Buckle Up

As a warning, this entry may be a bit of a trigger for some. So the fair warning is issued now. I think there’s a nice movie about Kate Hudson finding love three tabs over. I implore you to check that out instead if you require the assurance that it ain’t all bad.

The German language has a word for disappointment. It’s, “Enttäuschung” Of course every other language known to man has a similar translation for a word as common as, “Disappointment.” But I’m most familiar with German. So I thought I’d show off that way.

About a month ago, I was in a position that I’m still mentally working myself through. I got drunk with my sister before St. Patricks’s day. Realizing I was too drunk to be in public, I put myself in a cab to go home. I didn’t feel it was safe to be out in the state that I was in (Ironic foreshadowing) The cab took a wider turn, I threw up and passed out. I remember feeling intense sympathy for the cab driver (More ironic foreshadowing, but I’ll get to that.) When I woke up, we were in front of my house and the cab driver had his tongue in my mouth as he was holding me and making out with me (I need to stress that at that point, I was fundamentally a corpse. But clammier.) I started to move my face away but he kept moving forward. My drunk brain had a number of qualms with this. They are as thus;

a.) What the fuck is happening b.) Where the fuck are we c.) Who the fuck is this person d.) Why the fuck is his tongue in my mouth e.) What the fuck do I do f.) What the fuck have I done g.) What the fuck do I tell my boyfriend h.) What the fuck do I tell anyone?

I got in my house and puked more. For a minute or two, I felt that rock in my stomach that happens when you see something you shouldn’t have seen at a house party and your buzz is gone. I went to sleep. I woke up in the morning in the same distinct feeling of distress. The sleep hadn’t helped me to wrap my head around what had happened. The sunlight and fresh air on the way to work that morning hadn’t granted any clarity. I just had a new weight attached to me. If I had to give it somewhere to live, I’d say my throat, because I felt a lump there every time I thought about my next move in great detail.

Everything about it felt horrible and slimy. Like eating a live frog. I knew that I had been blatantly drunk. I knew that I didn’t and don’t look my age. I got IDed everywhere that my sister and I went that night. I am confidant that if this guy did that to me, there’s no way that it was the first time he’d done that. I’m not a snowflake. Which is an especially horrible way to realize that you’re not special, I promise. I mean to say that it was very calculated- I look under 19. I was obviously drunk. There’s a few especially predatory aspects of this string of events. I felt a feeling beyond crawling discomfort at the aspect that I considered myself lucky that this hadn’t progressed further. A stranger had groped me while I was passed out and, technically, this guy’s responsibility/problem. I know that nothing else had happened- I was wearing tights under my leggings under my pants. My underpants were a rubicks cube. Yet. Why is it that I felt lucky in the grand scheme of things that all that had happened was the early stages of sexual assault by a stranger? Also, on top of the ethical dilemma faced with the aspect of a sober cab driver forcing himself on an inebriated unconscious (and possibly underage) girl, can we just consider the fact that I threw up and this guy responded by licking the inside of my mouth?

Thank God I didn’t shit myself.

I felt violated in a way that I didn’t have the words for. The stifled articulation strangled me, and actually just felt like it exacerbated the situation- the situation had been a violating one, and it had kept the same momentum by taking away my words. I felt the intense self loathing that attached itself to the thought that I just invite this kind of madness into my life entirely by accident.

I collected my thoughts and called the cab company numerous times over the next few days. I kept getting met by sympathetic voices calling me, “My angel” or, “my love” but none that accompanied words that were helpful in the slightest. The biggest issue is the most frustrating; the weird odds and ends that I normally obsess over was clouded by how drunk I was. And for probably the first time, I didn’t get a cab number. Physical description, time, date, place of pick up, and place of drop off. But no car number.

I tried to be co operative with the company; It obviously wasn’t a sign of the entire company. I’ve never had an issue with that company before. I told them I didn’t want to go to the police if this could be otherwise resolved. I realized the next day that it wouldn’t be handled. I called for an update. The lady on the phone was confused; she didn’t know who I was, or what my issue had been. I recapped. She calmly told me that they get a lot of calls and “there’s only a few of them in the office” so she’d have to figure out who I’d been speaking to. I was really angry; Did they have a lot of women calling in saying that their drivers had assaulted them? I take it it isn’t a common enough problem that my issue should set off a very specific warning bell? This woman eventually spoke to one of the other’s at the office. She reiterated that without a car number there was still not much that they could do. I was getting frustrated. Whether or not this woman meant to, her tone of voice was so nonchalant. It was the same sad-yet-true tone you would use to tell someone that they went over their data plan. Before I got off the phone I vocalized how frustrating this was- I told her that I hadn’t gone to the police yet or the media because I wanted it settled quietly but in a way that I felt ok. She told me that, again, without a car number, there would be an issue finding this guy. “But if we find him,” she assured me, “Someone will be speaking to him!”

I realized what a joke this was. Up until that point I didn’t really know what I had wanted to do about this. I just knew it was something. After she said that, I knew how ineffective it would feel to just assure me this person would be spoken to. I didn’t want him spoken to- I wanted him taken out of a position where he could assault people who were prohibitively incapable of consent, for whatever reason. At the very least I wanted him fucking fired. I stressed this again to the woman on the other end- I figured that maybe since she was a female, this situation would rightly horrify her. I told her how I’d thrown up. I wasn’t a little bit tipsy. I was blatantly intoxicated. Proper white-girl-wasted. This guy, being the sober driver, could obviously see that. She stated again that without the car number, they really can’t do a whole lot for me.

Her attitude and inability to produce any helpful reassurance pushed me towards the next logical conclusion. Which, in this instance, was involving the cops.

I went to the station before my shift one morning with the same feeling in my stomach as when I had an exam when I was a kid. The person ahead of me in lineup at the police station was a guy that had maybe three teeth in his head- they were all gold.

“Listen. There’s a warrant out for my arrest. Allegedly. Is this gonna take long? I gotta get the youngster to school.”

He gestured to a kid that couldn’t have been nine, looking bored and annoyed near the forms for criminal code of conduct checks.

Expect a lot of these details- the small funny parts are the only parts that make this situation seem tolerable in the slightest.

The officer who took my statement had obviously very recently undergone sensitivity training, as he detailed every action he took as he was doing it. It seemed like he had specifically been asked to avoid sudden movements around recent assault victims. I remember feeling like I should have been more jumpy and upset than I was strictly based on how much of an effort he was making to be politically correct and mindful. After filling out some of the most detailed paper work that I’d had to fill out since my last lease agreement (I had to make up my brother’s Godfather’s alma mater for the application) the cop gave me a file number and folded his hands on his desk before briefing me.

“I don’t want to alarm you. But I do have to file this as a sexual assault report.”

He said this like I would have been expecting differently. Again, sensitivity training diligently applied. And applauded. Just confusing to be on the receiving end of. I knew what I had experienced. I said it when I went to file my report. I remember because after two separate gentlemen at a police station at 8AM on a Monday who had, “allegedly” had a warrant out for themselves, the officer who took my statement made the relatively safe assumption that I was also coming in before court just to argue with someone about my parole settings. Honestly, in my entire life, I don’t know any other instance where it would be acceptable for an officer of the law to be relieved to be taking a sexual assault statement. But I say with some confidence that a story that doesn’t involve stabbing your sister’s husband with a felt tip pen over a poker game would be a welcome to that poor cop. I completely trusted the lead cop in my investigation when she noticed me staring at other people in the waiting room and agreed that it was, “a bit of a shit show.” But I digress.

Facebook lets me know that a lot of my friends have had babies or got married or bought their first house or graduated school. What do I brag about? Sarah Walsh: Proud owner of one sexual assault investigation file as of 2015. The day after the assault, I sent a series of panic texts to my boyfriend several area codes over before visiting my friends and their new baby. My sister felt guilty for doing what we always do (which is to say go out before getting in separate cabs to get in opposite ends of town) My boyfriend was mad because he woke up to a series of panic texts that he couldn’t be physically present to help with. My friends were trying to tip toe between concern and shock. Explaining my circumstances seemed ridiculous- if only these people had asked me about my life a few days earlier. The most exciting thing that would have happened to me involved getting the wrong coffee order before work. I felt robbed of the normality and mediocrity that I’ve genuinely come to appreciate after several decades of total chaos. And I’m not saying that in hindsight either; I’ve had a weird life. Just like damn near everyone on the dark side of twenty five. And I’ve completely and totally come to be happy with a lot of the predictable parts. Honestly, the reason that I knew I wasn’t over-reacting to this situation was everyone else’s reaction to this situation- the few people that I’d felt comfortable discussing this with in it’s initial stages seemed horrified or upset or worried or mad as hell on my behalf. And they all wanted to know whether I would be going to the police or undergoing counselling or performing some vigilante justice ritual on this fucking guy. And I had no answers for them. But their reactions made me feel better about what I was feeling.

I know that most people mean well. But the worst part was everyone telling me that I was doing the right thing or handling it very well. Because I knew that they meant it. But it felt clumsy. Because everything I was doing, I was doing on auto-pilot. I’d been doing what I’ve been taught to do from years of working in a position where you tell kids and teenagers to never let anyone do anything to them that they don’t consent to; from having a mother that was clear that there’s a right way to handle assault but it’s never your fault; to varying extents of friends in abusive relationships; to personal previous experiences with abuse. I was going through the channels that I would have implored anyone else to go through. Yeah, on the surface I was doing everything that you’re supposed to do. Internally I was crashing my car into trees and setting fires and making myself throw up on every well-meaning person who’d asked me if I’d eaten today.

It gets fucked up quickly.

I guess that the whole thing had just re opened a door that I’d previously decided didn’t require revisiting or elaborating. And that’s ok. I’ve met so many people who’ve had an experience with sexual assault or rape or otherwise unwanted touching or abuse. And they’ve all dealt with it differently. And I always found that the strangest part of that world. All of these people that have had a similar horrible experience and they’re just walking about like normal people. I don’t know what I expected; I almost always expect to walk into parties with people announcing their deepest darkest secrets via a sign around their neck. Something blatant that would eliminate the games that we play by trying to guess a back-story.

I’ve made a lot of jokes about it. Largely because that’s the only coping mechanism I possess that I have faith in. Barking at things and crying on my pets doesn’t seem appropriate during business hours, really. Or at all, if I’m being honest. It’s never made anything easier, at any rate.

Weeks after the initial report and the police have come to their own brick wall. I understand all of the words that have been said to me. I understand the problems and the technicalities and all of the work that the officers in charge of my case have put in. But as it stands, we’ve reached the point where there’s nothing more to tell me beyond a sincere sorry. Because in some cases you can do all of the things that you’re supposed to do in a situation as painfully random as this and still come up in a grey area of disappointment.

Enttäuschung. A big one.

There’s another German word that fits this feeling.

“Beschissen.” Or, for the English readers, “Shitty.”

Good vibes welcome. I promise I’ll get back to the funny words and pictures next time, guys.

heather-noelle88-blog

This is one of my very best friends. The cab company in question is called City Wide Cabs, and they are based in St. John's, NL.