The Second Doublewide on the Right, part 45

I’m Fixing To Present Part 45 of The Second Doublewide on the Right:

There were rivets around the edge of the top of the duffle bag which Jimmy Ray Hurd had stuffed with stolen guns, ammunition and precious jewelry. There was also a prong to slide them down on and a clasp which hooked through the prong to secure the opening. When he had made the bag secure he grabbed the strap and began dragging it toward his entrance hole.

When he got there he had difficulty deciding whether to push the duffle bag out first or drag it out behind him.

He decided on the latter because he wanted to be sure nothing was out there before he showed himself.

Jimmy Ray emerged from the hole in the wall like a mole in night, dragging his bag of booty behind him, and sighed a great sigh of relief when he was completely through and that the alley was just as he had left it.

Now all he had to do was get the bag out, which proved more difficult than he had anticipated. When he drug it half way out it got stuck. He put his feet against the wall and pulled with all his might, but to no avail. The bag was like the squirrel who had squeezed between the bars of a bird feeder, and then had eaten so mush until he couldn’t get out the way he had gotten in.

“Son-of-a-gun,” he silently cursed in the darkness as he gave up and realized he had two choices—to take the hammer out of the bag and beat the hole bigger, or open the bag and pull enough of the contents out to make it small enough to pull through.

Once again, he chose the latter, after which he opened the bag and began puling jewelry, boxes of ammo and handguns out onto the asphalt. Once he had a great pile beside him, he reached inside the bag and pulled enough of its remaining contents forward to make it slim enough to pull through the hole.

He breathed an even greater sigh of relief as he began replacing the items he had extracted from the bag. A little niggling feeling of concern was growing inside him because he knew he had been there too long and was pushing his luck. In his haste he dropped a few shiny and valuable items, but he left them where they had fallen, because at this point he just wanted to get the bag closed, get it into the dumpster and get the heck out of there.

After he had drug the bag to the dumpster with the red X’s spray painted on it, he opened the side door very slowly to avoid making a loud noise. It took all of his strength to lift the duffle bag and tumble it inside the dumpster. It made a loud thumping noise when it landed inside. After he eased the door closed and secured the latch he glanced all around looking for any loose ends before he fled the scene. The only thing he noticed was the pile of debris where he had hammered out the hole in the wall.

“Ain’t no need of Elroy seeing that,” he said to himself as he headed toward the hole, where he stuffed the pile of broken concrete and sheet rock back into the cavity so that it wouldn’t be too noticeable in the dim light of early morning when he arrived with his dump truck to pick up the dumpster.

Finally, it was over and Jimmy Ray was back inside his truck in the Waffle House parking lot where took off his gloves and hooded sweat shirt, which he used to wipe the perspiration off himself before he slipped into a plain gray sweat shirt he had brought along. That’s when he realized how ravenously hungry he was and headed for the restaurant. The first thing he did was go to the restroom and wash up before he settled into a back booth.

“Good morning, hon,” the waitress said as she placed a paper place mat and silver ware on the table. “You want to see a menu, hon?” They always called you that—short for honey.

“No, ma’am,” he replied. “I need me four scrambled eggs, double order of bacon and some hash browns scattered and covered, toast and ice tea, please.

Jimmy Ray was languishing over his meal and sopping up the remnants of it with the last scraps of his toast when the waitress asked him is he wanted a piece of pie. He declined and while he was paying his bill she said, “Thank you, hon. You have yourself a nice day. Mine’s fixin’ to get crazy because it’ll be daylight in a few minutes and this place will be covered up.”

“Daylight! holy crap!” he thought as he hurried toward the door knowing that anytime now Elroy ought to be fixin’ to show up in that big dump truck.