11
Enslaved . . . Again
I was still the same needy, insecure, frightened girl I had been before I met Tanya’s father and got hooked on drugs. Only now I had even worse sexual abuse and exploitation added into the mix. Despite God’s help, nothing had changed inside me.
So it happened again—right in our apartment building. By then I was fifteen and had dropped out of any kind of schooling. About that time, Jan, a friend from my school days, came to see me. She was only a few months older than I was.
After I promised not to tell anyone, she told me her dad had been molesting her. I was so concerned about my friend going back into that situation, I broke my promise and told Mom what happened to Jan. In turn, she insisted on my calling the abuse hotline. The authorities placed Jan in a group home. After two weeks, she ran away and visited our apartment again.
“It was terrible,” she said. “I won’t go back. I don’t know where I’ll go, but I won’t go back to that group home.”
Mom and I took pity on Jan and invited her to live with us. She became my best friend. Like me, she had dropped out of school. With abuse and exposure to drugs in both our backgrounds, it was just a matter of time before the two of us were recruited.
Jan was with me one day when we met a man on the elevator in our apartment building.
“My name is Marco,” he said and started talking to us. He was a short, older Cuban man, and either he told us or we figured out that he was seventy years old. We lived on the fourth floor and so did he. He was friendly, and we chatted a little. Just as we got off the elevator, he asked, “Do you live with your mom and dad here?”
“No, just my mom,” I answered, thinking it was a seemingly innocent enough question.
“In my apartment, I have café con leche—coffee with milk.” He smiled and asked, “Would you like that?” His voice was smooth and sounded like a gentle, elderly man.
In retrospect, I think he needed only to look at Jan and me to sense our vulnerability. It never occurred to us that despite being seventy years old, Marco was a pimp living on the same floor of our apartment building. As a pimp and trafficker, he was constantly looking for fresh meat.
“You have a father, is that correct?”
“Yes, but he’s always busy working.” I pointed to Jan and said, “She lives with us.”
“Ah, I see. And does your father not mind that you are not in school?”
At the time, I didn’t realize that I had given him all the information he needed. Jan and I were perfect candidates.
“You need someone to whom you can talk at times, yes?” Before I could answer, he said, “You must come by my apartment. I will be there to listen and to talk with you. Anytime.”
I smiled and wondered what kind of man he was. It was weird and creepy that the old guy actually thought we would go to his house just to talk to him and drink café con leche.
But then he said something else just before he left us. “You seem like nice girls but very, very lonely. Do you have anybody to listen to you?”
“Not really,” Jan said. I only shook my head.
“You don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m retired, and I’m in my apartment all day. I live in this building and I get lonely to be with other people.” As we continued talking, he made us feel that he was a harmless old man.
“Do you like the white stuff?” he asked softly and innocently before he smiled at us.
Jan and I understood. He was offering us cocaine, which to us meant he was cool. Even as we parted and I acted like I wouldn’t see him again, I knew differently. I’m sure he did as well.
Neither of us worked, so we had no money. Because both of us had a prior exposure to that drug, we hadn’t expected an addiction to come as a result. Neither of us was so addicted that we had to have it every day. We were mostly weekend users. By going to parties, we made our connections. We would stay out until early the next morning after we had come down from our highs.
But the lure of the white powder drew us. That same day we went to Marco’s apartment, which was on the same floor but on the other side of the building. He was nice to us, very caring and kind.
And he gave us cocaine. Free.
At first we went over once or twice a week. And each time Marco gave us free drugs. Both of us knew how difficult it was to get because neither of us had money. In those days, the cost was sixty to eighty dollars for a gram of coke, depending on how good it was.
“I like doing this for you,” he said when we asked about money. “You don’t need to pay me anything.”
He was nice and inoffensive. Because of my previous experience, I was leery of him in the beginning. Yet he never showed any indication of being unsafe. Three months passed before he won my trust.
We spent our days sitting in his apartment doing cocaine when we should have been in school. Although Jan and I never discussed it, deep inside I hated myself for falling into the daily use of drugs. We were losers—and I also knew we were hopeless and lost.
One thing, however, troubled me. “It seems odd that you would give us free drugs. It’s expensive. Why do you do that?” I asked Marco several times, wondering what he wanted in return.
“Whenever you get money, you can pay for the drugs if you like,” he said with indifference in his voice. “I get lonely with no one to talk to. I like both of you because you’re nice girls, and I feel less lonely when you’re here to talk to me.”
We liked hearing that we mattered to somebody, and Marco never did anything to make us suspicious. He wasn’t a user, but he provided for us. The only odd note, as I look back, was that occasionally young men visited his apartment while we were there. They were in their twenties and thirties and delivered coke to him. Each time he introduced them and said they were his sons or implied they were related. Every visitor was introduced with the broad explanation of family or cousin.
Before long we figured out that Marco was a dealer, but we didn’t realize he dealt in more than drugs. When the young men came to buy or make some kind of deal or transaction with Marco, they did it quietly and quickly—in and out. After that, other visitors came to the apartment. They put their money on the table, and Marco handed them small bags of the white powder. Simple. Not much talking because both parties knew what they wanted.
A few minor-aged girls showed up—either living there part-time or just hanging out for the day and getting high. Who they were wasn’t clear to me, and with drugs in my system, I didn’t care. At the time, I didn’t think about that—I didn’t want to. I was getting all the cocaine I needed. Marco didn’t do anything to us or ask anything of us. Getting our drugs was all we cared about.
One of the young men began showing an interest in Jan. Each time he came, he stopped and chatted with her. They developed a sexual relationship. I didn’t care because I was getting fatherly love and cocaine from Marco.
I continued spending my days in Marco’s apartment, doing bumps of coke. By that time I had become totally compliant. I didn’t care about anything except getting another hit.
Daily Marco said he loved me. “We are family, you and I,” he said. “When you are sad, I am unhappy.”
The girls in this lifestyle—and boys as well—are victimized repeatedly. Traffickers focus on what we need in order to enslave us. In my case, that meant my unmet father need and a yearning to be loved. We believed what we were told because we wanted their words to be true. Because we thought so little of ourselves, we became easy victims and readily accepted their lies.
A few of those who are victimized in trafficking are business smart. After they’re lured into the trade, they determine, “I’m going to get paid for this,” and they do. They’re still victims, but the traffickers use a different tactic with them. They lure them with power and money. “Yes, that’s fine,” they say. “You’re going to be my best girl. You’re number one. You’ll run those other girls.”
Especially for those who have never had control over anything in their lives, who have known only domination by men, it can be a heady experience. They usually don’t see themselves as victims like the rest of us. Money and power blind them to reality.
The smartest of the “best girls” become like wives. That is, they’re no longer for sale. They recruit others—as Mary did—and they seek out other vulnerable kids. If Mary told me the truth, she was nineteen years old and was already recruiting thirteen-year-olds.
Some people might ask why I was so stupid to get caught in trafficking more than once. But those who ask don’t realize the pain and lack of self-worth in those of us who are victimized. The traffickers make promises; they profess love and protection—the things we don’t get from our homes. They give us just enough cocaine and elusive promises so that we remain compliant and they can dominate our lives. As I would learn much later, until something changes inside us, we’re vulnerable and able to be manipulated by people who want to use our bodies for their gain.
Only a miracle could take me out of that lifestyle.