Play Dead (Part 11)
I’m fixing to play dead (Part 11).
It kind of put a damper on my enthusiasm when Leon enlightened me with the information that he was a parolee, but I figured things were too far gone to turn back now so I asked, “But you are still willing to take the chance of going to Georgia for one night to earn that five thousand, aren’t you?”
“Shoot, yeah!” Leon replied. “Five grand is enough inspiration for me to take a little chance. It would just be a lot more consoling if I knew exactly what I had to do to earn it.”
“All you have to do is drive me to my house in Atlanta, so I can pick up a few things late tonight. Then we’ll get a few hours sleep in a motel, leave town before daylight tomorrow morning.”
“What about after that?” Leon asked with a suspicious look on his face.
“I’ll need for you to drop me off somewhere—not quite sure where yet, but as soon as you do that you’ll be free to drive back to your trailer,” I informed him, which seemed to put him at ease.
We were on Interstate 20, about 45 minutes east of Birmingham, crossing Logan Martin Lake when Leon inquired in a soft tone which sounded as if it wasn’t meant to offend, “Your real name ain’t Ralph Cooper, is it?”
He was driving 55 MPH in the right lane, just as I had instructed him to. I had been thinking over everything that had happened since we had left the city, and I had decided that just maybe, just maybe, I could trust him. He reminded me of my Uncle Virgil, the one who had raised me after my Aunt Fanny had passed away.
Realizing that I had no choice except to trust someone, I decided to level with him. “No, Leon, it’s not. Ralph Cooper was an old high school buddy who got himself killed in a car wreck. My real name is Todd Prescott, but folks who know me real well call me Sonny Boy.”
Leon was grinning like a mule eating briars when he stretched his right hand across the seat and said, “Real nice to meet you, Sonny Boy. Now that we know each other would you please tell me what’s going on? I mean, I find you in a ditch, you lie about the condition you was in, about who you really are, and now we’re going off on this mysterious trip and I still don’t have the foggiest about what’s going on. Would you be kind enough to enlighten an old man?”
At first I had thought I could pull this caper off by myself, then I had thought I could do it with only a small amount of outside aid. Now, I knew better. I had to have a trusted partner to get through this thing, at least the initial part of it, and it appeared that this old guy, Leon was the one I had to trust; in fact I had no choice of anyone to trust other than him. I had to tell him the whole story, well, most of it.
Glancing out the window of the old truck I saw the last fingers of the lake as the last rays of light played off them. “You ever been fishing out on that lake, Leon? I’ve heard there’s some great bass fishing out there.”
“Listen here, Sonny Boy, I ain’t never been fishing on a lake, never played no golf, and I ain’t never dined at a fine restaurant but two times in my life. I ate me a fine meal at John’s in downtown Birmingham the day I got out of prison and again the day I retired from the sanitation department. Hell, I was born poor and had a relapse.”
As we rolled down the interstate, I found myself thinking about what a hard life Leon had had, and I began to feel real sorry for him. That’s when I remembered a time in my life when I had been poor and underprivileged. It was in the fall when I was eight years old and after I had gone to live with my Uncle Virgil, whose trailer was tucked away in the middle of five acres of woods, but surrounded by big houses, ritzy neighborhoods and country clubs.
He was there at his fruit stand that afternoon when I got off the bus with a bloody mouth. I remember seeing the concern in his eyes when I explained to him I had been in a couple of fights because the other kids had been making fun of my clothes for being old and too small. “They been calling me Rag Muffin all day!” I told him through trembling lips.
Uncle Virgil had chewed on his lip for a moment before he asked, “Where do you suppose they get their clothes?”
“Probably at the mall,” I informed him.
I’ll never forget how my uncle had closed the flaps on his fruit stand and told me to get into his truck, after which I became the best dressed kid in my school, and when I turned 16 he had bought me a little Chevy Luv pickup truck.
I was jarred from my thoughts of the past when Leon said, “What you done got all quiet about?”
“Just thinking,” I told him. But what I didn’t tell him was that I had just realized that I could do for him what my uncle had done for me long ago. Now, through Leon, I had an opportunity to pay life back for its kindness to me.
“I thought you was gonna talk while I drove,” Leon said. “Seems like I’m doing both. I thought you was gonna tell me why we going to Atlanta, and all about what ever the heck else is going on!”
“Okay,” I agreed. “Here’s the deal—-”
“Oh no!” Leon interrupted as the flashing blue lights came on right behind us. “We fixing to get pulled over!”