every finger in the room is pointing at me 
i wanna spit in their faces then i'm afraid of what that could bring 
i got a bowling ball in my stomach i got a desert in my mouth
figures that my courage would choose to sell out now
i've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets
looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets
i've been raising up my hands drive another nail in 
just what god needs one more victim
why do we crucify ourselves every day i crucify myself 
nothing i do is good enough for you crucify myself every day 
and my heart is sick of being in chains
got a kick for a dog beggin' for love 
i gotta have my suffering so that i can have my cross
i know a cat named easter he says will you ever learn 
you're just an empty cage if you kill the bird 
i've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets
looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets
i've been raising up my hands drive another nail 
got enough guilt to start my own religion
please be save me i cry
  - tori amos

Got Enough Guilt to Start My Own Religion - My Story

It was supposed to be this big night out...my roommate, Uyen, and I had been planning it for days.  Our favorite club was having a huge Valentine's Day event that Saturday.  We had friends coming into Gainesville from Miami, Orlando, Ft Lauderdale and Jacksonville.  We were so excited that we went shopping and bought new outfits.  The night came.  We each drank a wine cooler at the apartment and then I drove us to the club.  We got there at midnight, went to the bar and ordered a Bay Breeze drink for each of us.  We had heard of people getting drugs slipped into their drinks so we held them closely, never setting them down, always keeping an eye on our drinks.  

The last thing I remember is following Uyen back to the dance floor after getting our 3rd drinks.  I remember looking at the back of her head...she has this long, flowing black hair that hung straight down past her waist...and I didn't want to lose her in the crowd.  Then...suddenly...it's total blackness.

The police tell me that my drink must have been spiked with at least 4 mgs of rohypnol.  Just 2 mgs mixed with alcohol is enough to put a girl flat on her back within 10 minutes and the sedation can last 8 hours or more.  The police said I was lucky it didn't kill me...sometimes, I wish it had.

I have no memory of the next few hours.  I don't know what I did, who I spoke to, or what happened to me.  I only remember sitting on a floor at some point and hearing a voice say "if she doesn't open her eyes we need to call a paramedic."  I remember thinking to myself, "you better open your eyes, girl, or they're going to send you to the hospital" but I couldn't...I couldn't even open my eyes.

The next thing I remember is one of the bouncers from the club throwing me out the door.  They didn't like people overdosing at the club...an ambulance parked at the front door is bad publicity and besides, it brings the police.  I can't blame them, really, they just thought I was another customer strung out on heroin...little did they know that someone had drugged me or what was about to happen next.

I hit the pavement and thought "shit, I need to find Uyen."  I stood up and I could barely walk...I remember concentrating as hard as I could, one foot in front of the other.  About 20 feet away was the intersection of the two busiest streets in downtown Gainesville.  There were people everywhere...leaving clubs, walking to their cars...dozens of people.  I looked up and waited for the light to change so I could cross the street.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a white car pull up a few feet away.  A large man got out and walked as if to pass me.  Suddenly, I felt someone behind me, his arms around my waist as he lifted me into the air.  I yelled and we struggled, both falling to the ground.  I felt my head hit the concrete and then, again, total blackness.

I don't know how many hours passed before I woke up.  When I did, I was completely disoriented and confused.  I had no idea where I was...I opened my eyes and it was pitch black, I couldn't see anything.  There was a large man on top of me. It was freezing cold and my clothes were missing.  I panicked and began to cry.  Struggling off the mattress, I pulled my clothes together but couldn't find my shoes.  There was a faint light through a small window in what appeared to be a door...I scrambled towards it and fumbled for a way out.  Then a voice - "what the hell," and he came towards me.  I couldn't see his face...he was just this big shadow charging towards me.  He grabbed my arm and yanked me away from the door.  "Where are you going?" he demanded.

I began to sob.  I told him I didn't know where I was...I didn't know who he was...I told him I needed to leave and find my roommate.  He told me that he had seen me standing at the intersection and that there was a "large group of men" harassing me.  He said he came and saved me from them.  He told me I was "lucky" he got there because otherwise, they might have raped me. I told him I didn't remember any "group of men" harassing me, that all I remembered was falling when he grabbed me.  He said that was because one of the men had tackled him and he fought them off to "save me."

My memories of that night are patchy, but I do know this...there was no group of men harassing me at the intersection that night.  There was only me, a girl who was alone, a girl who had been drugged...and him, the man who kidnapped me off that street in front of dozens of other people who did nothing.  The man who claimed to be my savior spent the next 4-5 hours raping and beating me as I pled for my life.  Somehow, "Good Samaritan" is not the first word that comes to mind when I think of him.

He told me his name - John - and that we were inside an RV that was parked on a junk yard where he worked as a mechanic.  He said he lived in the RV, but by the looks of it, you would never guess that a human being lived there.  He told me that we were on the bad side of town and that he didn't have a car to drive me back downtown...that his friend Wayne had dropped us off and was coming back soon.  When Wayne comes back, he said, we'll drive you home.  I told him I didn't care where we were, I would walk or call a cab, but I needed to leave.  He became angry, grabbing me by both arms and shaking me violently..."you will leave when I say you will."

I told him I had to go to the bathroom and asked to be allowed to go outside.  He refused, telling me if I had to go, I could use the bathroom inside the RV.  He led me to the back and I saw a toilet in a tiny closet that didn't have a door.  I told him I would be too embarrassed to go.  He said, "don't worry, I won't look, I'll turn around, I promise."  I couldn't wait so I did as he said.  Big mistake.  No sooner had I sat down when he turned to look at me, unbuttoned his pants and began to masturbate.

I started to cry...he said "you better shut up or you'll be sorry."  I was already sorry...

For the next several hours, I did what I thought I had to in order to survive.  I wanted to believe that he was telling me the truth, that this other man, "Wayne," was coming back and then he would let me leave...because what was the alternative? He must have had a lot to drink that night and he dozed off and on.  When I heard his breathing get deeper, I would hope he was asleep and I would try for the door again.  Each time, he woke up and angrily threw me back onto the mattress.  

I remember in excruciating detail everything about him.  The way his breath was hot and insistent on my neck...the smell of sweat and beer oozing from his pores.  How strong his arms were...the sound of his voice yelling at me...how sharp the stubble on his face was when it up brushed against my face as we struggled...the taste when he forced his mouth down upon mine.

When he was awake he would alternate between being verbally abusive by threatening me, but when I would cry, he seemed to feel guilty and would try to comfort me.  He stroked my hair and kissed my face, telling me how beautiful I was and how he just wanted to be with me.  I was living minute by minute...gauging his reactions, trying to read him...my mind was racing trying to find a way, any way, to get out alive.  He controlled my very existence...held my life in his hands.  He told me repeatedly that he would kill me "if I wasn't careful," and I believed him.

Hours went by as I waited for "Wayne" and listened desperately for the sound of a car pulling up.  Then the sun rose.  My world had been dark until then but the sunlight began to reveal everything.  I saw the inside of the RV and how filthy it was...covered in trash and dead bugs...rotting food covered in mold...half empty beer bottles strewn about...the front windshield was completely shattered, that was why it was so cold.  The sink was filled with dozens of empty cigarette boxes and on the floor, next to the toilet, lay a solitary red high-heeled shoe.  For the first time, I saw his face...the voice that had terrorized me all night finally had a face to go with it.  But then I saw something else, something that in that one instant, changed everything.

Through the window of the door, I saw the white car that had stopped next to me at the intersection - the car that had been used to bring me there - and my shoes were inside on the floor.  The car had been sitting just a few feet away from us the entire night.  That meant that not only was no one was coming to get me, but that no one probably even knew where I was.  In that moment, I lost all hope.  All night I had kept it together and remained calm because I believed that this person, "Wayne," was coming and then I could leave.  At the very least, I thought someone else knew where I was.

I completely lost it.  I went again for the door, determined to get out now or die trying.  I felt the handle and pulled...nothing.  He leapt up after me and knocked me to the ground...this time there was no controlling his rage.  He was kicking me in the stomach repeatedly, saying I told you not to do that, I told you...he kicked me so hard that I began to throw up.

He grabbed me by my hair and dragged me back towards the mattress.  I was kicking and screaming, but it made no difference.  The police report I have lists him as 6 foot 2 inches and at 220 pounds, he weighed twice as much as I did.  He raped me again...how many times he raped me that night I'll never know for sure...while I was conscious there was 3 times that I remember, and I know he raped me at least once while I was unconscious.  I made the decision then that this was the last time. I had no reason to think he would keep his word to let me go.  At that point, he had more to lose if he did...I knew his name, his address, I could identify him now that I had seen his face.  I realized then that he had no reason NOT to kill me.

I was hysterical, sobbing and begging him to let me go.  I told him anything I could think of...that my roommate would be looking for me...that my car was parked outside the club and she would know something was wrong when I didn't come home...that I was her ride and she would call the police...that surely people had seen him throw me into the car.  I screamed as loud as I could, even though I knew no one would hear me.  After all, we were in a junk yard...not likely to have many visitors at sunrise on a Sunday morning.

At first, he was irrational and screamed back at me...I can't let you go...you'll tell...look what you made me do...I just wanted to be with you but now look what's happened and no one will understand.  But eventually he got off me and began pacing back and forth inside the RV, leaving me curled him in a ball on the floor.  

He was talking to himself, not making any sense, but I saw something in his eyes...was it doubt or maybe guilt?  I saw the opportunity to turn things around and I took it.  Somehow, I found it in myself to calm down.  Maybe my crying was making him more agitated, I thought, maybe I need to reason with him.  I wiped my tears and took a deep breath.  I told him not to be upset, everything was going to be okay.  I told him that I wasn't angry with him, that he had just scared me and I really needed to get home.  

He said, "I can't let you leave, you'll tell them what I did, and look at you, you're a mess."  I found a rag and wiped the blood and vomit off my face and straightened my clothes.  I told him, "no, look at me, I'm fine.  I'm not hurt."  I promised him I wouldn't tell anyone, that it was okay.  

There was a change in his eyes...he believed me.

He agreed to let me go if I would promise to have lunch with him later that day.  I bit my tongue, put on my best smile, and said "sure, that sounds fine."  He told me to write down my phone number and even suggested we go by his mother's house for lunch so she could meet me.  I began to panic as I was getting ready to write down a phone number...I didn't want him to know my real number, but what if I wrote a fake one and he called it to make sure it was mine before letting me leave?  I wrote the numbers slowly as he stood over my shoulder, watching...379-5759...I changed the last digit and figured if he called it, I could claim it was a 5.  It worked.  He took the piece of paper my number was written on and carefully put it into his wallet.  He picked up a flannel shirt off the floor and put it over my shoulders.  "Here, it's cold outside, put this on."  

He opened the door and every cell in my body wanted to just run, but he was watching.  He took my hand and led me to the car.  "Your shoes are inside," he said, "I couldn't carry you in last night and grab your shoes."  He stood next to me waiting for me to get into the car.  I wanted to run but I couldn't...I was too scared.  Five hours with this man and I was so close to getting away, I was terrified of ruining it by making him angry before I knew for certain I could get away.

My heart sank as I got into the car.  He drove for about a mile until we came to a red light.  Now was my chance.  I swung open the car door and ran...ran like I never ran before...ran for my life and didn't look back.  

My car was just a few blocks away.  I didn't have the keys because they were in my purse which had been left in the club.  Luckily, I always kept the back hatch unlocked and a spare key in the glove box.  I popped the hatch open, climbed inside, and locked the door behind me.   Only then did I look back -  he was gone.  Inside my car, I felt safe.  A strange calm came over me as I drove home.  I thought the worst was over. 

Once I got to my apartment, I knew what I had to do.  I walked straight to the bathroom, peeling my clothes off as I walked, and turned the shower on as hot as it would go.  The steam quickly filled the room and I climbed in. With hot water and a bar of soap, I tried to scrub HIM off me....it was the longest, hottest shower I've ever taken.  I stood in there for over an hour, until my skin was pink and numb to the touch.  I got out, laid down on my bed, and went to sleep.

Looking back, it seems strange to me that I was so calm I could fall asleep.  But I guess I was in a state of shock.  A few hours later, I woke up suddenly in a panic.  My roommate, Uyen, had never made it home.  I began to call everyone we knew, asking if they had seen her, and when I couldn't find her, I became hysterical.  

One of my best girlfriends, Liz, was on her way to the airport to fly back to the Bahamas .  I called her cell phone.  "What's wrong?" she asked.  I told her that I couldn't find Uyen.  Liz asked me how we got separated.  I answered casually, "well, this man grabbed me, threw me into his car and  kept me in an RV all night and I don't know what happened to Uyen."  Liz asked, "what do you mean a man grabbed you?  someone you know?"  I told her no, it was a stranger.  A stranger had grabbed me and I kept trying to leave but he wouldn't let me.

Liz took a deep breath and said, "Laura, you need to call the police."  I didn't understand what she meant.  I told her we didn't have time, I had to find Uyen because she was missing.  Liz said that I had to call the police, and I could even ask them to look for Uyen, but if I didn't call, she would.  I remember thinking to myself, "that's a brilliant idea, I can call the police and have them find Uyen."  It never occurred to me that I should call the police for myself and report that I had been raped.  After all, what had happened to me, well, it was over.

The police came.  Luckily, Liz called them and told them she suspected I might have been raped so they sent a female detective.  She asked me if I could take her to the RV and I told her I remembered exactly how to get there.  We got into  her squad car and drove back to the junk yard.  I pointed at the RV as soon as it came into view.  "There it is,"  I told her. She called on her radio and suddenly, 5 or 6 other police cars flew onto the scene.  With guns drawn, they surrounded the RV and opened the door.  He was gone.

A male detective came over to me in the squad car.  He looked suspicious.  "Ma'am," he said, "you're telling me you spent the night inside of that filthy thing?"  I told him yes.  He asked me if I could describe it, and then got on the radio with one of the officers inside the RV.  "She says that there are dozens of empty cigarette boxes in the sink and a single red high-heeled shoe laying on the floor by the toilet."

A few seconds later, a voice came back across the radio, "yes detective, she's correct."  He looked at me incredulously, now believing me.  "Okay," he said to me, "let's get you to the hospital."

I was taken to the emergency room.  Liz had called my boyfriend and he was there waiting for me.  When I was escorted in by the group of detectives, I saw him pacing in the hall.  They put me into an exam room and let him come in to keep me company.  "What happened?" he asked.  I said, "nothing."

Nothing.  That was how I described what happened to me.  That is what I told everyone who asked...the police, the doctors, my friends.  I didn't want to say the truth out loud...I thought that by NOT saying it, I could make it not be true.  There were so many questions, everyone kept asking what happened.  I was asked to allow them to do a rape kit - a medical exam to collect possible evidence of sexual assault.  I didn't want to, but no one really seemed to be giving me the choice.  And then the doctors came back with the lab results...positive signs of forced intercourse.  What happened, they asked.  Nothing,  I said,  I don't remember.

But I did remember.

They gave me antibiotics "just in case" for STD's and the morning after pill.  I asked if anyone had found Uyen.  I was told that she too had been drugged, but her boyfriend had come to the club looking for her and found her passed out on the floor so he took her home.  He told the police he looked for me but no one knew where I was.

Eventually, they took me home.  Uyen was there waiting for me.  Our eyes met briefly as everyone rushed to put me to bed.  The look on her face, I'll never forget it...guilt and sadness.  I wanted to tell her I was okay, it wasn't her fault, we had just gotten separated...but no words were exchanged.

The police wanted my clothes as evidence so they came inside and collected everything.  Then everyone left.  Uyen went back to her boyfriend's apartment, wanting to let me rest.  My boyfriend, unable to cope with the severity of what had happened, also left and went home.  The silence in my apartment suddenly became unbearable.  I took a handful of sleeping pills and closed my eyes.  I slept for 3 days straight, only getting up once when my boyfriend showed up the next day to give me the 2nd dose of the morning after pill.  On the 4th day, I opened my eyes and stumbled into the shower.  It was back to life as usual

The police did arrest the man who raped me...he had given me his real name & the RV was parked on his employer's junk yard, so it was easy to find him.  When he failed the lie detector test, he admitted to grabbing me off the street and keeping me inside the RV all night, but stuck to his story that he had "saved me" from a group of men.  He also admitted to holding me down on the mattress and touching me, but denied ever trying to rape me.

His inmate photo, from the 
Florida Department of Corrections

It turns out that Wayne did exist, he was the one driving the car when John grabbed me and threw me inside.  He told police that I was unconscious and he thought something was wrong with John's plans to take me home with him, especially since they didn't know me.  He also told police that he told John he hoped he would just take me home, to which John told him, "are you kidding?" and laughed.  Wayne drove to his car which was parked at another bar, and then got out and left me....alone and unconscious....with a man I had never met before.

John had a criminal record and couldn't make bail, so he was immediately put into jail.  His defense lawyers tried to get him out by claiming that he had to make a living to pay child support for the 3 children he had abandoned...but the judge denied his request for bail reduction.

We were called back into court over and over again.  Every time I would start to feel like I could put the whole thing behind me, a sheriff would show up at my door with another subpoena.  On three separate occasions, he agreed to change his plea from "not guilty" to "no contest."  But when I showed up in court to give my victim's impact statement prior to sentencing, he changed his mind.  I guess his lawyers didn't want the judge to hear what I had to say, fearing it might affect his sentence.

Finally, the judge had enough.  We were appearing before the same judge each time, and it was obvious that the defense lawyers were trying to wear me down with the hopes that I wouldn't keep appearing to give my statement.  The judge lost his temper in the courtroom when, for the 3rd time, the defense said they were rescinding their change of plea.  The judge said "how dare you people drag this woman back and forth into court this way...if you want to go to trial, we'll go to trial next week" and he cleared a spot on the court docket to have the case heard immediately.   

The next day, the prosecutor for the case called me at home.  "Laura," she said, "it's over.  He pled no contest this morning and they've sentenced him to 18 months."

When I tell my story to other rape survivors, they always ask me if it was worth it.  Many of them are in the process of deciding for themselves whether or not they want to press charges.  I have no answer for them...I don't know.

The man who raped me controlled my entire life...not just on the night when he kept me in that horrible RV, but for the 8 months afterwards as he manipulated the legal system.  It was a nightmare, emotionally draining...but I was determined not to let that man beat me again.  In the end, did I win?  The court case, I guess, if you can consider 18 months in jail for what he did to me as winning.  All I can say is, if I hadn't done it, I would never know.

It's been almost three years now and my life will never be the same.  After the court case was over, I packed up my things and moved 3,000 miles away.  I wanted to leave what happened to me back in Gainesville.  It didn't work.

I'm just now beginning to accept that affect the rape has had on who I am.  It affects all of my relationships.  It affects the way I see myself and the world around me.  I used to say "I lost God in Gainesville," because I felt like being raped destroyed my identity.

It's taken a long time for me to understand that my identity is still there...it's just different.  The rape is now a part of my identity, it has been incorporated into all the other things that make me, ME.  I can't eliminate it from who I am, I can only try to embrace it. 

I guess that is how you heal....  

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