Our Home Invasion

                Thursday, August 29^th ,2019.

                This date had significance for me.  It was the day I planned to release my seventh book, Sins of the Child.  It was also the day for my office’s summer outing.  We were going on a sunset sail and my boyfriend, who is disabled due to MS and doesn’t leave the apartment often, was excited to attend. 

                I awoke at 6:38, before my alarm went off at 6:45 AM.  I lay in bed contemplating staying there until it was time to get up, but I thought, “you have a very busy day ahead of you,” and heaved myself up.

                Eight minutes later, at 6:53 AM, (this was the time recorded by our door camera) I was sitting on the toilet completely naked (yes, really) with my phone in my hand.  I was messaging with a writer Twitter acquaintance about the massive troll problem independent authors deal with when I heard a crash in the vicinity of the kitchen.  I figured it was my cats.  I usually feed them shortly after getting up in the morning and they get impatient. 

                This part is fuzzy in my mind, but I think I heard a second crash, so I got up and looked out the bathroom door.  The audio of my camera caught me saying, “what was that?” or perhaps “what the fuck was that?”  I don’t remember which and when I listen to the audio it sometimes appears I said one, sometimes the other.  Either is a possibility.

                The light was completely blocked by an ENORMOUS grunting, growling man running towards me wielding a pick axe.  Later on, when the detective interviewed me, he asked if I saw the open door.  I did not notice the door was open. I just saw a huge man coming at me. 

                I screamed.  My boyfriend says the sound of that terrified scream will echo in his head forever.  (Also, we’ve both watched the door cam video a million times, which probably isn’t helping him forget it).  I shut the bathroom door and attempted to call 911.  The first time, I dialed a lot of nonsense.  There’s a missed call to 208891920911 or something, from me dialing in a panic.  Then I called twice and both calls failed to connect.

                I could hear my boyfriend who cannot walk independently and is frail, btw, fighting with the intruder.  I heard him calling him “John,” and I realized it was John B. Tompkins, this loser who had visited our apartment before.  He owed my boyfriend money, and they’d been arguing over it.  John shares a phone with his twat of a girlfriend (sorry for my language, I’m still very upset) who had sent my boyfriend, who suffers from MS and is in constant pain, texts calling him a cripple, telling him that from the looks of him he’ll be dead soon, etc.  Just awful stuff.  I’ll refer to her as Gorg, since she looks like one of the Gorgs on Fraggle Rock. 

                I had asked my boyfriend to have nothing to do with these people from the moment I first heard John’s voice.   I got a bad vibe from them and I didn’t want them in our home. 

                But my boyfriend was a tough guy when he was younger.  Fought a lot, got arrested a few times, went through women like a hot knife through butter, that sort of thing, and he’s always had a temper since I first met him working at A&P in July of 1991.  It’s hard for him to accept that because of his illness, something over which he exerts no control, he can’t fight anymore, and he needs to be cautious about who he lets into his life.  I’ve observed several people, most of whom are harmless, do a few things that struck me as taking advantage of him.  For instance, one friend took fifty dollars from him to get me a gift card for my birthday.  When I went to use the gift card, there was no money on it.  The guy said it was a cashier error, which okay, I know that can happen, but I have my doubts. 

                I guess what I’m trying to say is people who are disabled tend to attract bottom feeders.  And I could instantly tell that’s what John B. Tompkins and the Gorg were, beyond any shadow of a doubt.  Anyway, the exchanges between John, Gorg, and my boyfriend continued, and at some point, John informed him he would not be returning the money he owed, and he’d be by to get more.

                This alarmed me.  Enough that I mentioned the situation to a few coworkers and told them I did not feel safe.  Enough that I made sure I always had my cell phone within reach when I went to bed and that it was charged.

                But weeks passed.  And every negative exchange between John and my boyfriend took place through text.  Even though my bf tried to call him and talk to him.  He seemed like too much of a coward to do anything in person.  I relaxed and forgot about him.

                Then he broke into our apartment with a pick axe.

                My boyfriend, who was wrestling him, yelled at me to help.  I quickly wrapped a towel around myself and launched myself at John, beating him on the back with the sides of my fists girl punch style.  At some point I received a glancing blow on my right foot from the pick axe.  We were now at the threshold of the apartment.  There were people outside who had heard me screaming.  John dropped the pick axe and ran. 

                Yes, a frail handicapped man and his middle aged girlfriend made a four hundred pound man wielding an axe flee.  I keep having to remind myself of that.  We were not helpless after all.

                A cyclist came up and offered to go after him and get his license plate number.  He said he saw John in the vicinity of a car earlier and believed it might be his.  He went in pursuit but returned a minute or so later.  Meanwhile, I’d managed to run into the bedroom to throw a dress on and my boyfriend put some pants on.  The cyclist said the car was now empty and John was nowhere to be found.  He explained that earlier he saw a masked man in a hoodie carrying a pick axe on the road and thought “that’s not right,” so he went around the corner and circled back.  Our door cam caught John standing and waiting while he rode by.

                By now the cops began to arrive.  The whole scene became surreal, “this isn’t happening.”  I tried to go after our dog, who had run out the door, terrified.  The cops called me back, telling me I couldn’t leave the property.  They began looking for our dog instead. For some reason, Frank decided to start watching a documentary about The Manson Murders on Netflix while we waited for the detective to arrive.  As intruders began killing Sharon Tate and her house guests on the screen, I said, “Can you please turn this off?” 

                Meanwhile, John was caught walking down the road shirtless, having discarded his hoodie and his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle mask.  (That’s what he was wearing, although I didn’t know that until my sister saw the video and told me).  The cops pulled up alongside him.  He informed them he was out for a walk trying to lose weight.  They brought him back for my boyfriend and I to identify.  At first, I was confused because all I could see in the backseat was a tan bundle, and last I saw him he was wearing a hoodie.  That was his skin I was seeing.  The cops kept telling him to turn his face towards us, and he only did it for a split second.  His face was bright red.   At every step of the way he could not look us in the face.  He could not confront us directly.  All of it was done through a screen of some sort-the phone, the ninja turtle mask.  When it was just him, he couldn’t meet our eyes.  A sign of true cowardice.

                Right now, he’s in lock up charged with felony criminal burglary in the first degree, felony criminal mischief in the second degree, and misdemeanor criminal possession of a weapon.  One article I read indicated that more charges may be pending, but realistically, the first degree burglary charge is all we need to keep him away from us.  

                Now comes the aftermath.

                The first night I was unable to sleep.  I got maybe three hours, which was more than I expected.  That side effect has passed, because I’ve always been a good sleeper.  People have told me they want to kick me because of how easily I fall asleep.

                The first couple of days I was almost constantly nauseous.  I’m an emotional eater, but I was too upset to even use this as a crutch. And everything I ate came right back up. 

                I’m scared all the time.  Thursday night, when we returned from my office party (we still went) a car slowed down as it passed our apartment complex and I nearly had a heart attack.  Later on, I had to get something out of my car, and it seemed another car slowed down to have a look at me.  It was probably in my head, but I was still freaked out.  Friday night I went to return a dress at Macy’s and a car was idling in the parking lot.  I looked at it thinking, “could that be one of John or Gorg’s friends, or the Gorg herself, waiting for me in the dark?”

                I keep replaying those moments when I first heard the crash in my head, and we keep watching the door cam videos.  There were three.  The first, I’ve posted.  It’s of John breaking into our apartment.  It shows him trying the door, then pausing until a cyclist passed (the same one that circled back and helped us) then attacking the door with the axe.  You can hear me screaming.  It is damning evidence from which there could be no possible hope of reprieve.  Even with the mask on, John is big in a distinctive, identifying way that makes it obvious it was him.

                The second video just shows the outside of my apartment and you can hear me screaming.

                The third video is of John running from the apartment and we’re tumbling out the door, both of us, naked.  For obvious reasons we’re not posting that one.

                He’s locked up and probably will be for a long time, although I’ve heard the Gorg is trying to raise money for his bail.  Yeah, if she can keep from shoving that money up her nose, or into her arm, of whatever it is they do (clearly, they’re doing heavy duty drugs).  The judge issued orders of protection for both of us, but since their prior behavior was not rational, I don’t hold out much hope for that meaning anything to either of them. 

                So, I don’t feel safe.  I keep going through my mind all the possible things that could still happen, all the ways he could still harm us, which I’m not listing here because I don’t want to give them any ideas.  Not exactly the varsity think tank operating here, so I don’t want to help them along.

                I’m also short-tempered and angry.  Ninety-nine percent of people have been nothing but supportive, but you do have those few that seem to think up the worst possible thing they can say and say it.  I had one friend publicly tell me that the lesson here is to lock your doors even when you are home.  Even though I clearly stated that SOMEONE BROKE INTO OUR HOME WITH AN AXE.  I don’t know what that means to others, but to me it says SOMEONE USED AN AXE TO GET INTO MY HOUSE.  I consider this person a good friend, I hope they just weren’t thinking.  But it has added to my upset.

                I had another person laugh when she saw the video then inform me in a condescending tone that the charges weren’t going to “stick” because of my boyfriend’s prior involvement with this person.  Sure.  Because if you have an argument with someone, it’s no big deal if they break your door down with an axe, hit you and your girlfriend with it, and attempt to rob you.  The implication here is, “you’re not a true victim and it’s your own fault.”  Fortunately, not the way our legal system works, but still, just that someone THINKS that way has my stomach in knots.

                This is typical from what I read.  Victims dealing with trauma often feel enormous amounts of anger directed towards people they perceive as trying to “victim shame” them or suggest they brought it on themselves somehow.  That’s because they’re already feeling guilt that they brought it on themselves, so someone else verbalizing it makes them extremely upset.

                Usually I try to end my essays in some way, not just write the end, but I’m too upset to really draw upon my proper writing skills.  The only thing I have to add is John B. Tompkins is due on court on Thursday, and we attend to be there and look him in the face.