For Discussion: Survivors speak out: Testimony of a Prostitute
Chive Mynde
STORM/survivors speaking out
Testimony and expression of real life events of a prostituted woman
The Young Breed©
by misha x
© misha x, 1997, all rights reserved.
I go to the cafe on the corner to sit and write. It has been a long day
waiting tables, and I am so tired that if I went home I would just lay
around watching tv until I fell asleep on the couch. It is preety noisy
in here for a Wednesday, so I try to find a space in the back away from
the crowd of street punks waiting for the clubs to open.
I am trying to find the words to write about my life. Sometimes they
just won't come. It is kind of funny, I guess, when I am so familiar
with the subject matter. And I feel that nobody will ever read it
anyways, so what does it matter to get it down right? Who wants to hear
the life story of an old whore? But still I struggle. For me the
process is more important than the product. So I close my eyes and sip
the latte and wait for the memories to flow. I wonder what I am doing
alive after all this time. Did I escape from Hell just to spend my life
as a would-be writer waiting tables? Or is there really a purpose to
all this crap? Sometimes I think I write just so I can prove I am real,
that I do, in fact, exist. Sometimes it is to reassure myself that the
nightmares were real, that my life really did happen the way I
remember. And, sometimes, in the re-telling, the committing of my life
to scribbles on a blank page, I remember just how bad it was. Sometimes
I feel as if writing my stories, all posed as fiction, of course, is
like opening a vein and pouring my life out. It is a slower, more
painful version of suicide than any other method I have tried.
It's no use. Tonight, the words just won't come. I have gotten to a
point in my history, where there are no words, only a blur of pain and
blunted perceptions. SO the tired old girl gets up and goes outside for
a smoke. Maybe I should just call it a night.
I squat on the sidewalk outside the Cafe and watch the night beginning
to unfold. My eyes close as I breathe in the smoke. Just another of my
many ways of killing myself slowly. I am too much of a coward to get it
over with quickly, I guess. And the times I've tried it that way didn't
turn out well at all. I look up. Everything seems to have gotten quiet
all of a sudden. The loud youth are gone, just a few drunks staggering
from tavern to tavern. It is colder and darker than when I first
stepped out.
I give up on writing and head for home. As I am walking I see a girl,
maybe 17, maybe 20. It's hard to tell with the makeup and the worn-out
look on her face. Somehow she looks familiar. Reaching into my pocket
for another match, I come up empty. Damn! There's nothing worse than
having a smoke and needing a smoke and not having anything to light it
with. Almost as bad as getting your ribs cracked again from coming up
short on the money because another trick stiffed you. The girl is
closer now. Frustrated, I ask her if she's got a light. She steps over
and as her face becomes clearer, I notice how red her eyes are, and I
can see the shadow of a bruise along the edge of her mask of overdone
makeup. She looks even more familiar now, like I should know her...
Maybe she has been in my restaurant or something. I am really bad at
names, so I don't even try to guess at hers.
She hands me a silver zippo with a rose engraved on it. I light up,
thank her and hand it back. She nods at me in recognition.
"How are you doing tonight?" I ask, still trying to remember her name
or where I know her from. "pretty cold to be walking around without a
coat..."
"Yeah, well, bad for business." she says with a sad grin. Her dress hem
is torn and her top seems too small for her. Black... all dressed in
black, as if she were heading for a funeral. Her lips part adn she
takes another drag and I see her front left tooth is missing.
Suddenly, I remember where I know her from. She is one of the whores
that wait outside the row of taverns on the next street, the one we
used to call the 'last call mall', where I ended up after I had worked
my way down the ladder into oblivion. I feel a wave of grief and images
to ugly to name flash through my mind.
"Are you busy now? You look cold... As one old working girl to another,
I'd like to buy you some coffee." I don't know what else to say. I want
to take her in my arms, to rush her away to where she will never be
hurt again. She is too young to look so old.
"Yeah," she answers, looking around to see if she is being
watched. "That would be nice. I am really wasted right now and I really
need to get warm before I hafta go back to work."
We head back into the cafe, back to my table, which has still not been
cleared. The waitress comes by and reminds me there is a minimum on the
table. "What do you want, honey?" I still can't remember her name, and
I am starting to get embarrassed about it. I know we have talked
before. And I want to remember, so she will trust me, and listen to
what I need so desperately to tell her. What I wish someone had told me
back in my dark ages, when I was out walking around looking for a date
to please my boyfriend and try to make him love me. "Anything you want.
You need something to eat, looks like to me."
She orders a burger and a coke and those really greasy fries I used to
practically live on. When the witress leaves us alone, I try to find
the right words to say. The magic words that will convince her that she
is worth more than this, that she deserves to be free. There is an
awkward silence. "So, how long you been working out here?" I ask.
"I don't know a month or so... I was dancing at Macombo, and then I ...
Well, then I had to leave. My man didn't like me workin' there
anyways, 'cause they took too much out of my tips. Besides," she says
as that odd grin crosses her face again, lips closed to hide her
teeth. " I was getting too old for that place anyways. Time to move on,
I guess." "Look, sweetie, I don't know how else to say this. You know
I've been where you are now, and I wouldn't go back for a million
bucks." I hear my voice start to carack as my eyes fill with
water. "You know what's going to happen if you stay out here. I know
what's going to happen if you stay out here. You don't need to do this
for some junkie who doesn't give a shit about you." There. It's out,
and the flood of words I was looking for earlier flow out of me. I
don't even know if she is hearing me. It has to come out or I will die
alongside her tonite. I remember her 'boyfriend', a stupid user named
JD. He has a habit, well, several habits, actually, but only one that I
had a problem with. I didn't care if he killed himself with dope, but
using others to help him do it was the one I had trouble with. He had a
habit of charming young girls, usually freshmen at the local college,
with the 'glamour' of the free and easy lifestyle of heroin chic. Only
it wasn't 'free' for the girls for long. They usually had a life span
of less than a year before they ended up too beaten up and beaten down
to do much of anything but exist, if they were still alive. I tell her
of the others before her and the ones who will come after she is long
gone.
"You don't know what you are talking about!" She is angry now. I had
gone too far. "This isn't like the rest. We are just doing this until
we get enough to get cleaned up and start over. We are saving to go to
Seattle. One more month and it won't be this way."
I am losing her."You are the one 'doing this', not him. Why doesn't he
go out and turn a trick for you once in a while? One more month and you
could be dead! I know, I've been there and I got out. It's hard but it
can be done. Let me help you, we can go now to a safe place. We can get
you safe and away from this..."
Too late. She is up from the table and out. I probably will never see
her again. I leave 8 bucks on the table for the waitress, who is just
now arriving with the food the girl had ordered. I rush out into the
street, but she is gone already... The night seems to have warmed up a
bit, and it seems lighter. The moon must have come out.
I say a quick prayer for her as I take my silver lighter out, the one
with the rose that I stole from a trick so many years ago. I light up
another smoke for the walk home.
Email: stor...@mindspring.com
http://www.angelfire.com/wa/onestorm1/5.html
Help Wanted: Psychic. You know where to apply.