Sharon’s birthday cardSharon and I arrived on the North Shore in the summer of 1973, months prior to Pipeline, Sunset Beach, and Rocky Point’s hight of the island’s famous big wave winter season. We rented a room in the A-frame, beach side of Kamehameha Highway, at Rocky Point. As Sharon put it; It was as if we were the best thing since sliced bread that had arrived. Turns out, all these gorgeous young boys were just horny. Our roommates were famous surfers, and board shapers, many featured in Surfing Magazine, although they were also irresponsible, disgustingly selfish knuckleheads.
Many young girls who came to the islands were much younger than us, most run-a-ways, all sexually active. I was a virgin, an anomaly.
The rental arrangement was $50 for our room along with light housekeeping. Light housekeeping turned into all housekeeping, plus the offensive laundry of 3 male roommates. We would walk the half mile to the laundry mat next to Kami’s Market hauling everything in their bed sheets. Jim had horrible oral hygiene which resulted in an abscess tooth. Never to this day have I ever seen someone’s face and head so swollen. Yours truly would clean up the blood he would spit up in the night. We were bullied, they had the upper hand, they were our landlords.
Once I secured a banquet waitressing job at Kuilima Hotel, Tom Hawk, the most famous of the three, told me I should be bringing home meals (code for stealing food) for everyone else. What little food we did buy we stopped storing in the communal refrigerator. Instead of nutritious meals, we kept bread, peanut butter & jelly under our beds. I got fat. Like Snow White, Sharon just grew more beautiful.
Sharon was one of my closest friends from high school. She had a small inheritance from her grandmother so she didn’t have the need to work. Sharon also talked me into leaving Oahu once she knew David came looking for me. She protected and kept that information from me until we arrived on the Big Island.
The crime report arrived Saturday January 17th 2009. The detective whom I originally met the morning following the night I had been violently raped pulled some strings. I was about to go back in time 36 years. Readying myself, I read someone else’s chronicled details of when David Fivella Jr., a 22 year old local Hawaiian, had been arrested for rape.
ReductiveThe 45 page document brought back memories, I remained stoic, and did not cry. Over the years I cried plenty, sometimes in the middle of the night waking myself up from recurring nightmares, what I now understand to be PTSD; at times having the wind knocked out of me when a film would catch me off guard, and to this day, so easily startled if someone walks up to me without me noticing. I was so young and naive then. This criminal was young with a Samoan physique. Where does a violent young father, go from there? A serial rapist I presume. Especially if not forced to face consequences.
What I found more interesting about the report is what was left out. The police interviewer hadn’t noted that I was unaware that my new job was in a girly bar. That was just how innocent this eighteen year old’s first time away from home, and my parents, was, and in finding my first job when arriving on the island. It was shocking to me that first night I showed up for work at The Inferno to find scantily clad girls dancing on stage. I know now that David watched me, observing I was an easy mark. I certainly would have never returned to work even if nothing happened on my way back to the A-frame that night.
I do recall detailing to the police interviewer, my shower afterward and how no matter how much I scrubbed I couldn’t wash off what had just happened. The police had me retrieve my cloths that I had thrown away. Odd too, that no mention of my shower, or this evidence was in the report. Twelve years before forensic DNA profiling, but then again, even with such progressive science, how many cases are not processed to completion, let alone conviction. Countless collected rape kits sit on countless police evidence shelves, stacked, collecting dust. The lack of accountability wrongly affirming “we are disposable”.
Sharon and I met David that first day at a Wahiawa surf shop. He was there to check out a board. Everyone knew him. The staff of the board shop, knowing there was a room for rent, took us to the North Shore with them where we would live for the next three months.
I remember the doctor that examined me, looking down his nose through his glasses when he asked about what birth control I was using. Once I said none, and that I had never had sex before, the focus changed from proving I’d been raped, to if I were telling the truth about being a virgin. In addition, that I had no exterior visible bruises on my limbs or torso. He, a man, was very dismissive.
David drove me, after work, to a sugar cane field, then stopped as we came upon a boulder in the road. I was relieved and thought “oh good, he’ll take me home now” not being able to “stop at a friends house”, his explanation for the detour. He pushed my face against the window and said “I want a piece of ass, and I’m going to get it”. He wanted to take me outside, but I begged him not to as I thought for sure he would kill me and leave my naked body to be found. He raped me in the cab of his truck, and I let him, except for my out loud Lord’s Prayer, (my eyes squeezed closed tight), where he then put his hand over my mouth and told me I better shut up. I still thought he would murder me after he finished, so I acted like everything was fine. As if I were fine. I talked incessantly about my family and friends, hoping this would get him to drive me home. He did, and I even gave him a kiss on the cheek goodnight to get out of the car safely. It turns my stomach to admit that.
Even my family and priest made me feel like something was wrong with me, instead of something was very wrong with what had happened to me.
My ordeal was all the more traumatizing with the little to nil support from the Wikiki DA, after returning to the mainland to be with my parents for Christmas, I received a letter giving the trial date, with less than a few days notice to attempt to return to Hawaii for court. When I left the island, I was told my return ticket would be paid for by the court. The letter that accompanied this court date said something to the effect of if you think this trial is worth your effort you may secure your own traveling accommodations.
My mother and Father Kidney convinced me not to pursue prosecution as they said I didn’t have the emotional tools to withstand a trial. Maybe I would have stood a chance if only they would have supported me one hundred percent. In retrospect, I should have retained an attorney, but my parents didn’t have the resources or sensibility to even know how to go about taking such empowering action. We could have, at the very least, spared other young women this violating experience. David did in fact rape again.
My Father was also traumatized by what had happened to me. Much later he told me of how he sought finding someone to hire and kill my attacker. He found comfort in a homeless man, Rudy, he had hired to help him paint. Rudy believed he was drawn to my Father by a miracle, and urged my Dad that doing such a thing would not bring justice to what had happened to me. Dad was listening to Rudy’s plea, although his determination and rage still burned in his broken heart. Until, he was driving home in his little red Datson pickup truck, uncontrollably weeping, and asking God to lift him out of despair. He told me it was raining that day on the freeway, and then the sun peeked through the sky, a God-ray, shinning only on his truck, where all other vehicles were being rained on, his was not. He put his murderous plan away, and trusted in God once again.
My emotions are stirred when I think of the detective who took charge of my case. Many years later I would come to find out, mine was his first. On route transporting me back to the North Shore, he took me to his home. His understanding, supportive wife, they together, kindly gathered a care package of groceries for me. Certainly he had something to do with me being hired at the only hotel resort on that side of the island. Most importantly Detective Doug Gibb believed me, and, never made me feel invisible, or that I deserved being raped. He was also the first person who encouraged me to write. That I had something of value to say.
Doug also assisted me in retrieving my report. I tried once before to have the documents sent to me. I was told, because they were in deep storage, I had to go through burdensome protocol measures, and expense. Doug fast-tracked this process, and had my records sent to me in less than a month.
His email to me after I read my report:
“Aloha, Karen:
I am happy that the report arrived in good order. I was concerned that re-visiting these unfortunate circumstances would, again, be traumatic for you. I’m glad you handled it well.
Your case, and its attendant criminal acts, was the first I ever handled. Although I hope I never revealed it, the experience had a pronounced effect on my future dealings in the Criminal Investigation Divison. I was swept up in the emotional aspect of this case and it pushed me to do whatever I could to bring it to a successful conclusion. With the arrest of the suspect and charging of the suspect, there was little else I could do to extend myself into the prosecutorial functions. At the time, the Prosecuting Attorneys Office was derelict in not providing funding for the return of witnesses to further their cases. Some time after your experience, the Waikiki Improvement Association offered to return witnesses at their expense….and, further, put them up at Waikiki Hotels. It helped in having an impact on crime in general once the word was out that mainland visitors would be returned at no expense to them. In this respect, I, like you, feel cheated out of a clean impact on the suspect….which would have been a slam dunk.
I wish you well, Karen. I sincerely hope that I will have a chance to see you and meet your family in the future. Take care.
Doug”
Interesting how one person, or their perspective, can impact someone, especially a child, for better or worse. How what would seem like a simple comment can be uplifting, or devastating.
My jr. high school history teacher; young, fit, handsome, and all the kids thought Mr. Hackett was really cool. I think I was in 6th grade, and just started to understand that concept of cliques; he had that kind of charisma. Often “Mr.Popular “played basket ball with the boy students. I really liked him too, until one day he was sharing stories about Viet Nam and how his commander ordered his troop to raid a village. He said his superior said “go in there and rape and kill everyone”. I guess the village was mostly women and children. He said he understood the rape part, but why did they have to kill them. It felt horrible at the time to hear, and years later my adult judgement could see how clearly inappropriate that story was to impressionable students. All I kept remembering is why is it okay to rape, and why would you teach other young boys that it’s okay to do that? Let alone the horrors of war and murder.
Twice I broke up a serious relationship because of a dismissiveness toward rape, or my attack. Although I feel healed, and most of the time that experience is a distant event, it’s a scar that will forever remain. Fast forward to 2017 and 2018, with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movement, and many white men in the Republican party supporting, endorsing, justifying, unacceptable behavior, along with a dubiously elected president; images and stories come flooding in after my memory is jolted. However, all the courage of women coming forward has given me permission to finally finish what I set out to write, and have edit many times over, decades ago.
Interesting that I would end up in a job where, in spite of that experience, and other losses, or maybe because of them, I’ve been supported. I’ve grown, became strong, and very determined to live my life in gratitude. I bear the scare of what happened to me, but it does not define me. Sometimes things pick at that scare, one of which is when I’m dismissed, bullied, or my feelings ignored, that “invisible” creeps up and I fight the rage and violation fiercely, with what use to make me feel, and what happened much smaller than it was. That is what survivors do.
You’re never more invisible as when your own body is being violated by the weapon of another person’s penis or violent grip. The way I was treated by the DA and examining physician was just as bad as the crime. I ended my second marriage after a hostile remark about women who are raped deserve it, the nail in the coffin to his volatile behavior. Later, I broke up from one of my more positive relationships because of, but not entirely due to, he had a reductive view about my dog’s protectiveness. The reason I had a dog in the first place was to protect my daughter and myself. I choose the unconditional Love from a pet instead of a gun.
From my long ago experience I learned that suicide is anger turned in, so I can only presume that homicide is anger turned out, and more importantly, that things change. Decades later I am able to touch others, and be touched and hugged, by people I trust. I can get in elevators as well as planes. Although, I do listen more keenly to my gut as to when something makes me uncomfortable.
I reviewed the report more than once, and very much appreciated the investigation detailed knowing Detective Gibb, once friend, had a great part in that work. With total confidence I’m certain he served Honolulu Police Department and it’s community to right so many injustices. I can never thank him enough for his best attention to my case. Immense, eternal gratitude, and undying loyalty. Doug passed away just three short years after ensuring I received my crime report. I so regret never having made the opportunity to have him meet my wonderful well adjusted husband, and to in person say to his family how much their father, and husband meant to me.
Addendum: after the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, President Trump ridiculed Dr. Christine Blasey Ford at a rally, and many supporters standing behind him mocked her in laughter. This triggered a repressed memory, one I hadn’t recalled in 45 years, one, that again was not noted in my police report. Or, perhaps I didn’t recall it to the snongrapher at the time, burying the painful dismissiveness. It came to me as clear as day, pulling myself from the TV news, as I was at the stove cooking. When David was finished with me, and after allowed me to get dressed, he said “see, that wasn’t so bad”. I realized in that moment, watching Trump’s base, I was re-tramatized, and I was pissed. So much so that the next day I found a screen printer who agreed to make me this T-Shirt. I wore it the 2019 Women’s March.
I won’t be silenced any longer.
tanablue 