Tricks (37 page)

come around, accept me for how I was born. Part Mom,

*

part him. But no. I did finally talk to him on the phone. For all of three minutes.
You come to your senses? Asked
the Lord for forgiveness?

*

"That's between him and me,

Dad. And anyway, I never had

much sense to begin with. I'm

still who I am, though, no more, no less. Want you to know I love you."

*

He didn't budge. Didn't

say okay, son, come on home. Didn't say I'm good with you, just how you are.

Didn't tell me he loves me.

612

I Also Messaged Loren

Found him on Facebook.

Seems everyone has one of those now. "Moved to Las Vegas with a friend," I wrote. "Things

didn't work out, so I'm looking

*

for another place." I hoped, of course, that he'd write back, confess how much he misses

me, ask me if maybe I'd like to give upstate New York a try.

*

I didn't hear back for quite

some time. So long, in fact, that

I was beginning to think he was going to ignore me completely.

Finally, though, I got a reply.

613

Seth. Great to hear from you.

Glad to know you wound up somewhere cosmopolitan.

I've got some news of my

own. Hope you'll be happy for

*

me when I tell you I hooked up with someone really

special. You'd like him,

I think. In fact, he reminds

me a whole lot of you....

614

Don't Know Where

I'll wind up in the future.

I have no way to leave Vegas.

Not for a while. So for now,

I'll stay here, living with David.

Met him through a friend of a chat

*

buddy, and so far, so good.

He choreographs major shows, and with over thirty years in the business, is something of a Sin City icon. His house has

*

ten bedrooms. You could call the decor garish, with marble

statues and white furniture.

Paparazzi hang around outside his parties, which are regular.

615

I have no more with David than I had with Carl, except for amenities. My life is still

not my own. But it may never

be. One thing I did take away

*

from Carl is to try and earn a little money of my own, save up a small nest egg. Have Ur

Cake Escorts is my way of doing

that. When David isn't looking.

616

A Poem by Whitney Lang
When You Weren't Looking

The child became a woman, though she wasn't ready

to. Don't ask how or why.

Those questions are not the important ones.

Can't you

see you didn't

care

enough to notice?

How will you feel

if we have no

more

time together? I wonder

if you're sorry now about the way you locked your

heart, access denied to the beggar at your door.

She's nobody, only

me.

617

Whitney Almost Died

That's what they told me. Ninety

percent of me wishes they would

have let me go. Easier than battling the vicious onslaught of withdrawal.

*

Easier than coming to terms with who

I was when I almost died. I don't even

know that girl. She's an esoteric

someone, like a movie character

*

you can't quite recognize. Even with my head just about straight, she seems like a caricature--a cartoon

rendition of one of the living dead.

*

Throughout a week of intensive care,

I drifted in and out of the almost corpse, not quite warmed by hospital flannel.

Then there were several more days, mostly

*

conscious as they pumped sustenance into my veins. Sustenance and heroin

substitutes. Easing me off the Lady.

Pretending they didn't want me to hurt.

618

I Can't Tell You

Exactly how many days I hovered

somewhere between this world and another, or which was the scariest.

But the first face I saw, when I decided

*

I might as well open my eyes, didn't

belong to a doctor or a cop. Or Bryn.

I can't remember ever seeing it so full of compassion. Who was this woman?

*

Oh, Whitney,
she said. I expected a
How could you?
but instead I heard,

Thank God you've come back to me.

To her? Did I come back to her?

*

Did I come back at all, and if I did, would I stay? The jury was still out.

Still is today, a month later. No matter.

That day, her concern surprised me.

*

Pleased me. Overwhelmed me, though

I'd never admit it in a trillion years.

I pretended indifference. "Nice to see

you, Mother, I guess. Why are you here?"

*

My snotty tone should have drawn a barb. But no. She came over to the bed, took my hand.
I'm so sorry.

If I would have lost you forever,

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I don't know what I would have done.

Please, Whitney, whatever your reasons for leaving, for... for...
She actually

started to cry.
We can work through this.

*

Daddy came in later. Angry.

And Kyra, on semester break.

She was upset that I might have

damaged her reputation. Whatever.

*

But it has been Mom chipping away at me, trying to convince me we can

maybe--maybe-----become a family

again. I don't know if I want that.

*

First I have to make it through rehab.

It's a pricey place, with a pretty staff and lots of mindless activities. The shrinks

even pretend to be nice while they're

*

picking at my brain. I tell them just

enough to make them believe

they're fixing me. I'm probably

unfixable. But hey, you never know.

620

A Poem by Ginger Cordell
You Never Know

When a passing cloud

might meet another, and together unleash

lightning on thirsting ground.

One insignificant spark

strikes

bone-brittle tinder.

Buoyed by the quiet

breeze, an ember

smolders until evening wind blows, carries smoking wisps upon its wings into the forest, sighs into crackling

summer leaves until the canopy

burns.

So take note of every

passing cloud, because you never know.

621

Ginger Don't Know If It's the Same

Everywhere, but Vegas has

its very own teen prostitution

court, complete with a special

*

judge who says he believes

that underage hookers term, (my

term, not his) are the victims

*

of this particular crime. After

watching him deal with a long

lineup of young tramps (my term

*

again), I think up to a point, he's right. Pimps and johns are most definitely the criminals

*

here. The problem is that most of the girls in the courtroom, including

Alex and me, were willing victims.

*

Whatever. We are damn lucky to have a judge who cares even a little about what happens to any of us.

622

His choices for what to do with us are limited. Juvie. Group homes.

Treatment programs, for those

*

who need them. Hard-core

repeat offenders spend time in

Caliente, a lockup in mid-nowhere,

*

Nevada. And for the few

lucky ones with families who still care and will take

*

them, the chance to go home.

Turned out for once in my

life, I was one of the few.

*

When I called Gram, she freaked. Good freaked,

I mean. All the bad of what

*

I've done started spewing from my mouth. She shut me up right away.
We can talk

623

about that later. Right now,
tell me what I have to do to bring you home.
She didn't

*

yell. Didn't cry. Not until she told me about Iris.
She's

dying, Ginger. Advanced HIV.

624

Gram and the Kids

Really need me now. Iris, too.

She's wasting away. Docs

say she's got maybe a year.

*

I tried to get Alex to come

back to Barstow with me.

She's not budging an inch

*

from the group home her social

worker assigned her to. A group

home for pregnant teens. She said,

*

Me and the baby will be just

fine. The program will

me a job, help me learn how

*

to
be a mom.
She vows to be a better mother than her own.

I just hope she's better than mine.

*

I'll miss her, of course. She's been the biggest part of me for a very long time. But truth is,

*

the biggest part of me should

be me. Just have to find her.

Maybe she's even a writer.

625

A Poem by Cody Bennett
Have to Find

The courage to leap the brink, let myself fall beyond the precipice

most people call

life.

I've grown tired of stumbling, skinning

my knees. If flight

is

possible without the sting of growing

wings, let me fly

away, above the madness, to a place where

there is nothing to gamble but another go-round.

And, win or lose, there is a chance at something after the penultimate decision.

Because life, and maybe

death, will always be a gamble after all.

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Author's Note

I am often asked how I decide to write about a certain topic. This one was inspired by a statistic I came across. Did you know that the average age of a female prostitute in the United States is twelve years old? This book doesn't explore the base reason for that statistic--young children are imported into this country from places like Thailand and Africa to serve as child prostitutes. Other books do address that issue, and I may too, one day. But for the purposes of this book, the statistic piqued my interest in teen prostitution.
Tricks
looks at a handful of reasons that might drive a young adult to sell his or her body. Here, and in real life, almost always you can distill the reason to survival.

Prostitution is not a glamorous profession. Even high-priced call girls often end up addicted, abused, or worse. No one deserves the kind of mistreatment often perpetrated by "johns" and pimps. Whatever the reasons for resorting to prostitution, whatever has happened in someone's past, the future is theirs to shape. The first step is to find a way out.

If you or someone you know have reached that place, and are under the age of eighteen, there is help. A wonderful organization called Children of the Night will take you off the street and help you start over. All you have to do is ask. Their hotline number is 800-551-1300. But if you can't remember that, dial 911. Local law enforcement can put you in touch with them.

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