Tears on a Sunday Afternoon - Michael Presley [28]
“Daddy, can you take me to school in the morning?”
“No, Emerald, I have to leave to go on some business later tonight.”
Emerald’s face looked sad. “I wanted you to take me to school.”
“I’m sorry. I promise that I will take you to school the day after tomorrow.” I felt terrible, disappointing my son, but I had to take care of business.
“You promise.”
“I do. Now come give your dad a kiss and I will see you tomorrow.”
After my son left I started to get ready for my trip to upstate New York. I was going hunting. The FedEx package Donna had sent to me was on the table in my room. I hadn’t opened it, because I knew it contained the wig that I was to use in the robbery. Donna had said she would order it and I would pick it up from her. I wondered what had made her change her mind on the procedure. She had obviously ordered it and sent it directly to me. Could this be a ploy on her part? I took the package and tossed it into the back of the Hummer. I had already hidden the gun under the spare tire. I was dealing with the root of all evil; yet my time to contemplate various actions was limited. The wig had arrived at a perfect time. It gave me an opportunity to prove Donna’s theory. Tomorrow morning, I was going to be a blond white man.
Chapter 7
14TH DAY
I was glad I didn’t drink any more Heinekens because the trip upstate was going to take at least two hours. The only good thing was that I was leaving at night, therefore the traffic should be very light. From the FDR I was going to jump onto the George Washington Bridge to the Palisades Parkway onto the 87 thruway and head toward upstate New York. Fisher’s Hunting Park was approximately two hours away from New York City. Even though the Hummer averaged less than ten miles per gallon, the large capacity of the tank made it possible to drive for hours without refueling.
At 10:00 p.m., I got off the Palisades at a rest stop ten minutes from the George Washington Bridge. There was only one other car parked about ten car lengths from me. I waited fifteen minutes for the other car to leave. Even though the Hummer was a few feet above the ground, the windows weren’t tinted; therefore anyone could look in. And even though New Yorkers wouldn’t come to your rescue if a crime was being committed, they were very curious people. I walked to the back of the truck, opened it and pulled out the package. I looked over at incoming traffic and saw a car’s right signal light on. I quickly got back into the car and waited. The green Honda Accord seemed to have changed its mind and kept going with its right signal light still on. I sat down in the passenger side, a nervous wreck. I hadn’t done anything wrong; yet my forehead was sweating profusely. I placed the black fitted stockings over my head, using my right hand to secure my hair underneath. I then slipped the blond wig over my head and adjusted it while looking in the mirror.
The transformation was immediate. The person looking back at me was no longer a light-skinned black man but a white man. I quickly discarded the box in a garbage bin that was filled with McDonald’s and Burger King bags. I walked confidently back around the truck and climbed into the driver’s seat. I looked into my rear view mirror and pulled out of the scenic rest stop. I changed the radio station to CD 101.9 and settled in for the ride to Fisher’s Hunting Park.
As the city, with its smog and human congestion lay behind me, I was feeling good about the openness of the suburbs. Houses were no longer yards apart but often as much as a mile. Most tourists had never heard about these suburbs, where white picket fences and cows and pigs are a common part of everyday life. No, they preferred to think of New York as a congested and polluted place, where people would rather shoot you than say good morning. I cracked the window to take in some of the freshness of the outdoors; knowing that as fast as I was leaving, I would be returning to the city of my birth. In the back of the car were a hunting bag, raincoat and dark sunglasses.