Reel to Real (4 page)

Eloy smiled back.

“Can you start Wednesday morning at seven?”

“Yes, I can,” Esther replied, certain that this was the beginning of many good things to come.

October 8, 1995

After weeks of attending meetings with John and giving him rides, Esther got the chance she had been waiting for. John invited her up to his apartment.

Esther was aware of the rules forbidding socializing with persons in the program, but that didn’t stop her because, well, what was a girl to do?  The only people she knew were felons on parole. Was she supposed to languish in her apartment, friendless, or worse yet, boyfriendless? That just wasn’t Esther. She was a social gal — or could be, if she had someone to be social with. And besides, John was hot.

Sadly for Esther, on this particular occasion, John was the epitome of discretion. He made no moves whatsoever. He did not romance her, he did not flirt with her, and he certainly did not touch her. When he asked her up to his apartment, it was seemingly only to check out a TV set he had just acquired.

After taking a long, slow look, a disappointed Esther drove home.

October 31, 1995

Because this was Shane’s first Halloween since being released from prison, he wanted to have some fun and create a splash. He wanted to try out a costume idea he had been tinkering with for a while. The costume was to represent the late night dangers of convenience store clerks.

For better or worse, one of Shane’s first jobs after leaving prison was working the graveyard shift as a convenience store clerk in a North Valley 7/11 store. Located in one of Albuquerque’s rougher neighborhoods, the area was rife with criminal activities. Shane told anyone that would listen that he didn’t like this job. He considered it beneath him, and resented doing “shit work” like mopping the floor and cleaning the restrooms. He didn’t like the rough neighborhood aspect, either.

The store he worked at definitely had its share of criminal activity. Inside, the shoplifting was rampant; every third customer was a probable thief. Outside, muggings were frequent, and one early morning someone broke into Shane’s car. His front window was shattered, his hood gouged, and his stereo crudely ripped from the dashboard.

Even though the police quickly captured the teenage thieves, the whole episode left Shane infuriated. Needless to say, he lasted less than a month at the 7/11.

Shane had been invited to a party and thought it would be funny as hell to play off of his ex-con/ex-convenience store persona. So he dressed up as a Circle K clerk; a murdered Circle K clerk. He wore the classic white Circle K polo shirt with the classic red Circle K emblem just above his right chest, as well as a piece of plastic glued to the top of his head. The plastic was designed to make his head look like he had multiple gunshot wounds oozing from his skull. He thought it looked pretty realistic.

As a final side-splitting touch, he filled his mouth with fake blood, and during the course of the evening, spit it out onto fellow party-goers as they passed by. It was a laugh riot.

November 15, 1995

It got to the point where Esther was seeing John every day. She knew she wasn’t supposed to, but it was far too late now; she was absolutely nuts about him.

Turned out he was a nice guy. Of course, she knew not to piss him off. That could be deadly dangerous, but other than that, a nice guy.

She had already fallen in love with him. He might even be the one. She knew for a fact that being in his arms was flat out wonderful. She loved being with him.

Wanting to share the news of the new man in her life, Esther wrote a letter to a prison friend incarcerated in Grants, New Mexico. She detailed how crazy she was about the guy and how she didn’t want to lose him.

She told her friend that things couldn’t be going any better. In addition to her fabulous new boyfriend, she had a job, a car, and an apartment. She was paying all of her bills on time, and in general, doing everything she was supposed to do, and then some. She had sworn off drugs (again) and was hardly even drinking, two things that had been her undoing before. She hoped against hope, against all odds, that she could walk the walk of that very narrow line that the people on the inside called the straight world. That idea hadn’t seemed even remotely possible in a long time, but right now, it was looking very, very promising.

December 15, 1995

Shane already knew that when it came time to compose his resume, he was going to have to fudge a little. He was about to apply for a job at PNM — Public Service Company of New Mexico, Albuquerque’s gas and electric company — to work with computers. He was fairly certain the “powers that be” would be a lot more impressed with his credentials if he beefed up a few of his accomplishments.

In reality, he hadn’t even finished high school. His highest level of education was passing the GED test. He felt it would be a lot more spectacular if he indicated that he had two college degrees; one in computer programming and one in health care administration.

He also felt it would help if he embellished his Navy career a bit as well. He noted on his resume that he had a distinguished four-year career as an emergency room corpsman. In real life, he hadn’t even finished basic training. In fact, he had been asked to leave the service after just five weeks.

Shane thought it totally acceptable to dispense with the tedious technicalities that unnecessarily detracted from his awesomeness. Besides, everyone lied on resumes.

Additionally, he felt it would be wise to leave out some of the less awesome aspects of his life. For example, he didn’t like the part of the application that asked whether he had ever been arrested or convicted of any crimes. That seemed nosy. He accidentally checked the wrong boxes on those two questions. Whoops.

On the bright side, his deceit worked out in his favor and he was hired. It was a dream come true for Shane, one where he could finally use his superior mental abilities and get the praise he so longed for.
He loved it.
They even gave him a stack of PNM business cards to hand out, which he did every chance he got. He passed them out to clients and friends as well as total strangers on the street, hoping to impress each and every one of them. Like Esther, Shane’s world was moving along at a super amazing clip; he was making good money and his self-esteem had gone through the roof.

“It is always the best policy to speak the truth — unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.”

J
EROME
K
.
J
EROME

January 7, 1996

For most people, visits to the laundromat are a necessary evil. Scrounging for quarters, searching for available dryers, dealing with the weirdos that frequent such establishments is usually not considered pleasant.

On the other hand, if you didn’t have anywhere else to go, it might not be that bad. If you didn’t have a place to call home, then you just might consider the laundromat a warm, fuzzy place to hang out. That was what Raina thought.

Raina was a free-spirited girl with long, frizzy, strawberry-blonde hair and a fondness for thrift store jewelry. In the sixties, she might have been called a hippie, and she would have taken that as a compliment. She did not believe in judging other people, and in general took a very metaphysical, Buddhist view of the world. She even wore a Dalai Lama pendant around her neck to show the world her beliefs.

About a month earlier, Raina had decided to stop living in her money-sucking apartment and try something different. She opted instead to reside in her big green Volkswagen van. Sure, there were drawbacks, she knew that. No electricity, no plumbing. But the tranquility was priceless and the financial benefits tremendous.

While folding her laundry at the Campus Laundromat on Central one cold winter day, she noticed a tall guy with long, dark hair standing on the opposite side of the table, smoothing out wrinkles in a tie-dyed t-shirt.

“Hi,” he said with a dazzling smile. “I’ve learned how to fold my shirts perfectly in two seconds flat. Want me to show you how?”

“Sure,” she said, and watched him do a quick three-fold process. He finished with his hands in the air as if completing a magic act.

“Wow,” Raina said, more polite than impressed.

The guy told Raina his name was Shane and he had learned this spiffy technique in Asia. As a matter of fact, he had only recently returned from overseas and was glad to be back on U. S. soil. He told her he was even happy to be in an American laundromat. He had been backpacking continuously throughout Asia for the past six years, where, he informed her, they had terrible laundry facilities.

“Oh?” she said. “I thought the Chinese were the laundry masters.”

“Yeah, they probably are, but I was in Tibet and Nepal. It’s quite a bit more primitive in those countries.” Sincerity oozed from his very blue eyes.

“Right.” She looked at him with more interest. “You really went to Tibet? Wow! I’ve always wanted to go there and maybe even try to get an audience with the Dalai Lama or something,” she said, wide-eyed with excitement. “Did you just get back or something?”

“Yeah, I just got back ... yesterday.  The trip was unbelievable. The experience of going there and seeing and doing the things that I did was so spiritual, so magical.

“But I’ve been gone so long, everything’s seems kinda weird,” he confessed. “It’s hard to explain, but it’s tough for me to adjust to being back. I feel like a stranger in a strange land. Like I don’t know anyone anymore. Know what I mean?”

Raina wasn’t exactly sure what he meant but she nodded anyway, happy to have met someone who had been in the same country as her spiritual leader.

She had no way of knowing that what he was telling her was a complete song and dance. He had never been to Asia and he certainly wasn’t interested in anything spiritual or anything Dalai Lama. If he had mentioned to her that he had just gotten out of prison a couple of months earlier, she probably would have had a markedly different opinion of him. She did not have the insight to understand that throughout his copious chatting, throughout his elaborate lies, throughout his phony-baloney folding tricks, his sole goal was to determine how he might make the best use of a person like Raina. How he might help her help him find a way to commit a crime or two.

January 28, 1996

Unfortunately for Shane, six weeks after beginning work for PNM, he found himself in a bit of a pickle. An unnamed source had notified Shane’s dad that PNM was about to perform a routine background check on his son. The source told his dad the investigation should have been done when he was hired but somehow it had fallen through the cracks. When Shane heard about the imminent background check, he immediately advised his boss that he was a convicted felon.

His supervisor thanked him for his honesty and then promptly fired him for lying on his job application.

January 29, 1996

Raina was still living in her green VW bus, despite Shane’s many invitations to crash on his couch. As it was, she was parking her van in front of his apartment on a regular basis and using his facilities when necessary. Shane had been nice enough to her, and even though she sort of trusted him, she didn’t really feel comfortable staying at his house. He was single and she was single, and she didn’t want to give him the opportunity for the wrong things to happen. She had let him know, in no uncertain terms, she had zero interest in men, but she was well aware that some men saw themselves as irresistible.

However, as temperatures continued to drop and each night got colder than the last, Raina had second thoughts about sleeping in her vehicle. One night she woke up with both feet close to being frozen. She vowed to ask Shane the next day if she could sleep on his sofa until things warmed up a bit.

“No problem, Raina,” he said. “Stay over any time you want. My couch is your couch.”

January 30, 1996

When Esther arrived at John’s apartment with some groceries, Shane was sitting on the couch.  She knew Shane was a Community Corrections program member and John had told her that the two of them sometimes hung out together. To her, Shane appeared quiet, almost mysterious. She thought he seemed okay. He certainly didn’t say much.

Shane’s lips puckered downward when Esther walked in. He didn’t seem to want her there. As soon as she sat down, he got up, flashed a peace sign and left without saying goodbye. Esther was perplexed, but glad. It was her intention to have a romantic spaghetti dinner with John. She wanted to be alone with her boyfriend. It was their three month anniversary and even though John didn’t want to make a big deal about it, Esther did.

Esther brought over a bottle of cheap champagne and the two love birds toasted themselves before eating. After dinner, before she put the dishes away, she sat down on the couch next to John and kissed him. He had no reason to resist, and they got into it. Esther told him for the millionth time that she loved him and asked if he felt the same.

“Yeah,” John said, sounding somewhat uninterested.

“Yeah, what?” Esther cooed, trying to pry those elusive words out.

He gulped more champagne, this time straight from the bottle and replied, “Yeah, I do.”

Esther glowed with happiness. “I’ll give you whatever you want,” she whispered. “I just want to be with you, forever.”

John pushed his forehead against hers and reached for the top button of her blouse.

January 31, 1996

In new blue jeans and a black windbreaker, Shane arrived for his weekly meeting with his parole officer.

“How’d it go this week?” his P.O. asked distractedly, peeking out from behind a tall stack of papers.

“Great,” Shane rasped.

“Job still working out okay?”

“Yup.”

“Sounds good. Keep it up. I like it when one of my people does good.” The parole officer penciled the information into Shane’s file.

Even though Shane was required to keep his P.O. informed regarding his employment status, he didn’t mention his recent rotten luck, that he had been fired. Not yet anyway. Not to the P.O., and not to anyone really. In fact, he did just the opposite. He told everyone he met that he was an important Public Service employee and continued passing out what was left of his PNM business cards to anyone who would take one.