by M. N. Forgy
“You can do this, Romeo,” he whispers into my ear. Closing my eyes, I take his words to heart and try and ignore the fact that someone is so close to me, even touching me. He knows me better than anyone, and if he says I can do this… then I can.
Letting me go, I head down the stairs and decide to walk home instead of taking another cab. Slipping my hands into my pockets, I look up hoping to see stars but New York is just too busy to let the magic in the sky shine through.
4
The Girl
Sitting on my cot that sags mere inches away from the floor, I reach for my water bottle on the wooden crate I’ve been using as a nightstand, shaking it for any signs of water, but it’s bone dry. Sighing, I toss it to the floor. It’s been almost a whole day since they’ve given us water. My fingernails scraping into my hairline, I try and run them through my clumpy dirty hair, but they don’t make it more than a few inches before getting tangled. I’m hot, hungry, and anxious. I’m ready to be out of this… this cage. The smell of body odor and wet concrete is almost gone today, that or I’ve become used to it. Glancing up, I see a dozen women of all shapes, sizes, and colors walking around. Some trading water for a blanket, one asking for a smoke and is granted one at the price of her pillow. I keep to myself and watch.
All of us caged like rabid animals and used for different jobs. Running drugs, sex, companionship, God knows what else. I’ve yet to meet the person that wants me for good. God, I feel like a child waiting to be adopted, only thing is my caretaker may adore me, or treat me like the bad secret I am.
A metal bat slams against the silver chain-link fence that keeps us in, and I jolt upward with fear.
“Boss wants you to wear this tomorrow.” He tosses something blue over the top of the fence and I catch it, the fabric soft and clean. I frown, confused why I’m getting special treatment. I haven’t done anything.
“But why?” I ask with a hoarse voice, my tongue dryer than I thought. He ignores me and goes to another girl tossing another piece of clothing over the top but hers is gold.
Knowing I’m not going to get any answers, I look down at what I was gifted and unfold it. It’s a dress, it looks like Cinderella’s blue ball gown the night she met her Prince Charming, only this particular dress is lacking in luster. The seams are sewed poorly, the material so thin and blocky that it had to be a Halloween Costume, a cheap one. Why does he want us to wear this? He, is me assuming the boss is a he. I’ve never met the boss. I’ve just been traded and rented for the last ten years.
I was chosen to run drugs once when I was fifteen, I had to swallow two balloons full and fly to Missouri, and transported back. I was given a cot when I arrived back for my good behavior. I thought about running, but I was terrified. I was just happy to be out of the dark in the sunlight. Wearing half clean clothes, and around other people. I guess I’m conditioned to focus on what I’m being rewarded rather than running. However, a year later I was sex trafficked, but it didn’t go well, so it didn’t last long. I kept puking on the clients every time they tried to have sex with me. So, I was taken back, resold like a stereo that was out of date and nobody wanted, but still, I see robust rich men, receding hairlines, and the smell of cologne when I come close to men. I’m broken. Traumatized by the nearness of any man. So that begs the question, what are they doing with me tomorrow? Anxiety eclipses my thoughts, and I have to surprise a shiver. If it’s one thing I’ve learned it’s how to seem cool and collected on the outside. The wolves feed on fear.
“Who you got?”
I carefully glance up, finding a woman staring at me with a blue and yellow dress in her hand, Snow White, I believe. Her dark skin is dry, her hair that was once braided knotted and looking like it’s about to fall off her scalp stares down at me with dilated eyes. I look to the guards, one of them must have given her something, probably in return for sex. I become icy with panic nervous they will think I’m into that if this woman associates with me.
“Um, Cinderella, I think,” I mutter, my fingers sliding against the material. Terror thundering inside my chest. Why is she here? What does she want?
“No shit, my mother used to read that one to me when I was a kid, but the last three pages were missing, so I never knew how it ended,” she says with a thick accent I can’t place, her lips pursed as she talks with her hands. I give a small smile. I don’t know why she’s being friendly, but I’m not buying it. She wants something.
“Name is Kist,” she says, sitting next to me on my cot. Her closeness makes the hairs on my arms raise with alarm. I don’t like people touching me or being this close, not since the whole sex trafficking thing. I just… don’t touch me.
“Why do you think they want us to wear these?” she asks, holding hers up to her chest.
I shake my head. “I dunno.”
They’re trying to doll us up. God, I hope it’s not because we’re being bought or traded for sex. My stomach turns upside down thinking about a greasy fat man’s fingers prying at my body. I cover my mouth in an attempt to stifle a burp, could be puke. I’m not sure.
The lights go out, and I know it’s them telling us to go to bed.
“Ah, damn,” Kist mutters. “I hate when they do this shit.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I reply, trying to be friendly.
“They ain’t even gonna fill our bottles tonight? What’s with that shit?” she sneers, standing with a hand on her hip. She’s thicker than me, tougher too judging by her attitude. I could use her as a friend.
“Well, see ya tomorrow, Cinderella.” She salutes me before walking away. Folding my dress, I place it on the wooden stand and go use the bucket in the corner to pee before bed. I keep my eyes wide open, even though it’s pitch black. I pee with trembling legs, hoping nobody tries to kill me for that stupid dress or my cot. Everything that’s bad, happens at night.
When I climb into my cot, the smell of my own body making me turn up my nose, I pray to God that somewhere along the line of tomorrow’s trip, a fairy godmother appears and I’m finally saved from this world. She’d have a wand, there will be glitter, and smiles, and light of the most beautiful kind. In fact, there’d never be darkness again. She steals me from this dark, bleak world that lives right in front of everyone’s eyes. People in the public see one of us women every day, but nobody ever thinks anything is out of the ordinary. Even though we look the way we do, our eyes staring just a second longer than necessary in the hopes someone will ask if we’re okay. But it never happens, and at the end of the day, we’re brought back to the pit. Here.
When I was a kid, I used to watch Disney movies and kiss the TV just when Prince Charming would come in and save the day. It’s a crock of shit setting you up for disappointment at a very young age. There’s no such thing as Prince Charming, and the sooner little girls accept that, they’ll stop focusing on love and being independent. My kids will never watch those movies.
Shifting to my side, I know it’s just a wish though. People like me don’t get happy endings. I’ve always been a prisoner.
I don’t know anything different.
Thursday
Romeo
Stepping out of my house, the chill from the night tries to break through the jacket of my Armani suit, I straighten my arms and adjust my tie. Seeing as this is the first official meeting with me being the underboss, I thought I’d dress for the occasion. Really, I just don’t want to listen to how my father is disappointed I wore jeans. Reaching for the door handle of my Navigator, I notice a slight shake to my hand. Jerking it back to my chest, I grit my teeth and hold it tightly with my other hand. I hate that I’m so nervous, why am I so nervous. I know why, it’s because I don’t know what I’m walking into tonight. Cracking my neck to the side, I exhale sharply and get in. My father offered to have a car pick me up, but I’d rather drive myself. Ever since we were kids, I’ve been the one who preferred things to be… simple, I suppose. My parents and brother like expensive name brands, and are always trying to make an
entrance wherever they go, I stay in the back and under the radar. I always have.
As soon as I pull into the driveway of the Shady Tail, a slick black town car is sitting in front with its lights on, a plume of muffler smoke clouding the entrance. The back window rolls down, so I roll mine down. My dad looks back at me from the back seat, his hair slicked back and face freshly shaven; menacing eyes staring right at me.
“Follow us,” he grumbles before rolling the window back up.
The car slowly pulls away, I tuck up behind it and follow. We pass tall skyscrapers, people crowding the streets, and head away from town and toward Brooklyn. Down a seedy street, away from more lights and people, and down the rabbit hole where criminals and the most-wanted of thieves do their hustling.
My Navigator rocks back and forth as we turn off the road and onto gravel, darkness crawling all around us and eating any light the street lamps may offer. Driving under a bridge with spray-painted symbols all over it, the hair on the back of my neck stands on full alert. Headlights just up ahead of a van and a small car I can’t make out seem to be where my father’s town car is heading. Our headlights dancing through the ominous night, offering pieces of light momentarily before being taken away and given back, the town car’s brake lights light up the underpass, and we stop.
Tony and Leo get out first, both in suits, and their hands cupped in front of them, Gio must have had something else to do as he’s not here. My two uncles are Dad’s protection for the night. I look to my passenger seat, looks like I have my own back tonight. Taking my gun from its holster right under my jacket, I check it to make sure the saftety lock is off and put it back in its place.
“Here we go,” I breathe out, stepping out of the car. A man and two others get out of the van and greet my father as I approach, their small talk so quiet I can barely hear what’s being said.
“I promise you my product is the best, you won’t find any better,” the man says with a cheesy smile, his accent so thick the English he does speak is choppy and hard to understand. The glow from the headlights dance around his face show stubble and thick lips, his skin golden dark. He’s wearing a long tan coat with a scarf around his neck, the men behind him in dark slacks and white button-ups. I’ve never seen them around before, and I don’t remember Kieran ever mentioning them. I look to the van, curious what they’re hauling. Drugs, guns?
Taking a step away from the man and his sales pitch, I tread lightly to the van and cup my hands around my face and peer inside the glass window. Something moves, dainty chatter from inside making my eyes widen. My brows furrow, and my mouth parts. What the fuck is in there? There’s people inside, and judging from the movement I saw, quite a few. Is Dad buying men to work for us? My mind races with what’s inside, and I do what no man should ever do in a trade.
I head to the other side of the van and jerk the doors open, finding a slew of women.
Their faces frightened, the smell of body odor strong, and sounds of light cries make my skin crawl.
NO!
I’m not being a part of this. Taking advantage of women is not something I wish to participate in. I don’t know, maybe it’s because of my mother I refuse to see a woman as an object. Either way, I simply can’t do this. My stomach rolls, and the urge to puke has me swallowing twice.
“Hey! Hey!” The man points at me, rounding the van. The one trying to sell these women. I ignore him.
“Do you know what the fuck he’s trying to sell you?” I look to my dad, who follows the man around the van. He glances at the women, his face seeming unaffected by their terror. He knew about this?
“I’m not doing this. I won’t be a part of this,” I tell him, shaking my head. I’ll kill, rob, beat the shit out of, and even bury someone alive, but I won’t have any part in trafficking women.
“Problem?” the guy asks, looking to my father and then to me. I run my hands through my hair, stepping away from the van as if it’s holding a ticking bomb.
“Yeah, there’s a problem. We won’t be buying,” I sneer, my hair falling back into my eyes.
“Romeo,” Father warns me, as if I’m embarrassing him.
“This is good, these are good!” the man shouts, his face pulling into anger.
“Are you kidding me?” My head tilts to the side with disbelief.
“You can do whatever you want with them. Sex, drugs, anything you—”
I pull my gun from its holster ready to kill this guy and do the world a favor. His two men draw their guns, aiming right at me.
Tony and Leo pull theirs from their holsters and point them as well and it’s instantly a giant shitshow. Maybe I could have pulled my father to the side and told him what I thought of this exchange, been more collected and cool about the whole thing but… fuck that. I knew my father was going to bring me into the worst possible situation, and he did.
The man reaches inside the van, jerking a woman out until she falls on her feet. He takes a gun from one of his men and points it at her.
She weeps, her long hair covering her face like a dark curtain of mud and tangles. Her fingers digging into the ground as her knees shake with terror.
“You take one, or I kill her!” he threatens. My eyes pop to his. “You disrespect me, and my product. You take one.” He pulls the chamber back and aims back at her, women inside of the van scream and hold on to one another. “Or I kill her!” he repeats.
My heart races inside my chest, my palm sweaty and finger caressing the trigger. If I shoot him he’d still manage to shoot her, and one of his men will shoot me, or the man would shoot me and his other goon shoot one of my uncles or father. Either way, someone is getting shot and killed if I don’t accept this woman.
I lower my gun, my lips pressed into a fine line. I can’t say it. I won’t say I’ll take her.
“Sold,” my father says, reaching out and pressing his hand on the man’s gun, lowering its aim to the ground.
The man lifts his shoulders as a way to relax himself and hands the gun to his goon.
“Good.” He smiles and looks to my father.
“You’ll see, you will like and you will contact me for more,” the man says, in short words. His English shit.
Dad pulls out his phone, the screen lighting up his face like a ghost in the night. One that hunts under bridges and buys innocent women.
“The money has been wired. Now I think you’d better leave before I lose my temper for your disrespect at my son,” Father says with a sharp tongue, his nostrils flaring. Shock has my mouth parting, he’s standing up for me instead of being angry. This is a first. I was sure he’d tell the guy to just go ahead and kill me.
The man gives a curt nod and gets into the passenger side of the car, the doors close to the van concealing women whose faces are probably on missing posters in markets and telephone poles around the world.
When they’re gone, just the lights from my car and my father’s town car giving off a low glow.
“Take her,” my father demands, his voice angry. My eyes snap from the girl to him. He wasn’t angry with the seller, he’s angry with me. I knew it.
“No,” I tell him.
“You got us into this by opening your fucking mouth, you take her. She’s yours.”
He reaches down, grabbing the girl by the arm and raising her to her feet. She whimpers, her body nothing but bones under a cheap dress. He shoves her into me, and I catch her. The feel of her cheap dress under my fingers, and the smell of body odor causing me to want to drop her on the spot.
“I said take her,” he growls under his breath.
“Why would you agree to meet a man selling women? Does Kieran know you’re in trafficking?” I shout, the vein in my neck drumming to the beat of my heart.
“Don’t say that name around me again, he’s dead to me!” He points at me, his chubby chin jiggling as he talks with rage. I scoff, out of everything I just said, that’s what he takes away from it; the mention of my brother’s name.
Without another
glance in my direction, he gets into the back of his car, and Leo gives me a sympathetic look.
“What am I supposed to do with her?” I snap, still holding on to the poor thing.
“Like the man said, whatever you want.” Leo shrugs and gets into the car, leaving.
Another vehicle gone, it’s even darker under the bridge. I can hear the shallow breaths coming from the woman as she clings on to me as if she’s too scared to move. Using my strength, I try to pull her to her feet.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I whisper, and her legs lock, allowing her to stand. She’s short, at least a foot shorter than me. Her head hangs, her hair in her face, her chest rising up and down as she gasps for air.
“You can leave, you can run right now and I won’t stop you,” I tell her, wanting her to be free. I’m done with my father. Fuck being a DeAngelo. If this is what it means to have power, then I don’t want it.
Outstretching my hand, I tuck a finger under her chin, the skin dirty and cold, and force her to look up at me. Her breath skips across my hand as she looks at me with so much fear I can literally feel it in my own bones.
“Run,” I whisper gravely.
Her eyes flutter, and she falls right back into my arms. She fainted. Fuck.
Putting her in the back seat, I drive all the way back to the city, nervous she’s going to wake up and jump from the car any second. I keep my eye on her from the rearview mirror. She’s malnourished, dirty, and the dress she has on is hideous. A cheap knock-off of Cinderella.
What the fuck was my father thinking? What would Mom think if she knew? I might be a lot of fucked up things, but apparently even I have a line I will not cross.
Finally reaching my apartment, I get out and feel a mist of rain cascading down with a slight wind. I open the back door and find the girl still out cold. I look around to make sure there’s nobody around, thankfully this hour of the night traffic is light and I don’t see anyone out walking their damn dog. I look at my apartment building and the windows overhead, this is going to look bad but I can’t just leave her in the damn car. I pick her up and toss her over my shoulder. She weighs practically nothing and is dirty as hell. She has no shoes on either. Jesus, I feel like I have a rug over my shoulder that was just taken straight from the goddamn desert. My anxiety that someone will say something has me able to carry her with ease, my steps hurried as I try to dash into the building.