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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