Reel to Real (13 page)

After the money exchange, Adam signaled for his wife to join him at his vehicle and they drove off, leaving Shane and Esther standing alone in the parking lot.

10 PM

Pueblo, Colorado

Club TLQ had smoking hot disco music and a big dance floor. Crystal found it impossible to get John to dance but that didn’t mean she ever stopped trying. She loved a night out and if she couldn’t dance with her man then she would dance with whomever was willing. Tonight, her best friend Belinda and her husband Ed joined them. Ed was a good dancer, which let John off the hook.

John had his own agenda. He spent his time playing darts, hustling fellow patrons for a shot of whiskey a game. After a few hours of darts, John was knee-walking drunk.

10:30 PM

In the car, in the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot, Shane said, “Hey, we gotta few hours to kill before we go do the video place. We oughta try this bad boy out right now.” He held up the TEC-9 case.

A cold wind ruffled Esther’s hair. She had her window fully open, wanting the breeze. The excitement of buying the gun had already worn off and her mind was elsewhere. She watched an animated conversation between a man and a woman inside the doughnut shop. The man resembled John.

She turned her attention back to Shane. “What’re you talking about?”

“Let’s go get some bullets and shoot this thing. I wanna see how it feels. The shotgun’s in the back. We can try that one out too.”

Esther frowned and shook her head. Nearby, a metal cable clanged against a rusty metal pipe. Her head pounded.

“I don’t want to go anywhere right now. I need to lie down, take a break. I’ve got a migraine or something.” She rubbed her forehead. “You go.”

“No, you gotta go,” Shane said with an authoritative tone. “You need to know how to shoot ’em, too,” He leaned towards her. “Just in case.”

“In case what?”

“In case people start shooting at us and I need help.” Shane was sort of smiling when he said these words, but sort of not. “I need you to know what you’re doing.”

Esther didn’t understand. Why did she need to practice shooting? She had no plans to shoot anyone. Shooting practice might be fun at some point in the future, but not now. Too loud.

“I really don’t want to,” she said

“We’re going.” Shane gave her a playful slug her on the shoulder. Esther did not smile. “We gotta go to Walmart first and get some ammo,” he said.

Esther stared straight ahead.

He gave her a look and started the car.

On the trip to Walmart, Esther leaned her head against the window to feel its coolness. For relief. 
What have I gotten myself into?
she thought.
Seems like when he gets something in his head, there’s no stopping him.

When they got to Walmart, the store was almost empty. There was one clerk in the sporting goods section, no other customers in sight.

Shane picked out a fifty round box of 9mm shells, plus two boxes of ammo for the shotgun. He said he wanted one box of the regular buckshot and then another box of slugs in case he needed more impact. Esther did not ask him what he meant by that.

When all the ammunition was completely bagged, Esther paid. In less than fifteen minutes they were back in the car driving east on Interstate 40.

11:30 PM

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“This thing shoots sweet,” Shane said.

Esther cupped her hand over one ear. “Can’t hear you,” she said.

“I said,” Shane screamed, holding the TEC-9 over his head with one hand. “This fucking gun rocks.”

Esther nodded. Her assignment was to practice with the shotgun. Shane loaded the ammo for her and explained how to hold and shoot the gun. Wanting to get it over with, she pumped it once and pulled the trigger.

Blam
.

The shotgun flew out of her hands and landed on the ground. She stared at it. She never expected it to have that much kick.

“Try it again,” Shane said, laughing. “Brace yourself this time.”

Esther did as she was told. She picked up the gun and braced her legs against a nearby cedar tree.
I don’t want to do this
, she told herself. She clutched the grip as tight as she could and pulled the trigger again.

Blam
.

This time the kick drove her backwards, slamming her against the tree. She teetered sideways, struggling to stay on her feet.

Shane smirked.

“Shut up,” Esther said, lowering her eyes. “I didn’t want to do this shit anyway.”

There was a pretty good-sized hole in the ground next to where she stood. It had been Shane’s idea that they shoot their guns into the dirt to lessen the chance of drawing attention to themselves.

“Ha. That fucker has a mind of its own.”

Shane returned his attention to the TEC-9.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

“I could do this all day but I don’t want to waste my bullets,” he said.

Esther put the shotgun down on a nearby boulder.

Shane turned to her. “What?”

“I’m not messing around with this anymore. It about knocked me out. Give me the one you got. Let me try that one.”

Shane looked over his shoulder to check for passers-by. They were positioned behind a chain-link fence next to a ridge and were pretty isolated. It was maybe a half a mile off I-40, on a back road near a very noisy cement plant. He did see a house up the hill, a few blocks away, but even if anyone did hear the gun shots, he doubted they would be able to place the location of the sounds.

He handed her the pistol. “Okay, but you probably
are
going to like this one.”

Turned out she did like the TEC-9. It was heavy but it felt better in her hands and had almost no kick whatsoever. She thought it much more suited for a smaller female like herself.

Shane picked up the shotgun, spread his legs to steady himself, then pumped and fired three times into the dirt. He looked at the shotgun in his hands and then at the large holes in the ground and nodded in approval.

Esther flinched at every round. “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

“Yup, we better. We’ve been here too long.”

They jumped back into the car and drove to Shane’s apartment. Shane left the engine running, dashed inside and stowed the TEC-9 and shotgun in a duffel bag in the back of his closet. He grabbed the two unloaded BB guns from his nightstand and sprinted back out.

Saturday, March 2, 1996 1:50 AM

CLOSING

Empty trash

Collect receipts

Change tape

Turn lights off

Lock doors

Almost all of Hollywood Video's closing procedures were done prior to locking the doors. The employees weren’t required to do the checklist in order, they just needed to make sure they didn’t miss anything.

While the manager, Mylinh, secured the doors, Sheila changed the tape. She took Tape #1 out of the recorder and placed it in the filing cabinet. She then took out a new tape, marked it as Tape #2, put it into the VCR and pressed “record.” The numbers corresponded to the dates of March 1st and  2nd . Because they had a multi-camera sequential storage system, all the cameras recorded onto one video tape at the same time.

1:50 AM

The black Pontiac Fiero pulled into the parking lot of the Hollywood Video store on San Mateo Boulevard just as one of the employees locked the front door. The “OPEN/CLOSED” sign had already been flipped to “CLOSED.” Shane looked at Esther and frowned.

The store was supposed to stay open until 2AM. It was only 1:50 AM but the interior lights had already been dimmed and no customers appeared to be in the store.

“What do you want to do?’ Esther asked.

“Let me think for a minute.”

Shane and Esther watched the employees clean the store and shut things down.

“Plan?” Esther asked, eyebrows going up.

“Jowanda’s here, and I know she likes me,” he said with a wink. “I’m gonna go see if I can’t get her to let us in.”

He knew Jowanda from the Hollywood Video on Central where she used to work, which happened to be the store where he rented the majority of his videos.

“Do you see her?” Esther asked.

“Yeah, she’s in the back. She’ll come up front when she sees me.” He opened the car door. “I’m gonna go try and get in.”

The two had arrived ready for a robbery — BB guns, gloves, duct tape.  Shane wasn’t exactly sure how many people would be working, so he brought two extra rolls of tape, just in case. He carried them in the side pocket of his jacket.

The plan was to: go in, tie the kids up, take the money and leave. This was the way they had done it at Mac’s Steak in the Rough, so the thought was that, once you have something that works, keep it.

Shane told Esther he liked the particulars of this Hollywood Video. It took in lots of cash, especially on weekends, and it was isolated. Nearby businesses closed by 9 PM at the latest, and there was no security guard inside.

But first they had to get in.

Shane walked up to the front door and pulled hard. Locked. One of the employees, a skinny white chick he didn’t know, walked towards him. He flashed a big smile, motioning for her to open the door.

The employee shook her head and pointed to the closed sign. Shane’s smile disappeared.

***

The store closed early because Hollywood Video ran their clocks fifteen minutes fast. A fast clock cleared customers out quicker. Once the customers were gone, the employees could finish their business and go home.

Jowanda usually locked the front door but tonight Sheila did. Sheila, a cashier, worked Friday nights along with Mylinh, the night manager, Zach, a key holder and stocker, and Jowanda, another cashier. Because Jowanda and Sheila attended high school all day and then worked a seven hour shift, they were anxious to get off work.

Mylinh was in the back room counting cash and Zach was sweeping the floor when Sheila saw a guy jump out of a sports car and run up to the door.

She saw someone else in the car too but couldn’t make out much about them other than that they wore glasses. She couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. Whoever that person was, they did not get out of the car. The person that did get out, a man, was over six feet tall, with shoulder-length bushy blackish hair, and facial hair — a mustache and part of a beard.

Sheila was about a foot away when the man yanked on the door with both hands, scaring her. When he discovered the door would not open, he asked Sheila to let him in.

“We’re closed now,” Sheila said, pointing to the sign.

The man clenched his teeth. “My watch is slow,” he said. “Let me in for just a second. To grab a movie. I’ll be quick.”

He pulled hard at the doors again.

“I’m sorry, we’re closed,” Sheila repeated.

The man glared at her as he banged his fists on the door several times. Then, abruptly, he gave up, strode to his car, and drove away.

Unaware that the man had already left, Jowanda called out from the back, “Don’t let him in.”

“I didn’t,” Sheila said, taking a ragged breath. She then sat on the floor next to the cash register, legs crossed. Jowanda joined her.

“That guy, the one that was at the door, gives me the creeps,” Jowanda confided. “He’s always coming in here acting like he’s an expert or something on movies, which he’s not. Even worse, he’s always trying to hit on me,”

“Gross,” Sheila said.

***

They were parked on a darkened residential street a block away, and Shane was seething. Staring into the night, he made unintelligible sounds and bobbed his head.

“Bitch,” he said, the left side of his mouth quivering. “Fucking bitch.”

Esther did not know what to do. “Calm down,” she said.

“That was a mistake,” he roared. “She shoulda just let me in.”

“Things don’t always go perfect,” Esther sighed.

“Stupid bitch.”

Esther shifted uncomfortably. “We can come back some other time.”

“Yeah, we will. We will,” he said, wiping the spittle from his mouth with his hand. “Tomorrow.” His voice was quieter now. “Next time we’ll leave earlier. Next time we’ll be ready.”

5 AM

Pueblo, Colorado

John and Crystal finally sobered up enough to drive home from partying with their friends. They spent most of the next day lying around the house recovering.

“If you refuse to be made straight when you are green, you will not be made straight when you are dry.”

A
FRICAN
P
ROVERB

10 AM

Outside, the sun had been up for hours. Inside, it was dark, black-out dark. Someone was knocking on the door. The darkness absorbed the sound.

Eventually the noise won out and a sleepy-faced Shane opened the door. It was Christine and Dale Harrison, his parents. He greeted them with a forced half-smile, realizing he forgot about their scheduled visit.

He told them he was catching up on his z’s. He had stayed up all night, he said, watching movies. He overslept, he admitted. Almost encouraging the awkwardness of the situation, he invited them into his one room apartment and laid back down on his bed. His parents sat on kitchenette chairs and made small talk.

“So, how’s it going?” his mom asked in her thick German accent.

Shane exhaled. “Okay.”

“You still looking for work?”

“Every day.”

Feeling the need to do something useful, Christine microwaved three cups of instant coffee and handed them out. She and her husband had driven up from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, for the day, to visit their only child. They tried to get together with him as often as they could.

One of the main reasons Shane’s parents were visiting him was to give him a check for $250 so he could pay his rent. They knew he was unemployed and most likely short on money. They feared that if his financial resources began to run low he might resort to criminal activities. They did not want that.

Shane lounged on the bed. “I’m going to get up in a minute,” he said in a husky voice. “My neck is sore.”