“Come on honey. You’re not trying hard enough,” Tyler scolded.
“It’s as far in as it will go,” I said. “This isn’t going to work Tyler. Can’t we do something else? I should just keep the poor little baby. But I can’t do that or I’ll never get my girls back!” I was crying now.
“I have one more idea,” he said.
Tyler went to the closet and took a wire hanger from the rack. After pulling it apart, he straightened it and clipped off the twisted end with a pair of pliers. He took a lighter from his pocket and scorched the end of the wire, then wiped it off with a rag he had soaked in rubbing alcohol. He pushed the hanger through the tube still inside me, forcing it to the end, and then clipped it to about two feet. This time Tyler pushed. Corinne watched from the end of the bed. I could see her cringe.
“Now relax honey. This will only hurt a minute,” Tyler said. Then he shoved so hard I felt I was being stabbed. A wave of terrible pain rolled over me. I screamed as the hanger pierced deep inside. I was sweating, trembling, trying not to throw up. I wanted to jump off the bed.
“Hold her down Corinne,” Tyler barked. “Help me keep this thing in her.”
Corinne held both my legs down on the bed, but she didn’t touch the tube, and she couldn’t look at me. She turned her head toward the window and shut her eyes.
After one more push, Tyler decided the hanger and tube had gone far enough. With one hand pressed against my vagina, he held the tube between two fingers so that it wouldn’t slip out, and with the other he pulled out the hanger. The tube was now partly buried inside of me, the other part hanging on the bed. I was in agony. I prayed to God to forgive me. I cried hard, crazy with pain.
“Now I want you to stay here until I say you can get up,” Tyler told me. “It’ll take about twelve hours. The air going up the tube will break the sack that holds the baby. You’ll bleed a little, but it’s nothing to get worried about. When it turns bright red, we’ll know it’s time to pull the tube out.”
Tyler put four sleeping pills into my hand. I swallowed them with another swig of whiskey.
“I’m going to take Corinne home. Then I’m going out for a while,” Tyler said. “Now don’t move. Those pills will make you sleep, and before you know it I’ll be home and it’ll all be over.”
“Tyler,” I mumbled, already feeling the pills, “How do you know so much about all this?”
“Experience, honey, experience,” he said, winking at me. He put on his coat, picked up the car keys, and opened the motel room door.
Corinne turned as she walked out behind him. “Good luck sweetie,” she said. “You’ll be all right. Trust Tyler. You’re in good hands.”
I slept for four hours. My full bladder woke me, but I couldn’t get up and ruin the procedure. Instead, I closed my legs tight and stared at the ceiling, thinking about my daughters. I also couldn’t help but think about what was happening to the baby inside. I cried for it and for myself.
Another four hours later I looked at the tube again. I had avoided it before, but now I could feel something warm coming from inside and I had to know what was happening. I almost screamed—the towels Tyler had put beneath me were soaked with bright red blood coming from my vagina. When I recovered from the sight, I decided it must be time to take out the tube. I gently pulled it from my vagina, feeling its slide all the way from inside my womb. It came out easily, and I tossed it into the wastebasket beside the bed. I lay there for a few more seconds. All I could think of was how I wanted to take a shower, to wash away all the blood, to come clean.
When I rose from the bed, I saw more blood coming from between my legs. It seemed to be pouring from me. I thought I was bleeding to death, so I panicked and picked up the phone to call the front desk.
“Oh my god, I’m bleeding to death! Call an ambulance! Please help me! Please help me,” I pleaded. “I’m bleeding, and it won’t stop. I’m in room seventeen. Please hurry. I need help!”
In seconds, the manager was at the door with a passkey. When he saw the blood and how frightened I was, he called the operator, who connected him to an ambulance service. In minutes an ambulance, sirens screaming, was carrying me to the hospital.
I was admitted to the emergency room of Sunrise Hospital. A doctor asked me questions as two nurses tried to stop the bleeding.
“It looks to me like you’re having a miscarriage, Mrs. Harvey,” he concluded. I didn’t tell him that Tyler had caused it. “We’ll see what we can do to stop it, but you’re going to have to lie very still and do what the nurses tell you, or we may lose the baby.”
I was taken to a room and a nurse stuck an IV into a vein near my wrist.
“This will stop what’s happening to you,” she told me. “You just get some rest and we’ll be back to check on you in an hour or so.”
For two days, as the medicine tried to work its miracle, I did everything I could to stop it, tightening the muscles in my abdomen and bearing down with as much force as I could to push the fetus from my body. Again and again, hour after hour, I strained and pushed, grunted and sweated. Whenever a nurse came in to check on me I stopped, but during the rest of the time I was awake I worked to start the bleeding again, to finish what Tyler had started. It didn’t work.
Finally, in desperation, I took a straw from the glass of ice water on my table. I stuck it as far up my vagina as I could, until I could feel it touch something. I pushed and prodded with the straw until I felt a pain building inside my abdomen. I knew it was a labor pain. I pulled the straw out and began pushing again.
In half an hour, it was done. I felt something slide from inside me, and when I looked between my legs, I saw the fetus, a tiny thing about the size of a small bird. Still curled up inside its clear little sack, it could have fit into the smallest part of my hand. I could see its little arms and legs. I called for the nurse. I had no idea that it would look like a real baby in just two months!
While the nurse cleaned me up, she informed me that my baby would have been a boy. That was the first moment I thought of the fetus as a real human being, and I wanted to die. I didn’t feel evil but full of pity, for both the baby and me. I felt I had done the worst possible thing a woman can do—to kill a child she was carrying. No amount of cheer or support from the nurse could make me feel better. I was depressed and had never felt more alone.
I was taken into a small surgical room for a D & C, where they clean out all the blood and tissue remaining from when women have miscarriages or abortions. The doctors cleaned as though it was a simple miscarriage—they would never know that I had aborted my own baby. I could only pray that God would forgive me—God, please forgive me. Fifty years later, I still pray that he will.
During the three days I was in the hospital, Tyler never called or visited me. In fact, no one did. At that point I knew so few people in Las Vegas that I really didn’t have any friends. Tyler was the only one.
The day I got out, I took a taxi to the motel. Tyler was sitting on the bed, holding a drink and watching television. “Hi honey. Are you all right?” he asked with a smile.
“Do I look all right? Do you know where I’ve been, what I’ve been through? I’m tired. I’m sick. I hurt. My heart is broken from what I just did to that little baby, and you couldn’t care less you sonofabitch. You never, not once, came to see me in the hospital. Did you even know where I was?”
“Oh sure, the manager told me,” Tyler replied nonchalantly. “But you know honey, I couldn’t come.”
“Why?” I asked him.
“Don’t you see? They might think it was my kid. They would have thought I was the father to that poor little kid, and they would have asked me a bunch of questions.”
“You were just afraid you’d have to pay the bill,” I snorted. “Don’t you worry Tyler, you’re not responsible for it or for me. I hate what you did.”
Tyler handed me a cocktail and I calmed down as I drank. He pulled me onto the bed with him and tried to cuddle up, nuzzling my ear and cheek
with his day-old stubble. As he made nice, I began to think about what a sucker I was. After eight months, I was beginning to figure out that Tyler was just using me to make money. He didn’t love me. He was playing me. He knew all along I would do anything for him so long as I thought I needed him.
Our relationship was a game. He didn’t care about me or about my kids. He didn’t care that I had agreed to kill my baby so that I could keep my children. He knew all along I was in a state of confusion about my life. Suddenly I saw that Tyler was only watching out for Tyler—the only reason I was important to him was because I brought in money.
“So honey, when are you going back out on the Strip?” he whispered to me.
I flipped, jumping up to throw a pillow at him. “You are the filthiest low life I have ever known! You don’t care about me! You don’t care about anyone except yourself, you self-centered son of a bitch! I want you out of my life. I don’t ever want to see you again!”
“Oh honey, you don’t mean that.” He took my hand and tried to pull me close.
Tears streamed down my face as I pushed him away. “Just leave me alone. Just get out of here,” I shouted.
I don’t think Tyler expected to hear that from me. But “poor little Janie” meant business, and Tyler didn’t argue. He reached for his coat and pulled a big bag of diet pills from the pocket.
“Here, take these diet pills. You said you felt bloated. They’ll make you feel a hell of a lot better.”
“Get out!”
Tyler picked up his coat, grabbed his bag from beneath the bed, and walked out. “You bitch!” he screamed as he slammed the door behind him.
Chapter 6
Custody
I called Carol in Anaheim and told her what I’d done.
“Oh Jane, you’re so young and foolish and scared of losing your daughters that you didn’t think straight,” she said. “I’m sure God has forgiven you. Please try to understand you are forgiven. God loves you, and so do I.”
“Thanks Carol. I needed you to be my friend and say it was okay.” I cried myself to sleep, thinking about how sad it was to lose my baby and how hard my life was. I knew I had gotten myself in deep, but the next morning I decided to put a smile on my face, move forward, and try to take better care of myself.
Four days later, Tyler called me at my apartment to say he was sorry. He loved me and missed me and wanted me to know how hurt he was that I didn’t want to see him. I said I missed him too. I was sorry for getting so crazy, but I was so sick after the abortion I couldn’t think straight. I put the blame on him, even though I knew I was the one desperate enough to do it.
Then he said, “Honey, isn’t the hearing for your kids coming up?”
“Yes. In a couple of weeks.”
“Can I come and take you there?”
“Yes, I would like that Tyler. It would be wonderful to have your support. I know I’m going to be a nervous wreck.”
So Tyler came to stay with me and for the next two weeks we had a wonderful time. I was still sore, and he left me alone in bed to heal. After a few days we searched for a larger apartment, one big enough for the girls and me. We moved my belongings to the new place and then we went shopping. I had a ball buying cute little dolls and teddy bears to put around my daughters’ new twin beds. I pictured them sleeping there and living with me in the apartment. I thought everything would be perfect because I’d worked hard to prove I could care for them. No one knew or cared where I got the hundred-dollar bills to pay for everything—just as long as I had them.
The day before the divorce and custody hearing, Tyler drove me in my sharp new Thunderbird, which I had just bought, to the Beverly Hills Hotel, where I got us a room for the next few days.
The hearing was scheduled for the next morning in Santa Ana. I had proof of a furnished apartment for them, and I was sure the decision would go my way—I was their mother, after all.
Still, the night before the hearing I couldn’t think straight. I rambled on to Tyler about my marriage and about how Bob’s mother had pushed me down and kicked me in front of the girls. Tyler was patient and said he’d do anything to help me. In my mind I saw Tyler getting a job and me quitting the profession. We would get a house, maybe with a white picket fence, and we would raise my daughters. Everything would be wonderful. Little did I suspect that was the furthest thing from his mind. He knew he had a gold mine, and he was going to bleed it dry.
That night, I took some downers to get some sleep, and in the morning I took diet pills to be wide awake at the hearing. On the way to Santa Ana I felt sick to my stomach, like I was going to throw up. I asked Tyler to pull the car to the side of the road and opened the door to vomit, but all I did was dry heave.
When we got to the courthouse, I had him drop me off in the front and sent him to have breakfast. I didn’t want anyone to see me with him and ask questions about who he was or how he was connected. These were my children, and I was going to get them back myself. It was my responsibility.
Earlier I had arranged to meet my attorney, the one I had met and hired (who wanted to barter his fees for sex) at the Disneyland Hotel. Outside the courtroom, I paid him twelve hundred dollars to take care of my divorce just before we went in to face the judge. As we walked into the courtroom, he said, “I hate to tell you this, but your kids are here in the courtroom.”
“No! They can’t be here to see this. You can’t subject those little girls to this. What in the hell’s wrong with that family that they would bring those kids into the courtroom? Anyone with any sense knows better than to bring children to a divorce hearing.” I wanted to see Cindy and Roberta, but I didn’t want them to witness the legal proceedings.
“Just calm down,” he said. “When we walk into the room, don’t run over to them and grab them. Don’t make a scene.”
We went through the swinging doors of the courtroom and I saw Cindy and Roberta sitting to the right, behind Bob and his attorney. Bob’s sister and Mae were sitting with the girls, one on each side. Cindy and Roberta jumped up and ran over shouting, “Mommy, mommy, mommy!” They threw their arms around me.
I knelt to hug and kiss them. After a minute, I told them to go sit down, that I had to sit with the man in the suit on the other side of the aisle. I would talk with them later.
I sat down next to my attorney, leaned over and whispered, gritting my teeth, “Get my children out of this courtroom now! And I mean now, or I’m going to throw the biggest fit this court has ever seen.” He just stared at me, but I think he believed I would do it.
The judge entered and everyone stood up. When he was seated, my attorney remained standing.
“My client wishes to have her children taken out of this court hearing. She does not want them subjected to this procedure,” he said directly to the judge.
Immediately the judge granted the request, agreeing that children had no place at such a proceeding. A marshal escorted the girls to the judge’s chambers. Cindy looked back over her shoulder at me, then at her father as she was led away. She was bewildered. Roberta, at eighteen months, was too young to understand, but Cindy, now three-and-a-half-years old, knew something terrible was happening.
Bob was called to the stand first. He said I was working in a nudie joint in Las Vegas and probably prostituting myself all over town. He said I was an unfit mother and that if I got the girls I wouldn’t be able to take care of them. I couldn’t believe he didn’t defend me or say I had been a good mother. When it was my turn, I told the judge about how Mae and Bob had tricked me into giving up the kids and how Bob couldn’t support the girls because he couldn’t hold a steady job. I said he was a drunk and a pill popper and he didn’t care about anything except finding his next fix.
I cried as I told the judge about how Bob had left me stranded with no money, food, or place to live. I pleaded with the judge to grant me custody. I told him I could do it if he’d just give me a chance. “Please give me my girls. They need their mother. I was the one with a job—at the ho
spital—and he cheated on me.”
“Try to get a hold of yourself, Mrs. Harvey,” the judge said sternly. He didn’t look sympathetic. “You can step down now. I’ll be back in a few minutes with my decision.” He stood up and returned to his chambers. I returned to my seat at the table and cried, now afraid the girls might not be awarded to me.
Ten minutes later the judge was back. Speaking to both Bob and me, he said, “I feel that neither of you is old enough nor mature enough to take care of your two daughters. Therefore, I grant custody to Mae, the grandmother.”
“But he lives with her!” I pounded on the table. “It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.” I fell to the floor and pounded the cold cement, crying my heart out.
“If you don’t calm down, Mrs. Harvey, I’m going to hold you in contempt,” the judge said, losing patience with my hysterics.
“I want my babies. I want my babies!”
The attorney grabbed my shoulders and pushed me into the chair. I instantly quieted, deciding it was easier to shut up than to go to jail. Then I gave up. I sat in my chair and cried. All I could think about was what I had been doing for the past year so that I could have my babies. I had never believed I wouldn’t be granted custody, and now I had lost my daughters.
I had ruined my whole life working to get Cindy and Roberta, and now it was hopeless. This was the point at which I hardened. Maybe I was too young to have kids. Maybe they were better off with Mae. I had no self-confidence, and I was drained from the ordeal.
After I quieted down, the judge continued. “I’m giving you equal visitation rights. Your divorce is granted.”
“But don’t I get alimony? How can I live? I need my babies!”
Cindy and Roberta were brought back into the courtroom and I went to them to hug them and kiss them. I told them I loved them and that they would have to stay with Mae for a while, but I would come to see them. Mae came over and took their hands. She said I could visit them whenever I wanted, but that I had to call before coming. She said she would take good care of them. Despite my feelings about Mae, I knew she would.
Rat Pack Party Girl: From Prostitute to Women’s Advocate Page 7
