by Lexie Ray
There had even been a day when I realized the power of my big tits and little waist, the power of a lingering glance. I’d felt giddy at this knowledge, excited by the fact that I could move mountains with a flick of my hair, a sway of my hips.
“The first trick I turned was for cash and alcohol,” I said. “And alcohol stayed with me ever since. It was my constant. I could always lean on it, always celebrate with it, always lament with it.”
I raised my eyes from the surface of the podium to the crowd. Some inmates were nodding emphatically while others looked pensive, biting at their lips or nails.
“I didn’t even stop drinking when one of my johns knocked me up,” I continued. “I knew there was a life growing inside of me. I knew that booze would harm it. I just didn’t give a shit. To me, there was nothing more important than the bottle—nothing. I didn’t even know which of my johns was the father to my son.”
I remembered the feeling of him kicking inside of me even as I leaned against the outside of my apartment building, trolling for a payday. I’d left home at an early age—home hadn’t been conducive to what I really wanted to be doing. I’d always had ideas of what I should be doing, and they never jived with my parents’. Looking to avoid conflict—and gain freedom—I left and found a gang of girls to run around with, shacking up in a hovel with them whenever I wasn’t working hotels or bars or the streets. They all encouraged me to work with their pimps, but I insisted on being my own boss. There was no man who could tell me what to do.
“When my son was born, I didn’t harbor any illusions,” I said. “I knew that I could keep turning tricks and raise him and party as hard as I was. I would sooner miss paying my portion of the rent than not have money to buy a bottle of whiskey. I was managing, though, managing myself, managing my life. There was always a girl at the apartment, so there was someone to look after Marshall—my baby—when I was out working. Or in drinking, too drunk to handle him. Even after creating that life, alcohol was always number one. Always.”
God, he’d cry for me, holding up those chubby little arms, tears and snot running down his face as he wailed. I’d fuss at him, hold him, kiss him, scream at him, but it made no difference. He was always crying, always whining for something I apparently wasn’t giving him. It made me feel like I was constantly doing wrong, and I loathed it.
“Everything was going about as well as it could until one of the other girl’s pimps finally caught wind of me,” I said. “There were plenty of pimps in that area, and they had plenty of girls to keep track of. But there’d been rumors about a girl working on her own, managing herself, and that just didn’t sit well with the pimps. When one of them tracked me down and told me that I was working for him, I laughed in his face. I was drunk. I was always drunk, and I didn’t understand the danger I was in. Alcohol made me not care about anything.”
He’d beaten the shit out of me. Just for laughing. He told me that as soon as my face healed, I was working for him. I wanted to tell him like hell I was, but my mouth was so swollen I couldn’t say anything at all. Even Marshall hadn’t recognized me when I finally found my way home. He cried and cried for his Mama even though I was right there, holding him in one arm and a cold bottle of vodka in the other, using it to ice my bruises and cuts.
As soon as my face healed, I decided to go deeper into the city and start something new. When I told the other girls, they just laughed at me. Nobody had ever had a female pimp before, but I thought it made sense. I could still turn tricks if I felt like it, but I’d manage girls a better way. I wouldn’t beat them, and I’d have the understanding of working on the streets to light my path, influence my decisions. That was the problem with pimps, I decided. They didn’t understand what it was to hustle out there. They could be much better—be better managers, for one—if they understood what we went through.
“I decided that I wanted to make more money and open a brothel, basically,” I said. “Back then, I just wanted to recruit a bunch of girls and act as their pimp. The brothel idea wasn’t all the way formulated yet. But I wanted to move deeper into the heart of New York City, and I had to get out of the neighborhood unless I wanted to work for the pimp—which I didn’t. All I packed was a handful of slutty outfits, what booze I hadn’t gulped down, and my makeup. I convinced one of the prostitutes in my apartment to watch over my son. I told her I’d send her money for him. Just like that, I left him. I didn’t think anything of it. He was five, by then. He was five and I was barely twenty.”
My last memory of him was of him weeping, holding his arms up to me like he’d done when he was still a baby. It should’ve melted my heart, but it didn’t. I’d been drinking, as usual, and it only irritated me. Why the fuck did he cry all the time? I wasn’t that special. He needed to grow the fuck up. Those thoughts filled my mind at the time, and I left without so much as a hug.
I had more than enough money for a bus ride downtown, and I walked the streets. Men knew what I was and stared. I eyed them back, looking them up and down, inviting them to look. I turned three tricks right away in alleys, marveling at the way my cash was stacking up, when I saw it. The nightclub.
“I saw this building and fell in love with it,” I said. “It was the second thing I’d ever loved. The first was the bottle. My son—I didn’t even love my son. He was just a bother. That’s how I felt about it then. God, I feel like shit admitting it. But I up and left him with practically a stranger. I didn’t even know her last name. But all thought of Marshall left me when I saw that building, if I’d even been thinking of him to begin with. I saw nothing but possibility. I could really make something out of that building, make a legitimate business that would shield my pimping from the authorities. It was for sale, so I found a payphone right away and dialed the number listed.”
That had been a strange conversation, and my first contact with Don Costa. He’d been younger back then, of course, and not yet the Don.
“Costa,” is how he answered the phone, breezily, like he didn’t give a shit who was on the other end of the line. And he didn’t have to. He was a Costa—an heir in a long line of powerful mobsters.
“Hello,” I said, lowering my voice to the sexy tone I usually reserved for turning tricks. “I saw this number on a for sale sign of a building I’m interested in purchasing.”
“What’s your name, doll?”
“You can call me Mama,” I said. It was what I had all my johns call me. It was a hell of a lot sexier than Wanda Dupree.
“And that’s how I got involved with the mob,” I said. “I thought it was a good idea at the time. I got them to agree to help me finance the place, cut them in on some of my earnings, offered them little perks. In turn, they gave me the building, helped me buy what I needed to refurbish, and pushed some prostitutes my way. It was a business venture fueled by liquor and greed. I told myself, especially when I was good and drunk, that I was doing this to make a life for my son. But the only one who was benefiting from my business was myself. I only sent money when I could remember, and that wasn’t very often.”
The first few years had been insanity. I was drinking hard and turning tricks about as often as my prostitutes. I was hardly a pimp—just an elevated trick. I got a couple of bartenders to serve drinks and even got the place a liquor license so I could at least look legit if anybody came looking. I found street performers at first and promised them a cut of the tips if they came and played for the crowd. When we started really turning a profit, I hired professional entertainers—dancers, bands, DJs, and the like. When I could afford it, I had the kitchen redone. I could hire cooks now and sell food. There were a few legal hoops and paper work to work through, but I managed. The nightclub began to thrive as a nightspot—good food, good drinks, and pretty girls.
“Everything was looking really good,” I said. “The business was going well, and I culled the girls into a contingency I could trust. I stopped whoring so much—never stopped drinking—and started managing a real business. It was around that time t
hat I got a call from child services wondering why I wasn’t taking care of my son. Apparently, the prostitute I’d left him with had gotten tired of him and called the authorities on me. I told them—I told them—”
I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say this aloud, not to anyone. I didn’t care if I was part of this strange sisterhood of AA. I couldn’t tell anyone about this. This was the root of everything.
In the crowd of inmates, Karla raised her hand and I nodded at her, unable to speak.
“I want to take this chance to remind everyone that this is a safe environment,” she said. “Everything that is said here stays here. We don’t judge one another. We’re here as a support system. We want to help one another work through the twelve steps and stay sober. You can share whatever you think is necessary to your recovery, Wanda. We’re here for you.”
“Amen!”
Even from up here, I couldn’t pick out the “amen” inmate out from the sea of faces in front of me. I took a deep breath.
“I had given birth to my son, and I knew that he was my own flesh and blood,” I said slowly. “At the point of the phone call from child services, he was already eight or nine. I didn’t know my own son’s age. I’d been too busy drinking and earning money to so much as think about him. But when child services called me, I told them that I was too busy to raise him and to put him in the system.”
My lips trembled at my admission and I couldn’t bring myself to look at my fellow inmates. They would hate me for sure. I’d be cast out. I was a monster.
“I’m a monster,” I said. “I turned my back on my own son. I convinced myself that the nightclub was so much more important, that it was what was going to help me rise to the top. I didn’t know what kind of top I was shooting for. I didn’t know how far I could go with the prostitution business. But I was willing to try—and wasn’t willing to let a kid get in the way. I had no desire to even see him, let alone raise him. He—he knew that I rejected him. He probably suffered through hell because of me in the system, raised by absolute strangers. God only knows what happened to him growing up.”
I forced myself to look up. I needed to be punished. I wanted to see the hatred and disgust on my fellow alcoholics’ faces, but all I saw was sympathy. Understanding. Acceptance.
“I haven’t seen him since I left him that day with the prostitute I barely knew,” I said. “I probably couldn’t pick him out from a police lineup. I know that I didn’t give a shit back then. I was too focused on alcohol and on money. But now, it is my biggest regret just discarding him so casually. Nobody deserves that. I’m a—I’m a fucking monster. He hates me, and he has every right to do so.
“I was a terrible mother. I was in no way ready to have a child as young as I did, and even as I grew older, I still didn’t want him. Now that I do want him, that I do care about him, he doesn’t want anything to do with me. You know what? I don’t blame him. I don’t want anything to do with myself. If I could open my skin up and crawl out of it and be someone else, I’d jump at the chance. I swear to God I’d do it.”
The tears came hot from my eyes, scorching their way down my cheeks like they were brimstone. I’d fucked everything up in my life, and I could hardly blame alcohol. I laughed and pawed at my eyes.
“What’s funny, Wanda?” Karla asked softly. “What’s funny when you’re so shattered?”
“I’m laughing because me abandoning my son was shitty, but it’s not like it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done,” I said, shaking my head, the tears trailing down to my chin, slipping down my neck. “I’m just a bad person. I don’t see how I’m going to get through this.”
The applause started slowly, then began to pick up. Stunned, I looked up and out over the crowd of inmates. Why were they clapping? Surely it couldn’t be for me, could it?
Karla crossed to the podium, beaming.
“I think we’ve had a real breakthrough today, Wanda,” she said. “Would you lead us in the Serenity Prayer?”
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” we all recited. I realized with no small degree of guilt that I’d eaten up all the sharing time with my story that wasn’t even half told.
“Wanda, that was amazing,” Marlee said, grabbing my hand as I walked toward the back of the room, in a daze.
“Amazing?” I asked. “I don’t know if I would use that word to describe it.”
“Don’t be silly,” Marlee said, hooking an arm with mine and marching us off to the cafeteria. “It was amazing that you shared all of that with us. When you can pinpoint a reason for your drinking and take stock of yourself, never being anything less than honest with yourself and the people around you, that’s amazing.”
“I just wish that I could talk to my son again,” I said. “I’d have a lot to say to him. I don’t know if he’d listen, but I’d have a lot to say. I have his number. I just don’t have the courage.”
“Let’s go after dinner,” Marlee said. “Wait for me to get everything squared away for cleanup and I’ll go with you.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I called him once before, when his wife figured out I existed and sent me a wedding invitation, but it didn’t go well at all.”
“How long ago was it?” my cellmate asked.
“Five years, maybe,” I said. “It’s hard to tell.”
Marlee nodded. “Alcohol’s hell on memory,” she said. “Memory and time. Those leave us so easily.”
I ate dinner feeling strangely light. It helped that Marlee had planned some sort of delicious pasta with real sauce made from scratch. She confided that it was a family recipe, except that she had to double the recipe practically a hundred times.
I helped the kitchen crew clean up even if it wasn’t my responsibility. I just needed something to keep my mind occupied, to keep it from dwelling on the possibilities of calling my son now. I couldn’t even consider the idea of rejection. It would ruin me. Instead, I focused on wiping down tables.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Marlee said, snagging the rag from my hand as I polished the metal at the buffet line.
“I just wanted to keep busy,” I said.
“Are you ready to make the call?”
“I don’t think I ever will be,” I said. “I can’t—he hates me, sugar. It’s plain and simple there. He has every right to and I just have to accept that.”
“Wanda, you did a hell of a job tonight at the meeting,” Marlee said. “You admitted that you were powerless when it came to alcohol, and it takes a lot to even realize that about yourself. You’re making a fucking fearless personal inventory. I can’t wait for next week.”
“I might not get to share again next week,” I said. “I felt bad because I took all the sharing time today. I can’t believe Karla let me do that.”
“You’re the first new attendee in almost a year,” Marlee said. “Believe me. Karla will let you share until we’ve heard your story five times, at least. Everyone else has heard everyone else’s story probably fifty or a hundred times. It doesn’t make them any less compelling—don’t get me wrong. We’re gleaning new insights every day. But a fresh story leads us to fresh insights, to places we’d forgotten about. It challenges us to think of new possibilities and encourages us to support a new person in our midst. You’re doing us a favor, Wanda, by sharing your story.”
“I’m glad someone’s getting something out of it,” I said, smiling wanly as we walked to the bank of pay phones.
“All I’m saying is that you don’t have to rush through the steps,” Marlee said. “You’ve made great progress. When you call your son, it doesn’t have to be anything other than checking in, seeing how he’s doing, telling him how you’re doing. You don’t have to talk about anything serious right now. That part comes later. Just touch base.”
“Okay,” I said. We reached the phones and I realized that I was more nervous than I’d ever been in my life. I’d never real
ly had any anxiety over the trial. My lawyer had told me more or less what I could expect—despite his legal abilities and support. But this was different. This was my son, whom I hadn’t talked to in years. He’d been pretty unpleasant the last time I’d talked to him, but I could hope, couldn’t I? Maybe he was ready to have his mother in his life again. I could be that for him. I really thought I could.
“The phone doesn’t dial itself,” Marlee said, smiling.
I slipped my change in and dialed the number that Pitt had given me. The slip of paper was already worn from the sweat of my hand, but I resolved to write it down in a notebook I kept for GED class. No—I’d memorize it. That was the best thing I could do.
The phone rang and rang, but someone finally picked up.
“Hello?” It was a female voice—Jules, my daughter-in-law.
“Hi, Jules,” I said. “It’s Mama.”
There was a very minute pause before a gasp of recognition. “Oh my God,” she said. “Mama. It’s been way too long. How are you doing?”
“Well….” I tried to take stock of myself. I’d been sober for longer than I ever had. I wasn’t doing anything illegal. I was ready to do right in my life.
“I’m doing pretty well, sugar,” I said. “How about you?”
“I’m great, Mama,” she said. “Thanks for asking. We, um, we saw you on the news and stuff.”
My heart sank a little bit. “I was kind of wondering if you had. I’m calling from prison, you know.”
“Yes, I figured,” she said. “There was a little message telling me when I answered the phone. I guess they do that to warn you before you commit to talking to a prisoner.” She laughed lightly. “Are you doing okay there? Is there anything you need?”
“They’ve got about all I need in here,” I said. “I didn’t need anything specific. I just wanted to hear some friendly voices. Is Marshall there? I’d like to talk to him. Just—just, check in.”
Beside me, Marlee gave me a nod of encouragement.
