The Terrible Catsafterme

Freshly suntanned from our trip to Myrtle Beach, I returned back home in early August and set upon my new life. It was new because Christi and I had officially ended things by this point and for the first time in nearly two and a half years, I found myself completely alone. It was difficult to get used to having ‘visiting’ time with Ashleigh, while Christi lived at home with her parents and cousin Jennifer, and began running around with a new group of friends. Nothing had felt more like a punch in the stomach than this transition.

Fortunately, getting to spend time with Ashleigh was never a problem and as you can see from the late Summer photos below, I loved being with her. Naturally, my Mom and Denise grew very close with her as well. Of course we would always have her over for any sort of family gathering or celebration as in the photos of my Mom’s boyfriend Bob’s birthday on August 28. Bob and I still didn’t care for each other all that much at this point, but I was right there along with young Ashleigh to celebrate the occasion. Believe it or not, this was only Bob’s 35th birthday.

 I didn’t have much in my life at this point, but I had Ashleigh and a nice tan

 Ashleigh imitates me, or maybe it was the other way around

Ashleigh’s favorite game was one that I made up, called “Prepare for Upside Down Baby!”

Movie star Ash

More living room upside-down antics

Ashleigh and I check out some Disney flicks

Bob and Laurel celebrate his 35th

Ashleigh assists with the gift opening

Ashleigh, me, Bob, and Laurel

Bob and Mom took off for a weeks vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina in October. Grandma & Grandpa Murphy and Diana & Tom went along and they stayed in a condo. They also went and visited Grandpa’s sister Louise and her husband Carol in Virginia during the trip. I don’t recall them being gone but inferred it from existing photos. Most likely I had some wild parties in their absence.  

It was  also in the Fall of 1991 that a visit with my friend George finally inspired me to purchase a brand new laserdisc player. I had long had one of his old ones, which intermittently worked. This new one set in motion a desire to begin to accumulate laserdiscs – with my sights set on building a collection like George’s. Terminator 2: Judgement Day was my first new purchase – and I loved to show visitors the razor sharp picture in this special effects-laden film.

I began my Sophomore year in college at Wright State in early September. As per usual I recall very little about my classes, but here there are: Chemistry (4 credit hours), Calculus (5 credit hours), Philosophy (3 credit hours), and Political Science (3 credit hours). I somehow managed straight B’s in all these courses. How I drifted through these classes, I will never know as so little of it holds any real memory or value to me. In fact the only thing I recall about this particular quarter was that old BHS schoolmates Shelley Benson and Amy Caro were in my science lab. I actually became pretty good friends with Amy for a short time.

One additional event that took place around this time was that on Sunday, September 15, I took a bus trip with several Kroger co-workers to Cleveland to attend my second Benglas vs. Browns game. Unlike the previous one that I attended in 1989 that had rendered me a living, breathing ice-cube, this one was actually hotter than blazes. The beers that we drank on the way up only added to the sweatiness. Also unlike the other game, the Bengals lost this one 14 to 13.

Perhaps there was so little recollection of these days of college because, in addition to Ashleigh and the fact that my dreams of a family with Christi had been shattered, there was something much bigger on my mind during this time period. Just a few days before I went back to school that Fall semester, I received a call from Keith, the former fellow Film Appreciation student whom I had met in class and had assisted with his class film project (as detailed here). At this point, I was heavily into collecting movies and memorabilia, so when he first called, I thought that he might be another good source for collecting.

I talked to him a couple of times on the phone, and he brought up the fact that his printing company was hiring and wanted to know if I might be interested in a job. The name of the company was ABR. I was immediately excited for the opportunity to secure a new job away from my bagging position at Kroger, but somehow from the word ‘go’, in the back of my mind I was skeptical of the offer. The first thing I did was to consult the phone book to look up ABR. I had no cause to doubt him at this point, but stiil I find it odd that this was my first inclination. My Dad was of the same mind, and immediately brought it to my attention that there was no ABR in the phone book.

After meeting up with Keith, he explained that the business was run by he and a partner named Dave and ABR would in fact not be found in the phone book as they solely handled government contracts for highly sensitive classified projects. At one point Keith referred to his partner as Paul and explained that his name was actually Paul David and he went by either name. Keith had names of other employees and he frequently told me stories about them, along with tales of his supposed girlfriend and her daughter (who apparently had a crush on me based on my work ID badge). I had received this ID badge (from a photo we had taken at Kinkos) along with a contract for the job which was to begin at $30,000 per year. I had talked to my boss Kim about taking a leave of absence from work in case the job didn’t work out.

I took Ashleigh to our Kroger company picnic in the early Fall of 1991

Much of this ID prep and contract signing took several weeks, as we did it one thing at a time, making sure that a notary was present at the contract signing, etc. The only step missing was actually visiting the office, which was supposedly housed in the building at One Dayton Center downtown. This was when things really began to get weird. Keith would always do the driving when we headed to the ‘office’, requesting that we would meet offsite (usually at Wright State after my classes) and then head over together. He would usually buy lunch and then often make a stop at a payphone to make a call, and then the plans would be altered or cancelled. We must have driven in circles all over Fairborn, Dayton, Beavercreek, and Huber Heights (where he supposedly lived) during these wild goose chases. At one point we circled the building several times downtown and he claimed that he couldn’t get into the parking garage because there was a ‘red light’ on that indicated that he couldn’t enter. There was always some excuse as to why we would never actually enter the building. And after a certain point, I always just sat back and waited for it.

Eventually, he admitted that he had been putting off taking me to the office before he was sure that there were no ‘government-related’ duties that I would object to. This was never clarified, but by this time I was convinced that the job was most certainly a complete and insane lie.

And on a much more sinister note, at one point he asked me to grab something for him out of his bag, with the obvious intention for me to see the gun inside. Eventually, and I’m not sure at what point, he gave me the gun as a gift.

So what did Keith do to convince me that the job was in fact legitimate? Why naturally he found my greedy weakness and sweetened the pot even more…with the promise of a new personal computer and a company car. (When in fact all I ever actually received was a computer desk and an adding machine). But the real clincher was that one day he actually brought me my first check, claiming that it had been the company’s fault that I hadn’t started yet. The check was for over $2000, and he said that to make it more convenient I could just sign it over and he would give me the cash. Convinced that the check was probably a fake, this is exactly what I did.

This momentarily convinced me yet again that the job simply must be real. I saved a good portion of the check (wondering if I would have to give it back at some point), but spent some of it on upcoming Christmas presents and baby supplies for Ashleigh. I also gave Christi a little extra over and above the child support I was paying (without any sort of court order).

I don’t have a real fix on the timeline, but it seems that this must have been going on throughout the entire month of November, bleeding over into December. In fact, there was yet another ‘convincer’ when Keith held the annual ABR company Christmas party at a hotel downtown. I most certainly did not want to go alone, so I brought along Jessica Wenz, a fellow bagger at Kroger, as my date, explaining to her the entire situation beforehand. When we arrived at the hotel, we did in fact find Keith along with two other guys who supposedly worked for ABR, one named Dave (a different Dave than Paul David).

Any time they mentioned anything about business, Keith reminded them that we didn’t really want to talk business at the party. It had to be one of the most bizarre scenarios I have ever encountered in my life. Lot of hors d’oeuvres, but only five people in all. After an hour, everyone took off and Keith asked Jessica and me if we’d like to keep the room. Naturally, we politely declined. Instead we went back to my house and watched the Little Rascals.

One night as we approached Christmas, Keith brought the company ‘accountant’ over to meet me. Mom, who was as skeptical as anyone, point blank asked this guy if he had ever been to the office or met anyone else who worked for the ‘company’. He laughed and said “actually no.” Keith conceded that it all must look strange, but that the company did exist.

And we’ll wrap up the story for now with the tale of the bag of bonus money. Keith had a locked bank bag that supposedly contained my ‘Christmas bonus’. I can’t recall the amount of money that was allegedly involved, but I’m thinking it was said to contain about $10,000. When Keith tried to open it up to get the money out, the key apparently didn’t fit the lock. I suggested that he simply cut the zipper, but he said that they had to pay the bank if they damaged the bag. He insisted that I hold onto the bag until such time that he could get the correct key. I didn’t open the bag until about a year later.

Yes, I know I’m leaving you in suspense on this story, but we’ll have to continue some other day. But suffice it to say, there’s always a price to pay when you sell your soul to the devil.

1991 will continue with Christmas…

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 31st, 2009 at 6:15 am and is filed under 1990's - Early. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.