Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 22

(12/13) “John always makes fun of me. He says: ‘Mom, try a...

(12/13) “John always makes fun of me. He says: ‘Mom, try a little humility. You can’t just put the letter ‘V’ on a billboard. And don’t put your initials on the license plate of the Porsche.’ But he doesn’t understand how real estate works. It’s good to have humility, but you can’t be a mouse hiding under the rug. Nobody talks about the mouse under the rug. Nobody wants to list their house with the mouse. They want to list their house with the boss lady. Since I began ten years ago, I’ve had nearly $500 million in sales. Four of the past five years, I’ve been the number one real estate agent in Augusta. I finally paid off our house, and since then I’ve bought eight more houses. I’ve put all my kids through private school. I’ve paid for all their sports, all their activities. My oldest daughter Julia was a state championship gymnast. I hired the best coaches. I took her to all the meets. She’s twenty-four now, and she’s doing well. She’s got a good job as an accountant. But a few months ago she came to the house, and she was so angry with me. She told me that she’d been having flashbacks. Of things Tripp had done. She said: ‘You abused me too. By staying in the marriage.’ I was devastated. A few months later she apologized. She said: ‘Mom, forgive me, you were the best.’ But she was right the first time. I should have left. I thought I was doing the right thing, by trying to make it work. I just wanted to be a good mom. I never had a family. I wanted my kids to have a family. I’ve got scrapbooks. Detailed books, of every little thing they ever did. I had photos taken every three months, because I never wanted to forget any of it. I cherished every single thing. Recently I ran into John’s old kindergarten teacher. She told me: ‘Venus, I never knew a mother as involved as you. You were at every event. His hair was always combed perfectly. His lunch was different every day.’ I really tried my best. To give them everything I never had. All I do is work and spend time with my kids. But sometimes it feels like it doesn’t matter what I do anymore. It doesn’t matter what I buy. I failed my children. Because I should have left. I failed at the most important thing.”

(11/13) “One of the first things they teach you in real estate...

(11/13) “One of the first things they teach you in real estate school is you’ll be surprised by the people who don’t give you business. But you’ll be even more surprised by the people who do. Only one of my friends would hire me. The rest thought that I had no clue what I was doing. It was the people I didn’t know. They’re the ones who gave me a chance. It didn’t take me long to learn that the wealthy people had agents already. It was the smaller houses: the newlyweds, the middle-class people, the first-time buyers. That’s where I got my start. When Tripp went to prison my credit score was less than 520. But every time I made a sale, I’d use the commission to pay off a little more of our debt. After a few months I was able to refinance the house. That first year I made $100,000. But I still managed to get home for dinner every night. If I ever had a showing, John would help watch his sisters. There were times he’d be mowing the front lawn, and his siblings would be hanging off the side of the lawnmower. John’s always been like the guy version of me. He’s very even-keeled. Even with everything going on, he was still a straight A student. He was captain of his football team. His home life had fallen apart, but he’d be in the locker room telling his teammates: ‘Be good to your parents, stay out of trouble.’ The coaches gave him the Heart and Soul Award. They made it up just for him. His team had never been to the playoffs before. They were always so bad that other schools would schedule them for the homecoming game. But the first season after Tripp went to prison, John led them to the state championship. It was held in the Georgia Dome, and they played a big school from Atlanta. They were huge underdogs. My daughters Alexis and Julia were cheerleaders, so they were cheering him on from the field. The rest of us were in the stands. And with five minutes left on the clock, John ran 37 yards and scored a touchdown to seal the game. All of us were going wild. Afterwards a television crew interviewed John on the 50-yard line. They handed him the trophy, and said: ‘How do you feel? ‘He said: ‘I’m just so thankful. To God, my team, and my family. Especially my mom.’”

(10/13) “Everyone I’d looked up to: the best families, the best...

(10/13) “Everyone I’d looked up to: the best families, the best Christians. They abandoned me. On the first Sunday after Tripp went to prison, I brought all my kids to church. I just wanted to maintain a sense of normalcy. I was scheduled to do a reading that day in front of the congregation. My shoulders were shaking the entire time, but I made it through. Afterwards an older woman came up to me. She said: ‘I can’t believe you would get up there, after what your husband did.’ I’d been with the same Bible study group for ten years. But none of them stood by me. They didn’t visit, they didn’t call. When I met with my divorce attorney, he asked me what I was planning on doing for money. He reminded me that there’d be no child support coming from prison. When I told him that I was going to try real estate, he suggested that I find a real job. This was the height of the housing crisis. Even the good agents were getting out of the business. But I had no other choice. I’d only ever worked as a waitress. The only thing I had was my real estate license. Whenever I saw a ‘For Sale By Owner’ sign in the yard, I’d knock on the door and beg the person to let me list their house. I’d have all my research ready: what they paid, nearby listings, taxes. I remember the first client that ever hired me was a man named Neil. He lived on Central Avenue. He opened the door, and asked me: ‘How long have you been doing real estate?’ I didn’t want to lie to him. But I wasn’t going to say ‘ten minutes’ either. So I told him: ‘It feels like I’ve been doing this my whole life.’ Sometimes I’d work for seventy hours a week. My oldest son John was only sixteen at the time, but he became man of the house. He’d help watch the kids after school. He’d do their homework with them. Sometimes I’d hear him talking to his sisters behind closed doors. He’d say: ‘Don’t listen to any of it. We know who we are.’ I hated that he had to grow up so fast. I never wanted him to bear half of my cross. I knew he was hurting too. He was mourning the loss of someone that he thought was a good man. But he kept telling me: ‘Don’t worry about it, Mom. Just do what you need to do. I’ll take care of the rest.’”

(9/13) “Tripp never came home after that night. He admitted to...

(9/13) “Tripp never came home after that night. He admitted to the prostitution, but he blamed it on a sex addiction. He checked himself into a rehab facility in Mississippi. It was during this time that the full truth came out. One of my daughters came to me, and told me a story about her father. It was the worst thing it could possibly be. It wasn’t just prostitutes. It was inside the home. Of course Tripp denied everything. I hired the best polygraph technician in Atlanta. And I guess Tripp thought he was smarter than the machine, because he volunteered to take the test. Afterward the technician called me. He said: ‘You’d be an unfit mother if you let him come home.’ The police got involved, and Tripp drove himself to the station without a lawyer. He volunteered to be interviewed. And it was his own words that put him away. He didn’t confess to everything. But he confessed to enough. When they played the recording in court, I couldn’t even listen to it. I was called to testify against him. The whole time I was on the stand, Tripp kept trying to get my attention. The judge tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t stop. He kept tapping the face of his wristwatch, mouthing three words: ‘It’s. Our. Anniversary.’ I hadn’t even realized what day it was. Tripp was charged with two counts of aggravated child molestation and sentenced to 45 years in prison. On the night of his sentencing I gathered my kids around the kitchen table. I told them: ‘Your father did some very bad things. But those things had nothing to do with us. I’m scared right now. But I’m your mother, and I’m not going to let this bring us down.’ That night I laid in bed and felt like I wanted to die. We were hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And I had six kids to feed. The next morning I woke up at 5 AM and ran 5 miles. I started doing it every morning. I’d always been a runner, but this time I felt like I was running for my life. After a week I got a call from one of my friends. She said: ‘Venus, I think you should know what everyone is saying. They see you running down Walton Way in the morning. And they say you don’t act like a woman whose husband just got put away for child molestation.’”

(8/13) “I woke up our oldest son John. I said: ‘Your dad’s been...

(8/13) “I woke up our oldest son John. I said: ‘Your dad’s been living a double life, so I’ve got to run down and meet somebody. Can you watch the baby?’ Even as I was driving there, I didn’t believe any of the things the woman had told me. I thought she was lying. I thought I was going there to confront her. To defend the father of my six kids. The hotel was at the back of a Denny’s. When I knocked on the door, a young girl answered. She was much younger than I imagined. Not a teenager, but young. She was tiny. I think she was on drugs. Her hands were fidgeting. She invited me inside the room, and we sat down on the edge of one of the queen beds. She began to tell me the exact same story that she’d told me over the phone. She said that Tripp had been sleeping with prostitutes for years. And they were blackmailing him. They’d taken all our money. He’d given them credit cards and they’d maxed them all out. The girl seemed like she might have been in love with Tripp. She told me that she didn’t charge him for sex anymore. She told me that she’d met our youngest daughter, and Tripp promised her they would start a new life together. She described this charming man, who suddenly turns into someone that is trying to kill you. And I knew then that she was telling the truth. She pulled out her phone and started showing me photos of Tripp. I can only remember one of them. He was behind the wheel of his car. He had the biggest smile on his face. And his pants were down. Right then the phone rang. She turns it to me, and it’s Tripp. ‘I told him I was meeting you,’ she said. ‘And he’s threatening to kill me.’ She asked if I could help her buy a bus ticket to Atlanta. I pulled out my checkbook and wrote her a $100 check. ‘There’s no money in this account,’ I told her. ‘But I just closed on a house. So wait a week before you cash it.’ I gave her my phone number. I told her that if she decided to get out of this life, I would help her. I felt sorry for her. Even with everything she’d told me, I wasn’t mad. I saw a wounded soul. Someone who’d grown up just like me. Someone who hadn’t escaped. I guess I hadn’t escaped either, not completely. But I was trying.”

(7/13) “How could I not have known? I’ve asked myself that so...

(7/13) “How could I not have known? I’ve asked myself that so many times. We were married for twenty years; I knew all his friends, all his coworkers. Every day we’d eat lunch together at his office, and we’d talk about everything. He did travel a lot for work. Over the years he’d built up a huge pile of business receipts: for plane tickets, and hotels. I could never understand why he wouldn’t turn them in, so that his parents could reimburse us. We needed that money. Our credit cards were maxed out because Tripp lived above his means. Even though he brought home less than $50,000 a year, he was always paying for other people’s dinners. He bought a computer and projector for our son’s football team. But if I ever tried to challenge him on his spending, he’d fly into a rage. On the day our youngest daughter was born, he was so ugly to me in the hospital. He pushed the nursing cart across the room. He screamed: ‘Why don’t you get an F’in job?’ I tried to calm him down. I said: ‘I’m thinking about getting my real estate license.’ He laughed at me. He said: ‘Yeah, right. Sure you will.’ But that’s exactly what I did. I signed up for courses as soon as I got out of the hospital. On my first day the broker gave me a survey to fill out. There was a line where it asked me to choose a desired salary, and I chose the minimum,  $20,000. It was never supposed to be a career. I just wanted to bring in a little extra money. I got my first listing while we were out of town at a soccer tournament. I remember crouching down outside of the hotel room. My hands were trembling, because Tripp was angry about something. But I closed the deal. It was a $5,000 commission. And it couldn’t have come at a better time. We were hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. We’d finally gotten a new house, but it was completely gutted. We were living in a tiny apartment in the back. One night I was dozing off, nursing the baby. Tripp was out of town on business. The kids were asleep. It was late, much too late for phone calls. And the phone rang. There was a woman’s voice on the other end. She said: ‘Venus, you don’t know me. But I’m calling to tell you what an awful man your husband is.’”

(6/13) “There was one time we were at our son John’s baseball...

(6/13) “There was one time we were at our son John’s baseball game, and the umpire made a bad call. Tripp started screaming so bad that the police escorted him off the field. There was always that side of him. When his temper would flare, it would flare. But I think the abuse escalated so gradually that I didn’t even notice. It wasn’t so much physical. He was big on calling me names. And he’d get in my face. Like right in my face, and I’d think it was about to get physical. But then he’d throw something instead. Or punch a hole in the wall. Why did I stay with him? That’s the million-dollar question. He was ninety percent good, ten percent bad. And the good was so good. Tripp would lead our Bible study group every Wednesday night. He’d say all these off-the-cuff things about faith, and marriage. Everyone would be so amazed. I thought if I just kept helping him, the good would win over the bad. It’s not like I did nothing. We were going to counselors, therapists. I thought I was being a good wife, and mother. I’d grown up without a father. At least my kids had a father. And they adored their father. Whenever there was a particularly bad fight, he would sit us all down in the living room. He’d say: ‘Daddy’s really sorry that he’s mean to Mommy, but I’m going to get help. We’re going to be the best family ever.’ It seemed like he genuinely wanted to change. When we’d go to confession, I’d be in and out in two minutes. But Tripp would be in there forever. A huge line would be forming behind him. I remember thinking: ‘What did you do?’ Over the years his mood swings got worse and worse. There was one night, about ten years into our marriage, when he lost his temper and pushed me into the bathtub. I thought I broke my back. I was screaming that I couldn’t get up. Tripp ran outside on the porch and I heard a gunshot. It took me a couple minutes to crawl outside, and when I got there I found him lying face down in the yard. The gun was in the grass next to him. He said: ‘When everything comes out about what I’ve done, I’m going to kill myself.’ I said: ‘Tripp, tell me. What have you done? What?’ But he wouldn’t answer. He got up and walked back inside.”

(5/13) “Tripp only had half a testicle. He blamed it on an old...

(5/13) “Tripp only had half a testicle. He blamed it on an old football injury. It never bothered me, but it kept us from getting pregnant. After seven or eight attempts we decided to get a sperm donor. I could have cared less. Adoption, donor, it didn’t matter to me. But Tripp wanted to keep it a secret, even from our children. And I was respectful of that. We chose a donor who resembled Tripp, and our first son John came out looking a lot like Tripp. We ended up having four kids in five years. The children adored him. They were a little scared of him, like me. But they adored him. We’d go to the beach and he’d play in the ocean with them until the sun went down. Every Christmas Tripp was in charge of decorating our tree. He and the kids would spend hours on it, and when they finished it would look like something out of a magazine. On Halloween our family always had a theme: Batman, Batgirl, King and Queen of Arabia. That was all Tripp. He was the fun one. He was the affectionate one. He’d walk down the street and the neighborhood kids would just fall down around him. Those first few years were so good. We never had much money. Some weeks there’d be less than $100 in the account. But I couldn’t have been happier if it was ten million. I put all my energy into being a mom. We couldn’t afford childcare, so I stayed home with the kids. Their hair was always done right. Their clothes were always ironed. All the things I’d always wanted someone to do for me, I tried to do for them. I remember one night sitting on the back porch of our log cabin. The kids were playing in our blow-up pool. Tripp was building a treehouse for John, with a real deck around it. The weather was perfect. And I realized it was the happiest I’d ever been. It had always been my dream in life to have this great family. And now it was coming true. I thought: What else is there in life? These kids don’t care what I’ve been through. They don’t care about my childhood. They love me no matter what. I remember thinking: if I just put in the work, they’re gonna grow up. And they’ll be around. I’m gonna have unconditional love. I’m finally going to have a family.”

(4/13) “After college Tripp and I moved to his hometown of...

(4/13) “After college Tripp and I moved to his hometown of Augusta, Georgia. It’s where The Masters golf tournament is played. There’s a lot of wealth in the city, but Tripp and I didn’t have any money. So we moved into an abandoned log cabin that belonged to his grandfather. Tripp got a job working for his parents, and I noticed he kept billing our renovations to the company. It didn’t seem right to me. But if I challenged him on it, it would lead to huge fights. He’d tell me to mind my own business. He’d call me ‘Little Ms. Christian.’ But an hour later it would be like nothing ever happened. The cabin had a huge fireplace. And Tripp was so romantic. He’d make us a steak dinner and we’d eat in front of the fire. There was something almost feminine about him. He dressed better than me. He was a better decorator, and a better dancer. It had always been his dream to have a big wedding. A courthouse would have been fine for me, but he chose the biggest Catholic church in town. I didn’t have many friends to invite. Hardly any family. My father wasn’t there to walk me down the aisle. I’d met him exactly once, when I was seventeen. He was my mom’s boss at the cotton mill. The first thing he said was: ‘You look more like me than my own daughter.’ Then I never saw him again. We seated Tripp’s guests on both sides of the aisle, so my side wouldn’t be empty. Tripp wanted the best of everything. He booked a fancy band from Atlanta. He rented a horse and carriage. He was adamant about having an open bar. He was bringing home $350 a week, so we couldn’t afford any of it. On the day before our wedding, we drove to pick up all the liquor. I think I mentioned that it was too much money. My cousin was in the car with us. And Tripp just cussed me out in front of her. He called me a bitch, and told me to shut the F up. I remember thinking: I shouldn’t marry this man. But everyone was going to be there the next day. It was too late to back out. Tripp was the main attraction at the wedding. He got up on stage and danced with the band. I laughed and cheered along with everyone else. If there’s anything my childhood prepared me for, it’s pretending that everything’s OK.”

Kyiv, Ukraine (HONY Archives, 2014)

Kyiv, Ukraine (HONY Archives, 2014)