Fasten Your Seatbelts: A Flight Attendant's Adventures 36,000 Feet and Below (9 page)

“Craig, isn’t there any way we can get like $10,000?” I asked jokingly one day as I struggled to pay the bills.

“Actually, there is, I know some drug dealers here in Atlanta. I’d have to throw some rocks to shatter the lights and thump a few heads in, but I could take a quarter of a million dollars just like that. They can’t do anything because it is drug money,” he replied.

My mouth dropped open but I laughed it off and said, “Yeah, right.” Inside, I was horrified.
What did he mean, “Thump a few heads in?”

We stopped attending church, and he didn’t want to see my parents anymore. I occasionally drove over to my mom and dad’s house during the day, numb and shell-shocked from his escalating verbal abuse and erratic behavior. They were
worried about me but didn’t know what to do. I told them everything would be fine, knowing nothing would be.

I brought my mom to our apartment for lunch one day not realizing Craig was home. He pulled me aside and yelled, “Don’t you ever bring anyone here unless you call first!” It didn’t make sense. Why did it matter if I made lunch for my mother?
What was he trying to hide
?

The person who had fiercely protected me while we were dating was gone. My feelings of security were replaced with fear. He could care less if I went out late at night. I am a very strong person, but his need for control was weakening me.

Craig mentioned we should take a trip to the mountains. I thought that was an excellent idea. Maybe a change of scenery would be good for our relationship. He spent a lot of time in the mountains, so I felt safe knowing he would make a great tour guide. We drove and drove and ended up in a very remote area. I hoped he might take me to a beautiful park or waterfall. He stepped out of the SUV and I followed him to the back. He opened the rear door and pulled out a huge machete. He slowly lifted the knife above his head and slowly brought it down. I had a horrible feeling.

“What are you going to do with that, Craig?” I quietly asked, determined to show no fear.

“I’m just going to clear the path.” He glanced at me with a dark look that sent chills up my spine.

He paused and stood there. Was he trying to intimidate me, scare me or could he actually hurt me? How could I feel that way about my own husband? I immediately tried to dismiss those thoughts, but they were there. We walked into the woods and hiked for several hours. I kept a wary eye on the machete. We returned home, but I never forgot the implied threat from that day.

One night Craig came home and said a guy who works with him is a hit man and an arsonist on the side. Again, I’m sure my mouth dropped.

“Craig, I hang around people who are like me. What are you doing hanging around someone like that?” I asked. “Aren’t you afraid of what he might do to you if you make him mad?”

He replied, “Chris, he thinks I am the craziest guy there is. No, I am not afraid of him.”

If this thug thinks my husband is the craziest person there is, what has he done to earn his respect?
Another red flag, but I brushed it off.

After about three months, Craig asked if I was sure we had rental insurance on our apartment. I wondered why he was asking because nearly everything we had was mine. The next day, I stopped by my insurance company. I told them I wanted the
insurance policy in my name only. If something were to happen to me, at least he wouldn’t collect anything.

Two days later, he was talking on the phone and something upset him. He yanked the phone out of the wall and threw it over the balcony. You didn’t want to tick him off. Another time we were sleeping in bed. He pulled the cover from me onto him. I pulled it back on me. He jumped out of bed and screamed, “You better hope that was worth it.” He slammed the door.
Worth what
, I thought. Is he going to come in here and kill me because of a blanket? It was crazy! He was crazy!

I could hear him frequently conning people on the phone. “Yeah, I am going to stay home and work on the computer,” he told his boss. We didn’t have a computer at the time. He looked for ways to cut corners or get away with something. I repeatedly told him, “Just do the right thing, Craig, just do the right thing.” He never did.

The last and final blow came after four months. He said, “Maybe we should consider getting more life insurance.” I felt the air being sucked out of me. I didn’t ask why he wanted more life insurance. I had learned by then not to ask why. Besides, I knew he would lie. And the truth was, I knew the answer. Everything in me thought my husband was going to kill me. As soon as I could get away without suspicion, I left and went
directly to an attorney and explained my situation. He said, “You better get out immediately. I’ve seen this happen over and over. When he goes on his sales trip to North Carolina, you take your things and get out.”

A week later, Craig drove to North Carolina. The spare bedroom was considered Craig’s. He said I wasn’t supposed to go in there, so I didn’t. But today I needed to know what was in there. Mom and I went over to the apartment armed with a camera. We opened the door and crept in. Behind the door was something that looked like a rifle in a camouflage bag. I thought perhaps it was a hunting rifle. Mom said, “Well go ahead and get it out.” I slowly pulled out a silver barrel machine gun. I was shocked! A huge chest was in the closet. I opened it to find three handguns. One appeared to be fake. I found a special agent badge, dynamite sticks with nails attached to them, and a sack full of ammunition. Three sets of nun-chucks echoed, “
Thump a few heads in.”
We left the room and quickly loaded up most of the belongings that were mine, but still left a lot of my possessions for him. I even bought him a new set of dishes and silverware. I thought somehow it might diminish his rage when he found out I was gone.

I temporarily moved back in with my parents. My mom, dad and I sat paralyzed on the couch. “What is going to happen when he finds out I left? What is he going to do?” We about
jumped out of our skins when the phone rang knowing it was him. I slowly picked up the phone.

He said, “Hey, my airline travel card is missing!” (At the time, you needed this to travel on standby.)

“Are you sitting down, Craig? I’ve got something important to say. You’re no husband, I am no wife. You are a psychopathic liar, a con artist, a sociopath.” I don’t remember what else I said; I told it like it was.

He said, “Wow, no one has ever really known me like you.”

I asked, “Have you killed anyone?”

He sarcastically said, “I’ve shot people, Chris, I haven’t killed anyone.”

Whether he was trying to get a reaction from me or not, I instinctively believed him. I vividly recall Craig’s fixation when lone women walked by on the street. It didn’t matter if they were attractive or not; I just remember his intense look. It scared me.

I tried to cover all the bases and cancelled my credit cards. The time I spent with Craig left me with a debt of $26,000. I didn’t have any idea how long it would take to pay that off. There was only one card I had forgotten about. He used it to purchase a television and VCR shortly after our conversation.

Then the stalking began. Every couple of hours each day, the phone rang. Some days he was the good old Cigi I loved.
Other days he would say, “you b----, you c---, no one has ever walked out on me.” I considered going to the police and getting a restraining order, but I knew it wouldn’t matter if I had one. He said he was above the law. He had no conscience and felt justified in what he did: that was all that mattered.

I told him the Bronco he was driving was legally mine, and I could take it at any time.

“If you lay a finger on this vehicle, you and your family will pay,” he threatened. “You consider that a warning, Chris.”

Another big debt! I just couldn’t let him have it. I was already in enough trouble financially. I told him he could keep it as long as he paid me a $200 payment each month. This was music to his ears. He, of course, wouldn’t send the payment; he insisted on giving it to me in person. It was yet another opportunity to torture me verbally. One time, he stuck his foot in front of the tire so I couldn’t leave after he paid me. Another time, he made me get in the car with him and drove so recklessly I thought he might kill us. He tried anything to get to me. I never let it. At times, I forced myself to cry. For some reason that stopped the torment and led to an apology saying that I didn’t deserve it.

He became increasingly volatile. He said there were some bullets with our names on it. At times, my parents and I stared out the window all night wondering if he was going to come. Other nights we stayed in hotels to feel safe. One time he said,
“Maybe you would know what it’s like to lose a wife if you didn’t have any of your things.” We thought maybe he was going to burn down the house.

After a particularly bad conversation with him, I was terrified to remain in Georgia. Mom and I escaped to my sister’s house in North Dakota. Unfortunately, this meant leaving my dad all alone in Atlanta. Because I wasn’t answering the phone, Craig came to my parents’ front door to see where I was. Dad wouldn’t tell him, so Craig said, “Yeah, I heard Chris found my guns.” He was indirectly threatening my poor dad. My father is the kindest man you will ever meet. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Dad ultimately told Craig where I was and the phone rang at my sister’s house. It was him, but he was surprisingly conciliatory. Because mom and I had jobs, we returned to Atlanta.

I began flying as much as I could, partly to pay off the debt but mainly for the safety of my parents. I figured if I wasn’t home, he wouldn’t harass them. My dad locked their bedroom door with his 35-year-old gun next to the bed at all times. I felt awful putting them through that. They both worked, so at times I was all alone in the house.

During one of those days of solitude, I heard someone knocking on the front door. Of course I knew who it was. The knocking turned to pounding. I didn’t know what to do, so I
pretended like I had been washing my face. I answered the door wiping my wet face with a towel.

“What’s going on out here?” I asked.

“You better open up that door,” he raved. “I am not responsible for how I am when I get mad, Chris.”

For the next four months, I had to be very careful not to react the wrong way, say the wrong thing, get angry, show selfishness, have weakness, and definitely not make him feel that life was not worth living for him or for me. I had to stay one step ahead of him at all times. Some of the words that came from me were of great divine power, not of my own. He threatened suicide and said there would be a note in the left-hand side of the drawer. All night long I wondered whether his plans included me. The next morning, the phone inevitably rang.

I told him reading his Bible used to give him comfort — why not try that? He said in a raspy voice, “I wrap my pot in Bible wrappers, Chris.”
What did that mean? Drugs, maybe it was all about drugs
. Actually, at this point I didn’t know what to think.

I went to church next Sunday and saw Matt up in the balcony. I sat down next to him. I said that his “big mistake” was nothing compared to mine. I told him briefly my situation and I was getting an annulment. He said he had met someone else, and was getting married in a couple of months. We looked at
each other with great sadness. The chemistry was strikingly familiar.

Craig told me he was getting Ted Turner’s lawyer to fight the annulment. It was hard to know when he was bluffing or when he was telling the truth. In this case he must have been bluffing, because he never showed up to contest the annulment.
Thank goodness it was over
or so I thought.

The pay phone continued to ring even in my operations area at the airport. Flight attendants called themselves my personal telephone service because the phone was always for me. This was before cell phones were a part of our existence.

Craig told me he met his next victim. (He used the word “victim”.)
Is that what he thought when he met me?
I asked what she was like. He said, “She’s 29 years old, beautiful, and owns two hotels.” Some of the things Craig said were fabricated, some weren’t. It made it difficult to know what to believe. He said he was going to disappear like a phantom and take the Bronco with him.

Toward the end of the ordeal, I hadn’t dated anyone, though I was granted the annulment. I knew I was still in danger and had been very cautious about dating anyone. I met a young man named John whom I enjoyed talking with and who made me laugh. I forgot what it was like to feel lighthearted. He asked me if I would like to go to an AT&T tennis tournament.
Jimmy Connors was playing. I told him my situation and the danger he might be in, but he said he would take the chance.

Craig called earlier that day. He wanted to come over because he had his payment for me. Knowing I couldn’t tell him I had a date, I told him I needed to buy a gift for Mother’s Day.

That evening, John and I were about to turn onto the interstate. I saw Craig coming off the interstate. I can’t remember why, but we were driving my car. The look on Craig’s face was pure evil when he saw John. “Put the pedal to the metal,” I told him urgently. “We are in trouble!”

I called mom and told her I had just seen Craig and I don’t know what is going to happen. Thirty minutes later, he was on her doorstep.

“She lied to me,” he told my mother.

“You put her in a no-win situation, Craig,” my mom replied. “If she told you she was out with someone, you would go ballistic just like you are doing now.”

“Well, I am not going to give her another dime,” he huffed.

My mom’s very last words to him were, “At least she has always paid what she owes.”

That incident was on a Thursday night. I called him the next morning asking if he were okay. “I’m okay, but I’m not okay,” he muttered. “I need to see you tomorrow before your trip to Madrid. Meet me at the bank; I have some money for you.” I hung up the
phone shaking. I had to do what he said. I knew he needed to have some kind of control. I needed to trust my instincts.

I pulled into the bank’s parking lot. I waited for a long time feeling uneasy, not sure what to expect. The red Bronco pulled into the lot. My heart began to race. My hands shook as I rolled down the window.