John didn’t get paid what he thought he was going to get, and Eddie is letting him know he isn’t stupid…at my expense. Getting busted that night at the Holiday Inn opened up a can of worms that John hoped would never be opened—me! Now John is vulnerable. I know everything personal about him—his family, Sharon, where they live. Everything. I know exactly what he has been keeping secret, and that scares him. John sees firsthand that Eddie is powerful—enough to get what he wants if he thinks something is being hidden from him. In this game, John holds only bluff hands and he has already played them all with Eddie. All except for me. I am the ace up his sleeve: the last one who will stay loyal, he hopes, and by force if necessary.
But all I want to do is die.
“Get up,” he orders, snapping his briefcase shut. “Eddie wants to see you again.”
“Oh God. I am going to die, aren’t I?” My heart skips a beat, and I lie motionless.
“Get up,” he commands again, whipping the covers off of me. “And this time do exactly like I told you. It’ll be fucking New Year’s in a few days, and I don’t want to have to search for a body in the desert!”
The desert? He means me, dead in the desert. New Year’s…in a few days, I think numbly, and I quietly obey. Then it has to be around December 29, my birthday. How old am I? Oh yeah, twenty. Going to Eddie’s again. I think it’s my birthday. The ideas don’t connect to anything familiar in my mind. As alien as my name anymore. My name?
Suddenly, black envelops me. The chugging noise of John’s engine keeps the darkness constant, and the smell of exhaust fills the tiny space. Air! I’ve got to have air! I press my nose close to the left wheel well, where the only light in this suffocating place comes up through a small hole. I can see the speckled gray of the pavement and the tire spinning below, yet all I can think of is breathing—staying alive in the trunk of this car.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Queen Of Spades
New Year’s Day has come…and gone. After the second time at Eddie’s, John questions me again. As before, I mechanically give him step-by-step replays of everything that happened and, devoid of any emotion, suffer through his abuse. I feel sick to my stomach mostly and stay comfortable in the shroud of sadness I have befriended.
“Eddie likes to smoke speedballs,” John tells me. Heroin and cocaine combined. I know I am feeling the effects of something different: heroin. My mind, remembering Frosty, screams a warning. This is next! I know it! This is where we are headed! My senses recoil.
We hole up in another motel until a particular morning about a week past New Year’s when John checks us out and loads our things into the car again. The January air is crisp, and daylight glares bright against the metal from the cars on the street. So this is 1981, I think, looking to the sky for signs that this New Year might bring a change for the better. I can barely walk, my body hurts so badly, and I am thin as a rail. Food. I know I need food, but it is almost as if I have forgotten what it tastes like or how to forage for any. Approaching the now-run-down Chevy, I stop in my tracks.
“John? Wait. I don’t want to go.” I stand frozen in the parking lot. “I want to go away. I want to leave. Please!”
“Where do you think you can go? I told you Sharon doesn’t want you around anymore. Oh! I get it. You think you can go to your mother’s. What makes you think she wants anything to do with you either?”
John has said all these things before. Many times, repeatedly. I don’t care anymore. I just want it all to end, one way or another. One more step toward the car will only prolong my agony. Something has to give.
“I want to try and call her. I just want to see if she’ll send me a bus ticket. Maybe she will. Let me go. Please. I can’t go with you! I can’t, John. I can’t go with you anymore!” I sob pitifully, hoping to be released.
John looks offended and then scans the parking lot for anyone who might overhear us. “You what?” He forces a half smile as if to say he knows I purposely began this fight while outside so I’d have witnesses. “Shhhh! Come here, baby. It’s okay.” He keeps his voice intentionally calm and, still wearing a plastered smile, walks to the back of the car to throw a bag in the trunk.
His smile and sympathetic tone soften his hard edges and, with the light of day, give me a false sense of security…just as John knows they will. Somehow, I feel he is going to listen and I let my guard down. Trusting, I follow him.
WHOOOSH! In a terrifying second, John’s hand is over my mouth. As if he’s handling a rag doll, he lifts my body up and shoves me into the trunk.
“Waaaiiitt…John! No!” I let out a terrified, muffled scream.
“Shut up! Shut up! Just be quiet. It’ll be okay. Be quiet!” he insists in a low, husky tone, trying to talk my panicking voice down.
I nod feverishly, wanting only for him to let go of my mouth, and when he does, the lid of the trunk slams shut. The engine turns over, a loud rumbling growl; then it shifts into gear as I brace myself for the bumps and turns of the drive. My head finally rests near a small hole of light and air. “Jooooohnnn!” I yell, trying to get his attention, but he doesn’t answer. The sound of the engine in my ears and the smell of fumes stop me from yelling anymore and wasting my breath. Bumps and turns level out into a smooth high speed, and I know we are on the freeway. I focus on staying calm…and air.
When we finally come to a stop, I hear John open his door and get out. Footsteps round the Malibu toward me. “John!” I call out. The sound of my voice reverberates in the enclosed space. “John!”
WHAM! A crushing fist smashes down hard on the lid of the trunk. “Quiet!” he hisses into the keyhole. “I’ll let you out if you swear you’ll stay quiet!”
“Yes! Please,” I quickly reply. “I promise. Just let me out!”
Moments go by, and I wonder if he is still there. Then the key turns sharply and quickly in the lock, and a blessed rush of cool air gushes over me. John’s hand reaches in to grab me and pull me to my feet. “Now relax. Take it easy and be quiet. This is a security building.”
My arms fling wildly to move my hair out of my face. “John…I…”
He bends down to give me a hug, then stands back. “I’m sorry, baby. Are you okay? You can’t leave me…please. I need you.”
“Where are we?” I demand, looking at the massive apartment complex in front of me. Terraced up against a hill, the white, faux stucco building winds toward the street, each unit with features the same as the next.
Swiftly he takes my hand and, passing ivy and dwarf palms, he motions for me to stay quiet, leading me to a hallway, then a door. He knocks.
“Hey,” the woman answers in a sexy voice. “Come on in.”
John steps forward and gives the woman a kiss on the cheek. “Hi, uh, Michelle. This is Dawn.” He enters as if he knows the place and walks straight into the bathroom.
Michelle—a tall, cigarette-thin woman who looks to be about thirty-something, stands in the doorway draped against the metal frame. Her features are long; her cheeks and bloodshot brown eyes sunken. Stringy, dark brown hair hangs limp over the shoulder straps of her full-length magenta negligee. She looks me up and down. Pursing her thin lips, she says not a word to me and turns to follow John.
Timid and shy, I walk through the tiny studio apartment. Is she gonna give us a place to stay? I wonder. John has his briefcase open and the base pipe out. In the bottom, floating loose, are a few of his Swedish erotica playing cards. The queen of spades faces me. A dark-haired, naked woman, provocatively posed, catches my attention. It’s her…this lady. She’s the queen of spades. I know John is in the deck of cards, and now I know they must have worked together in the past.
Michelle’s dishing out the white crystalline rocks onto the screens. Choking back the smoke, he passes down part of his exhale to Michelle and the rest to me. I let it out quickly; my lungs still feel the need for air after being in the trunk.
John notices me and lights the pipe again. He takes his time holding in the hit, ponderin
g the bitter smoke as if it possesses wisdom, then blows the rest into Michelle’s mouth. “Dawn needs a place to stay, uh, for a while.” The bubbles purr as they run through the water in the pipe again. “She’s willing to work too.”
I look over at John and say nothing. I don’t want to live here, in this strange lady’s place. I want to go to my mother’s. I want to leave. The dialogue in my mind is angry and stern; full of power that I wish I had.
Frowning, Michelle glances toward my crouching figure on the bathroom floor. “Oh yeah? Shit, John. Do you see how small this place is?”
“She’ll work for it,” he interrupts. “Now come on. Here—have some more of this.” He holds the pipe to her lips.
It takes a few minutes for the smoke to clear. John dismantles the pipe, places it back in his briefcase, and stretches, straightening his pant legs. “Well, what do you think?”
“Yeah. All right. I’ll work something out. But that dog can’t stay here.” She reaches into the bra of her gown to hand him a wad of money.
“I owe you one,” he whispers into her ear, his voice syrupy sweet and loud enough that I can hear. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” John pockets the money, snaps his briefcase shut, and tucks Thor under his jacket. He plants another kiss on Michelle’s cheek and makes a straight shot out the door, not a word to me or even a glance my way.
“So,” Michelle sneers. “You better get cleaned up. I got someone coming over in half an hour, and you can take him for me.”
“What?”
“What do you mean, ‘What?'” she snaps, whipping her body around like a tiger ready to attack.
Slowly…I grasp her meaning. Oh shit. That’s why she’s dressed that way. That’s why John took Thor with him. Oh my God, no. This is why he put me in the trunk of the car! I can’t do this anymore. Degradation chokes me. Ready to throw up, I grab my stomach.
“Oh, don’t look so pathetic!” she snarls. “Why else do you think he brought you here? What’s the matter? Scared? Here. Go take a bath and wash your face. Christ, I can’t stand crybabies.” She storms out of the bathroom and chains the lock on the front door.
Oh God! I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here. Where am I? I don’t even know where I am. Who is this woman? Why is she so mean? I can’t understand how someone I just met can spout such hatred. Is she like Eddie? I am scared of her right away, and she knows it.
“Hurry up…and don’t touch anything!” she yells from the other room. Again, I have nowhere to go. I am trapped. A cold chill runs down my spine and quickly, fearfully, I do what I am told.
Almost a week has gone by in this dungeon of a place. I am nothing more than a prisoner. Michelle watches my every move every minute of the day and night. Right away I find out what kind of a businesswoman she is—one who works out of her home and who now expects me to work for her. This small studio apartment has little more than a bed in the center and small tables on either side. A tiny kitchenette is sectioned off in the far corner of the room with a counter and a few bar stools. At the far end of the room is a sliding glass door that leads to an undersized patio surrounded with stucco planters that are filled with curtaining shrubs and trees for privacy.
Michelle tells me what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. She gives orders sharp and coldhearted, like an Army sergeant, and has no patience for back talk. Don’t mess with me or else is the message she sends. Stick-thin and hard, drug-driven and mean, she reminds me of John but in a female’s body.
There is a list. A list of “visitors,” a “date book,” that names each person scheduled to arrive that day. A special coded knock signals when a customer is here. Michelle simply checks her book and gives the order to either hide in the closet until she is done or to answer it and “welcome” the visitor. I do as I’m told, scared out of my mind that I might be hurt if I don’t, remembering I’m completely lost somewhere in LA and don’t know how to get away.
John returns intermittently and rushes into the bathroom with Michelle to get high. He doesn’t look at me sitting there on the bed, skinny and pale, in a shabby beige negligee Michelle threw at me to put on when I work.
“John?” I try getting his attention at the bathroom door.
“Hey, baby. How’s it going?” he answers sweetly, stepping out of the bathroom jumpy and wired.
I can hear Michelle flicking a lighter and the bubbling of the freebase pipe behind him.
“John? Where’s Thor? I want to leave. Go to my mother’s. I, I, I just want to go. Please give me my dog!”
“Okay. If that’s what you want. He’s with me, in the car. He’s okay. He’s safe. They don’t allow pets in this building, baby.” His emotions and words are erratic.
“I just want to leave, John. Please!”
“Fine!” he yells, packing up his briefcase and storming out, leaving me behind.
John makes a few drug drop-offs to Michelle, and I figure she is giving him the money from the men who come to the door.
Michelle is mean, but when she is out of drugs she gets meaner. “Whatever you do, don’t eat anything when I’m not looking,” she orders while I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that she has allowed. “I can’t afford to feed you too! That’s up to John.”
“No? Okay.” I feel badgered, guilty, and obligated for taking anything. I eat what she gives me because I am starving, but there is no taste; it’s like forcing down cardboard.
I don’t know my days anymore; the drapes are always drawn, keeping any light out of the tiny living space. It is confusing, but I don’t think about it. I don’t think about much. There is no more poetry in me. I’m a zombie…the walking, lying, breathing, living dead. I know weeks have gone by.
Michelle sometimes has to leave me in her apartment alone. “I’m going to see the manager,” she tells me. “I’ll be right back. Don’t answer the door for anyone while I’m gone. I’ll fucking know if you do, Dawn. And don’t fucking touch anything!”
I listen to the locks of the dead bolt click behind her and feel caught in an inescapable trap.
Time is nothing to me now, but I know it’s there. John is skipping days before he shows up with any drugs, and Michelle is getting pissed. She doesn’t like how John comes in loaded out of his mind with only scrapings to show for the money she’s given him. She throws fits and flings shoes against the wall. It isn’t long before she hatches a plan.
“Where the fuck are my things? Where is my money?”
“What things? I, I don’t know about your money.”
“Bullshit! I know it’s you!”
I can’t convince her I’m not stealing from her, and I don’t think I could if I tried. Is she starting a fight with me so she can complain to John and get rid of me? Silently I wish it will happen, praying for this door to open so I can get away. At least here, John doesn’t hit me. Not in front of Michelle, anyway.
“I have to go out for a few minutes to see the manager and go to the store. Lock the door, and don’t let anyone in. You know the rules.” By the light through the bottom of the curtains, I know it is morning.
“Okay.” I’m amazed that she lets me know she will be gone so long.
“John likes me,” she says, a stab of jealousy in her eyes, and bolts the door shut.
I sit on the edge of the bed and wait a few minutes. I know this is my chance to do what I have been waiting for: to call my mother. I jump up to listen at the door, my ear pressed hot against metal. The coast is clear. Kneeling in front of the red rotary phone at the side table, I dial with a shaky hand. This will be on her bill, and she will be real mad, the frightened voice in the back of my head screams. “Yes. I’d like to make a collect call,” I whisper into the receiver. My heart pounds out of beat for a moment. I hear a rustling noise outside the door and almost hang up.
“Hello.”
“Hello. Mom? It’s m-m-me. Dawn. I don’t know where I am. Wait. Listen…John has been hitting me.” I let out an audible sob. “He has me trapped at this wo
man’s house. No. Listen please. I don’t have a lot of time. She’ll be back in a minute, and I’m not supposed to use the phone. I know you don’t want me, but I, I want to come to Oregon. Please. Yes.”
“Vaht! He is! Ver are you, Dawn? I vill help you. Ver do you want da ticket?”
“Really? Mom, thank you. But…I don’t know where I am. Can you call the Glendale Greyhound station? I’ll try to get there somehow. Please, Mom.”
“Ya, Dawn. I luff you. Did he hurt you? I had a feeling something was wrong.”
“Thank you, Mom. Thank you. I love you too. I gotta go. She’s coming back. I can hear her. Glendale bus station, please. Love you. Bye.” My pulse is beating hard in my throat as I hang up the phone. Mom is glad to hear from me. Oh God, thank you. She isn’t mad. She doesn’t know what’s happened to me. I can’t tell her. Not now anyway. I have to get out of here first. I have to get to Glendale, on the bus—but how? My mind races, like an engine that hasn’t run in ages and is raring to go.
I hear Michelle tap at the door and I jump up to answer it, checking the musty room for any sign that I used the phone. Does she think I am so completely afraid of her that I wouldn’t try to make a call? I think, feeling a bit triumphant.
Michelle bursts in, fumbling with her grocery bags.
I panic as she walks into the room scanning every nook and cranny with an eye that shoots daggers. Does she know?
Creasing her face into a satisfied frown, she looks at me. “Get some sleep,” she barks. “We’re going out tonight.”
John shows up to wake us in the evening, haggard in dirty, faded jeans and jacket. His curls are limp and dirty, like his stained clothes. He and Michelle immediately head for the bathroom, their favorite spot. John steps out a few moments later to brush a cool, robotic kiss on my cheek. He is jumpy, energetic, as if he has just done a hit.
“How is Thor?” I ask, feeling my heart break.
“Fine, baby, fine. He’s back at the house.” He leans in for a better kiss. “I’m gonna get you out of here soon,” he whispers in my ear. He glides over to the faux fireplace mantel on the wall, picks up a carved stone figurine of a woman in a Roman toga, slips it into his pocket, and hurries back to the bathroom.
The Road Through Wonderland: Surviving John Holmes Page 33