Greed - O Level

Re-creation of what I wrote for my O Level English paper. Obviously it's a whole lot sleeker and shinier than the original, thanks to my shitty memory and perfectionist streak. Major plot occurences have been left unchanged.

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Being an outlaw isn't easy. I have done burglary, small theft, big theft, robbery, armed robbery, been caught in a few gang fights and was even an assassin for a while. I was not too proud of that last one, and quit, but nevertheless I needed money again.

Johnny put his best foot forward and with a sharp crack, the apartment door came off its hinges. He was taking point this time and stepped onto the carpet with his pistol up, grinning from ear to ear. It was only on raids like this that he would smile. I would have blown the lock with a blast from one of the scatterguns we packed -it was a faster method of breaking and entering - but some locals tended to place their valuables just outside the front door.

On the other hand, it tended to give residents more of an advance warning. A shotgun protruded into the right side of my peripheral vision and I leapt forward, catching the business end and forcing it down. Somewhat surprisingly, my left hand managed to wrench it out of the girl's hand - the attacker was a girl - and then I swung the butt of my revolver upwards. It was only a glancing blow but she fell immediately.

Johnny hissed and checked the rest of the rooms. No one else was in. Hastily, my partner tried to replace the broken door and cover the windows, but there were no curtains. There was not much at all. Johnny's grin had faded, but we bound the young, half-conscious girl and scoured the house anyway.

The revolver in my hand was actually my father's. He would probably be spinning in his grave if he knew what I was doing with his lawman's sidearm now. He had a single letter carved into the barrel every so often, aiming to have his pet phrase on it like a signature. He had been proud of himself, my father.

"Greed," he would say to me on one of his rare nights home. "Never take more than you don't need. Corrupts you, turns you into a monster."

Eventually his salary petered out and he only ever got up to "Greed". I snorted at the irony and went back to throwing items into my sack. In the only other room Johnny had a slightly thinner sack. He had been a devoted communist before the Soviet Union fell apart. Johnny's brain had probably suffered the same fate - at times he would spend days on end at the casino, hardly eating. There was irony there too.

There was so little that it made more sense to put all the loot in one sack instead of dividing it between Johnny and me. During the transfer, the young girl started weeping.

"Please..." she whimpered. "We're poor..."

The sack that was holding it all ruptured and spilled out onto the floor. A big bunch of coins mostly, a little bronze-coloured medal, a couple of blunt knives, and a lot of dust.

"My father, please... he's a policeman."

I winced. It was all there, heavy on my shoes. Both of us, my partner and me, looked down at the pickings of the day. Tomorrow we'd be back at the casino, in the drug alley, in the brothel, in the gun shop, then back to this business.

"Please, I be -"

Johnny grabbed the girl and hit her across the head.

"Let's sell you, cunt." He was gripping her breast and pulling her up. "Let's just sell you."

"No, let's go," I heard myself saying. "Leave it and let's move on to the next apartment."

Johnny didn't budge.

"Come on. There's nothing here-"

"The world owes me!" He was suddenly shaking more than the girl was. "I need this. I need -"

Abruptly, he released the girl and stepped out over the ruins of the door. The girl cowered.

After a while, I unholstered my father's revolver, dropped it on the pile of things, and left.


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What was added in post-exam:
Additional descriptions
Father's quest to inscribe catchphrase on revolver.
Extra irony
Johnny's use of the word "cunt".
Johnny's shaking.
An explanation of why Johnny didn't just shoot the lock and push open the door.
The sack spilling out the loot and the symbolic meaning that came with it. In the original, the robbers just threw all the stuff into a pile.
This version's portrayal of Johnny is more sympathetic. In the original he started grabbing boobs when the girl revealed her policeman father, instead of being hit with the symbolism first.
More relevance to greed.

What was kept in:
The breast-grabbing. I am sorry to say that this bit made it into the version that I handed up for the O Levels.
"Let's sell you."
The girl's pleading.
The girl's father's occupation, and how Johnny winced at it.
Johnny and his past
Protagonist and Johnny's habit of wasting their ill-earned money on gambling and other pursuits (original version had no explicitly-mentioned drugs, brothels, or gun shops though)
The girl's shotgun and her getting revolver-butted
"The world owes me, mother-fucker!"
The character's extensive experience in the criminal world.
The symbolic meaning of the father's revolver
Protagonist's father being long dead.
Withholding of the protagonist's name.
The ending.

What was left out:
I remember harping on about how lawless the protagonist's lifestyle was, and as a result ended my composition with "I have rules, too." But I guess it was a little off-point, so I took it out.
The father's advice also used to be something about keeping to your principles, but in the middle of the exam I crossed that out and wrote something about greed to be more relevant.
Johnny was portrayed less sympathetically as a slightlty bigger dirtbag in the original incarnation.
My cock