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Friday, April 29, 2011

Chapter 17

January 1, 2009
To: Chuck Howe
From: Maria

Under our agreement that you would pay $150 per month to cover your electrical usage while living on my property in my trailer, and which you did not pay in December 2008, you now owe me $300.

Your electrical usage during the month of December, 2008, has exceeded $150 and I am neither willing nor able to continue to pay this expense for you, so I will be disconnecting it in 48 hours if you do not pay now. Since you managed to survive the recent 2-day outage caused by the weather, I am certain that you can safely continue to live in the same fashion. If you want to continue to use the electricity, I will need $300 now and at least $150 in each subsequent month, at the beginning of each month.

In a conversation we had several weeks ago you assured me you had other places you could go, so I want you off of this property as soon as possible. By the end of March, 2009, at the latest, I expect to see you removing yourself and your belongings from my property.

That message was delivered online and in a document attached to his door. On Jan 3, since there was no reply or payment, I turned off the breaker to the trailer.

Jan 4
To: Maria
It's time! Give me the money for the motel.
Propane and gas costs me 20 -30 bucks a day - and a whole lot of time and loss of sleep - noisy smelly damn thing
pay up - my line got cut!
I'll eat up a couple months rent in no time running this generator . . .
and 60 degrees in the morning is just too damn cold to shave and wash . .
so I sorta stink a bit . . .
To: Chuck
Your line didn't get "cut,"‏  it was turned off due to non-payment. Just like in real life, you gotta pay your bills. And I believe I make that easy enough for you. So, I don't understand your reluctance. Just pay the agreed upon $150 per month. That's $300 now. Really, how hard is that?”  
Actually, I could use a shower myself. Wanna get a room at the motel up the road? You and me?
He calls on the phone and says he would like to rectify the situation but I put so much pressure on him he doesn't know what to do. I tell him to just pay his bill and all will be fine. He hangs up on me.

To: Chuck
Rectify? I would like to do that, as well. “PRESSURE? You proposed to me! I spent almost $500 on the paperwork to get that approved, and then you told me, in these exact words, "I would never marry you.”

Tell you what, I will pay for a motel room for us for a day or two. We can relax and unwind there, talk things over. I would, of course, tell many people in advance where I am going. I'm sure you would want to do the same. And there will be a weapons check at the door. You okay with that?
There was no reply, but a few minutes later I heard yelling outside and pounding on the door. “Turn the fucking power back on! Turn the fucking power back on!” Evidently he had discovered he was no longer able to just walk in on me.

I decided to go out and try to talk to him, quietly. It was January outside, cold and snowy, so I put on boots, coat and hat. At the same moment my hand touched the kitchen doorknob, I heard the sound of shattering glass. I turned right around and walked the 6 steps across the kitchen to grab the phone and dial 911.

911. What is your emergency?”

A man is trying to break into my house! He is beating out the window of my entry door, beating and beating. Listen, can you hear it?” I held up the phone towards the door.

Yes, I hear it. A patrol has been dispatched and is on its way. Do you know who the person is?”

Yes, he's my ex-boyfriend. He's drunk and mad that his electricity got turned off for nonpayment. I think he's trying to get in to get to my breaker box.”

How far away are you from the door?”

It's a door to an outside porch and he's not through that yet. Then he'll have to break down another door to get to where I am.”

Stay where you are and stay on the phone with me. The patrol car will be there any minute. What's happening now?”

Oh, listen, it sounds like he's trying to kick the outside door down now. There's a latch hook on it I guess he can't see. Can you hear him?”

Yes, I can. You should see the car lights coming up your street any minute now. Do you see them?”

Yes, and I see him running back across the yard to his trailer now.”

I'll relay that. Stay on the line with me. Okay, they've caught him now. Someone will be at your door in a minute.”

Knock, knock, knock.

Yes, they're here. Thank you so much for your help.”

There were two cars. Two officers went to his place, one came to mine. He told me Chuck was being arrested because they could see the damage he had done. Now he wanted to come in and take a statement from me.

Okay. He sat in a chair in the kitchen and I told him the whole story, which I have relayed here, only I just started it with the day Chuck asked me to marry him. I showed him our messages on my computer, including the threats made. He wrote everything down then asked me a series of questions. The last question was, “Do you think he was deliberately trying to hurt you?”

I said no, I think he was just trying to get me to turn the breaker switch back on. Later I came to wish I hadn't said that.

The officer, though, said something that helped save my sanity. First he said, “I don't think you realize this but you are a victim of domestic abuse. Use that computer to get yourself informed about that. Next, here is a card from the local women's shelter. Call them tomorrow. They will give you very good advice about what to do.”

He walked out onto the porch, which was covered with shattered glass, and said, “Have you been out here to look around yet?”

'No, and I don't want to, not right now. This has been the most horrible night of my life and I just want to go to bed. I'll deal with that mess tomorrow, when I feel stronger.”

So, I went and had about four hours sleep; then the phone rang. It was the police and since I didn't really press charges against him, he was just charged with drunken mischief and was being released. He had been instructed to stay away from my house and had signed an agreement to replace the broken window. And I had to turn his electricity back on. An officer would be coming in the house to watch me flip the switch.

I called Phil the next morning and told him what had happened. He told me he'd already heard that there were a bunch of police cars here and he would be right over. He came into the porch and said, “Oh, damn. What a mess. Did he drop this log here?” That's when I saw the piece of lumber Chuck had evidently thrown through the window when I first heard the glass break. That could have hit me, if I had walked out when I was going to. Instead it knocked over a bucket full of trash. “There's another log just like it outside the door, on the ledge.”
 
I asked Phil if he would please drive me to get some beer. It looked like it was going to be a very stressful day. As we left it dawned on me that there was now no reason to lock the door, since there was no longer a window in it. Plus, Chuck still had a key to the kitchen door. So I would have to do something about that right away.

When I got back home I called the shelter and talked to a lovely woman for about three hours. She listened to my whole story then gave me advice about calling lawyers, and how that might not really work out for me, due to my situation here. There could be the issue of me making him a homeless man, so I was finally advised to just tell him to take the trailer and go.

I went out and stapled a sheet of plastic over what used to be a window, then picked up some of the glass. Each shattered piece was a slice through my heart. Dear Lord, how could he possibly do such a thing? What happened to that sweet, gentle person I met so long ago? There is my life, my hopes, my dreams, all shattered on the floor in front of me now. Nothing can ever put those pieces back together. Then I drank a beer and went to sleep for about 12 hours.

The next day I called Ellen to tell her about what happened and she insisted on coming over for a while. We drank a few beers and had a good talk. She assured me she would always help with anything I needed.

I tidied up the kitchen then, moved some newspapers that were on the table. There was a pair of brown cloth gloves underneath. I figured Ellen must have left them and I put them in my coat pocket to remind me to give them to her the next time I saw her. That was two weeks later when she picked me up to go shopping. I said, “Here, you left these last time you were over.”

She looked at them and said, “Nope, not mine. I've never seen them before.”

They must be Phil's then. A week later when he came over to plow again I showed them to him and asked if he had left them. He assured me he had never had gloves like that.

There was only one other person the gloves could have belonged to then: Chuck. So he was either in the house when I left with Phil, or while I was asleep. I installed a hasp on the outside of the door and put a heavy-duty padlock on it which I kept locked all the time. Now I was locked in. I prayed there wouldn't be a fire.