Play Dead (Part 16)
I’m Fixing To Play Dead (Part 16).
Here I was, dead, as far as the whole world was concerned, that is, except my new friend Leon, who had transported me from Birmingham to Atlanta, after I had walked away from the big jet plane crash.
And now I had successfully sneaked into my house during the wee hours and retrieved the old suitcase containing the six hundred thousand dollars cash I had rat-holed over the years, and a duffle bag full of my clothes and was proceeding up my driveway toward the street where Leon was going to pick me up when my neighbor’s stupid motion lights had come on trapping me right there on the concrete in the open.
While I stood there frozen in the lights like a deer his stupid dogs began to bark and lights began popping on inside his house and I could see shadows moving inside of it. My neighbor was up. If he saw me and recognized me my whole plan of disappearing and playing dead would be gone up in smoke. In the meantime I could see the dim headlights of Leon’s old truck as it approached to pick me up.
My neighbor’s front door was opening at the same time as Leon’s truck began to slow to a crawl out on the street. At that precise moment I knew I couldn’t make it to the truck with out being seen, so I dashed across my yard and slid the bags and myself underneath the shrubbery on the far side of my driveway.
Once there, I silently cursed Leon when he actually brought the truck to a stop directly in front of my house. I was horrified when my neighbor started walking straight toward the truck, but then breathed a sigh of relief when Leon gunned the old truck and sped away.
After Leon and the truck were gone I remained in a frozen position under the bushes until my neighbor and his dogs calmed down. It seemed like an eternity, but finally the outside lights went off and a few moments later the inside ones also went dark; still I dared not move. I lay there on the cold ground for about 15 minutes wondering if and when Leon would come back. To comfort myself I snuggled up in my leather jacket and wrapped my arms around the suitcase of cash.
Finally, mercifully, I saw the lights of the truck off in the distance, slowly approaching. I timed it just right, dashed out dragging both bags with me and with the truck still moving I threw them on the back of the truck, jerked the passenger side door open and leapt inside. “Go, Leon! Get the heck out of here fast!”
Looking back I saw my neighbor’s lights flashing back on, but they disappeared as we rounded a corner and were gone.
“What the heck happened?” Leon asked as he maneuvered his old truck out of the neighborhood. After I had explained to him about almost getting caught in the lights by my former neighbor Leon said, “Yeah, I knew something was amiss when I saw the lights come on and then the guy coming toward me, so I just took off and went and got myself a cup of coffee, figured I would let things settle down a little before I tried again.”
“You did good, Leon. You’re a smart man,” I told him.
“Lot smarter than you—got that nice job and now you gonna run off to God-knows-where, and to what? I been on the run before and I can tell you it ain’t no fun.”
“Yeah, but you were running from the law.”
“And you running from yourself. One’s almost as bad as the other.”
I considered what Leon had said while we were driving back to the motel, and it did give me some second thoughts. I could just walk away from my job and my ex-wife and start my life over being myself instead of being dead and becoming somebody else.
But deep down I knew I wanted something more that that, and I had this sinister feeling that fate was leading me to it. As we were pulling into the parking lot at the motel I told Leon, “I’ll find myself and be better off for it. You can count on that.”
“The only thing I want to count on is getting my five big one’s. What else do I have to do and when do I get paid?” Leon inquired as he pulled into the parking lot right in front of our motel room door.
“I won’t need you beyond tomorrow and you’ll get paid by the end of the day. I just have to figure out where I want to go from here. Help me get my bags inside. You get that duffel and I’ll get the big old suitcase.”
When we were safely inside Leon tossed my duffel bag on my bed and headed for the bathroom. I put the suitcase next to it, took the tiny key which was attached to the handle by a small chain and unlocked it.
I just wanted to see the money. I lifted the lid just enough so I could peek inside, and there it was—stacks and stacks of 50 dollar bills all in bundles which totaled up to 600 thousand dollars.
I quickly closed it, locked it back and placed it on the floor in the small area between my bed and the motel wall. That way I knew I could reach out and touch it from my bed.
I was stripped to my underwear and slipping underneath the covers when Leon returned from the bathroom and asked what time it was. “It’s 4:30 in the morning,” I informed him as I switched off my bedside lamp. “I’m not going to set the alarm clock. We’ll just get up when we wake up.”
“That sounds good to me,” Leon agreed as he began to undress. “I ain’t stayed up this late since the last time I was in Biloxi gambling. I like to gamble all night and sleep all day.”
It got quiet for a few moments and I felt myself slipping away until I was jarred back to wakefulness when I heard Leon say, “I shouldn’t have had that coffee. Wake up, Sonny Boy, I’m wide awake and I’m fixing to have something to say.”