“ Saint Paul says we are all different parts of the same body. You can’t have a complete body if all the parts are just eyeballs. How could you eat if you didn’t have a mouth? In the same way we are each called to accomplish different things. I was called to be a nun. You were called to be a wife and mother.”
“I guess,” I say, thinking of Rob probably drunk is some bar. “At least the mother part.”
“If what you say is true and your husband Rob is an alcoholic, he has a disease. The same as if he had cancer or diabetes. Now, would you just abandon him if he had cancer?”
“Of course not,” I respond.
“Okay then.” She stops as if those two words explained everything.
“But I don’t know what to do!” I say.
She laughs, shaking her head. “I told you, dear. Pray.” She smiles at me. “When you have forgiveness in your heart, all things are possible.” She inhales a deep breath and then raises and drops her shoulders. “Alright then. Come on. I want to show you something else.”
I do not think I want any more revelation in my world today, but I say nothing and follow Sister Margaret to the very back of the church and into a small room containing empty vases, candles holders and the like. From a cabinet, the nun extracts a plain white box.
“I thought Chevy might like this,” she says, opening the box.
Inside is a pale rose colored print blouse. The pintuck design at the shoulders is completed by flutter sleeves and long ties at the neck done into a pretty bow.
“Wow,” I say, unable to imagine Chevy in such an article of clothing.
“Think she’ll like it?”
“It’s beautiful,” I reply.
The nun carefully folds the blouse back into the confines of the box and replaces the lid. “Do you have the time?”
“Time?”
“To come with me and give this to her,” she says, producing her keys from the shadowy pocket of her habit. I open my mouth to fabricate some sort of excuse, but those bright gray eyes will brook no refusal. She thrusts the box into my hands.
“Come on.”
She takes me to a large building nestled between other large apartment style buildings. The name on the window of the front door reads SafeHouse.
“Safehouse is for women eighteen and older who are trying to get out of prostitution. It was co-founded by my order, The Sisters of the Presentation and a woman by the name of Glenda Hope. The founder of my order, Nano Nagle, dreamt of establishing safe havens for prostitutes nearly two hundred years ago. This place is the fulfillment of that dream. It’s a place to start over,” Sister Margaret says as we walk through its main corridor. “I got special permission to house Chevy here while she recovers from her injuries.”
“How long can she stay?” I ask.
“As long as she wants to.” She leans closer to me and whispers, “and I’m hoping this might even get her off the streets permanently.”
We turn a corner, to another hallway. The halls smell of fresh paint. Inside Chevy’s room, the décor is simple but inviting. A strawberry colored swag over the window lets in soft rays of the morning sun. There is a small vase of fresh flowers on a simple pine dresser opposite the bed. The bed itself doesn’t have a headboard, but the quilt on top matches the window swag and looks homey and warm.
Chevy is in the bed, asleep. Sister Margaret raps softly on the opened door of the room and the young girl opens her eyes. Even from this distance I can see that the wounds on her face are nearly healed. The large gash that was so prominent on her forehead looks now to be a distant memory covered by three Steri-strips, and her left eye that was blackened and swollen shut looks nearly back to normal, the dark eggplant color is now much lighter and edged in yellow.
“Knock, knock,” the nun says.
Chevy opens her eyes and seeing us both, smiles.
“Hey,” she says, her voice cracks.
“Thought you could use some company,” Sister Margaret says.
Chevy balls her fists in a muted stretch and then sits up in bed.
“Sure,” she replies. “Kinda boring around here.”
Sister Margaret stuffs the boxed blouse into my hands and says sotto voce, “I think I hear my cell phone,” and ducks out of the room. I heard nothing and am suddenly alone with this little girl, standing awkwardly holding the gift.
Chevy smiles again. She eyes the box.
“Oh,” I say foolishly, “this is for you.”
I walk to the bed and hand her the present. Chevy opens the box and pulls out the blouse, holding it up to her shoulders.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It is,” I agree.
“I should try it on,” she says, undoing the bow. She slips the blouse on over her pajama top and gets the buttons done, but struggles in retying the bow. Her finished effort produces a twisted jumbled mess that looks more like a restraint than a bow.
“Here,” I say, “like this.”
I sit on the bed next to her and retie the tie ends into a neat bow.
“There,” I say. I look around and spy a handheld mirror on top of the dresser and retrieve it, letting Chevy take a look at herself in the pretty blouse.
She blushes and grins.
“I look like a real lady,” she says.
“You do,” I agree.
We talk, haltingly about a variety of subjects. Chevy recounts to me her physical therapy and how she feels almost back to normal. I tell her of Robyn’s rescue but leave out my marital issues. Chevy is silent for a moment.
“Robyn is very lucky,” she says. “Havin’ a mom like you.” She draws a hand to her mouth and begins biting a fingernail.
I smile but say nothing. My heart is suddenly riven with emotion thinking of my last encounter with my daughter. Watching her ferocious struggle against deliverance from a world so depraved as to have no redeeming value. A world that only wants to use her up until nothing is left. I grind my jaw against the sting of tears as Chevy talks, and I manage to force a weak smile onto my face.
“I remember trying to talk to my mom about these things,” she says.
She brings a hand to her mouth again and begins work on another nail. I push a wisp of hair out of her eyes.
“I told her, like, we could do better, you know? But she wasn’t interested. The next day I found her. She’d OD’d.” She looks down and purses her lips.
“That must have been very difficult for you,” I say.
The longer I stare at her, the more my vision begins to blur. I see Robyn’s face instead of Chevy’s. I have to blink to restore my vision.
She shrugs in response to my comment and begins chewing on her nails again.
“I guess,” she says finally.
“Have you ever thought about finishing school?” I ask.
“Sometimes. But you gotta, you know, like be organized.”
She begins her teenage catalogue of excuses about why she never finished school and my mind is again wrenched back to life with Robyn. The struggles with learning, the unfinished homework and the endless succession of parent teacher meetings.
“What’s it like?” she asks.
“What’s what like?”
“Working in an office? Isn’t it boring?”
“Not at all,” I respond. “Bookkeeping is very rewarding because you create order from confusion.”
Chevy gives me a wistful look and then says, “sometimes I wish my life was, like, you know, different.”
And that’s when it hits me. The disjointedness of life. Chevy, who has had absolutely no breaks in life, no chances, no nothing and Robyn, who has had a good family, has had everything a child could want or need; they both end up working the streets. The impossibility and hopelessness of it all.
Chevy is rattling on about what she imagines life as a grownup will be like; her little hopes and dreams. As she talks my eyes well with tears.
“Why do you do it?” I ask, interrupting her stream of consciousness.
“W
hat?” she asks, looking puzzled.
“How on earth can you prostitute yourself?” The question itself makes me want to retch.
Chevy sits up, wipes away my tears.
“There’s lots of reasons,” she says. “For me, it started out as a way to get money just to eat and stuff.”
“Robyn always had food on the table,” I say in protest.
“For Robyn it was different.”
“Different? Different how?”
“At first it seems glamorous. You know, thinking about guys wanting you; the money and the clothes and the nightlife. It seems like the life of a movie star or something. But, like that’s not how it really is and you don’t find out until it’s too late.”
“Oh God,” I cover my face with my hands.
“Hey,” Chevy says. “It’s okay. Don’t cry.” She is stroking my hair and murmuring words of encouragement. Her kindness plucks me from my despair.
I mop my face brusquely with the back of my hand.
“Well this is something,” I say, reigning in my emotions. “The patient comforting the visitor.”
“It ain’t no big thang,” she says with her teenage inflection, laughing.
I reach over and give her a hug, being careful not to squeeze her too tightly, mindful of her healing ribs.
“Everything’s gonna be okay,” she whispers into my ear.
October 7, 2002
It’s just after seven when I cross the threshold from work. The house is hot, as usual; the weatherman warning against a “protracted heat wave the likes of which we’ve never seen before.” I close my eyes to the heat and think about the sweet relief of a cool shower washing the heat of the day from my body.
I drop my purse to the floor and close the door behind me. The little pamphlet that Sister Margaret gave me the other day about praying the Rosary falls to the floor. I pick it up and fan through the pages. Inside are various pictures with titles like, “Second Sorrowful Mystery”, and “Fourth Glorious Mystery”. Though reading through the entire pamphlet seems daunting, I open to a single page of Christ holding bread out to his disciples gathered round him at the table. The title at the top of the page is “Fifth Luminous Mystery”. I begin reading the meditation below the picture when I am interrupted by the telephone. I stuff the booklet back into the folds of my purse and sprint to answer the phone.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Skinner?” a male voice asks.
“Yes?”
“John Simpson here. From Peaceful Acres.”
His voice is taut with an unnerving disquiet. My heart flips in my chest.
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
“What’s wrong?” Needles of fear prick my spine.
“Robyn was doing really well; we felt she was ready for a field trip to an NA meeting with the main group of young adults.”
“And?”
“It was all a ruse. She snuck out of the meeting, gave our administrator the slip, I’m afraid.”
My body is suddenly gelatin weak. “How can this have happened?” My voice has risen in volume and timber.
“Look, I’m very sorry, but like I said. We thought your daughter was really getting the program when it turns out all she really wanted to do was gain access to the outside world so she could escape. There’s no way we can foresee that kind of deception.”
I realize that any continued conversation will just turn into a pissing contest and so thank Mr. Simpson for his time and hang up the phone. Helplessness splatters through my body like spilled red wine on white carpet. I glance at my watch while simultaneously dialing Bart Strong’s number. I have no hope that he will pick up at this hour, but it doesn’t matter. He owes me a phone call anyway.
To my shock and satisfaction he picks up on the first ring.
“Bart Strong,” the familiar husky voice answers.
I explain what happened.
“BLU BOY must have found out where she was, and convinced her to leave the treatment center. He was probably waiting for her when she ran off.”
“Maybe,” he says. “Or maybe she just ran away on her own.”
“I’m going back to San Francisco tonight,” I say.
“Hold up a minute. You don’t even know if that’s where she is.”
“Right now it’s the only thing I have to go on. Maybe I can get someone in the Tenderloin to talk to me.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. Look, sit tight for a few minutes. I’m going make a couple of phone calls.”
I huff out an impatient breath and give my watch yet another glance: seven twenty.
“I’m leaving at eight,” I warn.
Hanging up the phone I immediately begin mobilizing various articles that I surmise might be useful for my foray into the dark San Francisco night. I stuff a flashlight, a pair of binoculars I picked up a month ago at an Army surplus store, my ubiquitous bottle of water, a sweater, and my Rolaids, just in case, into a small canvas bag.
I pace the living room, one eye on the portable phone on the coffee table, one eye on my watch, willing the minute hand to hasten its glacial sweep towards the twelve. With five minutes to go, I am suddenly startled to hear a knock on the front door.
I flip on the porch light and peer through the peephole. I twist the lock back and open the door.
“Freddie? What are you doing here?”
The man who helped Bart and I rescue Robyn stands before me; again, dressed all in black, his black moustache the most prominent thing about him.
“Got a call from Bart,” he explains.
The dark blue van is parked in front of the house.
“Let’s go,” he says.
He opens the passenger side door to the van and I get in, tossing my canvas bag onto the floor in front of me. He closes the door for me and heads for the driver’s side, but not before our eyes meet.
As he hops into the van, I peer out my window to see Mrs. Cotillo staring at us. This time she makes no effort to hide the fact that she is watching my movements. I want to smile, but I don’t. I turn my face away as Freddie pulls from the curb.
“So, what kind of work do you do?” he asks.
“I’m an accountant,” I say; “actually just a bookkeeper,” I amend, though technically not even that is true. “But I’m going to be going back to school to get my degree.”
Freddie nods but doesn’t say anything.
“What about you? What do you do?”
“Actually, I’m a dentist,” he says.
“Really?” I say, surprised.
“I have a practice in Antioch.”
We fall silent a moment.
“Got any other kids?” he asks.
“No. You?”
He shakes his head. “Amanda was an only child too.”
I purse my lips together, my eyes dart from the blur of the East Bay rushing by my window to Freddie’s austere profile. Curiosity about what happened to his daughter Amanda pushes me to ask intrusive questions.
“You mentioned before that Amanda hooked on drugs?”
“Yeah. She had it bad. Started experimenting when she was a freshman in high school, hanging out with the wrong crowd. The usual story.”
I wait for him to give me more information, but his eyes travel to the speedometer and then back to Highway 24. The sky in front of us is a dusky violet crisscrossed by nectarine colored skeins of fragile clouds.
“And that’s how you met Bart?”
Freddie nods.
“I was desperate. Amanda kept running away. Bart was the only one who seemed to care.”
“But things didn’t turn out okay,” I ask, but it comes out sounding more like a statement than a question.
“Things went south. We tried to do an extraction. In Stockton. A boy, a local gangbanger was killed; Bart got arrested for manslaughter but the DA couldn’t make it stick.”
Freddie is silent and I can’t think of a thing to say. He clears his throat.
“Amanda OD
’d anyway about a month after that. Whole thing left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.”
“And that’s why you do what you do? Help parents try to save their kids?”
“Something like that.”
“Dentist by day, superhero by night,” I say with a smile.
Freddie smiles but says nothing.
The City is cold as usual. Freddie again displays his driving prowess, piloting the large blue van as if it were a sleek race car, up and down the streets of San Francisco until we are in the heart of the Tenderloin District. Once we hit Turk, Freddie slows to a crawl; both of us scanning the streets; two sparrow hawks searching for the little mouse.
As we approach Larkin, Freddie’s eyes zero in on someone. I follow the direction of his gaze to a small bundle of people strolling down the street, but can’t tell who he has actually spotted.
“What?” I say.
“Someone I know,” he says easing the van into a parking place. He switches off the van but leaves the keys in the ignition. “A guy that used to hang out with Amanda’s friends. He might know something. Stay put. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Within minutes the group has both moved from view and I sit and look around at the bright and glaring lights of the city. Somewhere in the distance I hear a siren intone its mournful tenor. My eyes never stop scanning every person I see in the dim hopes that I might find Robyn, but of course I never do.
Five minutes turns into fifteen and then twenty-five. I reach down at my feet for my canvas bag and my bottle of water, but I evidently didn’t screw the cap on securely enough because the bottle is empty and the bottom of my canvas bag is soaking wet.
“Damn it,” I say to the air.
I suddenly feel parched and look around the inside of the van but apparently Freddie isn’t in the habit of carrying liquid refreshments. I stare out the window at my surroundings. Behind me, across the street and down the block in the shadows is a liquor store. I peer in the direction that Freddie disappeared but see nothing. I pull a five dollar bill from my wallet, and then stuff my purse beneath the van’s seat and yank the keys from the ignition.
Outside the night air is charged with competing odors: Chinese food, bus exhaust, and a noxious thread of stale body odor. Cars jet by, in a single direction, everyone seemingly in a hurry. I wait for a lull and then dive across the street in the direction of Fox Liquor and Grocery. As I make my way down the sidewalk a chilly breeze whips into my skin, but my sweater was another casualty of my water bottle and so I clench my teeth against the cold as I skirt a handful of orange and white construction barriers approaching the liquor store. A few feet away from the entrance of the store is a Muni bus stop. A handful of sad looking people are loitering near the graffiti-laden bench. A large, articulated Muni bus rumbles to the stop just as I approach. Everyone at the stop traipses up the short staircase and into the bus and in another second the bus itself trudges away, as it belches out a pall of heavy exhaust. I purse my lips and hold my nose against the stench.
The Whore of Babylon, A Memoir Page 12
