I’m Fixing To Play Dead (Part 14).

I’m fixing to play dead (Part 14).

Leon and I had safely arrived in Atlanta, and once he had rented us a room I waited until he had unlocked the door before I grabbed the plastic bag with my extra clothes and dashed inside the motel door and quickly closed it behind me. So far I had been undetected, but I knew I had to be careful since I was on the south side of town where a lot of people would recognize me, and I couldn’t let that happen because I wanted to stay dead.

After that I sent Leon out for some burgers and some brews. When we had finished I knew he was ready to hear the rest of the story when he said, “Listen here, Sonny Boy, I been doing some thinking and I can understand how you feel bitter and why you want to disappear and start your life over, but it ain’t that simple. You can’t do it by just throwing your wallet away. Heck, people are gonna come looking for you.”

“Not if I’m dead,” I told him.

Leon sat his drink down, leaned across the small table, looked me in the eyes and said, “You starting to scare me now. What you trying to say with all this dead business?”

“I was on that airplane, Leon.”

“What airplane?”

“You know, Leon, the one that crashed in Birmingham yesterday.”

He gasped and exclaimed, “You couldn’t have been! The paper said everybody on it was killed, burned to a crisp!”

“Not me. I was on that plane and I walked away from the crash.”

Leon’s face grew pale and he blurted out, “Good Lord Almighty! I’m sitting here with a dead man!”

After I had assured Leon that I was indeed alive, he regained his composure and I began to tell him the story of the plane crash up until the point where he had found me unconscious in a ditch while he had been picking up empty cans.

“I guess I’m just fortunate you came along when you did,” I told him.

“Fortunate! Heck, I would say you are just about the luckiest human being I ever met!” He say in deep thought for a few moments before he continued, “You doing this for spite, ain’t you? And how in the world do you expect to get along in this new life you keep talking about?”

“Trust me, Leon, I been saving up for this moment for a lot of years. I’m very well prepared, and after while we’re going to pick up everything I need to get along in my new life.”

“And where the heck are we fixing to go in the middle of the night?” Leon inquired. “And what we gonna pick up?”

I told him that we were going to my house, but I didn’t tell him what I was planning to pick up.

“If you got a house near here, then how come we staying in this motel?”

“Because if I’m dead I can’t be seen there. What I’ve got in mind is that you drop me off at about three o’clock in the morning. I’ll collect the things I need while you circle around, then you’ll pick me up and we’ll come back here and get us a little shuteye.”

Leon was dragging the last limp french-fry through a pile of runny ketchup, and after stuffing it into his mouth he asked, “What then?”

Leon’s question brought home the fact that I had no idea what was next. After tonight I had no plan at all and no place in mind to go. It had all happened so fast and unexpectedly that I hadn’t even thought about anything past tonight. What then indeed, I asked myself? Where was I going and what would I do. I suddenly realized I had no idea.

Leon interrupted my thoughts when he said, “I mean where do you want to go tomorrow and when do I get my five thousand dollars?”

“Darn, Leon, you sure do ask a lot of questions,” I told him.

“Well, excuse me!” he sarcastically said. “It’s just that this is the first time I ever traveled with a dead man who was fixing to burglarize his own house!”