A Legend In His Own Mind - Who Was That Masked Man
November 27 2009
At this time in my life, the benefits of car ownership were priceless. My Plymouth Duster greatly expanded the range of my dating world. My new girlfriend Sally Smith lived one hundred and fifty miles away in Deep Run, North Carolina a small country town. Every weekend during the summer I made the long drive to Deep Run. I departed for Deep Run every Friday at 5 PM and left Sunday night around midnight for the long, lonely trip back home to Rockingham. Fortunately, Sally was enrolled at St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg. Once school opened in the fall, my two and a half hours of hard weekend driving became only thirty minutes of hard driving. In fact, all my driving in my Duster 340 was hard driving.
Pat Carr, one of Sally’s best friends in high school, was also a student at St. Andrews. Sally thought it would be fun if I could bring a friend along for Pat. Sally and I had some fun times on during the summers in Deep Run on double-dates. On that premises, I picked up my cousin Sam Haigler to travel the roads with me to Laurinburg for some double-dating fun. Pat was majoring in music specializing in voice. I had no idea when I met Pat that fifteen months later she would sing at my wedding. Likewise, neither did I have any idea that fifteen years later I would be a groom either. Cupid will pierce a heart when a victim least expects it. Sally Smith is and presently has been Sally Smith McDonald for thirty-seven years plus.
I pulled out of the Haiglers’ yard onto Highway 1 with Sam riding shotgun. I was running late but knew I could arrive on time. Logic and a heavy foot taught me as long as I was in my 340 I could always make up for lost time on the road. With my left turn signal, I geared down to turn onto Wiregrass Road. I glanced into my rearview mirror to see a ‘67 Mercury Grand Marquis bearing down on my rear bumper. Why was this white elephant in such a big hurry? The driver treated my Duster and me as if we were in his way. Once I placed my four tires onto Wiregrass Road pavement, I pushed the 340 to sixty-five miles per hour in second gear and watched two tons of metal practically disappear in my rearview mirror. I could not use this monster Mercury as an excuse for being late. I was not going to allow that tank to come around me. That wide Mercury would be hard to pass on the narrow Wiregrass Road. Sam and I did not have the time to run fifty miles per hour all the way to Hamlet. Yet, I glanced one more time out my back window as we passed Jack Cooper’s house. Suddenly, the big Mercury again appeared on my rear bumper. My rearview mirror turned into high definition wide screen. It was full of Grand Marquis. I screamed, “Sam, who is that fool behind me?” He wants to run over me. Hold on! We are going to step up the pace.” Gradually, I pushed the accelerator toward the floor. I was running eighty when I passed Billy Willard’s house on the left. One would have thought I was pulling the big Mercury with a three foot rope attached to my bumper. At ninety the Mercury was still super-glued to my rear. As I glanced out my front windshield at the road ahead, a hot-rod genius of an idea flashed in my mind.
“Sam, I am going to slow down enough to allow this moron to pass before crossing the bridge at the bottom of the hill.” After we cross over the bridge, I am going to pass him before we reach the top of the hill on the other side. I spanked him on low end when we turned off of Highway 1 and I will spank him again on top end after we cross the bridge!” I moved my Duster closer to the shoulder’s edge to give an even wider passing lane and eased off the gas. I backed down to eighty as the Mercury cruiser filled the passing lane. The wide Mercury pulled even with my front door as we flew by down the hill by Thrower’s Pond on the left where L.J. Bell principal Bobbie Sue Ormsby now lives. My brainstorm creation was working well. How ironic it was that stranger swallowed my plan hook, line, and sinker as we passed within fifty yards of the banks of Thrower Pond, a Richmond County fishing hole. I had the Mercury hooked. The next step was to pull it out of the water and throw it up on the bank. The Mercury was soon to be another notch in my 340 gun.
I focused on my driving. After all, I was not on a Sunday afternoon leisure cruise. My job lay ahead of me on the long, ascending hill. Curiosity was eating away at me. Just who was that masked man driving that Mercury roadster?
To be continued…