Middle Class Depravity

By Elless Bock

Things had been going great for the Davis family, that was until Melissa became gravely ill. Everything fell apart at the same time. This middle-class family's path is now uncertain. What would you do if your family lost its health insurance coverage and a member became deathly ill? This family must think outside the box...and quickly, as time is running out. 

 

This book would be great for any young-adult and up. Easy to read with a nice little prison side-story included. A good tale to make you think a little about our country's healthcare system and the up and coming effects it might have on our everyday families. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elless Bock
• Release date: Sep 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201060947

Elless Bock

Ellis Bock enjoys the warm desert air in the winters and roams the mountains of Colorado in the summers. You can always find her at any local coffee shop, wherever she might be, working on her next story. She likes to point out that her six grandchildren often contribute their ideas to her stories, as well as their awesome use of the English language. "Bro, that is so lit!"

Book preview

Chapter One

Melissa’s Withdrawal

Melissa donned a wig made of shimmering iridescent red hair. It had always been one of her favorites. She wore a black dress then added a pair of Hollywood style sunglasses. The short slinky dress along with the bright red lipstick made her look like either an actress from the red carpet or a highly paid hooker from down on Colfax street.

Melissa already had her bank scouted out. It was a small branch of a Bank of America that was located in a large parking lot. There were also several other businesses in the same area. She knew that this would make it easy for her to park her car out of sight of the bank and in front of some other unrelated business. 

Her plan was really very simple. She would just walk in as a customer. She wouldn’t carry a gun, only a note. The note would merely tell the teller that she was robbing the bank and to pass over all of the twenties, fifties, and hundreds. The note would threaten that she was carrying a gun in her extra-large black purse or tote bag and that the teller should take no action until she was long out of sight.

Melissa pulled her car in front of the Sprouts that was just around the corner from the bank. She was so nervous she could hardly pull the car keys out of the ignition. To calm herself she wondered what her husband, John, and their two sons were doing right now. David was nineteen and in his first year of college. He was hopefully sitting in his Thursday afternoon Sociology class. James was seventeen. He was a junior in high school. He would be in basketball practice by now.

John would still be at work. He was just a low level employee at Northridge Electronics and Aviation, otherwise known as NEA. He’d been a senior software engineer since he and Melissa had first gotten married twenty years ago. John had been happy in his job and therefore he’d never promoted upward in the company. He wanted to have more time with the boys as they grew up. Melissa imagined he was still sitting at his desk working on some top-secret space system. She was sure he probably hadn’t eaten a good lunch and had drunk way too much coffee by now.

Melissa finally pulled the car keys out of the ignition and placed them in her pocket.  She figured she would just leave the car unlocked in case she actually made it out of the bank. She figured it would be one less thing to worry about in her getaway, if she got away at all. 

Melissa took her time walking around the corner of the Sprouts store and across the lot to the small bank. 

Good morning, she politely said to the security guard, who was walking around outside the building between the entrance and the Atm. He didn’t even give her a second glance.

Really? she thought, I thought I looked hotter than that. I must be getting old. Oh well, maybe it’s good that he didn’t notice me anyway.

With a little hesitation, Melissa opened the bank door and walked in. She was grateful that it appeared to be a slow day and that there was just one customer at the teller in front of her. She took a deep breath.

You can do this. It’s for the family. It’s for a better reason, she reminded herself.

May I help you Ma’am? the teller asked.

Yes, I would like to make a withdrawal, Melissa said as she passed the teller her note. She raised her purse up on the counter and kept her hand slightly in it pretending as if there could be a gun inside the purse.

Melissa simply and sternly whispered to the young female teller, Be smart.

The teller looked terrified and just nodded. Melissa appeared calm and confident, even though on the inside her heart was pounding and she too was terrified.

To Melissa’s surprise the teller did exactly what the note said. She handed over all the larger bills in the drawer. Melissa removed her hand from her purse and turned the opening towards herself in a position that the teller couldn’t see inside the purse. She didn’t want the teller to see that there wasn’t really a gun inside. She then calmly and intently placed the stacks of bills in her purse.

When Melissa was done she calmly said, You’d best give me five minutes. You don’t want any trouble.

Melissa then turned and walked out the door, passing one customer coming in just as she was going out.

Good timing.

Melissa wanted to run, but she just walked, never looking back. She surprisingly made it all the way back to her car. She then turned and looked back. Nobody was following her, so she quickly ducked inside her car. Her pulse was going so quickly and was pounding so hard that she thought she was going to pass out right there in the car seat, but she didn’t. 

In what felt like minutes, but was really only seconds, Melissa was able to get her car keys out of her pocket. When no one in the Sprouts parking lot seemed to be around her car, she leaned over and pulled off her red wig and tucked it under the seat.  She also put on a light blue hoodie jacket that had been sitting in the passenger seat.  After fumbling with the keys, she finally got the right key into the ignition and off she went.

Melissa chuckled, Well, that didn’t go quite right. Dang, I got away with it. Now what?

Chapter Two

The Davis Family

John and Melissa had known each other since grade school. They lived close to the fairly large city of Denver Colorado. However, they had both grown up in the same little neighborhood in the suburb of Lakewood. 

Even though they had always been friends, John and Melissa didn’t start dating until John was a Senior in high school and Melissa was a Sophomore. After that, they never parted. They stayed together even while John went to college, then married the year he finished school.

John went straight to work for NEA, an American aerospace and defense technologies company. Melissa had been managing a local sports pub, but she would quit after having their first son David. Two years later, they would have their second son James. 

Both John and Melissa would agree that while the boys were young, Melissa would stay at home to raise the boys. At that time their lives had been fairly simple and their finances had been doing pretty well on John’s salary alone.

Melissa stayed at home until James started first grade. She then went back to work in the sports pub business. The small microbreweries had gotten popular around the Denver area so finding part-time work during the day at that time had been easy.  She could work the lunch hour crowd and still be home for the boys after school.

Life had been good for the Davises.

Chapter Three

Who Buys the Pizza

Melissa pulled the car into the driveway. Her hands were still shaking so intensely that she could hardly hit the garage door opener. As she walked into the kitchen, she found James already home from basketball practice. 

I see you found the ice cream that I just bought, she said.

Yeah, I see you had it hidden in the back. James laughed. Like you think I wouldn’t find it.

Just save some for your father. She clutched his shoulder with her hand.

James reached up and patted his mom’s hand as he said, No worries, Ma.

Short practice today? she asked.

Ya Ma. Game tomorrow, Duh, James replied.

Oh yeah, that’s right. It just slipped my mind, she said as she gave him that look that told James not to be a smart ass.

Uh, nice dress Ma. What’s up with the outfit? James asked.

Oh you just never mind, Melissa smiled back, amazed that her teenage son had even noticed.

She left James in the kitchen to enjoy his ice cream. She knew her teenage son would rather not have to spend his time talking to his mother, plus she was excited to see how much money she’d actually made off with. She hadn’t even stopped to count it yet.

Melissa dumped her large handbag contents out onto the bed. It didn’t seem like it was as much as she had pictured in her mind. Her adrenaline had been so high during the robbery that she hadn’t even noticed what the teller had handed her. It was however, as she had instructed, only twenties, fifties and hundreds, although not so many of the latter. Melissa slowly and deliberately separated each bill into a stack according to its denomination. She was careful to look for one of those dye packs she’d heard about in the movies, but there was no such thing. She figured it was because they were all loose bills. When she finished stacking the bills, she was saddened to see that the biggest stack was the