Sex and Crime: Oliver's Strange Journey

by Oliver Markus

  As soon as I pulled out of the gate of my community, there was already a police cruiser behind me. I got nervous. Was this just a coincidence, or had this cop been waiting for me inside of the community?

  As soon as I passed the gate, I made a left turn. The cruiser followed me and turned on his flashing lights. I pulled over. The cop got out of his car and walked up to my window. "Where's the female?" he demanded to know.

  I was shocked. Of course I knew he meant Veronica, but I tried to play stupid and slowly pointed at the female dog sitting next to me. "You mean her?"

  "Don't bullshit me. You know who I'm talking about. If you don't tell me right now where she is, I'll arrest you for aiding and abetting a fugitive," the cop said.

  Oh my God, I'm going to jail, I thought. It's finally gonna happen! After driving to trap houses a hundred times, I'm gonna end up getting arrested right in front of my own house. I was scared. "She's in my house," I said quietly. I tried to look calm, like I didn't have a care in the world, but my heart was pounding.

  By now three other police cruisers had pulled up behind us. This was turning into a major production. I felt like I was gonna be on the evening news, in handcuffs.

  "Give me your cell phone and the car keys," the cop demanded. Then he talked to the other cops. They took my keys and drove back into the community to arrest Veronica, while he waited with me.

  He asked me if there are any weapons in my apartment. I told him about my gun, but I stressed the fact that Veronica didn't know that I had one, or where it was. He warned the other cops that she may be armed and dangerous. I told him again that she didn't know about the gun. I was sweating bullets, because when a felon lives in a house with a gun, she is technically in possession of the gun. That's another felony right there. And they could have charged me with a felony for giving a gun to a felon.

  The cops went into my apartment and looked for Veronica, but they couldn't find her. They radioed the officer who was waiting with me. He asked me where she was hiding and if I had warned her. I told him no I didn't, I couldn't, because he had my cell phone.

  Then he looked at my phone and said that she was texting me. He read me her message: "Why would u do this to me? I love u! I thought u love me too."

  I felt so bad. I didn't want her to think I turned her in. Not now. We were finally getting along. We had been having a good time together for the past two days, while we were staying at my place with Venus. Things were finally starting to be the way I had always pictured them in my head. Veronica and me at home, spending some quality time together, without all these other crazy crackheads or dope boys.

  The other officers couldn't find Veronica, because she was hiding behind a closet door in my guest bathroom. When she texted me that message that the cop read to me, she also texted her mother, and told her that I had called the cops on her, that she was hiding in my bathroom, and that Rachel should come rescue her. But instead, Rachel told the cops where her daughter was hiding in my house.

  The other officers returned to my car and handed me my gun. They didn't charge Veronica or me with it. That was really nice of them. Then they told me: "We saw her crack pipe on your dining room table. If we don't find her, we will charge you with that pipe and take you in." Terrific! I knew it. I was going to jail today.

  Then their police radios crackled. The cops stepped away and talked on their radios and then to each other. They had gotten a call from their dispatcher, with new information from Rachel. That's when I realized what was going on: Rachel had told the cops hours ago that she would meet up with Veronica, and told them to arrest her, because she had a warrant. So for the past few hours, the cops had been waiting at Starbucks, and then later at McDonald's, to arrest Veronica, just like I had thought. But when I told Rachel I was going to meet her alone, the cops came to my house and waited for me.

  We all went back to my place. The cops told me to go get Veronica out of the bathroom. She cried and told me to go away. I felt terrible. I just wanted to give her a hug, and make it all better somehow, but the cops followed me into the bathroom and arrested her.

  "Will you please tell her it wasn't me?" I begged the officer who grabbed her.

  "It really wasn't him," the cop assured Veronica and then took her outside. All the officers left. It still didn't really sink in yet what just happened.

  I went into the living room. Venus was hiding under the table. One of the cops came back and said Rachel was on her way here to pick up the dog.

  "I don't want her here," I told him. "I can't stand that woman. She's the reason why Veronica is an addict. And I can't believe she would do THIS to her."

  "If you don't give her the dog, she might press charges for theft," the officer replied.

  I wasn't in the mood to argue. I was stressed out enough already. "Alright fine. But you give her the dog. I don't even want to look at that woman right now."

  The cop tried to help me catch Venus, but she was too quick. She kept hiding under the dining room table, then squirreled her way behind the couch, then around the living room table back under the dining room table. "Ah, fuck it. Ok, tell Rachel she can come get the dog," I said. The officer left. Venus calmed down a bit, and I was able to catch her. I had her in my arms, when Rachel came knocking. I opened the door and handed her the dog.

  "Ohhh hiii Oliver," she said in this fake friendly tone of voice that made me want to kick her in the ovaries. "Thank you sooo muuuch for taking care of Venus for me!"

  I didn't say anything. God, I hated that cunt. The officer who accompanied Rachel said: "Veronica left her crack pipe and needle lying around your house. We didn't charge you with it this time, but you better get rid of that stuff right away."

  A few minutes later, Rachel knocked on my door again: "Oh, can I have Veronica's phone pleaseee?"

  I really didn't want to give it to her, but it was lying right there on the kitchen counter, in plain sight of the officer who accompanied her again. I handed it to her without saying a word.

  "Thank you sooo muuuch, Oliver."

  I shoulda kicked her in the vagina, but then I probably woulda lost my shoe. Just kidding.

  About 3 or 4 weeks later, Rachel moved in right next door from me. Riiiight... next... door! Jesus H Christ! What... the... Fuck?!? What kind of a crazy psycho does that? I guess she figured now that her daughter was going to be out of commission for a while, I was fair game, and she was probably planning to make a move on me again, like she had done last year, while Veronica was at the Salvation Army.

  LCJ SOAP OPERA

  "Life is like Friday on a soap opera. It gives you the illusion that everything is going to wrap up, and then the same old shit starts up on Monday."

  Stephen King

  A few hours later, Veronica called me from jail: "I can't believe my mother did this to me. I HATE HER! I never want to talk to her again. I was just getting used to living at our condo, with you and Venus. I was looking forward to our life together. Honestly, while I was in jail last time, I was worried that I wouldn't to be able to be sober and live up to your expectations. I felt like I was gonna let you down, and that I would be really uncomfortable. I thought I would feel like I'm under a microscope all the time. But I really liked living with you. I was comfortable. And happy. I fell in love with you all over again. I feel like my mother ripped me out of our life together. I will NEVER forgive her for this!"

  I felt the same way. While she was staying with me for those two days, I finally felt like things could actually work out. I felt like my sobriety would rub off on her. And because she was such a personality mirror, who always took her behavioral cues from the people around her, I thought that, while living with me, she would learn to be kind, lovable, humble, charitable, honest and loyal, because I'd like to think that those are my most dominant character traits.

  "I want to put that bitch in jail," Veronica said. "My mother is a junkie, just like me, but she's always on her high horse, like she's better than me, because she has never been arrest
ed. I want to knock that halo off her head. I want her to go to jail and know what it's like! Let's think of a way to get her locked up! Maybe we can have her arrested for stealing Venus. She's my dog, and if you go get my paperwork from the vet, we can prove it."

  When Veronica called me back the next morning, she asked me what I was doing. She was worried that I would start hanging out with other girls again: "I know I have hurt you really bad, and I really have no right to ask you not to hang out with other girls while I'm in jail. But I just want you to know that I really love you, and it would hurt me a lot if you start seeing other girls."

  I promised her that I wouldn't. I had waited for her this long, a few more months wouldn't make much of a difference at this point, as long as she promised not to run off again next time she gets out, and not to cheat on me any more while she's in jail. No jailhouse romance, no "special friends," no sex with someone else, no love letters. I wanted her to be 100% faithful and loyal to me, just like I would be to her. I wanted to have a normal relationship with her. Love is a deep bond between 2 people. Not 3 or more.

  She swore she would be good this time: "Trust me, I have learned my lesson. I am never going to hurt you again. I am so sick of these grimey people in jail. I can't stand any of them. I have no interest in dating them, or even talking to them. I just want to come home to you, make love to you, and live with you. I want to have a baby with you. I'm not going to it fuck up again."

  Then she told me that she knew she couldn't ask me to sit home alone for months again. She said: "If you're going to hang out with anyone else, I'd be least hurt, if it was with Lucy. I don't want you hanging out with any other girls at all, but if you are gonna hang out with one, I'd rather it be with Lucy than someone else."

  I figured that was her way of saying: "I know you're going to want to have sex, and I can't expect you to be celibate for yet another year, just because I fucked things up between us again. I know this was all my fault. I owe you one. So go have sex with Lucy, you have my blessing." I don't know if that's really what she meant, but that's how I took it.

  Lucy called me a little while later. She was staying at the Suburban on Metro and Colonial, with her latest pimp, Wigger. He was a white nigger. He sagged his ghetto chic pants, spoke in incomprehensible ebonic gibberish, like he had been dropped on his head as a baby, and walked with a bounce in his step, because he thought he had swag. Man, I hated that little douchebag.

  It was the same deal as always: He pimped Lucy out, took her money for the hotel room, took her money if he drove her to outcalls, had sex with her, fed her drugs, and took whatever money she had left. She degraded herself on Backpage all day long, and then had not a penny to show for it at the end of each day. I hated all these fucking lowlives who took advantage of her. But she thought these guys were her "friends."

  I told Lucy that Veronica's mother had her arrested while she was staying with me. Lucy was glad that Veronica was out of the picture, and she had me all to herself. I told her that Veronica said that if I was going to hang out with any other girl, she wanted it to be Lucy. Lucy thought that was funny. "Does Veronica know we're having sex?" she asked.

  "Yeah, of course," I replied. "Well, she knows we used to hang out every day when she ran off after getting out of jail and getting Jasmine's name tattooed on her wrist. I haven't really told her yet that you and I are hanging out right now, or that we're still having sex."

  Veronica called me later that day, and I asked Lucy to be quiet, because I didn't want to rub things in Veronica's face and hurt her feelings. Lucy didn't listen. Instead, she tickled me, grabbed my phone and started laughing into it. She thought it was hilarious. Luckily Veronica didn't hear Lucy, because the Global Tel collect call message was still playing, and Lucy hadn't pressed zero to accept the call yet. I wrestled the phone away from her, gave her a dirty look, and walked out of the room, so I could talk to Veronica in private.

  Every time Veronica called, Lucy tried to make noise or grab the phone. She wanted Veronica to know that I was spending every day with her.

  I saw on her aunt Nicole's Facebook page, that Lucy's younger sister Summer was in Cape Coral Hospital with liver failure. She had a serious drinking problem. I told Lucy about her sister's condition. She asked me if I could drive her to the hospital to see her. I agreed. Then she asked me if we could go buy some little presents for Summer first. We went to the CVS on the corner of 41 and Edison Avenue and she bought some crayons and paper for Summer.

  It was getting later and later. Instead of going straight to the hospital, Lucy wanted to stop here and there, to meet up with different dope boys and get more drugs. Then she asked me to take her back to her room at the Suburban. She had cooked dinner for me, but we didn't get a chance to eat, because we were in a hurry to go see Summer before the visiting hours at the hospital were over. That was hours ago.

  She told me she wanted to do some more drugs in her room, before we headed to the hospital. She shot up and then started smoking crack. This was taking forever. She knew I was getting annoyed, because I had offered to take her to go see her sister in Cape Coral, and all she did was waste hour after hour with this drug bullshit.

  She said she wanted to have sex before we were going to go see Summer. She told me to take my clothes off and get my dick hard for her, so I'd be ready for her by the time she's done smoking crack. I masturbated for an hour, while she paced around the room smoking crack, or sat down on the bed next to me, occasionally rubbing my dick with one hand, while playing with the phone in her other hand, or sucking the head of my painfully hard dick for a few seconds with a little smirk on her face, because she knew she was teasing me and it was driving me crazy.

  Then Wigger called her and said that he needed the room. He was on his way up. Great. I was so frustrated.

  "I can tell him to wait in the hallway while we fuck," Lucy said.

  "Nah, thanks. I don't like having sex while people are waiting for me to finish on the other side of the door. That's fucking creepy," I replied.

  Lucy let Wigger and some other girl into the room. She asked me not to leave, because she still wanted to go see her sister. She said she just needed to talk to Wigger for a minute first. They disappeared in the bathroom together. They were in there for half an hour, while the other girl and I were sitting in the room, waiting. I was getting so disgusted.

  I really didn't want to think about Lucy fucking that douchebag in the bathroom, but a few days earlier, she and I had taken a shower together in her room at the Super 8, and when her pimp G-Force unexpectedly came back to the room, she gave me a blowjob in the shower, while G-Force was sitting on the bed, watching TV.

  I tried to convince myself that she wasn't doing the same damn thing with Wigger right now, and that they were probably just talking in the bathroom. Negotiating about drugs or something.

  Finally they came out of the bathroom. I asked Lucy if she was ready to go see her sister now. She said no, she wanted to smoke more crack now. I was so fed up, I left. It was midnight.

  Around 3 am, she called me and asked me if I would drive her to the hospital the next morning. I said yes. At 8 am she called me and told me that Wigger would drive her instead. I said: "Fine. Whatever," and went back to sleep.

  Later that day I was in the mall. Lucy called me, but there was a lot of noise, so I didn't answer. About half an hour later, after I left the mall, I called her back. Wigger answered her phone. He told me she had called me while getting arrested for drug possession, and she was on her way to jail now.

  It had barely been a week since Veronica had been arrested at my house, and now Lucy was in jail, too. And Haley had been in jail for months already. Haley and Lucy were in dorm 1, the trustee dorm. Trustees are inmates who work in the laundry room, or the kitchen. Or they clean. They get preferential treatment and double food rations. Veronica was in dorm 4.

  I hadn't talked to Haley in a few months, after I changed my number for Veronica, so other girls couldn't call me anymore. But a
fter Veronica ran off, and I started seeing Lucy, I had sent a thank you note to some of the 14 girls who had warned me about Veronica. Snitching is frowned upon in jail, even though pretty much all of them have turned each other in at some point or another to collect the Crimestoppers reward.