Betrayed Husbands Anonymous – Chap 2 by 012Say..,
My name is Jim Anderson. I am starting a new life in Denver, Colorado. I explained why in “Betrayed Husbands Anonymous”, but the short version, goes like this.
My wife went on a date, and we ended up divorced. I wanted revenge but had no way to carry it out. Hard as it is to believe, a man showed up at my new apartment, and offered me a way to get revenge. It was called Betrayed Husbands Anonymous (BHA).
It was both a complete enigma and extremely effective. For me, the organization involved going to two meetings, each held more than an hour’s drive from my residence. The first meeting showed me how to wish for revenge and the next meeting I wished for that revenge. I didn’t really ask for it, that might have been a crime. BHA was careful. Very, very careful, that I was both anonymous and not involved in the revenge in any way.
After those meetings BHA members took different paths, depending on the nature of the revenge they wanted. My path was to get involved in non-violent revenge, both planning and execution.
As a result, I am a contract employee of a company called Perfect Project Planning. The company has a wide range of services it provides, mostly to small businesses. These businesses tend to be formed by entrepreneurs with a specific skill. When they are good enough, the business takes off and there are a variety of things required of these single-skilled people of which they are totally unaware, let alone proficient in. Perfect can handle bookkeeping, information technology, marketing, advertising, and a variety of other tasks, to help these companies go from 1 or 2 people to the next level.
The scope of Perfect’s business was just what I needed. My background was business systems, both their design and implementation. And not coincidentally, Perfect’s business was just what BHA needed, as well. I was asked to do projects for Perfect and to help on a variety of tasks for BHA to make its members happy.
My first “BHA client” in Denver was Dave Williams. Dave was known in some circles because he was the managing director of the Chaste (no, it’s not misspelled) Banks, here in town. However, I knew of him because I was in charge of getting revenge for him. Dave had no idea who I was or that I was in charge of his revenge (BHA is totally anonymous, no one knows what the activity of another is).
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I was briefed on Dave, then I was to attend a meeting at which he would state what he wanted. I got to the meeting, I found my seating assignment to be in a corner, where the speaker would least likely see me. This was all a part of a written plan. I didn’t know who wrote it and frankly, I thought it was too much like a James Bond novel. Who’d go to the trouble of thinking through in which seat I’d be least likely to be seen? While even paranoids have real enemies, this was over the top.
I sat down. I didn’t know who the others were, or what function they had at the meeting, it was not part of my function. I was there to hear Dave. Soon, he stood and started into his spiel.
“Hi, my name is Ralph.” Dave started with a false name, as he was supposed to. The group said hi to him, and he began.
“I am a pretty successful guy, or I was. My wife and I were putting away a lot of money toward a great retirement. We were happy and in love; at least I was. One day, I caught her in bed with another guy. I pulled him off her and hit him — hard. Ashamed as I am to say it, he then beat me unconscious. While I was out” he said with air quotes, “my wife moved out.”
He paused to gather himself, “Here is the part that really got me. She up and leaves, this guy she is with now is so rich he has rooms where he stores money. But it isn’t enough that he gets her, he wanted to hurt me, too. He hired lawyers that cost him more than he got from me and went about destroying me in the divorce. All my years of work and saving — gone. Now I have my job, and almost nothing else. The house, the investments – everything gone.
“I wish someone could take this guy down.”
He finished abruptly.Take the guy down. The guy, I knew, since I knew the particulars from my briefing was William Mason, who was currently acting president of Wellborn Enterprises. I had done some research. Taking down William Mason was not an easy task; so far, it was not even an approachable task — but I was working on it. Take the guy down was broad enough, I had some wiggle room.
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I should take a minute and describe the two halves of BHA. I had been through the victims’ side. It was straight forward, as I’ve described. The victors’ side was also straight forward — but involved. There were “finders” — men who worked in divorce court, attorney’s offices, bars, and probably more I was not aware of. They identified victims and gave the names to planners.
The planners took care of operations on the victims’ side. They chose times, locations, and attendees of the meetings. They arranged the contacts, using false names, and were charged with protecting the anonymity of all.
The next group, of which I am a member is the envoys; the people who take action. Again, the name conjured some spy movie; an ambiguous title to obscure what we did.
The man who headed our office, Chuck, had many contacts who were helpful to the envoys. [author’s note: unbeknownst to Jim, Chuck is the founder of BHA.] My first task was a formidable one. I had to “take down” one of the most powerful men in town.
From my briefing, I knew Wellborn Enterprises was a local business. It had always been run by Rodney Wellborn — (I, II, and III). For the first time, Trey, as he was known, was taking time off and rumored to be on some tropic isle. William Mason was running things in his absence.
Mason’s meteoric rise in the company started about the time the Wellborn Building was constructed. No one really knew of him before that. A company called Armstrong Construction, had, then lost the contract for the Wellborn building. That loss cost Armstrong millions. Yet, during that time they grew from an insignificant operation into a substantial construction company.
The divorce was a horror story. The wife sued him for everything. Mason sued him for assault. Dave was not intimidated, he sued them back and in the end they settled. The ex-wife got half. Dave’s legal fees took most of the other half. Dave didn’t have two nickels to rub together.
My first assignment. Take a guy, who is mysteriously acting as a company president, down. The past president has disappeared. A small construction company lost the contract to build the company HQ and tripled in size. I couldn’t talk to the client or anyone else, as I saw it. I decided I needed to talk to my boss, Chuck.
I went into Chuck’s office. “I need some help; do you have a minute?”
“Sure, close the door.”
“How do you know what I want to talk about?”
“I just want you to be in the habit of making sure the door is closed when we talk. One topic or the other doesn’t matter. Since sometimes we will need the door closed, make sure you always close it.”