This is the story that started it all. The first story from my online diary/blog that took on a life of its own and spiraled out of control. After the details in this story, I started documenting my life more closely, just in case something like this ever happened again, and I found myself again asking "how the fuck did that happen?"
This tale has been modified from its original version. I've changed the names of people to protect the guilty and removed some personal details that aren't pertinent to the story. This story, including the aftermath that isn't documented here prove decisively that no good deed goes unpunished.
Blogging Helen
Roger is an old friend of mine. He's basically a good hearted guy, but not terribly bright. He got into a training program for the IRS that taught people who are blind to be programmers, and took a job at an IRS office in Washington, DC. He worked there for around 17 years, and worked himself up to an admirable salary for someone without a college degree. Unfortunately, he also ran himself into incredible debt. I tried to help him out with his financials, but I think I've come to realize that there are some people who just cannot, under any circumstances, manage their finances. This point will become a little clearer as the story unfolds a bit.
Roger is also blind and around 350 pounds. The point of mentioning that is that Roger had a revelation a couple years ago. He decided that he wasn't going to be able to find that "special someone" without some drastic measures, so he chose a plan of action and moved on it. His bright idea was to get a mail order bride. (!!)
Now, my first reaction to that was that it was one of the stupidest ideas I had ever heard. After thinking about it for a while, I thought that if anyone should venture down that path, maybe Roger was the right one to do it. After all, I think he's probably correct in thinking that he wasn't going to find the love of his life here in the states. At any rate, he declared bankruptcy (which I have a problem with given his financials, but that's another gripe) and started hunting for a Russian bride.
To cut out some of the details in the middle, he went to Russia for a few weeks, and I didn't hear from him for a while. I called him up several weeks later and asked how it went, and he told me he met a wonderful woman, she was living with him, and they were getting married in 3 days. gulp I drove up and was best man at the wedding.
There's a big long story behind the wedding, but I think it's best told if I send you some journal entries from that weekend. I used to keep a web journal for some friends of mine who are younger (early 20's), so it's written in a tone suitable for them. ;) I think it conveys the whole story pretty well, even if the language is a bit harsh at times. For now, suffice it to say that it was an interesting weekend. All in all, I think Roger did very well for himself. His wife (Helen) was a beautiful young woman and very pleasant. She came complete with a seven year old boy who was... well, he was a seven year old boy. :)
Fast forward a few months (I'm cutting out a lot of details in the middle, of course). Roger continued with his financial problems, and I think that stress drove him over the edge. I went over his financials with him again one weekend, and found that he had refinanced his house at 14.2% . I was ready to give up at that point, but sometimes I'm pretty stubborn. I tried to explain to him what it meant to finance a quarter of a million dollars at that rate, but I don't think it ever sunk in. I finally convinced him to get some control over his finances, and he agreed that he had to stop spending. ...as soon as he got a pool in the back yard. (That's the kind of mindset I was working with)
Fast forward a little more, and we get to Roger's birthday, which he celebrated by beating the shit out of his wife and her son. She called the police, Roger went to jail, and I spent five hours on the phone with the National Domestic Violence Hotline. I'll spare you the sordid details of my phone adventures, but to make a long story short, the most important thing I learned from that experience is that if you're a battered woman, you're pretty much screwed. All those public service commercials that say help is only a phone call away are a crock.
Roger got out of jail the next day, and a couple days later, Helen went into a shelter house.
I think I'll leave it there for right now, because the details start to get a little involved at this point. I'll try to dig up the old journal entries from the wedding and send them along tonight.
[19 Sep|10:03pm] ...snip... As a kicker, I called a friend of mine last night. He's one of my best friends, even though sometimes we go weeks or months without talking. We're both very busy, and sometimes time gets away from you. Well, earlier in the year he got this bright idea (snerk) to get himself a mail-order bride from Russia. He even went over to check out the merchandise, as it were. So I'm talking to him last night, and I ask how the Ruskie bride thing is going. Zoinkers! He's getting married on Sunday!! Someone toss a rope into the Twilight Zone so I can climb out. There's a lot more that could be said here, but it's probably not for public consumption. Let's just say that it ruined my weekend. I had planned a very nice weekend, but what I'm going to get is much less satisfactory. sigh The things we do for our friends. :(
[22 Sep2003|01:58am] It's officially Monday, so I can now say...
Well that weekend sucked. I don't mean it just kinda sucked, I mean it sucked in a way that I can't describe in a public forum where those of more gentle disposition might wander upon it and, by happenstance, gaze upon the endless strings of obscenities that are begging to burst forth from my pouting lips. heavy sigh It seems that the pendulum of life is swinging into the shit zone lately. I certainly hope this means that I'm due for a large swing in the opposite direction real fucking soon.
Instead of the nice relaxing (and very pleasurable) weekend I had planned, life ripped the joy out from under me and cast me into the pits of Hades to be Best Man at a wedding. Now don't get me wrong, the wedding was a very dear friend of mine, and I love him and his mother a great deal. I would do nearly anything for either of them. This weekend came close to that line.
In fact, I'm a bit too POed to even give details right now. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow after a nice refreshing day at work with The Boss back in the office. Right now I'm tired, I stink to High Hades, and I'm headed to bed without a shower (even though TiVo just started recording "Now And Again" for me. I love you, TiVo!)
[24 Sep|07:13pm] Well, I'm getting a little better after my weekend from Hell. It's been a major bonus that The Boss has been out of the office longer than planned. The Boss was out again today, so things are pretty spiffy at work after three bonus days of getting shtuff done.
So now that I can talk about the weekend with fewer bursts into profanity, allow me to elucidate a few choice events. I went to a wedding for a close friend of mine who got one of those mailorder-type brides from Russia. Without going into details (in public), let me just say that he's one of the few people who really didn't have many other choices, so I don't really hold it against him (which really means I don't rib him incessantly about it). She's honestly a beautiful young woman. I'd say something about her personality or intelligence, but she doesn't speak Engrish, so I have no clue about anything other than her looks.
My friend is from an area of the country well known for its hillbilly population, and I swear every hick from 200 miles around showed up. You've never seen so many people missing front teeth, and that's no exaggeration. In fact, I think most of the hicks were a bit too high class to show up. When the happy (but non-communicative) couple was finally pronounced Husband And Wife, one of the younger, but still toothless, hicks ran up to the new bride and yelled "Now yer a QUEEN!" I think she figured out that the little Russian bride didn't understand, so that was quickly followed by "Now yer a QUEEEEEEEEEEEN!" as if yelling louder and longer might make her understand Engrish. She doesn't understand the language, dear, she's not deaf (deef). I'll let the "queen" item slide.
Of course before we got to that point, we had to do all that stuff that you have to do, even for a small wedding. For example, gathering food for the reception. This wasn't a catered event, all the food was prepared by the... ummm... locals. My part comes in with (mostly toothless) Melanie, or maybe it was Melody, I don't remember. I just remember that she talks very loudly and never stops. I got elected to drive her down to get chicken for the reception. I didn't quite understand picking up chicken an hour before the ceremony, but I wasn't about to argue, because I couldn't get more than a word or two out before she drowned me out. I had to run out and get something for the groom, so away we went.
It quickly became apparent that "chicken" meant Kentucky Fried Chicken (yes, it was that kind of wedding and reception). I was never so sorry that I was so far from a Kentucky Fried Chicken. For the entire ride down to KFC, I got a lecture on how she was told to pick up KFC, but she really preferred Popeye's Fried Chicken, and a lot of other people did as well. Hmmm, I can already feel some conflict arising. Unfortunately for me, it turns out KFC and PFC are right next to each other. Melanie explains that she's going to get half and half, so in to KFC she goes, places her order and sneaks out the side door to place an order at Popeye's. For the next 30 minutes, I watch her run back and forth between the two chicken giants. She finally made a trip back to the car with a plastic bag containing a box of Kentucky Fried Chicken (and I'll admit to being a bit disturbed that chicken is served in cardboard boxes). She then ran back through KFC and headed for Popeye's to pick up the order she had placed there. It's now that I start remembering the long speech about how she was supposed to get KFC, but maybe half and half would be better. She made it back to the car with (I shit you not) a dozen boxes of Popeye's Fried Chicken. As soon as she gets back into the car, she ripped open one of the boxes of PFC and started stuffing her face with it. At least it shut her up. ...a little.
So now we have food (loosely defined) and I'm ready to dump Melanie or Melody and just hide from that voice. Before I can, I have to stop at 7-11 and pick up some miscellaneous items for the groom, so in I go. After another joyful experience in 7-11, out I come... only to find Melanie sitting in my car with all the windows rolled up, the air conditioning on high, a handful of chicken in one hand, and a cigarette in the other. The car is so smokey, I can barely see through to the other side. My dog is lying in the back seat with his feet in the air and his tongue hanging out, and he's accustomed to smoke. Now this wouldn't have been as bad if the AC hadn't been on high. Eventually, the car will air out, but the AC holds that stale cigarette smell forever. So now I'm driving around with all my windows rolled down in a car that smells like cigarettes and fried chicken. Whenever I hit the AC, I get hit with a blast of stale cigarette smoke that just screams "Remember why you quit now, dumbass???"
Okay, I knew better than to do this, but I tried it anyway. I saw some Fabreeze in the store the other day, so I said "Hmmm, worth a try, isn't it?" Of course I couldn't get some neutral flavor; the citrus flavor caught my eye. Now I'm driving around in a car that smells like tangerine cigarettes and tangerine fried chicken. Joy. There is at least one perk; even the homeless people won't come near the car now.
[24 Sep|08:22pm] -- PRIVATE FRIENDS ONLY -- Okay, just a couple other items under the friends-only section.
When I left Washington, I swore that if I heard one more person say "warsh" instead of wash I was gonna go mother-fuckin postal. Holy sweet Hell, Batman, can't you even fucking read??? Do you see a fucking R in that word? Naturally, since everyone is getting ready for the wedding, they're talking about "warshing" everything in sight. It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut. eesh.
And another item on the more serious side of things. Although I'm happy that Roger found a wife for himself, there was one thing that was grossly apparent. His "wife" didn't get married for love, or even a strong sense of "like." She's happy to be out of the former Soviet Union and living in the United States. That's enough for her. Maybe what Roger got was enough for him. I hope things work out, but it will be by convenience, not through the "power of love."
For those of you who aren't aware of the specifics, Roger weighs 350 lbs and he's blind. That's why a mail order bride was probably about the best he was going to do. And, as I said in the public post, she's very pretty. She's 24 with a seven year old son.
Naturally, the problems between Roger and Helen didn't happen overnight; they developed over time. Before everything came to a head on Roger's birthday, he called me a few times for advice. It seems I have a lot more relationship experience than he does (who woulda thunk it, huh??). I did my best to guide him, but I think there are some things you just have to learn through experience.
One of the problems Roger and Helen had was with sex (another real shocker). I tried to explain to Roger how men and women experience sex differently, but that's another item that just didn't sink in. We discussed this issue at length a few times, but it never seemed to make any difference in their relationship.
There's a side issue that figures in here, and that is Roger's insane jealousy. I think there's only one man that Helen ever met who Roger didn't accuse of sleeping with her, and maybe he really did think she slept with this guy and I just never heard about it. At any rate...
Those last two paragraphs fit together in yet another shocking event that happened a few weeks before everything came crashing down. Roger called me up one day, and seemed to be in a pretty good mood. Apparently he had come up with a brilliant idea to make their relationship work. He wanted me to come up and sleep with Helen. (!!) Zoinkers! After a split second of thought (Yeah, baby, yeah!! Oh, wait a minute, maybe this isn't such a good idea), I tried to explain to him why it wasn't such a good idea to try to save his marriage by encouraging his wife to sleep with other men. It took me an hour and a half to talk him out of this great idea (are you starting to get a feel for what I'm dealing with here?). He was convinced that this was a good idea, and if he couldn't "satisfy" Helen, it was okay if she found someone else just for sex, and it wouldn't be so bad if it was a close friend like me. sigh
So I stepped into the middle of this relationship (alas, platonically) to try to mediate some of the tension. I became Helen's friend (did I mention that I speak some Russian?), and Roger was okay with that. I told Roger that I was going to be Helen's friend first, and his second, since she didn't know anybody in America, and I was one of the few people around who could actually communicate with her, through a combination of my broken Russian and her broken Engrish. He agreed to that. ...and that's how I started down this sad little path that I'll tell you more about tomorrow. Don't touch that dial! ;)
Okay, the saga continues. Helen and her 8 year old son, Vadim, went to a shelter house.
For the next couple of weeks I spoke with both Helen and Roger nearly every day. Roger kept vascilating between being sad and wanting her to come home, and being angry and accusing her of sleeping with everyone she had ever met. Talking with both of them, I got to hear a lot of stories that I hadn't heard before, and of course the details varied wildly depending on who was doing the telling. I didn't know who I could believe or who I could trust, but in a sense it didn't really matter. I was just there providing support for both of them. I really thought that the violence thing was just a "mistake" and they might be able to work things out. Okay, sometimes I'm a bit naive, or maybe just a little overly optimistic.
For the next couple of weeks, things kind of degenerated between Roger and Helen. Roger seems to have a lot of pent up anger that he just can't keep under control. Helen was willing to go back if Roger would just change a little and show her a little respect and treat her like a real person. Roger just couldn't keep his temper under control long enough for that to happen.
A couple weeks after Helen and Vadim went into the shelter house, I got a call from Roger's mother. She was screaming an admirable string of obscenities. I finally got her calmed down enough to figure out what was going on. Roger had tried to kill himself and was in the ICU ward at the hospital. I've lost track of the string of telephone conversation that happened in the middle of all that, but I spoke with Roger, his mother, and Helen several times over the next few hours. There are a couple of salient points that came out of all those conversations. According to Roger's mother (after she calmed down a bit), this was just a stunt that Roger pulled to see if Helen cared. The subsequent details support this; Roger has a wide variety of drugs that he takes every day, and knows damn well how to end his life if he wanted to. He pulled this little stunt with Excedrin. The other point worth noting is that Helen wanted to go to the hospital and I talked her out of it. She said that she was his wife and she should be there.
So... I packed up and headed up to Washington and checked Roger out of the hospital. I took him home and spent the night there, but I had to get on the road to go back to work. Roger seemed to be mostly okay, and I had asked his mother to come up, so I figured things would be at least reasonably quiet for a little while. Then Helen called my cell phone. I stepped outside to talk with her. She just wanted to know how things were. I told her everything was okay, and she asked if I could bring her some of her Russian books so she would have something to read. I told her I would try, but couldn't make any promises.
You know, as I write all this stuff down in a time-compressed format, it seems that I'm terribly dense about some things. I guess I'm just a little too trusting at times. To wit: I told Roger why Helen called, and he asked how she was doing. I said she was doing okay, but that she wanted some of her Russian books so she could have something to read. Roger offered to let her come and get some of her stuff, and I fell for it. I knew Helen didn't have very much of her stuff, and she needed clothes and toys for Vadim. So I picked her and Vadim up and brought them back to Roger's house. She spent a fair amount of time digging through things to find what she wanted. She had to; Roger's mother had taken all her things and thrown them into a small room in a huge pile. I've got pictures of the pile, because I know that nobody would ever believe that someone would do something like that. Things went reasonably well for a while, but when Helen was getting ready to go, Roger started in on her. He started crying, begging her to come back, promising to change and be a better person, all the stuff you can imagine. Helen stood her ground, and they argued about a lot of things that had happened between them in the months since she had come to the states. There's one thing that I learned from their encounter (aside from not being such an idiot next time): in all those conflicting stories I heard from Helen and Roger, there was only one person who was feeding me a line of bullshit, and it was Roger.
I finally got her out of there and back to the shelter house. She unpacked her stuff from the car, and I drove back to Roger's to make sure he was okay. He was sitting outside crying, so I stayed with him a few more hours before I hit the road for home. He seemed mostly okay when I left, and I figured his mother would be there soon to stay with him, so it was probably okay. His mother never showed up. There are some traits that are passed down through families, and apparently responsibility is one of them.
I made it home and got a little sleep before heading in to work. After getting three hours of sleep for the entire weekend, and five when I got home, I wasn't very productive at work. ;) I came home a took a nap, but of course my phone started ringing. It was Helen. Apparently, someone from the shelter house had seen me bringing her back and since her location had been "compromised", they were kicking her out.
This would be a great place to end things on a cliff-hanger, wouldn't it?? ;)
I told her not to worry, they wouldn't just put her out on the street, and if it came to that, I'd rent a hotel room for her. It took a couple of days, but they found another shelter for her and she and Vadim moved. She stayed in that shelter house for about four weeks, and the intervening details are pretty much the same as the first couple of weeks. Helen had a lot of conversations with Roger, and they usually started with how much he loved her, missed her, and wanted her to come home. They always ended the same way, with Roger threatening to call immigration and have her deported. There's love for ya!
Hmmm, there's another minor point in here, but I think it's important, as it illustrates how far the love in this relationship went. The shelter house provided one meal a day for the residents, but they were responsible for all their other meals, as well as the normal sundries we all need. After being in the shelter house network for a month, Helen met with Roger for something and asked him for some money so she and Vadim could eat. He gave her $21. (In the end, after living in the shelter house network for six weeks, Helen had lost 23 pounds)
After four weeks in the second shelter house, they started pressuring her to find a job, an apartment, and move out. I was talking to Helen one night when the "supervisor" of the house came in to talk to her, and Helen just set the phone down without hanging up, so I heard the whole conversation. Looking back on all that had happened, this poor little woman was getting the short end of the stick in a big way. There was nobody who was willing to help her.
To address one of your earlier questions, yes, I do have a bad case of "can't-say-no-itis", although I call it the "lost puppy" syndrome. It's hard for me to look at a bad situation and not try to fix it. I resisted as long as I could, but I really couldn't see any better way out of this situation. Helen was thinking that her only choice was to go back to Roger, and I was afraid that he would kill one of them. At 350 pounds, he doesn't know his own strength, and since he's blind he could make a move to punch you in the arm and accidently snap your neck. Anyway, I think you can see where this is going. I have a three bedroom house, so I offered to let them stay here until the assault trial came up. It didn't take a lot of convincing, but it did take a little. I drove up and signed them out of the shelter house and brought them home with me.
Through all of this, I've figured that Helen should assume at least a little of the blame for getting herself into this situation. She chose this path for her life, and even if she didn't know how bad things would get, she should have at least suspected there was something wrong with Roger from the start. Unfortunately, Vadim had no choice. He was just dragged along for the ride, and I really felt bad for him.
I brought Helen and Vadim down here to live with me until they could get past Roger's assault trial and figure out what was going to happen. In the meantime, I got them an immigration attorney and started the paperwork for an I-360. That's a special form for unique immigration cases, like death of a spouse or (in this case) domestic violence. It's a "sink-or-swim" petition that will end with either green cards for them, or a return to Ukraine. (As a side note, my personal feeling is that they should go back to Ukraine. They came here on a fiance visa, and it didn't work out. Fiance visas are very specific. If it doesn't work out, back you go. On the other hand, I'm not entirely heartless. I think she came here with the best of intentions, and just found herself in a very bad situation. So I anted up the substantial legal fees and paid for the filing.)
Adopting a family is not cheap, even aside from the legal fees. The law mandates that Vadim has to attend school, but it also requires that he have a physical by a Tennessee doctor before starting school. That seems simple enough, but I called a local pediatrician who refused to see him unless they could contact Roger, even after I explained the situation to them. The second pediatrician I called wanted to know if Vadim had insurance. When I explained that he was covered by insurance, but I'd be paying for the physical out of pocket, they refused to see him, too. They claimed that would be insurance fraud. (!!) Okay, Greg's starting to learn through experience. I called a third doctor and told them that Vadim didn't have any insurance. $300 later, I had the pretty little green form and Vadim started school.
Oak Ridge is probably one of the best areas in the country for Helen and Vadim. There's a lot of diversity here because of the lab, and the school system reflects the financial and intellectal influence of the lab as well. The school is one of the top 100 schools in the country. Vadim loved going to school here, and did very well. This school is a lot different from the schools he attended in Maryland. Roger lived on the north side of the DC beltway, which is one of the poor black neighborhoods. The school systems there were marginal, and Vadim was one of the few (if not only) white students.
Helen had a slightly more difficult time here. She had a work authorization card, but no social security card. I took her to the social security office and we filled out the paperwork for her card, but it took months for the card to come back. In the meantime, all she could do was sit at home. She spent a lot of time on the internet and found that there were a lot of other Russian women who had run into the same problem that she did. Big surprise.
While they were here, I got a little taste of what life with Roger was like. He would call her cellphone incessantly. Helen tends to sleep in, and Roger would start calling around 7:30. As soon as the cell phone went to voice mail, he'd call back. I eventually started turning her cell phone off, but I let him keep calling back one day to see how long he would go. After five hours, I took the phone outside and locked it in the car. During that five hour period, her phone never stopped ringing. I don't know how much longer he called after I hid the phone.
When Helen did talk to Roger, it was the same old story. The calls would start with him begging her to come home and telling her how much he loved her and missed her, and they would end with threats and accusations. Shortly after they came to live with me, I was included in the accusations of adultery (and no, the accusations were not justified. :)
I didn't have time to keep up with my journal for the next few months. My days were spent working, coming home and working with Vadim on his homework until 9:00pm (bedtime), and then working with Helen until around midnight on English grammar and American culture. I'd get a few hours of sleep and then get up, make lunch for Vadim, and see him off on the school bus before heading in to work again. Sometime I'll have to write down some of the oddball things that happened during that time before I forget them. One patricular incident that I remember is Roger offering Helen $5000 to go back to Ukraine before his assault trial. For all his talk, Roger was a lot more in love with saving his own ass than with Helen and Vadim. That amount of money would almost make Helen rich in Ukraine.
The first few weeks that they lived here took a lot of adjusting, but we worked out an acceptable living arrangement. Things weren't great, but we got by without any major incidents. Then the assault trial came up.
Unfortunately, I had to fly out to a conference in San Diego the day before the trial, so that made getting Helen to and from the court quite a challenge. In defiance of fate, luck turned in my direction for a change. A friend of mine was in town for a few weeks, and agreed to take Helen to court and back, and hang around to act as an advocate for her. She was the perfect person for the job: a Nazi lesbian. I rented a hotel room near Dulles airport for a week, and my friend took Helen to court while I flew to San Diego. I didn't hear the story of what had happened at court until I landed in San Diego.
While you ponder that, let me back up and fill in a couple more details. One of the reasons that I finally decided to step into the middle of this came from speaking with Roger a few weeks after Helen went in to the shelter house. He was in unusually good spirits one day, and I was asking him what he was going to do about the assault trial. He laughed and said he wasn't worried at all. When I pressed him about it, he said that he had been talking to a friend of his who had been in this same situation a number of times. According to his friend, if Helen didn't show up at court, they'd just throw the case out. When I asked him why he thought Helen wouldn't show up he said "Well she can't drive and I'm sure as Hell not taking her to court!" As I listened to him laugh after that, the thought that went through my mind was "Guess what, motherfucker, I'll sure as Hell make sure she gets there, you irresponsible shit, even if it costs me my job." If that's not disturbing enough, he also told me that his friend told him how and where to hit Helen so it wouldn't cause bruises. Who would have thought that abusive people traded "secrets" of hiding their abuse? The whole thing just made me sick.
So, on to the trial. My Nazi lesbian friend (Ellie from Hawaii) took Helen to court, and I told her not to make a scene (which she has a habit of doing). I asked her to just get Helen there and back safely, and hang out in the background during the trial. That's how Ellie started, but it's just not in her nature to stay uninvolved (thankfully, this time). When Helen got to court, Roger's lawyer started in on her, trying to get her to just leave the court and put all this behind them and go home to Roger. Apparently the lawyer was gaining some ground, because Ellie stepped in. I don't know exactly what happened then, but from what I've heard since, I suspect he's missing a couple of testicles. Go Ellie.
The trial started and Roger's lawyer made a motion to dismiss the charges based on lack of evidence. I had called the shelter house when Helen first went in to make sure they took pictures of her bruises, and the D.A. marched those pictures out in big bold color. Apparently Roger's lawyer was caught a little off guard. I suspect Roger told him that absolutely nothing happened, and the visual evidence was a little overwhelming. I've seen the pictures myself, and they're shocking. Faced with more than he counted on, Roger's lawyer asked for and was granted a continuance. Those are normally for 30-45 days, but in this case he was granted four months.
While I was in San Diego, Ellie kept checking in on Helen and Vadim to make sure they were okay and to drive them around to get food and stuff. The day I flew back, Ellie called Helen and left a message on her cell phone asking if they were in the pool and if I was back yet. Roger called the cell phone company, told them he forgot his voicemail password, and had them reset it. Naturally, he called and listened to Helen's messages and heard that message. From that, he deduced that Helen and I were staying in a hotel and I was the new accusee for his jealousy. Not a major problem, since I was quickly losing my taste for talking with him. A week or so later, he called Ellie at home in Hawaii at 5:00am her time (she hung up on him), and I tore him a new asshole the size of Nebraska (maybe larger). That was the last time I spoke with him. For the remainder of Helen's time with me, he kept calling the cell phone company to have her password reset so he could listen to her messages. I eventually bought her a new cell phone and put her on my plan ($$). Listening to her messages wasn't the only thing he did, though. He would call Helen and leave her incredibly inflamatory messages with threats you couldn't believe. ...then he'd call back in a few days and erase them so they couldn't be used against him. Hmmm...
So, with another four months before the assault trial, we all settled down to an odd little existence in yee-haw Tennessee.
The saga continues...
During the time that Helen and Vadim spent with me, we had to go back to Washington, DC several times for assorted reasons. Helen had to make appearances at the immigration office in Baltimore with Roger, paperwork got mailed to her at Roger's house that she had to pick up, all kinds of odd reasons that we had to go back up there. I drove that eight hour stretch of road so many times that the little woodland animals knew my face. They used to come out and wave at me as I went by. We always stayed at a hotel near the shelter house so it would appear to Roger that Helen was still staying there.
Meanwhile, Roger was active in his own little world. He decided to take a "medical retirement" (meaning quit his job) and move to Nashville near his mother and family. With the amount of debt he had, he was very close to losing his house anyway, so maybe getting rid of the house wasn't such a bad idea. Quitting his job, on the other hand, is hard to fathom. Roger has no education past high school, he's blind, and he's 350 pounds. Finding any job would be a challenge for him. He had been working at the IRS for about 17 years and was making $80,000 a year. With the amount of debt he had built up and his dismal prospects for finding a new job, it's beyond my comprehension that he would give up a position that was paying him $80K. Nevertheless, he did and he moved to Nashville. He called Helen and told her he bought a new house in Nashville and wanted her to come home and live with him. When Helen told me he had purchased a new house, I told her we had an expression for that in America: Bullshit. I know mortgages are easier to get than ever, but I just couldn't believe he got another mortgage with a mountain of debt and no job.
A few weeks before the second trial came up, Helen got her social security card and started looking for a job. She went out and collected job applications from all the local businesses and I spent hours helping her fill them out. I also started talking to her about finding an apartment and getting set up on her own. I told her I'd help her get furniture, kitchen supplies, all the stuff that she needed, and I'd pay her expenses until she could get on her feet.
I think the threats from Roger and the fear of living alone were just a little too much for Helen. One Friday she announced that she wanted to go back and live with Roger. She said it would only be for a few months and then she'd find her own apartment and move out. The stereotype of the battered wife had come full circle. I told her that if that's what she wanted, it was okay even though I didn't think it was a good idea. I told her to think about it very carefully over the weekend and we'd talk about it again on Monday. I made it clear to her that if she decided to go back and live with Roger that she and Vadim could never come back here. She said she understood. On Monday, her mind was still made up.
In the few weeks before the trial we made a few more trips to DC to finish up the paperwork required for her immigration forms. Vadim knew he was going back to Roger and got very very angry. I've never seen so much rage in a child, or even in most adults, for that matter. Helen talked with him about not saying anything to Roger that would disclose where they had been living for the past few months. That's quite a task to ask of an eight year old boy, and is guaranteed to fail given enough time.
We decided I would drop them off for the trial and they would go home with Roger. The trial was on a Monday, and I drove up with Helen, Vadim, and all their stuff on Saturday. Since Roger would be driving up as well, I didn't want to meet him on the road, and given his finances I knew he wouldn't be driving before Sunday. We spent the night in a hotel (with a pool for Vadim) and spent Sunday getting ready. I had called a storage area to make sure they were open Sunday so we could drop their stuff in a safe location. Naturally, the storage area was closed that Sunday. There are few times I've wanted to heave a rock through a window more than that day. I drove around and found another storage area and dropped their stuff off. We also drove down to the court so I could find safe avenues of egress after I dropped them off, and so they could become familiar with the area. We came back to the hotel and played in the pool.
The day of the trial, I got up at the crack of dawn to drive them to court. Their case was being heard first thing in the morning, and I wanted to drop them off early so I wouldn't be seen. Not only for myself; if Roger knew that they had been staying with me, I'm afraid he would have killed them. In fact, that's been my concern since the start of this.
I dropped them off at court around 7:30 and headed home. Helen asked me to stick around until court was over to make sure everything was okay. I didn't. I figured if something went wrong I could turn around and come back to get them, but I didn't want to risk Roger and his mother catching up with me on the highway. That's the fastest I've ever made that trip. Paranoia had me firmly in its grip, and I didn't have time to break free. Sometimes, you just have to go with the flow, and that's what I did. About three hours after the start of the trial, Helen called and sad she was okay. That's the only thing she said before hanging up. I made it home and loaded the shotgun, just in case. :) During the next few days I burned up a lot of nervous adrenaline, but slowly started to feel more comfortable.
A few days later, I heard from Helen on Yahoo Messenger. I asked her what happened at the trial and she said "Roger win". I'm not sure exactly what happened at the trial, but at least I know he didn't get convicted. I need to order a transcript of the trial to see what really happened. I asked Helen where Roger was. She said he was trying to fix the door that he broke. It seems that it didn't take long for Roger to forget all his promises about changing.
I hear from Helen every now and then. It seems Roger fibbed a little when he told her he bought a house in Nashville. He only rented a house, and apparently he's going back to DC to work at the IRS again. Honestly, I'm surprised they would take him back, but that's another story. The real kicker here? He's going to be renting a room from the woman who bought his house. At least that's the story.
To go along with his new plans, he wants Helen and Vadim to go live with his mother in her trailer. Needless to say, she doesn't want to do that and is not in the best of spirits. The story is still playing out and I'll let you know what happens next. That's about it, aside from a pile of little details that just add to the drama. I'm going to cut it here. Oh, but there is one more thing:
To this day, Roger still doesn't know that they spent five months living here with me, just two and a half hours from where they are now. :D