You Okay for Time? | Kaori Fujino

Read article : You Okay for Time? | Kaori Fujino

Translated from Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori

For my best friend’s wedding present, I sent her a potted sansevieria. I compared product photos and prices online, selected one within my budget, addressed it to her new apartment, and hit send. I thought a leafy plant would be a more thoughtful gift than crockery or towels.

I called her soon after.

‘Did you get it?’

‘Yes, thank you! I love it – hope it’s okay, though.’

I knew what she meant. She was the only one in our class who’d failed to grow a hyacinth bulb in water, and she’d even made a cactus rot. The reason I’d chosen a sansevieria out of all the many leafy plants was, shall we say, out of consideration. The shop blurb said the sansevieria was stronger and easier to look after than any other plant, and on top of that it produced negative ions thereby improving indoor air quality, making it the perfect gift. ‘Stronger and easier to look after than any other plant’: that meant even she’d be able to care for it. She wasn’t a child any more after all, not by a long stretch – and she was married, to boot. There had been times when I thought she’d probably never marry, but she did. In which case she should at least be able to care for one of these.

I didn’t tell her that.

‘It’ll be fine,’ I said simply, full of affection for her. ‘The instruction leaflet was enclosed, right? Make sure you read it.’

‘Oh, hang on a sec. Ryo wants to say thank you too.’

The sound of her breathing receded, and her husband exhaled into my ear.

‘Hey, how are you?’ he said cheerfully. ‘Thanks for the wedding reception.’

He was referring to the fact I gave a speech on behalf of the bride’s friends. I put a lot of effort into it, feeling all warm and fuzzy as I rediscovered so many memories of her. They all sparkled, like a little brook. Everything that happened between us, the things she said, the things I said, were all washed away out of reach, leaving only the freshness of crystal clear water. How was I to convey this modest joy, pleasantly cool yet still warm, to everyone there? In a corner of my mind I knew I was being condescending. And yes, I was disdainful of my friend. But this didn’t diminish my friendly feelings towards her. So I put my whole heart into giving the speech. I talked about how gentle and kind she was, how serious and candid and unaffected. I really like my friend. I always did, and I still do.

My friend’s husband laughed and said he would make sure she didn’t let my gift die. My friend came back on the line.

‘You okay for time?’ That’s what she always said when she wanted a long chat. I was okay for time. I was surprised she was, being newly married, but it was just like her really.

‘It’s fine, no problem. Ryo’s going to have a bath now.’

And so she started talking, just like she always did.

The subject was her husband. She discovered new things about him every day, she said. Occasionally she lowered her voice and spoke about amusing details with great relish: how she couldn’t contend with the grime on his shirt collar just by rubbing it with detergent and washing it; how he coughed up phlegm in the toilet twice a day; the dull, heavy smell of sweat that filled the bedroom after a sound night’s sleep; the appalling potency of his bad breath first thing in the morning. How he folded his pants neatly and put them away. How he was particular about which shampoo and conditioner he used. How he’d been upset that they didn’t sell his preferred products in the local drug store, so he’d ordered them online.

‘Isn’t it weird? It’s only shampoo and rinse – any would do, surely?

‘It’s conditioner,’ I corrected her. ‘Even you always use the one your mom chose, don’t you?’

‘I have to. My hair goes everywhere if I don’t.’

Whenever my friend stayed in hotels, she never touched the shampoo provided but instead lined up her own little refillable bottles on the edge of the bathtub. If I ever suggested she stayed over at my place, she would recoil and excuse herself in a small voice saying she hadn’t brought her shampoo with her.

‘I never knew men were fussy about that sort of thing. I always thought they were okay with using just shampoo and didn’t need rinse.’

‘Conditioner,’ I corrected her again.

‘Oh, right. So what’s the difference between conditioner and the rinse that I use?’

‘Yours is treatment.’

‘Oh, is that what it is?’

My friend’s voice suddenly brightened. ‘Hey, Ryo! Sure, I was just about to hang up.’ The words that came through her cell phone hadn’t been directed at me, but rather arrived as a ripple from her voice echoing throughout a large sealed room empty but for herself. Although her new home was a fifty-six square meter two-bedroom condo.

‘So, come and visit, won’t you?’ she said quickly.

‘Sure, I’ll visit. Sometime soon.’

I know her really very well. After all, she is my best friend. For example, it was obvious to me that she knew very little about her boyfriend when she married him, even after dating for seven years. All she’d known about him apart from his basic personal information was his taste in films, his taste in clothes, his taste in food, his taste in women – and most importantly what he liked about her and how much. She’s lacking in imagination and didn’t need to know any more. I knew, naturally, that there were sides to her boyfriend she didn’t know about, and that she wasn’t even aware she didn’t know about them.

I also knew all about their sex life. They hadn’t had sex at all during the last two years they were dating. They’d done it more frequently at the beginning of their relationship, but it had slowly died out. There were all kinds of reasons: he was busy with his work, or she had her period, or they preferred to go see a movie together rather than spend time cooped up in a bedroom, or there was an art exhibition they wanted to see, or they would go two hours by train to eat cake at a café featured in a magazine, or they’d arranged to go out with me or some other friend. I knew she was a little suspicious about it, and also that she was unhappy about it. But I also knew that she was convinced he wasn’t being unfaithful, that he was devoted only to her, and truly loved only her. And it was true. During those seven years, she had often invited me out to lunch with the two of them, and we’d also gone out together in a big group of friends to karaoke and barbecues. On those occasions I’d been able to casually sound him and his friends out, and I had to conclude that she was right. I was pretty good at that sort of thing – at ferreting out gossip, and seducing spoken-for men. He was clean. That was when I first thought my friend would probably marry him. It’d be more fun if it wasn’t the case, though.

I hoped she wouldn’t let the sansevieria die right away. I hoped there wouldn’t be an awkward situation with her feeling she’d wronged me by letting it dry out or rot.

It was rarely me who called her. It was always she who called.

‘You okay for time?’

‘Sure. How’s the sansevieria?’

‘It’s doing great!’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Even though I’ve only watered it twice since it arrived. I wanted to water it more, the poor thing, but Ryo said the instructions said not to water it too much so I forced myself to be patient. And it seems to like it like that. It’s really tough, isn’t it?’

‘Really? That’s great.’

‘Listen, you know what? Ryo still doesn’t do it.’

‘Doesn’t do what?’

‘Look I told you we hadn’t been doing it. For about two years.’

‘What? You are kidding me, right?’

‘It’s true.’

But I wasn’t as surprised as I’d made out, and she wasn’t all that depressed about it either. She told me about how affectionate her husband was. He wants to hold hands even at home. He’s concerned when my friend has to work overtime and comes home late, and goes to the station to meet her. He won’t eat dinner until she comes home. He wants to eat with her, and will wait for hours. Dinner is almost always ready-made meals or easy-cook packets from the supermarket. My friend always lived at home so she can’t cook very well, and she doesn’t have time to practise. Her husband doesn’t complain at all, and just smiles. He can’t cook either. He lived alone for a long time so you’d have thought he would have learned how to, but my friend overlooks this point. In bed, they talk together. She has a lot to talk about and he hangs on to her every word, so that by the time they’ve finished talking they are both dead tired, and the atmosphere isn’t conducive to sex.

‘He’s a bit like a parent, I guess. No, he’s much more overprotective than a parent,’ she said happily. ‘Just when I thought I’d finally managed to get away from my parents, I go and marry a father figure. How tedious!’

I’d known that if she ever married it would be to a parental substitute.

‘When are you coming over?’ she asked. ‘Come while the sansevieria is still healthy.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘What about this Saturday?’

‘Sorry, it’s the company trip that day.’

‘Well, what about the following Saturday? Weekday evenings are fine too.’

‘I’ll try to work out my schedule.’

A photo arrived to my cell phone. It was a sansevieria. It filled the screen, with the top cut off and the background barely visible. All I could tell was that the curtains were a similar shade of green as the plant. It hadn’t withered yet. I was just about to email my friend when she called.

‘Did you see it?’ Her voice was louder than usual.

‘I saw it.’

‘It’s grown a lot, hasn’t it?’

‘Has it? I can’t tell.’

‘It has. It’s sending out new shoots from the side, too. Could you tell?’

‘Oh, really? No, I didn’t notice that.’

‘Dad says it’s about time we repotted it.’

‘Dad?’

‘Oh wait, I’ll hand you over.’

‘Yoko-chan, long time no see. Thanks for everything at the wedding reception.’

It was her mother, not her father.

‘Oh, you’re welcome. It really has been a long time, hasn’t it?’

‘You know, your speech was so moving that I cried. And you gave them such a nice present too. Thank you so much.’

‘Oh, not at all.’

‘Please do keep being good friends.

‘I will.’

My friend came back on the line.

‘Sorry, Mom said she really wanted to say hello to you.’

‘Are your Mom and Dad over to visit?’

‘Yes. They were worried that Ryo and I aren’t eating properly, so they made some lunch and brought it over. Enough for four. Mom’s just heating it up and putting it out on the plates now. Sorry she bothered you. Dad and Ryo are watching TV.’

I strained my ears. My friend’s voice was exceptionally clear, and the background was hushed. I couldn’t hear any sound from the TV or microwave, or the clatter of plates.

‘Oh, Dad said to say hello. Ryo too. So, what about it? When are you coming over? Hold on a sec . . . Ryo says he can make Wednesday or Friday this week.’

‘Uh-huh.’

I hung up the phone, got into bed, and thought about my friend’s parents. I know them quite well. They also know me quite well. They probably thought my friend was a virgin until she finally got married. As if.

My friend is an only child, and while her parents are parents, they are also her closest friends. They are really unbelievably close. She tells them everything. She does so because they want to listen.

Her parents could hardly wait for her to come home from school, cram school, work, or a night out, so she could tell them about it. When she was happy they were happier, when she laughed they laughed louder, when she was sad they were sadder, when she was angry they were angrier, they worried endlessly about things before she did, they liked everything about her, and their attitude showed that they accepted everything about her. My friend talked and talked and talked. She talked about absolutely everything. Her parents listened ad infinitum.

They assume her best friend does the same, but they’re wrong. As her best friend I can guarantee that just being best friends doesn’t mean you want to hear about anything and everything. Of course, if she says she wants me to listen, I listen. And I actually have been listening. That’s what being best friends is about. But in fact, pretty much the only thing a best friend wants to hear about is how far her friend went with her boyfriend.

And that is pretty much the only thing that her parents didn’t want to hear about. They hoped she would fall in love like everyone else, and wanted it all to go well. It wasn’t like they made sex a taboo subject – as long as it was about her friends, not her, not their daughter. They didn’t want her to have sex. Not when she was 16, nor 20, nor 23, nor 29, nor even 32. Sex was part and parcel of marriage. They made themselves very clear on this. Whenever the subject came up, it was the only time they stopped being friends and put on utterly implacable, stern parent faces.

My friend had sex on the sly. During the day, expeditiously, quietly, holding her breath. She maintained appearances, not staying out all night, and only going on trips with me or other girlfriends.

‘Tell them you’re staying at mine,’ I told her. ‘Then you can stay over at his.’

It was the same with trips. ‘What’s the problem with telling them you’re going with me, and going with him instead?’ I’d say.

My friend never once used me. Not when we were 16, nor when we were 32. But I don’t think her parents were stupid enough to really believe that she was a virgin right up until she married at 33. Just like my friend wasn’t stupid enough to actually keep her virginity.

My friend always was demure. While I and other girlfriends were giving our youth a mauling, getting battered and toughening ourselves up, my friend simply put her youth on her knee and absently picked at it with her fingernails. She began to feel an anguish that she couldn’t tell her parents about. And so it was my turn. I listened to her anguish. It wasn’t the fact that sex was forbidden that was causing her so much distress, it was that she wanted to abandon herself to her parents in the way she always did, but wasn’t able to.

But I’m not disdainful of my friend because she does whatever her parents tell her to, nor because she hasn’t experienced adventure or recklessness. It’s because she’s empty.

‘I always get the feeling that I’m not a participant in my own life,’ she confessed to me.

And it’s true. A large part of her belongs to her parents, and the rest of her is mine and her boyfriend-of-the moment’s. Now her husband’s.

‘You okay for time?

‘Sure.’ Of course I am.

‘My parents have been coming over three times a week since then. They come when Ryo and I are at work, fill the refrigerator with ready made meals, and go away again.’

‘Really?’

‘Ryo’s happy because it’s tasty, saves us money, and it makes things easy for us.’

‘But you’re not?’

‘Not really . . . after all, we’re supposed to be newly-weds but it doesn’t feel like that. But then, Mom’s cooking is tasty, and it really is a big help, I guess.’

Then she told me they’d finally had sex again last night. She was especially happy because her husband had initiated it, not her. She also talked about having children. Last night they’d used contraception out of habit, but at her age, if they wanted children she’d better hurry up. Before they married, her husband had said he wanted two children. I knew this. He’s one of two brothers. My friend, on the other hand, wouldn’t mind having just one, and they’d argued a little over this. I knew this too. But now her husband had started saying that maybe one child would be enough. He’d love a cute girl who looked just like her. But my friend has also changed her mind, and tells me she wants two. It would be good if both were boys, she said.

‘After all, they’d have more freedom to live their lives the way they want.’

‘Really? Doesn’t it depend on the person?’

‘Oh, someone’s at the door. Wait a bit – I’ll call you back.’

She hung up. Who had come? I didn’t know.

Ten minutes or so later, she called again.

‘It was a delivery.’

‘Really?’

‘What on earth is this?’

I said nothing and waited. Now I could hear the sound of my friend clumsily using a cutter, the sound of her slashing tape, the sound of her ripping the package open even though the tape wasn’t completely cut, the sound of her removing the packaging.

‘What the heck? . . . Soil and a plant pot.’

‘Soil?’

‘It says “Soil for growing sansevieria.” There’s a trowel, too.’

She looked at the invoice. It was in her husband’s name.

‘You okay for time?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It was a present. From Ryo. For our half-anniversary, he said.’

‘What?’

‘Half-anniversary. Our wedding.’

My friend told me the sansevieria I’d given them was growing fast and putting out a lot of new roots, so it was time to separate it out. She and her husband had studied up online about how to separate the roots and repot them, and they’d carried it out in their living room on their day off, and ended up getting soil all over the wood flooring.

‘After all, we didn’t want to take it out onto the balcony and let bugs get into the soil. We thought it would be enough to just spread out newspaper, but we underestimated the amount of soil. It got everywhere when we pulled the plant out of its original pot.’

‘So, did it go well?’

‘Probably. Right now both pots look very much alive. We leave the curtains open for the plants while we’re out at work. We’re a bit worried about sun damage to the flooring, but we feel too sorry for them not getting enough light. Did you know that new sansevieria roots are joined together underground by a fat stem called a rhizome?’

‘Hah.’

‘You’re supposed to snap it off, but I made a mess of it . . . so Ryo cut it.’

‘I see.’

‘And then you’re supposed to leave the break to dry for two or three days before potting it, but we couldn’t wait, so Ryo went and got the hairdryer and gave it a blast with that until it looked like it was dry enough. I was worried it might die after we repotted it.’

‘Really? Was it okay?’

‘Seems so. The both of them are getting bigger by the day. We’ll have to separate them out again before long.’

She said that next time they were going to make one for her parents. And one for me.

‘You can take it home with you when you come over to visit.’

‘Oh, but . . . I don’t need one!’

‘Um, you okay for time?’

‘Yes, sure. No problem.’

She burst into tears, heaving great sobs while I tranquilly listened. She sniffled, then blew her nose, cleared her throat, and cried again. It had been a while, but it wasn’t the first time. Whenever my friend wants to cry, I let her. She’s crying because she hasn’t got anything she needs to talk about. She wants to talk, she wants to unburden herself, but there’s nothing left so all she can do is cry. She did this once to her parents. They panicked. They feared something terrible had happened to her, that maybe someone had bullied her, but she said no, nothing had happened. They thought that was even more serious, that the problem was so big she couldn’t talk about it.

My friend’s parents held her tight, shook her, lost patience with her and scolded her, calmed down and comforted her, doing everything they could to get it out of her. It was such a tremendous onslaught that she couldn’t ignore them. Still crying, she desperately thought about it. She wasn’t allowed to cry for nothing. She had to give them a reason.

She told them she’d had a huge fight with her best friend. Me, that is. ‘Best friend? Which one?’ her baffled parents asked. My friend gave my name. To be honest, until that moment, we hadn’t been best friends. But so what? From the moment she named me as her best friend, that’s what we’ve been.

I don’t ask her why she’s crying. I wait until she finishes, however long it takes. I’m okay for time.

My friend at last calmed down and muttered ‘Sorry’ with an embarrassed laugh.

‘How’s the sansevieria?’ I asked sympathetically.

‘It’s fine. Really fine. It’s growing more and more leaves. We’re really good at separating the roots now. How many pots do you think we have now? Come over soon and see!’

‘Sorry, I’m just so busy.’

By the time I finally managed to visit my friend’s new home, two years had passed since her wedding. While I’d been so busy, she’d had a child. A boy. She sent a photo to my cell phone of the newborn swaddled in white linen and laid down on the flooring with a sansevieria leaf next to him. The leaf, longer than the baby, was like a double-edged sword with a sharp pointed tip.

‘Baby and sansevieria both doing well,’ read the message.

On the appointed day, I left work early and went to a department store where I bought some blue baby rompers and had them wrapped with a blue ribbon. Then I went to the basement food hall and bought five custard puddings.

‘He’s such a boy, even though he’s just a baby. He’s so naughty!’ My friend told me on the phone. She also said, ‘When I told my parents you were coming over, Yoko, they were delighted and started going on about how much they wanted to see you too. Do you mind? Mom said she’d cook us up a feast. Ryo’s all fired up too and said he’ll come home early to help. He’s been learning how to cook from Mom lately. It’s weird. Dad’s the same as ever. The moment he comes over he goes straight to sit in front of the TV.’

I arrived at my friend’s condo and pressed the button on the interphone at the entrance. She answered right away, as though she’d been waiting.

‘Come in!’ she said, and the automatic door opened. ‘Get the elevator to the seventh floor. Turn left out of the elevator, and it’s the door at the far end. And I’m sorry, but we’re all a bit tied up at the moment. The door isn’t locked, so just come on in.’

In the elevator I jiggled my shoulders to straighten my jacket, and adjusted my grip on my handbag and the bags with the gifts I’d brought with me. I followed her instructions and soon stood before the apartment door. One side of the shared corridor was open, and the faint sound of the traffic below reminding me of my childhood. I put my hand on the cream-colored door. As she’d said, it wasn’t locked. I went inside and quietly closed it behind me.

A narrow hallway stretched out before me and opened out into the living room. But I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. Beneath a diffuse, warm-colored light, an expanse of thick, densely-growing blades of tall grass stretched out before me. When I took a closer look, it appeared to be growing out of soil spread directly onto the flooring.

Still, I had to take off my shoes. Hemmed in by a folded-up baby buggy and the walls, along with flat shoes and sandals, men’s leather shoes and sneakers, I remained standing upright and wiggled my ankles to release my heels from my pumps. I felt utterly unnerved, barely managing to put my stockinged feet in a space on the flooring where there was no soil. It was only when I’d accomplished this that I realized that it wasn’t grass at all, but leaves. Leaves of sansevieria.

I had only seen the sansevieria in photos. I held my handbag and the paper shopping bags in my left hand, and with my right hand I touched the leaves. They were hard, fleshy and cold. They were a deep green, with a deeper green, almost black stripes, and yellowish edges. They were smooth with the slight roughness of dust, and didn’t really strike me as something living.

The apartment was hushed. I forced my way through the closely-clustered leaves. I could tell my stockings had ripped underfoot. The only sounds were those I was making: the faint sound of my breathing, the rustling of my paper bags, the murmur of the sansevieria as I cut through it, pushing it away with my hands and forcing it aside with my body, crushing it underfoot.

Photograph © Carl Lewis

Bruce Beresford-Redman's prison diaries - CBS News

Read article : Bruce Beresford-Redman's prison diaries - CBS News

Produced by Josh Yager, Paul LaRosa and Ana Real

"48 Hours" first told the story of Bruce Beresford-Redman in 2012. His wife, Monica, was murdered in a Cancun hotel while his family was vacationing. Bruce returned to the United States to take care of his children, but when Mexico charged him with his wife's murder, he was extradited there to stand trial. Nearly three years later, he is still on trial.

Where does the case stand and how long will Monica's family have to wait for justice? "48 Hours" correspondent Troy Roberts confronts Beresford-Redman about the charges against in him in his first sit-down interview.

Video diary: "My name is Bruce Beresford-Redman ... I'm in a Mexican prison, where I've been on trial now ... for more than two years and nine months. I am accused of the murder of my wife, Monica ... for a crime I did not commit."

In a video diary he made for "48 Hours", Bruce Beresford-Redman says not a day goes by that he doesn't "miss and think about his wife."

Monica's family misses her too.

"I wish I could believe that he didn't have anything to with my sister's murder," said her sister Jeanne Burgos in a 2012 interview with Troy Roberts. "It's for the love that we have for her and all the memories that we have about her ... that we are here today demanding justice."

Bruce Beresford-Redman

48 Hours

Recording diary entries in his cell inside Cancun's Benito Juarez Prison and elsewhere around the prison compound over a period of four months, Beresford-Redman says he wanted people to "understand what can happen, to get an idea of, what things are like here in Hell."

Video diary: "Making these video has really made me much more visible here ... which is really not a great thing for me...My existence in here has become a very basic struggle to simply survive."

"For many years I worked in reality TV and the reality of reality television, even at its best ... it's a world that is created. Being in here is real ... it is real and it sucks. .. it's noisy and it's smelly and it's sweaty and hot and cramped ... it's extremely uncomfortable.

"This is not an easy place to be I really don't have any, any what you could call real friends here ... and it's impossible for me to really have anybody in here that I can trust."

Riots there are not uncommon. In his video diary, Beresford-Redman documents the effects of being tear-gassed during an uprising.

Video diary: "It's Friday ... I've heard some pops and then I smelled the tear gas ... I'm getting kind of a choking sensation now ... and my eyes are just burning...it's just really strong ... itchy ... burning ... oh, god, it's awful."

A NEW REALITY

Living behind bars has been the reality for Beresford-Redman since "48 Hours" first met him in February 2012.

"This is not the United States. I really don't know this system. I don't know how it works," he told "48 Hours."

Back then, Beresford-Redman was housed in the high security wing of the Benito Juarez Prison -- a cell block full of drug traffickers and assassins responsible for countless murders around Mexico.

Now, he's in general population where he has more freedom. Beresford-Redman agreed to make video diaries to document his day-to-day life. It is a rare glimpse inside a Mexican prison.

Video diary: "Being incarcerated anywhere, but I think maybe especially here, time just gets warped ... it is almost impossible to live in the present because the present is just absolutely miserable."

"I don't think that I could possibly convey what it feels like to have not seen my children, not held my children, for nearly three years now."

"Everything that I worked my life to build is gone... If I'm convicted, I am facing a sentence of 30 years..."

Beresford-Redman says he spends a lot of time reliving time with his wife and kids -- "just times when I was free."

Bruce and Monica Beresford-Redman

Images of Monica -- lovely, vivacious and headstrong -- haunt Beresford-Redman.

Video diary:"I've had a lotta time to think back on things and to remember things from the past..."

For more than two years, "48 Hours" tried to get permission to do a sit-down interview in the prison. That interview between correspondent Troy Roberts and Beresford-Redman took place earlier this year.

"How did you meet Monica?" Roberts asked.

"Monica owned a restaurant in and a nightclub in -- in West Los Angeles called Zabumba," Beresford-Redman replied. "I randomly went there one night for dinner. And this beautiful woman served me great food ... it was a fun place. And I ... went back to try and get her attention ... and I sorta never left. ...Monica was the most beautiful, engaging-- just-- she was great. She was so cool, and -- very quickly I found that my relationship with her was different than any relationship I'd ever had before and I was in love with her and she was in love with me and it was terrific."

Monica's sisters, Carla and Jeanne Burgos, say that when Bruce and Monica first met back in 1997, they seemed like a happy couple. The Burgos sisters spoke to "48 Hours" in 2012.

"She had life. She was very outgoing and self-confident," Jeanne said. "Bruce was a very well read person. He can be very eloquent ... but not necessarily the emotion."

After marrying in 1999, the couple had two children: Camilla, now 10, and Alec, now 7.

Monica had the restaurant and Bruce had his career, which was taking off in a hurry. He was a top producer on the CBS program "Survivor" and also worked on several hit reality shows for other networks and cable outlets.

As the money poured in, the family moved to a $2 million house in Los Angeles. With the more lavish lifestyle, came some unexpected challenges.

"Things became difficult?" Roberts asked.

"At times, sure," Beresford-Redman replied. "Both Monica and I worked a great deal. ...I worked during the day, she worked at night ... there was a period of time when we were sort of passing one another."

If that sounds like a recipe for marital discord, it was. Beresford-Redman began an affair with his longtime casting director Joy Pierce. At times, the two had trouble keeping their hands off each other, even in front of Monica's sister, Carla.

"I went with him to a party," she said. "It was a club ... we got there ... she jumped on his lap ... and I was ... you know..."

"You were stunned," Roberts noted.

"Yeah," Carla replied.

Beresford-Redman was struggling with the affair on an emotional level. He considered telling his parents, David and Juanita, and eventually confided in his mother.

Asked if she encouraged her son to break off the affair, Juanita told Roberts, "I did. I said, 'You know, that's the only smart thing to do. You will hurt yourself. You will hurt Monica.' ...I got the impression that he had really fallen in love and it was going to be very difficult for him to break it off."

After Monica angrily confronted her husband, Beresford-Redman wrote her a brutally frank e-mail. It was written on March 4, 2010 - only one month before the couple was to leave on their ill-fated Mexican vacation. In the e-mail, Beresford-Redman laid bare the painful truth, writing: "Joy and I were lovers." Monica was devastated.

"My relationship with Monica was good," said Beresford-Redman.

"You can't paint a rosy picture on this, right? Roberts asked. " I mean ... you guys had problems."

"Like any marriage, like any family, we had -- we had issues, certain issues," he replied. "But we were -- we were happily married and we were in love with each other ... We were good."

Beresford-Redman wouldn't talk to "48 Hours" about his affair, but in an e-mail written to Joy Pierce in the spring of 2010, he outlined the steps a furious Monica had taken against him: "She...denied me access to my children ... she shut me out of my home ... and liquidated all my money, " he wrote.

"It was a point where she had decided to get divorced from him," said Jeanne.

But Beresford-Redman did all he could to change Monica's mind. He promised he'd break off his affair with Joy and told Monica he would change his ways. Monica agreed to go with him for the family vacation they took every year for her upcoming birthday. This time, they traveled to the Moon Palace Resort in Cancun, Mexico.

"And how was the trip, initially?" Roberts asked Beresford-Redman.

"It was good. It was -- it was really fun, you know," he replied.

"So you and Monica got along well during this trip?" Roberts asked.

"Yeah, we had a really good time," said Bruce.

That's hardly the way Monica described the trip, according to her sister, Jeanne, who says she spoke to Monica by phone the day before she was murdered. Jeanne says Monica was upset about Bruce's cheating.

"I told her, 'Monica, don't worry. You know, come back here, just move on with your life,'" Jeanne said. "...you're just going to build up your life again and you're going to be happy again."

The next day, April 5, 2010, was to be the last day of Monica's life.

"She was gonna do some shopping-- and then she was perhaps gonna go to a spa," Beresford-Redman explained.

"And when did you grow concerned?" Roberts asked.

"Probably 10:30 or 11:00 that night," he said, sighing.

Bruce's concern was made all the worse because he says Monica had not taken her cell phone so he could not call her. Police later discovered that she did not take her passport or a room key, either.

"Was that surprising that she didn't take her phone when you were alone with kids?" Roberts asked.

"No. No, not really," Beresford-Redman replied. "When Monica was off the grid, she was off the grid."

She didn't take her cell phone? She left the kids all day with him? She never does that, ever," Jeanne told Roberts.

Video diary: "One of the things that I remember from the night that Monica was first missing was my children sleeping. I had given them baths and I had put them to bed ...and I thought, 'OK, I'm gonna go outside and I'm gonna take a look. I'm gonna see Monica walking back towards the room."

But Monica did not come back to the room -- not that night and not ever. The long, upward trajectory of Beresford-Redman's once-successful life and career was about to end abruptly.

A LOOK INSIDE PRISON LIFE

When Bruce Beresford-Redman left on his family vacation to Mexico in 2010, he probably never thought home would turn out to be Cancun's Benito Juarez prison.

The prison, where he has spent nearly three years on trial for his wife's murder, houses more than 1,800 men and women in a compound originally built for 700.

Video diary: "When I walk around the prison, no matter where I'm going or what's going on, I am constantly aware that this is just a hostile environment for me."

"I'm completely shut down. I'm simply in survival mode," Beresford-Redman told Roberts. "To make it in here, you cannot indulge in human sentiments. ... you really have to deaden part of yourself and just survive."

Video diary: "My Spanish is still not very good ... So I'm always paying attention ... and you're never really able to relax."

It's a pressure cooker of criminals and contraband that often boils over.

"You're with people who have demonstrated poor impulse control and a number of them may have mental problems,"Beresford-Redman explained. "It's not uncommon to have fist fights ... screaming matches ...it is a very dehumanizing situation."

Bruce Beresford-Redman his cell at Cancun's Benito Juarez Prison.

48 Hours

Video diary: The cell that I'm in is a very small cell ... it's designed for three men. And there are 10 of us in here. There have been as many as 17... This is the bathroom of the cell. All of these buckets are full of water. The water here runs only for a couple hours a day."

"I come back from my workout and I take my first shower of the day ... I shower four times a day ... I wash my clothes ... I do everything I can to keep myself clean and healthy. It's a real struggle ... This place seems like a really great place to incubate a plague. Despite my best efforts I managed to get a rash that everyone else here had that just swept through this place like wildfire."

The cell is open to the elements -- rain and relentless heat. He says the smell from open sewers is blinding, adding that "the whole country -- it feels like is just steaming."

Video diary: This is my bunk where I sleep. I've awakened probably seven or eight times now with a cockroach on me someplace.

Among the personal items Beresford-Redman keeps on a shelf above his bed -- his favorite picture of his daughter and son.

Video diary: "This is breakfast this morning ... brown liquid with some beans on the bottom there I think ... I have gotten violently ill eating the prison food... I have been able to supplement my diet ... with-- food brought from outside. I befriended-- an inmate in here. He has since been released. But his family still comes to see me once a week with some home-cooked meals and some snacks and some other things, so that I don't have to rely entirely on the prison food."

To pay for his food and other expenses, Beresford-Redman's parents send him money from their retirement nest egg. Less fortunate inmates have to rely on meals in buckets served by new prisoners known as "talachos."

Video diary: "They are as close as you can come to slaves. You can buy your way out of it, or you can do your talacho work for your first year here."

"The guards basically maintain a perimeter on the outside and their concern primarily is making sure that nobody gets out... The prisoners discipline each other ... and it's much more dangerous, because there's really nobody to come to your help, to your aid, if you are in trouble in here."

Danger is all around, but he says Mexican prison also means a freedom he never had in American prison, where he spent 18 months awaiting extradition.

Video diary: "In many ways, this is like a very small village that they just threw razor wire around. There's churches in here, there's a mechanic shop in here ... guys making hammocks."

Some of the women prisoners are even allowed to have their children live with them. Three times a week it's visiting day.

Video diary: "...this place is full today of families ... on visit days. From 8:00 in the morning to 3:00 in the afternoon the prison ... fills up with families and wives and kids...

"Family is extraordinarily highly valued here and the prison administration and prisoners themselves and the gangs in here have enormous respect for the visits."

He says visit days make him sad, "a little melancholy." There are no family visits for Beresford-Redman.

Video diary: "I would not allow them. I don't want them to be confronted with how I am forced to exist in here."

So Beresford-Redman hasn't seen them in nearly three years. His lifeline is phone calls to his children, Alec and Camilla, who live with his parents in California.

Video diary: "To hear my kids' voices, to hear my parents' voices ... is the best, most human part of my day. ... I have not been able to be a father to Camilla and Alec for ... years now. It is devastating. It takes all of my energy just to keep going."

But there's no choice. Beresford-Redman, his family, and Monica's sisters are all navigating an unfamiliar landscape: justice in a foreign country.

"There's no question that the Mexican legal system is different from ours," said Sonya Tsiros, U.S. Consul General for the Cancun area.

Tsiros says she is closely following the Beresford-Redman case - and that by Mexican standards, it doesn't surprise her.

"Has Mr. Beresford-Redman complained to you about the length of this trial?" Roberts asked.

"He has raised that issue," Tsiros replied. "And we're following through on that."

"Do you have any sense of what the prison conditions are like?" Roberts asked.

"I would say that the prison conditions are not up to what we would consider standards in the United States," said Tsiros.

Beresford-Redman, at least, has a bed. "48 Hours" found another American, 38-year-old Johnny Mintu, from Seattle, who, incredibly, sleeps on the floor under Bruce's bunk. It's not uncommon in this prison.

Video diary: "From time to time ... when I just really need some privacy and a little bit of quiet and just a little more space than I can get in my cell or in the rest of the prison ... I book a conjugal room."

Most inmates rent the room for sex. Beresford-Redman says he rents it for peace and quiet.

Video diary: "You're not supposed to be in here by yourself. But I just put down the name Jane Doe and nobody's ever checked."

Trying to recreate life outside the bars is only a temporary escape.

Video diary: "I cannot afford in here to appear on the outside as absolutely broken as I feel on the inside."

As the sun begins to set, the prisoners are locked in for the night.

Video diary: Another night here ... another night in paradise ... then I just lay down and try to go to sleep...

It's a sleep, he says, that is haunted by the memory of his murdered wife.

Video diary: "I still miss her all the time and I still think of her all the time ... I never lose sight of the fact that this is really Monica's story."

Monica's story is a murder mystery. And for Beresford-Redman, it's a real whodunit.

THE DAY MONICA DISAPPEARED

With so much time on his hands, Bruce Beresford-Redman says he thinks often of the day Monica disappeared.

"As soon as I was awake, I called the hotel desk, I guess, and I said you know, 'My wife didn't come back yesterday. Do you know where she is?'" Beresford-Redman told Troy Roberts.

Monica Beresford-Redman

After reporting that she was missing, he called Jeane Burgos, Monica's sister.

"When Bruce called you to say that Monica was missing what went through your mind?" Roberts asked.

"My sister missing? Monica? Monica's not a person that gets lost, she doesn't get lost," Jeanne replied. "She's a person that she goes anywhere and she makes friends and she knows what she's doing."

A worried Jeanne immediately flew to Cancun to help with the search, but the next day, hotel workers found Monica's body in that sewer situated near the family's hotel room.

"How could someone put a person in the sewage. Very, very, very horrible," she said.

"How did you learn that her body was discovered?" Roberts asked Beresford-Redman.

"I was at the hotel ... I was sitting there waiting ...and they brought me back to my room," he replied. "I had no idea what was going on. ...Finally someone told me that they had found Monica's body.

It would have been her 42nd birthday.

Video diary: "I could not make sense of that. It just didn't seem possible."

Bruce Beresford-Redman became a suspect almost immediately because investigators thought his story of Monica's disappearance defied logic. They didn't believe she would leave the children behind without taking her room key, her passport, or even her cell phone. What's more, Beresford-Redman had visible scratches on his body.

He says the injuries to his hand occurred after a boat ride as he tried to carry his children up a steep incline.

"It was rocky and slippery and I had to lift the kids out and then climb out myself and I scratched my hands a little bit," he explained.

As for the scratches to the back of his neck?

"We were diving ... and I surfaced and there was a nylon rope and it was just a rough nylon rope and it abraded ... the back of my head a little bit and that was it," he told Roberts.

Police also learned that two English teenagers had reported hearing screams coming from Beresford-Redman's room very early on the morning Bruce said Monica went shopping.

Jen Heger covered the story for Radar Online.

"A female screamed crying for help," Heger explained. "The next morning, the teenagers told their parents about what they had heard to the concierge. The concierge called the hotel room to see what was going on and Bruce said that Bruce and Monica were arguing about the children and that everything was fine."

Beresford-Redman maintains that he and the children were simply playing a loud, boisterous game. But now his every move was coming under scrutiny.

Asked why he had a "do not disturb" sign on the door all day, Beresford-Redman told Roberts, "Well, I was in and out all day with the kids. We were napping and doing stuff and didn't wanna be disturbed. It's as simple as that really."

"The Mexican authorities believe that Bruce wouldn't allow the maids to clean the room that day because there was a dead body inside and that dead body belonged to his wife -- Monica," said Heger.

The police theorized that Beresford-Redman had suffocated his wife and, later that night, went looking for a place to stash her body.

"We also know," Heger continued, "someone went in and out of the room nine times in the middle of the night."

Beresford-Redman says he was nervously checking to see if Monica was about to return.

"I was in and out of the room many times to take a look to see if I could see her, to walk down to where the footpath is visible and to take a look and return to the room," Beresford-Redman told Roberts.

Back in Los Angeles, Monica's sister, Carla Burgos, thought back to the last time she had seen Bruce and how agitated he seemed to her. It was just two days before the family left for Cancun.

"I've seen him before they traveled and he was totally angry and crazy. I said, 'Don't be around him ... Monica, please listen to me, get out,'" she said.

"Why do you think Monica's family is convinced that you killed her?" Roberts asked.

"I really don't know," Beresford-Redman replied. "I understand their pain. I understand their sense of loss. After my children and myself, their loss is the greatest ... however, why they wanna blame me, I don't know ... that I don't know."

Monica also had life insurance. Her husband was not the beneficiary, but the children stood to inherit $500,000 each. All in all, investigators believed they had a strong circumstantial case but there remained a huge question -- how could Beresford-Redman kill his wife, and then dump her body while taking care of two young children?

"They were in one hotel room and it was not a suite. It was one room," said Heger.

There was scant physical evidence against Beresford-Redman except for a very small amount of blood investigators found on the bedroom pillow and a balcony railing.

"When people look at you with suspicion, how do you feel?" Roberts asked.

"I've been accused of a horrible, abhorrent crime and I'm innocent," said Beresford-Redman.

"You did not kill Monica," said Roberts.

"I did not kill Monica," Bruce replied.

But the police were convinced Bruce Beresford-Redman did kill Monica and they had no other suspects. The hotel, which says it kept written logs of everyone entering or leaving the grounds, reported it had no record of Monica leaving that day. And if there are security cameras at the Moon Palace, no recordings have surfaced.

Video diary: "My best guess would be that somewhere in the course of her day, she ran into some people that she should not have run across ... I think perhaps she attracted the attention of someone who was very dangerous."

While Beresford-Redman was cooperating with police, his children were taken back to Los Angeles by a friend of Jeanne Burgos. She also arranged for her sister's body to be brought back, even though Beresford-Redman had already paid for Monica to be cremated.

"Why do you think Bruce moved to have Monica cremated?" Roberts asked Jeanne Burgos.

"I think it's pretty self-explanatory," she said.

"Why do you think?" Roberts pressed.

"To get rid of any evidence," Jeanne replied.

Beresford-Redman stayed in Mexico for about a week after Monica's body was found. Authorities took his passport and insist they ordered him to remain in the country. He says his lawyer told him he was free to return to the United States.

"48 Hours" correspondent interviews Bruce Beresford-Redman

48 Hours

"This is what I find a little difficult ... is that they're investigating your wife's murder and you go home? Why wouldn't you stay here?" Roberts asked.

"Well, because I have two small children who were at my home. They just lost their mom and I believed at the time that I had done all I could do to help the police so I went home to be with my children," he replied.

Having no passport, Beresford-Redman got a ride to the Mexican border near Laredo, Texas, and simply walked across using his driver's license for identification. From there, he took a train rather than fly back to Los Angeles. His unorthodox journey raised suspicions.

"You didn't go back to the United States to escape possible arrest?" Roberts asked Beresford-Redman.

"No, I went home to be with my children. I was at my home. I was not hiding. If I'd been trying to evade I would have attempted to evade. I went back to the United States and went directly home," he explained.

Beresford-Redman cared for his children for seven months. But in November 2010, Mexico declared him a fugitive and issued a warrant for his arrest. He was taken to a federal jail in Los Angeles where he stayed for more than a year until he was finally extradited back to Cancun to stand trial for the murder of his wife.

"Bruce probably feels that he is trapped in the worst reality show he could ever imagine," said Heger.

SEEKING JUSTICE IN MEXICO

In February 2012, Bruce Beresford-Redman -- outfitted in a bulletproof vest -- was extradited back to Mexico in a scene straight out of a movie.

Video diary: "I was taken by the U.S. Marshals to the airport ... I was brought here in the middle of the night in a rainstorm..."

"I hoped that my trial would end quickly when I got here," he told Roberts.

That is not what happened. Essentially, the courts in Mexico move at their own pace. There are no juries and in many courtrooms on any given day, there's more than one trial going on at the same time.

Video diary: "The courtroom that I'm being tried in looks like a very busy shipping office above a warehouse someplace."

Criminal defense lawyer Pat Fanning lives part-time in Mexico and has experience with the country's judicial system.

"They just don't have the resources to do the things the way we do," Fanning told Roberts. "Here, it's more like a municipal office in the United States where you'd go to get your driver's license, where you'd go to pick up a birth certificate or something."

U.S. Consul General Sonya Tsiros says the differences are more than cosmetic.

"There's not a trial, per se, in that there is one period of time in which a judge hears all of the evidence. ... It's done through a series of written presentations to the judge," Tsiros explained. "It doesn't occur ... in the same fashion in the United States."

But as the trial has dragged on, what once seemed like a strong prosecution case appeared to evaporate in court. Testing revealed that the blood droplets found in the hotel room did not belong to Monica. That raised questions about where Monica had been killed because she had suffered a substantial head wound.

"Our experts ... say it is not possible to kill someone and produce that type of injuries without leaving blood," said Jaime Cancino, who is one of Beresford-Redman's lawyers in Mexico. "If that have happened there... it would produced a humungous quantity of blood."

In court, prosecutors could not even produce the Q-tips investigators used to collect the blood. Most everything else they took from the family's hotel room as potential evidence turned out to be contaminated by mold and water damage while in police custody.

And some of the physical evidence presented at trial helped Beresford-Redman. Footprints found near the crime scene were not Bruce's. It also came to light that Monica's fingernails were not tested for the presence of DNA because her body was so decomposed.

"There isn't much direct evidence and the evidence they do have has been contaminated, largely," Roberts noted to Fanning.

"Well, it has in -- in large part. But you still have, for example, that they were havin' marital troubles ... that he had a girlfriend ... the life insurance policy on her for half-a-million dollars," he replied.

But in court, even the circumstantial case against Beresford-Redman appeared weaker than advertised.

Some witnesses, like the English teenagers who reported overhearing screams coming from the Beresford-Redman room, did not appear in court. Beresford-Redman says other witnesses did not repeat the stories they had first told police.

"It's clear to me that they have no idea what happened to my wife," he told Roberts. "There was witness, who was a housekeeper, I think. And he came in ... and before anyone asked a question, he said, 'I wasn't there that day. I didn't see anything. I don't know anything and I don't know why I'm here as a witness.'"

Another person not called to the stand or even part of the case was Emily Hamilton from Baltimore. She says she was nearly raped at the Moon Palace one month after Monica was murdered. And her attacker, Hamilton says, was a hotel worker delivering food to her room.

"He threw me on the bed. ... He had his arms around me. I was trying to force him off and I remember feeling pain ... 'cause I thought I could fend for myself, but he was too strong and overbearing ... and that's when I yelled for my friend Casey and she came back in and that's when he was pulling up his pants and that's when he ran out of the room," said Hamilton.

"So you must've been frightened out of your mind," said Roberts.

"Very much so," Hamilton replied.

That worker was fired. In the United States, it's likely he'd be a suspect in Monica's murder, but that possibility was not raised in Beresford-Redman's trial. However, in 2013, an independent criminologist was appointed by the court to review all the evidence against Beresford-Redman.

"He reviewed the case, he visited the crime scene, he did all the things required to make his report," Beresford-Redman told Roberts.

After six months, the criminologist released a bombshell of a report. His conclusion: Monica was not murdered in her Moon Palace hotel room and there was no physical evidence linking Beresford-Redman to her murder.

Video diary: "I naively assumed at that point that the prosecution would drop the charges and would focus their investigative efforts elsewhere ... and nothing has happened. Charges aren't dropped. My trial continues with no end in sight. I'm still here..."

"If you're gonna convict me, convict me so I can appeal. Otherwise just give me a ruling so I can go home," said Beresford-Redman.

"Do you think you're being unfairly singled out?" Roberts asked.

"I don't know," he replied. "It feels at times to me like they don't wanna do anything with me. I'm stuck and ... in many ways I feel like I'm without a country."

Sonia Tsiros says members of the U.S. consulate have visited Beresford-Redman on 19 separate occasions.

"U.S. citizens who are arrested in a foreign country are subject to the laws of that foreign country," Tsiros explained. "We can't intervene in court cases and we can't request special treatment for U.S. citizens."

"Can you use the influence of your office to move things along?" Roberts asked.

"If there's due process violation, we can raise those. But we can't intervene in -- in a case," she said.

"I'm broken inside. I have lost my wife. I lost my children ... I've lost everything else," Beresford-Redman told Roberts. "I'm on emotional autopilot, just surviving every day in the hopes that I will finally at some point get outta here but that is a diminishing hope."

Of course, he is not the only one who's lost a loved one.

"Everybody loved her," Carla Burgos said of her sister, Monica. "She was so awesome, so full of life. She was so fun, so smart. Everything,"

Each side hopes for justice ... and that may soon be coming because after nearly three years, the last witnesses will finally testify.

A LAST HEARING

After years in a Mexican prison - and in legal limbo - Bruce Beresford-Redman's trial finally may be nearing an end.

Video diary: "It's a Thursday afternoon. Tomorrow I will be taken back to court, and I am told it will be the last hearing in my trial...

"It's very difficult for me to get my hopes up... because I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop ... and so often it seems to drop on my head."

He says the trial so far hasn't made any sense. Lost or contaminated evidence, missing witnesses and agonizing delays. It's his first court date in about three months.

On this day, he's set to face the prosecutor's final two witnesses -- hotel employees who may have witnessed Bruce and Monica arguing the day before her murder.

"How many times have you appeared before this judge?" Roberts asked.

"If I had to guess, I would say probably, 40, maybe 45 appearances in court over two-and- a-half years. At the many of those appearances, however-- the witness doesn't show up, and we stand around for a little while and they reschedule the witness for another eight weeks or 10 weeks down the road and we all go home again," Beresford-Redman replied.

But these witnesses actually do show up. Today, it's the judge who doesn't.

Like many of the other hearings, this one goes ahead anyway with the judge's assistant presiding.

Video diary: "...the witnesses arrived ... no one including the prosecution seemed to have any idea what they were going to say..."

Incredibly, the final two prosecution witnesses sound like part of the defense team. Both tell the court they've never laid eyes on Beresford-Redman or his wife.

"We didn't hear them arguing," one of them told "48 Hours" after the hearing. "We didn't even see their faces."

With no more witnesses on either side, Mexican law requires the judge to conclude the evidence phase of the trial within about five days; but that doesn't happen.

"Why don't we have a verdict?" Roberts asked Pat Fanning.

"Because we're in Mexico," he replied. "That's how things are done here and nobody gets excited about it."

For nearly three years, "48 Hours" has asked Mexican authorities to go on the record about this case. But they refused.

Back in prison, it's hard for Beresford-Redman not to hope.

Video diary: "Yesterday was a good day...and you sort of take them as they come..."

"I am absolutely confident that if -- if there is a ruling according to the facts, that I will be exonerated," he said.

"And when will that happen?" Roberts asked.

"Well ... that I don't know. That's my problem," he replied.

But the Burgos sisters insist Bruce is right where he should be. And justice for Monica demands that he stay there.

"If he really killed my sister, which it looks like he did, I want him in jail. But it doesn't make me happy to see him in jail," said Carla Burgos.

Video diary: "I spend a lotta time in here looking over the barbed wire ... I can see birds and green trees and life outside -- oh this Hell...

"It's really time for me to go home. It's time for me to be with Camilla and Alec. It's time for me to try and put back together some kind of a life for them and for myself."

His parents, meanwhile, are trying to keep life in California as normal as possible for Alec and Camilla, but it's not easy -- they're 81 and 76.

Juanita Beresford-Redman has been keeping a video diary, too:

"It's ... about 8:30 in the morning. The children have gone off to school. It's reasonably quiet at the moment.

"Camilla's birthday is coming up ... and she asked me yesterday did I think daddy might be able to home for her birthday this year... and I told her honestly, "No honey...he's not gonna make it this year."

"Is it your fear that this may go on indefinitely?" Roberts asked Juanita.

"It is a fear," she replied. "I can't see why it's gone on this long."

Carla and Jeanne Burgos tried and failed to get custody, but they have regular visitation with the children.

"We love those kids more than anything in this world," Jeanne said. "It's not what is good, what is bad, it's what is the best for the kids."

"We are a family, but we're not their father... we're their grandparents," Juanita said. "We love them, but, it's not the same."

"I will never make my peace with being incarcerated for something I didn't do. I will never rest or stop fighting. I may lose continually, but I'm never gonna stop ... because this is crap," Beresford-Redman told Roberts.

But as memories and milestones slip past, all Bruce Beresford-Redman can do is watch, wait, and wish his children well.

Video diary: "...I love you guys, I miss you. Be strong and ... and all I want is for you guys to have the best life you can."

Prosecutors should be submitting their closing arguments in writing by the end of November.

the year of living with banksy – Demi Adejuyigbe – Medium

Read article : the year of living with banksy – Demi Adejuyigbe – Medium

Wasn’t necessary to paint this on any walls, much less one outside my bathroom window.

When I first moved to Los Angeles in July of 2013, I found a room for rent in a house on Craigslist. I soon learned the landlord, and the man I’d be living with, was none other than the famous graffiti artist and incognito street poet Banksy. I never learned his true identity, but I did keep a journal of every strange thing he did in the year we lived together.

JULY 2013 — I toured Banksy’s house and fell in love with the living scenario immediately: my space was a large room in a ornate 2 bedroom craftsman home with a beautiful yard, for only $500 a month. I jumped at the chance, even when Banksy dressed up in a suit and red horns for the lease signing. He cackled devilishly through the whole affair and signed every page as “Lou C. Ferr,” but for $500 a month, I was fully prepared to let him set me on fire.

AUGUST 2013 — I called a plumber when my toilet stopped working. Less than a minute into the job he plunged out twenty tampons, each labeled with phrases like ”childhood obesity” and “the war on drugs.” Upon further inspection, we noticed the word “society” scrawled in Sharpie on the toilet lid. The plumber handed me a pre-typed invoice with a “Banksy fee” of $50 and said “see you next month.”

SEPTEMBER 2013 — Twice a week, I started catching Bansky dressed like a little boy (complete with propeller beanie and cartoonishly-large lollipop) kneeling before a life-sized statue of Colonel Sanders. Every time, he’d notice me watching out of the corner of his eye and say “In Colonel’s name we pray– yum yum.”

OCTOBER 2013 — Banksy painted a homeless man the exact pattern of our bathroom wallpaper and had him stand against the wall next to the toilet for a week. Every afternoon that week, Banksy walked into the bathroom with an American flag hat and exclaimed “Oh– sorry Mr. Homeless Man. I didn’t see you there.” On one occasion I asked if he was paying the guy, and Banksy changed the subject by asking if I saw “that real firecracker of a game last night.”

NOVEMBER 2013 — Banksy got into a routine with one of his art pieces: every few days, he dressed up in maternity clothes and directly called the local police station, saying he was going into labor. When they arrived, he pulled a doll labeled “Justice” from under a skirt and told the cops he “did a fine job delivering it without them.” This backfired spectacularly, as 911 started refusing calls from the house, even when Banksy almost burnt it down at the end of the month by cooking crack cocaine in a latex Nixon mask.

DECEMBER 2013 — For this month and this month only, Banksy vowed to pause all political art. He loved the time around Christmas and New Year’s, and rarely had someone to celebrate it with, so he didn’t want to alienate me and make me indulge in his traditions. Instead, we drove around the town in festive sweaters and looked at lights. We went to a Secret Santa party where he gave my friend Alan a nice cookbook. We stayed up late and made New Year’s resolutions. It was a pleasant little oasis in the often-chaotic time we spent together.

JANUARY 2014 — Bansky brought home a box turtle and put it an afro and a Big Dogs baby tee. I don’t know what it meant.

FEBRUARY 2014 — Banksy was out of town for the month. This was when I found paper bags piled under the sink, with eye-holes and phrases like “CELEBRITY IS A CONSTRUCT” or “FINGER-LICKIN’ GOOD” scrawled on them. It was also around this time we started receiving residual checks for Transformers 3, and calls to the house asking if “Shia” was home.

MARCH 2014 — My parents mailed me a box of home videos from my childhood, but Banksy got to the mail first that day. By the time I saw them, he’d edited in glitches with cartoon videos of Batman having sex with Goku. He mused out loud that the porn must’ve “corrupted” my youth. I asked why he chose such a weird specific porn and he again asked if I saw “that real scorcher of a game last night.” (Also– Alan reached out to tell me he finally opened the cookbook, and only found recipes for “barbecuing the government until it’s well-done.”)

APRIL 2014 — Banksy borrowed my guitar and learned to play The Star Spangled Banner and “Born In The USA,” but in the tuning of BAGDAD. Admittedly, this was the least annoying and most impressive of his weird political metaphors– until he smashed the guitar and printed statistics on veteran PTSD spilled out. I can’t be sure, but I think I also saw an invoice to KFC in there.

MAY 2014 — I got a job at an agency and had to wear a suit every day. This made Banksy… unreasonably upset. I installed a lock on my bathroom door because every morning, he would wake up before me and draw a clown on the mirror to outline my face whenever I looked into it. He changed the label for “work” on my GPS to “the circus.” One day after work, I found nine actual clowns huddled in my Honda Civic. I asked who hired them and they said he never gave his name, but did sign their checks as “B. Anksy.”

JUNE 2014 — Banksy gave me a screenwriting book for my birthday. It was hollowed out and rigged it to blow bleach in my face when I opened it. The dedication read ”Demi– if all you know is from inside a book, you become blind to the world outside of it. xoxo Banksy” I missed a week of work and lost my job.

JULY 2014 — On the 1st, Banksy asked if I wanted to renew, and I said no. I was ready to explode at him with all the reasons why– that he ruined my job prospects, that living with him made me fear for my possessions, that it was hard to be intimate when any girl I brought home had to hear racist Nixon recordings through the walls. But he never asked. He didn’t confront or fight me, or even ask me to stay, because he knew exactly why I was moving. He just paused, frowned, and sighed “okay.”

The following month was quiet. No art, no alarms, no surprises whatsoever. He replaced my guitar, restored my tapes, and washed his drawings of the Instagram UI off all the window frames. When I came home, he would just be sitting in his room solemnly reading a book. And even though he’d made my life a terror for a year, it made me feel bad.

On the 31st, I was packed into a U-Haul and ready to move. I thanked Banksy for the room and bid him farewell, to which he mumbled “no problem” and flashed a toothless smile without getting up from the computer. On his screen, I saw the same Craigslist housing ad I found all those months ago– this time with $100 off the asking price, and a few “pleases” and “sorry in advances” strewn about the ad. It was hard to not feel sympathy for Banksy. I thought about how lonely he must be in this big house, with only paintings of a gun dressed like the Pillsbury Dough Boy to console him. So I gave him something to remember me by.

I pulled my guitar from the U-Haul and cut the lowest string, before tuning the 5 others. I quickly Googled something before scribbling numbers on a Post-It and shoving the note inside the guitar. He was about to go for a walk when I came back in to give him the guitar, calling it a memento of our time together. Then I asked him to play it. He hesitated for a second, then strummed the five uncut strings to hear the tuning– BADGE. Without holding back, he smashed the guitar against a wall, sending fragments of wood and plastic everywhere. And in that mess of fragments, Banksy found a tiny Post-It note with hastily-scribbled police brutality statistics on it.

I hugged Banksy and told him living apart doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends, and with a bright, beaming smile he responded “Okay.” Then he asked me if I wanted to come back and hang out next Thursday. I told him I couldn’t wait. After all, there’s a real barn-burner of a game happening that night.

Homemade Bath and Shower Cleaner {Recipe}

Read article : Homemade Bath and Shower Cleaner {Recipe}

Posted by Cindy  ·  January 4, 2017

This homemade bath and shower cleaner is amazing. This recipe has been floating around the web and I had to give it a try for myself! I couldn’t be more thrilled to have found an inexpensive powerful homemade bathroom cleaner. You problably have the ingredients already at your house. Once again vinegar proves to a a great household cleaner. You can even mix vinegar with baking soda for a great way to unclog a drain.

Homemade Bath and Shower Cleaner Recipe

Measure out equal parts of Dawn dishwashing detergent and vinegar. Heat vinegar a couple of minutes in microwave or on cook top until vinegar is hot. Carefully pour vinegar into a spray bottle. Add in Dawn dishwashing detergent and shake to mix.

This Dawn & vinegar cleaner will cut through soap scum, clean sinks, and also the potty. Just spray it on, scrub and rinse. For tough soap scum build-up, spray the mixture on and allow it to sit for about 30 minutes. Scrub and rinse.

Do be careful, it does make alot of bubbles, so the tub might be slippery. If there are too many bubbles try mixing two parts vinegar to one part Dawn. Salt will also dissolve the bubbles.

You will be amazed with this bottle of blue magic! 

If you like this cleaner you might like this DIY Laundry Detergent Recipe.

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