Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A New Normal
CLIFF
When you’re incarcerated in a California State Correctional Facility, celebrations of any sort tended to be low-key affairs usually involving extra tuna packets to be bartered for future goods or the much-coveted uninterrupted time in the toilet.
Cliff knew what to expect and how to behave behind bars.
But in the real world, he couldn’t remember how to celebrate.
He stood in front of the Great Western Bank with his hand on a lump inside his jacket, humming with readiness.
He entered the bank and smiled at the armed security guard near the door.
Counted the steps to the teller window knowing exactly how far he was from the guard, greeted the teller, and felt a rush of adrenaline that made his fingers tingle, his mouth go dry.
His eyes darted over toward the cameras and the exits, as the memories flooded in of the fear in a teller’s eyes when she realized it was a robbery, the scramble to get the bag of cash before the guard or the manager knew what was happening, the elegant escape with not a single person harmed. The rush of the getaway.
“Can I help you?” the bright young teller asked, bringing him out of his daze and back to the matter at hand.
Cliff looked at her nametag. “Hi, Elena Hernandez,” he said. He coughed roughly, trying to get a grip. “I’d like to make a deposit, please.” Cliff removed the lump from his jacket, which was the $2,000 deposit Lorna Gray had given him.
The teller said, “I can help you with that!” Cliff’s heart pounded so loudly in his chest, he was sure she could hear it. But within thirty seconds, she had given him a receipt for his deposit and wished him a good day. That was it. A celebration was in order. But how?
He’d spent a lot of time in prison working out what the perfect moment of freedom would look like.
Deprivation has a way of crystallizing the things you most wanted.
A bluebird mountain day. The freedom to walk in the woods as long and far as he wanted.
A cabin with a stone fireplace, a favorite old leather chair, and a woman to make the whole place feel like home.
That seemed attainable, but also completely out of reach.
He’d made a promise to himself that he would make that moment happen. For now, it was just a dream.
Depressingly, and despite his gentlemanly qualities, deep down he knew quality women seldom dated ex-convicts no matter how much charisma he could summon. He was the male equivalent of a hooker with a heart of gold; a convict with a complicated past. This might be LA, but it wasn’t the movies.
Beyond looking forward to sharing this outstanding news of a new client with his parole officer Dez Wheeler, Cliff was at a loss.
He considered calling his buddy Rob Colaluca, but realized he’d been denied parole last month and was still in prison in Arizona.
He scrolled through his phone contacts, growing solemn as name after name came up—all criminals or ex-cons.
Not a single normal, law-abiding citizen within his entire list of contacts, with the exception of his parole officer and Lorna Gray.
Something had to change. He was starting a legitimate business.
With a little more seed money, he’d be well underway.
With Vasken’s help, he’d soon have a meeting with The Siberian.
He’d been perfecting a pitch for his upcoming meeting but was still missing one very important nameless, faceless woman. It was a mounting dilemma.
He couldn’t bring just any woman to this meeting.
She had to be a woman who would impress The Siberian.
A woman of substance, intelligence, and manners.
A woman who could talk about chess and politics with a natural charm and a deep likability.
The kind of woman like his elegant mother Janet and his aunts Ellen and Victoria, whom he had been surrounded by growing up in the gentle polish of the upper crust in the Northern Californian enclave of Mill Valley.
But how was he supposed to meet a woman like that now?
Cliff grew up in a world of pressed linen napkins, measured tones, and cocktail parties under coastal redwood trees.
His mother, radiant and kind, softened the edges of that stuffy, refined world with her warmth, always there to kiss fevered foreheads and remember birthdays of the household staff.
He learned from her that manners were not performance, but respect.
Those formative years gave him a quiet confidence, an instinct to listen before he spoke, and a decency.
Thankfully that knowledge had taken root in him before his father’s financial collapse, before his beautiful mother died of pneumonia in the winter of his thirteenth year, and before his father used his brilliance and shrewd nature to form a lucrative life of crime, indoctrinating Cliff against his will.
Cliff blinked away the self-pitying thoughts.
He turned his attention to the world around him and studied it.
He was good at learning by observing, a survival skill he’d picked up at his first group home—after his father had made one mistake too many and ended up behind bars for good.
He observed how people dressed, what they ate, how they spent their time, how they spoke to one another.
He learned to mimic these actions and activities until they became second nature.
This soft skillset had served him well after his father was imprisoned for embezzlement and then outright thievery of purloined art and jewels of his wealthy friends, leaving Cliff at the mercy of Child Protective Services, which had dumped him into the foster care system at the age of fifteen.
No attention was good attention. He learned to blend in—to be unnoticeable.
He stood on the sidewalk in Manhattan Beach and looked around.
Manhattan Beach was an affluent, beautiful coastal town.
But one man’s beautiful beach town is another man’s artisanal hellscape.
It had one store devoted entirely to cheese.
A micro-brewery that specialized in gluten-free beer.
A high-priced loungewear store where a gaggle of new moms, strong and sinewy from pressure to lose the post-baby weight, milled around talking about nannies.
Coffee shops were filled with bespectacled millennials hunched over laptops with their flat whites trying to make their millions.
And there were cops … bored, yoked, overly intense cops everywhere. It made Cliff itchy.
He ambled his way down the main drag, surprised at the number of boutique gyms and salons that populated the downtown area.
He spotted a small pub with a green awning and café lights that beckoned him in.
He ducked inside the place. It was dimly lit.
There was a faint aroma of cheeseburger grease, bleach, and vomit.
It was wonderful. He breathed deep, taking it all in, and relaxed for a half a minute before stepping back outside.
He couldn’t have a drink without breaking parole.
Cliff walked on The Strand down to Hermosa Beach and took a left on Pier Avenue, wandering to nowhere in particular when he spotted a neon “Open” sign with a guitar symbol hanging above it.
Curious, he ambled closer to the establishment.
The sign on the plate glass window read in fancy script, “Paul’s Guitar Parlor.
” A pair of flip-flops were hanging on the door handle, which was partially open.
Cliff peeked through the window and saw a man in a short-sleeve button-down and weathered jeans tuning a classic Gibson Les Paul with a vintage sunburst design.
As if sensing him there, the man looked up and smiled. He waved Cliff in.
Cliff walked into the parlor and was instantly hit with the warm smell of leather and patchouli; a massive Persian rug covered the floor and upon it sat a low-slung leather sofa and two adjoining chairs.
The man started playing a bluesy tune on the acoustic guitar, a riff that came straight out of the Mississippi Delta. Smooth, slow, and rhythmic.
“Come on in, friend,” the man said, but didn’t stop playing.
All three walls also donned thick Persian tapestries where guitar mounts jutted out holding dozens of acoustic and electric guitars that lined the walls all the way up to the ceiling.
Some were shiny and new, with taut strings, ready to be played.
Others were shabby, worn, and well-loved.
Cliff wandered over to one particularly ragged electric-blue acoustic guitar with pearl inlay and read the tag.
Linda Ronstadt, 1976. $9,600. Cliff almost stopped breathing.
What was this place? He turned back to look at the shopkeeper.
The man playing the guitar had thinning gray hair tied back in a tiny ponytail.
He played effortlessly and free, clearly enjoying the music he was creating.
He finished his song, put the guitar pick in his mouth, and held out his hand, “Hey man, I’m Paul,” he said.
“Welcome to Guitar Shangri-La. Otherwise known as The Parlor.”
Cliff shook his hand, at a loss for words, and admired the guitar he was holding. “She’s a beauty.”
“Do you play?” Paul asked.