Girls Like Us Read online

  “That’s normal; it’s normal to miss someone who was a big part of your life . . . even if it wasn’t good. What do you miss?”

  “Him tellin me to get my ass in the house. I miss him tellin me what to do. You know . . . what time to get up, what to wear, to go to work . . . stuff like that.” She smiles just thinking about this. “I’d go back to him if I could,” she says cheerfully. “He was like my father.” The quiet surface begins to break. “I really love him.”

  Something about the way she says this, with true longing, breaks my heart. “What about the other things, though? The times he hurt you and the things you had to do.”

  “Oh, I know. He didn’t mean all that stuff, though; sometimes I just made him mad.” This leads to a discussion of “making people mad” as opposed to people taking responsibility for their own actions. I feel like I make some good points. She remains unconvinced. “I still want to go back, though.”

  I sigh, hopefully inwardly, although I can’t be sure. She’s still so stuck, physically free but emotionally tied; I know I can’t push too hard. If I do, I become the bad guy as she defends her love, her man, her experiences and feelings for the last three years. I try a different tack. “Why don’t we make a list . . . of the good things and the bad stuff? The things you miss and the stuff you don’t. Maybe it’ll help sort through some of these feelings.” She looks skeptical. “I made one when I left my pimp and it kinda helped me think stuff through,” I say. My own list-making process had, in fact, offered a startling realization that my version of love was perhaps a little distorted, to say the least. When I saw that on the plus side, I’d written Put cocoa butter on my welts from the belt, I knew something was wrong. Making the list hadn’t changed my feelings for a long time, but it did change the way I thought about them.

  I tear a sheet of paper from my notebook, and draw a line down the middle. I write Things He Did That Made Me Feel Happy/Loved at the top of one column and Things That Made Me Feel Sad/Cry at the top of the other.

  She goes to sit on the couch and I see her start scribbling. The writing stops after a couple of minutes and she sits quietly for a while, sucking on the end of the pen, thinking hard. I’m guessing she’s working on the Things He Did That Made Me Feel Sad/Cry side. I go back to my work and let her sit with her memories for a little while longer. After about forty minutes, she comes into my office. “I’m finished. Here.” Thrusting the paper at me as if it’s radioactive. I’m not surprised to see how short the Things He Did That Made Me Feel Happy/Loved column is, although I’m mildly surprised and secretly pleased that her list of negatives is so long; she’s really put a lot of thought and energy into this. It is, as always, a jarringly unequal list of pros and cons: He told me he was my daddy, plus; He hit me, minus; He takes me on trips, plus; He makes me have sex with other men, minus; He gave me an STD, minus; He beat me with an extension cord, minus; He said I was a dumb bitch, minus, He told me he loved me, plus, plus, plus.

  As we sit together going over the list, there’s an item on the pro side that I don’t understand. Her tiny printed handwriting reads Cheetos. “Huh, what’s this, Angie?”

  “You told me to think of the times when he loved me, so there was this one time, when he got mad at something I did, I can’t remember what, and he hit me some. And I was crying and shit and so then he left and that made me cry more cos he left me when I was crying. But then he came back and he’d gone to the store and he bought me Cheetos and a chocolate Yoo-Hoo milk.”

  I look at her a little blankly.

  “Cos they were my favorites. And he knew they were my favorites and he got them for me to make me feel better.” She smiles at this memory and I can picture her drying her tears—“Thank you, Daddy”—oh, so grateful for $1.25 worth of junk food from the corner bodega. “That’s the main time I knew that he really loved me.” She must mistake the look of sadness probably creeping across my face as incomprehension, as she explains again, “Cos they were my favorite and that was mad thoughtful of him.”

  As we continue to go through the list—Set me up to get raped, Left me in jail—I’m thinking, how easy it is, how little it takes. A bag of Cheetos and chocolate Yoo-Hoo outweighed all the painful, awful, evil stuff he’d done. In the right circumstances, it didn’t take much at all.

  When someone has the power to take your life but doesn’t, you feel grateful. It may not make logical sense but it does make psychological sense. Given that most people haven’t experienced someone wielding the threat of death over their heads, it can be hard to understand just how intense that type of bond can feel. Yet even in cases where the threat is external and the people present are not the instigators, for example in a plane crash, a serious car accident, a natural disaster, a bond often develops between the survivors that is stronger than many other relationships. It’s part of what makes combat vets, firefighters, or even police officers feel a bond to their fellow soldiers or partners that is indescribable to anyone outside of their worlds. Given the shared trauma that multiple girls under the control of one pimp may feel, there is the potential for the same type of bonds to develop between them; yet unlike the military or the police and fire departments, where loyalty to your comrades is strongly encouraged and supported, pimps work to create tension, jealousy, and betrayal between girls who are all suffering from the same threats. Bonding with the abuser, then, makes sense because after all, he’s the one with the power to take your life, not the other girls.

  The desire to perceive kindness when there is none, or to magnify small, inconsequential acts of basic human decency to proportions worthy of gratitude and love, can also be seen in other victims. Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, in a controversial account of his concentration camp experiences during the Holocaust, notes that his fellow prisoners came to believe that the guards were showing kindness toward them even in the most mundane of acts such as wiping their feet before entering the barracks so that the prisoners would have less to clean up. In the Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, the former slave clearly developed a level of Stockholm syndrome toward his “master” Pascal and sought to find “kindness” even in the midst of his traumatic experiences as a slave. “I had sails to lie on, and plenty of good victuals to eat, and everybody on board used me very kindly, quite contrary to what I had seen from white people before.”

  Again, the critical factor is not whether the kindness is legitimate or valid, simply that the victim perceives it to be so. For Danielle, it’s her cubic zirconia necklace; for Angelina, it’s the chocolate Yoo-Hoos; for another girl it’s the gift of a Wizard of Oz DVD, for another it’s being allowed to sit in the front seat of the car. For some girls, the only kindness is the absence of violence, or at least the reduced levels of violence in comparison to what they knew he was capable of. I’ve heard girls say, “Well, he didn’t beat me like he beat the other girls.” Or, “He hit me with an open hand not a closed fist.” The gratitude and the relief are palpable.

  One night, I’m facilitating a focus group with the girls in our program for a city research study. One of the questions is: While you were in the life, do you remember an adult who tried to help you? While the conversation has been animated and raucous up till now, with girls weighing in excitedly on pimps, johns, and cops, the room goes silent. Finally, Jessica speaks. “This trick took me to a house and he brought a whole bunch of other guys, like maybe fifteen guys, and they all were raping me and I was crying and crying. And one guy wouldn’t rape me and he helped me find my clothes. I guess he felt bad cos I was crying.”

  She was grateful. Not because he stopped the other guys from raping her, not because he called the cops, simply because he didn’t participate in the rape of a fourteen-year-old. It was significant enough for her that he remained, in her mind, a good guy. A small perceived kindness in the midst of terror.

  SUMMER 1994, GERMANY

  I’m barely inside the apartment when JP locks the door behind me and grabs me by the throat. For some reason
that I can’t yet fathom, he’s wearing surgical gloves. “I’m sorry, Raych.” I’m struggling for air. “I love you, I really do.” He kisses my face as I try to pull his hands off my throat. “Tonight’s the night. I’m sorry.” Now I know what’s happening. He’s going to kill me.

  He’s been threatening for weeks—stabbing me in my sleep, and sometimes when I’m awake, with hypodermic needles that he’d gotten from the drug clinic, pretending to be a heroin addict. An episode of Matlock where someone is killed by sending an air bubble to their heart gives him the idea. Last week, I’d been taking a bath and he started to drown me with the shower hose, sitting calmly on the side of the tub as I flailed and fought. It’s become less of a threat and more of a promise. I’ve already made arrangements for my body to be shipped home and left a note at work with his name and birth date on it, making it clear that when I’m found dead it will be him who is responsible. My death, and his son’s mother, who he feels has wronged him, have become his fixation. It’s unclear what my crime is; according to him, it’s just what has to happen. Sometimes the narrative ends with his suicide too, depending on his mood. He’s even offered to do a suicide pact. I, of course, have to go first. I’ve been trying desperately to talk him out of it, but it always just feels like a stay of execution. Apparently I’ve run out of time.

  He lets go of my neck and pulls me into the living room. I’m crying and begging for my life, professing my love, but he’s resolute. “You can choose. How do you want to die?” He says it like he’s asking me what I want for dinner.

  “What are my options?” I’m trying to stop crying and think clearly, despite all the champagne I’ve consumed.

  He picks up the wooden leg from the coffee table that had broken in one of our fights a few nights earlier. “You can be beat to death with this or you can be strangled.” Neither option appeals to me. I try to think rationally.

  “Beat.” I’m banking on this taking longer, making more noise and hopefully making him squeamish enough to give him second thoughts.

  “OK.” He doesn’t seem too concerned. Now I’m second-guessing my choice.

  “Can I sit down for a minute and have a cigarette?” I’m trying to stall.

  “Go ahead, but I’m fixin to do this, Raych. You don’t have long.”

  My mind is racing, trying to think of a way out of this but I can’t. We have no phone in the apartment and the neighbors are used to the sounds of me screaming by now. They all find him charming. I remember that I have weed in my bag. There’s no way he’ll turn it down, he’s an addict. The weed might mellow him out and could potentially put him to sleep.

  “Can we smoke a blunt together? Please? It’ll be easier for me.”

  “Yeah, roll it.” He’s pacing the apartment, still holding the table leg. “I wiped the apartment down. So they won’t find no prints.” He holds up his gloved hands. “And I stole these from the clinic that day.” He seems to want me to be impressed by his ingenuity in planning the crime scene. I want to throw up but I’m scared that I’ll lose my chance to get him smoking. It takes me longer than normal, but I finally get the blunt rolled and I take a few hits. I don’t want to smoke too much and dull my own reactions although passing out right now might be the most painless option. He sits and finally puts down the wooden leg to smoke. I see him relax just a little. I wait till he’s taken a few more pulls. “What about my family, Jay? They’re gonna miss me.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s fucked-up.” He looks sad for a minute. “It has to happen, though. You have to die. Ima be dead soon anyway. I love you, I really do. But you know it has to be like this, right?” I’m crying again. Unable to speak in the face of this logic.

  “You can write your mom a letter if you want to say good-bye.”

  “Thank you, baby.” A temporary reprieve. He gives me a pen and notebook he’s been scribbling paranoid ramblings in. I write slowly. Dear Mum, I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to write. I picture my mother reading the letter. “Can I look at some photos before . . . I go?” He gets up and hands me the photo album from the bookshelf. I was using it to stall, but as soon as I start looking at the pictures of me as a baby, me dressed up as Paddington Bear as a toddler, me smiling in elementary school, I’m sobbing. This is it. This is how my life will end. I pore over the pictures, committing each detail to memory. It takes me a few minutes to notice that JP has leaned back on the couch. He’s still smoking and his eyelids are starting to look heavy. The weed might actually work. I start over at the beginning of the photo album, turning the pages as slowly as possible. He’s drifting a little and paying me less attention now. Everything feels like it’s moving in slow motion. He’s trying hard to stay awake. I’m praying for him to fall asleep.

  Finally, his head nods and his eyes are closed. I wait a little longer for his breathing to get heavier and then make a dash for the door. The lock and chain take too long to open and make too much noise and I hear him wake up. I’ve just got to get outside. The door’s open and I’m in the hallway, just a few more steps to the stairs. He’s coming. “Hilfe, help, help, please!” I’m screaming, praying that this time one of the neighbors will actually care. I reach the step and it’s too late. My head jerks back as he grabs me by my hair. I twist hard and somehow I’m on the ground. Crawling. Scrambling to get away as he tightens his grip on my hair. “Help, please, please! Oh God, please!” I know the whole building has to have heard me. He lifts my head up and I see the concrete coming up to meet me. Each time he smacks my head into the floor it feels as if my brain is exploding. I see stars and all I can think of is a Tom and Jerry cartoon. It’s true, it’s actually stars, I’m thinking, as my head smashes into the ground again and again. And then it’s over. He’s dragging me back into the apartment. I blew my only chance to escape. He’s yelling at me but I can barely focus, the room keeps spinning and fading in and out to black. I don’t care anymore. There’s no point in fighting this. I just want to go to sleep. Somehow he’s brought me into the bedroom and is now on top of me. He’s crying and kissing my face, saying he loves me, he’s sorry, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me. His hands are around my neck and he’s still kissing me. I don’t even try to fight. He adjusts his hands to get a better grip on my neck and to be helpful, I lift my hair up.

  “I’m ready,” I say.

  When I first wake up in the morning, I think it must’ve been a nightmare. But my head is throbbing and my throat and neck feel so sore and bruised I can barely swallow. I get up from the bed and see my reflection in the closet mirror. My face is swollen and discolored. I look closer and see that the red and purple marks are made up of tiny little lines. Hundreds of blood vessels have burst all over my face and neck. My eyes are bloody red. I’m not sure why I’m still alive.

  I walk into the living room, where JP is lying on the couch smoking weed. He looks pained when he sees my face. “What happened?” I start to cry. Every inch of my head hurts.

  “I don’t know, Raych, it’s weird. I don’t know.”

  “You were going to kill me.” I’m not sure if he’s managed to forget that part already.

  “I know. I tried. You were almost dead.” He starts to cry. I sit on the loveseat, scared to get too close. “I was doing it, I mean, I was choking you.” He holds up his hands as if they’re still around my neck. “Your face was turning colors and your eyes looked like they was gonna come out. Your tongue was coming out too. You wasn’t breathing. I figured I had about thirty more seconds left, if that.” He makes a tightening motion. I cannot move. Listening to him describe my near death. “And then, I don’t know, I can’t explain it.” He looks spooked. “It was like something came and pulled my hands away. It was crazy. And it was enough, just those few seconds when my hands came off, for you to get a breath again. And then I couldn’t do it again. I just came in here and let you be.”

  I don’t know what to say. He could’ve killed me but he didn’t. He nearly killed me but he didn’t. I know I have to leave him. He will k
ill me one day. But I stay still on the loveseat. He reaches out and strokes my hand. “You want some orange juice, Raych?”

  “Yes. Thank you,” I say.

  Chapter 10

  Leaving

  Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves

  could restore us to sanity.

  —Step 2, “The Big Book,” Alcoholics Anonymous

  FALL 1994, GERMANY

  I can barely see with the tears and mucus running down my face. I know that it’s not worth it, I know that I’m tired, that I don’t want to go through this anymore. The situation with JP is out of control; either I’ll kill him or he’ll kill me, although the odds are squarely in his favor. The copious amounts of alcohol I’ve consumed help calm my nerves. I know it’s the best decision. I feel bad for my mum but figure she’ll get over it eventually. Besides, she wasn’t thinking about my feelings all the times she tried to take her life, so it’s hard to feel that bad. Mind made up, I wrap the cord to my bathrobe around my neck and tie it tightly, and walk out to the balcony. It’s raining hard but I figure that getting wet is, at this stage, the least of my problems. I’m relieved it will all be over soon. The rain and the darkness make it difficult to see the drop from the balcony, but I know it’s about ten feet. JP had forced me to make the jump one night when his crack-induced paranoia had him convinced that the cops were about to break down the door at any moment. Of course they didn’t, but I cut my knee open and sprained my foot. Tonight, though, I’m not worried about the drop. I have no intention of ever hitting the ground. I climb over the railing where there’s a little ledge and tie the other end of the belt around it. I say a quick prayer, “God, please forgive me,” take a deep breath, and jump into the blackness.