Cop Rock

So where I left off, things were looking up, kind of. Police were on my side, teachers were backing me, and friends were being really supportive. Things continued to get better for a bit. I was set up with a counselor almost immediately, and she seemed to be a perfect fit for my personality. As I mentioned before, she was actually the one who encouraged me to write about all of this.

The following weekend, I went home and tried to tie up as many loose ends as possible. One of these was explaining to my father what had happened. When I first went to the hospital I was given the option of paying for everything through my health insurance, or submitting all of my paperwork to the Crime Victims Board, and requesting that they pay for it. The paperwork for the CVB was dictionary thick, and way too much for me to deal with at that time. The staff at the hospital informed me that I could always fill this out later to be reimbursed. What I realized afterward was that I was on my father's insurance, and that he would receive a statement that read "Drug Facilitated Rape Screening," and would probably freak out. It made sense to me to just be up-front with him, even though I really didn't want to.

Tyler came to my dad's house with me, which was a huge help in breaking the news. Unfortunately though, they tended to feed each other's fury. My dad seemed really confused, but mainly just angry. My dad's not an angry guy. He's a bird watcher. He takes me to go see musicals and participates in anti-war demonstrations. I wish I could remember more of our conversation, but it was a bit of a blur. I know we talked for a long time, but it felt like minutes. He told me later that he slowly drove by the scene of the crime, and over the next week, he called me every single time he saw anyone who came close to fitting the description of the guys who fucked me.

As a side note-> For months I didn't really have an accurate way to describe the two guys who raped me. I would refer to them as "the guys from the bar," "the guys who banged/had sex with me," or "the blond guy and the guy from the bathroom." This was pointed out to me by my counselor. I wasn't, and still am not comfortable using the phrase "the guys who drugged and raped me." We settled on "the guys who fucked me without my permission," and ended up just shortening it to "those guys who fucked me." It was just aggressive enough, but still a fairly common phrase that I felt okay saying it out loud.

After leaving my dad's house, we stopped by Wegman's. This was my first time doing anything in public, in the town where everything happened, since everything happened. I wasn't really thinking about that, but as I got out of the car, I couldn't believe how uncomfortable I was. The idea of seeing one of the guys who fucked me was scratching at the back of my head. As we went into the store, things got worse. For the first time in my life, I felt truly paranoid. I was convinced that every single person who glanced in my direction was at the bar the night everything happened, and that they were quietly judging me. When I say everyone who looked in my direction, I mean everyone in the entire store. What was even worse, was that I actually felt like I was going to bump into one of the guys who fucked me every time I turned down a new aisle. Tyler kept asking me if I wanted to leave, but I just wanted to get what we needed and get out quickly. We walked as fast as possible and bought only bare necessities, then left.

The next day (or maybe the day after that), I went out to lunch with Em. I had spoken to her on the phone, but hadn't had a chance to sit and really hash over things. We sat and chit chatted, avoiding the elephant in the room for a while. Then I finally said, "so I'm meeting with the cops tomorrow." She said that she was really glad I brought it up because she had been dying to talk about everything that had happened but didn't feel comfortable bringing it up herself. She had a lot to say, and it was things I had been waiting to hear. Em was the last person I saw the night that all the bad shit went down. She apologized up and down for leaving me at the bar, which was not necessary. If anyone in the situation had not been safe, it was me. I love Em dearly, and have never placed any blame on her for what happened to me. She did nothing wrong. Anyway, she explained that the cop I was working with had come to see Bea and her at work. I guess all the girls where they work thought he was hot. In my head, that meant he was probably young, which seemed like a good thing. She went on to tell me that she explained to him that I did not seem drunk at all when she left me, and that she and the guys were aware that I planned to call my boyfriend to walk me home. This made me feel better, I guess. She then told me more about the scene at the bar, which I had not really picked up on. She said that it was all men, and that one man near the back of the bar had pointed at me and made some sort of hand gesture, like a thumbs up or something. She didn't really think anything of it at the time, but in hindsight it seemed like a weird, notable detail.

In my conversations with the cop I was working with, he had let me know that he had made contact with both of the guys that fucked me, and that he would be contacting me with more information as it became available. He also told me that I may need to give him my cell phone as evidence, and that I should block off some time to meet with him next time I was in town. He then said that he would be in contact with me. Days later, I was home and there had been no contact. I called him just to see if he still needed my phone. He told me that I could stop in to see him if I wanted to, and that Tyler could come too. It really felt like he wanted us to know that we would be burdening him by taking up his time, but we drove out to the trooper barracks anyway.

We went into a large glass room at the front of the building to meet with our cop. He gave us a brief introduction to who he was, what he did, etc. I guess he had worked on a number of rape cases, and tended to be pretty successful in court. He then went into an entire spiel about how hard rape is to prove. It's you word vs. theirs. The longer you wait, the less evidence. He had a laundry list of things that were working against me, and I started feeling pretty helpless.

He said that he wanted to talk to Tyler alone for a moment, and asked me to step outside of the room. I did. It was strange because I was just outside the door and could hear every word that he said. I thought it was odd that they didn't have better soundproofing at a police office. He asked Tyler what his account of the entire situation was, and Tyler retold his side of the story. He asked Tyler if he had made any contact with these guys, and Tyler explained that he had gone to the bar the next day asking about who was working the night before, but that he never went back after that. The cop told him not to do that, and that he could be arrested if any trouble came of that. Tyler then came out of the office and asked me to go in alone.

The cop told me that he had spoken to both of the guys, employees of the dive bar, and my friends. He then also said that he had been to both of the guys' homes. I explicitly remember him saying, that their homes were disgusting and that he would never expect a "pretty, smart, girl like [me] to be messing around with dirty, tattooed guys like them." For a moment, I thought he was telling me something that would work in my favor. He went on to explain that that was a bad thing. That I was not a "typical" rape victim. I remember asking him "What about a drug facilitated rape victim, or a date rape victim? Statistically, I fit the mold almost perfectly." He hinted at the fact that he did not have as much experience with drug facilitated rapes, and seemed bothered by the fact that I was challenging him. He then explained that he had recovered two condoms at the blond guy's house, and that they were being sent to the lab. I freaked out a little when he said two, and he told me to calm down, and that they might not have even both been from me. That didn't calm me much. He went on to tell me that in speaking with the bartender, it sounded like the sex at the bar was consensual. The bartender said that I was "talking dirty," and making so much pleasurable noise in the bathroom of the dive, that he almost had to throw us out. This didn't make sense to me for two reasons: 1.) We arrived at the bar just before closing, so why would noise have been an issue, since other patrons would have left by then, and 2.) The bartender was really good friends with the guy who fucked me in the bathroom, so I doubt he would have thrown his buddy out. I didn't mention any of this to the cop because I was blindsided by how confrontational he was being. He then told me that the blond guy stated I acted this same way when he fucked me at his house. I felt a little sick. He said that he assumed that this wasn't normal behavior for me, but that it didn't seem like I was unconscious by any means. I thought to myself, obviously, the guys who fucked me and their friends would claim that I seemed to be fully conscious and enjoying myself. I politely brought this point up to the cop. I then also mentioned that being conscious did not mean that I wasn't drugged. He seemed annoyed with me and asked that I have Tyler come back in.

He gave a half-assed attempt at sounding sorry for our situation, and started summing things up. It was at this point that Tyler and I realized that this man had no interest in helping us. I asked him if he needed my cell phone. He said no, but then asked to hear the messages again. I played them for him and he laughed. He said that he could barely understand the message because of all the yelling, and that the guy must be drunk. I said that the yelling sounded pretty threatening to me. He agreed and said that this guy was probably just mad that I didn't go home with him instead of his friend. He then said that these guys must have felt like they hit the jackpot when they were able to convince a pretty, blond, well-educated girl like me to sleep with them. I pointed out that the messages clearly show that this guy knew I had a boyfriend. He said that none of that mattered. It was around this point that the cop began telling us that he had done all of the investigating that he was going to do, and that he didn't see this case going anywhere. He said that he couldn't close the case until the toxicology reports came back, but that he was fairly certain they would be negative, since I waited so long. He said that pretty much my only hope was that the toxicology showed that I was drunk at the time, and that even then, I really didn't have much of a case. Tyler began asking about the bizarre marks, cuts and bruises on my body, and further investigation of drug presence at the bars I had been to. The cop had little to say and reiterated that the case was essentially closed. Tyler and I left. Ty tried to put his arm around me on the way out to the car, but I shrugged it off. I didn't want to be touched at all. I felt disgusting.

At that moment I got angry. Up until that point I had been mainly confused and a little sad. I had no one to be angry at. I didn't know what happened. The only memory I had of those guys was of having a nice conversation. I didn't know who drugged me, or where. I didn't even have any physical proof that I had been drugged. I just knew that I had been. It's hard to be mad at someone you can barely remember. Don't get me wrong, I became very angry with these guys later. At that time though, I was mad at the cop. Words can't quite convey how rude, disinterested, heartless and cold he was. He treated me like I was a naive, blond girl. He let me know that he believed someone else's word over mine. He made me feel like a slut. He made it pretty obvious that he cared more about furthering his career than helping me. When it became clear that this would not result in an easily won court case for him, he stopped investigating, and bowed out. I hate him.