The Narrator and Rider's Bank Robbery is a completed downtown holdup whose escape exposes the weakness of the partnership behind it: the narrator remains detached and methodical while Rider bolts at the first sight of a police car. The episode also links the robbery to the narrator’s drug dependence and to his efforts to protect Emily from being left without heroin if he is jailed.

The Bath Proposal and the Decision to Rob

Rider proposes a bank in Bath, Ohio, which he describes as ideal for a robbery. The narrator distrusts the suggestion because Rider had previously wanted him to kill a man in Bath. He imagines the proposed trip as a possible pretext: they might drive there under the guise of robbing a bank, only for Rider to redirect them toward the killing. The narrator dismisses Rider as the kind of person who would set up such a switch, and refuses to join the Bath plan.

Instead, he tells Rider to go to Bath without him if he wants, while he intends to rob a bank downtown. The narrator picks Rider up the next morning. Rider is with Pistol, who supplies a gun and advances the narrator two grams of heroin; the narrator promises to give Pistol money that afternoon. The practical arrangements for the robbery therefore begin intertwined with a drug debt and an advance, rather than with any independent plan or crew.

Emily and the Preparation

Because it is a weekday, Emily is attending classes. Before going to the bank, the men stop at her college. The narrator wants to make sure she will have her share of heroin in case he goes to prison. Emily comes out of the main building and meets them in the parking lot across the street. At the narrator’s request, Rider gives up the front passenger seat for her. She asks whether the heroin is good; the encounter makes the planned robbery’s stakes personal and immediate, even before the men reach the bank.

The bank is only a few blocks west. The men park across the street, a little beyond the branch, positioned to drive east again. The narrator tells Rider not to lock the doors and says he will be back in less than two minutes. He has the gun tucked into his waistband, but neither of the two pairs of pants he is wearing holds it securely. The detail leaves him with only one free hand as he crosses to the bank and enters.

The Holdup

The branch is nearly empty: a teller, the branch manager, and a customer. The two men are talking business and, like the teller, initially ignore the narrator. He gives the teller his message. She pushes forward bundles of one-dollar bills, each bundle fastened in groups of fifty. Her name badge identifies her as Sheina. The narrator addresses her by name and tells her not to be ridiculous, adding that she is better than that. She then takes all the cash from the drawers.

The narrator’s response is not triumph or anger. Looking at Sheina’s face and her hostile expression, he feels compassion for her, and thinks that her appearance is not her fault: people do not choose their own eyes. That moment complicates the mechanics of the robbery. He has entered with a gun and is taking money, yet his attention turns toward the teller as a person caught in the situation, not simply an obstacle. The scene’s brief intimacy sits uneasily beside the threat implicit in the holdup.

Rider’s Flight and the Aftermath

Once they are on the highway, Rider wants to see the money. The narrator begins pulling out the bills, counting the bundles, and handing Rider half as he goes. Rider repeatedly demands more. The narrator tells him to stay on the highway, but Rider takes an exit only three exits from where they joined it. A police car is approaching at the bottom of the ramp. Rider erupts into panicked shouting, gets out of the car, and runs away.

The narrator finds the flight strange and cannot see what the problem is. He returns to the highway, taking Interstate 90 east toward Route 271. He smokes Pall Mall cigarettes, burns the paper straps from the bundles, and drops them into the ashtray. He believes he is on schedule; the Gunsmoke is still working, and nothing worries him. The police car has broken the partnership in the getaway, but the narrator continues alone without describing any pursuit or arrest.

He exits at Chagrin, buys burgers at Wendy’s, returns home, takes Livinia out, and feeds her. He then calls Pistol to say that he has the money. Pistol asks whether the narrator will have three and a half grams for him, and agrees when the narrator says he will come by. When they meet, the narrator does not tell Pistol that Rider lost his nerve. He wants to spare Rider the humiliation, and also fears Rider might kill him if he learned that the narrator had told someone what happened. The narrator gives Pistol the money he owes for the three and a half grams, returns the clothes worn during the robbery and asks Pistol to dispose of them, returns the gun, and adds five hundred dollars for the trouble.

Narrative Significance

The robbery’s decisive reversal occurs not inside the bank but on the highway. The teller complies and the narrator leaves with the cash; the supposed accomplice, rather than the narrator, collapses when a police car appears. The narrator’s steady handling of the money and disposal of its paper straps contrasts with Rider’s panic, while his later silence preserves the appearance of loyalty even as he privately judges the escape. That concealment is practical as well as protective: he considers the danger of Rider learning that his fear has been disclosed.

The episode also places criminal action inside an ordinary chain of obligations: a gun and heroin advanced by Pistol, a stop at Emily’s college, cash counted for division, a debt repaid, clothes returned for disposal, and a dog fed after the escape. The narrator’s concern that Emily receive heroin if he is imprisoned gives the planned robbery a domestic consequence without making it an act of provision alone. By ending with the repayment, returned weapon, and extra five hundred dollars, the account closes on settlement rather than celebration. The narrator has escaped the immediate scene, but Rider’s abandonment and the secret kept afterward show how unstable the partnership remains.