Getting out of this marriage has become my overriding concern, my obsession. But it is not going to be easy, for I need to get out with full and permanent custody of my child, and at the same time, I must make sure that I survive the divorce process. In light of Lucille’s shenanigans thus far, not to mention Clyde’s, I honestly fear for my emotional health, my sanity, even my life. I do want the transition to contain minimal disruption for my infant son. Yet there is a sense of urgency, an awareness that I have to save Carter and myself, and the only way to do so is to get both of us as far away from Lucille’s influence as possible. I have no way of knowing this now, but in the years to come, I will look back to these tumultuous days and realize that my thoughts and fears were, if anything, understated. In the months to come, I will more fully realize just how serious are the implications of going through a divorce with a person as unstable as Lucille.
Notwithstanding the melodramatic getaway that afternoon when Carter was only a month old, Lucille has been coming around sporadically for visitation with our son. Now she has been AWOL with Carter for several days. She is not in her townhome in Bellaire (a small incorporated city in the Houston metropolitan area), nor at her mother’s house in Pasadena, nor her father’s house in La Porte. My father checks the ranch and discovers not only that she is not there, the rest of her belongings seem to have disappeared from the main house, as well. At this point I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about her, but she has my child, and I am supposed to have him. My attorney and I make an emergency visit to the courthouse in Houston, and get the appropriate paperwork for me to take sole custody of Carter, if only on a temporary basis. The only problem we have to solve now is to locate Lucille. When we find her, we will serve the papers and take custody of Carter. The process server is combing the area, trying to locate her so he can serve the papers.
Having exhausted all the locations where we think she might be, I ask my private investigator, Bill Philpot of Philpot Investigations, to set up surveillance on her townhouse. Bill is a great PI, though a bit eccentric, to put it mildly. He comes across as a Magnum, PI wannabe, but also seems quite aware of the fact that he is a complete nerd – which is not a put-down, as I consider myself to be a nerd, as well. At one point during the time he worked for me, I had invited him to a St. Patrick’s Day golf tournament, and set him up with a couple of the “escorts” there. The details are irrelevant, but you can pretty well fill in the blanks from any dime novel or late-night cable movie. All that matters is that he obviously had a great time, as I am sure the “escorts” did when they compared notes afterward.
The call from Bill comes on a Tuesday night. Lucille and Clyde return to the Bellaire townhome at approximately 9 PM. They immediately lock the garage and security gate, barricading themselves inside the residence. I pick up my attorney and her legal assistant and head from downtown to the townhome. Once we arrive, we realize that the garage door is latched on the inside, rendering the garage door opener we have useless. The metal security gate is six feet tall, and I’m thinking that it will be hard to scale without injury. After a brief discussion (and before any actual decision can be made), the process server scales the gate and goes through the front window into the master bathroom. At that time, he is confronted by a naked Clyde, who is screaming at the server, telling him he is not allowed into HIS house. Clyde begins putting on a pair of jeans as the rest of us watch from outside the gate. My attorney tells me to get out of sight, that she and her crew will handle serving the papers and rescuing Carter.
Lucille is nowhere to be seen. The front door opens, and Clyde and the process server come outside with keys, and my attorney is demanding that the gate be unlocked. After the gate is unlocked, everyone but Clyde and myself enter the house to look for Lucille and Carter. Clyde continues to bitch and moan out loud about the intrusion, completely unaware that I am standing just a few feet away, around the corner of the house. I can’t take it any more. I round the corner, watch Clyde turn white with the realization that I am there, and to his – and my – surprise, I sucker-punch him so hard in the face that he ends up sprawled flat on his back, his bare feet vertical to the ground. For some reason, I just can’t stop here, and I get on top of him with the express intent of killing him on the spot.
Everyone in the house hears me screaming at him and comes out to pull me off of him, most likely saving his life. All things being equal, I’d have just as soon killed him that night with my bare hands and taken a chance with a Texas jury. He’s in my house, doing my wife, stealing my money, and putting my infant child in an extremely dangerous situation.
My preferences notwithstanding, Clyde gets to go on living, and I grab Carter in his pajamas, and rush him out to my Jaguar. The court papers are signed and a copy given to a bruised and altogether surly Clyde. Unbeknownst to us, Lucille has ascended the stairs into the attic to hide, afraid she is about to be arrested for her previous drug infractions. As is her style, she once again chooses to cut and run instead of facing the music.
Apparently she took her cell phone into hiding with her and placed an emergency call to her mother. Within minutes of my exit from the premises, Lucille’s mother calls me to demand an explanation of what I am doing with Carter. I tell her that I have taken legal possession of Carter because I fear for his safety every minute he stays with her daughter and her “boyfriend.”Just for good measure before hanging up on her, I suggest that she go do something inordinately obscene – not to mention physically impossible – to herself.
The hearing will not be for two weeks, so I have to formulate a plan to keep Carter and myself safe. Luckily, my job requires that I attend an eight-day Microsoft Summit in Miami Beach. I take Carter immediately to my parents’ house in College Station and lay low with him for a couple of days. After I am certain he is comfortable there, I take off for Miami and some much-needed relaxation, and to prepare for the next phase of the custody battle from hell.
Clyde, meanwhile, knows that we are really on to him now. Soon after the ass-kicking in the townhome, he splits in a black van that he has turned into a mobile meth lab. Unfortunately he does not take Lucille with him; so much for “true love.”
One evening I receive a call from my father, telling me, with an uncharacteristic thrill in his voice, to turn on the local news channel. The newscast is in the midst of a local story concerning Clyde Pierson, who has just been arrested in Lamesa, Texas, near the New Mexico border. Initially he was pulled over for having expired plates on his van, whereupon his mobile methamphetamine lab was discovered in the vehicle. A cache of automatic weapons and approximately fifty-thousand pseudoephedrine tablets were found in the backseat. His priors are mentioned, which explains the very large bail. Lucille’s name never comes up, an accomplice never mentioned.
I have to believe we are safe. Granted, Clyde has made bail before, but this time the amount is excessive, surely more money than he can come up with. And he will not be getting the money from me this time; by now, Lucille has surely spent everything she has ever stolen from me. I hang up and turn off the television.
In the quiet I reach for the pistol. Perspiration from my hand has discolored the gunmetal in the colors of a dark rainbow. I watch the layer of moisture evaporate from the curved surfaces of the handle, listening all the while to the insistent thud of my heart in my ears.
Within this relative silence I hear my son’s soft cry emerge from the bedroom, the voice blossoming from a nap. I pick up the gun, pop the clip, check the empty chamber for a round. So I withdraw from Crazy Town with my son and my life, and without my health and wealth. So be it. I reach my hand within the square of the strongbox’s interior. Ah, so pleasantly cool. The gun’s safety is depressed, the barrel holstered in nylon webbing and locked away with its fully stuffed clip. One never knows. The box’s door is closed, the dial spun, and I walk away. Far off in the apartment my son purrs. Time to change a diaper. Time to prepare a warm bottle.
That night I drift off to sleep before the blue glow of the television with little Carter in my arms.