A telephone booth was situated in the parking lot fairly close to the front door of the building. Martin pulled up to the garage-like structure and parked the van.
“See, here it is,” he said.
“That’s nice,” I said as I jumped out of the man’s vehicle. I watched him walk up to the front door of the building and unlock it. He went into the building leaving the door slightly ajar.
Apparently the shop was closed. Not wanting to waste any more time, I immediately headed for the payphone. I quickly shoved my money into the phone and began to dial the number to the bookstore, but the call didn’t go through. At first I thought that I had dialed the wrong number, so I dialed again. The same thing happened. My change just kept filtering back into the return slot. To say that I was furious would have been an understatement. I lost my temper and violently slammed the phone onto the receiver as hard as I could, while screaming every profanity that I could think of. Martin must have heard me yelling and came to the front door.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” he asked.
“The god damn payphone doesn’t work, that’s what!” I screamed.
“It doesn’t?” he said. “Let me take a look at it.”
He waddled out of the building and began to walk towards the phone booth, leaving the front door of the building wide open. Fed up, I walked out of the booth in order to make room for the large man to walk in. Just as he was about to step in, he grabbed me and began to wrestle me into the building. Once he got me inside, he slammed the front door closed and locked it. I knew that I was in serious trouble. By now, my violent temper had surfaced. I began to viciously fight my attacker as he struggled to get me down on the floor. In a desperate attempt to gain control of me, he grabbed a metal pipe off of a nearby wooden shelf and threatened to bash my head open if I didn’t cooperate. Then he proceeded to unzip the fly of his jeans and pulled out his penis, which he attempted to shove it in my mouth. Suddenly, I began to feel like I was going to pass out. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. My mouth and throat were so dry that I could barely swallow making it difficult for me to breath. I tried not to panic, which wasn’t very easy to do in a situation such as this. Although my life was definitely in danger, my biggest fear was of actually getting raped. I was afraid of what I would do to the man if I lived to tell the tale. I believe that my uncontrollable temper is what ultimately kept me alive. Somehow, I managed to get the heavyset man off of me at the exact moment somebody began knocking at the front door of the building. My attacker quickly got up from the floor and went to answer the door. It was a customer. I took advantage of this opportunity and ran out the front door. I heard the stranger tell the bewildered customer that I was his girlfriend and that we had just had a big argument. He told the man that he would be back in fifteen minutes. As I ran through the parking lot that led into the street, my attacker yelled at me to get back into his van.
“I’ll drive you home,” he offered. “I promise,” he screamed. If I would have been naive enough to get back into his van, I am certain that he would have killed me. Instead, I just kept running. I was cutting through people’s backyards in an attempt to loose my predator. Approximately one hour later, I had made my way back to Faith’s apartment building. A group of what I would call “low lifes” congregated around the main entranceway of the old building. Several empty bottles of tequila and Southern Comfort had been meticulously lined up on the old concrete steps that led to the front door of apartment building. I kicked them out of my way and went into the building.
When I walked into Faith’s apartment, I was immediately greeted by Robin, Faith, and some scruffy guy that I had never seen before. The three of them were sitting on the floor drinking cheap wine and smoking dope. Faith asked me where I had been. Her voice was raspy from smoking dope and cigarettes. Acid rock music was playing faintly in the background. “I was just out getting raped,”
I sarcastically replied as I walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water, so that I could take a couple of aspirins. By now my body was beginning to feel the impact of the attack. I went into the bathroom to take a shower in the hopes of erasing the memories of what had just transpired earlier in the afternoon. But unfortunately, they had already become permanently embedded in my mind. I was furious with myself for not reporting the incident to the police, but I knew that once I left the state of California, I would never return, not even for a trial.
I thought about telling Faith about the attack, but what was the point? Although Faith and I resided together under one roof, we weren’t particularly close. We just co-existed together for the time being for lack of anything better to do. I did tell her the police wanted to question her about a robbery that had taken place in one of the first floor apartments. I thought she might appreciate the information since she had a warrant out for her arrest. Faith didn’t respond well to the news.
In fact, she went ballistic. “That’s it,” she screamed, “I’m out of here first thing in the morning.” She claimed that she was going to Indiana where she knew some acquaintances that lived there. Her intentions were to ask Robin to drive her there and drop me off at my friend’s house in Illinois.
Robin agreed to drive the two of us across country. I was relieved that I would no longer have to work in the disgusting adult bookstore, come up with airfare to Chicago, or run into that horrible man that attacked me again. It just had to be a win-win situation, or so I thought.
By 6:00 a.m. the next morning, Faith and I were packed and ready to go. Robin supposedly borrowed a car from a friend of his to make the trip to the Midwest.
It took us approximately three and half days to drive to Illinois because Robin was the only one driving. Faith didn’t have a driver’s license and I didn’t drive on expressways. We ended up having to spend a couple of nights in some seedy, cheap, roadside motels so Robin could get some rest. When we arrived finally in the Chicagoland area, Robin and Faith informed me that they had to make a quick stop in Wheaton, Illinois. Robin said he had some business to take care of with a friend. I was so close to my destination that I had to go along for the ride.
When we arrived in the small town of Wheaton, Robin pulled off the main highway and began to drive down a fairly remote road that led us to a small residential subdivision that was surrounded by open fields. Robin parked the car on the side of the road approximately one fourth mile away from the housing development.
He told Faith and me to “stay put” until he returned. The whole thing sounded fishy to me, but I was in no position to ask questions. Robin got out of the car and walked through a thicket of over-grown shrubs and disappeared out of eye-sight.
I was left alone with Faith who was sleeping off a hangover in the back seat of the car. Robin returned fifteen minutes later carrying a large brown box and a .45 caliber revolver. I didn’t think much of the box, but the gun scared me. Robin didn’t have a gun on him when he left the car that I was aware of. He seemed agitated and in a hurry to leave. Robin threw the mysterious box into the trunk of the car. He put the gun in the glove compartment and told me not to touch it because it was loaded. Robin threw the car in drive and took off. We were now officially on our way to Glencoe, Illinois. By now, Faith had woken up and was smoking a cigarette. Robin had cracked open a bottle of Southern Comfort and began guzzling it down as if it was iced tea. I purposely struck up a conversation with Faith in hopes of distracting myself from the situation. By the time we arrived in the affluent town of Glencoe, Robin had practically polished off the entire bottle of Southern Comfort. He was driving recklessly, ignoring all traffic signals, and posted speed limits.