January 10, 2011
“I know a guy,”says the girl I met in the building I live in, somewhere in Queens.
It’s a room in the basement, cheap, paid cash, and no one knows anyone here; everyone’s a nobody, and no questions are asked.
I don’t even know her name. She’s on drugs, I can tell from the way she moves and speaks. I know how it looks, because I have seen my father use every fucking day.
“He pays well,” she says, “He just wants you to hang out with him. Here’s the number you can call. He can help you get legit papers, too.”
“I don’t know,” I say hesitantly. “I don’t want to go to a random guy's house.”
I don’t like men. I hate them. All of them.
Maybe I don’t know much about life at the age of fourteen, but growing up in a drug house and a rapist father taught me one thing: Men are the most disgusting there is on this planet.
But I need money.
And papers.
There is nothing I have to lose.
“Okay,” I say, taking the number. “Have you been?” I ask her.
“Sure. Got three hundred bucks every time.”
“Did he get you papers, too?”
“No, but for that girl and her fam from the third floor left, the blonde one with the seven sisters. That guy has friends in high places.”
“How old is he?” I ask.
“I dunno. Looks like a dinosaur. Grey hair an all. Maybe fifty?”
My gut clenches.
But times are desperate, because I have no more money.
I got reasonably good at stealing, got cash, a laptop, some clothes, and jewelry I could sell.
I need papers and some money, I tell myself.
Also, he can’t be any worse than my father or the disgusting piece of shit I let fuck me so I could get to the Stateswith a freight ship. Not to forget the man I had to stab when the ship arrived in the Port of Baltimore.
I thought I’d die that day.
There is no hell worse than the one I already lived through. What else could be there?
So I call the number.
Manhattan
September 15, 2010
I can’t movemy body.
Why can’t I fucking move?
My senses don’t belong to me.
