It was a warm day in New Mexico and I was just came from the mall. I was shopping for clothes to make myself feel better after I kicked my ex-girlfriend out my hotel. I bought a shirt that said, “After the pepper spray runs out can I have your number?” I was stoned on a bus going to another city, just thirty minutes outside of New Mexico. There was a girl sitting right across from me. She spoke up and commented on my shirt and laughed. I got off the bus and I shook her hand and gazed into her eyes, as I wouldn’t let go of her hand. When I got off the bus I thought to myself, “oh shit, I didn’t get her number.” To escape my hectic realm that was full of noise and pollution, I went to the library to find peace and quiet. It was the biggest library in town. The library had eight floors and the elevators were made of all glass. There she was, the girl from the bus! She was standing with her nephew. I was shocked to see her. I talked to her and got her number. At that time I was eighteen and I was dealing with a large drug mafia. I would run loose on the streets, and do side jobs such as stick bombs in exhaust pipes of cars to set them on fire. Later on I’d watch them blow up from across the street because people owed my boss money. I would break into houses that were worth five hundred thousand dollars and other houses in that neighborhood. After cleaning out their house I would instantly swipe the credit cards before they were cancelled and write ten to fifteen bad checks in increments of five hundreds. I would also boost cars and drive them to Mexico and sell them to a chop shop for fifteen thousand dollars. I was at nice hotels and would pay cash to stay there. I was only at a hotel for a week at a time, so I wouldn’t be questioned then I’d go to another hotel across town. In between my side jobs I sold guns and boosted six hundred dollar bikes. I would ride out of the shop with a brand new bike. Then when I got bored with them I would sell them for half price. While I was doing all this I told Marrissa, the girl from the bus, what I was up to. She didn’t care so neither did I. She told me she was eighteen and so was I, and I thought that was great. Time flew by. Things got more fun for me and my boss. When I ran out of side jobs to do, or I didn’t feel like taking a risk of getting caught, I’d lay low. I would call my dealer and I’d meet her at a hotel of my choice. If I was out of money she would pick me up from wherever I was. She’d feed me, paid for the hotel, we would f.uck, then she gave me a few hundred dollars in cash, and about two hundred dollars of weed every time. She would also give me five pounds of weed to sell in one week and she didn’t play. When she called in one week she wanted the back pack with her money, I got my cut after. One time I was at another nice hotel she put me in and I was emailing Marrissa from the lobby computer while I was waiting for my dealer to come back and pick up her backpack of money. She was really late, and I couldn’t leave. The receptionist said the phone was for me. Then a man introduced himself, as a detective! My heart pounded!!! I thought it was one of my side jobs caught up to me; but I wasn’t going to give up any information without him telling me what he wanted. He asked, “Do you know Marrissa?” I said, “yeah.” and he confronted me and told me she was less than eighteen, and her mom got a hold of her emails. I lied and said that I was seventeen and the detective asked me my date of birth. I quickly minused my date of birth one year and told him. I pulled it off, I told my dealer to come pick me up and I demanded that she come get me NOW! I left the area and yelled at Marrissa for not telling me her real age by then we already dated for nine months. I threw her number away. I did a couple more side jobs and then I called my boss for another side job and she wanted me to do a hit on someone because they were living at one of my drug dealer’s houses and stole six hundred dollars from her. For what I was doing I wanted a lot of money. I wanted enough money to leave town and live somewhere where I could lay low for nine months. I took off and I suited up in gear and I was on a manhunt. I spotted the person and introduced myself with a false name. We hung out and smoked weed until the sun fell from the sky and out crept my inner demon. My demon is a dark side that consumes any guilt or remorse I feel. I lowered the person to a secluded area to strike. After I was done I covered the body with tree bushes and walked away like nothing happened. Someone saw where I came out of and went into the narrow place, and I took off full sprint. I went to a bus stop trashcan, took off one of the two pair of pants I was wearing and one of the shirts I had on. I was no longer wearing brown pants and a brown shirt. I was now wearing a totally different outfit that I had under my other clothes. I ran across the street and got to the side of the grocery store, causally walked behind the store and drank my soda. I saw two police helicopters with their lights on looking for something. I was pretty sure they were looking for me, so went to hide behind the store and hid behind the dumpster and fell asleep. I woke up the next morning, before dawn. I got up and walked around the corner and I counted eight police cars in the parking lot. I walked up to a diesel truck and asked the truck driver a question to play it off. Then I walked on the sidewalk to the bus stop. I jumped on the bus and as people looked at me I glared back and thought mission accomplished! I rode the bus to the end of the bus route and called my boss and told her what I did, and told her there was no evidence and no fingerprints left behind. My drug dealer and I went back to her house and we had sex, she gave me seven thousand dollars cash for my mission. She said that’s all she had on her right now and she would give me more when I got to a safe place and told me to call her and she would give me more chucks of money. I had no idea where to go so I got on the greyhound to the next bus leaving, and Nevada it was.

I arrived in Las Vegas, Nevada and checked into a hotel and I started meeting people there. I was buying their weed to smoke it. I didn’t tell them what I did in New Mexico, but I threatened them if they tried to screw me over. I’d put them six feet under ground. Things were cool, and I was making friends smoking, partying and site seeing in a new town. Then I thought about Marrissa. I told her I was in Nevada and that I was on a vacation. I would wire her money and call her long distance, and stayed faithful while meeting other females. I told the females that I didn’t want anyone but Marrissa and they had no idea who they were dealing with, and it was nothing personal. Time went on and I dreamed every day that the police were coming to get me and mysteriously haul me away. I stressed a lot, and didn’t tell anyone, not even Marrissa. One day Marrissa told me she loved me on the phone and I told her, that she was full of shit, that she was a minor and didn’t know what love was. I got into my demon mentality and started playing with her head, to where she was mad and she didn’t want to talk to me. Personally I was enjoying it and laughing in her face while she got mad. I would say spiteful things from her past and throw it in her face to make her cry. I was thinking she doesn’t love me, she’ll leave soon. I did this for three months then one day while I was smoking weed out my hotel window, I wondered, why is she still in my face when I’m being a jackass to her, why won’t she leave me? I was like maybe she does love me. So I started being nice. Fall came, then winter and then came spring, and I was like the coast is clear from that insane task I did. So I told my dealer I’m coming back to New Mexico and I got more money. I slide into town and met Marrissa. We roamed around town and hung out and I was there for a minute and I ran into some people who knew me at the mall, but we were on bad terms because of my dirty work and I was out numbered. I darted through the mall panicking. I needed money to get out of town, so I stole a bottle so some brandy at the mall. Then I wandered around the rich neighborhoods and broke into a house. I took a really expensive camera and headed to the master bedroom. I came upon a fire safe box and broke it, found credit cards and nine hundred dollars cash. I went to a car junkyard in the ghetto area of New Mexico and hid the nine hundred dollars at the junkyard under the seat of a car with a busted window. I had credit cards and I thought to myself. I want to see what California looks like, so many people talked about it so I had to kill my curiosity. I told my best friend that I was going to California, but not before buying him a moped online from the credit cards. We smoked a lot of weed all night and the next day I was on the greyhound to San Francisco. I was thinking this is a cool place to HIDE out in so I did. I said nothing to no one, but I warned the kids I met I’m no one to cross. I told them keep it cool and I’ll keep it cool, so I wouldn’t have to lower them to the beach and state hop again. I kept contact with Marrissa and my dealer and I had a headache because I had never seen so many gays and men that looked like women and I wasn’t use to that at all. I told my case manager that I wanted a break for the holidays and I’ll be back. So I got back on the greyhound and went back to New Mexico and smoked some of the California weed, on the way there. The first stop in New Mexico was back to my friend’s house and we smoked California weed and laughed it up and we stole about eight thirty-packs of Budweiser. We threw a party at his house to the point where I threw up on his carpet. The next day we were bored so my friend, and his little brother, Joel, and I went to the richest neighborhoods. We sat in a library and we talked over a plan to boost $700.00 BMX bikes. We planned this out so carefully, because we knew the better neighborhood had more cops. We walked in the store dressing nice to throw them off and pretended to shop for bikes; we looked at each other and sat on the bikes then rode out the shop while the guys chased us on foot. We rode the route we planned off the main roads all the way home. Days flew by as we just rode bikes around the neighborhood and smoked weed and played video games. I told Joel that he could have my bike since I was going back to California. We sat in the tree house in his backyard and as I pondered to stay or not to stay, I was like f.uck it I’m going back to California. I went to the car junk yard to the same car with the busted window and reached under the car seat and low and behold the money was still there, three months after I left it there!!! I gave my old friend Joel sixty dollars because I felt bad for leaving him and jumped on the greyhound. As I smoked weed I looked up at the sky hopelessly thinking God what have I done? I felt awful for what I did but it’s been so long that the FBI isn’t going to haul me away from California, for my flawless, brilliant planning. I forgave myself. That was an old part of me. I marked Ink on my arm labeling it my inner demon, and separating me from him. I prayed that night on the greyhound for guidance and when I woke up I wanted to be a electrician. My demon still whispers evil deeds he wants me to do but the more years go by, he gets quieter.