The Man in the Grey Sweatshirt | Teen Ink

The Man in the Grey Sweatshirt

February 8, 2012
By kmccone573 SILVER, Park Ridge, Illinois
kmccone573 SILVER, Park Ridge, Illinois
7 articles 0 photos 0 comments

He walks with his hands in his pockets, completely relaxed to the naked eye. Through that relaxed expression lays a familiar incentive to jump at any cause for action, like a panther ready to pounce. He is a chameleon within the streets, as the bustle of cars and blinking lights distract others from his view. He stops for a moment as he notices the raindrops falling from his worn-out, grey-blue sneakers, but continues as he sees a car pull up to the curb just a few feet in front of him, his blue jeans dragging on the rugged cement.
The door opens before he can reach the handle. Inside, lies a woman with deep brown hair, resting in long locks down her back. She looks as if she came out of an old Hollywood film, with long diamond earrings, a sleek black dress, and the perfect make-up. He pulls himself into the car and shuts the door tight. The lighting in the car is dim, preventing the two from seeing much more than a mere outline of their faces.
"Took ya long enough," he said, assertive, yet calm.
"Well you were the one who decided not to listen to my directions and go down that alley."
"Our job is to follow suspicion, what else was I supposed to do, Carmen? And it worked out fine anyway, they're not going to be talking anymore."
"Yeah, but your cover could've been blown."
"Well my cover's fine, so lets move on. What do we have next?"
Carmen wasn't ready to overlook the incident, but she complied. After all, he was her partner. "Well, because of your little distraction, we are behind. We're going to have to take the back roads. We need to be dressed and ready to go at the gala by 8:00."
She turned to him. He was already taking off his sweatshirt to reveal a black coat and tie. "Done. Ready to go." He takes the papers from Carmen's hands. "Let me see those plan sheets."
"All I know is if you're going to try to kill the president, it’s going to be tough."
Carmen stopped the car in front of the White House. They stepped out of the car to be greeted by two men holding umbrellas.
"Identification!" one of them yelled through the sound of pouring rain.
They showed their flawless fake ID's to the men and proceeded past the gate, and up the front steps.
He had gone from a rugged man, to an elite in just a couple of minutes. Hours passed, the rain continued to fall hard onto the cement and rooftops of Washington D.C. Nothing could ever be heard past the noise of the storm, except for the sound of a single bullet, that is now sitting in the President’s head.

The author's comments:
I oftentimes find myself trying to pin a story on a random stranger that I see in a store, airport, or other public place. I then got to thinking about how my assumptions of their lives are based solely on appearance. What if someone turned out to be exactly opposite of what their appearance suggests? And what if that is what they intended? That was my inspiration for this piece.

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