Broken Girl

by Gretchen de La O

  My heart throbbed in my chest. I inched closer to Shane’s office to see who in the hell he was talking to. I saw that she had on a long black trench coat and matching spiked stilettos. Jealousy stabbed at my gut.

  “Oh, I appreciate that, but—” Shane’s voice had echoed against the flimsy walls.

  “Well, I just want to return the favor, even if it’s paid back in a little different way. You know, this offer does expire. A girl can only be turned down so many times before she stops offering.”

  The woman had spun his chair around and wedged her stiletto between his legs. I craned my neck around to see what the hell this woman was going to do to my man. Shane had let out a nervous chuckle before he answered.

  “Well, Crystal, you are a very beautiful woman and like I’ve said before, if I was ever interested in your type of service, you’d definitely be the first woman I’d call. But right now I’m pretty satisfied in that department of my life, and truthfully, I don’t think my girl would like this very much.”

  Shane volleyed his hands back and forth. “But, hey, just knowing you’re okay is enough for me. No disrespect, I’ve just never been into . . . this.” He slipped his hand down between his legs and removed her foot.

  My heart thrashed in my chest before crashing incessantly against my bones, my ears filled with a slight buzz. All those shitty feelings of unworthiness I buried deep began to boil to the surface of my skin. I was burning, aching for the possibility that Shane would see me for something more than a fucking whore. But his words to Crystal were clear and I heard them . . . he could never be with someone who sold her body to other men. The voice in my head took the opportunity to twist and stab his words into my already battered heart.

  You will never be anything more to him than a dirty whore. Just turn around and leave.

  Damaged goods.

  I pushed off the wall, hurried back to the washers and yanked all my damp clothes out. That was it; I listened to the advice from the voice in my head. Shane rejected me. Unknowingly or not, he basically told me that he could never be with me, even if his words were aimed at Crystal. She and I were prostitutes, whores, women who laid down with men for money. Adrenaline coursed through my veins feeding the urgency to leave, I couldn’t breathe anymore. I stuffed my laundry sack with my clothes and swung it over my shoulder before I high tailed it outta there. Questions poured through my mind and my inner voice was happy to answer.

  What the hell was Crystal doing there anyway?

  Well, Ro, you’re a whore, you know what she was doing!

  I never saw her come in. When did she come in?

  She came in expecting to fuck Shane and he turned her down, just like he’ll turn you down. Told you to fucking cut him loose.

  My back aching, barking at the pain of carrying what felt like a body flung over my shoulder. I never stopped until I was at my piece of shit ‘92 Le Baron. I tossed the laundry sack into my trunk, squeezed in between the door and drove home. Broken by the evidence that he’d never accept what I was, the words he spoke seared into my head. If I was interested in your type of service . . . I’m pretty satisfied in that department.

  I wasn’t supposed to let him in. I should have never come; I didn’t need to hear him say he had someone. Words began to saturate my mind, the same voice that always tried to bury me in my nightmares, attempted to lock me in the darkened closet I’d always thrown the most vulnerable part of myself.

  Come on Rose, you were the one all ready to leave him. Keep him wanting you, remember? You should have known he wouldn’t want your kind even before you came up on his conversation with that whore. Pull your shit together; be grateful it wasn’t more than a flirty moment in a crappy laundromat. Cut your losses.

  Major mental fucking note . . . avoid laundromats and dark alleys.

  ENERGY WAS SWIRLING rapidly through my body. So many thoughts fired off in my head, I had to keep myself busy. I pulled my clothes out of the laundry sack, and searched for enough hangers to hang up the couple of outfits I planned on wearing to work the next couple of nights. Black lacy top, tight shimmering black skirt and my black smooth bra, all hung to dry. I pulled on the thin strapped black see-through camisole and instantly my mind swirled to Shane’s face when he saw it. Damp to the touch, warm from being nestled between my cotton v-neck tops I wrapped it around my hands and pushed it to my nose. Inhaling, I wanted to go back and tell him I was worth anything he’d be willing to accept. The woman in me wanted to prove I was worth everything I had to offer, and yet the little girl in me was scared he’d reject me because of choices I was forced to make. Food or starve, a warm bed to sleep in or the cold dark sidewalks hugged by wrinkled asphalt. Selling my body for money wasn’t a choice, it was a result of survival.

  I was pulling on my black stretch skirt when Sybil came busting into our apartment. Her face flushed crimson, matching her bristle red hair as she scurried across to the kitchen sink and thrust her hands into the stream of water. Her breathing was jagged with huffs and growls. Her clothes pulled and tattered, the neckline of her shirt stretched and ripped.

  “You scared the shit out of me. Where have you been? What the fu—. Are you okay?” I asked as my problems vanished at the sight of her. Sybil looked like she had been run over by a bus. Her normally clear tawny eyes were dark and bloodshot. Vaulting her gaze between her hands and me, I could see she had dark arcs under her eyes, full moons of deep purple and black bruises circled both of her eye sockets.

  “Ro, I just spent the last twenty-four hours fighting for my life. I don’t wanna get into it with you right now, okay?” she blasted as she rubbed her hands under the clear water streaming from the faucet. I watched as the water drained a light Kool-Aid red.

  “Is that blood? What the fuck is going on?”

  I pushed the handle on the kitchen sink and clutched her by her biceps. Sybil and I were prostitutes without a pimp, renegades. That’s what they call us. But being renegades, we had to watch our backs constantly. She whimpered and winced at my grip.

  Seeing Sybil fucked up stirred within me the same fear and helplessness that pummeled me every time my mom flew off the handle and beat me. Feelings I’d buried and ran away from my whole life.

  “It’s nothin’ Ro, I took care of it.” She pulled her arms out of my grip and spun to her bed, taking off her tattered shirt before she tossed it to the floor.

  “Holy shit. Sybil, who the fuck did this to you?” I asked as I carefully dragged my hands down her bony spine and across her hip. Clusters of fist-sized red and purple splotched bruises coated her back. Lengthy scratches, too many to count, the shape of fingernails webbed through her ribcage on either side of her backbone draining down behind the waistband of her skirt.

  Sybil flinched as I pulled down her skirt and panties, exposing just the top of her ass. The scratches continued dragged down across a handful of more bruises.

  “I can’t tell you, Ro. Please don’t make me say,” she mumbled in a shaky voice. Frozen from the pain or embarrassment, Sybil pulled her skirt and panties back up over her ass before she wrapped her hands across her bruised and broken body.

  I grabbed one of the damp V-neck T-shirts from my bed and gently pulled it over her. Braless when she held up her hands she had just as many bruises across her chest and stomach. I watched her face as she helped me pull the shirt down. Grimacing at the pain, her puffy eyes almost swollen shut now, filled with tears, her lips, cracked and dry, bruised and inflamed, quivered as she tried to hold back her cry.

  She knew I was going to find out who did this to her. It was a matter of time before I’d be able to figure out what miserable fuck beat the shit out of her. Beyond all the bullshit, the stupid fight, the miscommunication and all the other crap, seeing Sybil like this bled deep in my heart. There was no way I was going to let any miserable fuck get away with what they had done to her.

  “Carl, right? It was that cock sucker Carl. He’d been after you for months—”

  “No,” she whis
pered.

  “Was it that asshole, Trey?”

  Sybil shook her head. “No, it wasn’t Trey either.” She took a shaky breath, trying to collect what little energy she had left.

  “Dax, right?”

  Like a tire with a hole, her breath hissed as she began to deflate.

  “It was! It was that piece of shit wanna-be-pimp that did this to you, wasn’t it?”

  Sybil’s nostrils flared as her breathing increased and her body started to shake. “Ro, don’t do anything. It’s over,” she whispered through chattering teeth.

  “That motherfucking, snot-nosed bastard,” I growled.

  I was so pissed that if someone handed me a gun I’d wedge the barrel between that motherfucker’s shitty gold capped teeth and pull the trigger. He was nothing more than a piece of shit, taking up air and space in this world.

  Sybil’s body began to quake uncontrollably.

  “Please, Ro, just let it rest . . . nothing can come of it.”

  “Nothing? Are you fucking kidding me Sybil? This motherfucker’s gonna pay.”

  “I . . . I . . . I . . . can’t stop shaking,” she whimpered before her body jerked. Her muscles surged rock hard as she lurched forward and uncontrollably yakked all over the floor. I ran to the dish drainer and grabbed a huge plastic bowl. Everything she had in her stomach had come up.

  “Shhhh, settle down. I’m sorry, you’re safe now. Don’t worry,” I whispered as I wrapped the thin throw blanket from the end of my bed around her. “Sit down here. Come on now.”

  I pulled the phone from my purse and started dialing the only person I knew could help her.

  “Who are y-y-you c-c-c-calling?” Sybil pushed between dry heaving.

  “Briggs.”

  “Stop, don’t call him. I’ll be okay.”

  “This isn’t normal, Sybil; you need to be seen and I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  “I’ll be fine. I just want to lie down.” She pulled the blanket tight over her chest.

  “Sybil, you are not dying on my bed.”

  “Ro, I don’t have the money to pay him. Please, I just need to lie down and close my eyes.”

  What was I supposed to do? She looks like fucking hell. I can’t let her stay like this.

  “Don’t worry about the money,” I said as the phone was ringing against my ear.

  “Aye, Rosie, this betta’ be an emergency,” Briggs barked fast and intentional, his Irish accent just thick enough to tell you he wasn’t born in America.

  “Yeah, it’s Sybil, she’s pretty fucked up.”

  “Wha’ happen?”

  I stood silent for an uncomfortable moment.

  “Rose? Wha’ happen?”

  “She won’t tell me, but she’s all beaten, throwing up, shaking and shit.”

  “How long she been down like that?”

  “She’d been home about a half hour when she just started yakking and shaking.”

  “Bleedin’? Is she been t’rowin’ up blood?”

  “Awe, fuck, Briggs, I can’t do this shit.” I leaned over and looked in the bowl. My stomach swirled, the back of my throat watered. “No blood,” I gagged.

  “Sounds like she’d be goin’ into shock. You have yourself a blanket? Just wrap her up, I’m on m’ way.”

  “Yeah, I wrapped her all up. Thanks Briggs,” I whispered.

  “Rosie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Leave the front door unlocked this time.”

  “I will,” I answered as the line went dead.

  Kean “Key” Briggs was one big-ass twisted motherfucker. He was a six-foot-tall black man from Ireland with arms as thick as my waist, covered in tribal tats and tinted ink that told stories more horrific than anyone could ever imagine. Painful chapters he must have burned into the secret corners of his mind after two tours in Iraq. His body became the visual diary of his life as a war veteran. Briggs drove an ambulance in the Tenderloin for over five years before he retired and started making house calls for us hos. He found a need and made hand over fist money privatizing his services. Just seven calls a week from suffering prostitutes that were beaten at the hands of their pimps or clients and cha-ching, he was rolling in more money than he’d ever made in a month of driving an ambulance. I knew I was going to pay through the nose for his services; but I had to, hospitals were out of the question and I didn’t think clinics had the capacity to handle this situation. I didn’t know who else to call.

  I looked over at Sybil; her uncontrollable shakes turned into barely noticeable shivers. Her jaw still chattering, maybe some tea will warm her up. I brushed my fingers across her forehead, before I pressed my hand to her cheek, she looked up at me with a tattered expression and whispered, “Ro, you gotta promise me something.”

  “Anything.”

  “Promise me you’ll get out. Promise me.”

  “Shhhh, come on Sybil don’t worry about me.”

  “Say it. Say, I promise I’ll get out. Say it!” She clutched my wrist trying to pull me closer.

  I cleared the strands of hair that clung to her dampened face.

  “This isn’t the life you want, Ro. Please, promise me you’ll get out.”

  “I’ll promise, but only if you promise to come with me.”

  A forced smile crept across her face as she nodded at me and for a single moment I thought maybe she didn’t really need Briggs. Maybe all she needed was a moment to relax and close her eyes, like she said.

  I second-guessed my call to Briggs when the door flew open and reprieve melted down my spine, finally someone other than me will see her, but it was short-lived. The moment of peace turned into instant terror, Dax, the devil himself stood before me. That fucking piece of shit lunged, pushing through me, to get to Sybil. My feet left the floor as my body flew, weightless as a feather swirling through the thick air, before the crown of my head met the edge of the small rickety table and the rest of my body followed splintering the table into pieces. The room filled with his scary growls, words sharp with edges that pierced my ears.

  “Get the fuck up! I own your cunt now! There ain’t no days off for my bitches.”

  My vision blurry, I focused on the space where Sybil was being swallowed by Dax. His fist floating high above, before the hammering hollow thud of bone against her delicate, damaged body.

  “Pleeeeassseeee . . . no, no, no, hel . . . paaahhhh.” Sybil’s voice was hoarse, filled with raspy cries for help, tainted by the mixture of Dax’s evil demands.

  “I’ll beat your shit all fucking day, you crazy bitch. Get your skanky . . . pussy . . . up . . . out . . . of . . . this . . . bed.”

  Each word sandwiched between the echoing sounds of him punching her. I pulled my hands up over my head as my mind twisted and plummeted into the putrid memories of my childhood. Terrifying moments filled with the woman who was supposed to love me more than any liquid confidence she and my father poured down their throats.

  My bedroom door creaks open before it slams shut. I know it’s my mom by the nasty aroma of stale whiskey that saturates the air. Dad punished her tonight for mixing his mashed potatoes with cream of corn at dinner. God, I never know what’s gonna to set him off . . . My father uses any reason to beat my mother, he tears down her self-esteem, keeps her prisoner to his rage, and now she’s standing over me.

  I sense the silence before the storm, the split second God may hear my prayers . . . I let out a short breath, relax just enough to invite hope when mom’s hand slaps across my cheek, she grabs bundles of my hair at the nape of my neck and pulls my head back.

  ‘Look at me you piece of shit! You think lying there, acting like you’re asleep is going to erase the fact that you’re the reason he hits me? Huh? Do you hear me? You spoiled little brat . . . See what you make him do? You push us enough and make us drink . . . you’re the reason, it’s all your fault Rosalie!’

  ‘Please mom, please, I’m sorry.’ I cry as she continues to yell in my face. Her eyes are so dark, empty, as if some evi
l spirit possesses her soul, her expression is missing remorse. The alcohol she drinks feeds the monster she’s become while my father gives her the perfect excuse to be brutal.

  ‘Too late, the damage’s done! One fucking mistake, a constant goddamn reminder of my biggest mistake.’ She slurs through her rage and blood tainted tears. The back of her hand meets my cheek, my head swings back, pain radiates through my jaw. The blood from biting my tongue rolls down the back of my throat in iron tinged waves. Her fist comes down over and over again against my cheek. I feel the cracking of my cheekbone, the gush of blood as it swells into my eye socket. My head falls against the pillow, I pull my hands over my face, as mom’s breathy criticisms keep tumbling from her mouth.

  ‘I’m sorry mom, ss . . . ssssooorryyyy,’ I cry across my palms. She’s relentless, and doesn’t stop hitting me until she’s physically worn out.

  ‘You are pathetic! Do you hear me . . . you’re an ugly, pathetic girl.’

  My mother’s wicked voice bled and morphed into deep short huffs and grunts. Words she had sharpened and riddled with rage pulled me from the nightmare of when I was sixteen and the very last time my mother ever hit me. I forced myself to open my eyes, stinging with pain from the chill of the room; suddenly I recognized what the hell was really happening. Briggs was towering over someone’s body. His fist covered in blood, muscles rock hard, his body seemed to have grown since the last time I saw him. Shirt ripped, ink covered in splashes and sprays of blood, I noticed the spastic jolts of Briggs’ victim. It was Dax, his arms and legs jerked as Briggs’ enormous fist connected over and over again with his face. Blood everywhere, almost as if Briggs was tearing through Dax’s flesh.

  “W’at you gotta’ say now mutha-fucker? ‘uh? Can’t answer me? You just a wee bit fuckin’ tough when you’d want to sully innocent women,” he yelled, his Irish accent got thicker as he continued to punch Dax.

  I hoisted myself up, Sybil’s body was spread across the bed. She wasn’t moving, I couldn’t tell if she was breathing or even alive. Struggling to find my voice, I knew if I didn’t get Briggs to stop, he’d kill Dax.