Post date: May 18, 2012 10:37:5 PM
Chapter 5.2
Detective M is emailing me. He wants a fresh start.
I email him back. If you want me to trust you, help me get a restraining order.
Nothing he can do about that, but he did call the rape center to see what they could do. The piece of shit worthless asshole.
You’re legal, not them, I replied. All of these detectives can go fuck themselves. I know fourteen-year-old girls with better empathy and detective skills than the crap I have had to put up with from the LAPD.
I have to go downtown to the courthouse and get a restraining order on my own. My friend S had recently resurfaced in my life. She had been through a lot but was doing really good. I was glad to have her back in my life. I am so distraught. She tells me how to block Ed’s number so he can’t text me. Block him on Facebook too she says. I do. Thank God that the barrage is over. He still lives in the building up the hall from me. I have seen him escalate in a fight and slam a woman into a wall before. I don’t want that to happen to me.
S goes with me. She picks me up from work the next day and takes me downtown. She had been through so much. She pulls into a parking lot and the attendant knows her. She doesn’t have to pay. It is a three hour ordeal. At one point S is chanting, ”Be aggressive, be be aggressive”. She keeps a grin on my face. At one courtroom we have to run in to get in line. The system is so screwed up to make people race like that. The paperwork is overwhelming. It has to be submitted to the judge on the 7th floor before 3:15.
We get in there at 3. The bailiff looks over my paperwork.
“It needs more detail,” he says.
I start sobbing. The last three days have been Hell again. His eyes get big. He tells S to help me. It’s been four rooms, three lines, and two people telling me there is nothing I can do to fight the system. You can’t take on the hive that is the LAPD -- not even to stop a rapist. The court approves the restraining order. It’s a temporary one until the court date. Both of us have to appear and stand before the judge and I have to explain why the court order should stand. I have until five days before the court date to serve the notice, and then turn in a copy of the order with a proof of service to any police station.
S gladly tells the bailiff she will serve him. We get back to my place. I grab a bag and pack it to stay with S for a few days after the serve. She stands outside his door. He talks to her but won’t open the door. We call the Sheriffs who say to hire a service. We leave and go to S’s place. She finds someone and gives him her address. He shows up that night. I hand him the paperwork and $50 in cash. He emails me a receipt right away. It is raining again. Big raindrops. He knows this service stems from a rape. My rape.
“God bless you he says” as he walks away in the big rain drops. It’s done, I think to myself. I’m not sure what to feel.
My friend S rescues dogs now. “Pick one”, she says. All kinds are here in a place much better than where they came from. Some are waiting to fly out in the next week to other states. Some are sick or special needs. One has a missing eye. He and the pit bull mix are my living blankets. They sweetly lick the tears off my face.
I’m back at home thinking everything is ok. My life feels like its starting to get back to normal. One down and three to go, I tell myself. One person who thought they could wrong me is out of my life. Now I just have two detectives and a rapist to focus on. The last thing I hear from the detectives is they have an outside service they are using to get to Naylor’s background. It’s not a cold case. It will take at least a month.
The next day that I’m at work is a good one. I’m happy. I haven’t been happy like this in a while. Then S texts me. She found the defendant’s copy of the notice in her house. I call the server and email him. Nothing. I start panicking. I call the sheriffs, nothing they can do. I call the courthouse. I get directed to someone. Nothing they can do.
“Please,” I beg. “Please tell me what I can do to fix this.”
I have three days including today to get him served. I can feel the court clerks eyes roll over the phone.
“You have extra copies, right? They gave you one for your home, one for your car and one to keep on you at all times. Just print out a new proof of service form, give him one of your copies and give the police another one. You only really need one for yourself. The proof of service is the most important part.”
I thank him for the information. How could the processor do this to me? I had a receipt, his website looked legit, and he knew the terminology. How could he take my $50 and never serve E? I looked at the address on the receipt and went there. It was raining again. What was up with the rain and the really bad days? It was an apartment building. I was outside the gate scanning the numbers for the call box. A Danny D was listed for the number. Another tenant went in and I snuck in behind him. I got to the door and there was no doorknob. I wasn’t the only angry person that had been here. The light was shinning through the peephole. That means no one lives there. No window treatments. My friend S calls. She has been calling him. She got thru as he told her there were computer problems and hung up on her. He did the same to me and responded to David when he answered the phone. I sent him a text. What else could I do? I have a rape I still haven’t dealt with let alone fighting with two detectives in the LAPD hive that wanted to let the rapist walk. I’m trying to serve someone that used to be a friend that did nothing to stop my being raped and now is on the rapist side. What am I really going to do about this guy and my $50? Nothing.
One of the guys I work with says he will serve Ed. He knows some of what is going on. Z knew something was up after the rape and pressed me about it one more time out of concern. I told him the jumbled basics through tears. I print out the necessary paperwork and Z served him the next day. I was so grateful it was done. I was shaking. Z will forever be a personal hero to me.
I send Danny D a text message: Danny, I just want you to know that taking money and lying to a woman who was drugged and raped and just needed u to give me my proof of service is a one-way ticket to burn in hell.
So for right now, here’s where I am at. I have a court date against someone that used to be a friend who took the side of a rapist. I have overcome so much already, but I have prepared myself for the worst. The most likely outcome is this guy walks and there is nothing I can do about it. I have fought every part of this that I can. I know who my amazing friends are that have stuck with me through this craziness.
I have a hard time in crowds, especially with a lot of strange men standing around me. It’s scary for me. I also have a hard time understanding what people mean when they say things. It’s hard to explain, but I take things the wrong way at first and I have to ask more questions to see what they really mean. I constantly look behind me terrified that one of these days I will turn around and Naylor will be behind me. But the only thing I can do is fight.
Chapter 6
Court is soon. I have a meeting with my advocate and hopefully she will be able to talk to the center’s lawyer to help me prepare for battle. Ed is not aware that I know about what Naylor said in the pre-text phone call, so I can’t bring it up in court or the fact that I think he is saying what he did about there not being a rape in order to protect himself. It’s leaving me to feel pretty vulnerable about keeping this restraining order in place. I can’t risk him going to Naylor and telling him anything about the investigation. I can only stick with what had been suggested at the police station about trying to intimidate and persuade a witness. There is no doubt with telling me I drank myself to a blackout and that I should move is persuading. I have seen his threats of violence and trying to get into fights on the street increase in the last two years and I can hopefully use that even if there is no hard proof. I don’t like feeling this unprepared. I had gone out a little bit feeling somewhat safe with the temporary restraining order.
I went with my friend T to get dinner and a few drinks. He knows the whole story. We joke about the system. “If I do my job for you, then I would have to do it for everyone.” It’s his best impersonation of the detective.
I went out Cinco de Mayo. On my own. I have to get used to being who I am again, and I have never had a problem going to a bar or restaurant on my own. It’s how you try out new places or meet new people. The place I go to I have been plenty of times, but I know Naylor doesn’t stray this far down the Boulevard. I feel a relative safety. I ran into a woman at the bar. She tells me she knows where I live because she hung out twice with a guy who lives in my building.
I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I tell her I have a restraining order against Ed. She informs me of inappropriate conduct when she was drunk and passed out. Border line rape she calls it. She will consider telling the police. I don’t blame her for not wanting to after all the lovely treatment I have received from them. I also find out someone else was drugged by Naylor -- a guy.
I had never thought Naylor was drugging who ever he wants. It had honestly never occurred to me.
I wake up the next morning relieved and enraged. This guy is drugging who ever he wants. I can’t be the only person that has ever come forward about this.
[An email to the detective]
I can't believe what I was told last night but I know it's true. Naylor has been at the [name of bar deleted] every night since he raped me. Not only that, but he has drugged other people. The guy I ran into last night was also drugged by Naylor.
Naylor does this to who ever he wants to at the [name of bar deleted]. He is there every night between 4 and 5 pm.
I was told by the Hollywood detective after being mercilessly called a liar again that the phone number you have for Naylor is no good.
Here's a fucking idea. Why don't you just sit an officer in plain clothes at the [name of bar deleted] between 4 and 5 and see what Naylor does. He will probably dose your officer too. I can't believe he has done this to so many people because you two didn't want to fucking believe a rape victim over a rapist. I will never forgive either of you for the bullshit treatment you have put me through. That fuck head thinks that cops are too stupid or lazy to catch him and the worst part is, you have made him right. He probably drugged some one last night. I just pray she or he wasn't raped either because you two didn't want to get off your condescending asses and do something about a guy who thinks he has the right to drug who ever he wants to. Jesus Christ.
How's about you do your job for once and just send someone in there?
Fuck off forever.
Yeah, I’m pissed. But now that a guy was drugged, and not raped, I’m sure they will send in the Armed Forces to stop this guy. Even if they don’t, I am finally consoled by the fact that if Naylor is drugging the kind of guys that go to that bar, he will be in a body bag soon enough. There are plenty of guys that go to that bar who you just don’t do this to.