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 day 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."
I had never told Haley about Alice's drug addiction. I was too embarrassed. It's not exactly something you brag about. But now that Haley told me about her own drug problem, I felt I could open up to her and tell her what I had been through with Alice.
Haley was a good listener. She was very sympathetic. "You poor thing," she said. "No wonder you're so miserable right now. That girl broke your heart every which way possible."
It felt good to be able to talk to someone who understood, really understood. I teared up. Haley did, too. We hugged and cried together. And I wasn't embarrassed about it at all. I had talked to Linda, Crystal and Kayla about Alice, but I never felt comfortable to let any of them know how deeply hurt I really was. Yeah, I told them I was really depressed, but I never cried when I talked to them about Alice. Instead I'd make sarcastic jokes about Alice fucking some dope boy and how stupid she was for ruining her life.
But talking to Haley was different. For some reason we connected on a deep level, and I felt like it was ok to be vulnerable in front of her. I didn't feel like I needed to hide my pain behind a tough front.
On our way to the shittiest motel in town, Haley opened up about what she had been through. The last time I saw her about a year ago, she had been so excited, because she had bought a little convertible. She was so proud of her new car.
But she had started snorting coke, because her baby daddy Rodney sold it, and she got it for free. Then they both got addicted to oxycodone pills. Those pills are basically legal heroin. Addicts in Florida call them Blues. They crush them up and inject them into their veins, just like the junkies in New York inject heroin.
At some point Rodney was arrested and went to jail, and Haley started hanging out with some black dope boy. He ended up killing someone, and used Haley's convertible during the murder. Her car was found at the crime scene, so now the police was on her trail. She told them she didn't know anything, and ran away from Fort Myers. That's how she ended up in Miami, and then Hollywood.
She didn't know anyone when she got there, but addicts have a sixth sense when it comes to finding drugs. It didn't take her long at all to find a dope boy in Miami. He pimped her out. She was raped and beaten regularly. Her life in Miami was absolutely horrible, so she moved to Hollywood. But things weren't much better there either.
She got arrested for prostitution and spent time in Miami-Dade County Jail. Shortly after her release, she went to jail again, for drug possession with intent to sell, because she was riding around in the car with a dope boy.
When we got to the dirty motel room, she told me that she was actually on the run from the police right now. She was supposed to be moved from jail to a rehab facility, but she jumped out of the car and ran. Great. So now I was aiding and abetting a wanted fugitive. Lovely. I was starting to get a headache.
Everything she went through came pouring out of her. It seemed like she was talking nonstop, without even taking a breath. I guess she was high on coke or crack. Then she asked me if we could go back to the house where she was staying, to pick up Rosie. But we had just gotten to the motel, and I really wasn't in the mood to drive all the way back to where we just came from. So she tried to bribe me: "You could fuck both of us! Rosie is really hot. You're gonna like her." That was the first time a girl asked me if I wanted to have a threesome.
Threesomes sound great in theory. But to me, the thought of disappointing not just one but two girls at the same time, seems like way too much pressure. I think I'd be way too nervous, and probably wouldn't even be able to get hard. I prefer being with just one girl.
Haley and I had sex. It was a pretty sad experience. She was completely different than I remembered her. She was so skinny and mangy. And where her big beautiful breasts used to be, she now had two saggy skin flaps that looked like deflated balloons. She used to be such a sweetheart. But now she was overacting like a porn star, grinding her pussy into me like she just couldn't get enough of my dick. She kept screaming and moaning so loud, I thought the people in the next room would complain about the noise. I didn't like it. And being around her in this condition was actually getting pretty stressful.
After we finished, we weren't even dressed yet, and she already wanted to go back to the house. Supposedly to get Rosie, but by now I was pretty sure she really just wanted to go back there to get more drugs. I told her I had a headache, and that I wanted to go back home to Bonita Springs. I offered to drop her back off at the house, and then she and Rosie would have to figure out a way to get back to the motel room on their own.
A few days later some guy, who sounded like a cop, left a voicemail on my phone. He said Haley got arrested, and she wanted me to bail her out. I called him back. He turned out to be a bondsman, not a cop. I told him that I didn't really know Haley all that well, and that I wasn't going to pay $1200 to bond her out. He told me that he couldn't blame me, because the charges she had were pretty serious, and people in her position tend to not show up for their court dates, and then I'd be on the hook for a lot of money. Haley spent the next 45 days in jail.
As soon as she got out, she called me and thanked me for not bailing her out. She said she had been totally off the chain and her drug use had become so severe, she probably would have died, if she didn't sober up in jail. Haley told me that by not bailing her out, I probably saved her life. She said she was all better now, and that she would never go back to using drugs. She was tired of that horrible life and she wanted to go back to school and make something of herself. I was really happy to hear that, and we made plans to get together again soon.
A couple of days later, she called me again and told me she had moved back to Fort Myers, and she found a room for rent. She said she just needed $20 to be able to move in.
"$20? To move into a room?" I asked. "Really? Are you sure, you're not just asking me for $20 to go buy some crack?"
At first she denied it, but then she admitted it: "Yeah, it's for crack. But I'm not gonna let it get out of control this time. I'm just gonna smoke crack casually, here and there. On the weekends. I'm never gonna let it get as bad as I was before I went to jail."
Yeah, right. I had heard that story before. I knew that if she starts smoking crack again, she'd be a wreck in a matter of days. I told he
r: "I'm sorry, sweetie. But I don't want to be the one to make you relapse, so I'm not going to give you money for crack."
She called me almost every day after that, and we started hanging out again. She stayed at a house off of Palm Beach Boulevard, with a man named Lorne. He was a 70 year old convicted drug smuggler who had spent his youth in prison. He only had one arm.
Haley had gained a lot of weight while she was in jail. But she lost it again at an alarming rate, because she was smoking so much crack and not eating. Palm Beach Boulevard is one of the worst drug neighborhoods in Fort Myers. There seems to be at least one crack house, or trap house as kids like to call them these days, on every street.
Haley supported her drug habit by walking along Palm Beach Boulevard, getting in guys' cars and having sex with them. Sometimes for as little as $10. Or she spent all day and night in a trap house, having sex with whoever would stop by and throw her a couple of dollars or a hit of crack.
It broke my heart to see her like this. She was such a sweetheart, with such a great personality, and so much potential. She used to run a karaoke club a few years ago. She had a great voice and had auditioned for American Idol. She had even sung as the opening act for Rick Ross at a NASCAR race. And now here she was, nothing more than a sad shadow of her former self, sucking dick on Palm Beach, and spreading her legs for any random thug at a trap house on Ione Avenue.
The Heroin Scene in Fort Myers Page 5
