13
Fearing Paco

By the time I met Paco, I was already under Marco’s control. I didn’t want to admit that reality to myself. I would tell myself, “I can walk away from this whenever I want.” Or sometimes I’d say, “Until I kick the coke habit once and for all, I’ll go along with this.”

A few dates with any man, and then it was over. Lasting love never came for me.

The man I most remember—and who still makes me shudder—was Paco. He was in his thirties. He came to the apartment several times and smiled at me. He flirted a bit, but I ignored him. He had lesions and scars on his face, which made him appear ugly. He was Latin or Caribbean and had a tan. Most of the time he wore a harsh look that would make any child want to run the other way when he approached.

One day Marco mentioned him. “You know Paco likes you, don’t you?”

I shrugged because I didn’t care.

“He wants you. He talks about how much he likes you, how pretty you are. He wants to be your date.”

“Whatever.” I wasn’t attracted to him, but we didn’t get to pick; we simply did whatever Marco told us.

The following night, Paco picked me up at the apartment, I got into his van, and we drove away. He seemed nice enough, although he didn’t say much; he spoke broken English. After a time he said, “I drive into this parking lot.”

He stopped, climbed into the back, and told me to come back there with him. As soon as I was in the back of the van, he became violent. He shoved me and started pulling off my clothes. The other girls had told me stories of rough treatment—which was really rape—but I was surprised because most of the men I went out with were nice and caring.

I started to cry.

“Shut up!” he yelled in Spanish, calling me puta (whore). “You’re a cheap whore. I have you all to myself, I can do whatever I want to you.”

I cried silently and thought, Yes, that’s all I am. But I still resisted and couldn’t stop crying. It was more than the pain of what he was doing; it was also the pain of knowing I was a puta.

“What’s going on in there?” Some man in the parking lot must have heard my cries because he banged on the doors. “I hear screaming. Is she okay?”

Paco covered my mouth and yelled back, “Mind your own business!”

The man banged on the door several more times, and when Paco didn’t respond, he stopped. As soon as Paco was sure the man had gone, he knocked me backward and crawled up to the front of the van. He started the engine and pulled away.

He yelled at me and cursed me, but I didn’t care. After I tried to dress in my torn clothes, I got into the passenger seat—as far from him as possible.

In his angry mood, Paco drove crazily through the streets. As soon as we reached the apartment, he came to an abrupt halt. “Get out, puta!” he yelled, and called me more names.

I didn’t hesitate. I rushed inside and to my apartment. I was upset, but I made up my mind that I wouldn’t let it bother me. I took a long shower and tried scrubbing away the memories of that night.

I’m never going on one of those dates again. Not ever.

But within hours, the urge—the gnawing need for cocaine—returned. Drugs like cocaine will take people places they never planned on going. By noon I was in Marco’s apartment for another fix.

I thought that was the end of Paco. I was wrong.

Marco saw that he was losing me, and that made it time to trade me—although I didn’t understand what was happening. Marco introduced me to his “associate,” Julio, whom he said wanted to present a wonderful opportunity to me.

Marco had earned our trust because he always seemed to care about us. I never thought that he was a pimp or could be selling children. Those of us in that world didn’t think much about such things anyway.

Marco had told us that Julio owned a lot of property in an upper-class neighborhood. Even though I was only fifteen and didn’t have a license, I had borrowed my brother’s car. Jan and I stopped at the address Marco gave us, which was in front of a huge apartment high-rise. Despite what I knew deep within, I was impressed with the building and the neighborhood.

The place was spectacular, which was the reason Marco sent us there. Inside, Marco was waiting for us, and he introduced us to Julio.

Like Marco, Julio was Cuban, but there the similarity ended. He was a large man, perhaps fifty years old, well-groomed and well-dressed. He looked like a prosperous businessman.

Once at the apartment, Julio wanted to talk to each of us alone in his bedroom, first Jan and then me. Jan and I looked at each other as she went in. We knew each other well enough that we didn’t always need to use words. She gave me the slightest nod, and the determination on her face made it clear that we were together and we wouldn’t let Julio manipulate us.

When he got Jan alone, he told her how special she was and that he wanted her to be his top or best girl. He did the same thing with me.

The offer to be top girl (nowadays called the “bottom”) was his way of introducing Jan and me to the process of moving to another trafficker/drug dealer. Even though these people treated us politely (then at least) and frequently told us how they loved us, in the depths of our hearts we began to realize they were lying. But we were caught once again in that invisible chain of slavery. They continued to use drugs to keep us in line.

On some level, I understood the setup. Men at the top, like Julio, use people like Marco to lure children into the web and make us feel accepted. After that, the lower-level younger men make us fall in love with them. That way they can use us to do the work and keep feeding us drugs so we don’t ask questions. And we keep coming back for more drugs.

Trafficking usually works like a pyramid scheme. The top people are highly respected, some are even in politics. For example, Julio was a businessman, more like the type of top-level drug dealers we see portrayed on television. And the traffickers go from the top down to the lower-level drug dealers and street-level pimps. I’ve also learned that child protection workers, those within the school system, and even retired detectives have been involved in selling children into the sex trade.

Everybody profits except the girls and boys and their families whose lives are ruined.

After Julio took Jan into the room and closed the door, I asked, “What is he doing with Jan? Is she okay?”

“He’s just talking to her,” Marco said in his soft, fatherly voice. “He’s explaining about the opportunity she has. You’ll get a chance for the same opportunity, but I don’t know if you’re up for it. She’ll probably take it because she’s smarter.”

I felt I had to make Marco know that I was as sharp as Jan. I wasn’t going to lose a good opportunity to live in a high-rise like this. I didn’t have anything, and they offered me a wonderful, exciting lifestyle; I didn’t want to miss out on it.

As I would learn, that was another of the major strategies they use, especially in the beginning. They make the girls feel as if they have to compete with each other.

After perhaps thirty minutes, Jan came out, and Julio immediately asked me to go into the room with him. Another of their strategies was to not let us talk to each other and compare what Julio said.

I called out to Jan, but Julio stepped in front of her. “No, no, come on in now! I’m ready for you. Right now.”

Jan barely shook her head and the look warned, “Be careful.”

He pointed to the bed and I knew he wanted me to lie down. “Face down.” I had enough coke in me not to resist, so I obeyed. He began to massage me, but I didn’t like what he was doing.

“Take off your shirt!”

I complied and felt even more uncomfortable.

I would have gotten up and walked out, but I reminded myself that Julio had given us cocaine. As strange as it may seem, I felt I owed him for the free coke.

I don’t know if I should do this, I was thinking. He’s so old. This is gross.

After a few minutes, he said gruffly, “You want to have sex?”

“No.”

“Oh, okay.” He paused momentarily because I think he realized that I had wised up to what he was doing with Jan and me. I wasn’t giving in easily.

He sat beside me on the bed and said, “As you probably know, I have this business.” He started to lay out his business plan and tried to proposition me. In broken English, he said, “I give you some of my business. See, if you get other girls involved, you can make money—lots of money. I give you half.”

I understood. Julio was offering me the chance to become the top girl—by recruiting other girls.

Julio tried to make it sound glamorous and exciting. “See, you have only to make dates. You get friends involved—and a good-looking girl like you must have many friends. That’s all you do. You have sex with me once in a while—you know, whenever I want, but nothing else.”

That last sentence was a deal breaker for me. “No.”

“I give you money—a lot of money. As much coke as you want. You can have a nice, big car. A house—yes, I give you a house—and a lot of new clothes.”

He knew exactly how to manipulate me. Like any teenager, I never seemed to have enough clothes. He knew exactly what to say to lure girls like me and get us hooked for life. And yet I couldn’t bear the thought of recruiting other kids and ruining their lives.

As Julio was trying hard to sell me on that lifestyle, his voice grew louder. “But if you don’t do this, the supply of coke stops. Right now you don’t pay for it. You refuse, and no more freebies.”

I understood the manipulation. He was saying that either I did what he asked or no more cocaine, and his threats weren’t empty.

I had already become addicted, and he knew that.

“Let me think about it,” I said. I got off the bed, put my shirt back on, and he let me leave the room.

Julio was right behind me. He tried to put on the charm with a big smile, but it didn’t work. Back in the main room again, he asked, “Which of you is the smart one?”

Marco, in his softer voice, said, “It is a good opportunity. For one of you.”

“I have to go,” I said. “I borrowed my brother’s car, and if I don’t get it back soon he’s going to beat me up. He doesn’t know I have it.”

“But you can’t go yet,” Julio said.

In that moment, I realized something. One girl alone is powerless and easily manipulated. Because Jan and I were together, we were stronger. If we joined forces then we could defeat them. While they weren’t looking, she grabbed more than a gram of coke—and put it in her pocket.

As we walked out to the car, I said, “We don’t have to do anything here.”

“That stupid Julio,” Jan said. “He thinks he’s going to get one over on us.”

Because Julio repulsed me with his offer, several days passed before I went back to see him. I didn’t want anyone to be in control of my life, and I certainly didn’t want to have sex with old men. But then again, I was only fifteen years old with no schooling, no job, no car, no license, and no life of my own.

Julio continued to try and sell us on “the life,” or as I call it, “the lie.” He invited us to go out on his boat. During the day we did all the coke we wanted while drinking and cruising on Miami’s intercoastal waterway and passing by the big cruise ships.

After a few days, we had used up all the coke Jan stole, so I borrowed my brother’s car again and we went to one of the homes that belonged to Julio. To my surprise, I saw Beth, a girl from my elementary school. Now, seven years later, she was strung out on drugs. No longer beautiful, she looked spent. Worn out.

I looked around and saw almost no food in the kitchen and asked about it.

“Why do we need food when we have coke?” Beth said and laughed.

She finally stopped talking and walked away. Julio came up to me and said softly, “Don’t listen to her. She’s nothing but a coke whore.”

That’s how you refer to her, I thought, and that’s what you think of us.

“She snorts too much coke,” he said. “Don’t become like her.”

I smiled, but inside I thought, You made her like that.

A few minutes later, probably after a fresh fix, Beth came back to where we were. “Come and live here with me. You get nice clothes, you get your own car, and you get money. You don’t have to go to school ever again. We can be sisters.”

I shook my head; at least I think I did. The rest of the afternoon and evening were a blur until there was a knock on the door.

My next memory is that Julio opened the door. Paco came inside.

“What’s he doing here?” I whispered to Beth. “I can’t stand him.”

Before she could answer, Julio came over to me. “He’s here for you, Kat.”

“I don’t want to go with him.”

The drug dealer looked at me and said flatly, “I don’t care what you want. You’re here for him. So get upstairs and do what you’re told to do.” He used a lot of profanity as he pushed me toward the stairs.

At that moment, I realized that my life no longer belonged to me. The façade that they made up was only an outward show with no reality behind it. A deep disappointment and sense of betrayal set into my heart as I struggled to get up the stairs. I didn’t argue or try to fight after that—it would have done no good. I knew who I was and how worthless I had become. Besides, I knew from my upbringing that women were powerless. Men always had the upper hand, so I gave in.

Paco grabbed my arm and pushed me into the room. He was violent, and I wasn’t going to do anything to help him. He started tearing off my clothes, exactly as he had done before.

Just then I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror. I saw a lost, confused child. I’m a little girl. I’m not even grown yet and this is all I am. These men will use me however they want. I have no control, I have no money, and I don’t even know where I am or how to get home. How did I get in this position again?

As I stared at the lesions on Paco’s face, I thought, This is all I’m ever going to be. I’ve got to do what they tell me to do. I cried while that man violently pushed me onto the bed, and inside I continued to plead for God to help me. Paco became angrier, and I didn’t know what he was capable of doing. People like him who used children and young women to satisfy their sick sexual appetites created and sustained an industry of disposable people.

Like many of the others, Paco carried a gun, and I worried that he might use it on me. He saw me crying but he didn’t care; he just kept having his way with me.

As strange as it seems, just then I heard the voice of God say once again, I have a plan for you, and this is not it.

You can’t want me, God. Look at me. I’m nothing. I gave up on myself, so why should you care? I thought about my miserable life and where I was. No one knows where I am, and I’m sure no one cares. Everybody has given up on me. My friends, my dad, my family, my counselors at school, and society have given up on me. My mom is constantly mad at me because I give her so much trouble. I’ll live here and I’ll do whatever they tell me, because I don’t have anything and I’m nobody. God, give up on me, because I give up on myself.

Right then, I heard the voice of God speak to me for the third time: I have a plan for you, and this isn’t it. You are not going to be what they want to make you!

God, I gave up on me. You should too! Leave me alone. Stop talking to me.

Just then, in the middle of the sex act, Paco became sick and was unable to finish. He pulled away and cursed me.

“What did you do to me?” he screamed. “Puta, what did you do to me?” He dressed, grabbed my arm, and pulled me down the stairs. “You cursed me!”

I knew without any doubt that God had once again intervened. I started to laugh, even though I was still high on coke. And that made it seem even funnier. Despite all the coke in my system, I’d had a conversation with God. As crazy as it may sound to write this, I knew it was true. God had delivered me once again. Just as Billy Graham had said, God would never leave me or give up on me—not now, not ever.

Paco yelled at Julio, “She’s cursed!”

I marveled at what happened. I didn’t go to church. I didn’t read the Bible. The only time I prayed, it was something like, “God, don’t let me get busted.”

Why would God bother with me? Why wouldn’t he give up like everyone else?

They don’t care. They really don’t care about us. We’re nothing to them. It’s all about the money. We are just disposable commodities to them.

Reality had set in. God was setting me free, even though I didn’t know what was going to happen next.

Jan went to Marco’s, and I went home and fell into a peaceful sleep. The next morning I got up, not knowing what to do next. Those men know that with slaves like me there’s what I call an invisible chain—we are hooked and always want the drugs. That dependency on a captor creates what is called a trauma bond. These men had chosen us, hooked us, and knew we would continue coming back to them.

It may be hard to understand that even though they were mean to us and sold us to bad men who liked having sex with children, they were also sweet and gave us food and coke. Their kindness manipulated girls like me to believe the lies. We told ourselves they would take care of us. This is what is known as “Stockholm Syndrome.”

At the time of this writing, people pay an average of $160 to $180 each time they have sex with a child. And the “boyfriends” (pimps) get the majority of that. Most of the kids who receive money never get the whole amount. I was never offered money. They gave me only drugs, along with a false sense of family, love, and belonging. Because I had nothing to compare it with, I readily accepted their deception.

That’s how they duped me. Because I was just a teenager and never received money, I didn’t believe I was part of a prostitution ring. I never learned the truth until years later that it was a crime for my body to be exchanged for drugs and so-called love.

The next day when I went back to Marco’s apartment, I looked around and no one was there except Maria, a seventeen-year-old. Instead of greeting me, she said, “I heard you were with that guy Paco last night. Is that true?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why?”

“You knew he has AIDS, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “How do you know?”

“I was with him too and I’m getting tested. You’d better get tested.”

As soon as her words sunk in, I said, “I forgot, I’ve got to go do something. Please don’t tell them I was here, okay?”

I turned around and walked right out of that apartment.

At that time, there was a crazy belief that if a man with AIDS had sex with little girls, he could pass the virus on to them and be free of the disease. Paco was trying to get rid of his disease by infecting me and all of my young friends. Back then it was like a death sentence because there was no medicine to help anyone with AIDS.

But God spared me once again.

I went to our apartment. Mom was at work, so I went inside and locked the door, but my thoughts didn’t stop. That means they almost killed me. They knew Paco has AIDS and they didn’t care. They didn’t care that he was violent with me and raped me. They care only about the money. At that moment, I wasn’t high on drugs, and I clearly heard that word, AIDS.

They knew, and yet they didn’t care.

When Mom came home, she could see that I was in bad shape. I was shaking and crying. I couldn’t tell her everything, so I told Mom that Marco and his people were giving me drugs and that I wanted to stay away from those men. She already knew I was strung out on drugs.

“If those people from Marco’s apartment come here,” I pleaded, “tell them I’m not home.” I was scared, remembering the threats they made at various times. I couldn’t stop shaking as I talked to her. Because I was too ashamed, I couldn’t tell her the whole truth.

Eventually I got tested for HIV, and when it came back negative, I knew God had saved me yet again. I promised God and myself there would never be another chance for that to happen.

I was going to get out. I didn’t know how, but I knew I was going to get away. Drugs still controlled much of my thinking, but I sensed that somehow—soon—I would be free. God had spoken to me so many times, and I remembered those words: I have a plan for you, and this is not it.

And I still recalled the words Billy Graham said: “Remember this: God will never leave you or forsake you.”