Sex and Crime: Oliver's Strange Journey

by Oliver Markus

  After a few months, my phone conversations with Linda no longer revolved around Alice, but around the crazy girls I had met in Florida. Especially Hussy. Linda thought it was entertaining. To her, listening to my stories was like watching a soap opera on TV. Tune in tomorrow, to find out what happens next!

  But Linda also had crazy stories for me. Some of them were about her own awkward experiences as a rookie hooker. But most of her stories revolved around her friend Stephanie. Stephanie was a heroin addicted hooker who had moved from New York to Atlantic City. She was homeless and prowled the Boardwalk. Linda told me that Stephanie used to be a beautiful girl. A tall, skinny blonde with a gorgeous face and a great body. But now she looked like a mangy toothless crackhead. Linda even sent me naked pictures of Stephanie, to show me how disgusting she looked now.

  Stephanie had been raped, beaten and left for dead on the Atlantic City Boardwalk several times. You'd think she would have hit rock bottom after those experiences. But no. None of that made her quit. It just made her want to use even more drugs, to forget her miserable life. As long as she could get high, she didn't care if she was being raped in a dark alley. At this point in her life, a lethal overdose probably would have felt like her salvation.

  Linda's stories about Stephanie really opened my eyes about how powerful drug addiction really is. It's easy for a sober person to say: "Just get over it and stop using drugs." But that's like telling a starving person not to eat. No matter how much will power you have, eventually you cave and you stuff your face with all the food you can get your hands on. And at that moment nothing else in the world matters.

  Since those conversations with Linda, I read a lot about addiction. One medical article stood out to me. It explained that different parts of our brain are in charge of different things. The midbrain is the oldest, most primitive part of our brain. It's kinda like a cockroach. Not very bright. The midbrain is in charge of our cravings. If we only had a midbrain, we'd be fucking, eating and doing drugs all day long. We'd give in to every craving, every urge without any thought about the consequences of our actions.

  Then there's the prefrontal cortex. That's the most advanced part of our brain. It's responsible for complex problem solving and abstract thinking. Basically it's the part of our brain that separates us from animals. The prefrontal cortex is where our brain considers the consequences of our actions. It's the part of our brain that lets us predict and contemplate future events, and how our actions will affect our future, or the lives of other people. The prefrontal cortex is what gives us empathy. A shark doesn't feel guilty when it eats someone. That's just what sharks do. But a typical human will feel bad for someone else, feel pity, guilt and remorse thanks to the prefrontal cortex.

  It takes a long time for the prefrontal cortex to fully develop. Doctors say that part of the brain is not fully operational until you are about 25 years old. That's why teenagers think differently than adults. A teenage brain is simply not fully developed yet, and therefore not as good as an adult brain at considering the consequences of your actions, or truly comprehending how your actions affect someone else. That's why courts treat teenage offenders with more leniency than adult criminals.

  It's also the reason why drug court is more lenient with drug offenders, because drugs like heroin or crack disrupt the development and function of the prefrontal cortex. The brain of a drug addict simply does not work the same way as a sober brain. A brain on drugs, with an impaired prefrontal cortex, is simply not capable of considering the consequences, or feeling empathy for your victims, in the same way as a sober brain.

  To me, that right there explains why drugs turn addicts into selfish sociopaths who will hurt anyone to get the next high. Being mad at a drug addict for doing what drug addicts do, is like being mad at a shark for doing what sharks do, or being mad at a cockroach for doing what cockroaches do.

  Addicts don't like when you tell them they are all the same. Of course not. Who would? But to me, addicts are like actresses, who all audition for the same role in a horror movie. It doesn't matter how they got to the audition. It doesn't matter how or where they grew up, once they get to the audition, all the actresses act in the same way and read the same lines. They all become the same character.

  To me, the impairment of the prefrontal cortex explains why traditional rehab has such an incredibly high failure rate. The AA 12-step program is all about talking to the prefrontal cortex. They tell you to think about how your behavior has hurt other people. You're supposed to think about how drugs have ruined your life. Those are complex thoughts that happen in the prefrontal cortex. But when you put a bag of heroin or a crack pipe in front of an addict, the prefrontal cortex simply shuts down. It goes on vacation. All that is left is the midbrain, screaming for drugs: "Yeah! Let's do it! It'll feel sooo gooood! Fuck tomorrow! Fuck the consequences! Let's get hiiigh rrright nooow!"

  You can train the prefrontal cortex all you want, with 12-step slogans and prayers, but none of that is gonna do you any good, if your prefrontal cortex isn't even home when your midbrain takes over and you're about to relapse.

  I picture the battle between the prefrontal cortex and the midbrain like the cliché of the little angel and the little devil sitting on your shoulders. The angel (the prefrontal cortex) tells you not to do drugs: "Think about what it will do to your life! Think about your loved ones!" Meanwhile the little devil (the midbrain) on your other shoulder just chants: "Do it! Do it! Do it!"

  And primitive urges are usually a lot stronger than rational thought. That's why people do things even when they know that they shouldn't. Drug addicts know they shouldn't take drugs. But they do it anyway.

  People cheat on their spouses, even though they know that 5 minutes of sex with someone else is not worth ruining a lifelong relationship. But they cheat anyway, because the midbrain is winning. The poor little angel is fighting a losing battle.

  Overweight people know they shouldn't eat 6 donuts in a row. But they do it anyway. Why? Because the little angel, who knows all about bad cholesterol and heart disease, was on vacation while the little devil screamed: "Do it! Do it! Do it!"

  And that, in a nutshell, is why the AA 12-step-program has such a high failure rate in my opinion.

  Anyway, let's get back to Linda:

  The stories she told me about her own life often revolved around her kids. Her young son and her baby daughter. You know, the one she wanted to abort when we met in Pennsylvania a year earlier.

  Linda told me she hated being a hooker. She hated having complete strangers touch her, get on top of her, be inside of her, and use her to get off. It disgusted her. The men disgusted her. And she was disgusted with herself. "But it is what it is. I need the money."

  She told me that her baby daughter had a deformed foot. She needed to make money as a hooker to save up for the surgery. She said she didn't want just any random surgeon to work on her daughter. She wanted the best surgeon she could find. Honestly, I don't believe any of that was true. I think she smoked crack, and that's where all her money went.

  One time she emailed me that she was stranded in New Jersey somewhere with a flat tire. She said she had no one else to ask, and she begged me to wire her $200 to get a new tire, so she could get home to her children. I told her that after everything I had been through with girls lying to me about make-believe emergencies to con me out of money, I wasn't going to wire a dime to anyone anymore. Especially not to her.

  I hacked Linda's Yahoo Mail account and saw that she had emailed over 30 guys with that same story. And a bunch of them really did wire her $200 to get a new tire. I never told her that I had hacked her and knew she was conning a whole bunch of people.

  Another time she claimed that she needed money to buy her mother a pair of fancy sunglasses for her birthday. A whole bunch of guys thought they were the only one she asked, and felt flattered that she would come to them, and they all sent her the money. She made thousands of dollars with these little scams.

  Then one d
ay I got text messages from her phone, asking me to bail her out of jail. Supposedly the texts were from Linda's babysitter, using Linda's phone. The texts said Linda had been arrested for unpaid tickets, and that Linda had gotten into a fight with one of the other inmates and was bleeding. She needed to be bailed out right now.

  Texting was too slow and tedious, so I asked the babysitter to pick up the phone and talk to me. She said she couldn't, because the phone supposedly had gotten wet in the sink, and now the phone didn't work, except texting. I told her to use her own phone to call me, instead of Linda's. She said she didn't have her own phone with her. That's when I knew this really wasn't any babysitter texting me on Linda's behalf, but Linda herself. The whole jail story was just her latest scheme. I went into her Email account again and saw that she had been sending out emails that day, as well as the previous days. So she was obviously not really in jail. Later I found out that a bunch of guys fell for that scam again as well, and several of them sent her bail money.

  This went on for a few months. I never sent Linda any money, but I also never told her that I knew she was lying about all this stuff to get money out of me and other guys. Sometimes it's better not to tell someone you know they're lying.

  One day when Linda called me, she sounded really upset. She started crying and told me she had just found out her baby girl had cancer. Wow! Karma is a bitch, I thought to myself, while trying to sound compassionate and comforting on the phone. That's what she gets for always lying, to prey on other people's compassion. She had used her kids in so many of her lies and schemes, and now her baby daughter really was sick. And with cancer! Wow. Just wow.

  Over the next few weeks, Linda told everyone she knew that her kid needed chemo therapy and expensive cancer specialists. A bunch of guys sent her money. Thousands of dollars. Then some of those guys even set up a charity for her baby daughter. And they organized a charity event for her. Linda asked me to be her date at her party. I declined. I told her I wouldn't be able to make it to New York in time for the party, because I was busy with some project here in Florida.

  I was suspicious. Who could blame me, after watching her scam people over and over again with her stories? I kept asking her to tell me details about her daughter's health. About the type of cancer she had. Which hospital she was in. How she was feeling. Linda answered all my questions without skipping a beat.

  Every time she called me, she kept me updated on her daughter's health. She told me about her appointments with cancer specialists, and what the oncologists and pediatricians told her about her daughter's condition. She told me about the Disney movies her daughter watched in the pediatric oncology department of the hospital. She told me about how kind the nurses were to her daughter, and what her daughter's favorite hospital food was.

  The whole cancer thing was just way too big, way too elaborate not to be true. There was just way too much detail for all this to be a lie.

  Then one day Linda disappeared. I was used to her calling me at least 3 or 4 times a week. Now I hadn't heard from her in over 2 weeks. So I searched around a bit, and found an online forum where people were talking about her. Apparently a lot of people were very pissed at her, because altogether they had donated tens of thousands of dollars to her and her sick baby. But when some of those guys wanted to go visit the baby in the hospital, and they started to ask more and more questions, it turned out that she wasn't in any hospital. The whole cancer story was a big lie. Linda's baby daughter was in perfect health. People called the cops and tried to press charges against her, so she decided it was time to disappear. I never heard from her again after that.

  I should have known. When Linda and I had spent time together in Pennsylvania a year or so earlier, she had seriously suggested that we should start a church together. She didn't believe in God or heaven any more than I did, but she thought it would be a great way to con gullible fools into donating lots of money to us.

  HALEY

  "Every harlot was a virgin once."

  William Blake

  "Prostitution happens to you because of troubles you had. In reality no woman would choose to do that."

  Catherine Deneuve

  "We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict."

  Jim Morrison

  Haley was a pretty blonde with glasses. I had met her on one of my first trips to Florida, right after my divorce from Donna. She was thick, but it looked good on her. She had big, beautiful breasts. Not as large as Donna's, but not too shabby. She built websites and sold stuff on Ebay, so we had a couple of things in common. She also sold fancy shmancy wine bottles.

  Haley and I had the same sense of humor. I really enjoyed hanging out with her. She had a great personality and was very easy to talk to. She was smart, witty, funny, and really sweet. We ended up having sex. Haley knew that I was only visiting Florida for a couple of days, and then I was going to go back to my house in Pennsylvania. She gave me a lift to the airport.

  We kept in touch while I was up north, and every time I flew back down to Florida, Haley and I met up, hung out and had sex. We made plans to go to one of the resort hotels in Orlando together, but we never ended up going.

  Over time I started to see a change in Haley. She wasn't as cheerful anymore. She always seemed exhausted and tired.

  Then I met Alice in Pennsylvania, and I stopped seeing Haley on my trips to Florida. Haley still called me every few weeks though, to see if I was still with Alice, or if I might want to get together the next time I was in Fort Myers.

  After Alice ran away from rehab, and I moved to Florida by myself, I just didn't have the ambition to meet anyone new. I was way too depressed. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Haley called me again. I told her that Alice and I had broken up, that I was living in Bonita Springs now, and that I was utterly miserable. Haley told me that she had moved to Miami a few months ago, and asked me if I wanted to hang out. She said she'd cheer me up and help me forget Alice. Sure, why the hell not, I thought. I agreed to meet her in Hollywood, Florida, between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. We made plans for a romantic evening in Miami Beach.

  While I was driving on I-75, through the swamps of the Big Cypress National Preserve, Haley texted me: "Oh, BTW, I live with a lot of people, so we can't hang out at my place."

  After dealing with Alice and her druggie friends for a year and a half, my instincts told me that Haley was now a drug addict, too. If she lived in an apartment with roommates, she would have texted me: "I have a few roommates. So we won't have privacy." But she wrote "I live with a lot of people." To me, that meant she lived in a crackhouse with a bunch of random strangers. And only addicts live in crackhouses. So that one innocent little text made me think she was now a crackwhore. I was right.

  When I arrived at Haley's home in Hollywood, some skinny dark-haired girl was standing on the sidewalk and got into my car as soon as I pulled up. It was a shady neighborhood. And now this girl just got into my car. I figured she was some crackwhore who assumed I was cruising the ghetto to pick up a "date." I was just about to tell the skinny strange girl to get out of my car, when she said hello and hugged me. It was Haley. I recognized her voice, but she looked nothing, n-o-t-h-i-n-g like the thick pretty blonde girl I remembered.

  "Honestly, I'm too tired to go to Miami Beach. Let's just get a motel room," Haley said.

  "Wow," I thought, "she doesn't waste any time."

  She told me she knew a cheap place and gave me directions. On our way to some grimey motel in the worst part of town, I told her I didn't even recognize her, and asked her how she had been since the last time I saw her over a year and a half ago, before I met Alice.

  "Not so good," she said with a sad smile. "When we are done at the motel room, do you mind if we pick up my friend Rosie? She's at my house right now. There's a lot of drugs there. I'm worried about her. She does drugs, but it's not safe at that house. Do you mind if she stays the night at the motel room with
me, after we're done? At least that way I know she's not on the streets."

  "Sure, I guess," I said. "So, your friend Rosie takes drugs, huh? What about you?"

  Haley gave me a sad look and said: "Yeah, me too."