Before He Finds Her (18 page)

RACE: WHITE

SEX: MALE

HEIGHT (FT): 5’ 8”

WEIGHT (LBS): 148

HAIR COLOR: BROWN

EYE COLOR: BROWN

ALIASES: NOT KNOWN

CHARGE #1

CHARGE ID: 555009321

STATUTE: 2C:17-3 STATUTE DESC: CRIMINAL MISCHIEF

CHARGE: CRIMINAL MISCHIEF, 4TH DEGREE – DISORDERLY PERSONS

VANDALISM

CHARGE CLASS: CLASS 1 MISDEMEANOR

CHARGE DATE: 07/16/75

AGE WHEN ARRESTED: 19

DISPOSITION: GUILTY

SENTENCE: FINE, COMMUNITY SERVICE

NOTES: SUBJECT FOUND VISIBLY IMPAIRED IN PARKING LOT OF BIG AL LIQUORS. PARKING LOT LIGHTS WERE SMASHED. HE ADMITTED TO DRINKING “TOO MANY TO COUNT” AT HOME AND BECOMING ANGRY WHEN THE STORE’S NIGHT MANAGER REFUSED TO SELL HIM ALCOHOL BECAUSE HE WAS VISIBLY INTOXICATED. HE ADMITTED TO SMASHING THE LIGHTS WITH ROCKS AND ATTEMPTED TO DEMONSTRATE BUT ALL THE LIGHTS WERE ALREADY SMASHED. WHEN ASKED HIS NAME THE SUBJECT SAID NEIL ARMSTRONG. IDENTIFICATION CARRIED BY THE SUBJECT PROVED OTHERWISE.

CHARGE #2

CHARGE ID: 555010301

STATUTE: 2C:17-3 STATUTE DESC: CRIMINAL MISCHIEF

CHARGE: CRIMINAL MISCHIEF, 4TH DEGREE – DISORDERLY PERSONS

VANDALISM

CHARGE CLASS: CLASS 1 MISDEMEANOR

CHARGE DATE: 02/11/76

AGE WHEN ARRESTED: 20

DISPOSITION: GUILTY

SENTENCE: FINE, PROBATION

NOTES: SUSPECT INVOLVED IN AN ALTERCATION AT STUFF YER FACE RESTAURANT WHERE HE WAS EMPLOYED AS KITCHEN STAFF. MANAGER CALLED THE POLICE AND ACCUSED THE SUSPECT, FOLLOWING A REPRIMAND FOR FAILING TO WASH DISHES APPROPRIATELY, OF PLACING THE MANAGER’S HAT, LEATHER GLOVES, AND HAIR PIECE INTO THE DEEP FRYER. WHEN CONFRONTED BY POLICE THAT AFTERNOON AT HIS HOME, SUSPECT CONFIRMED THE MANAGER’S STORY.

CHARGE #3

CHARGE ID: 555019986

STATUTE: 2C:12-1 STATUTE DESC: ASSAULT

CHARGE CLASS: CLASS 1 MISDEMEANOR

CHARGE DATE: 9/4/76

AGE WHEN ARRESTED: 20

DISPOSITION: GUILTY

SENTENCE: FINE, PROBATION

NOTES: SUSPECT INVOLVED IN AN ALTERCATION WITH A NEIGHBOR IN HIS APARTMENT BUILDING AFTER NEIGHBOR ASKED SUSPECT TO TURN DOWN THE MUSIC IN HIS APARTMENT. A THIRD NEIGHBOR CALLED THE POLICE AFTER THE FIGHT BEGAN. BOTH MEN ADMITTED TO HAVING CONSUMED ALCOHOL. BOTH WERE TREATED ON THE SCENE BY PARAMEDICS FOR MINOR CUTS AND BRUISES AND REFUSED FURTHER MEDICAL ASSISTANCE.

CHARGE #4

CHARGE ID: 555018100

STATUTE: 2C:17-3 STATUTE DESC: CRIMINAL MISCHIEF

CHARGE: CRIMINAL MISCHIEF, 3RD DEGREE – DISORDERLY PERSONS,

POSESSION (MARIJUANA, 50G OR LESS) – RESISTING

ARREST (NO WEAPON)

CHARGE CLASS: CLASS 1 MISDEMEANOR

CHARGE DATE: 06/04/78

AGE WHEN ARRESTED: 22

DISPOSITION: GUILTY

SENTENCE: FINE, JAIL, PROBATION

NOTES: SUSPECT REFUSED TO LEAVE THE PREMISES OF A HOUSE WHERE HE WAS EMPLOYED TO MOW AND EDGE THE LAWN. SUSPECT SPOTTED BY HOMEOWNER IN WOODS BEHIND HOUSE. HOMEOWNER APPROACHED SUSPECT AND NOTICED HE WAS SMOKING A MARIJUANA CIGARETTE. WHEN HE TOLD SUSPECT TO LEAVE THE PREMISES, SUSPECT REFUSED. WHEN POLICE ARRIVED ON THE SCENE, SUSPECT SAID THAT HE HAD BROKEN UP WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND THE PRIOR EVENING AND “THOUGHT HE WOULD CHILL OUT HERE.” WHEN OFFICER ATTEMPTED TO ARREST SUSPECT, SUSPECT CLIMBED NEARBY TREE. ADDITIONAL OFFICERS AND A FIRE TRUCK CAME TO THE SCENE AND THREATENED THE SUSPECT WITH A HIGH-POWERED WATER HOSE. SUSPECT CLIMBED DOWN WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT.

CHARGE #5

CHARGE ID: 555019867

STATUTE: 2C:12-1 STATUTE DESC: ASSAULT

CHARGE: ASSAULT

CHARGE CLASS: CLASS 1 MISDEMEANOR

CHARGE DATE: 10/2/79

AGE WHEN ARRESTED: 23

DISPOSITION: GUILTY

SENTENCE: FINE, PROBATION

NOTES: POLICE WERE CALLED TO THE CORNER TAVERN BECAUSE OF AN ALTERCATION. BOTH SUSPECTS WERE TREATED ON THE SCENE AND ARRESTED WITHOUT INCIDENT.

CHARGE #6

CHARGE ID: 555117394

STATUTES: 2C:12-1 STATUTE DESC: ASSAULT

2C:17-3 STATUTE DESC: CRIMINAL MISCHIEF

CHARGES: ASSAULT, CRIMINAL MISCHIEF 2ND DEGREE

CHARGE CLASS: CLASS 1 MISDEMEANOR

CHARGE DATE: 08/15/81

AGE WHEN ARRESTED: 25

DISPOSITION: GUILTY

SENTENCE: FINE, JAIL, PROBATION

NOTES: SUSPECT WAS DELIVERED A PACKAGE FROM UPS. HE THEN FOLLOWED THE UPS DRIVER TO HIS TRUCK AND WITH A KEY CREATED AN APPROX 4 FOOT GOUGE ALONG THE SIDE OF THE TRUCK. WHEN ASKED TO STOP, SUSPECT TOLD THE UPS DRIVER THAT IF HE SAID ANOTHER WORD HIS TRUCK WOULDN’T BE THE ONLY THING CUT. WHEN POLICE ARRIVED, SUSPECT SAID HE DID IT BECAUSE WHEN THE FRONT DOOR WAS OPEN, THE UPS DRIVER MADE A REPEATED MOTION WITH HIS TONGUE IN THE DIRECTION OF SUSPECT’S GIRLFRIEND THAT SUSPECT FOUND OFFENSIVE AND INAPPROPRIATE. WHEN QUESTIONED, THE UPS DRIVER SAID HE DID NOT DO THIS, AND THAT ANY LIP SMACKING WAS DUE TO EXTREMELY CHAPPED LIPS. (HE PRODUCED A TUBE OF BLISTEX FROM HIS PANTS POCKET.) THE GIRLFRIEND WHEN QUESTIONED STATED THAT THE SUSPECT “WAS ALWAYS ACTING LIKE AN IDIOT” AND THAT SHE HAD TAKEN NO NOTICE OF THE UPS DRIVER.

CHARGE #7

CHARGE ID: 555332344

STATUTE: 2C:12-1 STATUTE DESC: ASSAULT

CHARGE: ASSAULT

CHARGE CLASS: CLASS 1 MISDEMEANOR

CHARGE DATE: 08/08/83

AGE WHEN ARRESTED: 27

DISPOSITION: GUILTY

SENTENCE: FINE, JAIL, PROBATION

NOTES: AFTER BEING EVICTED FROM APARTMENT FOR FAILURE TO PAY RENT, THE SUSPECT CONFRONTED LANDORD IN THE PARKING LOT AND SHOVED HIM AGAINST THE BUILDING’S BRICK EXTERIOR, CAUSING BRUISING TO THE LANDLORD’S SIDE AND SHOULDER. LANDLORD PHONED POLICE AND SUSPECT WAS LOCATED LATER THAT DAY IN MUGSHOTS BAR AND WAS ARRESTED WITHOUT INCIDENT.

Absent from the police arrest record: Ramsey’s first disorderly persons arrest, later expunged, for which he spent the night of his sixteenth birthday in the drunk tank. And of course all those actions that weren’t crimes but that were nonetheless reckless and unwise: rude comments to teachers, fights in the hallway, a host of foolish behavior that led to detention, suspensions, and threats of expulsion.

Nor does his arrest record mention the Porsche, keys left on the seat, that he swiped one night from the parking lot of the Trattoria, took for a joyride, smashed, and abandoned. Or the weed he sold to a few discreet classmates and later to those same individuals once they’d graduated. Or the time he drove a truck of stolen electronics from one warehouse to another, or the time he kept watch outside a house while some other guys broke in through the back door and took whatever they could cram into a couple of canvas bags.

And there was the time—the only time—that he accepted money from one guy to beat up another guy. He was never told, nor did he want to know, what beef the one guy had with the other. He knew only that he was risking a felony but that it would be the easiest 300 bucks he’d ever earn, since the fight didn’t have to be fair. This was fall 1983, not long after he’d spent three days in county jail for shoving his asshole landlord. If caught now, he’d be looking at a lot longer than three days. So he was careful. After learning the guy’s routine, he waited outside his building one weekday morning at sunrise. The man descended his front stoop and yawned audibly before heading into the alleyway to the parking lot. One unsuspecting shove from behind and into the brick wall, a few hard punches, a few harder kicks once he was down on the sidewalk, and it was over.

That final kick to the jaw, though. It felt a little too much like scratching a deep itch, and it scared him. He replayed the beating in his mind once he was back home—his new home, across from the plasma donation center, the shittiest apartment God ever created. He lay in bed with the lights off and shades drawn and studied the cracks in the ceiling. Before that day, the only time he’d beaten someone while sober was that single lucky punch that had busted his old man’s nose a decade earlier. Since then, Ramsey hadn’t grown all that many inches, but he’d gotten much stronger. And the feeling of his hard shoe torquing toward that man’s face... it was nothing at all like the spontaneous bar fights of his past, fueled by beer and momentary rage. This was a darker, smoother feeling, one he could imagine needing to revisit. He felt disgusted with himself, nothing new, but for the first time he felt afraid of himself, too.

With no food in the apartment, hunger eventually drove him outside. But when he passed the sub shop on the corner he kept walking, because walking felt better than eating. He briefly considered walking all the way to the police station and turning himself in, but his feet pulled him eastward, toward the ocean. It was mid-September, a dry day with the sky a deep blue interrupted only by the white half-moon. A generation or two earlier, you might have still called this town a resort, but not anymore. Now it was just a town that happened to sit next to an ocean.

The road ended where the beach began. At first, still a block away, he saw water brilliantly alit with sunlight, the beginning of three thousand miles of shining sea. But as his eyes adjusted and he crossed Ocean Avenue, he was hit with the truth: plastic containers, crushed cans, overturned shopping carts and postal bins and waves of junk shoved ashore by the incoming tide. Worse this year than the last, worse than ever, and it wasn’t lost on Ramsey that he felt drawn to the place where all that trash ended up. Every damn year, he thought, was one earth’s revolution closer to the end of his life, and so far his life had amounted to a heap of garbage. There was no point to any of it. He was broke, friendless, estranged from the old man, unable to hold down a job, and his only reason for staying in this town was that moving would cost money. That, and the half dozen steady marijuana customers who gave him a fighting chance at paying whatever landlord had been too lazy to do something as simple as a proper credit check.

One of Ramsey’s customers had only one arm and wore a permanent smirk. He had the bad luck of being born a year earlier than Ramsey and got sent to Vietnam. Now he worked pest control, spraying other people’s homes with poison. Even that guy could keep it together. Ramsey stood on the boardwalk, looking down at the ruined beach and added self-pity to his list of faults. He turned around and got irked by the guy who seemed to be looking at him.

He crossed Ocean Avenue again and approached the base of the telephone pole so the other man had to crane his neck and look straight down. “How’s that job?” Ramsey called up to the man, who looked too thick in the middle for a guy in that line of work.

“You yanking my chain?” The man looked at least a decade older than Ramsey, though that might’ve been because of his face, which was weathered from the sun like the faces of the men his father had once worked with.

“Fuck you,” Ramsey said. “I’m just asking.”

“Then here’s your answer: It’s a better job than you’ll ever have.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Ramsey said.

“Oh, so now you want my pity?”

“Man, I don’t want your nothing. But if I ever wanted it, believe me I’d just take it and it would be mine.”

The man watched Ramsey for a second. “I don’t know what that means,” he said.

Neither did Ramsey.

To his amazement, they both laughed. Ramsey couldn’t remember the last time he let himself do that.

“Listen, man,” Ramsey said, working to rid his voice of aggression. “I’m asking is that good work, being up in those poles like that?”

“You need a job? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah.”

“Then stop by the GSE office on 36. Ask for Dennis. Tell him Eric Pace sent you.”

“Why?” Ramsey asked.

“
Why
? You just said you’re out of work.”

“No—I mean, why would you do that for me?”

Eric shook his head. “Man, I thought you didn’t want my pity. Make up your mind.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ramsey said. “Maybe I’ll go over there in the morning.”

“Or don’t—it’s all the same to me.” The man went back to screwing or unscrewing a metal box near the top of the pole.

“Hey!” Ramsey called up. Eric stopped working and looked down again. “You never said if it’s a good job or not.”

Eric paused to consider the question. “It can be. It all depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“On whether you can climb.”

Four weeks later, and Ramsey was an eager grunt at the start of a four-year apprenticeship to become a journeyman lineman. Training expenses and supplies would come out of his paycheck, but the pay was good and for the first time he’d have medical benefits. He knew he’d been handed a gift he didn’t deserve, and he told himself not to fuck it up. During the classroom part of his training—daylong sessions on electrical theory and equipment and safety—he did his best not to squirm or fall asleep. He applied for his CDL permit, and the company started training him to drive a truck. At night, he studied hard so he would pass the motor vehicle exam on his first try.