Life's Simple Truths

In movies and books, as in any fantasy realm, the hero or heroine always wins. It's the rule. No one wants to read a book about a hero who fails after struggling through his fears, doubts, loss, and crushed dreams. People want to experience a story with a happy ending, a story in which the hero struggles through pain or endures and ends victorious. People want to know that if they suffer, they will prevail in the end. Why do people want this kind of story?

To detract from the reality of life.

Life doesn't play by the rules of fantasy or Hollywood. Life doesn't care if you did everything you could because sometimes your best isn't good enough. Life doesn't let the ugly man or women get the prince or princess because people are too shallow to look past the surface. Life doesn't let you walk away from an explosion without falling flat on your face because of this great thing called "physics". When you stand up against corruption and organized crime, you get shot. It's not dramatic or inspiring. You die, and your name is aired on television for maybe a minute before the news resumes their talk of Kim Kardashian and dozens of other celebrities who have done nothing to impact our world other than to make us hate ourselves in favor of their image.

If you aren't remarkable, no one cares about you, but if you're too remarkable, greatness is expected of you. It's one of life's simple truths.

The story I'm going to tell you is not a story that you want to hear, but it's a true story. It's my story, and it's the same as countless other men and women who die without having their story told simply because it's unremarkable.



At 19, I became a teller at the nearest national bank. I was excited about getting the job despite its low pay and that it was quite a drive from my university. It didn't matter much anyway since the car I had got great gas mileage. I liked dressing nicely and carefully handling people's checks and cash, knowing that for those brief moments, they had placed their trust in me. I liked my job despite that many of the people I dealt with didn't want to be there. I wasn't an especially exemplary employee, but I worked hard and did a little extra if we weren't busy.

For two years, I worked diligently at the bank. I had good credit, a healthy personal life, and the only debt I had to worry about was my student loan. My co-workers didn't hate me, but felt no particular kinship with me, either. My boss liked me, but not enough to give me a promotion. In college, I got Bs. High Bs if I studied. I wasn't involved in sports or extracurricular activities. I had a few boyfriends throughout my life, and the man I was engaged to was the same as the others before him: level-headed, reasonable, and complacent, just as I was. He was responsible and reliable, never doing more than was expected of him. He was an agent at an insurance company, had completed some college but never received a degree, and he liked Rice Krispies. Like me, he had no desire to break free of the ordinariness of a simple lifestyle.

I was just as ordinary as he was. I was afraid to upset anyone in a position of authority, I never did anything blatantly wrong, and I never tried to go above and beyond. I suppose I could have been called "good" or "nice", but I was just normal. I still had mean thoughts in my head when I got cut off driving to work, and I sometimes took paperclips home from my desk at work. I was just me, and I worked enough to get the job done well, but not extraordinarily well. I liked puppies and light rock music, and always waited in lines without complaint. I knew I wasn't especially intelligent, beautiful, or strong. I was average, and that was fine by me.

That's why I surprised everyone I knew (including myself) when I tried to become a hero.



The night before, I remember telling my sister repeatedly on the phone, "I can't do that. It's against policy." I remember it so well because I was lying on the couch eating Wheat Thins, watching CSI Miami, and wearing black yoga pants as I waited for my fiancee to come home from work. It was my typical Tuesday afternoon.

"It's such a pain!" she complained over and over again. "I can't make it there before the bank closes. Work won't let me leave early for this. Please, just this once?"

"I can't risk getting fired," I told her as gently as possible, although in my head, I was repeating shut up. Please just shut up. "I know it's going to be tough for you to make it here before we close, but I really, really can't do that. I know you think what you're asking me to do is something small, but it isn't. I really could get fired for that."

After I finally managed to convince her enough to hang up, my fiancee opened the front door and stepped inside, stamping the snow off his shoes and hanging up his scarf and hat. Welcoming him home with a kiss to his cold lips, I started dinner. It was Caesar salad and some recipe that I'd seen earlier that afternoon on Rachel Ray's cooking channel.

The end to my typical day was snuggling into bed next to my ordinary fiancee and going straight to sleep while he read a paperback that he'd purchased from the bookstore down the street. Our lives were comfortable and unchanging, and we had no desire to change that.



That day was not especially cold or windy. The weather was the same as it had been the previous day and the day before that. The sun was shining weakly from behind a veil of clouds and snow was still falling in small flakes. The air was cool and crisp, but not biting. It was the anticipation for Christmas and Hanukkah that made the city seem more alive. In many places, trees and signs already were decorated for the holidays. People had lawn ornaments displayed already. When I got to work that day, I hung up my coat and scarf as usual and stuffed my gloves into the pockets. My cheeks were just a little rosy from the cold, and I poured myself some coffee from the pot in the back. The day progressed at a regular, even pace.

When a man brought in his son, I gave him a green apple lollipop. When an elderly woman came in having trouble seeing the words on the deposit slip, I helped her fill it out. When people came in angry for having to wake up early or come here on their lunch breaks, I let them grumble at me and said nothing. It was as it had always been.

An hour or so before we were to close, my sister came in. She looked at me unhappily, but there was a hint of relief in her face. She hadn't expected to make it in time. She filled out a withdrawal form and handed it to me, that same displeased expression on her face. I typed the information into our database and handed her the money she requested. As she walked away, I began to assist the next customer.

Then, gunshots rang out. A woman screamed and everyone squatted immediately, looking around in fear for the shooter. I peeked over the counter to see three men in ski masks shoving through the doors, pushing my sister back inside and throwing her to the ground. The other tellers squeezed their eyes shut and some were whimpering softly. My heart was pounding so hard I felt faint.

"Everyone down!" one of the men bellowed, even though we were already squatting. "Follow our instructions and we won't hurt you!"

"You!" another said, the tallest of the three, reaching over the counter and grabbing one of the tellers' ponytails. He pulled her to her feet with it and she struggled to stay standing as he rested the end of the gun at her temple. "Put the money in the briefcase! All of it!" A brown briefcase was slammed onto the table, snapping open loudly. "Don't try anything, or I'll kill one of them," he said, pointing at one of the many customers huddled in fear on the floor. She began to pile the bills into it, tears running down her face.

"And you!" he said, gesturing to me, "Get whatever's in the safe in the back." He nodded back to one of his friends to go with me. I waited with my hands raised for him to accompany me. He grabbed my sweater and held me in front of him while we wound through a few hallways and back toward the vault.

"Don't try anything," he reminded me curtly, pressing the gun to my back. A gunshot rang out, and I nearly jumped. I entered the combination to the safe, my mind foggy with fear. My hands were shaking and sweating. I could hardly walk. The wide door swung open and I felt his grip on me slacken as his eyes took in the piles and piles of money inside the vault. A sudden and decisive emotion gripped me and I elbowed him as hard as I could in the gut and, when he bent slightly and made a noise of surprise, I put all my power behind a punch to his throat. He crumpled and I stood there shaking, disbelieving.

I had done something more than average. I had done something brave.

It took me a moment to gather myself enough to pick up the gun that he had been holding. I wrenched it out of his hands, pushed him into the safe, and left him there, closing and re-arming the pass code as I left.

I didn't have much time. Soon, they would know that something had happened to their friend. I tossed away my high-heeled shoes and rushed down the hallway as silently as I could manage. I almost ran into one of my co-workers on the way there. She had managed to slip away and she was sobbing quietly against the wall of the hallway.

"I know you're scared, Brenda. I'm scared too," I told her in a whisper, shaking her a little. "But you've got to be brave." She nodded. I showed her the gun in my hand. "I beat up one of them and took his gun. I left him in the safe." Her eyes widened with surprise and admiration. "Call the police. My cell phone is in my coat pocket in the back room. If I die, tell them you don't know the pass-code to the vault. Tell them I was the manager, and I was the only one who knew. Okay?" She nodded again, wiping her face with her arm. "Go!" I hissed, watching her leave.

I continued down the hall and all too soon, I was in front of the door to the lobby. I took a breath and told myself that I could do it. I had to. I pushed open the door-

And the shortest of the three, the one who hadn't said anything, unloaded three rounds into my chest. I fell to the floor, almost unable to feel the impact of the fall for the pain in my chest, like three cold knives. I gasped in a breath, trying to hold onto the gun and point it at the one who shot me. From the corner of my eye, I saw my sister on the floor too, her blonde hair turning red with her blood.

"That's what happens to heroes," the short one told the others, kicking the gun out of my hand. My heart was pumping wildly, and I could hardly breathe. I was terrified. "Come with me and open the vault," he said to the only male teller, dragging him in front of him down the hall. I sucked in another breath, watching my blood pool onto the tile.

What seemed like moments later, the three men were leaving with two duffel bags and a briefcase full of money. Michael, the male teller, had never returned. A child was crying across the room and Angie, the other female teller, fell to her knees behind the counter. My vision faded to brown, and then black. No one came to me or my sister. I heard the distant wail of police sirens, but I knew they would be too late.

In all of my comfortable and average life, I had never truly thought about good and evil, heroes and villains. I'd never thought about what it really meant to be ordinary or extraordinary. I only thought about living simply and contentedly because I hadn't really been thinking. I only thought about living life in a way that I knew what to expect each day and it wasn't out of my comfort zone. I was just existing. I hadn't been living.

Sometimes the hero doesn't win, even if he tries his hardest. Sometimes, there is no hero. Sometimes, you don't live happily ever after.

I met my sister's eyes. They were already glossed over in death, but her expression was terrified. In that moment, I realized that I didn't know what her favorite color was, whether or not she liked reality TV, or what she wanted to name her children. I couldn't recall any special memories from our childhood. All I could remember was her phone call the night before, begging me to break the rules just once for her. Her voice was a faint echo in my head.

In the last moments of my life, I realized that I had never truly lived.