I’m Fixing To Play Dead (Part 15)
I’m fixing to play dead (Part 15).
I apologized to Leon for being so short with him and confessed to him that I hadn’t thought any further about my situation of playing dead than the rest of the night.
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do tomorrow, Leon. But I promise you’ll have your money tomorrow morning. Then maybe I’ll have you drop me off some place where I can buy myself a vehicle and then go my own way.”
“How the heck you gonna go somewhere in a vehicle on your own? What you gonna do if the law stops you like the one did us earlier tonight? They’ll haul you off to jail for driving without a license, and since you don’t have any other kind of identification you’ll have to tell them who you are!”
What Leon said had an effect on me because I realized he was right. “I-I-I’m really not sure what I’m going to do, Leon.”
“Ain’t easy playing dead as you thought it might be, is it? You know you could forget the whole doggone scheme—go home and go back to work Monday morning and I’ll just drive back over to the Magic City with my five grand.”
I thought some more about what Leon had said and realized the logic of it. If I went home and went back to work Monday I could continue to pine over my lost love and progress into being a slave for the Government Office of Circumlocution. These thoughts brought me back to focus on the purpose I was proposing and I had to restrain myself from yelling when I told Leon, “Forget that crap. I’m sticking with my plan!”
“Ain’t much of a plan,” Leon said.
“Yeah, maybe so, but so far so good.” I picked up the bedside clock and set the alarm for 2:30 a.m. and told Leon to shut up and get some sleep. “In about four hours you’ll be earning the money I promised you.”
Sleep came to me not long after we killed the lights and the last thing I remembered was the sound of Leon’s heavy breathing in the bed next to me.
The buzzing of the clock jarred me awake. I fumbled around, finally got it into my hands, looked at the illuminated dial and saw that it had worked properly. Across the room I could hear Leon snorting and cursing. “This is worse than prison,” he said in a gravely old morning voice. “At lease they let you sleep all night.”
It was cold and foggy outside. We got into Leon’s truck without talking, but as we exited the motel parking lot Leon asked, “Which way?”
I gave him instructions and it only took about 10 minutes until we were within sight of the street which led into my neighborhood.
That’s when I told Leon to pull over onto the shoulder of the street. When the truck had come to a halt and after Leon had killed the lights I noticed that besides being foggy it was also cloudy and pitch black outside. “Didn’t you say you had a flashlight?” I asked.
“Uh huh, it’s in the glove box, right there in front of you.”
“Listen carefully, Leon. I’m going to get in the back of the truck and I want you to drive on until you come to a four-way stop, take a right there. That’s my street, and when I tap on the back glass it’ll mean we are nearing my house and that I want you to slow down to about five miles an hour so I can slide off the back of the truck. You got it?”
“Yeah, I got it. It sounds like the easiest five big ones I ever made.”
When Leon turned the truck to the right at the four-way I peeked over the side of the back of the truck and saw the dark outline of familiar houses popping up on my right and left. Just before we got to mine I tapped on the rear window and by the time I had scooted back to the tailgate the truck had slowed to a crawl. When I felt my feet touch the asphalt I pushed off from the truck and there I was, standing in the middle of the street watching the truck’s taillights receding into the black night.
I waited until the sound of the truck had dissipated before I moved. I surveyed my surroundings for a few moments but after detecting no sounds or movement I became confident of my actions because I knew it was the time of the night when people slept the soundest, so I trotted across the street and down my darkened driveway, feeling for my key on the way.
Once I was safely inside I turned on the flashlight and made my way upstairs to the master bedroom, opened the closet and there it was.
The old Oleg Cassini suitcase full of money. I struggled to lift it out and placed it on the bed. I spotted a battered Hartman duffle bag in the back of the closet and quickly filled it with underwear, socks, jeans, shirts, sweaters and shoes. The last thing I did was pull my favorite leather jacket off a hanger and slip it on.
Balancing the duffle bag in one hand and the money bag in the other I made my way back outside, re-locked the door and started walking up the driveway. About half way up I saw the perfect timing of the headlights of Leon’s truck approaching. But then two steps later I ventured too close to my neighbor’s property line and his motion lights came on, flooding the entire area with bright lights!
That’s when I knew I might be fixing to be in trouble.