Rhonda took his cash, and he pulled me out of the house.
He let me ride in the front seat of his car. I’d never been in such an expensive vehicle. The leather seats radiated heat. It had been so long since I’d been warm.
“Hungry?” he asked, pulling into a fast-food drive-thru.
“Yes,” I answered.
He ordered me a pack of chicken nuggets and french fries.
“Rhonda doesn’t know she’s talking about. Guys like a little cushion on their women.” He handed me the food and drove away from the restaurant. “How old are you?”
“I just turned thirteen last week.” I tried to keep myself from shaking.
“A lot of dates will ask you that. You just tell them it don’t matter. Got that?” He stole a french fry. “You like doing this?”
“Sure,” I said, my jaw tensing.
“Don’t lie. You hate it. I know you do.”
I nodded, chewing.
“Nobody likes this, you know. It’s survival.” He wiped his nose with the back of his index finger. “But nobody in the whole world likes their job. You think the guy that fried up that food for six bucks an hour likes it? Nope. But he’s got to do it. He’s got to survive.”
The city moved so fast out my window, I couldn’t be sure where he was taking me. My head ached from trying to figure it out.
“How many tricks did you turn every night for Rhonda?” he asked.
“Ten. Sometimes fifteen. I’d do any she could get.”
“That’s not how we do things. Here’s how it works. You have to meet up with one of my guys at the motel every hour with one-hundred bucks on weeknights, two-hundred on weekends.” He spoke in a professional tone. Like explaining a business transaction. “I don’t care how you get it. You just got to deliver the cash every hour. On time. And whatever extra you get is yours.”
I nodded.
“It’s pretty simple. Problem is, if you don’t have the money there are consequences.” He parallel-parked the car in front of a dark, rundown motel. “And if you don’t show up, one of my guys will come looking for you. And if you run away, we will find you. And then you will disappear for good. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
“We got eyes and ears all over this city. You believe me?”
I nodded.
“You’ll get arrested. It happens a lot.” He smoothed back his hair. “If they ask you who you work for, tell them you work for yourself. If you tell them about us, we’ll find out. I promise you that. Fact is, some of the cops will just ask you to ‘do’ them and then they’ll let you go. That’s always the best thing to do. They don’t pay for it, but you don’t got to spend the night in jail. Got it?”
“Okay.”
“But you get arrested by a female cop, well, you’re screwed.”
I nodded.
“This is where you’ll stay.” He pointed at the building. “It’s abandoned. The cops don’t know anybody lives here. Let’s keep it that way. Don’t bring dates here. Take care of business in their hotels or in their cars.”
“Okay.”
“You ever shoot up?”
“I have a couple times. Jinx gave it to me.”
“You ever do meth?”
“Just once,” I said. “Rhonda showed me how. Said it made things easier.”
“Well, at least she’s right about one thing,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“I can make sure you get whatever you need.” He pulled a baggy out of the glove box. “It’ll come out of your own money. And use a clean needle every time. I don’t need you getting AIDS.”
I got out of his car. He called me back.
“You got to report to Mack right here on this corner at eleven tonight. That’s when the first hundred is due.” He put the car in drive. “Don’t be late.”
“How will I know it’s him?” I asked, leaning into the window.
“You can’t miss him. Mack’s got to be four-hundred pounds.”
The man sped away, leaving me to figure out where to sleep, how to find dates, how long I’d be expected to bring money to Mack.
That night I worked so hard just to survive. Every man who used me made me sick, regardless of who they were or how they were different from the last one. Young, old, clean, dirty, educated, ignorant. I just closed my eyes, praying that they would finish fast. That they wouldn’t hurt me.
From that night on I spent most of my money on what I injected into my arm. I knew it wasn’t right. But I had to do what it took to survive.
~*~
The color had drained out of Paul’s face. His eyes turned down and his hands clinched together into one big fist, knuckles turning white.
“This all started when you were twelve?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s way too young.” His jaw clenched.
“I know.”
He rubbed his eyes with the meat of his hands.
“You must think all men are so bad,” he said.
“Not all of them.” I cleared my throat. “A lot of them, yes. But I think that if they knew what they were doing they’d stop.”
“I don’t know.” He couldn’t look at me. “I think they know the girls are too young. I mean, there’s no way a thirteen-year-old can look old enough.”
“Well, they don’t exactly spend a lot of time thinking about what they’re doing.”
The silence between us thickened, suffocating me. I cleared my throat, sniffed a little. Just to have some kind of noise.
“I’m sorry, Dot. This is just making me really angry.”
“I guess that’s pretty normal.”
“This shouldn’t have happened to you.”
“When I started working for Mack, he took me to this place. Somebody’s house.” I pulled up my sleeve. “He had his name tattooed on my arm.”
“Why?” He covered the black ink scar with his hand.
“A lot of them brand their girls. That way everybody knows who they belong to. I’m just lucky. Mine is easy to hide.”
“You aren’t an animal.” He closed his eyes. “Is there more?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I guess I’m ready to hear it. Are you all right?” He opened his eyes and looked at me.
“I am,” I answered. “I kind of want to get this over with.”
He squeezed my arm gently. “I just wish I could have protected you.”
“Me, too.”
~*~
I’d been walking the track for over a month. It didn’t take me long to figure out where to go to meet the men who paid higher prices to use me. I learned how to look at them, what to say.
Every day, before going out, I wondered about my future. If I even had one. How long could I do the drugs before overdosing. When the date would come that got pleasure from strangling me. How long I had before Mack got tired of me and dumped me under a bridge.
No one would care about one more dead whore.
Every once in a while a girl disappeared or rumors spread about how she was murdered or moved away. Sometimes, they did it to punish the girls. Other times, they moved them or killed them because someone was poking around. Asking too many questions. Trying to rescue their daughter or friend.
I tried to mind my own business. I didn’t become friends with the other girls in the motel. Early on I realized that it was important to switch up dealers and neighborhoods just to keep myself safe. Survival wasn’t easy. But I knew I had to do it by myself.
One night a man pulled up and rolled down the window of his SUV.
“Hey, you want a date?” I asked, flipping my hair and swaying my hips. I wore a pouty smile.
“Get in,” the man said, unlocking the doors.
“What ya want, handsome?” I asked, climbing in.
“What all do you do?” He licked his lips, ogled my body.
“Everything,” I said. “Anything you want.”
“Tell me.” He wrinkled his nose.
> I listed everything I did and how much I charged. He touched me as I spoke.
“Hey, I get paid first,” I said.
“Sounds fair.” He handed me a few twenty-dollar bills.
As soon as I put the money in my pocket the door opened and someone pulled me out.
“You’re under arrest for solicitation,” a woman in uniform said as she handcuffed me.
She stuffed me in the back of a squad car and drove me to the station. She glanced back at me every few minutes. Her eyes squinted.
At the police station they took my mug shot, fingerprinted me and told me to sit in a small room. The officer who arrested me entered the room. She sat on the edge of the table, looking down at me.
“Can we get a bigger room?” I asked. “I’m a little claustrophobic.”
“Nope,” she answered, flipping through a file. “What’s your name?”
“You want my real name or my street name?”
“What do you think?”
“My name’s Dorothea Schmidt.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirteen.”
“A little young to be out selling yourself, huh?” she asked, harsh voiced. “Walking the track like a big girl, huh?”
“Yeah. I really enjoy my job,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“How long have you been a prostitute?”
“I don’t know. Almost a year maybe.”
“What’s your pimp’s name?”
“I don’t have a pimp.”
“Really.” She pointed at the tattoo on my arm. “You don’t happen to work for Mack? Big fat guy?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I paused. “Seriously, lady. Do you really think that a kid like me wakes up one day and just decides that she wants to be a hooker?”
“Oh, honey,” she said, her tone patronizing. “Do you know how many times a day we hear that?”
“Then maybe you should start listening.” I leaned forward. “If I stopped doing this, they would kill me. Do you even understand that?”
“Well, you don’t look like you have a leash around your neck.” She pointed to the track marks on my arms. The proof of my heroin habit. “And I see you aren’t too good to party.”
“I’m not talking to you anymore.” I folded my arms across my chest. “So either lock me up or let me go.”
I spent the night in jail. They released me before the sun broke the darkness of the morning. That day Mack beat me up for not bringing him enough money. He didn’t care that I’d been arrested. He told me I should have been more careful.
Cora – 53
The image in the mirror startled me. Still smelling of hair dye, my auburn locks rested on my shoulders. I saw myself in the mirror. A skinnier, older, more worn-out version of me. Even with all the baked goods Lisa had been feeding me, I was still too thin. Lines ran deep through the skin of my face that hadn’t been there ten years before. All my skin sagged, hanging loosely on my bones. My neck rippled with old, funny-looking flesh that had a strange, tissue-paper-like texture.
The hair dye helped, but it couldn’t reverse the aging process. It was natural. I decided to accept it.
Pulling my hair back and twisting it into a bun, I thought of the day I met Steven. I closed my eyes, trying to remember his face, his voice, his scent. The way he looked at me. He loved me. He really had.
What a journey my life had become. How I wished I could have shared more with him. Everything would have been different. We could have watched our children grow up. He could have been with me to meet my sister. I could have told him about my childhood. And I knew he would have helped me heal from it all.
But I couldn’t have changed what happened to him. He was gone. Dead. And I was alive because God kept me from so many things that could have killed me. I needed to stop trying to make up for all the ugly, dark moments in my life. To stop cleaning up the messes. To let them be. And to learn from them. To find joy in the God that heals.
“I want to live for You,” I prayed. “Help me to start over.”
Dot – 54
Winter was a tough time for girls working on the streets. The freezing wind stung my face, cut through my jacket. I pulled it closed around me. Feeling the fake leather, the torn out pocket, I stood with my back against an old, red-brick building. I waited for someone, anyone, to stop. I needed a date.
It was the week after my arrest. A blizzard blanketed the city in white and it seemed like everybody stayed home, out of the snow. But I had to work.
“You gots to make up for your night off,” Mack had said after my arrest. “Two-fifty every hour.”
I didn’t remind him that my night off had been spent in jail.
That night, holding my jacket closed, standing against the building, I’d only earned twenty-five dollars. Nobody would stop for me. The fat lip, the black eyes just weren’t attractive to the dates. I wore a stocking cap to cover up the places where Mack had ripped out my hair.
I hadn’t shot up all day. I shook, nauseous from withdrawal. Every time I breathed, my heart fluttered, my gut clenched, knowing that I needed a fix. But I couldn’t spend the twenty-five bucks on heroin. Mack knew all the drug dealers. They would tell him.
“Jesus, I need You,” I prayed out loud into the icy air, my breath making smoke from my lips. “It doesn’t matter what You do with me. But You have to make this end. I can’t do it anymore. Just let me freeze to death. Please, don’t let Mack kill me.”
I slumped down to the sidewalk, back still resting on the building. The pavement’s chill absorbed into my legs through the tiny, denim skirt. I pulled my knees up to my chest.
A police car drove past me slowly. The officer looked at me as he went by. He parked up the road and left the engine running. Within a few minutes an old Jeep pulled up next to me. I saw a woman inside. For a split second, I thought it was my mom. I thought for sure I’d lost my mind from the withdrawals.
“Would you like to get in, young lady?” she asked through the cracked-open door.
“Well, that would be a first,” I answered, standing up. I’d never had a woman pick me up before.
I climbed into the vehicle from the passenger’s side. The vent blasted warm air onto my face. My teeth chattered.
“Here’s the thing. There’s a cop right there, so we’ll have to go some place else.” I looked at her. “And it’s going to be two-hundred-fifty bucks for whatever you want. But we have to make it quick. I got somewhere to be in ten minutes.”
“That much, huh?” she asked.
“Yeah, that much. Come on. I’m not kidding, lady. That ten minutes is serious business.”
“What’s your name?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I tucked my hands in my armpits to hide the jittering. “We can go to an ATM if you need to.”
“My name is Lola.”
“Nice. Listen, Lola. If you just want to talk, that’s fine. But I need the cash first. And you’d better start driving. That cop’s watching us.”
“Do you want to stop doing this?”
“What, hooking? Yeah. I mean, who wouldn’t? We all hate it. But it’s survival, right?” I cleared my throat. “Even the guy flipping burgers hates his job. But we all have to find a way to survive.”
“Oh, you work for Edmund.”
“Who’s that?” I asked, gnawing on my thumb nail.
“Right, he wouldn’t have told you his name. Edmund is the head of a prostitution ring. He drives a nice car, wears expensive clothes.”
“Yeah, that’s him.” I squinted my eyes at her. “Are you a cop?”
“No.” She paused. “How old are you?”
“Are you sure you aren’t a cop? I really can’t get arrested again. Seriously, I’m still trying to get enough money to pay my pimp for the last time.”
“I promise that I am not a police officer.”
I looked at her face. Same color eyes as my mom. Same face shape. But there was something different about her. This woman’s sm
ile seemed to go from her feet to the top of her head.
“What’s your deal, lady?” I tried to keep my voice tough.
“Believe it or not, I used to work these streets. Years and years ago.”
“No kidding.” I held the door handle of the truck with one hand. “Then you’ll understand why I need to get that money right now. So if you’re from some kind of charity, I’ll take all the cash you can give me. But I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“I do understand.” She looked directly into my eyes. “But you don’t have to do this anymore. You can come with me right now and get help.”
“You are a cop.” I cussed at her. “You lied to me.”
“No, dear. I didn’t. But I do have a safe place where you can live.”
“I’ve done that before.” I thought of Jinx. “I’m not doing that again. It was a trap.”
“This isn’t a trap. It’s a place where you can heal.”
“What about him?” I pointed to the police car.
“He’s the one who called me. He knew I could help you.”
“And you aren’t taking me to jail?”
“No.”
“Are you going to let me shoot up first? I’m already sick. I need something.”
“You’ll get sicker before you get better. That’s the truth. But that poison will kill you. I can help you through the withdrawal.”
“And what about my pimp? He’ll come looking for me. He’ll kill me.”
“My neighbors don’t take kindly to Edmund and his pimps. They watch out for us.” Her eyes sparkled. “And I have a stronger Protector than even them. My God will watch over you. And He never sleeps. He will guard you.”
“I don’t know.”
“No pimp has ever hurt a girl from my home.”
“But what about my stuff? It’s all back at the motel and Mack’s there.”
“Our police officer friend will be glad to get it for you.”
“Will he arrest Mack?”
“If you’re willing to testify against him, yes.”
I looked at the clock on the dashboard. Five minutes past my meet up time. I had nothing to lose.
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