A Short Summary Excerpt THE DIVORCE
Gary & Elizabeth
Based on true events. Some portions subject to change. (This summary/excerpt may not be suitable for minors)
Elizabeth and I were divorced on April 9, 1993. It was because of the money. Not mine, not her's, not ours, but her aunt and uncle's.
I was dearly in love with my wife. I may not have always shown it; not as much as I should have, but I dearly loved her. I regret not showing her more. If I was able to do it all over again I would worship the ground she walked on and I'd do it every single day. She was the best thing that ever happened to me. The one thing I did not want was a divorce.
Unfortunately I had no choice.
Fred and Margaret George were Elizabeth's aunt and uncle. Margaret went by the name of Peggy. They lived on Nottingham Drive in Woodbury, New Jersey. It was the fancy side of town. Big houses. Swimming pools. New cars. Well-kept lawns. You know the type. Upper crust. Not the filling and definitely not the bottom crust.
Elizabeth reunited with them at my prompting. They had been estranged for years. Peggy was an alcoholic. She took care of Beth for a while when Beth was growing up. I guess they didn't get along.
I told Elizabeth that I thought family was important and that she should try and make amends. It took her awhile but she finally did.
I now wish she hadn't.
Fred was an orthopedic surgeon. He was nice but aloof. It was hard to read him. Peggy did nothing. But she was uppity. Real uppity.
As I heard it, Fred had his office in a building that he owned and which he leased office space to other doctors. Fred was loaded, and Peggy did her best to spend his money as fast as he made it. She did a pretty good job too. She had the best of everything. It was nothing for Peggy to spend $1,000 on a Gucci handbag. She'd say "charge it," and the bills would be sent to Fred's office. I don't think Peggy ever saw a credit card bill in her life. They were just magically paid by some unknown person. The credit cards never went dry. Fred had even bought her breast implants. Or maybe Peggy had bought them for herself. Charge It! Either way she was damn sure proud of those fake tits.
Fred drove a Rolls Royce. Peggy was relegated to a new Lincoln. She didn't seem to mind though. She got a new one every year or two. Each one always had every conceivable option known to man or, in Peggy's case, to woman. Money just gushed from a never-ending well. I don't think either one of them really knew how much they had or what they were worth. Partly because Peggy would not stop spending Fred's money so it could be counted, things inventoried and appraised, and a financial statement prepared.
In 1991 they paid round trip air fare to fly me, Elizabeth and our daughter, Heather, from Florida to New Jersey for a week. Peggy asked me what I thought about their home, pool and cars. I told her the house was just a house and I thought the cars were a little much just to drive back and forth to work and to go shopping. I had never been impressed by money, nor by the people who had a lot of it. What impressed me was someone who was genuine and down to earth. I guess I said the wrong thing to Peggy. She just stuck her nose in the air, turned around and walked away.
Oh, well.
Fred and Peggy had a daughter, Lisa Ann. She was born in January, 1972. Lisa had Down's Syndrome. She was sweet girl. She stayed in the basement of their home, almost like a troll under a bridge. Fred and Peggy wouldn't let her have her own room upstairs with them even though they had two spare bedrooms. They were secretive as to why. I felt sorry for her. It was almost like her mother and father was embarrassed because they had a daughter with a handicap.
Elizabeth and Peggy would sneak off and have private conversations while we were there. They would whisper when I would be around. It was annoying but I didn't say anything.
During our visit Peggy just had to take us to Atlantic City. Elizabeth was impressed by the casinos, flashy cars, overdressed people and the sparkling lights. Uppity people. My wife looked like she was in her element though, hob-knobbing with the goober-smoochers. Then of course there was the shopping. All the big name designer stores. It seemed like Peggy and my wife hit every one, spending Fred's money like it was water. All I could think about was how in the hell was I going to get all this shit on the airplane.
It was just after we returned from our trip to New Jersey that the boxes started arriving. Elizabeth's aunt Peggy started sending Elizabeth literally boxes and boxes of clothes and other items.
I'm not talking about a little box with just one item. These were big boxes with a lot of merchandise in each one. Sometimes there would be five boxes that showed up at once. And this happened every four to six weeks. Liz Claiborne and other top designer outfits would routinely be contained in the boxes, as well as other expensive designer items like purses, shoes and sunglasses. Our daughter, Heather, would also get stuff. Occasionally, very occasionally, I would. The clothes and everything else still had the price tags on them. Peggy wanted to be sure we knew how much they cost; how much she was spending. My wife was impressed. She'd call Peggy and just gush over all the expensive merchandise in the boxes. I could care less but was always polite and said thank you.
All the expensive clothes caused another problem. Liz Claiborne, it seemed, was not happy being washed in just a washer. She wanted to be dry cleaned. Our dry cleaning bill went from nothing to over $50 a week. Wearing the clothes of the rich and famous cost more than just the cost of the clothes. If this continued I was going to start sending Peggy the dry cleaning bill.
My wife was definitely the best dressed woman in Bradenton. She could have easily competed for, and won, the best dressed woman competition of New York City, San Francisco or any other city for that matter. I kept telling her, "Elizabeth we live in Bradenton. If you wear Liz Claiborne and carry a Gucci handbag around here someone will mug you." I wasn't kidding. But Beth was walking around with her nose stuck so far up in the air it was a wonder she didn't drown when it rained. Money had changed her. As it does most people. It was getting to be a little too much, and my wife was getting to be a little more than just hard to live with.
The thing Elizabeth just did not seem to grasp was the very simple fact that she was a beautiful woman who certainly did not need designer clothes to make people notice her. She was a head-turner all by herself. If anything, some of the designer clothes she wore actually detracted from her natural beauty. She just didn't need to do anything to spruce herself up. Quite honestly, my wife didn't even need to wear makeup as she was that breathtaking.
It was sometime in 1992 that Peggy came to Florida for a visit and stayed with us. One day she had to go into the freezer of the refrigerator to get ice. Actually had to break the ice cubes out of the ice trays. She thought this appalling. After she got home a Sears & Roebuck's truck showed up at our house. Peggy had bought us a new refrigerator with an automatic ice maker and, that dispensed ice and water in the door. No more ice trays for us! It don't think it was actually for us though. I think Peggy just wanted to make sure that if she ever visited us again she wouldn't have to break ice cubes out of the ice trays.
Tums out she had other plans.
It was sometime after the refrigerator deal that Elizabeth came to me and wanted to talk. She said that Fred and Peggy had offered to buy us a house and give us money if we would move to New Jersey. According to Beth, they wanted us to help take care of Lisa and make sure Lisa was taken care of after they died. (Whenever that was going to be). That seemed kind of strange. It was even more strange that they would not include me in this conversation. They had to go behind my back to talk with my wife. They had to know I would not be happy. And they knew I would not want to move.
I would not begrudge my wife anything. I loved her. The boxes upon boxes of clothes and the refrigerator was one thing. But now Fred and Peggy wanting to by us a house and give us money to move to New Jersey was quite another.
When Beth's aunt and uncle had made the offer all Beth saw was dollar signs. Big dollar signs. I said, "NO! Absolutely not!" I was not going to take care of Lisa. I did not want to take care of Lisa. I didn't even want to look out for Lisa. She was a sweet girl but she was not my daughter, not my problem, and I didn't want her to be either. No! No! No! We were not going to New Jersey. No way. No how. We had our own home. (True. Our home wasn't as big and fancy as Peggy's). We both had good jobs. (I admit, I wasn't an orthopedic surgeon and Beth had to work). We had fairly new cars. (Granted the cars were not a Rolls Royce or a Lincoln; they were a Chevy Cavalier and Camaro). We owned a boat that we kept in a marina. (That's one thing Fred and Peggy did not have!). And we had our own daughter to think about. NO! Besides, no one in their right mind moves from Florida to New Jersey. No one. It gets freeze-your-ass-off-cold in New Jersey. It snows in New Jersey. It snows deep in New Jersey.
I had enough. I told Elizabeth no more. Things were just too much and too over the top. I told my wife that she was acting like her aunt and uncle. "Better than everyone else. Uppity." I told her the fancy clothes and other expensive items had changed her and had gone to her head. She was no longer the Elizabeth that I first met and fell in love with.
I told Elizabeth if Peggy wanted to send her and Heather something for Christmas and their birthday that's fine. But no more sending boxes and boxes of clothes and other expensive crap whenever she wanted. That's over. Done. Kaput. It seemed as though Fred and Peggy were almost trying to drive a wedge between me and my wife.
It had to stop.
Elizabeth and I had more words. I wasn't changing my mind. Beth was pissed. Really pissed. She had become accustomed to all the expensive, fancy crap and she wanted to move to New Jersey.
I told Elizabeth I didn't care how mad she was, pick up the damn phone and call Peggy and tell her not to send anything else unless it was Christmas or a birthday, and tell her we were not moving to New Jersey.
Reluctantly, very reluctantly, Elizabeth did. When she got off the phone my loving, caring wife looked at me and screamed, "Uncle Fred and Aunt Peggy said that they don't consider you to be good breading stock. Aunt Peggy said she was going to hire a hit man and kill you. I hope she does!"
Good breading stock? Seriously? If I was not good breading stock then what the hell did that make my daughter? Contaminated? Diluted? Inferior? But Fred and Peggy had no room to talk. They had Lisa Ann, and Lisa Ann had Downs Syndrome. And what was this crap that Peggy was going to hire a hit man to kill me? Really? And my own wife hoped Peggy would do so? What the hell were these people thinking? Were they fucking nuts?
Do you have any idea what it's like to live in the same house with someone, sleep in the same bed with them, when they want you dead? When money means more to them than you do? I'm sure if I had been better breading stock and kissed Peggy's ass like my wife was doing everything would have been just fine and dandy. But I wasn't. And I wouldn't. And I didn't. Not for me, not for Peggy, and not for Elizabeth.
I figured I had better do something, just in case I ended up with a bullet or two in my head. I told my mother and father. I asked them to just keep this between the three of us.
Elizabeth continued to talk to Peggy on the phone every couple of days. One day she came up to me and told me she was going to New Jersey and that was that. Her and I were done. Her aunt and uncle would buy her a house, provide her with anything she needed, and that was final. And she was taking Heather with her.
I probably shouldn't have done it, looking back. But I felt my marriage was over. The fact is, Beth so much as told me it was. I felt like a loser. I couldn't compete with money. I couldn't compete with her aunt. I couldn't compete with her uncle. I couldn't compete with Liz Claiborne. I couldn't compete with Gucci. Hell, at this point I couldn't even compete with myself! And I wasn't going to move closer to someone who said they wanted to kill me.
It was near the end of 1992. I went out and found a girlfriend. When Elizabeth found out she went ballistic and through the roof. Straight through the roof. I can't say that I blame her. It was a stupid thing for me to do. I should have worked on my marriage. I should have worked out a compromise. I should have done something, anything but that. I had a beautiful daughter who I just loved and adored. And I loved and adored Beth too even though she was getting uppity. But I don't know why Beth was so upset. Later I found out that she had been seeing a guy by the name of Jimmy Lee Joiner behind my back. Imagine that. He was probably good breading stock.
I wasn't going to New Jersey so Elizabeth hired an attorney and filed for divorce. She gave me back her engagement ring. I pawned it. To this day that act still hurts me. I simply cannot remember what happened to my wedding ring.
I got the house. Elizabeth just gave it to me. No muss. No Fuss. Just here you go, F-U, and I won't see you later. She was going to get a new one. The only thing Elizabeth wanted out of our marriage was our daughter. She knew that would hurt me the worst. And she wanted me to pay her for that damn refrigerator Peggy had bought. Go figure. But at that point I had stopped caring. I signed the divorce papers on December 28, 1992. But that did not mean I stopped loving Elizabeth.
On January 2, 1993 Elizabeth moved out of our home and into her own apartment as Fred and Peggy started looking for a house for her. I cried the day she left. I cried the day after too. And a few more.
Our divorce was finalized on April 9, 1993. We actually went to the final divorce hearing together.
A few months after our divorce was final Elizabeth had her attorney draw up and file petitions to change her last name and the last name of our daughter from Perrot to......you guessed it! GEORGE!!! If that didn't beat all. And guess who paid Elizabeth's attorney fees. Peggy, of course, right out of her never-ending well of money.
I eventually sold the house, refrigerator included, and moved in with my parents while I searched for an apartment. And just to be clear, I never did pay Elizabeth for that damn refrigerator either.
Elizabeth's aunt and uncle finally bought her a brand new house on Cinnamon Road in Thorofare, West Deptford, New Jersey. She moved right up and moved right in, dragging our daughter with her.
Beth started calling her aunt and uncle mom and dad. Fred and Peggy referred to Elizabeth as their daughter. As for my daughter, Beth told her to call Fred and Peggy grandpa and grandma and she was their granddaughter. Everyone with the same last name. One big, cozy, happy family with poor Lisa still living like a troll in the basement.
I think that Fred and Peggy secretly wanted a daughter who was not handicapped. Someone who they weren't ashamed of and they could do things with. Elizabeth turned out to be that daughter. She was a replacement for Lisa Ann. Heather was the granddaughter they would never have. Duly bought and paid for. Both of them. Elizabeth just didn't see it. Then again, maybe she did. Later, Elizabeth would marry Robert Baker. He probably received the Good Breading Stock Seal of Approval from Fred and Peggy. She moved Robert right into her brand new home. I'm willing to bet that Peggy never threatened to hire a hit man to kill him. He probably puckered right up.
In the end Elizabeth did exactly what she said she would do. Moved to New Jersey taking our six year old daughter with her. It was the last time I had contact with my little girl. As for me? My life was about to change in a way that I could have never imagined or seen coming.
