The Second Doublewide on the Right, part 28
I’m Fixin’ To Present Part 28 of The Second Doublewide on the Right.
Jimmy Ray Hurd stood up, ready to depart the company of Elroy Allday and the 142 club. But before he left he leaned over and got nose-to-nose with his accomplice and said in a low and threatening voice, “You remember what I used to keep in a secret pocket of my backpack when we used to go to school together?”
Elroy’s eyes grew large as he stuttered, “You-you-you talking about that doggone big switchblade knife, the one you used to scare the crap out of me with?”
The knife in question was the only thing Jimmy Ray had left which had belonged to his daddy. The sides were milky white pearl, smooth as lacquered wood, and housed a five inch blade that he kept sharp as a razor. It had a button on the side that you could press with your thumb causing the spring loaded blade to snap out with such sudden force that the knife itself would leap out of your hand if you didn’t have a good grip on it. There was another little button below the release one which served as a lock to prevent the blade from going off in your pocket and slicing your leg off.
“That’s the one, Elroy,” Jimmy Ray whispered softly as he remembered when they were kids and he used to flick the blade of the knife out to within an eighth of an inch from Elroy’s nose and watch him go limp and turn pale. “I still got it, and if you screw this up I’m gonna cut your fat nose off with it!”
Elroy almost swallowed a chicken wing bone. When he recovered his voice he whined, “Dang, Jimmy Ray, ain’t no need of talking crap like that! I’m gonna take care of everything. I need that money! Heck, I got to have that money!”
Whispering even softer Jimmy Ray continued, “Then you do everything just like I told you. You drive in there right as it’s getting daylight, pick up the dumpster with the red X on it and drive away. Don’t stop anywhere to get a biscuit, don’t stop for nothing or nobody, just drive directly to the meeting place. You got that?”
“Heck, yes, Jimmy Ray, I got it. Dang, I ain’t stupid!”
“One last thing,” Jimmy Ray said while gritting his teeth and muffling the words, “you mention one word about any of this to anybody and I’ll cut your fat tongue out, too!”
On the way home Jimmy Ray stopped by the Piggly Wiggly and picked up some groceries. When he got to the check-out his buggy contained a loaf of white bread, baloney, wieners, a jar of apple jelly, a box of Captain Crunch and a case of Old Milwaukee.
He was back in his trailer by ten o’clock and had his beverages iced down. He passed out about two in the morning and slept it off until noon on Saturday.
Late that afternoon he began to get everything ready. He took the duffel bag he had bought and folded it flat and put a strip of masking tape around it. The bag was meant to serve two purposes before the night was over. As an after thought he slipped a small coil of wire and a pair of pliers inside the fold.
The only other pieces of equipment he needed were the can of red spray paint and a short-handled sledge hammer. The hammer was a relic from the days when he had worked at Scooter’s Tire and Lube. He placed everything inside of a laundry bag and drew the drawstring tight.
For dinner he grilled some wieners, rolled them up in slices of white bread and washed them down with his ice-cold beverages, but he only allowed himself to have two, because he knew he had a long night ahead of him. After setting his alarm clock to go off at one o’clock in the morning, he stretched out on his bed and fell asleep.
When the jangle of the clock woke him up he sat up and immediately cut it off and then went to the bathroom where he washed his face in cold water. Then he donned a black sweat suit complete with a hood and put on a pair of sneakers. With the laundry bag in hand he locked the trailer door after him and stepped out into the darkness of the night.
When he got to town he pulled into the parking lot of the Waffle House. As usual it was packed at two o’clock in the morning. After a Saturday night of revelry, folks who hadn’t bothered to eat dinner, or who had the munchies, flocked to the Waffle House this time of morning.
He found the least desirable parking spot any restaurant patron would desire, the last one on the end of the lot, in the shadows, next to a small and dark side street across from the mall, where his big caper was fixin’ to be waiting for him.