87. Interview with Jesús Hernandez: Part 2

12 July 2011

– For the most part, yeah.

– He came in about eight times before he went AWOL. Twice a week for a month, and every time his eyes grew darker, his beard heavier, his voice deeper.

– Reading his file and the pretty normal things he did before he started burning down houses, it was like reverse metamorphosis to see him each visit. Like watching a butterfly turn back to a worm.

– I set him up with a job and checked in on him now and again where he was staying at with his delinquent cousin, Price—you talked to him yet?

– Bad news, that one there. Didn’t like Bishop staying with him at all, but he didn’t really have a choice.

– Well, everything seemed to be going decent for a little while. Until that one day.

– Less than two weeks after his first day on the job, barely out of training yet, I get a call from my buddy Frank at Key Food, find out Bishop’d already been fired.

– Or quit, whatever. Don’t remember the details, but he lasted all of two weeks at the place. I called in a favor to get him that job, and he embarrassed me in front of a good friend.

– Frank Doucoure. Over at Key Foods in Queens, near the bridge.

– No problem. Like I was saying though, I knew. I was just waiting for Bishop to shoot himself in the foot.

– I’m not a babysitter. These are grown ass men out here. They want to go back to prison, that’s their prerogative. I have a wife and son to feed and love, so I just do my job and hope that everybody else does theirs.

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