A Writer's Life (48 page)

In late February 1991, John Bobbitt had returned late at night from his taxi job and turned to the Spice channel on television. He heard Lorena's voice complaining from the bedroom that the sound was too loud. He turned it down and resumed watching. Then Lorena, wearing a silk outfit she had bought from Victoria's Secret, entered the living room and, seeing what he was watching, turned off the set. He jumped up and gave her a shove, and turned it back on. She came forward and turned it off again. This time he gave her a harder shove, but she shoved back. He banged her on the shoulder with the palm of his hand. And she kicked him in the genitals. He jumped on her and tossed her to the floor. After a lively exchange of swings and slaps, Lorena emerged with a battered face, a split lip, and other bruises. This time when the police responded to her call, they told her she
had
to file a complaint. She refused at first. The police took photographs of her face and then
demanded
that she immediately affix her signature to a document. This time she did.

When John Bobbitt, who had been kept outside on the lawn of the house in the presence of another police officer, heard that he was now under arrest, he protested loudly. He showed the officers the scratches and blood on his neck and arms, and insisted that she had started it all by kicking him in the genitals. That afternoon, John Bobbitt went to court to file a countercomplaint against Lorena for “assault.”

After two additional 911 calls that year, which led neither to arrests nor complaints, Lorena herself became a party to criminal incidents that did not involve her husband in any way, although in one instance it was
he
who had cited her—not to the police, but to Janna Biscutti, from whom she had been stealing some hundreds of dollars' worth of salon
products, which she apparently intended to use at home, or elsewhere, in catering to some of her customers, thereby avoiding having to split her fee the customary fifty-fifty with her boss. John discovered the products and, threatening at first to return them to Janna's office alone, convinced Lorena to drive with him to Janna's place and return the stolen items. Janna admonished Lorena but did not dismiss her.

In late June 1991, in Nordstrom's clothing shop in McLean, Virginia, Lorena was caught stealing a $170 dress. She pleaded guilty before a magistrate, and, as a first-time offender for shoplifting, was directed to complete fifty hours of community service. And then, in October of the same year, as Janna Biscutti was reviewing her business records, her suspicions were alerted by what appeared to be discrepancies in Lorena's accounting. Lorena denied any wrongdoing. After a more thorough investigation, Janna Biscutti discovered that Lorena had embezzled $7,200.

“You lied to me!” Janna was heard to cry out from the back room of her salon, while the manicurists and customers in the front paused to listen. Lorena's howls and cries could then be heard throughout the workplace as Janna proceeded to pull Lorena's hair. Janna reported the embezzlement to the police, but, after pondering the effects of the punishment, she decided not to press charges. If she did, Lorena would perhaps be imprisoned, but Janna could not be assured of getting her money back. So she kept Lorena on the job but extracted a 60 percent, rather than a 50 percent, commission on her work until the $7,200 amount had been paid back. This took Lorena nearly a year.

With the foreclosure on the Bobbitts' house, and with Lorena and John Bobbitt deciding to separate, Erma Castro allowed Lorena to return to the Castro household. John Bobbitt slowly made his way back to Niagara Falls in October 1991. For the next twelve months, drifting between upstate New York and Canada, he marginally supported himself through a series of jobs (such as cleaning roof gutters) that he neither liked nor held for very long. The Marine Corps had been the place for him. He wished that he could reenlist, but he knew better than to try. One of the jobs he thought of seeking was employment in a police department. Many ex-marines ended up working for the police after military retirement, he knew; but that single arrest on his record in Virginia would not serve him well. Wherever he went, that might follow.

And yet the very person who had been most instrumental in getting him arrested back in February 1991—his once-loving wife, Lorena—sent him a Valentine's Day greeting a year later. When he opened the envelope that had been mailed to Niagara Falls and discovered what was inside, he was amazed. Inside was a charming color photograph of Lorena,
who was wearing a brown off-the-shoulder dress and a brown hat with silk flowers sewn on the brim. Her dark eyes were focused directly at the camera and she was smiling demurely; on the back of the photo, she had written: “Have a Happy Valentine's Day, John!!!—Lorena, 2-14-92.”

He decided to call her. He knew that it made no sense, but he called anyway, contacting her at the nail salon. Her voice was very friendly, so unlike the familiar stridence of her 911 calls. She was occupied with a customer when he telephoned, so he called back later, at her suggestion. By September 1992, he had returned to Virginia and the couple were embarking on the revival of their relationship.

John Bobbitt had hoped that Erma Castro would allow him to join Lorena in the Castro household for a while until the two of them could find an apartment to rent. Castro, however, had adamantly refused; not even for
one night
would she permit John Bobbitt to be under her roof, she made clear to Lorena, who had tried (and failed) to make the case that the Bobbitt marriage was worthy of preservation. Lorena was more convincing in her appeals to Castro's sister-in-law, Sondra Beltran, who was then married to, but was living apart from, Mrs. Castro's brother, Segundo. Mrs. Beltran finally agreed to rent part of her home (located in Stafford, not far from Mrs. Castro's) to Lorena and John, with the understanding they reside there harmoniously with her and her two teenage sons. But not long after the Bobbitts had moved in, it was obvious to Mrs. Beltran that she had been unwise in her choice of tenants. The couple was soon arguing on a regular basis. John was especially moody and disgruntled. The ex-marine was now wearing the white cotton uniform of Burger King employees, earning five dollars an hour at the only place in the area where he could find steady employment; and while he was never rude toward Sondra or her sons, he seemed to release some of his pent-up hostility upon the stray cat that Sondra had adopted as a pet.

When Sondra was not paying attention, Bobbitt would grab her cat firmly in both hands and take it outside and shove it headfirst into the sidewalk mailbox. After closing and securing the metal door to prevent the cat from escaping, Bobbitt would return to the house and call out, “Sondra, Sondra—I think you have mail.” Unsuspecting at first, and infuriated as he persisted in doing this, Sondra would walk to the mailbox and slowly open it, hoping that she could gently reclaim her petrified cat without being scratched or without it leaping past her into the street and into the path of oncoming motorists. Sondra Beltran was pleased and relieved when Lorena told her, in March 1993, that the Bobbitts would soon be moving out.

Lorena had set aside enough money from her earnings to obtain an
apartment in Manassas, which was much closer to her nail salon than was Sondra Beltran's home in Stafford. The apartment was situated within a modern three-story gray frame compound in the Yorkshire area of Manassas. The tenants had access to a swimming pool and an indoor recreation area adjacent to the parking lot, from whose borders small signs rising from the ground read
HAVE A NICE DAY
. The Bobbitts' dwelling, costing $570 a month, was on the second floor and had a balcony that overlooked the parking lot. It had a single bedroom, and a living room that was within view of the kitchen, which was tucked behind a fixed barlike counter. It was smaller than any apartment that they had rented since the one they had moved into as a newly married couple nearly four years before.

When John Bobbitt learned that a large new restaurant, Red Lobster, was scheduled to open soon on Manassas's main thoroughfare, Sudley Road, he drove over for an interview. Sudley Road predates the Civil War in this town, which had been the locale of the South's two great triumphs against the North at the battles of Bull Run. But Sudley Road in recent years had surrendered to the land developers, and it was now a long garish strip of low-level buildings and a stunted skyline of signs: advertising Pizza Hut, Dunkin' Donuts, Roy Rogers, Long John Silver's, Denny's, T.G.I. Friday's, Taco Bell, 7-Eleven, and Mike's Diner. The developers had all but paved and conquered the nearby legendary lawns where a number of Confederate cannons were on display along with a statue of Gen. Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, who in this city had taken his historic stand. The federal government in recent years had succeeded in sweeping the developers from the battle area, but Sudley Road has long been open to opportunists large and small. One of the latter, John Bobbitt, drove to Sudley Road and applied as one of five hundred applicants at Red Lobster. The female executive in personnel who had interviewed Bobbitt described him in the company's comment sheet as “clean-cut,” “well-groomed,” “All-Amer type male.” Only 20 percent of the five hundred applicants would be hired. One of those was John Bobbitt.

Wearing a white button-down shirt and a maroon striped tie (the restaurant supplied the tie), John Bobbitt was assigned to a cashier's job that showcased his good looks near the entranceway, and held him accountable during an average seven-hour shift for transactions of between six thousand and fifteen thousand dollars in cash and credit cards. After three weeks, a male manager, noting that Bobbitt was “a little slow,” offered him a new position as an “allied coordinator.” This meant anything from making salads, to garnishing the plates, to assisting the waitresses and waiters in cleaning the tables. At a wage of six dollars an hour,
and working approximately forty hours a week, he was earning between $200 and $240. This was fine with him. But business failed to reach management's early expectations, and orders came down to cut the staff and the hours. Bobbitt was reduced to twenty-two hours. He quit this job to take one with a landscapes thinking he would match his earlier salary at Red Lobster, but he did not. He took part-time work at a 7-Eleven, and also went early in the mornings to unload trucks at the Atlantic Food Services platforms, where his earnings as a lumper depended upon the frequency of the arriving vans and other vehicles. He maintained this routine for a while, but was looking for something better.

Lorena continued as before to be the couple's principal wage earner. Her coworkers at the nail salon, accustomed to her earlier complaints about John, expressed surprise that she had reunited with him. Lorena responded that she was giving the relationship one more try, although she admitted that the marriage had not improved much since their reconciliation. Maybe it was the close quarters of their new apartment, or the fact that John had fallen behind in his car payments (Lorena would not allow him the use of her car), or that Lorena believed that John was spending excessive amounts of time on weekends around the pool, showing off his masterly swimming style and his muscles to the clusters of young females who could usually be found there. The Bobbitts had only been in their apartment for three months (they had not even subscribed for phone service), and already Lorena was hinting to John that they might both be better off if one of them moved out. She had heard from a customer at the nail salon that John was romantically involved with a waitress he had met at Red Lobster. He loudly denied it, which hardly surprised her. Anyway, in mid-June 1993, she told him that
she
would soon be moving out, and he said fine.

He later went out to a coin box to telephone a male friend from Niagara Falls—an engineering student named Robert Johnston, who had just completed his fourth year at the University of Buffalo—and invited him to spend the rest of the summer in Virginia. Johnston accepted without hesitation and said he could drive down on the following weekend, arriving most likely on Sunday, June 20. At twenty-one, Johnston was four years younger than Bobbitt, and had actually grown up with one of Bobbitt's younger brothers. But when Bobbitt had returned to Niagara Falls after separating from Lorena, the two men had spent much time together at night drinking and playing pool. Johnston was a tall, slender six-footer with blue eyes and precisely combed chestnut-colored hair and the same clean-cut features as Bobbitt. He was extremely shy, however, and it was this shyness that had fortified the friendship with Bobbitt. Bobbitt was
comfortable with people who in social situations were more uncertain than he was. And Bobbitt knew from their earlier good times together that having Johnston in Virginia would mean more of the same. Bobbitt was also glad that Johnston would be coming down with his car. Bobbitt's vehicle had been repossessed.

Robert Johnston arrived in Manassas shortly before noon on June 20, but his knocks on the Bobbitts' apartment door went unanswered. Later he learned from Bobbitt that he had disturbed John and Lorena while they were making love. Bobbitt had explained that Lorena was a most unpredictable woman—she could hate you one day, love you the next. When Johnston had returned a second time to knock, Lorena had opened the door. “Come back a little later,” she told him in an unfriendly manner; “John and I have some things to discuss.” Johnston had recognized her from the pretty photograph she had sent to John on Valentine's Day, but at this moment she was carelessly dressed in a wrinkled T-shirt and a pair of shorts, her dark shoulder-length hair was very tangled, and her brown eyes, which had shone so brightly in the photograph, now reflected only her discontent. Johnston immediately turned away from her without introducing himself.

He returned to his car, a black 1966 Mustang that was packed with the things he thought he should have while spending a pleasant summer in Virginia, but as he paused in the parking lot, leaning against a fender, fatigued from a ten-hour trip, he wondered if he should drive off and register for the night in a motel. But when he returned to the Bobbitts' apartment building an hour later, a smiling John Bobbitt was waiting on the sidewalk to greet him and help him carry things out of the car, such items as Johnston's portable color TV, clothing, video games, and a bicycle. John told him that his own bicycle was currently being repaired, having been bent out of shape two days earlier after being sideswiped by a car driven by a twenty-six-year-old man who had emigrated from Laos. John said that after he had been thrown to the street, the driver and a young Laotian woman who was a passenger had rushed to his side and apologized and wanted to take him to the hospital. But he had only a few scratches, Bobbitt said, and he was grateful that the couple agreed to fix the bicycle and return it to him within a few days.