Jackson was drunk, pelting barn animals with stones, while examining the cash from their heist.
“What’re you looking at?” Jackson slurred.
“You promised no killing,” Bert said. “Why’d you shoot that teller?”
Jackson’s face hardened. “Careful, Bert. Having a conscience gets you killed.”
Bert thought about his daddy beating his mama unconscious, how he’d begun slipping sedatives into his old man’s whiskey to get him to sleep, until one day Bert made sure his daddy wouldn’t wake again.
Bert poured two whiskeys, handing Jackson one with a powered rim.
“Not today, it won’t. Cheers. To leaving my conscience at the bank.”
Good story, but the ending was apparent early on.
I think that this is a good story. I have a suggestion you may wish to pursue to avoid giving away the punch line. If you take the long paragraph “Bert thought about his daddy…” and do some editing before moving it to the end. You will achieve the same effect but with a more exciting outcome. Keep expressing your ideas and let your writing develop into great expressions of your self.
I don’t agree with the other comments, giving it all away and all that. I think it’s clever and this is my favourite 101 for a while. I’m more a reader than a writer, and I loved it.
Thank you for your comment. Happy to hear you got what I was going for, which was not suspense or a punchline.
I loved the construction of that final paragraph. Great story. Well done!