away from this dark street lamp night feeling weak and ashamed

1. Hobe Sound, FL. 

My mom often said how sorry she was for what happened to little B****. She was my first baby sitter, our neighbor's daughter and my big friend. She could talk to me when no one else dared approach the petulant child. 

The last time I saw her I was perhaps 10 years old. We met on the street of the little town where I was born and spent my very early childhood where we would play, swim and go to church together. She would tell me always be good and listen to my mom and dad. 

I could scarcely look my old friend in the eye when she said how nice it was to see me again and how big I had grown. I was trying to survive my childhood and she was finding her way back into the world after several chapters of prostitution brought on by drug addiction. I didn't really comprehend where she had been or what had happened to her but I knew it was bad. Damn bad. A really fucking damn 'Why did this have to happen? Because God doesn't give a shit is why!' kind of bad.

That day, I just could not look at her or hardly speak. Not because I was ashamed or though any less of her. I just could not wrap my 10 year old brain around it. I was a kid and I been hearing bad news about her for years. Suddenly there she was, playing kickball with a few of the neighborhood kids like nothing had changed except for the pallorous mist and tear streaked valleys that adorned her once shining blonde face.

Of the few profound regrets I have in my life this one is that I wish could have thrown my arms around her and said how nice it was to see her too. Maybe even gotten in a few rounds of kickball. But I just stared at the ground mumbling and walked away. I have never seen her since. I wish to God I could take that day back and do it again. But that is not going to happen and it breaks the hell out of my heart. 

This memory is probably why these subsequent paragraphs and verses have turned into one of the hardest damn things I've ever written about. I haven't made it through one writing session without being overcome with emotion. I don't know if this is the best thing I've ever written but it sure as shit comes from a place deep in my heart. 

Personally, I have never been a sex worker but it has recently occurred to me that I have known several people who have, for a variety of reasons, found themselves having sex for money. Some found their way out, some didn't. For reasons I don't understand, I have felt extremely compelled to tell their stories as best as I am able.  

2. Biscayne Boulevard and 58th Street

She was not even so much as a small smattering of years older than me yet she was aging quickly. Every night, all the girls would come out of the darkness and rain, heat, cold, fog and/or humidity and into the relatively safer confines of the greasy ass diner where I washed dishes. Unlike the others, she was still unravaged by repeated beating from her pimp, long nights of desperate customers, periodic jail stints and multiple bouts of syphilis. 

Her eyes still flashed turquoise and she smiled through a south Georgia twang. She asked me

Where 

do you go  

to school? 

What

do you 

want to do 

once you 

graduate?

Does

it hurt 

when you 

get tattoos?

Many times, late at night, I contemplated spending a weeks pay for a half hour of her naked companionship. Instead I kept the clutching caresses of her undulating corpse pristine in my fantasies and untarnished by one less set of hands. 

3. Birch Street. Fort Lauderdale,FL.

Renee practiced black magic, pledged her allegiance to Satan, packed her bags and at 19 went to working the street. I suppose it was because the old Hell had gotten tiresome. The suburbs held no promise, her family had become obsolete. Out here it was an adventure and they were all friends.

Protecting 

each other

from the cops

and the killers

because 

snuffing out 

hookers

is a game

of numbers

no matter

what side of the law

you stand on

or fucked up reason

you carry

that gun

Damien and Adam were handsome, personable and charmingly dumb as two bags of hammers. To know them was to adore them. They were in love with each other and easily made friends at all ends of Fort Lauderdale beach. Regular customers looked for them in the wee hours, cruising up and down Birch Street, asking all the other working boys and girls if they had seen the bright blonde haired boy and his dashing slate blue eyed companion.

One stormy night, a night torrentially forbidding even the most resolute entrepreneurial courtesan from plying their trade, we sat in their apartment, smoking copious amounts of weed and rejoicing in some much deserved respite and laughter. 

Then 

a young boy

appeared 

at the window

drenched

to the bone

and crying

lightning silhouetting

his meager frame

calling repeatedly

Damien!

Come out!

Damien!

I love you!

Who the fuck 

is that?

we said

'Just a customer.'

He drew the blind.

4. Police Report

Damien 

would dress 

as Daphne 

and get into 

strange cars 

leaving Adam 

to wonder 

if 

he 

would ever 

see 

his love 

again 

until 

the hotel

found Renee 

that night

in her bed

strangled

then

the fear

became real

and the escape

disappear.

5. Atlanta, GA. 

  

The conversation skidded abruptly into oblivion when I asked;

What's ever happened

to V****?

'Haven't you heard?'

No.

(long pause)

'I'm sorry

you have to hear this

from me.....'

In the end...

She survived meth addiction and the man who pimped her as a 'professional submissive.' She survived the hospital stays and beatings for money that landed her there. She survived even though many had stopped praying for her.

Instead asking

she's still alive?

and not dead yet?

how is that possible?

shouldn't she be?

wouldn't she be?

better off somehow?

I never stopped crying for my friend until I heard her voice on the phone. She had found her way out of hell to find the man who treats her like gold. She had moved far away. Now there is a baby girl. Now she speaks once again to her mother. Now she realizes how deep the dark night of the soul can be and where she must never again go. I hope she realizes how much she is loved and what a part of us died when we thought we would never see our friend alive again. 

For myself, I hope I never again feel as powerless as I did when all I wanted to do is save my friend's life and realized that it was not my place or battle. I try to be the man I wish I had been on that day when I was a boy and all my old friend wanted was a smile. 

For these people, they are the ones who I am either in awe of their strengths, pray for their triumphs or weep at their tragedies. I am the one who walks away from this dark street lamp night feeling weak and ashamed. 

With my deepest love, always and forever,

Max