Smiling John (Part 3 by Smiling John)

“Smiling John” Eastlack escaped from prison and was featured on America’s Most Wanted. He was sentenced to death for the murders he describes. When it was discovered that he has fetal alcohol syndrome, his sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole.

Part 2 left off with Smiling John breaking into a house to avoid the police, and deciding to kill the occupants.

The old man who attacked me with the fireplace poker was just standing there and threatening me to get out of their house before he called the police.
Yes, really! At this point a kind of out of body experience came over me and I decided right then and there I was going to have to kill them. The choice was just self-preservation. They were simply a threat that had to be eliminated or simplified. I was not going to tie them up, or shoot them due to the noise. I owed them a piece of mind not to kill one in front of the other.

I hit the old man with the poker and he went down. He was bleeding from where he fell into some chairs and cut his face, head and arms.
At this point the lady said she was having an asthma attack, so I asked her husband where her inhalers were. He told me down the hall in the master bedroom on the nightstand.
As I went to get them, her husband ran out of the TV room for the front door.
I felt bamboozled.
I caught up to him and kicked him in the back, smashing him into the wall, tearing his arm and face. He then started yelling and flopping around like fish.

I'd seen all kinds of agony and death in the U.S. Army. In 1983 with “Operation Urgent Fury,” the invasion of Granada, then again in 1986 with the mobile-training teams in El Salvador, and “Operation Snowcap” in Columbia, but this was like in Blade Runner when Harrison Ford shot Joanna Cassidy the android in the back and she fell through three plates of glass and started flopping around.

It was just too weird, so I pierced him through the throat with the fireplace poker, pinning him to the oak floor.

I went back to the TV room and she was still and quiet, looking at me. “Where is my husband?”
“He's in the kitchen, getting you some water,” I told her.
I can only hope she believed me.
I then asked her if she could hand me the bowl of M&M’s on the bookshelf behind her.
As she turned, I hit her nine times in the back of the head with the butt of my gun, killing her.

Nothing seemed to be going right today.

The house was once again quiet, except for the damned phone. The cab guy had heard everything. He wouldn’t be coming to pick me up.
Hanging up the phone. I noticed for the first time that my right arm was a bloody mess and also my right rib cage.
Why, that old man had kicked my ass. I almost smiled for the first time of the day.
Cleaning myself up, and searching the house, I found about $300 cash and two cars in the garage.

I was not in fire mood, so I went through all four bedrooms, three bathrooms and turned the H2O on full blast and flooded the house.
I then got in the red Ford Tempo and drove right past the roadblock manned by two cops.

Like I said, that wanted poster looked nothing like me.

Due to the turn of events, I no longer wanted to involve Monica, Ben or Paul. So as soon as I got to the Arizona-New Mexico border, I stopped at a payphone and told everyone I fucked up and to forgot about me.
It was a tough call, but I was morphing by the hour losing my mind and myself.


09-01-89
Friday 2:00pm

Pulled up into some rundown cow town just passed the state line in New Mexico. Drove off at a 7-Eleven and trashed the car. Plates, ID, tags all went into the dumpster.

Walked into the 7-Eleven, bought some orange juice and a few bags of beef jerky, then walked out to the I-10 east and started hitchhiking.

Like a moth to a flame, a 1967 grey Ford Mustang pulled up. All smiles, I leaned in the window and told the driver I was on leave and returning to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.

This fat, short, four-eyed, bearded guy gave me a shit-eating grin and said, “Hop in.”

Climbing in the passenger seat and chilling for the first time in 8 to 9 hours, I actually felt as if I’d reached sanctuary.

Looking around the car I noticed trash, beer cans, candy-bar wrappers and the whole back seat was packed with pornographic magazines.

What the fuck!

Right as I'm on the verge of adding this up, he asked if it was okay if we go back to his place. He’d forgotten something and it would just take a minute and then he’d drive me into El Paso, or he could drop me off right here on the I-10 in 110° heat and I could try to catch another ride.

He thought he was a wise guy, if he only knew.

“Sure,” I said. “I don't have to report back until 21:00 hrs.”

We drove back to that cow town, and I saw my red car still parked next to the 7-11 untouched.

He drove to the north of the town about a mile off the I-10 to a trailer park.

I saw a trailer on stilts with a staircase. About 60’x15’. He said, “Would you like to come in for a cold drink?”
“Sure. It's hot as hell out here.” I grabbed my tote bag and follow him up the stairs and into the twilight zone.

As I entered the trailer the first thing I noticed was how clean the place was.
I sat on the couch and set my tote next to me on the right side.
He then walked to the TV, put on a VHS tape, then walked down the hall, entered the last room and closed the door.
I turned my attention back to the TV and saw an underground S&M tape of two girls in a bathtub having sex with each other.

I wasn't sure what to make of the turn of events, but alarm bells were going off. I reached in my tote and pulled out my .45 Ruger Blackhawk and set it on my lap with my shirt covering my hand.

Just as I completed this task, I heard a door open. I turned to my left, stunned, transfixed, paralyzed by what I saw.

Click here for Part 2.

Our friends inside appreciate your comments.

Email comments and questions for Smiling John to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.

Shaun P. Attwood