Somebody's Daughter

by Jessome, Phonse;

  Back at the stroll, as he dropped Stacey off, the man suggested he would see her some other night. She nodded numbly, looking for her friend. “Hey, girl, welcome to the club!” Annie Mae shouted. “Better call Kenny and tell him you broke.” Stacey couldn’t believe the difference in Kenny’s tone; he sounded like her boyfriend again, and even apologized for cursing at her earlier in the evening—the drive from Nova Scotia always left him tired and cranky, he said. Despite his better mood he told Stacey she couldn’t come back to the apartment just yet, she had to pull in a lot more money first: five hundred should do it. Five hundred dollars! How could she possibly earn that much? Slowly returning to the stroll from a nearby phone booth, she told Annie Mae what Kenny had said. “Don’t you worry about that,” her friend consoled. “You’ll make more than that before midnight. These guys know when there’s new talent on the stroll. Annie Mae knew what she was talking about. For the next two hours, Stacey barely got her feet back on the sidewalk before another man was asking her to step into his car, and by midnight she had more than seven hundred dollars in her purse. Minor players like Kenny usually asked an experienced girl like Annie Mae to collect the cash from their other girls and hand it over at regular intervals to one of the players working the stroll in a rental car, but Kenny hadn’t made such arrangements. Stacey was getting tired and cold, but she didn’t want to go back to the apartment without the others. Annie Mae only had four hundred dollars and Stella was lagging behind, at one hundred—so she offered to get them all a hot chocolate at a nearby Harvey’s while the others tried to catch up. The Harvey’s on Gerrard Street was in the area where Terrance had dropped them off earlier in the night so Stacey walked back that way. On the way she noticed a Tim Horton’s coffee shop but decided against going in. It was crowded and she felt awkward dressed in her sexy outfit. When she arrived at the Hamburger spot there were only a couple of young people inside so she headed up to the counter and ordered three cups of hot chocolate. Although she felt nervous, no one seemed to notice what she was wearing nor did they appear to care what she was doing out at that hour. Stacey walked back to the stroll in time to see Annie Mae pull away in a car again. She handed Stella her hot chocolate and the two girls sat on the edge of the step back by the building. Stacey was finished working and Stella didn’t appear to be overly interested in attracting any attention at the moment. Stacey was not sure how old Stella was but she was fairly certain she was a lot older than Annie Mae. Stella was twenty four years old, ancient by street standards. The red headed woman was about twenty pounds too heavy for the outfit she was wearing and the haggard angry expression on her face seemed to scare more customers away than it did bring her business.

  As Stacey wondered how Stella would ever get any dates unless she made an effort to at least smile occasionally, Annie Mae re-joined them, gratefully accepting the cup Stacey handed her. Stella slowly walked back to the curb, and Annie Mae sat down.

  “She been here the whole time I was gone?” Annie asked the question over the lip of the cup as she sipped. The chocolate wasn’t very warm but the sugar would help keep her awake.

  Waiting for a date, one girl enjoys a hot drink on the stroll. [Print from ATV video tape]

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Well, she’s not trying very hard, and I don’t think her man will let her come home. She can’t say the stroll was dry if we both hit our limits.”

  “Should I give her some of my money?”

  “Stacey, don’t ever even suggest that. Do you know what would happen if you started working for two men at the same time? That’s what you’d be doing, and one of ’em would call you on it, and you’d be forced to choose, so don’t play any games. You earned your money—keep it.” Her harsh tone softened, and a smile lit up her pretty young face. “Speaking of money, I just went around the world, and now I can take my tired butt home.” Stacey wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but she asked anyway, and Annie Mae gladly explained. Most men came to the stroll looking for oral sex, she said; some wanted straight sex; and then there were a few who preferred a bit of both—“around the world,” in the ever-colorful parlance of street sex. The journey didn’t come cheap: in Toronto, Annie Mae was charging $125, which put her total well above the magic $500 that meant she was home free, or more appropriately—free to go home.

  Stacey made the call, telling Kenny that she and Annie Mae were ready, but Stella wasn’t having much luck. After a pause, the pimp came back on the line—she and Annie Mae were to meet him back on Gerrard, while Stella remained on the stroll until she had met her quota. Stacey was surprised at how much she had enjoyed her evening, not so much the dates, but the feeling of closeness to Annie Mae. When the men arrived, however, Stacey’s mood altered drastically. She suddenly felt dirty and embarrassed—Kenny was a guy she liked so much, and now what would he think of her? The first inklings of what she thought of herself were rising in Stacey’s mind. She quickly pushed back the stirrings of conscience when, back at the apartment, Kenny (after counting the money and handing her the usual twenty), took her in his arms and kissed her passionately, telling her how incredible she was, and how proud he was that she would do this kind of work for him. The pimp explained that in his eyes Stacey was now a real woman, he said, not just some kid trying to impress him. That did it: if Kenny still loved her, everything was fine with her. In one night, the month of work Kenny had put into recruiting Stacey had paid off; she had gone from reluctant participant to eager working girl. The seven hundred dollars more than covered the money Kenny had spent on clothing for his new recruit. Now with his cash balance looked after, it was only a matter of time before Stacey earned enough to cover the valuable time he had spent turning her. Kenny was satisfied with himself and relaxed as Stacey rushed to take a shower and tumble into bed with him.

  The apartment was quiet the following morning, and Stacey slept until almost noon. When she awoke, she padded out to the living-room where Annie Mae was watching TV.

  “What time did Stella come back?” Stacey asked, plopping down on the couch next to her friend. “She didn’t. Kenny went to get us some food, and he’s going to pick her up now. When they get here, there’s gonna be trouble, Stacey, so you just sit quietly. Stella didn’t earn her money and you saw she wasn’t tryin’ very hard. We made more than we were supposed to, so her man is furious at how he looks in front of Kenny and Terrance.” Stacey could not believe the three men had forced Stella to stay out all night and were now planning to punish her; and her outrage turned to fear as she began to imagine the same thing happening to her. The mood of the night before evaporated in a rush of terror and confusion, and a clear single desire suddenly emerged from the murk of her thoughts. She wanted to go home, and quickly told her friend so. “We can’t talk about it here,” whispered Annie Mae, who, truth be told, also thought this trip was not going to be the fun romp in the city she was looking for. “Let’s see what we can do tonight.” Stacey was about to say more when she heard the door open.

  It was Kenny, carrying the girls’ breakfast—burgers and fries—and Stella, who walked in with her head bowed and stood listlessly as her pimp came in from the kitchen. Without saying a word, he lifted a leg and kicked her in the stomach, hard. Stella fell to the floor. “That’s right, bitch, you lie down, ’cause that’s what you been doin’ all night. Don’t you come up here and lay your lazy ass on the sofa. You got work to do and you better get to it. I wanna see some serious cash tonight, girl, you understand that?” He kicked her again, not quite as hard this time, but with enough force to elicit another muffled grunt from the exhausted girl. Stacey shot up off the sofa, her burger and fries tumbling to the carpet; but before she could say anything, Annie Mae grabbed her—just as the violent pimp turned her way, demanding, “What the fuck do you want, bitch?” Then, to Kenny: “K, you better settle this ’ho before I have to.”

  Grabbing Stacey by the arm, Kenny led her into the bedroom. Furious, tears welling in her eyes, Stacey said she had never seen an
ything like that in her life, and begged him to take her home. Kenny took the pimp’s side and told Stacey to mind her own business; what went on between Stella and her man had nothing to do with her, and as long as she behaved herself, nothing like that would ever happen to her. Challenging another player for beating a girl would not be considered good behavior, he warned, and if she tried it again, he would have no choice but to beat her. Otherwise, his fellow player would see that he lacked control over his girls; he would lose his respect, which meant no turf and no prostitutes to run. K-bar did not tell Stacey that Stella’s pimp had beaten her in front of the other players—and their girls—quite deliberately, to demonstrate his control over Stella and thereby solidify his respect. Nor did he explain that the word respect means something quite different in The Game than it does in the “square” world. “Respect,” to a pimp, is not simply determined by one’s ability to do a job well—and certainly not by demonstrating kindness or generosity—but primarily by superior force of will, enforced violently. In the street, money is the primary goal but respect is the real currency of The Game. Stacey held her tongue, but that didn’t mean she had accepted Kenny’s explanation for what had happened to Stella, or that she believed his assurances. She stayed in the bedroom for the rest of the day, not out of fear of Kenny, but because she didn’t want to look at the other pimp; he disgusted her. He also frightened her.

  That night, between dates, Stacey tried to comfort Stella—taking time to encourage the older girl and comment on how pretty Stacey thought she was—when she wasn’t pleading with Annie Mae for a way the two of them could go home.

  The way back to Halifax presented itself in the form of two pimps heading east themselves; Annie Mae knew both men and had previously worked for one of them, so when she saw them driving around the stroll, she motioned them over. Anne Mae always broke the rule about talking to black men while she was working, and her pimps had long since given up trying to stop her from shopping around. It was the perfect opportunity—Stacey could get home, and out of The Game if that was what she really wanted, while she could take up with the Peanut Man again. Reginald “Peanut” Cleary would be a safe escape for both girls. Terrance knew that Peanut was much closer to the centre of the family than he was, and would never challenge him. Peanut often traveled with the Big Man—Manning Greer, one of the most powerful pimps in Canada and in many ways the leader of the younger breed of Scotians. Just knowing Greer elevated your status in The Game. Annie Mae had hoped to spend a little more time in Toronto but, like Stacey, she felt the enjoyment had gone out of it—and very quickly. Unlike Stacey, however, Annie Mae knew the situation would only get worse: there was Stella sitting on her ass again. She’d get it from her pimp again—unless she got the lead out, or just got out of The Game entirely. There was nothing Annie Mae could do about it, but she didn’t have to hang around and watch. So it was time to hit Hollis Street again, and there were worse ways to go than with a major player like Peanut.

  Annie Mae had three hundred dollars she had earned so far that night so she handed it to the pimp driving the car. Peanut accepted the money—and it was as easy as that; by taking the money, Peanut was taking on Annie Mae. Terrance would just have to deal with Peanut if he had a problem with Annie Mae’s choice. Annie Mae knew a small-timer like Terrance would have no problem—or at least he would claim he had none. Now they had to get Stacey settled: Annie Mae called her friend over to the car, and this time the passenger spoke up. Michael (“Smit”) Sears was only twenty-one—not that much older than Stacey—and she couldn’t help notice what a good-looking young man he was. But that didn’t matter. She wasn’t interested in anyone associated with prostitution. Stacey explained that she wanted to give up working and asked the men if she could get a lift back to Halifax with them. That was no problem, Smit said, smiling slyly at his partner. A smooth talker, he was sure he could persuade this slender young blonde to be his girl; anyway, he would have hours in the car to try.

  The men told the girls they wouldn’t be leaving for a few hours yet, and while they were gone, Annie Mae warned Stacey that during the trip Smit would lobby hard to get her to “choose” him (take him on as her pimp, as Annie Mae had with Peanut). “He’s still earning his respect, but he wants it faster than anyone else ever got it,” she said.

  Indeed, Smit was the kind of guy who threw himself into any endeavor he became involved in. He had worked at the Black Cultural Centre in Cherry Brook, near Dartmouth, on a summer grant after finishing high school, impressing the staff with his energy and enthusiasm, though they noticed he had a tendency to lose interest in a task before it was completed. He always seemed to want a new challenge, and he didn’t have to wait long before one presented itself.

  While he was working at the Cultural Centre, Smit took a unique baby-sitting job—for a group of prostitutes. The girls considered him a charmer and marvelled at how he enjoyed playing with their children, and his association with Manning Greer, at whose behest he had started the job—their parents were good friends—immediately raised his stock with some of the young men he was spending time with. Smit could see for himself how successful Greer was: only in his early twenties, the Big Man made more money than anyone else he had ever known. The money was only a small part of what attracted Smit to The Game. The young man really liked how his friends treated him after they saw him driving Manning Greer’s car. Smit wanted people to look up to him the way they admired Greer. That was three years before; Smit helped to recruit some high-school friends into The Game, continued baby-sitting for the players, and waited for his chance to strike out on his own. Stacey looked like just that chance.

  Peanut Cleary was another story. Peanut had already achieved a high level of respect in the street and was a man born to The Game. The only child of a single mother, Peanut had been raised by his grandparents, or so they thought. The truth is Peanut very quickly fell under the charismatic spell of his uncle and he decided at age eleven that he would be just like him. Peanut’s uncle was a pimp, one of the first to enter The Game from North Preston. Peanut’s only real memories of his childhood home were of the regular visits made by his uncle. The older pimp would stay with his parents—Peanut’s grandparents—whenever he was in the Halifax area. For weeks at a time Peanut would cruise the streets in the pimp’s fancy car and listen to the stories of the wild city life. Peanut left home and moved to Montreal with his uncle when he was only thirteen; he’d been playing The Game now for fifteen years. When pimping became a career choice for so many young men from Nova Scotia there were those who thought Peanut would be their leader. Peanut had no desire to set himself up as anyone’s leader; he was only in The Game for the money—a lesson his uncle had taught him. Peanut had been a pimp longer than Manning Greer and had probably made more money; but Greer’s size and his fierce temper had made him a leader by default. Peanut was one of many Nova Scotia pimp’s who had been in The Game long enough to know how it really worked. He was close to Manning Greer and the two often watched out for one another but they also shared a degree of mutual respect. Peanut was an associate—not a follower—and Manning Greer was okay with that.

  The drive back to Halifax took almost two days, and it seemed to Stacey that she spent every moment of it trying to fend off the charming but aggressive Smit. Finally, just west of Nova Scotia, Smit relented and told Stacey he accepted her position—but if she changed her mind, he’d be waiting. He made it clear she would have to work for him; he was owed that much for giving her the ride home; that was his reason, anyway. Stacey wasn’t paying attention. She was strictly square now.

  It was almost midnight when Peanut and Smit dropped the two girls off at Annie Mae’s apartment in Halifax, and just after they waved good-bye in the parking lot, they heard someone call to them. Annie Mae peered into the darkness and suddenly saw a tall figure approach. “Shit, it’s Terrance’s brother Toddy,” she whispered. “He musta been waiting for us.… How the hell did he know when we would be here? Shit, Stacey, th
is is gonna be trouble. You just be quiet and let me talk.”

  Toddy Anderson was only seventeen, but he was very strong, very nasty, and very angry. He walked straight up to Annie Mae, grabbed her by the hair, threw her to the ground, then started kicking her, telling her between the kicks and curses that she was working for him until T-bar got back from Toronto. Stacey screamed, and Toddy turned on her, too, slapping her across the face: “You’re workin’ for me now too, bitch!” Stacey defiantly insisted she was square now, and would straighten things up with Kenny when he got home. Just as Toddy was readying a response to this arrogance, a car pulled into the lot, forcing him to back away. Stacey lifted Annie Mae to her feet and helped her inside, locking the door behind them. Annie Mae was more angry than hurt; how could she have allowed some seventeen-year-old bubble-gummer to do it to her—and, worse, leave convinced he had some claim to her. Well, Toddy would back down soon enough, when he found out she was working for Peanut again. Not that her new man would punish Toddy; the two of them would call it a misunderstanding, caused by that “Choosy Suzy” routine of hers. So what? At least she wouldn’t have to work for that big, mean baby; and if he was stupid enough to try forcing the issue—demanding she hustle for him despite Peanut’s new claim to her—then Toddy Anderson would be the one with sore ribs and a bruised pride. Come to think of it, that wouldn’t be a bad idea.