"Michael Wells has been seen around town with an attractive married woman."
Those were the words that began the destruction of my marriage. They were factually true. The photo clearly showed my face, it only showed the back of her head.
I am Michael Wells. My friends call me Monkey. I won't go into all the details about that, I will give you the quick version.
My initials are MW. Years ago there was a large department store chain with the same initials, some of you may have heard of it. They were referred to As Monkey Wards in some parts of the world. Needless to say someone saw the initials on a bag or something, and the name Monkey was applied and it stuck. I guess it is a bit ironic that I run the local (almost a) department store. We are still growing, we are currently at 45,000 square feet..
I have lived in the same town almost all my life. You sneeze on one side of town and someone on the other side will be calling to report to all their friends that you are sick. Before the day is through you have died and the services are being planned.
The town is not so small as some of the minds within it; after all we have 5 stoplights here. Well, it is 6 if you count the one out by the fireman's carnival grounds. They only use that one when something is happening there.
The local paper only publishes on Monday and Thursday. In my opinion it is not worthy of being called a newspaper; but then it is too rough to use as toilet paper and I have no bird cage. The owner's wife writes a local gossip column that is known to always tell the truth. That is the name; ALL THE TRUTH.
The padre at the Catholic Church was seen drinking wine; during Mass was not stated. There was a report as to the number of bottles in the trash. Glass recycling is once a month here. The fire chief was seen running around at the fair grounds without his pants on; he was in the dunking booth at the carnival in his swim trunks. The stories went on and on, all reporting actual facts that were completely true, just leaving out the information that would make complete sense out of it.
Cleve Barker was the owner/editor of the local paper. His wife Emma Barker was the gossip maven, the seeker of eternal truth, the person who ruined my life. Emma Barker was the most vindictive bitch I ever met.
She had been in the week before to replace their washing machine. They bought the old one from us 25 years ago. We only made one service call to replace a drive belt, the washer was considered unreliable after that. We had one on sale, at $10 above cost. She wanted that one with free delivery and setup. I pointed out that the ad clearly said "Delivery and installation extra." She stormed out.
She went to the big national name store in the next county and paid nearly double what we would have charged her for the same machine, and additional for the delivery and setup. They would typically deliver it in a week; we would have had it there the next day.
It was not the cost; she just liked pushing her weight around. And, oh man, did she have some weight. Rumor has it that she slipped on an icy sidewalk, fell down, rocked herself to sleep and almost froze to death. Too bad it was almost.
The day my life as I knew it almost ended.
I arrived home from work, that fateful day, to find all my clothes in the yard. The sprinkler was running, the locks were changed and a man waiting for me with a rather large envelope.
"Michael Wells?"
"You know I am you stupid idiot."
"You have been served."
The stupid idiot was my cousin Steven.
"You could have done me the courtesy of warning me" I yelled as he went back into the house.
My neighbor, Spud, was on the way over to help me clean it up. I waved him off and said "Let it be. I'll get some more tomorrow at work." He wanted to load it all in my pickup but that was going nowhere until the flat tires were replaced.
Spud said "I called for the rollback down at Tom's Garage. He will get it in the morning." Then he handed me the paper and showed me the latest gossip.
"The bitch gives her a compliment and she divorces me. WHAT is wrong with this?"
Spud commented, "She has not figured out how to get into the garage yet. Imagine what she would do with your car and tools."
The car he referred to was my first car, a 64 Dodge Custom 880. The first half of the year they made the Custom 880, the second they put out the Polaris. The thing is a boat, oh what a smooth ride. Mom gave it to me after Dad died, it was his last car. He must have driven it for 20 years before he died. I also have the first delivery van from the store in there. It is almost completely restored to new condition.
I was 17 when Dad died of cancer. Mom and I ran the store together until she got too old to work full time. At 68 years old she is still doing well but can not take the stress of a full time job. She still opens the store a few days a week to be sure I am doing things right.
Spud continued "I also called Arnold Benedict to get a restraining order to keep her out of the garage." Arnold went to school with Spud and me. He is the other local lawyer in town. By that I mean, other than Eileen's brother.
Eileen is my wife, for the moment. Neither she nor her brother is very smart. She got the looks in her family; he got the stupid name. Wadsworth Wallington Smythe VI, it was a family tradition. The others had all died young. Spud claims it is the 'shame of the name' that causes it. In reality they all got careless and died in accidents; the first couple were horse and wagon, the later ones were all in automobiles.
The pair figured that the new locks would persuade me not to go into the house. UMmmmm, NO! Not going to work that way! The house was my grandfather's. I owned it and also my share of the store before I married Eileen. Her name is not on the title of either. We'll let her think she won, for a while.
Spud and I retired to his house. His wife Ethel is Eileen's best friend. Ethel just happened to be visiting her mother that week; she had retired and moved to Florida. If Ethel had been home she would have pointed out that the woman named in the gossip was Eileen. She was not there, so she could not point it out, now we have a mess.
Steve left shortly after dinner. We had pizza and cold beer, mine was root and diet.
I kept a log of the times and dates I tried to call her to explain the picture. She hung up each time she was home. If she was not home I left a message explaining that it was her in the picture. I was ordered to not try to make contact with her again after 2 weeks of trying. She obviously never listened to what I said.
Spud had access to the computers at the newspaper. He asked for and was granted a copy of the file for the photo, but only after he already had it in case it disappeared upon asking. He left an envelope on the door with the picture blown up; she burned it without opening it. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
The next morning the sprinkler was still running as Eileen left to visit the gym. While she was gone I let myself into the house.
Wait a minute; you said she changed to locks, I can hear some of you calling out
She never knew about one door into the house. Years ago when they had horses instead of automobiles there was a side door that lead out to the stable and carriage house; a servants entrance if you will. The coat closet near the back kitchen door was originally a mud room. A new back door was cut into the back of the house when the garage was built. The original moldings, door and other woodwork were used so it all looked like it had always been there. The replacement door slab was covered over with cedar panels to match the other walls. The only visible lock was on the other side in the old coal bin which I had converted into my tool locker. A roll away tool chest was parked in front of the door. I had the key in the chest.
Less than 5 minutes after she left we were in the living room. The security company I used at the store was busy installing cameras with sound capability in every room and phone taps. Arnold owned the company as an addition to his law office. He had investigators working for him too. I had a few follow her for 2 weeks and decided it was a waste of money. The most likely place to cheat was in the morning at the gym, she didn't.
Spud works on electronics for a living. He installed key tracking software on her computer and a program to allow remote monitoring at will. She would never notice the extra wire pushed through the wall into my garage. The security company would monitor all of it and keep what was necessary.
She never takes her suitcase, excuse me her purse, when she goes to the gym because it will not fit into the lockers. I fished out her cell phone and Spud set it up to transmit all calls to another phone with a recorder. It was on my account, if she doesn't like it tough. As I put the phone back I saw the birth control pills in her purse. This would explain why she did not get pregnant. We had agreed to try.
The GPS action on the phone was already activated. Remember I said she was not smart? She can get lost turning around in the bathtub. I have lost track of the times I had to tell her how to get home from wherever she was. We would monitor the places she went using the GPS feature. Once an hour her phone's location was recorded.
The area was cleaned and returned to normal before she returned almost 2 hours later. She showered and dressed for work and was out the door.
When Ethel returned she tried to tell Eileen that it was her in the photo. Eileen said she was taking my side and asked her to leave, rather loudly.