PPO -- Henrico County Court (Part 2)

(Part 1)

On July 31, 2011, Tony sent me a message through the navigation bar of I HeArTE JADE: meet me tomrrow before work.......;). I took the winking emoticon as a sign he was in high spirits, and looked forward to seeing him.

Unfortunately I was running late the next morning which prevented me from arriving where I’d intended; instead I cruised to the plaza where Tony’s office is located. Also unfortunately, Tony when he arrived was, by then, in a severe funk. He was stressed and depressed.

Though his yo-yo-ing had gotten tiresome, I loved him so I let him blow off steam. After he shouted for several minutes, he calmed down. He remarked I couldn’t understand what he was going through. He mentioned his mom was sad, his dad was confused, his girlfriend was mad, and he was hurting me. He verbalized that he thought everyone would be better off without him then he held his thumb and index finger about a quarter-inch apart and announced “I am this close to eating my gun.”

It was the third reference in a month he’d made to suicide. Though I didn’t necessarily feel he was going to hightail it home and put a bullet in his head, I was really worried about him; if he was saying those kind of things, he ought to talk to someone who was equipped to deal with such.

His mental health was more important than our future together. At 10:30 AM, I buzzed the same Sergeant as before and relayed my concerns. He seemed sympathetic and said he would call Tony’s Surveillance Unit to let them know.

At 4-something that afternoon, I returned to the lot at Tony’s place of business to find out if he was okay. Within moments, two marked local police cars entered and the operators who got out of them approached me. One asked for my name, which I provided. He requested I step out of my vehicle. I wanted to know why. He had a “Preliminary Protective Order” for me. Seriously? At least I wasn’t under arrest.

I was cooperative and the lawmen were extremely nice, answering a bunch of questions I posited. The hearing date scheduled was in two weeks, on August 15, 2011. One of the guys had to leave to fetch a copy for me, hence I hung out with the one that remained. Obviously out of curiosity, he fished for information and I ended up sharing with him a fair amount of the story of my and Tony’s affair. When the departing cop came back, he was trailed by a third. I voiced fears about accidentally running into Tony, who would be out of work at any minute, and they kindly volunteered to stand by until I’d had enough time to hit the highway.

The only thing I could think of as I drove off was that Tony couldn’t have possibly instigated this without coercion. Good grief. He’d. Told. Me. To. Come. See. Him. And I had proof! Best as I could figure, since my earlier phone call to the IAD revealed to them Tony had violated the terms of his punishment by being in contact with me, either the VSP or pseudo-wife had backed him into a corner over it. It wasn’t unreasonable to imagine that Tony, to shield himself, had insisted it was I who’d contacted him. No one other than Tony or me knew he’d initiated the get-together. I could just hear him being advised in response to take out a so-called restraining order. What might he say to that: uh, ah, uhm, no, I can’t? That would seem plenty odd. Then again, was this his version of damage control or was it anger- or embarrassment-induced retaliatory? Regardless, it was the last straw. I could tolerate his having a girlfriend, his insecurities, and his PMS-ing, but did he for realiously believe I would let him tie a protective order to my name just so he could cover his butt and save face? Talk about your blatant abuse of the system!

I decided to attempt to file a complaint against him with the Virginia State Police, mainly to gain some insight. I spoke with three Richmond-area VSP individuals: Blackman, Woodhouse, and Moore. All were familiar with me. Blackman and Moore were actually polite; Woodhouse, Tony’s direct supervisor, on the other hand was an obnoxious jerk. I couldn’t determine from any of our dialogues whether Tony had lied to them or they were lying to me. As I’d surmised, they refused to let me make my grievance official.

There was nothing left for me to do but call the Henrico County Court to learn exactly what Tony had claimed to get the temporary restraint, so I could prepare a defense. The clerk had no idea -- “he went in front of a judge” -- however I did garner Tony had waited until 3:00 PM -- approximately five hours after my chat with the Sergeant -- to do so.

I know what y’all are thinking. Boomslang asked me if perhaps Tony was merely trying break it off with me all this time. I weighed out the possibility. The thing is, even when Tony was down or strained, he was consistently communicating with me -- and in a sweet, flirty, romantic manner besides. I have the evidence to show it.

(Part 3)