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WANNASEEMYNEWCHAINSAW
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Éire
Posts: 2,738
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Black Widow
I had to talk to a black widow tonight. U.S. time is behind us, so at 1am I got a phone call.
The black widow was on the other end.
I promised myself I wouldn't talk to her ever again, or if I did it would only be a string of obscenities.
Ok, wait.
Jump back 10 years.
My uncle Ben was in the U.N. He'd been in the UN for many years, worked his way up from mechanic in the Irish Army to Transport Section Commander in the United Nations. He was stationed in the worse ends of the world for most of his adult life.
Iraq, Isreal, Yugoslavia, the Congo, Lebanon.
Usually during or after conflict.
He saw nothing but suffering, had to organise and facilitate transport trucks to ship bodies of massacred civilians in Bosnia, was part of the UN team in Iraq before and after the war who had to watch people starve and die of disease because of sanctions.
There was more, but I just wanted to give an impression of what he was living.
It was good pay, it had to be. He couldn't spend it while in the countries he was in. Bed, board and food were all taken care of.
So over the years he had a decent amount of money saved.
He also took to the drink after coming back from Bosnia. Pretty hard.
Cleaned himself up and was shipped to Isreal.
By this time he was mid to late 30's and still a bachelor. There he met a woman who was also in the UN. She was Jamacian by birth but also a US citizen. She worked as a Translator, was previously married and had two kids.
Ben fell for her and they got married in Jamacia a year or so later.
She immediatly got to work on him, convincing him to quit his job, one where he'd finally gotten to the upper echelons of, office work in a relativly stable country.
They moved to America where he put his money into two houses, one for them and one as an investment.
She sponsored his Visa, which after 4 years he could become a citizen.
Then she went about ruining his life. She cheated on him. She left for weeks at a time. She used the money in his accounts for her own purposes, selling investments and spending the money on herself.
He had a job as a real estate agent by this time, a decent job he liked.
He had friends in America, a life (of sorts), more than he had anywhere else, including here in Ireland.
So he couldn't leave her, he couldn't do anything. If she pulled her sponsership of him he was out.
So she blackmailed him. Took everything.
I mean everything. They had 3 houses by this time, 2 investment ones and his own home.
She took the two, then came to his house while he was at work and cleaned him out.
Took the furniture, most of his clothes, anything that wasn't nailed down.
Left him one fork.
One spoon.
One knife.
One pot.
So he took to drinking again. He got done for drink driving and had his licence pulled.
All this amidst this womans constant interferance in his life.
Turns out her previous husband had a similar experience. She owned 4 properties in Jamacia, all of which she'd gotten from him, then left him.
He tried to come home, but he couldn't settle here, he'd no money, no home. Stayed with relatives. Ended up back drinking more.
So he went back to the U.S. Told everyone here he'd be selling things up over there, sorting out the legal issues and trying to sort things out.
He got a legal seperation and wanted to start divorce proceedings. She didn't like that and proceeded to screw him over before he could severe the ties.
He was a broken man now. Seen too much suffering in the world. Seen too much pain. Thought he'd worked his way out of it only to have this woman delight in twisting the knife again.
So he killed himself.
I guess it was a way out.
A popular way out for his unit and section too apparently. We later found out that 35% of all personell who've served in the same unit as him have taken their own lives also in the intervening years.
All the things they've seen.
The woman only informed us four days after it had happened, apparently as an afterthought.
She said she was too distraught to call us. Mmm.
She called again to say that she was going to cremate him and sprinkle his ashes that week, and if we wanted to be there. We had an attack of the screaming fits and told her where to go. We wanted him back here, home, and at peace, buried in the family plot.
She called a day later, Monday, saying the US Postal Service doesn't do human remains, so she could cremate him and have him shipped UPS, and that we would have him by Friday.
Just like that. Something to be delivered. By Friday.
In the end we had the coffin shipped here and buried.
She cleaned out all their accounts, she sold all their houses and she's taken everything of his that was left. We got his rosery beads, the CD that was playing in the car when he gased himself and him.
My aunts decided to take legal proceedings about his estate, but the work, effort, expense and time just wore them down. They've pretty much given up.
She won.
It was a horrible time for us all. We've tried to move on.
So then she called. Saying that she was going to have a memorial plaque made up and placed in a plot over there, so she could 'visit his resting place' easier.
She wanted to know if we wanted anything put on the plaque, and if we wanted to contribute to the cost.
I think I had an embolism...
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I came, I saw, I shouldn't mix pleasure with carpentry.
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