Joes.

“My god,” Wheels whispered. “Look at all of them.”

Croc Master. Raptor. Zantar, Zandar and Zarana. Sgt. Slaughter. Snake Eyes. Three B.A.T.S figures, and all the attending arm attachments. Kevin reached into the case and withdrew the crown jewel of his collection, a pristine Storm Shadow. It wore a backpack that fit all its weapons. The sun heliographed off of the white of its paint. It seemed like an invitation. A child wandered over and asked if he could play too. Kevin shook his head proudly. He never let anyone play GI Joes with him, because they were his.

Mugsy turned back to Butch. “That fat prick won’t let anyone else touch those figures, but he keeps taking them out in public to show them off. Those GI Joes are too good for him. We’re all taking a risk for that case, but everyone needs to be in. Are you in or are you out?”

Butch looked back at the Storm Shadow. It was now holding little nunchuks. It looked so cool. He licked his lips. “Let’s do this.”

“Okay,” Four Eyes said. “We meet back at the dirt pit in twenty minutes. Synchronize watches.”

Five fists met over mulch. Dollface’s Wuzzles watch was the only one that didn’t also turn into a little toy robot. 

“All right. Go.” The children split up and walked onto the patio. Everyone took their places and waited for their cues. Dollface reached into her pocket and took out a little plastic container. She opened it and shook a lump of slime into her hands. She played with it absently while she watched Butch move into place.

Butch walked to the jacuzzi, where three adults were having an animated discussion. He sneezed loudly into his hands and climbed in. The adults, interrupted, stared at him as he began noisily playing with a toy boat. “Pew pew! Arrrrrgh! Ka-plooooshhhhh!!” He sneezed into the water every now and then to punctuate the action. The irritated adults stood up and calmly left the pool. Butch watched them go and pulled a walkie talkie from his bag. “Phase 1 is clear. Go for phase 2.”

Mugsy placed a yellow folding sign on the path to the jacuzzi. It read AREA CLOSED, WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. Four Eyes rushed over with an armload of hose. He threw one end of the hose to Butch, who began attaching it to bubble vents inside the hot tub. 

Mugsy walked to his next cue. On the way, he passed Kevin Fletcher, who was happily fiddling with his GI Joes out on the deck for the envious children around him to see. “Hey man, can I play with you?”

“No, these are mine. Right mom?”

The corpulent woman on the deck lounger said “That’s right, honey booger.” She didn’t even look up from her People magazine.

Kevin smiled a snotty grin up at Mugsy, who nodded and went back on his way. “Just giving you one last chance, fat boy,” Mugsy muttered to himself. He lifted the walkie talkie. “Go for phase 3.”

Dollface yelled “DEAD FROG!” and tossed her handful of slime onto the back of a sunbathing woman who’d undone her bikini top. The woman got up, shrieking, as Dollface ran off. The lifeguard stared goggle-eyed for a moment and climbed down from his chair to attend to the topless woman in distress.

Mugsy spoke into his walkie again. “You’re clear, Four Eyes. Go, go, go!”

Four Eyes lurched from behind a bush, unraveling the length of hose as he went. He got to an access panel at the base of the lifeguard stand and opened it. He attached his end of the hose to a ground pipe. He took a deep breath. “Go for phase 4.”

At the control panel for the pool area, Mugsy muttered again. “This is it, fat boy. This is what not sharing your toys gets you.” He punched the button marked VALVE RELEASE. The air pressure that’d been built up in the hose was released into the wastewater pipes beneath the pool deck. Deck drains all over the pool area gurgled grotesquely. The people surrounding the pool stopped what they were doing and listened. It sounded like the ground all around them was squelching with rumbling burps that were getting louder. 

Suddenly, geysers of gray-brown water shot up from every drain to a height of about fifteen feet. The screams began as the torrent of pool runoff, cigarette butts, liquefied snot rags and god knew what else rained down on the summer bathers. The pool deck of the Fairmont Family Splash n’ Play became a riot of panicking vacationers. Kevin Fletcher was stumbling about howling a high-pitched warble to his mother, who’d rolled off her lounger and was flailing comically. “Id god id by BOUF! Id god id by—“ Kevin threw up down his chest. He slipped in it, fell with a thud onto his bottom, and began wailing.

Mugsy sprinted through the crowd and scooped up the GI Joe case. He got to the high iron fence and tossed it over to Wheels, who was waiting with his green and yellow BMX bike. Wheels, the fastest of the group, was gone in a flash of red rubber and a puff of dust. The children slipped out of the water park in the chaos.

————————

They met at the dirt pit.

Wheels handed the case over to Mugsy, who looked both ways before opening it. Row upon row of sought-after action figures gleamed up at them. “Oh my god,” Butch wheezed.

“One, two… …twenty-four figures. All ours,” Mugsy said. “Dibs on Storm Shadow.” The others whined. 

Four Eyes spoke up. “Wait. We can’t split them up now. We’ve got to lay low, remember? It’s part of the plan.”

“Oh yeah,” Wheels said, turning to Four Eyes. “Why is it that you get to hold on to them?” They all turned to glare at the bespectacled kid. 

Hurt, Four Eyes jabbed a thumb into his chest and spoke with a quavering voice. “Because I’m the one with the best grades, I’m the one that’s gotten into the least amount of trouble. No one’s going to suspect me. No one’s going to demand to search my room. We separate and lay. Low. After a week we divvy up the loot.”

Mugsy’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Fine.” He slammed the carrying case against Four Eyes’ chest. “But if you try to take even one accessory, we’ll know… and you’ll get creamed, nerd.”

Dollface slapped a fist into her palm. “Yeah, we’ll pound you good.”

“We know where you live, geek,” Wheels added.

Four Eyes gulped and took the case. He mounted his bike.

“Hey,” Butch called. “Why did it have to be today, at that exact time?”

Four Eyes shrugged. “Because they flush the drain systems on Saturdays.” He pedaled home, feeling the stares of the others on his back.

He pulled into the driveway, where dad was loading the last of the boxes onto the truck. “Hey, champ! We’re about all set here. Did you say goodbye to your friends?”

“I did,” Four Eyes said, lifting the carrying case full of toys. “They gave me this as a going away present.”  

“Cool! Well, hop in and let’s get going. We’ve got a few hours’ drive ahead of us.”

He loaded his bike into the back of the moving truck and climbed into the station wagon. As they pulled out of his street for the last time, Four Eyes began to inventory his new GI Joes with a smile on his face.