Reel to Real (5 page)

February 5, 1996

The front door was open, so Shane’s neighbor Jason walked in. A big guy with dark hair and a nice smile, Jason was a grad student at the University of New Mexico. He regularly dropped by Shane’s apartment to hang out and shoot the breeze. He enjoyed the guy stuff they did together, like watching movies and deep philosophical discussions. Today, however, he just wanted to eat.

“Yo, Shane,” Jason said. “Wanna go grab some grub?”

Shane sat hunkered over the coffee table, intently fiddling with something that Jason could not see. He did not respond.

“Hey dude, did you hear me?” Jason called out again. “Let’s go get us some green chile cheese burgers over at the Owl; the one on Eubank. I’m buying.”

Shane continued to toy with the small object. Jason sat down next to him.

“Whataya got there, brother? Oh, wow, dude, you’re not supposed to have one of those.”

“True,” Shane said, his eyes focused on the chrome-plated 9mm pistol in his hand.

“So?”

“So what?”

“So what are you doing with it?”

Shane picked up the gun and pointed it at the wall, right eye on the sight. He leveled his shooting hand with his outstretched left arm.

“This tribe guy from Las Lunas came over last night and gave it to me,” Shane said. “He told me he used to go to school with Raina’s brother. To be honest, I was kind of shocked when he brought it out. It was kind of out of nowhere. But he told me I needed to have it. So I could protect Raina.”

“Protect Raina?” Jason leaned away from Shane. “Hey, that thing’s not loaded is it?”

“Nah, the clip’s over there.” He pointed to a magazine full of ammo on the other side of the table.

“Ah. Okay, I guess,” Jason said, still uncomfortable. “Protect her from what?”

“Well, the guy, he’s Native American or whatever, and he told me that he was with some kind of anti-establishment group. He said he was in an underground-type organization that was going to overthrow the government. Him and his friends was sick of the way the government fucks everything up and they wanted to do something about it.” Shane acknowledged the incredulous look on Jason’s face and nodded. “I know, I know, it sounds bat-shit crazy but for some reason I believe him. I really do. The guy said that if this overthrow thing ended up happening then a lot of people were going to end up getting wasted and he wanted Raina protected.”

“Whaa-at? Overthrow the government. That’s whacked out. He must have been joking or exaggerating or something.”

“I don’t know, man. He seemed serious. Said he wanted to make sure Raina was safe if anything happened of that nature. That’s what he told me when he gave me the gun. He said specifically he wanted me to use it to protect Raina.”

February 10, 1996

Raina sat cross-legged on the floor, plucking the strings of her guitar and humming. Playing the guitar was how she centered herself; that and meditating. Shane was over in the corner, squatting down behind the TV set with a screwdriver in his hand. One of his friends had given him a device that was supposed to provide him with free cable, but he had yet to figure out how to connect it.

Because the installation was not going smoothly, cursing ensued. Raina tried to ignore it. That was just Shane, she told herself. If things didn’t go his way, he got hot under the collar.

When she first met him he seemed a lot more mellow, a lot sweeter. She even mentioned to him that he seemed almost feminine because he was so forthcoming with his feelings.

But he wasn’t like that anymore. Not even close. Staying at Shane’s place had become something of a mixed bag. She was for sure a lot warmer at night, and Shane had shown no physical interest in her, so that was good. What bothered her now were his moods, his non-stop scheming and his macho bullshit pretense. Plus, ever since he lost his PNM job, he had been brooding.

Many days he sat around the apartment all day, never getting dressed, chain smoking and making endless lists on cut-up pieces of paper. She found one of his lists labeled “money mkg ideas.” Some of the items seemed harmless enough, like, “drive pple” and “sell sht.” But the “cc scam” and  “rob rr” worried her. She had no interest in turning him in, but she didn’t know how much longer she could take living with him, either.

“No one tests the depth of a river with both feet.”

A
FRICAN
P
ROVERB

February 13, 1996

On her first airplane ride ever, Crystal Hernandez’s heart was aflutter. Even though she was crammed into coach seating on a full flight, she was in bliss. She pulled out her compact and checked her makeup again. She smiled into the tiny mirror, pleased with the way her heavy mascara and red lipstick complemented her pale, thin face.

Crystal was flying in from Pueblo, Colorado, to meet John Lausell, her pen pal of many years, for the very first time. In his numerous letters to her, he came across as charming and good-natured.  She was so captivated by him, that at one point she considered making the long trip to Grants, New Mexico, to visit him in prison. She even went so far as to fill out a visitor application form, but because she couldn’t bring herself to check the box regarding prior convictions, she decided not to go. She told herself it was better to wait until he got out. She was young, she had time.

In order to take this trip, Crystal had taken vacation time from her minimum-wage job as a salad lady at Furr’s Cafeteria. John told her he would pick her up at the airport; meet her at the gate. They planned to spend the next five days seeing the sights of New Mexico and enjoying each other’s company. That was what he had told her.

Seated in a window seat that overlooked the sprawling city of Albuquerque, Crystal clutched a small blue box tied in red ribbon. During an earlier phone conversation, John mentioned that her arrival coincided with his birthday, so she brought along a small bottle of cologne as a present.

When the plane finally landed, she could barely contain her excitement. She had never seen John in the flesh. He had mailed her a picture of himself, but when she got off the plane, when she actually saw him, she could not believe how handsome and manly he was. She gasped in joyful surprise and ran up to greet him with open arms.

“Wow,” she said. “It’s great to finally meet you in person.”

John flashed a toothy smile and said, “Yeah.”

Crystal swooned.
I love this vacation
, she thought.

February 17, 1996

The charred slices of bread lay like thin black corpses on the bare Formica table. The toast was Esther’s attempt at nutrition, but she could not eat. She wasn’t starving herself because she was overweight, which maybe was a tiny bit true, but because she was utterly, utterly lonely.

Esther had waited for John to call, but so far that hadn’t happened. She looked at the phone and it looked back. It wasn’t ringing. She knew why, but she didn’t know
why.

She could not get him off of her mind. She was crazy, crazy in love with him. In her head, it was only a matter of time before they got married and lived happily ever after.

Absently, she picked up the receiver and punched Shane’s number. No answer. Shane was the go-between. She had already tried calling him dozens of times, not just today but all week. Either there was no answer or Shane said John couldn’t be reached.

Shane was John’s buddy from prison. They weren’t buddies
in
prison, John told her, but now that they were out, they were. Because John had an out-of-town visitor, he had given Esther strict instructions not to call him directly or even think about coming over to his apartment. John told her to call Shane, or to wait.

Periodically, she would burst into tears and then recover. The waiting was awful. She didn’t know what to do with herself, how to pass the time. Mostly she smoked cigarettes and drank lite beer. She’d been drinking all day and had gotten to the point where she was ritualizing her actions. She’d drink a beer, smoke a cigarette, dial Shane’s number, walk to the front window, gaze expectantly outside for few minutes, then walk dejectedly back to the table and throw her empty can onto the ever-growing pile of trash in the corner of the kitchen.

As the hours wore on, Esther became increasingly agitated. The beer was not helping. All it did was make her pee and upset her stomach. She was getting edgy.

She needed to see John, to smell him, to hold him. He had told her to leave him alone for the next five days because of this visitor. Esther didn’t like being without John for five minutes, let alone five days. Worse, his visitor was another woman. John had told her it was no big deal, not to worry about it; the visit was not about sex, he was just visiting with one of his prison pen-pals. Esther wanted to believe him but she knew how powerfully attractive he could be.

A little Polaroid of John was pinned to the side of the kitchen cupboard and Esther stared at it again and again. Sometimes she walked over and touched it. Sometimes she had a conversation with it. Occasionally she even yelled at it.

“You’re a God-damn heart breaker, John Lausell,” she shouted, wagging her finger at the picture. Even in the faded photograph, John looked great. She thought about how handsome he was, what a great laugh he had, and how great he was in bed.

She did not let herself think about his horrible temper or his irrational jealousy. She knew about his conviction for aggravated assault, but that was quite a few years ago. He told her that he was a lot more mellow now. But the thought that was making her crazy, the thought that she kept trying to force out of her head, was of him lying in bed with his visitor, this new woman; whom she had never met.

Esther started to feel desperate. She decided she needed something stronger to drink, so she walked to the Stagecoach Lounge, a cowboy bar down the street.

It was dark inside and the bartender was drunk. One of the regulars lay curled up in a dusty corner while two older redneck types played liar’s dice on the far side of the bar. Esther sat by herself and ordered a shot of Crown Royal, straight up. She only had enough money for two rounds, but luckily a newly-arrived wrangler with a droopy gray mustache and a loosened red tie sent over a couple more shots.

With each gulp of whiskey, new courage crept over her. It had been days since she’d seen John and it had gotten to the point where she needed to do something about it. She decided she could wait no longer, she must speak with him. It was theoretically possible that he could be in some type of trouble and might need her help. She asked the bartender if she might borrow his phone to make a local call and then dialed John’s number, her lips trembling.

The phone rang at least ten times before a deep, hoarse voice answered.

“Yeah,” the man said.

“John?” Esther questioned.

“What do you want?” John said rudely. “I’m busy.”

When Esther heard John’s voice, her mind raced. She couldn’t prove anything, but something about the huskiness of his voice indicated to her that he was having sex with someone, at that very moment. She knew from experience that that raspy tone meant only one thing. She felt herself slipping off the deep end. She started to flip out.

“I need to see you, John,” she said, breathing heavily. “Just for a minute. I’m going crazy not seeing you.”

“Go crazy somewhere else, crazy lady. I don’t care what you do. I told you already, leave me the fuck alone. I’ll be over to see you when I’m over to see you.” He hung up on her and the loud click bounced around Esther’s head like a rock in a metal bucket.

With her elbows on the damp bar, Esther sat there, the phone still stuck on her ear. Her breathing was shallow and her face was squished up, prune-like. She couldn’t believe this. Her worst nightmare: she had caught him in the act. She was sure of it.

All her irrational nightmares had come true. He had forsaken her for another woman; he had traded her in. For the past four days, he had been over there fucking this God-damned slut non-stop. She grabbed her purse and staggered home.

What a fool she had been. Her mind exploded like a million camera bulbs popping at once.  When she got inside her apartment, she numbly got undressed and filled the bathtub with water. She needed more pain, not the searing psychological blast that John had just skewered her with, but something more physical, something she had control over.

In keeping with her dark mood, she turned the bathroom lights off. Hot water poured from the faucet, steam floating upwards. Contemplating her imminent untimely death, Esther lit a single candle and slid into the water, a new razor blade between her fingers.

She cried. It was hard for her to visualize the world going on without her, but it would have to. Big fat, sloppy tears dripped down Esther’s bloated, pathetic face and into the tub, becoming one with the bathwater.

Before performing her final deed, and as a courtesy to her friends, Esther wanted to let someone know where to find her. She needed to make a few calls. In fact, she ended up calling everyone she knew. Sadly, Esther’s bad luck continued as not one of the people on her list answered their phones. But she kept trying. When she reached the end of her list, she re-started and called everyone again. Finally, one of her friend’s son’s friends picked up.

“Hey,” a low voice said.

“Hello?” Esther sobbed, surprised to make human contact. “Who is this? Is Patty there? I gotta talk to her.”

“No, she’s not here. I’m Ethan. You can talk to me,” Ethan said helpfully.

More sobbing, “Who are you?”

“Ethan, Tommy’s friend.”

“You sound like a kid. I’m not talking to you ...”

“I’m old enough.”

“Well, I’m too depressed.” Sob. “I can’t talk to someone I don’t know.”

“Maybe I can help.”

“You? You can’t help.”

“Yeah? Try me. What’s wrong?”

“I think my boyfriend’s seeing someone,” Esther blurted out.

“Sounds like a jerk.”

“No, no, he’s not. I just really, really need to see him.”

“So are you going to see him?”