The Second Doublewide on the Right, part 93

I’m Fixin’ To present part 93 of The Second Doublewide on the Right:

On the Tuesday morning when Jimmy Ray Hurd, along with his two cell mates, and several other prisoners, all had been marched into the Ocmulgee County Courthouse in chains to be arraigned on the criminal charges against them, Jimmy Ray could feel his heart thumping overtime with the exciting expectation of his daring escape caper.

After ascending the worn marble staircase to the second floor the prisoners, chains dragging and rattling, were escorted into the holding room where they would be locked away and wait for their individual case to be called.

Once they were all seated on the benches which lined the walls, the detention officer departed and locked the door behind him.

As soon as that happened Jimmy Ray stood up, walked down to the very end of the bench and resumed his seating position. Through the walls they could hear the sounds of the court, and in a moment the same detention officer returned to the holding room and departed with a prisoner, locking the door behind him.

As soon as the door was closed Jimmy Ray sprang into action. He leaned forward, reached underneath his seat on the bench and there was a small ripping sound when he pulled a small package that had been secured with masking tape.

The room grew intensely quiet as everyone observed Jimmy Ray extract his Slimline Lock Pick Set, the one which was illegal to own unless you were a licensed locksmith.

He wadded up the piece of duct tape and put it in a pocket. Then he went to work on the cuffs on his wrists. When they came loose he looked across the room and grinned at Quantavious. Then he went to work on his ankle irons. By the time the officer took the reverend out he was free of his bonds, but he kept them in place so that it appeared whey were still intact.

They came and got Quantavious next. On the way out of the holding room he looked down at Jimmy Ray and said, “Adios amigo!”

Jimmy Ray just grinned, but when the door closed he stood up and shook his chains off. Then he dropped to his knees, reached way back underneath the bench and ripped out a larger package which had also been duct taped in place.

It was a large plastic bag which contained a pair of coveralls. He extracted them, shook them out and quickly stepped into them to cover his prison garb with the uniform of the contractor that cleaned the courthouse. Their logo was emblazoned across the front and back of the coveralls.

He moved like a cat to the door and attacked the lock with his little metal probes. He heard a couple of gasps from his fellow prisoners when the lock snapped open.

Quite conveniently, there was a push broom leaning against the wall in the corner next to the door. Jimmy Ray grasped the handle of it, cracked the door and peeked outside. Just before he slipped through it he glanced over the room at the other prisoners, grinned again and said, “Y’all please pray for me!”

The bailiff was engrossed with the proceedings going on inside the courtroom and didn’t pay any attention to the janitorial person who swept his way to the top of the stairs, where he parked his broom and casually walked down the marble steps, then down the hallway and out the front door of the courthouse.

His heart was pounding like a jackhammer and he wanted to run, but he made himself walk casually and wait until the traffic on The Square allowed him to cross the street and get into his old pickup truck, where his little sister waited in the passenger seat.

They drove straight through to Panama City, only stopping once in Albany for gas and hamburgers, and had checked into a small motel near the beach just as it was getting dark.

The two of them split all the cash fifty-fifty, and the stolen loot the same as near as they could tell. The next day they found his little sister a little Honda in a private sale and she ended up in Biloxi, where she met and married a jeweler and a pawn shop owner who helped her extract precious stones and melt the valuable metals down.

Jimmy Ray liked it in Panama City—the girls, the seafood and the beer. It didn’t take him long to find a single wide in a trailer park not far north of the city.

He was amazed at the abundance of wealth and opportunity the area offered a person of his trade, and he knew he wasn’t never fixin’ to go back to Apt-To-Miss, Georgia.

(www.teddunagan.com)