14
Almost Busted

After a night out, Jan and I stopped at the Eden Rock Hotel on Miami Beach the next morning. While I was with Paco, Jan had swiped more coke, and we snorted some of it in the public bathroom.

After that fix, we decided to walk on the beach. We were both fifteen years old. That was in 1987, and we were obviously young enough that anyone would have known we belonged in school in the middle of the day.

Just then, a police officer stopped us. “Shouldn’t you two girls be in school?” he asked. “What are your names?”

The rule on the streets is never to give your real name, so I didn’t. However, Jan was nervous, and without thinking she gave him her correct name. He called us over to his car and ran both names through the system. After waiting a few minutes, he said to Jan, “You’re listed as a runaway.”

We protested, but it did no good. “I have to take you in,” he told Jan. He had nothing on me, so I was all right. Before the police officer took her away, Jan hugged me and slipped the coke into my shirt pocket.

The officer didn’t hold me. If he had arrested me with possession of cocaine, it would have ruined my life. Because drug possession was a felony, I would have spent time in juvenile jail and had a criminal record, and I would not be where I am today.

He turned to me and asked, “Do you have a way home?”

“I have a car.”

“You need to go home, little girl, because you should be in school.”

“Yes, sir, no problem,” I said as respectfully as I could. “I’ll go home right now. I promise.” And I meant those words.

“Dear God, please don’t let me be arrested,” I prayed earnestly. “If you help me not go to jail, I promise I will quit doing cocaine.”

I intended to keep that promise.

As soon as the police car was out of sight, I went back to my brother’s Buick, which I had taken again without asking, and drove it home. When Mom came in from work, I told her, “Jan was arrested today. She’s a runaway.” By then Jan had been living with us for about nine months. I tried to make it sound like just an insignificant fact, but I felt anything but casual. I was still scared and realized how close I had come to being arrested.

I flushed the rest of the coke. I’ve never used cocaine since then.

As I knew would happen, the traffickers came looking for me. Once we’re “in,” they think we belong to them. Most of the time they’re right.

I didn’t answer the door when they came. One evening, Mom was home when Marco came over asking for me.

“Kat is not going back to your apartment.”

“We love her,” Marco said. “She’s part of our family too. We care—”

“You can’t have her!” Mom cut him off in the middle of his sentence. “She’s not going back. Not ever.”

Marco smiled and walked away. I’m sure he didn’t believe her. He knew how it worked. I was just beginning to learn that their talk about love and family was all part of the big setup. They never really loved us, they only wanted to use us and to make us rely on them for drugs.

The invisible chain would bring me back, or so Marco probably thought. There were spiritual forces at work, however, and Marco couldn’t know that God had set me free.

Instead of returning to our apartment again himself, Marco sent girls. I refused to talk to them. At other times, the girls saw me on the street and tried to convince me to go back by saying, “Or you’ll be in big trouble.” I’d heard that before.

“You’re a part of our group,” they said most often. “We miss you and you’ve got to come with us.” Usually they talked sweetly and told me how much they missed me.

“They almost made me get AIDS,” I said. “I’m done with that.”

They didn’t give up. They still kept coming around or rushed up to me when they saw me on the street. We still lived in the same building as Marco, so it was hard to avoid all contact.

Marco and his group refused to quit trying, which was their mistake. Mom finally went to the manager of the building because she’d had enough. “There’s an old man here in the building who gives drugs to little girls, and my daughter is one of them. Every day they’re going in and out of his apartment.” She demanded that he evict Marco.

Although the product of an abusive marriage herself, once Mom learned how they kept trying to get me back on drugs, she wasn’t timid when it came to protecting her daughter. I’m not sure if she threatened to call the police, but Marco moved out that week.

Three weeks later, however, Marco was still sending girls after me. Two of them saw me on the street, ran up to me, and told me that Marco had been “kicked out of his nice apartment.” I think they were trying to make me feel bad, but it didn’t faze me.

“You want to know where he lives?” One of them smiled and added, “Marco always has coke, and he’ll give you all you want.”

“Marco misses you,” the other girl said. “He loves you.”

My addiction wasn’t gone. I could feel my body tingling and demanding a fix. I didn’t want to go, and yet that invisible chain started pulling me back. “Okay, I guess I can go once,” I said.

I had just turned sixteen and now owned a white 1972 Toyota Corolla. I drove to Marco’s new apartment. When I walked inside, I saw Beth. She was lying in bed with Marco.

Marco hugged me, and instead of letting me go, he began to fondle my breasts.

“I have something I need to do,” I said and walked away. As I walked out of the building, I said—and meant—“I’m through with this. I’m through with these people. Forever.”

I determined to break the invisible bondage. I saw what Beth had become. Marco was a sick man, something I finally admitted to myself. I no longer wanted their drugs or needed to hear their lies.

I got in my car and drove away from that building.