False Imprisonment by Michael Ahn
When Lupe was a junior in high school her mother died from quick-moving cancer so she dropped out and smoked weed – then meth – in the confines of her empty inherited condo, frantically trying to numb her grief and loneliness.
Fili had been in classes with Lupe and left school too, to be sent to prison – once for assault and once for robbery. In penitentiary he took GED classes and spent his time writing to Lupe, who kept in touch because she remembered him being cute and funny, and because his letters were full of romance, which astonished her.
After Fili made parole he moved into the condo with Lupe and they scraped enough money each month for gas and groceries. Some nights they’d meet her friends at a bar and Fili would shoot pool alone while watching Lupe dart in the bathroom then re-emerge bright-eyed and high. On the drive home he berated her for being strung out all the time and she glowered, awaiting freedom when they pulled into the driveway, rushing into the condo, into the bedroom, then storming back to the living room with her purse in hand, grabbing the keys off the kitchen table, announcing that she was going over to Maria’s. It was 2:30 a.m. Fili looked at her from the couch and said The fuck you are. She opened the front door anyway and he got to his feet.
He followed her out into the dew-chilled night, pounding on her car door window, screaming at her to open up. When he saw her slide the key into the ignition, he pulled the lockblade from his baggy jeans, flicked it open and stabbed her front tire. She started the car anyway so he climbed onto the hood and screamed that he was going to kill her. She threw the car into reverse and pulled onto the street, Fili clinging to the wiper blades, his legs dangling, then shifted it into drive and slammed on the gas, the front tires spinning to get traction, the back end slewing from the uneven pull of the flat.
The neighbors said it was like an action movie.
Fili continued to scream at Lupe from the hood of the car until she stopped in the middle of the street and unlocked her door. He yanked it open and grabbed a handful of her hair but she would not let go of the steering wheel so he got in, squeezing her against the center console with his body, slammed the door and drove off.
The cops found them just before sunup in a church parking lot ten blocks away, snuggling in the back seat, half asleep. The cops had them get out of the car at gunpoint. They asked Fili about the flat tire and the dents in the hood. Fili said he didn’t know, and that it was already like that.
The cops knew Fili had just gotten out of prison. They’d been to the condo before, for other fights. They shined their flashlights into the backseat of the car and saw Lupe’s glass pipe smeared with blackish residue. They searched the car, found her purse, and in it the little baggies of meth.
Lupe had never even been arrested, but it would be Fili’s third strike – which meant fifteen years mandatory. He was only twenty-two but his mind was already made; it had been made the first time he saw her. As they cuffed him, Fili looked over his shoulder and declared, Everything in the car is mine.
Artist’s Statement
I work with public defenders in their trials. I’m writing a series of stories based on those cases – not procedurals, but about the circumstances leading to chaos, and the mysteries of human behavior.
Michael Ahn attended NYU’s Graduate Dramatic Writing and Bennington’s MFA Programs, and the Provincetown Writing Workshop. His short fiction has been published The Quarterly, AGNI, and AQR. His plays have been produced in San Diego, Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York. He consults with public defenders to use storytelling to get juries to empathize and act for marginalized clients. www.storysaveslives.com