His heart was pounding, running on super high octane adrenaline and regular unleaded methamphetamine. Every time that vital muscle contracted and forced oxygen enriched blood through his contracted veins his hand shook slightly. A shaking hand can be a predicament when you’re making a ship in a bottle, building model airplanes, painting miniatures, performing brain surgery, disarming a bomb, or if the shaking hand is holding a nickel plated Colt .45 in some gas station clerk’s face.

“Empty tha fuckin register, you slimy fatass bitch!” Alvin said to Lou-Anne Weatherby.

She pissed a little every time a particularly jarring shake occurred in the chemically altered hand holding Alvin’s pistol. Her dirty, bloated, pink sausage fingers with Wal-Mart manicure, complete with #3’s painted on each nail, stuffed the cash from the register into a brown paper bag. She cried, whimpered, and sweated gallons while wondering if Alvin’s trigger finger might slip and end her days of minimum wage.

“Please,” she begged…..