Read ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) Online
Authors: Glenn Langohr
ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) (51 page)
Then Sarah had a string of things go wrong. Trouble at work, a D.U.I and then her car broke down and she was stuck in our cave. I came home from a long day and she let me have it.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into moving in with you! I wish I wouldn’t have let myself fall in love with you!”
I was stunned. I’d never seen Sarah’s strong and independent spirit getting this emotional. I’d always looked at her like an incredibly attractive tomboy. I watched her cry and felt my heart opening and realized I’d kept it closed this whole time. Then she confirmed it.
“You don’t even treat me like a girl friend. You never take me out to dinner, we never go anywhere or do things couples do. You’re just using me for sex and to help you out with your mortgage!”
I thought about her words and that she’d fallen in love with me and didn’t feel like I had with her. I thought about how chaotic my financial struggle to operate my business was, dealing with so many bills and realized I was just like my Dad. I was a miser. I told her, “I’m in love with you too. I’m just lost in a sea of bills and can’t keep up with how much money is coming in and how much is going out. I’ll make it up to you as soon as I can…”
After that fight I felt Sarah pulling away from me and closing her heart. I tried to hold on to her by doing everything I could think of to bring her pleasure in bed to the point her pleasure was my pleasure and I got really creative. The incredible highs we reached in bed weren’t enough; it was just mind blowing sex to her and didn’t have anything to do with love. I still felt her sliding away and looked at it like it was the suffocating feeling of poverty she couldn’t handle. I realized I didn’t want to be in the cave all alone and fought to get her back in love with me with flowers, candy, lingerie, stiletto heels, dinners, movies, trips and even more creativity. I felt her coming back to me and responding to my creative ways with more and more unbridled passion. Then poverty reared its ugly head even harder.
We were given notice by our community that the builders were coming for reconstruction. I had noticed in my escrow papers that a law suit had been won to deal with faulty drainage that was creating mold. The condos were situated underneath a prominent hillside that drained into our pit bowl. I read the details of the law suit and saw that money had been allocated for hotel accommodations while the builders were reconstructing. I convinced Sarah it would be good for us to get away and live in a hotel, it would be like a vacation, and we could get really creative.
Then the builders came to our unit and apprised us that the money allocated for hotels was being used elsewhere. We were going to have to make our own living arrangements for up to a month and a half. We started hearing stories of other condo owners who were already having work done in their units living in their garages. A school teacher with kids was hit so hard she attempted suicide. I sweet-talked Sarah as much as I could, hoping she’d buckle down and survive some hard times to make it to the glorious ones. She was responding to our increasingly erotic, carnal exploration of salacious ecstasy I was creating and I convinced us both it was love.
The next domino to fall happened on 9/11. The tragedy that sent shock waves around the world was going to directly affect the economy and even more directly every transport business from the airlines to my business. I went from having twelve hour days to nothing. The hotels were dead. I got so desperate I went to L.A.X. to try and poach rides and the always busy airport was like a ghost town with speculation the terrorists were focusing on it. I tried to do the same thing at the Orange County airport. I stood by the curb holding a sign with a pretend name on it right next to the cross walk to the taxi mart. I felt so desperate and hinky telling people under my breath walking to the taxi mart, “I’ve got a town car for the same rate as the taxis, right this way.”
It worked! I walked a customer to my car and thanked God! This string of volume might get me through!
The customer was only going across the street to a hotel and I got five bucks. I drove back across the street to the airport to try again. Another customer must have heard me poaching because the taxi mart had security posted up. I tried my fake sign again willing to wait for an opportunity to open up, saw one, had a customer walking with me and saw security coming. I had to race out of the airport. I researched how much trouble I could get in for poaching and learned I would lose my limo license, get fined and go to jail. A couple of days later without any business, I tried again without my PRESTO 1 plates. I got chased out and this time I had to break all kinds of driving laws to get away.
The weeks passed without any business. I sat at my condo alone while Sarah was at work. I evaluated things. A sinking feeling of despair started developing that I was going to lose everything. It felt like I wasn’t capable of keeping up. I wasn’t financially good enough for Sarah. I couldn’t afford my business anymore. I magnified on it until it felt like I was sliding down another black hole similar to the one I remembered from my past. I felt those desperate times that brought those desperate actions knocking at my door. I didn’t want to answer it so I prayed about it and thought things out.
I finally had time to do my accounting properly and learned my average month’s overhead was $5,000. I learned that my average month’s income was $7,000. I had a nest egg to cover three months. As the days passed without any business the feeling of impending doom grew. I knew what I needed to do; I needed to end Prestigious Transport to eliminate 75% of my expenses. I couldn’t do it. Thoughts entered my head that business could pick back up again pretty soon.
My second year of parole came and I again hoped for a discharge. It didn’t happen, but I got released from high-control parole down to regular supervision. My first thoughts were, I just had a caring human being with an open mind in charge of my freedom, what if my new parole officer isn’t like that?
The next morning there was a loud persistent knocking on the door that was obviously law enforcement. Sarah had just got out of the shower and was putting on make-up and getting ready to go to work at the Saint Regis. I closed the bathroom door and walked to the door and heard her reopen it and say, “There isn’t a window in here! I have to keep the door open so it’s not a sauna in here!”
I opened the front door and saw a skinny lady wearing brown Dickie pants, a badge attached on one side of her hip, a gun holstered on the other side of her hip, with a white tee shirt tucked in, a focused pretty face and brown hair. She had detective Pincher right behind her and too many gang task force detectives behind him to count or fit in my patio.
The skinny lady said, “I’m agent Stepwolf and your new parole officer. I’m doing a home visit.”
I reluctantly stepped inside knowing everyone wouldn’t fit in my tiny condo. I said, “My girlfriend is trying to get ready to go to work at the Saint Regis.”
Agent Stepwolf squeezed through the space and said, “I’m going to need her to take it out of the condo so we can conduct a thorough search of your residence.”
I knew Sarah was almost late for work and had to step further into my condo as it quickly filled up with gang task force agents. Detective Pincher stepped up right next to me and said, “This place is tiny! How in the hell can two people live in a place this small?”
I heard Sarah yell from the bathroom, “Get out of here! I’m already late for work! Get your hands off of me!”
I watched my new parole agent Stepwolf take over and tell Sarah, “Listen young lady, your boyfriend has a very serious criminal file, he’s on parole and his residence is subject to being searched 24/7 so get used to this. Now, you can walk out of here while we do our job, or I can handcuff you and remove you by force. It’s up to you.”
I watched Sarah walk out and say, “You lay one hand on me and my Dad will sue you! Why don’t you leave my boyfriend alone? All he does is work, he hasn’t turned in one dirty test and 9/11 is wrecking his business. Give him a break!”
I studied agent Stepwolf’s face and body language and saw her react to Sarah’s independent spirit aggressively. Sarah was halfway out and agent Stepwolf grabbed her arm to steer her outside. I watched Sarah resist a little out of frustration and then she was outside and out of view. I watched the gang task force search. Two of them were in the bathroom, only three fit in the bedroom, only three fit in the living room/kitchen where I watched with detective Pincher. A couple other detectives stood at the front door with a couple more behind them. The two at the door looked at detective Pincher and asked, “Where do you want us to search?”
“Just search out there on his patio. This guy lives in a shoe box; there isn’t any more room in here. It’s pathetic.”
I studied detective Pincher’s face. He looked like he was taking in my struggle, and understanding it, and enjoying it. There was a lot of loud reconstruction noise in the background that included jack hammers, saws, hammering and occasional yelling from construction workers.
Detective Pincher looked at me and smiled. “How do you live with all of that noise every day? While I was driving around the complex I saw people living in their garages. Is that what you’re going to do when it’s your turn to have your condo turned upside down?”
I still didn’t know what Sarah and I were going to do.
Detective Pincher asked, “When are they going to be in your condo?”
“I don’t know.”
I watched detective Pincher nod like he cared. I knew he just wanted to know what my plans were so he could sweat me.
My home phone rang. It went to my message and we listened to it. “This is Benny with Prestigious Transport. We’re here to serve all of your ground transportation needs with all varieties of limo’s and town cars. Leave a message with your name and number and we’ll get back to you promptly. Have a good day and God bless you….Beep.”
We all listened to the caller. “Benny, this is Linda at the Monarch Marriot. I have a client who needs a car to get to L.A.X. here within ten minutes. I called you first so if you can get here in time call me back right away. I’m going to give you a couple minutes and then call the taxis. Have a nice day.”
I looked at detective Pincher and said, “I have to get to that call. That will be my first job in a month since 9/11! Can I go?”
“No. Your agent is still outside with your girlfriend and isn’t done with her home visit with you. She’s going to run down her program to you. You’re going to have to sit tight and miss this one.”
A couple hours later my new parole agent and the gang task force finished vetting my condo and I was left with the task of putting everything they’d dumped upside down back together. Everything in a cabinet, drawer or on a hangar had been tossed in a heap. I started with Sarah’s clothes and put them back in her drawers and on hangars and thought about my new parole agent. She’d just moved to parole from probation. I knew that probation officers were so hard core that they didn’t feel like they were doing their job unless you went to prison, I was in for a rough ride. Sarah called while I put things back together.
“Benny, your new parole agent is a bitch! She told me I should move out of your condo, that you were really bad news, that you had enemies that were dangerous and that I wouldn’t be safe with you. She tried to befriend me and tell me that I deserved way better than you and on and on. You’re screwed with her.”
Every day I watched the construction workers inch closer to our condo. I had to come up with a plan. They were going to be in our unit any day now. Sarah started getting harassed by construction workers cat-calling her in the parking lot when parking her car from her shift at the hotel, so I started meeting her as she pulled up. One night she got out of her car and I told her, “I’m going to rent a hotel for us.”
“You can’t afford to pay your mortgage, limo bills and a hotel for six weeks, it will break you. I’m going to my Dad’s house. You should call your Dad and ask for his help.”
I couldn’t do that.
The construction workers made it to our row of condos and I was delegated to my garage. I noticed some of the other condo owners doing the same thing. One made a room out of his garage with a bed, dresser, T.V. and the whole nine. My mind was too busy trying to wrap around every aspect of my struggle to do anything other than sleep in my Town Car inside the garage. I couldn’t sleep. I imagined how my car barely fit into the garage. It started to feel like I was in a coffin.
Vince wrapped his body around Candy’s in a spoon position. She was facing the other way and he breathed in the fragrance of her shampoo and thought about things. I’ve been out of prison for almost three years; I’m off parole and back in Orange County. Why did I feel so drawn back to this county? Why didn’t I just stay in Bakersfield with my Mom where parole and life was so easy? I know why, life is boring out there and I missed this area.
Feeling Candy’s heart beating too fast and her foot kicking, Vince thought about being released from Pelican Bay and then High Desert. He remembered paroling with Damon and the pact he made not to do any more speed no matter what! He remembered telling Damon how he could see that speed the biker slammed into his vein clearly, how it sent him off on a path that went in so many directions, but guaranteed that it would end in prison. Now here I am, discharged from parole and back in Orange County with this gorgeous girl, Candy, for the past two months, and her heart is beating to fast.