I had my third class with the ladies last night. It ended up very lovely and started out a bit of a shocker. I only had two students, John Wayne and Little Bird. When I walked in they both began to explain to me that Mama was meeting with her sponsor, Tough Chick had decided to move to another group home so that she could be closer to her kids and Blondie took off because she didn’t want to be in a home anymore. Turns out Blondie had been seeing a guy and he gave her a cell phone. The women aren’t allowed to have cell phones until they pass the nine month mark and then only for a really good reason, like they have kids. Blondie is nineteen and has no children as of yet.
Blondie didn’t like this rule and decided to take her chances out on the street again. This made me really sad. I wasn’t expecting this at all and I was so shocked. I was looking at these women so naively and not realizing how hard it is to get out of this racket when it’s the only thing you’ve ever known. Good luck Blondie. I wish you all the best. Stay safe.
I think that news really affected the rest of the evening. It was just John Wayne, Little Bird and myself in the kitchen all night. On the good side it was pretty quiet. We didn’t have to compete to talk. John Wayne likes to talk. A lot. So she spent the evening peeling potatoes, grating cheese and telling us about how she got into prostitution. We made a baby greens salad with homemade balsamic vinaigrette and potato cheddar soup with the turkey stock we made last week. hmm…
How John Wayne got into The Life:
Basically she hit her teens and started to feel awkward and insecure like we all did. Her mother didn’t respond well to her hormonal daughter and began yelling at her and hitting her. This made John Wayne feel very isolated so she started hanging out with friends more. She met a guy who would become her pimp. He got her high and took her back to his crib and the women there started telling her about the life.
As she was telling this story I recalled how my parents became Jehovah’s Witnesses before I was born. In fact, I wouldn’t be here now if my parents hadn’t decided to become Jehovah’s Witnesses. My parents were getting high one night with their artist friend, Floyd. He started telling them about the religion. They would excuse themselves every so often and go into the kitchen to discuss, amongst themselves, what he was telling them. I guess they were so high it sounded great to them and so they decided to join. That’s how my parents made one of the most important decisions of their lives. They were high.
Her pimp also told her he would buy her lots of new clothes and shoes and a cell phone. A brand new life. One she didn’t know how to get on her own. This happened to her at the age of fourteen. Later her pimp got shot and killed while they were on a working vacation in Tuscon, AZ. She saw her pimp just before he got shot. She was driving away with a “date”. Her pimp was standing on the corner, drinking a grape soda. She watched him as they pulled away and she thought she saw tears in his eyes. She had a strange feeling that this was the day and he knew it. There had been some trouble with some friends of his in L.A. and he thought they had come to Tucson looking for him.
While she was having sex with her date in hotel room a couple blocks from where she had been she heard a loud POP sound. She pushed her date off of her, grabbed his money (smart girl) and ran out of the room and down the street. By the time she got to his hotel the place was swarming with cops so she decided to stay low. She and his baby mama and another girl went to the hospital where he was pronounced dead, two bullets to the head.
After John Wayne’s story we all became pretty emotional. We started talking about how Blondie is only nineteen. Little Bird began crying because she was so grateful that John Wayne is sticking around and not going back out again. I put my arm around Little Bird. She motioned for John Wayne to come over for a group hug. I suddenly started to feel very loyal to these women like if anything ever happened to them I don’t know what I would do. So I said, “If either of you goes back out on the street again, I’ll kill you.” Because that’s how I express myself when I feel vulnerable. Interestingly, they understood and laughed at me.
