From Parole to Process Server

Andre Garrett parks his white Volvo sedan at a meter outside the Nassco shipyard on Harbor Boulevard on a hot, late summer morning. He shuffles through some papers in his black canvas briefcase and plucks out a stack, reading aloud the name written at the top. He repeats the name again and again, as if committing it to memory, as if it might disappear by the next time he looks down.

The name on the paper belongs to someone Garrett needs to find. The shipyard was the only address his client had for the man. This is the most daunting place Garrett's ever come to do his work, he says.

"I have no idea how to get in, where to go," he mutters to himself, sizing up the colossal fortress of shipbuilding and machinery.

He tries to enter the yard at one gate and is turned away. The same thing happens a little further up the street. Finally he finds the door for an office and walks in.

He proclaims the name of the man on his mind to a receptionist and some empty chairs.

"I'm here to serve him," he says, holding up a stack of legal documents signed by a woman who no longer wants to be the man's wife.ng her entry on board the ship. That was all,” said Botha.