Welcome to the Shit Show

Finding the Calling

I landed In San Diego with my backpack and the address to the shop. I had no money left because I had used every last dollar to pay everything before I left. I walked from the airport to the shop in downtown San Diego, while taking in all the sights. The walk was perfect for me to get a lay of the city. I strolled my way to the front and once I walked in, there sitting at the counter was Mike. The shop had a huge open layout and 4 main stations with a piercing room in the back that was more private with an office that overlooked the whole shop.
Mike was happy for my arrival, we hugged and then got right down to business. He introduced me to all the artists and the owner Bernie when she arrived. Bernie was a small and thin Italian woman with dreads that had a very thick Italian accent. I was pleased to see that Bernie and I weren’t the only women and was introduced to Deb, a tattooist as well. She was from Florida and was a small modelistic goth woman. Both women were friendly and it was an instant relaxing energy between everyone in the shop. There were the Double D brothers, Dan and Dave. Dan was like a mini Brad Pit from fight club mixed with the Snatch version. He was about 5’6” and was a mix of trucker meets skater type of person. His brother Dave was 5’5” and had the same sort of style but he was a paler version with a different jaw structure. Both of the brothers were polar opposites with their personalities. Dan was more the relaxed stoner type while Dave was more the hyper puppy energy. Then there was Mazzi. Mazzi was a  5’6”, pale, metalhead from New Jersey. Mazzi was also more of a technical type when it came to just about everything. Then there was Chris,  he was 5’7” younger kid that looked like a mix of a hasidic jew and a raver kid from New Orleans.

This crew was a complete mash up and it worked well. I felt right at home. They welcomed me with open arms and offered up the shop office to stay in while I was there since I hadn’t secured a place to rest my head.
I didn’t care if I slept on the beach in all honesty. San Diego was the perfect weather to be homeless in. I would gladly find even a park bench if needed.

The main reason Mike had called for me was because there was a convention in town and he needed another competent piercer to bounce back and forth in shifts to the convention and the shop. He had an apprentice but he wasn’t ready. Louie, or Clapluey Louie, as I called him, was a 20 something ish ex military kid going primal into the body mod world. The shop was on the main drag on Broadway and was very busy between the military and the visitors, there was very little downtime. I loved the constant  flow that went into that shop. In the other shops I had sat around for hours sometimes just praying for someone to come in. Even with a full beach in Ocean City we usually only would do about 10-15 piercings a day if we were rocking. On my first day I did almost 30 in this shop.

Mike and I took turns with the convention. I was working my 3rd day in and met one of the local HA’s while in the booth. Dude was a large build, bald and tan man from back east. He first approached me as a flirtation interest but I knew he wasn’t  going to be more than a friend. I was still skeptical of the HA after everything with Billy. Once he realized I was from Florida, he offered to show me around town. I accepted the offer for a later date, knowing it would be good to have more connections outside of the shop and possibly bury the hatchet on Billy’s bad dealings.
I was in town almost a week when I tracked down Katie from a few years before. Katie was now living not far away from the shop and wanted to catch up. I went to visit her and her girlfriend(she had come out in our time apart )who were living on one side of a duplex house. The other side of the house was empty and once Katie learned that I was sleeping either in the shop or wherever I found comfort, she offered the chance for me to use the other side of her duplex. The house they were living in was due for demolition in 3 months, the old tenants moved out and Katie and her girlfriend were slowly packing up to move themselves so they had the key next door for storage. The place was empty with only a few of their boxes in the front room and a mattress they had put in there for storage. It didn’t have electricity, but it had hot water, a toilet and a tub. I agreed to pay them extra if she could run over an extension cord just for my phone to charge and run an alarm clock.
I moved in that night. It was perfect. The best part was every night after work. Katie and I would meet up on the front porch and talk about our day while sharing a beer or two. I got a bunch of candles and would read every night until I was ready for bed. It wasn’t much but it was perfect.
Dude and I got to know each other and would go out after work from time to time to explore the city and play pool. After 2 weeks of working, Bernie offered me a full time position at the shop, and I gladly accepted.

The crew at the shop became like a family. The Double D brothers would hang out at my place and drink on occasion or watch movies on a tv I found on garbage day with a rented VCR I got from the local blockbuster. Deb and I would come to find out that she was the tattooist that tattooed my ex D in Miami years before. At this point D and I were talking once in a while as friends and we laughed at what a small world it was. Mike and the rest of the shop crew had me most of the day. I’d spend most of my time there. If anything needed to be done I volunteered and would help as much as possible. The shop was always busy and making money was my goal. I made enough to rent a place after 3 days but I wanted to enjoy this freedom. I loved spending my time at the shop and would constantly find myself there even when not working , just because.
  It was a month in when my 23rd birthday came and went. Dude had gifted me with a bouquet of Stargazer lilies that permeated the house and awoke me every morning to  their fragrance.  I was living my best life everyday. I touched base with my friend that was watching over my place and paid all the bills from there for her to be taken care of while she watched my place. I talked to Patti every so often only because she would give me guilt trips about not calling her enough but every time I did she would find flaws in how I was living. She hated that I was unofficially squatting in a house and thought her daughter had become a vagrant. It didn’t matter how many times I explained that I had 3 thousand dollars at all times in my wallet, to her  I was crazy. I didn’t care. I was enjoying every day to the fullest. I still don’t understand the draw to paying a bunch of money to things that usually would just sit all day and no one ever saw.

Two months in, I caught a flight back to Florida just to bring my things back to San Diego. I packed up everything, handed the keys to the apartment to my friend that I was subletting it from since he had returned from England finally and prepared myself for the drive across the country.I touched base with Al and said my goodbyes to my neighbors. Claire and I kept contact and she wanted to take the trip that her sister and I had done years earlier.
We packed up the Jeep and headed out of the state. Claire and I didn’t have any of the chaos that Sara and I did in our travels across the country.  The heat of the summer was our only challenge. I will say, you really get to know someone when you have no AC in a Jeep in the middle of the desert at the end of August. We survived still smiling and laughing only because we packed a cooler with ice, water and rags and weren’t afraid to douse ourselves with it.

When we arrived in San Diego ,both of us were just happy to be out of the heat. Claire moved right into the groove of the shop. We all were on the same energy wave and the clients even commented on how much they loved our atmosphere in the shop. Chris from Ocean City even came to visit and it was like a huge family reunion. The shops that were close by were also in on the fun after hours. Everyone in the industry was tight knitted and we all helped each other thrive. (God I really miss those times, it was the best.)

Claire and I went to Tijuana one night since she was still under the drinking age. Since my arrival in San Diego I had made friends with a ton of the military guys that happened into the shop and we would go play in Tijuana from time to time. Claire and I started our night with some of the guys but eventually went our own way. By the end of the night Claire was three sheets to the wind and I was exhausted while completely full of liquor. We stumbled over the border and I knew that I did not want to try driving 45 minutes to my place. I walked across the street and got us a room at the closest hotel to the border as possible. We walked in the room, put our things down, claimed our beds and fell into the pillows. At the exact moment my eyes closed, the cell phone rang. Both of us groaned in disapproval. I reached out and grabbed the phone and pressed send.

Mike, Claire’s father was hysterical and rambling. I had to slow him down just to understand him.  He screamed at me to turn on the TV. I threw a pillow at Claire to get her attention to turn on the Tv. Both of us were groggy from the conscious decision to shut down, so it took her a minute to register. The whole time her dad was rambling on the phone but I was tuned out. All I could make out was that he didn’t want Claire flying home and that it was the end of times. We both moved to the end of the bed to focus on the tv as she turned it on.
There on the news was real time of a plane hitting the 2nd world trade center. Both of us stared, with one eye open barely, in astonishment at what was unfolding. They were talking about how they were closing down borders and on a high terror attack. Both of us just stared in awe at the horrific scene on the tv. I calmed down Claire’s dad and told him we would call later but I promised she wouldn’t go home until it was safe. We both were in no shape to comprehend everything and decided we needed sleep. As I was about to lay back down, Bernie called me telling me I needed to get to the shop ASAP. I explained the  nature of our condition and convinced her to give me at least 2 hours of sleep first.
I knew No one would be in the shop until at least 11 am. It was 6:45 and the last thing I needed to end this day was to get into an accident on my way there. So we slept while the rest of the world was in panic.

Claire and I woke up and drove on quiet streets to the shop. The entire city was like a ghost town. I got into the shop to see one of the new guys going stir crazy. Vegas Eddie was newer to the shop and we had conversed about him working on me eventually. As we sat in silence listening to the radio and answering the occasional phone call from one of our military clients sneaking in the call to cancel their appointment, he decided today was the day to tattoo me. I bribed him not to tattoo me since I was still processing all the alcohol and knew it wouldn’t do well. He refused to listen to me and I succumbed to the idea eventually. As he tattooed me, Claire and Eddies’s pregnant wife sat with me to calm the pain. Other than my tattoo, not a single soul got tattooed that day.

It was the day the city went quiet. Tanks rolled through the streets making their presence known.  Not a single car drove down Broadway that day. Every person was glued to their radios, listening for what the outcome would be. All it took was fear to shut down an entire country.

Patti actually seemed to worry about my distance and wanted for me to come home. Meanwhile I had never felt safer in my life. I had made friends with many of the military guys and they were keeping me well informed. Claire and I only awaited the outcome to see when it would be safe for her to travel back to Florida.
It was 2 weeks later when she felt secure enough to go home. I dropped her off at the airport and went back to everyday life. The shops in town were still extremely slow and this was one time I was happy that I had no major bills to worry about. The house I was squatting in was getting to its expiration date for my being there since Katie was also days away from leaving. I moved over to Deb’s couch in her small one bedroom cottage. Deb and I got along great. We both shared a love for dark and gothic things and enjoyed the city’s goth industrial music scene.  Her and I would work and play together while never feeling consumed by the small space. I helped her pay rent and she helped give me a couch. Since the economy was still in limbo trying to find their rhythm again it worked out perfectly.

The shop had gotten a call from a network in LA looking to audition the piercers in the area for a show segment that they were doing on piercings. Mike took the call and gave them my name and told me to go for the interview representing the shop. I took the trip the next week and did the interview. 2 days later Mike got the call that they had picked me. He was extremely proud of me for getting the gig, considering they had interviewed one of the top female piercers and I was the one they chose.

I was brought into the studio for the filming of a segment on body piercing for the show “The Other Half”. It was a male version of “The View”. I was Piercing Danny Bonaduce for the segment. It was a great experience and an honor to be placed into the spotlight with these great personalities. Mario Lopez was on the panel with Danny, and a Doctor J as well as another actor I don’t remember very well. After all was said and done I was now looked at as a highly capable and well educated Piercer. I had made a name for myself among the shops in SoCal.
  It was only a few weeks later that Bernie approached both Deb and I about taking a trip to Italy to work in her salon in Viareggio. Deb and I agreed since both of us were unattached and her lease was about to expire as well. We both went to LA and got our Passports expedited within the week and by month’s end we were headed to the airport with our bags packed.

The airport was quieter than I had ever seen it. Deb and I went through security and I got flagged for their famous “random check”. There was nothing random about it and I knew It. Even despite the name change with my marriage, I had been on every federal watchlist since I was a child, so when they pulled me, I went. Deb giggled as she watched from afar as they searched me and 6 other passengers of middle eastern descent. Of course I was the token white girl that they threw in just for show for the others that were picked.  Once on the plane Deb and I had the rows almost to ourselves. There were barely 20 people on the Flight.
I fell asleep mid flight and awoke in the early morning hours to the flight attendant. There’s something to be said when flying internationally and waking to a strong english accent asking you if you would like a cup of tea. It put a smile on my face which was relaxing and refreshing. We landed in Gatwick  with an energized vigor and thirst for the new experience. When we went through customs I was once again picked for the random check and Deb started to catch on that this was going to be a constant since I never complained when they called me. I returned to her questioning and had to divulge my family’s history just enough that she would understand. I never liked having to explain why I was always the one being picked on by law enforcement to new people in my life but it always eventually came up. Thankfully Deb didn’t really care much to get into details.
When we arrived in Italy both of us were excited for the new experiences. 

The apartment we were staying at was between the salon we were going to be working at and a busy restaurant. It was more of an efficiency with a small kitchen connected to a dining area with a couch and tv in one room and the bedroom and bathroom in what could be qualified as the second room. The bed was up against the wall that was shared with the restaurant’s kitchen and walk-in fridge. I assumed so since you could smell the cold cuts when laying on the bed. Deb and I picked our sleeping areas and immediately went to explore the neighborhood. Across the street from the building to the East was the local Passagenta or Boardwalk. It was a long strip with small local shops that bordered right up to the beach. During the summer I could only imagine how packed that area must get. To the West of the building was a park that more resembled a small forest that had pathways throughout.
The girls that worked the salon were very friendly and welcoming but barely spoke much English so it was harder for Deb to converse in the beginning. I was glad that I had learned Spanish in the years of working on the fishing boat and going to Mexico.  Deb and I would laugh at ourselves when first going into a business because she knew German and I knew Spanish so between both of us eventually we would get whatever we needed.

The major hurdles most would worry about was language and direction, but for us those came easier. The First major challenge was trying to cross the roads there. Deb and I thought that crossing the street would be basic until every time we thought the coast was clear and would try to cross there would be some small moped or car that would go flying by nearly missing us. Deb was ready for a panic attack almost every time we had to go anywhere across the streets. So I spent the first 2 days watching others cross the road. The next time Deb and I went to explore I showed her my findings. She  was frozen in fear as I just walked blindly out into the street and once I was on the other side I turned to coax her on. Deb was in shock as she realized that was the only proven method to cross without panicking. From that moment on we walked in confidence.

It was only a few days until the next hurdle presented itself. While standing on the side of the road looking  at the shops across the street we watched as quite a few cars nearly missed each other and avoided collision. The drivers and passengers were all rubbernecking and we were the main attraction. We giggled at the absurdity since it was very cold and  both of us were in coats and couldn’t understand what they were looking at. After another few cars followed suit, I looked over to see Deb a clear 5 feet away from me, laughing in hysterics. I was bewildered. She had observed that it was me that all these cars were gawking at. I couldn’t fathom why I was the main attraction to their blank stares.

Deb was a beautiful woman, way more picturesque than I was.  I was taller than her but with my hair now shorter and dyed black, I looked like most of the rest of the Italian population except more of a curvy body. My body was covered by my coat mostly so I really was bewildered as to why I was the object of their glares. The constant glares in my direction didn’t stop and we started to ignore it as best as possible.
We spent our free time exploring the city. Everyday we would go out to explore and take notes of anywhere we found new exciting things. The Forest became the most interesting  focus for our travels. Every time we ventured into it, we found something new or a new attraction. Deb and I even started a game of find the hanger, where we would go solo and hide a hanger in a random tree along the basic path. Once you found the hanger in the tree it was your clue to turn there off the trail and go in that direction to the new experience either of us had found.  I never came out at the same spot. We had found so many neat little areas in the forest. There was a carousel, a duck pond, a children’s park, a paved road that ran dead through the forest and a restaurant along that road. Every time we exited the forest when searching the paths, we were in a different area. It was always a beautiful experience.
As our time passed we learned more and more.

The girls from the salon would invite us out to new places and we always accepted, eager to take in as much as we could. They took us to the local town up in the hills that housed all the marble sculpting school apprentices. Deb and I took in all the sights of the small town up in the mountain. The cobblestone streets and stone buildings were small and quaint. We met the apprentices at the local pub and got to pick their brains about their experiences.  We were hungry for any culture we could absorb but she was longing for a sense of normalcy.
I loved to photograph anything and everything I could, so I would explore as many streets in hope for a good photography moment. While on a photo journey one day I had found a local pub that had a gothic theme. I told Deb about it and we set out for the experience. By the end of the night both of us were laughing and Deb was relaxed in the atmosphere.
I took every moment to find great little hideaway areas for us to do random photoshoots in.

While at work we were more reserved, still trying to understand the language and trying to get to know the girls. When we were in the apartment Deb and I watched the same loop of MTV and drew new designs. Since I had much more down time, I decided to challenge myself with drawing. I would sit in the apartment on bad weather days and just draw for hours listening to the kitchen crew from the restaurant next door.   
I had made it a habit to call back home every week to the few people I still wanted to keep in touch with. I would check in with Al every few weeks just keeping current with each others lives.
Patti and I had talked weekly and once in a while I touched base with D. Whatever little money I made went to groceries, but once in a while I tried to find a few items for myself.

Each time I ventured out though I was still getting the staredown from passersby. It became daunting dealing with it since I still had no clue as to why I was the object of their interest.
It was Christmas time when Patti decided to come visit and flew into Florence. Deb thought it was sweet that my mother wanted to visit, but I knew her motives were for other things. It was all of 3 minutes after her arrival that she confirmed it to not only me but Deb as well. I had told Deb about Patti’s love for status and Versace anything. I knew being in Italy, it would only be a matter of time until she brought up shopping for Versace. The guy she had brought with her seemed nice enough but obviously realized her intentions as well only after 2 days of being there, when he decided to leave her on her own and go his own way. It was brushed off as they had a fight and he just left.
We made the best of the time in Florence while Patti was on her dream shopping trip. We walked the town to all the local little shops and found adorable spots to eat. There were times when she would almost drop into a normal traveler’s banter and relax. Those are the times I enjoyed Patti’s moments of humanity. I would have to interpret everything for Patti since she never explored the different languages. She  was surprised at my fluidity with the locals and noticed the staredowns I constantly got while traveling around.

It was after 3 days that we landed in a local pub for a drink to relax from a day of exploring. While there Patti commented on the amount of people staring at me in the pub. I had grown so normalized to it that I had barely noticed any longer. Once she made me aware again, I looked up to find 3 of the tables closest staring as if I was a spectacle. I couldn’t bear the curiosity any longer and called out the person closest to me.  I pointed at the guy across from me and he froze when I called him out. I asked him blatantly, “ Why are you staring at me?” His response was almost comical. He asked me how I didn’t know why they were staring. After I had to confirm that I had no Idea why everyone stared at me, he replied after conversing with his fellow tablemates that I looked like a Rockstar. I was at a loss. We broke into laughter. Here I had been stared down so much that I had even gotten to the point of just trying to not be mean, all the while people here had thought I was a rockstar. The sheer thought of how many times we could’ve used that to our advantage if we were that type of person, made us giggle.
The next day we went to the train station to go back to Viarraggio for the rest of the week of Patti’s visit.
While at the train station we sat in wait for the next train and I found myself staring at a guy sitting on the floor eating his sandwich. Upon closer view I realized it was none other than Ewan McGregor, the actor. I had seen some of his recent work and was honored to be within 20 feet of him. I informed Deb and Patti and they both looked to him to inspect my findings as I tried to tell them that I wanted to go and congratulate him on his work. As we all looked at him he looked right at us and flipped me off. In that split second I couldn’t help but laugh. I knew his pain. I could only think back to the last 2 months of my time here and how many had stared me down for me to only feel his exact frustration. We nodded in understanding with a smile on our face and let him enjoy his lunch in peace.
Patti spent her time with us for the Holiday enjoying the food and salon, then we traveled back to Florence to see her off at the end of the week. Deb and I returned to normal life and rang in the New Year with the girls from the salon at the local disco.
It was another month until we traveled back to San Diego in the States. By the time Deb and I boarded the plane, we were happy to be going home. We had an amazing experience, but we both missed the little things about home that we just couldn’t get in Italy like Mexican food. As soon as we touched down we hit the local Mexican place and gorged ourselves until we both were satisfied.
I went back to work expecting Mike to be there and to be ready to get all the scoop. I returned to rumors of his departure from the shop. I couldn’t get any answer as to where he had gone. I was saddened to hear of his leaving but didn’t think too much about it since I knew both of us were travelers and figured he found another season somewhere else. It wasn’t long before I started to get more of the story, but many things didn’t add up. I found all of his tools still in the shop and knowing how his tools were his money I became more and more suspicious. Bernie asked me to take over as manager of the shop and to fill Mike’s position. I knew If I didn’t she would bring in someone else that might be a bigger problem, so I accepted the position, hoping he would return.
The crew in the shop fell into a grove.I was living in the shop to give me time to find a place. Deb returned to stay with a friend and moved in with them and a new romantic interest. I kept trying to get more information on Mike but kept hitting dead ends. I kept to the shop and crew mainly eating, living and breathing the shop. We were all friends and worked well together no matter what the differences were. I helped with anything I could in the shop. I took over the ordering and paperwork as well as the log books while still doing my normal work. The crew eventually approached me about tattooing. I had worked next to them day in and day out. I was always helping in the basics of setting up, doing stencils, making needles, cleaning tubes, and even drawing for them at times when I wasn’t busy. Deb offered to help me with supplies and the shop crew all agreed to help guide me in my first one, all I had to do was find someone who would trust me to tattoo them. Luck was on my side when I walked into a local salon to get my hair trimmed that afternoon and the stylist told me how he was wanting one and offered to give me the honor of doing it.
The next day I arrived at work to open the shop and informed the crew that I had a person that offered up his skin to help me open the door to tattooing. I had told the stylist to come in the afternoon during our quieter time.  Both the night and afternoon shifts would be there but the morning shift would be already gone so Deb and the guys on the morning shift decided to stay and watch. When the stylist arrived The whole shop was ready and waiting to watch and guide me in the work. I went through the set up and stencil process and once everything was in place and the stencil was applied they all double checked my progress. Mazzo inspected the needle in the machine that Deb loaned me and they gave the go ahead.
I was downright terrified as I picked up the machine and came close to his skin. Mazzo and Deb instructed me how to ease into the line and how to sweep out of the line when I pulled out of it. As I traced the stencil I would double check their watching eyes from time to time, all while trying to concentrate on my client.  The stylist sat like a champ. I was done lining the first 3 words when Dan and Dave came and inspected it. They all agreed it was the cleanest lettering they had ever seen from a first tattoo. I finished outlining the last bit and was glad that I didn’t disappoint the stylist or the shop when they all inspected my work. Next was the little bit of shading that was left. Each one of the crew gave me pointers on how they found it was easiest. I continued on with each technique, learning what worked best for me. After everything was said and done the tattoo was finally finished and  everyone nodded in approval as the stylist beamed with confidence looking at the finished tattoo.
After the client was bandaged and sent on his way with aftercare instructions, I turned to hear the scrutiny. They all stood at the station waiting for me to break everything down. I awaited the real reaction to come flooding out. I expected them to say I just needed to practice more or give me parameters of when I could do it next. Instead they shared a look then in unison nodded and Mazzo said, “ Good, now you can do all the small basic tattoos that walk in from now on.” Dan and Dave smiled and congratulated me and Deb offered me her machines and station to barrow when she wasn’t using it. I didn’t feel completely confident in taking on customers so I agreed that I would only take on friends first since I wanted to make sure that the shop was in the clear. They all understood, but from that moment on they made sure to pull me over for any talk about techniques.
It was about a week later when I found one of my friends wanted a small tattoo that I could practice with. I was just finishing it when Bernie walked into the shop and noticed me tattooing.
She walked over and inspected it. I noticed her there and almost expected her to yell or fire me. Instead, once she was done looking at it, she instructed me to watch her with her next client for permanent make-up so that she could teach me how to do that as well. She showed me the process and how she would measure the accuracy as well as match the hair color as best as possible. At the end of the session she directed me to take any permanent Make-up clients while she went out of town. I was aghast. Not only did they throw me into the fire but now the whole shop was encouraging me to keep doing it. I never expected to pick up a machine but I knew no matter what I really enjoyed this new avenue. I spent every moment I could from that moment on sitting in the shop watching each one of them and when I wasn’t doing that, I was trying to practice on willing friends.
One of my military friends offered up his back to be my major practice piece with huge military stencil letters across his back. Every weekend  he would come over to the apartment that Deb and I had moved into with a couple, and we would do more work on it while Deb showed me techniques.
  

The New Direction

I had spent a week at Patti and Rob’s getting settled into my details for my new work for my next season.

 Claire and I had kept contact throughout the summer and she had moved into her dad’s down in Key West. She had begun working with a dive boat that also did lobster fishing . The captain had a friend on another boat that needed a first mate. Claire had convinced her dad that I would be the perfect roommate since I would be on the boat most of the time. He wanted 600 dollars a month for room and board to go towards the bills and in return I would share a room with Claire and her younger sister. Since the season would consist of me being on the boat for most of the time I was happy to just have a place to rest my head. Claire’s dad Mike did not like me and I could feel it but the feeling was mutual. I figured he jacked up the price just to deter me but once I was willing to pay it he figured at least most of his rent was paid.

When Sara was alive he used her constantly to pick up the slack and finances with his other children and I helped her many times in covering those expenses. He knew I had his cards and didn’t like that I saw through his fake niceties with everyone else. Claire was still in the shade of her fathers dealings and I wasn’t about to bust that bubble. 

I moved in with just a duffle bag and met the captain I was to work for the next day. Christian was average height, around 5’7” and toned. He had dark brown hair with sun kissed ends and brown eyes. Christian was like the big brother you always dreaded. He had a constant teasing attitude with a hint of little man syndrome, but otherwise was pretty chill. His friend, Claire’s captain, was named Lobster Lee. Lee and Christian had been friends for years and they acted like the two brothers that would terrorize each other. It was quite comical to watch their banter. Lee was a little bit older and around the same height and build. You could tell that Christian had a slight crush on Claire but knew she was too young for him. Lee was straight professional when it came to Claire and had his own girlfriend who was a teacher on the island.

Christian and I got along quickly. He joked that I made him feel smaller on his own boat. We went over how he liked to run his ship and how he wanted to do more fishing down in the Tortuga’s. I was completely on board. The less time I spent at the apartment the better. The apartment was a 2 bedroom with a small kitchen/ living room and a small porch on the 2nd floor of a house that overlooked the local cemetery. In all honesty, the cemetary was the highlight. Living with Mike was the buzzkill. I shared the room with Claire and her sister who were there most of the time but her sister would go visit her mom up in Lauderdale more often. The room was small so we had foam mattresses that were on the floor next to each other with our bags of clothes up against the wall. The living room was really just extra space in the kitchen and the tv was a little 18 inch with the rabbit ears. Other than that there was a computer desk and chair where Claire’s sister resided the most since she was usually talking to friends in chat rooms then. It was bare minimum to pay 600$ but I knew that was mainly for Mike to pad his pockets so he could drink more. I didn’t care. As long as we kept ourselves separate, I was good with it. 

I had looked into the local tattoo shop for work but they didn’t have much need for a piercer. They told me I could come in when I wasn’t on the boat to learn whenever possible. 

Life got busy. I’d wake up at 5:30 am , get dressed, and ride my bike down to the coffee shop next to the marina. I would get a Cafe con leche from the local shop and then make my way to the marina. 

(I still love the smell of a good cafe con leche and that smell always brings me back to that little shop.) Once there I would meet up with Christian and hop on the boat to start our day. On days where we stayed close he showed me all the local spots and introduced me to the other locals on the water. 

After a long day on the boat we would dock back up and meet up with Claire and Lee to have a drink at the end of the day around 6 or 7 pm. Claire and I would then go home to cook dinner and see what trouble we could get into down on Duval street. It wasn’t long before Christian realized he could completely trust me in the boat handling and that I could fish right alongside him with a yoyo rig. We got to the big trips fairly quickly.

 The trips would be anywhere from 4 days to a week and a half. Christian and I would load up the boat the night before with the groceries and leave at first light. The Tortugas were just a 5 hour boat ride due west from the tip of Key West. We always joked that 5 hours south was Cuba and 5 hours west into the Gulf of Mexico was Fort Tortuga.  Christian and I would brew a pot of tea  and set off on the water. 

The ocean was the perfect mind eraser. I would set course and we would put a cd of Carlos Sanatana in the player and just stare off into the distance. There was something so therapeutic about it all between the music and the rhythm of the ocean.The dolphins would dance in front of the boat and from time to time you could catch sight of a leatherback turtle or a whale shark. It was pure heaven, besides having Christian there. From time to time we would stop along the route for some diving and early fishing for lunch or something to save for dinner. I loved being in the middle of the ocean with no other outside distractions. 

Fort Tortuga was always the first destination. We would cruise into the fort’s little cove and set down anchor for the night. All the local fisherman and lobster trappers docked up in the cove. It was their social meet up time every night. Once there, it was now time to hit the radio and find our hook up for the next morning with the local Velco fleet. The Velco fleet were all shrimp boats that circled the Fort’s sanctuary boundaries and every morning they pulled their nets. They sorted the catches for the shrimp and whatever was left was thrown overboard or traded for beer to the local fisherman for bait. We would spend the night linking up with whatever boat was close that were friends and talk about the best spots over dinner or while playing cards. The Fort itself is a huge brick and stone prison smack dab in the middle of the ocean with a mote and small island attached with a very small area to camp on. The whole island has no running water or electricity except the generator for the one person who maintains the Fort for the tourists.

I became friends fairly quick with the other local fisherman. Most of them would joke with Christian about his motives for having me out there on his boat. Most of the fisherman would accuse him that the only reason he had me there was for eye candy. We would laugh at the idea of it all since Christian was definitely more a Beta compared to my work ethic and energy. He constantly tried to defend and after a while he dared them to try to make a pass since he knew I was not interested in anything but working. Most of these guys couldn’t even handle their liquor let alone my personality.

On our 3rd trip down we got caught up in a storm and had to stay in the port for a few days while the wind was blowing. Christian and I stayed mostly to ourselves and bunkered down the boat trying to maintain a position that was safe for the boat. I mostly would clean, cook or draw on those days just taking in the relaxation.The second day we toured the Fort out of sheer boredom. I always brought a book to read at night so that I had my own downtime. Being out in the ocean with no cell reception, contact to anyone on the mainland or with no TV had a way of relaxing you, but you could only take so much sometimes before wanting to at least read something. The 3rd day of the wind blowing, Christian and I were going stir crazy. I decided to go up on top of the captains quarters and lay out while reading my book. If I couldn’t fish, at least I could get a tan. I was relaxing about an hour later when I heard the giggles of 3 guys at the end of the roof. I opened my eyes just in time to see Christian tossing a huge bucket of ice all over me as 3 of the other fishermen watched from the edge. Once the Ice hit my skin I jumped up so fast that I caught them all off guard. They all scrambled to get away while laughing.  Christian cursed and jumped down as I screamed profanities at them all. I Jumped down off the roof and the game of catch instilled. I had chased them all to the back of the boat and was almost within arms length when they all dove overboard and swam to the next boat over. After that day most of the guys gave me less shit. I had laid in wait until everything calmed down and Christian came back to the boat and called truce. I waited until he fell asleep and then threw half a bag of unwrapped hersey’s kisses into his sleeping bag. The next morning when he woke up he was covered in chocolate and it looked more like shit. All the fishermen had a great laugh and realized I was just as formidable as they were. 

Every time we came back from a trip to the Tortugas it was laundry time and time for me to drink and touch base with the rest of the world. I would drop off the fish at the market, drop my clothes at the laundromat and then go straight to the bar for a yard to drink on my way home to take a shower. I never was home much. Most of the time Christian liked to be home for usually 3 days so it was perfect. I made friends with a girl on the Velco 19 while in the Tortugas and had set up a good trade routine when I went out on the water and at home I was with Claire. I had made friends with a few local guys and had found a few to have fun with from time to time but never made anything serious with any of them. The occasional coast guard recruits were always a fun time to be had but it was always kept simple.

While in the Tortugas there were 3 boats that we constantly would hang out with. Christian knew most of the guys and would try to trade off cooking dinner with them or breakfast from time to time. Most of the guys that worked on the boats were Cuban’s that had come to the Keys and started working for friends or family. Most of them spoke mainly Spanish a majority of the time but knew enough English to get by. Christian knew most of the main Captains so I usually  got stuck dealing with the rest of the crews of guys. They didn’t know that I understood spanish and I loved to listen in on their gossip when they thought I wasn’t listening. The fisherman loved to talk and make comments constantly about their ideals of my love life. They always had way more ideas about what they thought I did than what I actually did. They loved to chatter while playing cards after a long day. It was like the male version of a sewing circle.

It was about 2 months of working when Lee asked Christian if he could borrow me for navigation for the route to the Tortuga’s. Christian had gotten himself a girlfriend so he wanted to take the week off and spend time with her. They agreed to have me go and show Lee the route and hook him up with all the connections in the Tortugas. Lee and I had a mutual respect for each other but we also  had a great light energy with joking around. Claire had decided to stay behind and so Lee and I set off. The first night we docked up in the cove to a mutual friend that ran a lobster boat. The whole crew stayed behind while their captain  came over for dinner. Elian was the captain and had run the family business for some time. He was in his  early 30’s with brown hair, hazel eyes, and a large tattoo sleeve. We had met before with Christian but had been short in conversations. I had felt his eyes many times in the meetings watching me but I had never made it known that I too had a mutual interest in him. 

In the fishing world on the water the boats talked more than your local hair salon girls and the last thing I needed was gossip. 

It took Lee no time at all to pick up on the energy between us. He joked trading me for numbers to lobster spots and Elian laughed it off while eyeing my reaction. My eyes must have given way because after that night he would make any excuse to come say hello or talk over dinner with the crews. When we returned it was as if Christian and Lee were now on a mission to see where they could mess with me about him. The next trip with Christian set the scene for all the gossipers to be silenced all while moving Elian and I closer together. The first night of dinner the guys were giving Christian shit again about only keeping me on the boat as a bed warmer. Christian decided to set the record straight and made a statement to Elian that I worked harder than 3 of his guys on the boat and would be glad to trade me for a day to prove them all wrong. Elian took that bet and they planned on trading us for the next day only and at the end we would meet back for dinner. The guys shook on it and Christian informed me of the bet and conversation. I was a little skeptical that I would be able to work the lobster boat since I had never done it before but I was excited to have the chance. I was also a little amazed and honored that Christian appreciated my work ethic so much that he traded me for 3 guys. I only hoped I would live up to the hype now. Christian stated his confidence in me and walked me through what my day would be like. 

The next morning we traded crews. Elian explained to me that he would slow down his speed for the day so that I could get the hang of it and showed me how they pulled traps. I will say it was an extremely hard physically challenging day. Elian sped up when he saw I could pull my weight and keep up once I got into my groove of gaffing the floaters and pulling the lines. The traps were almost always full. He has his spots perfected and the crew worked rhythmically. Even with us being down 2 guys we barely had any hiccups. The worst that happened was when I missed one of the buoys and we had to circle back. By the end of the day I was exhausted and at the same time had a rush from the events of the day. When we returned to the cove and docked up with Christian’s boat I was nervous to see if I held up to Christian’s hype. Elian confirmed with his crew back on the boat that I had worked like all 3 of them had been there without skipping a beat. That night the guys opened a bottle and we ate and drank like I was just another one of the guys. They viewed me as an equal finally and it was nice to not have them talk about me and instead to me. Christian beamed with pride. The next day he told me all about how the guys were slow or lazy and how they sucked at lunch prep. I was definitely sore that day but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. My mind and body were still buzzing from the energetic high. I finished scrubbing the boat down and packing the day’s catch on ice as we pulled into the cove.That night when we docked up for dinner Elian and Christian shared in laughter at the reality of the situation. We ate dinner together and drank a little as usual. At one point Christian conveyed to me that I was to sit with Elian and get the fishing spots after we were done. So when Christian said he was going back to the boat and instructed me to get the numbers I didn’t think twice.

 I approached Elian in the captain’s quarters just as the crew was saying goodnight. When I entered the cabin he pulled out his book and ripped out a page that had a bunch of numbers already noted down. He had it in his hand and extended slightly to me while commenting how he missed having me on the boat for the day. I smiled and looked into his eyes, teasing him that I was sure it was the views he missed through the day. In that moment our eyes locked and it was like a charge of energy. He smiled and licked his lips then slightly bit on the corner. I could see it in his eyes that he wanted to cross the line. I gave him the window he was waiting on. I smiled and offered him a chance at the views wherever he wanted it. All he had to do was ask. In that second it was as if all the air sucked itself out. He was directly in front of me before I could even exhale. His hand with the paper was shoving itself into my back pocket while his right hand now was grabbing behind my neck as he planted a kiss on me. It was all consuming. If I had been in the desert dying of thirst this was the water of life consuming me. He embraced me closer as we drank in the kiss. I wrapped my fingers up into his hair, grabbing a handful as he pushed me up against the wall and getting a further grip on my neck. When my back hit the wall I pulled back on his hair to get my breath. His lips released mine only long enough to dive into my neck. My head was reeling. I could feel every muscle of his body up against mine. His hands were now grabbing at me hungrily up under my shirt and at my neck. Just as I exhaled with a gasp he was back to my lips and swung me around to the dash but before I could hit the counter he grabbed my legs just under by butt and lifted me up onto the dash. Never once spreading his lips from mine. Once I was on the counter he grabbed a handful of hair and pulled my head back exposing my neck as he dove into it for a bite. My legs were shaking and I was in the heat of ravishment. He slid my shirt off up and over my head and with the pull of my bikini string my top was gone. His hands were so strong and gripping on to me like I was the rope to a full string of traps. He plunged into my breasts kissing and biting and was undoing my shorts in the heat of it all. He picked me up again while clutching on to my back and going in for more kissing and lifted me over to his bed. As he laid me down I pulled off his shirt to expose his well toned chest and we stopped just long enough to smile at each other. He pulled down my jean shorts to expose my g string. It was at this moment that clarity hit me. I was just finishing my cycle and still had a tampon in. Shit. I stopped him from pulling down my underwear and tried to deflect him. I pushed him back as I kissed his chest and started to unbutton his pants. I pushed his pants down to expose his boxers and drove my hand into his boxers gripping on to his massive hard on. He tried to push me back down and that’s when I had to come clean. I scrambled to slow him and finally confessed my predicament. He didn’t even blink, he just immediately plunged his lips to mine, silencing my words. Then without warning he ripped my underwear off in one fatal swoop. That single act alone had my legs quivering. I was in shock and without hesitation he grabbed the string and ripped it out and threw it out the window like this was just another cigarette butt being tossed out a window. I didn’t even have time to react when he dove in for another kiss and plunged inside me. We were completely consumed in our lust. I gave into his embrace and our bodies melted into each other. We consumed each other, drinking in every once. His hands gripped me so hard but the pain was exonerated by our passion. By the time we were done both of us were panting and drenched in sweat, giggling profusely. 

We were on a whole different planet energetically. No matter how intense we both kept our heads level enough to not let eachother get too loud as to let anyone else know what was going on in the cabin. Only a handful of times did either of us almost break the unspoken agreement. If either of us got too close to getting loud we would either drive in for a kiss or he even covered my mouth for me to only bite down on his fingers. At the end of it all we stared into eachothers eyes smiling while still panting dripping in sweat. It could’ve been hours but we didn’t care. The only thing that brought us to reality was a sound outside of one of the boats starting their engines. The sky was still dark but it wouldn’t be good if his crew were to wake. All the chatter would have really started. We quietly gathered our clothes and redressed.  I grabbed my torn underwear and shoved it into my pocket and made sure I still had the numbers in the other pocket. He came in for one last kiss as I was about to reach for the door. His eyes smiled at me as we shared the last breath of our scent. 

I passed his sleeping crew and hopped over to my boat on shaky legs. That night I drifted into a rem sleep like no other. 

The next morning I awoke to a clueless Christian back to normal as usual. The only evidence of the night before was the torn underwear and the slip of paper with the fishing coordinates. I gave Christian the coordinates and he didn’t even flinch. It was a great day of fishing and once it was over I was almost relieved to hear that Elian had to return to the mainland. We had a blast but I didn’t want to push our luck of being around everyone again just in case we have any hint for the crew to talk. I didn’t want a soul to know out there on the water. All the hard work and progress of finally getting the guys to let up would be gone if anyone caught wind. Thankfully Christian didn’t care or didn’t want to care. He never questioned me about that night. 

Two days later we rolled into port and were greeted by Lee and Claire at the dock. Claire could tell immediately something was up. I couldn’t keep it from her. She knew me too well. I waited until we dropped the fish at the market and separated from Lee and Christian to spill the tea. Claire was as shocked as I was about Elian, but I was even more shocked when she informed me that he was married. Shit. That was the last thing I ever wanted to do to another woman. There was no way that could ever happen again. As amazing as it was, the minute I knew he was married was the minute he was off limits. Claire gave me hell the whole way home. I still couldn’t stop reliving the whole moment in my head. It was the most incredible sex I’d ever had and go figure he was already taken. When we got home I was changing out of my clothes while Claire was chatting on about Elian. When I took my shirt off Claire gasped. I hadn’t been without a shirt while working and there was no mirror on the boat. Thankfully it was cooler out and I hadn’t taken off my shirt. There across my whole torso were bruises. Whole hand prints and finger marks where he had laid his hand on me. Elian had left his mark not only on my soul but on my flesh. I couldn’t help but drink in the sight while reliving each mark in my mind. What an impression. 

Claire and I came to the agreement that we wouldn’t tell anyone and I wouldn’t have a repeat episode. We both didn’t want it to get out , especially since we both knew how the coconut wireless worked on the keys. The Island would be in a hum of rumors and I didn’t want to be the object of Elian’s marriage issues. I had enough problems with the local wives already worrying if I was working with their husbands. To be honest there wasn’t a single other man out on the water that I was attracted to. 

Eliana and I talked a week later and as much as we both wanted a repeat of our time together he understood my boundary and agreed to honor it and stay silent.

Life went on. I kept working and trying to just get through the winter season. 

It was about a month later when I received a phone call from Anne from Pennsylvania. She was in a frenzy looking for Angel. Angel had run away from home and left with a friend and after both families searched, they came to the conclusion that the girls had hopped a bus to me. Anne had talked to the other girl’s family and calmed them down enough to reach out to me and we both agreed that the girls needed to be brought back home. I hadn’t heard anything from Angel yet so I told Anne that the minute I heard anything I would call her and keep her posted. It wasn’t even an hour later when I got the call from Angel that she and her friend Michelle were at the local bus station looking to stay with me. Both girls had ridden the bus for the last 3 days to get to me. 

Harboring runaways was the last thing I needed to add to my list of things  in my life. I picked the girls up and brought them right back to the apartment so I could call Anne. Michelle’s parents didn’t know me so I called them as well to inform them of her arrival and to ease their frears on who she was with.  Both of the girls were so excited to arrive but then once I laid into them they knew they couldn’t stay away from their lives forever. I spoke to both of the families and convinced them to give me 2 weeks with the girls and then I would hand deliver them back to PA myself. I knew if I just put them on a bus that they could always just get off at one of the rest stops and I couldn’t live with their disappearance on my conscience.

Angel and Michelle were happy to have the break and agreed to the deal. Their families agreed and I was now the foster to these girls until they hit their doorstep. 

Both of the girls were looking at this trip as their time to be grown so I put them to work to earn their keep since I was now going to have to deal with Mike. Claire had run interference to keep the peace. Thankfully the season was winding down and Christian was understanding of the whole ordeal. I spent the 2 weeks making the girls realize the levity of their decision. I took them everywhere and had them realize what it meant to actually be on their own. I introduced them to my local crew and the guys helped me keep an eye on them. I kept them busy working and adulting by day and showed them normal life at night .  Once everything was in place for me to leave to drive them home I set out. I had planned to return in less than 2 weeks and was going to come back to work once they were gone. 

I drove them to Lauderdale first to spend 2 days there visiting my grandmother and friends before we moved on. While there we visited D’s band warehouse and the girls got to meet the crew. We then went to Patti and Rob’s on our way out of Florida. The girls got to witness my conundrum of a relationship with my mother and started to understand.

I took my time with them trying to be the mentor’s voice of reason the whole time. At one point Michelle had even broken down and told me that me yelling at them was like God himself yelling ,because she knew I was just trying to guide them. I hoped that I could at least help make the difference in the survival from ignorant decisions. I dropped the girls off to their parents’ houses individually and got to meet Michelle’s family. Michelle’s family was thankful that the situation worked out and we talked about counseling for any of the areas that I saw issues with while I had the girls. 

I turned back around and drove back only 1 day after we arrived. My birthday was approaching and Rob and Patti wanted to celebrate with me.  When I got to Rob’s, he surprised me with my dream 85 CJ7 Jeep. In the years that he and my mother had been together I had worked on his cars and boats when needed. Each time we had time to talk he would ask me about my favorite things and little did I know that he was planning this surprise slowly over the years. I was beside myself. I never in a million years expected that. I was driving a little Honda Civic hatchback that I had acquired for 500$ from my grandmother’s friend shortly after I dealt with  Sara’s death. I had replaced just about everything on the car to keep it going. I had even kept giving my grandmother money to help her since she helped me find the car.

I was so humbled and wanted to pay Rob for the Jepp but Rob would have no part in it. 

I accepted the jeep and decided to sell the Civic to pay for the transfer of tag and title. When Pat{my grandmother} caught wind that I was selling the car, her and my aunt Lisa started in with the guilt trip. She had found me the car  so they felt it was only fair that I give her the money from the sale of the car. It became a major fight even though I pointed out that I had given her the money already plus more. It didn’t matter to them that I paid her already or that I was using the money to transfer everything. They threw a fit. I left to go back to the keys with half of my family yelling at me that I was being selfish. I knew then that this was just another flare up of their greed but I always tried to see past it and give that title of Family the benefit of the doubt.

I went back to the Keys and went right back trying to find work since the season had ended. I paid Mike in advance for the next month’s rent just to give myself time. I wasn’t back for more than a week when Claire’s little sister took a hiatus. She didn’t come home one night and since she was only 16, Mike and Claire started to think the worst when she still wasn’t home by lunch the next day. We called all her friends and got no answers. By the next morning we were trying to break into her computer pages to see if we could find any clues.  While going into her emails we had found some conversations that pointed to some sketchy things. The 3rd day of her still not calling or showing, we were in panic mode. I knew then we needed more help. I pulled out the cards from the DEA interview and found an FBI agent’s card and made the call.  They hacked her pages and found out that she was talking to quite a few older men in BDSM chat rooms and some had even sent her money. We were all now extremely worried for her well being so the agents sent their own feelers out for us. Day 6 she strolled right into the apartment like nothing ever happened. Mike, Claire and I lost it completely when she informed us that she had gone off with some local guy she had met up to the northern keys to go camping. I called the agents off and was happy for once that I had their numbers and help but I could tell Mike was still uneasy about my connections. 

It was a few days later that Mike told me that I needed to leave. He didn’t want me at the apartment anymore. He refused to give me the remainder of the rent money back and Claire was at a loss. I knew it was my time to leave. 

I called Patti and Rob and they offered a room until I could find my next place which only took a few days. Off I went back to Boca Raton. Patti’s salon needed a receptionist part time so I jumped into working and began looking into tattoo shops to finish my apprenticeship. It wasn’t long before I also landed a job at Bobby Rubino’s restaurant basically doing whatever they needed. I would work the salon 3 days a week during the day and 5 days a week I would work shifts at the restaurant. In the restaurant I worked the kitchen cooking,  was the cashier,  the delivery driver  and did the unloading of the food trucks. For the Halloween season I took up a seasonal job working at the local costume shop.

In my free time I was at the tattoo shop.  I spent every moment of freetime at the shop. The guys at the shop gave me hell at any chance. I knew it was all part of proving myself in the shop. The shop owner would pull me aside and encourage me on days the guys were especially hard on me or I was worse for the wear. 

I’m the mean time I had started subletting an apartment in Lauderdale from a friend that went back to England to visit family. I lulled into a routine.

It was a few months in when Rob and Patti broke up. He had bought her a house and told her to leave. I don’t know what all led to that point but I could only guess since I had always wondered how he dealt with her mood swings. I was saddened to watch, knowing she had planned on the future with him . I was the person she called to help her move whatever she could and she expressed how she didn’t want to be alone so I packed a bag and stayed with her most of the time while still keeping my place in Lauderdale that I had taken over. 

While working at the Halloween store, I had made friends with one of the guys Al. Al was a gay man from Venezuela that loved interior design and making costumes.  His visa was about to expire and he was having trouble trying to find someone to help marry him so he could stay in the country. After watching him and his boyfriend of 6 years go through a few different issues with finding someone, I offered up my hand in marriage. Al was 10 years older than I was. I knew he needed a bride only for the paperwork and I knew I wasn’t getting married anytime soon. Al and I went through the details and got married a week later on our lunch break.  His boyfriend was his best man and one of my recent friends went as my maid of honor. We said “I do”, kissed, took pictures and then went our separate ways.  We agreed that we would live out our lives doing our normal and he would just add my name to his credit cards and address to make it all solid for any check- ins. I didn’t have much for credit so I knew he couldn’t make it much worse.

I couldn’t imagine not being able to stay just because your lover wasn’t the sex that someone else who signed a paper didn’t approve of. 

We talked almost daily at work so from there the marriage was just the piece of paper he needed. I spoke enough Spanish to understand him and his boyfriend told me all his little quirks for any interview. 

After everything it was back to normal life just with a name change.

I kept myself busy most of the time and when Patti would complain that I wasn’t around I would skip my social life or my extra job of serving for parties to spend time with her. I had stopped working at the salon since it was only when needed and they were getting slower and the other staff would pick up the job. I was almost done with my apprenticeship when Patti threw a fit one night because I wouldn’t leave work to get her firewood. That argument only fueled a bigger one 2 days later when I told her I had accepted a job dog sitting for 24 hours until the owner could pick up the dog. I was going to be staying at her place for part of the 24 hours so the dog had to come with me while I was there. I had to lock up the dog in a kennel because I was to go to work  for 4 hours and Patti didn’t want the dog in the house or the kennel. It turned into a full on fight. It got so bad that even my boss at the shop gave me the day to get myself and the dog out of her house. 

She became so venomous over the simple fact that I wouldn’t bow to her. She knew the dog was getting picked up not even 2 hours after I was to be done and that the dog had been kennel trained. To her none of it mattered. She was on a mission. I grabbed the dog and waited for the owner to pick him up.  I had to call a police escort just to get my duffel bag of things out of her house that I kept there for extra changes of clothes. She was on a mission to take out whatever insecurity she was feeling on me and I knew it. Even the police officer  couldn’t understand her tactics of how aggressive she was  behaving over a simple thing like collecting my bag and tv that I had brought in. 

I was happy to have my apartment on the side for just that reason. 

Life went on as normal for me once out of her energy field. I was used to her rollercoaster of tantrums and knew that it was only ever a matter of time until one came around so I was glad I had set myself up with a homebase.

I finally finished my apprenticeship and the shop had more piercers than artists so I went on the hunt for a job closer to my place in Lauderdale. I was in a one bedroom apartment almost in the heart of Ft. Lauderdale connected to 4 other apartments that had the same set up. The neighbors worked at a Exotic car dealership and we would all relax together after the end of our day.  I started cleaning the dealership’s office late at night once a week after my neighbor bragged about how I cleaned their apartment for extra money and eventually worked my way into being a personal driver and maid for the dealership’s owner when his other staff couldn’t take part.  Al and I would check in with phone calls on occasion to touch base. With my job at the restaurant coming to a close since it was having issues with their finances therefore closing, and my part time serving job, I was fairly filled in my schedule. No matter how much I was working all the other jobs, my biggest priority was Piercing now. I got a job at a shop in South Beach and worked there 3 days a week but I knew it wasn’t going to pan out in Miami. My jeep was getting ransacked every day I worked in South Beach, and with the gas prices and parking fees it wasn’t proving to be fruitful. 

I had just quit the shop after 2 months when I got the call from Micheal, the piercer from Ocean City that had started my apprenticeship. He had moved to San Diego and was working for a local shop there that needed a fill-in piercer for 2 weeks while they did convention work.  He was offering the spot to me. I didn’t hesitate. It took me 3 days to tie up all my loose ends and get the plane ticket. I had the neighbor and a friend watch the apartment while I caught a flight to San Diego on a wing and a prayer that something would come soon.

New Start

We drove to the State line and the weight on my shoulders felt as if it disappeared. The kids laughed and joked and would take pictures like we were tourists at almost every stop. Matt was a thin tall kid that was like having a court jester at all times with you. He had a weird fear of bridges, and corn fields {because of children of the corn} bats, spiders, bugs in general, and a few random other things. He was also completely unaware of how many bridges we had to cross and how many mountain ranges we went over. It was an interesting trip to say the least.
When we finally pulled into the driveway of the house they were both in a much lighter mood.The house was a 3 story old Victorian house that was purple with deep green trim. It could have resembled the Addams family house if it was painted any darker. It used to be a brothel house back in the late 1800’s that I could easily picture horse drawn carriages pulling up outside and eventually the early motorized cars. There was a huge backyard with a small creek running through with a river to the back end of the property and the side of the property buds up to a smaller hotel with a bar.  We gawked at the huge expanse of a house. Once we got to the door and went inside it was a beautiful sight of wood floors and large rooms with extremely high ceilings. The front room to the left was primarily empty with only a piano and a clay sculpture of dolphins that was left by the previous tenant. The front room then opened up into a huge bar area towards the back of the house with a large oak bar carved into the wall. We ventured to the right side of the house into an abandoned paint and framing shop. There was still  some furniture in the front room area and a ton of framing supplies towards the back. Further into the back of the house was what looked like a kitchen. At one point, someone decided to carpet and make the shelving into a library with a desk and a computer there in the middle of it all.
The very back end of the house was my Aunt Kathy’s barber shop. In the barber shop there were tons of windows and a small little station for just her. Kathy was a small plump woman with white hair and classic irish features. Mary Kathrine Gallagher was her full name but we all just called her Kathy, she definitely was an energy to behold on her good days.
On her good days she was so amazingly nice, you felt like you would get a sweet tooth. On her fiery days you felt like you needed a crucifix to ward her off. She was the epitome of the Gallagher women of family tales. Fire and Ice or in my mind seriously venomous docile snakes.
She was expecting us and led us to the apartment on the 3rd floor to settle in. Kathy had the 2nd floor apartment next to the one bedroom efficiencies and had already made it her pink country den. You could feel the amazing history in that house just permeating the air.
The apartment on the 3rd floor was a 2 bedroom that seemed to have been redone sometime in the 70’s with its linoleum countertops and floors. But we were happy to settle in. After we unloaded everything from the car we decided to go to the store for food and to stock the fridge. We had to drive 20 minutes to another town to go to the store. The town the house was in wasn’t even really a town, it was a township. The house only had a gas station, a bar, a post office, a dinner and 3 other houses around it. The towns nearby had more substance but were still a blip on a map. It spoke volumes when I was just about to check out when a woman approached and questioned if I was The new girl that just moved into the old brothel, from Florida. The kids and I shared a look.  She went on talking like I had answered her saying that she had known about me and the town was waiting for my arrival, so it had to be me. This was going to be interesting already and I knew we were going to have to tread lightly here.
The first night I dreamt of Sara. She was dressed in the late 1800’s brothel ladies dresses. She had a feather in her hair and she was in the front room. The room was packed with card tables and men sipping cognac, smoking cigars and playing cards while women dripped off their arms. There was a piano player entertaining while they all looked as if it was another busy Saturday night at the brothel. Sara was laughing away and looked right at me and told me how much she loved this place. I awoke still smelling the liquor and cigars while hearing faint laugher and glasses clinking in the background.
I would take that dream a million times over than the nightmares from Florida that were at every turn.
The first few days I toured the house and explored the basement and grounds. Claire and Matt relaxed and we got to learn of our surroundings.  The first time we ventured to the back of the yard and found the creek was when I learned of the corn field that backed up to the other side of the creek . Matt went running so fast that Claire and I almost wet ourselves from laughing so hard. I spent my days trying to find a good job. After a short hunt I found that the best jobs were going to be inclined to open if I had a bartending license.  I found a school close by that wasn’t expensive and enrolled immediately.  The school was only a week long and it was a crash course. I started the next week and by the end of that week I had my license. 
During my time at school the kids tried to keep themselves busy and helped Kathy around the house. At the end of my schooling I was given a website to check on any new job openings, so I went straight to the computer on my first official day. I was downstairs on the computer when I heard a Horror movie scream echo down from the third floor followed by someone tromping down the stairs. I thought it was Claire and was about to get up when she popped her head into the library from the framing shop and looked at me in surprise. We both were now worried it was Kathy so we immediately ran to the stairs. There running down the stairs was Matt waving his arms in a panic. We asked if Kathy was ok and he screeched like a young schoolgirl that there was a bat in our living room. Claire and I got excited and ran up the stairs to see. We burst into the living room, only to be met with disappointment. There was no sign of a bat. Matt insisted that there was one, just minutes before and that it must have escaped. Claire and I didn’t believe him. We thought for sure he was making it all up since he already showed no love for the corn field and spooky decor of the house as a whole.
It was only a few days before I got my first job bartending at an event and it paid well so it was perfect even if I wasn’t going to work much since being in this small of a town you really didn’t need much to survive. I had bought all of us a bunch of food with my money and treated us to a nice home cooked dinner that was gourmet compared to anything else we would’ve  found anywhere close. We had just sat down at the table and started to dig in when the bat made his appearance.
It came out of a small hole in my ceiling tiles and started to circle the room that was the kitchen and living/dining room. Once It was seen Matt’s silverware went flying into the air as he screeched and dove under the table. Claire and I Froze for a split second and then started laughing so hard  that we couldn’t breathe. Matt yelled at us as we laughed across the table to each other joking about trying to catch the bat. Matt was mortified and we were laughing so hard we were crying. We were just about to get up when Matt crawled his way to the front door and unlocked the door and swung it open to run out. As he went out the door, so did the bat following right behind him into the hallway. That prompted a whole new round of laughter between Claire and I. We finally peeled ourselves out of the chairs and off the table to go investigate. Matt had run all the way down to the first floor and right out the front door and our friendly Bat was nowhere to be found.
After that Claire and I had to constantly let him know the coast was clear when going into the apartment.
I had landed a job at a local Steakhouse not far up the road that was hidden away on the Amityville lake. It was a martini bar mainly and they needed someone asap. I started immediately and absolutely enjoyed it.  I was working all the time and after work I would come back to the house to find the kids relaxing and usually having fun.  It was after 2 months of us being there that the kids told me that they wanted to go back to Florida. I knew they were having issues finding  work and that Matt was not built for the middle of the woods. Claire had decided she wanted to go back to be with her mom since her younger sister and brother were having issues since we had left. I hated to see them go but I knew I needed this more than she did. I took them to the airport and waved goodbye for now.
Once the kids were gone it was just me up in the apartment and I was working a ton.. I had met a young girl at the local gas station one night  on a quick run for a few things and she had seemed nice. Everyone else in town liked to talk so I avoided them. Even with Kathy it was a balancing act on who I would encounter. Some days she was drunk, other days she would hide away in her apartment. I longed for anyone to really spend time with . A few nights later I met a tall and good looking guy at the gas station while getting a drink. He was 6’7” and totally cute. He had dark hair and brown eyes with a tall and thin build. He was riding a motorcycle and he piqued my interest so I sparked conversation. He asked me if I wanted to go for a ride and all I could think was this was too good to be true.  I hopped on the back of the bike and off we rode, into the mountains. It was a beautiful night  with a warm breeze. I loved sitting on the back of that bike, the wind blowing and he chatted with me about how he heard there was a new girl in town. I was beginning to like the whole picture of what could happen, now playing out in my head. He had made a huge loop up into the mountains and now we were on the way back to the gas station when I spotted a bar. I suggested we go in for a drink when he told me he wasn’t old enough. I thought he was probably just under 21, I could deal with that. I was only 22, so not a big deal. I decided to clarify his age and when he answered 17, I swear I felt like I was gonna fall off the bike. This was the catch.. of course the universe would screw with me. Here was this totally hot guy with a bike and he was Jailbait. That was when I suggested we go back to the gas station. The rest of the ride I was stuck in my head. All I could think about was him being jailbait. Once we arrived back at the gas station the young girl I had met was there and quickly approached us as I got off the bike. She started to yell at her brother telling him how their mom was worried and now she realized where he was. That’s when she saw me and changed her tone. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “I told my family about you the other day. ” Her brother chimed in “Yeah I figured this was the girl you were talking about and so I offered to show her around.” Great. Just my luck. They introduced themselves and offered to introduce me to their mom since they lived right next to the gas station, literally. Oh what the hell, why not, I figured the only people that had been nice were these two so what could it hurt. Thomas was the brother and Angel was the sister. Angel was all of 13 and while they walked me to their house I got the whole rundown on the family. Mom was a busdriver, Jer their younger brother was 11 and then there was Mari the 8 year old. Mom and the new boyfriend were in Narcotics Anonymous and excited to meet me, Angel confessed.
Ann, their mom was super nice. She welcomed me into her home immediately and the other two kids warmed up instantly. We traded numbers and I left thinking it was nice to meet a whole family at least that I could connect with.
Over The next few weeks I became closer with the family. Angel’s mom Ann and I totally got along since we were both smart asses with blunt tendencies. She had confided how her oldest Thomas had told her he had a crush on me. I started to see that but told her there was no way since he was underage. She said that for me she wouldn’t have an issue and thought I would be good for him and give him a run for his money. We joked about him being jailbait often, but Thomas continued to make small hints to me as if to test the waters.
I had gotten in touch with Mark, my other “Dad” in Maryland and he asked me to come down and visit him when I could. So while the weather was good I decided to go visit before winter kicked in because I knew the town he was in would shut down mostly like the rest of the Northeast. I Planned a weekend and went to visit. During my trip I had met a guy Dwight at the local bar Mark was playing at and switched numbers so that we could talk, figuring he was only a few hours away , it might be a good occasional fling or at the very least a normal conversation from time to time.
When I returned back home Angel and the kids were more invested in hanging out at my house more since Ann’s boyfriend started to go off the deep end with relapsing and the kids didn’t want to be around him.  All of the sudden my house was now the local hang for them and all their  close friends. I didn’t mind. Honestly it was nice. I would take the kids to school or help get them ready if someone else was giving them a ride. Thomas was showing more and more hints of wanting to get involved but I knew better. I was talking to Dwight in my freetime when I wasn’t working and he even came up to visit me one weekend and we really enjoyed ourselves. It was about this time my piercing from Florida had started having issues with its healing and I started looking into any remedies.
The snow was just starting to come in when the steakhouse closed for the winter season. They were right up on the lake and during the winter I guess the terrain was too dangerous for anyone to work or eat there. So my job search started again. I landed a job at another Bar close to the ski lodge and was now in full seasonal bartender mode. The kids were all at my house even if I wasn’t. I had now also taken in a few other kids whose parents were MIA most of the time so my house was usually filled with at least 7-10 kids after school everyday. One of the locals even tried calling the local police on me. They claimed I was corrupting minors. When the police came to investigate they realized I was just a safe place for the local kids and pretty much left us alone unless they needed to get information on any of the local kids’ misactions like the local stolen dirt bikes from time to time. Otherwise they left us alone. The allegations still arose but I chalked it up to the basic gossip of one of the older women who just liked to stir the pot. After a while the police just ignored the calls.
As the weeks progressed Dwight and I talked more and more. He eventually came to visit and we became more serious. He was wanting more time together and we would plan trips every other weekend.
Thomas would get very possessive in my attention. Dwight could see it but knew where I stood in my decision. Thomas was cute even though he was young but I also knew he would’ve only been short lived. Since his family was my only friends, I really didn’t want to lose my only connections to normalcy here. I wasn’t looking for a short term, I wanted something more. Something that could eventually travel through life with.
Once Sara died,I really started to think about what I wanted in this world, and the reality was, I wanted all of it. I wanted to experience whatever I could and see as much as possible and to share it with someone who would want to do the same thing. So far Dwight was up to travel and have fun so he was my top choice.
I made it through most of that winter working and it was shortly after Valentine’s Day that my ear started to have more issues from my piercing.  During the holiday I went to a local doctor that gave me meds to fix it and they hadn’t done anything so now it was worse.  I decided to go to another doctor a town over and he instructed me to go to the ER. The piercing had been fighting the infection for quite some time and now it was swollen with puss despite my efforts to drain it. Once I got to the ER they inspected it and assessed that the infection was actually in the cartilage and it had deteriorated it internally. The hospital gave me impactions with medication after they had little impact of draining it as well. I was sent home with meds and a mandatory rest.
The meds laid me out. I was so loopy and out of it, that work was not an option. The kids were basically at my house full time . I had a week straight that I was to be down and so I spent that time now doing homework, watching movies and cooking with the kids. I had adopted a dog ,Kayla and she was now with me constantly throughout my down time. The kids would help to walk her and helped cook meals for me in between their school times. After the first week of being down I still wasn’t fully recovered and the bar didn’t want me chancing it at work yet so they gave me another week off. I took a few days to visit Mark and took Kayla with me. Mark and Kayla completely bonded. He had just lost his dog to old age and she clung to his side no matter what I bribed her with. That was all the cue that I needed to see that she was meant to be there with Mark. I was happy to see her connect with him and he was happy to have a new companion. I left her there when I returned to Pennsylvania knowing she had found her forever home.
After I returned home my job had moved on from the idea of me coming back.The season was going to slow down since it was springtime and they didn’t need as many on staff. This was when Dwight pitched the idea that I come move in with him, his brother and his mother. I knew he had moved back in after his ex and him had separated so I figured this would be more a temporary arrangement. I told the kids and they hated that I was moving but they liked that I would still keep in touch so that I could visit.
I packed up everything and Moved in with Dwight. His fraternal twin brother Dave was newly returned from the military and also living at home since his return. Both brothers were polar opposites in many ways. Dwight was more reserved, 6’1” with red hair, green eyes, freckles and a medium build. Dave was 6’2” with blonde hair, blue eyes, a little more built with a very outgoing personality. Their mom was an amazing sweet woman that loved her boys and couldn’t have been more proud of either of them. Their father had died years earlier so it was just her and her boys. I loved that they were so caring of their mother and her happiness. Dwight was working as a ditch digger during the day and he was going through a tattoo apprenticeship in the evenings. His brother Dave was a bartender at one of the local bars. 
I had missed my window of getting a bartending or server job for the summer since the window had opened almost a month before. Ocean City was only a 35 minute drive from the house so I hunted for a job down on the boardwalk.I figured anything was better than nothing and found a great little dead head shop that was hiring cashiers. They hired me on the spot. The store sold t-shirts, flip flops, necklaces, and anything you could imagine your local skater or surfer or stoner would like. It was a great shop on the boardwalk with a piercing booth In the back. The other girls that worked at the shop were all transient students as well coming from all over. I made friends with a girl named Diana who was a film student just looking to enjoy her summer.  She and I had the same love for scarcsium and would try to work most shifts together. The Piercing booth in the back was ran by a piercer named Diva from a local shop down the street so we would have to call them once we had a customer for them. Diva was this punk rock, tattooed mom that spoke very little but would hang out from time to time while waiting in between clients and occasionally bring her 6 yr old daughter to the shop. 

Working on the boardwalk  during the first week was a blast. I would take my lunch break to skate down to the local pizza place or grab a chicken philly, grab a lemonade and carmel corn or an ice cream. I didn’t have to take many breaks because we would stand at the front and smoke while waiting for customers to come in off the beach. Diva and I would talk while we waited and smoked cigarettes.  It was still not completely season so we had more time before summer officially hit. Diva noticed that I had some knowledge about piercings and jewelry  so she asked me to man the piercing booth sign ups until her other piercers arrived from out of state. In the meantime Diana and I hung out and worked together as much as possible and in my days off and time off I spent it with Dwight. Dwight and I mainly spent most of our time at home, mainly watching movies and drawing. He was in full swing of drawing as much as possible for the tattoo shop and I loved watching him create. I would sit On the couch and write or draw my doodles while he drew all night at his drafting table.  We didn’t need to do much and I looked at it as a perfect way to save for the summer.  

Diva and I would hang out and smoke so I could pick her brain from time to time about information on the Piercing industry. We were almost 3 weeks into working together when she noticed that everytime we would be talking people would completely bypass her and ask me their piercing questions.  I hadn’t realized it until she pointed it out and we both had a giggle at the experience. Diva looked the part, she was 5’6” with huge franken boots that were buckled all the way up to her knees and she wore plaid skirts with a wife beater tank top and suspenders. Her fire engine red hair that was in a short pixie cut screamed punk and she was covered in large tattoos. I on the other hand was the picture perfect blonde surfer girl with only the one larger arm tattoo that I got for Sara. I had plaid skirts but they were more for my nightwear for going to clubs. I kept a relaxed look during the day and didn’t see the point of dressing in my club wear at the beach. A few days later a person came to the booth and pointed at my now deformed ear and asked her to do that to them. That’s when I spilled my experience to them of how my ear became the marvel it was now. Once Diva learned of the story she made the decision that I was destined to be in the industry and planned out my training. She was waiting on the other 2 piercers to arrive in the next week for the summer and told me the minute they arrived I was going to shadow them and learn everything I could. Diana and I were both excited to see where this summer was going to go with all the new fiends we were making. 

It was a few days later when the guys strolled into the shop. Chris was from Pennsylvania and was every bit of punk rock meets redneck. Mike was more your medical geek meets artist hippie. I loved the eclectic personalities that I was being surrounded with. They each were an experience to be had in one on one conversations but putting them together was an instant show. I loved the raw energies of constant sarcasm, drinking, and chaos. 

Dwight was working more and more but we both agreed that we were secure enough in what this summer was turning into. We saw each other on our days off and when we went to bed. We would leave each other notes and call during our lunch breaks for more talk time and it was still a step up from my time living in Pennsylvania so we were content. Plus party of me always knew I was more his rebound girl since he was still getting over the ex.

Chris and Mike (the new piercers that arrived in town) took me under their wings. I was glued to them most of the day and once off work we would continue my education with their shenanigans. We would frequent the local bar and play pool while they told me their war stories in the industry. On occasion we would pierce one of the other workers on the boardwalk after hours and they would use it as a hands on experience for me to learn.  Diana and I definitely learned about the fun side of the industry and I was glad to share it with another female.  Diva basically bowed out of being at the booth more and manned the shop so I barely saw her much that summer except in an emergency. The guys and I all loved to skateboard and would basically get drunk after work while riding up and down the boardwalk. Many nights I would end up carrying one of them back to their place to crash for the night. Chris slept in his van and Mike was renting a small studio near by. It was never a dull moment. I would then drive back to the house just in time to snuggle up with Dwight and crash just to wake up and do it all over again.  On occasion I would Visit Mark and Kayla for dinner on my night off. Mark’s wife Trudy was usually going out with friends or already asleep and her 2 daughters usually were scarcely around since they were always doing sports and social things.

About mid summer I started seeing that Dwight never planned on leaving this town. We had a heart to heart and he told me he wanted to stay until his mother passed before traveling. I knew that was the straw that would break come the end of the summer so I started to look at the next town that was to be my exit. His brother Dave caught wind of the energy shift and started to make passes at me. Don’t get me wrong, If I had met Dave first we probably would have hooked up. But this was a brother feud that from what I had learned was a constant. Dwight would constantly feel insecure about his girlfriends because his brother would eventually end up bedding them. Dwight had told me this much one night in one of our confession sessions. Because of that fact alone, I would not let Dave’s advances go further. He would constantly try to “accidentally” walk in the room or bathroom after I showered, always trying to get a glimpse. By the end of July I was trying more and more to be gone at work or hang with Chris and Mike more just to really save myself from all the awkward conversations.  I was coming along with my apprenticeship and with the summer ending soon I knew that Dwight wouldn’t be the one to end things so I was going to need an exit plan. 

As luck would have it , I got hurt at the end of August. We had accidentally locked the keys to the piercing booth, inside the booth. I had volunteered to drop in from the ceiling and in doing so I broke the small bone on the very top of both of my feet. Only I didn’t know that they were broken. I had figured that I had strained the muscles and possibly tore them. For the last 3 weeks of the summer I was in constant pain. I put myself in air casts while working to give the feet support but it was still painful and by the end of the day I was always ready to collapse. I used that time to go to Marks more since Dwight and I were now in an awkward stalemate on spending time together. He was in full swing at the tattoo shop and I was genuinely happy for him when it came to that, but I knew we had no space left to get closer. Since I was trying to avoid Dave otherwise when I was at the house it was just easier for me to go to Marks. I had decided to pull the plug with Dwight on my last day in town before I left to go back to Florida. I had secured a job and a place to stay with only a 2 week transition time. Patti had offered for me to come and stay with her and Rob while I settled into finding a new place. 

When Chris and Mike were done for the summer, we had one last hoorah and exchanged numbers and addresses to keep in touch. Diana and I tried to do the same but she was heading to Germany for her next level in school and we both knew it was going to be harder to nail down each other. We took pictures and promised to keep the summer memories forever. Last I heard she was still doing amazing in Germany and kept on with her filming career. 

I went home to Dwights that night knowing this would be the last night. He was asleep when I got home. We cuddled and he was gone by morning. I took my shower and like clockwork Dave came into the room right as I returned from the shower, still freshly wet and wrapped in a towel. He saw the envelope with Dwight’s name on the bed and my bags packed and dove into full swing. He divulged that he wished we could’ve met first and that he knew that our relationship was coming to an end. He didn’t want to see me go but he wanted a chance to be with me before I left. I wouldn’t do that to Dwight, but I figured I’d give Dwight the satisfaction that he could know, no matter what, that he was the only one that had me. I’d give Dave the justice he deserved and make him envy his brother at least once. Dave begged me to sleep with him before I left. Instead I offered him a visual memory. He almost came out of his skin as I dropped my towel there in the middle of the room and told him to take in every drop and commit it to memory. He begged me to touch me. Access was denied. I stood there as he started to rubb himself asking if I would at least give him a hand job. Access was denied again.  I watched as Dave licked his lips in total as he wanted to be touching me and he whipped out his cock and started to rub it just feet away from me. I told him to drink it all in and even did a nice slow turn for him so that he could see every inch and know exactly what his brother had enjoyed. He was about to come and ripped his shirt off and that’s when I grabbed the towel and covered back up. “Times Up” I smiled as he flustered trying to cum and begged for me to give him more time. I shoved him out of the room with his dick still in hand and locked the door. 

In another world Dave would have been fun, but in this one, I was Dwight’s revenge.  I finished dressing, grabbed my bags and left the room. Dave caught me in the hallway and stood in my way. He had this look of pure lust on his face. He wanted to stop me and enjoy more. I had completely overpowered his seduction and he now looked at me like the challenge he wanted so badly to conquer. 

I smiled and told him that this was one girlfriend he wasn’t getting. He smiled in truce. Touche. He bowed his head and moved out of the way, offering up his body the next time I came into town.  I wonder sometimes how that conversation went with his brother, because let’s face it, I’m sure it ate him alive to know I got away.

I drove out of the driveway and went straight to the highway for my drive to Florida. It was a full day later when Dwight called my mother’s. He had read the dear john letter I had left that night when he came home to find me gone.  He had asked Dave if he knew anything. Dave had told him I was going to Florida and that was it. Dwight asked me if I had slept with Dave. I didn’t tell him about the viewing but I assured him I never broke that trust.  I did tell him that his brother had tried but that I wouldn’t do that to him knowing their past  competition. He begged me to return back. In the long end of the conversation I had to point out that I knew I was the rebound to his girlfriend prior, no matter his objections. I pointed out that as much as he was an amazing guy, no matter what it was doomed to fail because of my thirst for travel and his need to stay put. The only thing he would be missing was the warm body in the bed in the long run and I knew it wouldn’t take him long to fill that position. He was great but in the end we were on different roads.

We hung up the phone with the closure we both needed to say with our civility intact.

(He did find someone, and they eventually married, I hope they are doing well and I still wonder if Dave ever admitted to his actions.)

3 minutes

I awoke the next morning to a blood curdling scream followed by someone running up my steps to my door.  It was Sara’s youngest sibling Micky. Micky was 10 or 11 and lived with his mom so we rarely saw him unless it was family time for them.  He was in a panic saying something was wrong with Sara. I immediately told him to stay there and I would go help her. I expected to run in and she had cut herself on accident or something. Nothing would or could have prepared me for what I saw.
Her room had a faint glow as if it was a haze. There on the bed lay Sara with a revolver on her chest and dried blood coming out of her mouth. It hit me like a ton of bricks. She was void of all colors but looked swollen. I was still trying to process when I heard Claire come barreling down the stairs. I couldn’t let her see this. I ran for the door trying to get there to stop her from entering the apartment but she made it in the front door before I could. She was in a panic mode and trying to push past me to see her sister.  I tried so hard to be a wall but she grabbed me and pushed me aside. I was in complete shock. Claire screamed as she took in the sight that I had just seconds before. I was frozen. Claire sobbed and collapsed at the bedroom door. I had to pull it together, I couldn’t collect my thoughts but then I remembered Micky. I went to Claire and picked her up and told her to go help Micky. He was only a kid and I didnt want him to be alone. She was in a daze as I instructed her on what she needed to do while I called the corner for her sister. She was still frozen sitting on the end of the living room couch as I picked up the phone and dialed 911. The operator picked up, and I instantly told them we needed a corner. The woman on the other end of the line asked me as many questions as she could to understand the situation. She told me to touch her and see if she was still warm as if I didn’t know what a cold corpse looked like. I just remember telling the woman that I knew she was long gone and I wasn’t about to touch her to feel that cold skin hit my hands so that it could be the last memory of her body in my head.
Claire at some point went up stairs to check in on Micky. I sat and waited on the corner and made the call to Sara’s step mom who had dropped him off.
I didn’t understand why he was even there. Once I got her on the phone she told me that she dropped of Micky to have Sara drive him to school. I had to tell her to come back as fast as possible and I would explain once she arrived. I couldn’t break the news to her over the phone. She arrived just before the corner and I ushered her to my apartment to break the news to her. She sat in shock as Micky and Claire sobbed in silence. I went downstairs to meet the corner and detectives they sent. I watched as they picked her body up and put her in the bag and as the detectives asked questions I tried to answer them as best as possible. One of the officers even went up stairs to talk to the family in my apartment while I stayed in her apartment.
It was mid conversation with one detective when the other found the letter Sara had written. It lay sitting on her desk open and ready for me to read. The detective read through it and collected it as evidence. I never got to read what she wrote. Sometimes I wish I had gotten to other times I’m assuming the universe was telling me I didn’t need that.
Her family was in my apartment when the detectives and corner were packing up and ready to leave so I gathered her phone book and cell to call everyone that we needed to and start everything for the family on the planning side. It was then that the corner gave me the time of death. 3 am was her final time on this earth. It  was 9 am when I awoke that morning. It was 11 am by the time the corner and detectives were done.  I called my work to let them know I wouldn’t be in for the next day or two.  It was 11:15 when I poured my first drink of the day. I gave the phone book to her step mom and she started to make calls. I had agreed it was better if I called a choice few since I was closer to them and they would probably do better hearing it from me. I needed to call her new guy in Pensacola before the day got away. I saw there was a message on her phone so I listened to it. It was him, calling to say he was working like crazy since she had left and that he just wanted to tell her how much he enjoyed their time and couldn’t wait to talk to her when she woke up but he just wanted to call the minute he got off work. The time stamp was 3:03. Three minutes… It hit me like a brick wall. Three fucking Minutes. If she had waited 3 minutes, If I was awake and kept her talking that extra 3 minutes she might still be alive. Three minutes and she would have woken me up bouncing with happiness that he called and her whole world would have been better. 3 minutes…. I poured myself another drink. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to drown out that 3 minutes.
There I sat on my top step numb to the core. Inside the apartment Claire, Micky and their mom sat calling people. Johnny was the first on my list and he went into a stunned silence when I told him. Next was the new guy. He picked up on the 2nd ring expecting Sara. Once I told him he was in utter disbelief. I couldn’t blame him really. He wanted to know when but I couldn’t tell him it was 3 minutes before he called. This was my cross to bear. Everyone wanted answers and I didnt have them all yet so I continued to tell everyone that I would keep them up to date once I knew everything else.
Sara’s family decided to go back to their place and make the arrangements while I continued to help make calls. I didn’t stop drinking all day. One of my friends, Dom, had heard what happened and came rushing over to help me. He became my bartender for the day, pouring cocktail after cocktail and then eventually calling other reinforcements to help me and Claire in the grieving planning. By 11 pm that night I should have been on the floor with how much I drank but I was still excruciatingly sober. Everytime I closed my eyes all I could picture was her room with her lying on the bed dead. Dom decided he needed to stay the next few days with us because he could tell we weren’t in the right headspace.
We had to go gather a few things from his apartment 3 blocks away and since he wanted to get a bag and some other things I decided to drive the Miata so we could bring back more. I packed 4 beers for the 3 block drive and was on to the second one while he went into his place. Normally if there was any form of a buzz I wouldn’t drive, and with what I drank I should’ve felt something but I was sober.
We pulled out of his street and not even 2 houses down I got pulled over. This day was just going to kill me. I was in a mad hatter hysterical laughing fit when the cop approached the car. Dom was stunned into silence. The cop dove into the reason he pulled me over before I could even get a word out. He had pulled me over for a DUI survey test. Dom and I exchanged looks and I laughed even harder. I looked the cop dead in the face and told him, “You mine as well, just take me to jail”. He was puzzled and looked between Dom and I,then flusteredly replied that he had no merit to take me to jail since it was just a survey. Dom’s face fell as I pulled up the beer from between my legs and showed the cop my drink. I spewed the irony of my day. I unloaded on that poor cop the horror of what my day had been and how I hadn’t stopped drinking since 11 am and was now only 2 blocks away  from going back to my place and drowning myself for the rest of the night. The cops jaw was on the ground. He collected himself, remembered his job to do and pleaded with me to please just take the survey. Dom watched in silence as I finally agreed and blew into the machine, only to have it register a .06. All of us looked at each other in shock. The cop tried to clarify how much I had been drinking and Dom backed my story up as I told the cop his machine must have been broken. We retested only to get the same calibration again. At this point I was in a fit of laughter as I could only fathom that this was a sick joke that Sara was playing from the other side. The cop was amazed I was still coherent after the amount of alcohol he had learned that I had drunk that day and offered to follow us to my apartment. I convinced him it wasn’t necessary since I could literally point out my apartment from there. He let us go and wished me better days ahead. By the time I pulled into the parking lot Dom was now in a fit of laughter claiming that it had to be Sara fucking with us from the other side because never in all his life had he seen such luck. I didn’t want this luck. This was just my shit show and the universe’s twisted sense of humor and I was just the Clown in the circus.

3 Minutes… That’s all that kept running through my head. Until that night when I was trying so hard to go to sleep but couldn’t because I kept seeing her. That’s when I realized. I was the one who was supposed to find her. I was the one she planned on finding her that morning as I went in to get the letter or ask her how she was. I was the one she knew would handle all of this. I was the one holding her envelope at the end of the day. Just as I had trusted her with my end of the road envelope, she had left me with hers. Only when I left mine with her, she wouldn’t be the one to clean up the body.
That’s when the realization hit me that I didn’t want her family having to clean up the bedroom. I drank a few more swiggs of rum before I made the list for the next day of things to do and sat awake the rest of the night as I heard everyone else in the apartment sleeping.

I was up before everyone else since I barely really slept. Everytime I closed my eyes I replayed our last conversation or the last moments with her body. I started drinking again the minute I was up. I made a phone call to my grandmother since I knew she had a trailer or truck to help haul off the mattress. I had closed her door when the corner was done but her bed was blood soaked and the bullet had gone down into the wood floor. The corner has given me a clean up crew number but I wasn’t going to leave that to anyone else.My grandmother came and picked up the mattress before everyone else was completely up with instructions to go burn it .

The next week was a blur of drinking and trying to keep Claire watched and decent in both of our downward spirals into alcohol. I had some of the guys from the warehouse days come and take turns supervising us. At the service Johnny and I cried together and leaned on each other at the back of the room. Both of us mourning the love we both felt was ripped away.

It took us almost 2 weeks to get all the pieces to the puzzle she had left behind. The gun was from a friend that had given it to her because Sara had claimed that her Ex Steve was back in town and stalking her. She had gotten the gun without Claire or I knowing and basically had almost planned the whole ordeal beforehand. We realized even before her trip she had been partying and drinking more than usual.  We both became angry that she had literally planned everything behind our back. Even the friend that handed the gun over had no clue how bipolar she was and we were enraged that he even gave it to her. I had also remembered her being mad that her mother had started calling her for money and her father was doing the same like she was just a bank now that she was doing well.
Every piece just brought it more to light how, no matter what, it was just a matter of time…. 3 minutes.

I didn’t have energy for much conversation at work after those 2 weeks. I kept myself drinking, even while working. Not that anyone would notice. I drank myself sober most days.  3 weeks after her death D’s sister called me telling me she was coming to pick me up for the weekend to go to a show out of town in Orlando. I protested that I couldn’t leave Claire but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Kel had planned for the guys to babysit Claire while she took me for 2 days with the crew to Orlando. She arrived and had to pack my bag and shove me in the car with a case of beer to get me to agree.

The drive to Orlando was a blur. Once we got to the location, there was D. He tried to talk to me but I really wasn’t in much of a mood. During the show they had a new girl Nan basically babysit me. She was a cute and small little Spanish girl. She kept trying to talk to me about it all but that was the last thing I wanted. She kept feeding me my alcohol of choice. I ignored most of the crowd and show and when it was done we piled into the car to the hotel for the night. The hotel room was full with all the guys from the band and D. I tried to avoid being anywhere alone with him. Once everyone else started going to sleep I went to sit on the balcony away so I could breathe. D came out after a few minutes with a Cuban grilled sandwich as a peace offering. I commented to him about how Angie would be livid if she knew I was there. He didn’t care. This is one of the few times we sat and shared a sandwich as if there was nothing but a friendship. One of the few glimmers with him that felt completely relaxed and a true connection of friendship since our breakup years before. He picked out the pickles and handed them to me, since that was his least favorite part. We split the sandwich while just talking about the fucked up turn of events of life. When we were done we sat in silence, mainly because I was just devoid of anything else at that point. I don’t remember much else about that night except sleeping on the floor and the next morning packing up and going back to my apartment to Claire. The guys that helped keep an eye on her stayed a few extra days to just try to be the life of the apartment. Both of us were pretty shell shocked and on autopilot in our routine.  I was working but my spark was gone. Everywhere I looked I saw Sara.   Coming home I would almost expect her to come barreling out of her gate and come jabbering away about her day.  I was in charge of basically cleaning out her things in her little cottage. Everyday was another day of gut wrenching pain of truth of the devoid space she was now gone from. Drinking was my daily pick me up, or numbing agent, depending on how I needed it. After her cottage was cleared out and we emptied out the contents between everyone that wanted anything I couldn’t help but sit and find the irony that there in her little yard the tree stump had a new sprout growing from it. Sara had had a dream about that stump when she moved in and told me about her dream. She dreamt that she couldn’t get that stump to grow, no matter how much she tried to help it and she even tried to dig it out in her dream. The sheer fact that it was growing was like her saying, “Look, I just had to give myself for it to grow.”
It was a few weeks later when the landlord re rented her cottage to a new couple. The day they signed the lease I was recovering from a night of working at the club, still on my drinking bender, half waking up from the night before. I was almost completely naked in my g string standing on my little front porch stretching when I heard the latch close to the gate  that was at the foot of the steps to my place below. They got more than a show, rather than be shy I figured, screw it. They were going to see this eventually since I really didn’t care about nudity anyway. They froze and then gave a smile as I said hello and introduced myself as their new neighbor while raising my glass to say welcome and cheers. They were good sports. I got clothed and went to formally introduce myself later that day. Once everyone started to go back to their lives it was Claire and I left to our mental instability. I fed her appetite for alcohol with mine, making us protein shakes with shots in it to get us moving. We were broke and broken, but still going.  I watched as that stump grew more and more after that as the days turned into weeks.  We would just try to party whenever we weren’t working. One of the guys I knew in highschool had come into town and we had hooked up after he tracked me down at the club. We had fun and he was sweet but he lived in Holland so I knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere and I still was in no shape to really be with anyone. It was a few months after Sara died when I really just had that “ I can’t do this anymore” moments. I couldn’t stand being sober because all I saw was Sara. At the club I ran memories of her always coming to visit me. All up and down the beach I would remember her and I driving in her Miata and having fun.  The whole city was just tons of memories of us, even though it was not even 2 years, it felt like a lifetime. I missed her horribly and I needed to stop having the flashes of her dead body everynight in my head. Claire was spiraling into the club world and doing more drugs and I knew if we were both to get out of this hole we needed a new start.  Nan the girl that had babysat me the one night in Orlando had tried to commit suicide and ended being Bakeracted so Kel had asked me to go talk to her. It was like pouring salt into a fresh wound. I sat and talked to her in the hospital and all I could say was how I didn’t understand how she didn’t realize the impact of that affect me when she had to watch me right after Sara’s cleanup. There was a part of me that really wanted to make her realize her 3 minutes made a difference. I can only hope that my 3 minutes of talking helped her. I hated that I had to be the voice of harsh words of reality that day. I was so Numb and even after Nan was released she came to me wanting to be close to me, i just couldn’t. It was a reminder just looking at her of those 3 minutes.
It was about that time when my grandmother offered up a solution. She had acquired a house from Billy up in the Pocono’s when he went to jail. The house was weaseled out from a person that did business with Billy and I remembered the whole ordeal how he had basically stolen the house from some artist that had lived there. The house was now in my grandmother’s name and she had been sending family members up there to take care of it and take things up there to store. My aunt Kathy lived there year round and wasn’t doing much but doing hair out of the small salon she had created on the first floor. I decided that this would be the best option, it was just a matter of when.
Kel and the girls took me out with them one day to go do a girls day and kinda get me out of the mix to relax. We decided on lunch and a tattoo and piercing day for everyone.  I had already gotten a tattoo for Sara from a mutual friend that helped me with my internal pain so I opted for a piercing. I was the last of 8 of us to get pierced and settled on an ear piercing up in my cartilage.  The tattoo was cleansing to me, the piercing was another notch. Outside pain was now looking better and better, but I knew that could be a bad vice. It was only a few days later when I finally quit at the club. They understood my reasons, in all honesty I had started to give up on my work even. The manager even confided that he was worried and was looking to possibly firing me only because he could see my luster was gone. I appreciated his honesty. I lived 10 minutes by bike ride from my place to the club and that day I took my time slowly taking in the scenery on the intercoastal on my way home. I arrived home to 4 new messages from other clubs begging me to come work for them offering whatever I wanted and the ability to hire whoever I wanted. I had made a name for myself in the Club scene. I could have cared less. As much as they were all tempting, I just knew it was time for a new start and some change of scenery. I told Claire of my plans and she was on board, as long as she could bring her boyfriend Matt. I didn’t care if there were 10 people coming

Continue reading “Chapter 10”

 Clearing the Air

Saying I wasn’t nervous would be a lie. In reality, I had no want to be walking into the DEA office, except to get my life moving forward. The office I walked into was a small room with bullet proof glass between myself and the receptionist. It was tiny and sterile and the size of a cubicle. It was almost claustrophobic with the white walls and absolutely nothing else but a plastic chair to sit on. There wasn’t even a basic picture or anything on the wall. The secretary behind the glass was dressed almost casual like it could have been a bill collectors office. There wasn’t anything to decipher that this was the DEA office in any way and all I could think about was what if some random criminal got lost trying to find a basic office and wandered in here. Oh what a surprise they would be in for. The secretary booth didn’t even have anything that would tell you what you just walked into except the basic card holder that sat next to her computer that I could see. Once I told her who I was, I was buzzed into the next room where I sat waiting for Sean.

When Sean came in, part of me really couldn’t believe this guy was the lead guy on the case. He was a tall good looking guy with a nice dad bod build that looked like any of the guys I would’ve met at the beach or a bar that was in his 40’s. He was about 6’2” with a sandy brown clean cut hair style and brown hazel eyes. He shook my hand and led me into his interrogation room. Sean apologized for the formalities of the room saying that he knew it felt cold and scary but it was more for privacy. I figured this was more tactics. He really seemed genuine enough and while talking he showed me more and more that he really was more amazed about me being there and how everything went down. He commented on being glad that my uncle had gotten word to me and was thankful that I had shown up.

We both knew I was the pillar moment for their case and now he wanted to basically figure out the missing pieces.

For as many times as we all know the saying “snitches get stitches” gets said, when it’s down to life or death or your freedom; All bets are off. There was a part of me that didn’t want to go into details or tell too much but then the other side of me was wanting to nail him to a wall so he could never do the same thing to anyone else ever again. I had already watched him destroy many other people’s lives.

When it came to Billy and everything they already had, I didn’t even have to snitch. Only thing I did was point them in his direction. Once he was caught, Billy sang like a bird… He gave up every ounce of info about all the states he was in and his connections. Only thing that was different in the rundown… He tried to blame it all on me. ME.  YEAH, If my jaw could’ve dropped any harder I’m sure Sean would’ve thought it broke. He laughed at it as he broke the news and showed the tapes to me. He spilled how Billy had even had sexual pictures of me and Joe in surveillance pictures of us and showed it all to me. He laid his hand completely out on the table in front of me.

He confided how he knew it was all bullshit with Billy blaming me. They had been on to him long before I had to go to him about 2 years before but they were gathering info on him still and he kept evading them. It was their game of cat and mouse.

Sean seriously laughed that Billy tried to pawn it off on me since Sean knew I was only 20 and there was no way I had his connections and kind of circuit across the states in that sort of time.

I was still mentally shocked as Sean spilled all the details. Here I thought I would be the one that was being pinned down for information and interrogated, all while I was getting every ounce against this man that I didn’t even know existed. Sean only asked a few questions like how I knew the phones were tapped and why I stayed so long and little snippets of questions like when I disappeared at certain times where I was and what I was told were the reasons. He even brought it up when the officer called him about the car being totaled. Then he told me all the real reasons I was moved around like when they got close to him and thought they almost had him. It was surreal. Sean told me all about the other locations that I had no idea about, that they raided his belongings and the tally of everything they found against him. Then he told me how he tried to escape when they finally caught up with him. He commented on Billy’s different women and asked how I got Ariel to go with me and leave him. By the end of the conversation it really was him letting me know I was safe from Billy in the end of it all. He even asked me what I would do if I ever saw him again. He couldn’t blame me when I said I would kill him if he ever came near me again. Sean even extended the offer that if anything ever happened again to give him a call and he would help me out. He also extended an invitation that if I ever just wanted someone to get a drink with and talk with someone that could at least understand my situation that he was only a call away. By the end of it he almost looked at me like I was a marvel. Sean said that he couldn’t imagine everything I had been through with my family, that I had to have been through more than most people over 65 already by the age of 20.  He didn’t even know half of it. At this point I felt like I was 50 not 20, that was for sure. He offered cards to other agents in case of emergencies if I really needed it. He introduced me to another agent and even that agent looked at me with surprise.  I left that office a thousand times lighter but still nowhere near confident enough to dance with joy just yet. Sean walked me out still chatting about random things almost as if we were old friends and offered me a ride, which I denied. Still keeping my guards up because let’s be honest, people lie and always have ulterior motives, and I definitely still didn’t trust them. I walked to the bus stop.

I rode the bus most of the way then got off at a random bar to get a drink and call Sara. She was so happy to hear my voice that she started babbling about how she wasn’t sure if she should buy a bottle or go out. I opted for the bottle. She came and picked me up bouncing around in her Volvo. We went straight to the liquor store and back to the apartments to breathe.

 My head was reeling. It all felt like I was just along for the ride as everyone around me was just living like normal and internally I was spinning down a mental rabbit hole of everything I was just told. So many extra details into understanding Billy and how he looked at me even as his own daughter.

That was one demon down, now I needed to clear the next table, but I wasn’t ready for that just yet. I needed some time in between death wishes. Honestly I needed to give myself time in between heart attacks, and try to settle my nerves. Cocaine and drinking was just what the doctor ordered. 

In all honesty I think that was the only thing I could even fathom to cope with because otherwise I couldn’t get my brain out of the numbing reels in my head. These moments are what made me understand drug addicts or alcoholics. It was exactly enough of the escape that helped me not have a mental breakdown. Cheers to coping. I knew I couldn’t escape forever, just long enough to process it all so I’d only give myself the night.

I spent my nights working and trying to find ways out of the escorting life. It was starting to really bother me seeing all the girls go through their hard nights. One girl was raped and beaten while on a call all while the office girls paniced and tried to get someone to her since she even told them she didnt feel safe at the check in call. The other girls started to get scared after that, so I also started driving girls to help keep an eye on them. I became their bouncer and check in buddy to make sure they felt safer.

During the day, Sara and I would act like we had not had a care in the world. We would go to the beach, go out to eat occasionally but mostly just day drink and lounge by the pool talking about her love life while I avoided one. She was always looking for a husband to be kind of romantic.  We joked that we both had so much baggage that it would be mission impossible to find a good man. Sara was always still open to dates but I just felt that I wasn’t ready for romance. At one point I even called Sean for that drink and it was a nice break from my world. I could only think if I had met this man in different circumstances that I might have liked to date someone like him. He was a relaxing conversationalist that didn’t judge me because of my past, if anything he admired my endurance. I still never understood how he spoke so easily with me about everything. It was almost a comedic moment when he offered me some coke while sitting at a hole in the wall dive bar. I had to laugh and couldn’t help but blurt out, “oh yeah sure, is it Billy’s stash?!” We shared a giggle at that but part of me always wondered.  Sean was definitely interesting. He told me more about his life and some of the raids he had done. It was like I was there more for him to connect to as a comrade in arms.  We shook hands and parted ways that night like friends that would see eachother again. But we never did. I hope his life was grand and he’s still thriving.

It wasn’t long before D’s sister caught wind that I was in town again. Most of Lauderdale caught on quickly once word was out in that circle. D called me randomly one day while the air and sea show was going on.

I lived 2 blocks away from the intercoastal and had a perfect view from the apartment pools. D had his daughters with him and his friend, one had soiled her diaper and clothes and he needed a place to clean her up. Sara couldn’t help but get excited, she loved babies. It was almost like the universe decided to bombard me all at once because not even 10 minutes after D arrived with the girls Patti decided to make an entrance with groceries at my apartment like she was showing up to have a bar-b-que. Patti didn’t even register that I might have had something going on. She waltzed in like she did this all the time, only she had never been there before. I had barely talked to most of the family since I was not really ever ready to get into conversation with any of them. There really was not much point anymore, I couldn’t reveal everything I went through or what I was doing because they wouldn’t fully understand or even acknowledge any of it. 

My apartment looked like I had a whole gathering that day. Sara was in baby heaven holding one baby while I cleaned up the other and gave her a bath. The whole time D and Patti sat talking at my kitchen table about life and how It was nice to have everyone together. D at one point even told my mother how he wished these girls were ours and how he missed the flow of our lives. For that split second I felt like it was all a dream. All I could think about was how far left my life took off the rails and this all felt like the dream of things I had wished for so long ago. It was nowhere in my reach now and that was the cold reality of it all. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the glimmer of that day. We barbequed and played with the girls by the pool while watching the air show. At the end of the day D and his friend left with a smile and a hug and my friendship, if they ever needed it. Patti left long before D and it was one of the few times I can honestly say it felt like how it should feel to have a mom that cared. She didn’t give those moments almost ever since I was a child, I would take what I could get.

By the end of the night Sara and I were left alone to sit on the edge of the pool and talk about the mental fuck my day was. We drank as we contemplated what else the Universe or God had in store for me. We sat and smoked a joint laughing at the possibilities that either God was setting me up to just be completely mind fucked my whole life or that he was getting all the shit outta the way first so that I could have a beautiful life, eventually. I was hoping for the second one but I knew it would be nowhere near time for greatness yet. There were still so many things I had to do before I could breathe easy.

During the next few months most of my time was a blur, I worked, we drank and I kept trying to find balance. The rest of the old crew knew I was back now and I would try to feel like the old me before hell by hanging out with them. None of them asked questions about my time I was gone so it was refreshing to feel kinda normal. It was almost like everyone didn’t acknowledge the last 2 years. I longed for nothing more than to feel like I was meant to be there but I always felt like I was just a passerby. I could be sitting there with them but feel like I was over a million miles away. I was the outsider now, no matter how much I wanted to be in the moment with them it was like I could no longer get on the same mindset. D’s wife didn’t like me being around and the emotions got hot whenever I did show up at a show or event so I tried to be scarce. I didn’t want anymore drama or chaos.

One night I was invited to a show and D’s mother, who I was always in good standing with, even came. While his mother and sister sat with me and drank, I could feel Angie’s hate seething. I didn’t want to be the cause of anything, especially since I was in no mood to even try to date let alone get back with the man that didn’t want me or wouldn’t stand up for himself and his own wants. I decided to move the girls outside with me to the parking lot to get fresh air and fall into the sea of people that hung out in the parking lot during these shows. Once outside I figured the argument would be less inclined to have an impact. Boy was I wrong.

As I sat on the hood of my car surrounded by people I could consider friends the scene unfolded into madness. D’s mom had gone inside at one point and I could only imagine what happened but obviously Angie was pissed and now burst out of the club yelling at D. D’s mom yelled at him to chase after his wife as his sister and I watched from the sidelines. Angie was making a mad dash for their van and was definitely done with whatever had happened. There in the middle of the whole group of at least 100 people D screamed back that Angie could go, he didn’t care anymore and that the only woman he would chase and would continue to chase until the day he died was “her”. He pointed right at me. My heart dropped. For him to say it in front of everyone was something I always wanted , but the timing was so fucked, I just couldn’t  process. His sister looked at me as the tears welled up in my eyes. I couldn’t do this. Not here and Definitely Not right now. She read my mind. My only response was that I needed to go as far away from there as possible and as quickly as possible. She snatched up my keys and while the rest of the parking lot was now in the sitcom watching phase we jumped in my car. D was still arguing with his mother and Angie as we pulled out of the parking lot and sped off. I sobbed. I knew there would be nothing that would or could come of this. He would go home to her and I would still be left feeling that no matter what I couldn’t have him. It didn’t take long for everyone to start blowing up my pager. Kel drove to my apartment and after the 6th page with 911 I couldn’t take it anymore. I threw the pager out the window. I could get a new one. I needed my space and time to process. I figured that if he really did mean it he knew where I could be found but that conversation would be for us and not for the entertainment of everyone else. As I got to the apartment, Sara was coming down to see how my night went. She saw my face and immediately Kel spilled the beans. I spent that night crying for many reasons. Kel stayed for a while but eventually she left while I drowned my feelings into yet another long line of bottles. Sara stayed and drank with me. D never showed. I woke up the next morning feeling like my intuition was right. He would never leave her. Why was I always in the brunt of these arguments? I still had no idea.  I brushed it off as just another great moment of mind fuck in all of the hell that I was to endure. I decided that I wasn’t going to be around that circle as much as possible until it smoothed over.

3 days later I went to see Patti to collect my mail and give her my new number. She had a laundry list of messages. She had gotten bits of information for everyone that called her trying to find me since that night. Many were worried about me and just wanted to make it known that they still wanted me around. That was one of the only things that helped me move forward with the friendships. Now I had a list of those that cared enough to try to contact me. I would take what I could get since I really wasn’t going to try to fight for something that wasn’t really mine anymore.

Life continued and I kept doing my daily grind, only now I was more selective on the where and the whens. I was still trying to cope with daily life after Billy and trying to see where I felt safe. The last thing I wanted to deal with was more problems from a Ex’s insecure wife that was trying to claim her territory if we crossed paths. 

I figured since I was going to go through hell, I mine as well just get the rest of the heartache out of the way. It was time to get my life back on my tracks, even if they were going to be short.

It wasn’t long before I finally tracked down the woman who warned me years before about everything with Billy’s betrayal. I had to clear the air with her consorts and that was something that I dreaded more than anything.

Thankfully they had all gotten word of his situation. She was relieved to know I was still alive and we agreed that they needed to know I wanted him gone just as bad as they did. I really don’t want to go too far deep into this rabbit hole for my own safety so you will just have to please understand when I say it was one of the scariest meetings of my life. 

In the end, they agreed to leave me alone and out of it when it came to Billy. 

They had heard how I wanted him dead and agreed to let me know if ever I could help them in any way in finding him. I told them I wanted No face to face or names when talking so that I never had to worry about my safety. I knew there was no guarantee they would leave me alone, or that I would walk out of that meeting, but I hoped that my coming forward would account for something. After a deep conversation, they conveyed that they understood my position and agreed to leave me be.

It all was like a game of hot potato where you didn’t want to be left holding the potato, and I wanted nothing to do with their game in any way.  My life hung on the line but I prayed that they kept their word. 

I was sick of looking over my shoulder at everything. I wanted my life back.

So my life continued, and I just lived everyday like it could all go away at any moment. I tried to keep the circle small and stay away from everyone except Sara. She at least was someone I could trust would know what to do if anything happened to me and I knew she would still be distant enough in conversation about me to not be in the snares of any repercussions.

Sara would have problems with her step dad and siblings and would still come to me to accompany her to rescue the siblings from their dad and his shit. I would take the day and drive with her to the keys to pick up the family and bring them back and it sucked to see her stress over them. Everytime she had any extra money she would send it to her dad or her step mom for her younger siblings. She hated the whole situation they were stuck in so I tried to help her anytime I could even with money so that she didn’t have to carry it all alone. I would constantly booby trap that apartment so that I felt safer and in case the enemies of Billy decided I was a threat. Sara would constantly give me heart attacks barreling into my place before my waking time. Each day I was just happy to wake up and have another day to live. Most of the time I was just barreling through not trying to feel crazy.

I was still in survival mode. I kept my life as simple as possible and tried to just bunker down until I felt safer.

Sara at one point started dating a guy Steve that honestly at first seemed to make her happy but then she would have full on fights with him from time to time and once I started speaking up she started pulling away from me. At times it felt like I was the one who was interrupting their relationship even though I was just trying to still be there and keep contact lines open.

I had started hanging out with an old girlfriend from highschool occasionally. It was a bunch of us girls hanging whenever we could. Both Lisa [my friend from highschool] and Sara, got along and we would do dinner nights wherever we could. Family holiday time was usually a given with the girls since my family never would encourage family time since my return. The distance got bigger now that my grandmother had heard about Billy and Patti was busy with her boyfriend who was not privy to any of the life my mother showed towards me.

I was basically ignored when it came to talking about anything other than if grandmother or Patti needed anything. I would get a call if my grandmother needed anyone to clear the brush of trees for hurricane season, if she needed help tarring the roof, or cleaning out the hoarded newspapers she had in her kitchen that would stack up. I would visit to try to reach out but most of the time with my grandmother she would deflect any conversation that came near while I was gone with Billy or even right after I returned. Patti and her boyfriend never really made appearances anywhere near me. Everything was kept topical. It was as if everyone skirted around my mental hell to save themselves from uncomfortable reality.

I kept my life to myself, except on the rare moments I could talk to someone I knew would understand. Or at least tried to understand.

Sara went downstairs to collect her thoughts. Claire and I were exhausted from the whole day of events and by the time the last box was empty, we both were ready for bed. I climbed into my bed and started to doze off as Sara came in again. It was around 2 am and I was groggy and almost asleep. She Said she had the letter for me to send out but she was going to make a few more changes and she wanted me to pick it up from her desk in the morning. She stated she would leave the door unlocked so she wouldn’t have to wake me again. I confirmed that I would send it out and that in the mean time to remember that tomorrow was a new day and by tomorrow everything would be fine. I told her I Loved her and she agreed and said she loved me too as I drifted off to sleep.

I had at one point gotten arrested going on a call in another city 4 hours away for the escort agency. They had basically called and ordered me to come to their city and arrested me.Talk about entrapment. I had made it to the room and just started talking to “John” when they carried out the sting. I was arrested because I had a condom in my purse, even though we hadn’t even been talking about sex or even gotten naked or down to that part of the conversation yet. The condom was enough to get intent in the law’s eyes. I did almost no time in and was bailed out immediately but I took that as my cue from the universe that it was time to get out. I was looking for any job that I could do, I did tile at one point, detailed cars, anything I could find. I had court a month later and was told I was a first time offender so I would probably get the option for probation or jail time for a month with time served.

 When it came to court I took jail time. I knew it was coming so I had time to prepare. I paid the bills, told Lisa what to tell people so I didn’t have to deal with them knowing everything. She stayed in my apartment and took all my calls while I was gone and I planned on touching base with her every 3 days. Sara was busy with Steve and basically barely around much. I told my family I was going to help a friend for a month. With Sara being busy with Steve, Lisa became my stand in excuse to everyone. The day I had court I walked into the courtroom and was ready. The judge was surprised when I chose the jail time and for it to start immediately. Even the bailiff seemed to be amazed and offered me lunch while I waited to go to the jail in the holding cell. I sat in that holding cell feeling the safest I had been in years. It was as if nothing, no matter how bad, mattered anymore. This was a calm I had been longing for. The officers all seemed nice enough and never got rude with me. It went smoothly and honestly the jail time was a quiet break from the world. I took it as a vacation at this point. I slept in past breakfast everyday and I woke up around lunch. I would read books all day or play cards with the girls that I ate lunch with. My bunkmate came in a few days after I arrived and she was a Zulu gang member named Yolanda. Yolanda was a small thin built spanish woman that showed signs of a rough life. She came into the cell at 3 am and woke me up to ask if I was black or hispanic. Being in a daze all I replied was “ Neither Bitch, Im white” as I rolled back over to sleep. I barely talked to anyone before except to offer up my food on my tray that I didn’t eat. The morning Yolanda came into the jail, it was a buzz. I didn’t care, as long as she left me alone I was good. And as long as the other inmates kept their distance from me,I had no worries. I woke up for breakfast that morning  and I broke my dry conversation to ask about her . The other inmates were all too open to tell me all about her past. She had a bit of a reputation and from what they were all saying, this was her third strike. Supposedly she had gotten out not long before and had fought with her boyfriend [a local gang member] and taken a machete to his leg. I could understand the mindset. Aggravation can definitely make you do some shit. I would always just deter those voices in my head from winning. I figured after knowing her past, the best thing to do was just ignore her and let her come to me. It was a week in when I called to check in with Lisa and get messages when a girl in the cell block approached me while I was on the phone and tried to offer a trade of shaving the side of my head for protection since her mate had just been transferred to another cell block. Lisa almost died laughing on the other side of the phone. She joked that of course I already had a prison bitch, but in Truth everyone left me alone and never asked much.

 The only thing they cared about was once they found out that I could draw. Yolanda had found a doodle I had drawn on a bookmark and instantly started to chat me up and wanted me to draw things for her. I spent the next 2 weeks drawing for commissary goods. Once it got out that I drew, the girls all started to trade. Most of the time I didn’t even care about the goods, it gave me something to do to pass the time. Most of my time was spent drawing or reading. 

The other inmates and I would laugh at the Sargent when she came in drunk on her shift some nights. You could tell as soon as she jumped on the speakers telling us to turn down the phones and hang up the TV sounding like Miss Hannagan from Annie. We would all share the laughs. By the time I left, Yolanda and a bunch of the girls were giving me connections if I ever needed anything. I walked out after my 30 days and never looked back.

 I went straight to my car that I parked in the corrections lot and immediately checked under my seat for my money and cigarettes. Freedom was that first bite of a croissant bacon egg and cheese breakfast sandwich and a hot chocolate for the drive back to lauderdale.Gas station food never tasted so good.Once back in Lauderdale I was back to trying to find a good job.

It was about a month when I finally landed a job at a nightclub as a phone promoter.

Sara and Steve had gotten serious and when her lease went she moved north more with him and since she was still at the agency and now working her way up the ladder to an appointment setter with a salary we didn’t get to see each other as much,but I still was only a phone call away. Her younger sister Claire was 17 and would bounce between both of our places since Sara had started wanting to take her in instead of leaving her with their dad.

I was only at the club for about a month when my truck took a dive and Lisa and her boyfriend decided they wanted to move out. I found a cute apartment right across from the club and it was within walking distance of everything I needed.

Sara and Claire helped me move in and would visit often and sometimes Claire would come stay with me when she didn’t want to be third wheel with Sara and Steve. The job was going great, I was broke most of the time, but I didn’t care. Working at the club I definitely took a pay cut but it was great to at least just be in my own groove without worrying about everything else.I ran into Trotter one night and he offered me his car to borrow until I could afford to buy another car by myself. He explained that his girlfriend and him were living together and they shared her car so he never needed it. He told me however long I needed to barrowe it, I was welcome to it. He handed me the keys the next day and didn’t think twice. That car was a godsend. 

It was about a month later when Barry (the hitman) was all over the papers again. He was arrested on some gun charges and they actually had him on audio talking to someone about the things he did before. It was big news. They had gotten him and then he took a plea deal to avoid the death penalty.

I had barely spoken to him since he split from Patti and remarried his attorney’s secretary. Barry was the talk of the town again. I just kept my head down. Thankfully I was still going under my second identity so no one linked us except those that knew me.

On the job they were so happy about my performance that they kept trying to give me more hours. 

My day consisted of walking to work , eating off the dollar menu from Wendy’s, then after work walking home to my tiny one bedroom apartment and fixing myself dinner and treating myself to a glass of arbor mist before going to bed and doing it all over again. I didn’t drive much unless it was to go to the store or the occasional night out. I was selling small bags of coke I got from a friend or my uncle John, here and there just to make ends meet for any extra party money and would fill my time with quiet nights with my cat. Thankfully the car came handy one night when I received a frantic call from Claire. Sara and Steve had gotten into a huge fight and they needed me ASAP.

When I got there it looked like a bloodbath and Claire was trying to keep Sara calm.

There was blood everywhere on the kitchen wall and she was sitting on the floor trying to clean up a puddle of blood while sobbing. I hadn’t seen her in 3 weeks and I almost didn’t recognize her. Her beautiful hair was gone. She had shaved most of her hair off and she had a chelsea hair cut now. She was drained of all color and sobbing. I checked over her looking for a wound and immediately asked what happened. Steve and her were arguing and he was being frantic and yelling about how he wanted to kill himself if she was going to break up with him. She had tried to go into the kitchen to cook dinner and he grabbed her hand with the knife and sliced straight into his forearm sending the blood flying. She was in shock. Claire had to call the ambulance all while Sara was stunned and screaming. They had hauled Steve to the hospital to then also have him Bakeracted (that was the psych ward).

So here I gazed upon the bloody scene of terror and all I could do was hold Sara as she cried. She sobbed about the fight,sobbed about her hair, sobbed about the new apartment and how much she hated it. Once I had her calmed down enough,I had Claire take her to the room to shower and clean up while I cleaned the mess. I made light work honestly of the horror scene. I cleaned that kitchen with everything under the sink. You would never know what had happened there only 2 hours prior.

When she came out of the room it was like a clean slate. Sara confessed that we hadn’t seen each other, not because of work, but mainly because of Steve. He had gotten possessive once they moved in and didn’t want her hanging out with me. I didn’t care, honestly I was just glad she called when she needed me. That night she packed her bags and came to stay with me. We spent the night just trying to get her back to normal. By the end of the week she decided to move out and find her own place because she just couldn’t face him once he got out.

It made life so much easier with the car, to help Sara gather her furniture and things and help her move since her little miata was not exactly spacious. I helped her move once she got everything set into a tiny cute cottage off Las Olas Blvd. She was back to being excited but there was a dark cloud now that I could see that would surface from time to time in her thoughts. She started therapy and they gave her Xanax to help with her anxiety moments. I didn’t understand taking it but for her it was a life line. 

Claire and I would do sleep overs so Sara could get her time when she needed it.

The club meanwhile was doing great and the accountant had told one of the other clubs that she worked for all of me. They wanted me to come and help promote and offered me more money and choice of who I hired to work on my team, no questions asked. It was a more alternative club and right up my alley so it didn’t take much. I hired Claire on the team to get her on to the working side of life and help Sara. Claire needed to become a more independent person so she could make her own money but it would also give her breathing space with Sara.

I was mostly broke living in my apartment and it was right next to the one club I had started at but it was a bus trip to the other club so I decided to look into something closer to Sara and the new club. Sara was constantly now picking me up to take Claire and I to work and hanging out again so I decided it was time to give back the car to Trotter.  I called him once I had the car ready after a tune up and a detailing as to say thank you. He even commented how he knew I would take care of it but I didn’t need to do everything I had. I felt it was the least I could do after him being so patient with me. He was constantly the one person that no matter what would show up for me and I never wanted to take that for granted.

I spent my Christmas in that apartment alone and relaxed with my own tree that I had decorated solely with dollar store decorations and looking back that Christmas was probably one of my favorites just because it was all mine.  Even in its simplicity and quiet humility, it was refreshing. I toasted in the new year with Sara and Claire with a group of people and had hopes for a new refreshing start.

The first thing I did in the New Year was look into an apartment closer to the new club. As luck would have it, the apartment upstairs from Sara’s little cottage was open to rent. I was going to be ready the first week of January so I jumped at the chance. Sara had approached me about her little sister Claire moving in with me because her cottage was too small and she felt like in such small living spaces she was gonna end up going crazy with her and the new apartment was a 2 bedroom so it would work out perfectly. Once I signed the lease, it was now just a matter of moving in. Thankfully my lease on my other apartment would be done in february so I had the time to move slowly in. The new apartment was cute and tucked away above a garage in the back driveway of a house and Sara’s cottage was under our front porch. The door didn’t have an actual lock on it but we all figured that between all of us there would always be someone home until I could get it fixed and most of my stuff was hand me downs or things I salvaged from bulk garbage days so there wasn’t much I really worried about getting stolen. Besides it might just be an improvement. 

It wasn’t long after New Year’s that I also decided that I was going to propose to Sara. I figured that since we both were mentally fucked up that the best option we had was to just marry each other. I didn’t need the sex or to solidify the marriage completely since gay marriage wasn’t recognized yet by the rest of the world. To me this would signify that no matter what she had me. She was the one person that understood me and didn’t play games mentally with me. I planned out an entire proposal. I went ring shopping to get her the promise ring. I found a beautiful yet simple ruby ring encased in silver and decided to pop the question. 

I got down on my knees and asked her to be my link to life until death. She beamed with happiness as I proposed. We agreed that we didn’t need anyone else as long as we had each other. I told her I didn’t care if she dated and even married a guy. As long as we were married to each other, we could tackle the world. 

The Renaissance festival was in town for Valentine’s Day so we decided that would be the perfect backdrop for our exchanging of the rings and promise ceremony. There amongst the fairies and the gargoyles we dressed up and exchanged rings. She bought me a ruby ring with matching silver bands to solidify the ceremony. 

From that moment on she was my wife. We both agreed I was most masculine so I would get the title of husband. I loved how she gleamed that day. The wreath of flowers on her head with her fairy wings and glitter everywhere. We drank and by the end of the night both of us were on cloud nine giggling. 

We hopped into her little white Miata and drove down the beach. A police officer made the mistake of pulling us over, only to get her giggling and flirting terribly with him. We must have been a sight because he let us off with a warning and laughed as he left us to drive off.  Sara drove straight to a friend’s bar. Johnny Mac had been a long time friend of Sara and an occasional romp when she wanted sex without attachment. Secretly I think Johnny really loved Sara but he was afraid to make the leap. Sara adored him and honestly Johnny was a great guy that always greeted us with a smile. Sara and Johnny probably could’ve gone somewhere except Johnny had a girlfriend, so Sara settled for the occasional meet ups at the bar. 

Johnny had been the bartender of choice a lot of the time after I returned from Vegas and so he jokingly called me Vegas instead of any of the other names I went by. His bar was that perfect hole in the wall next to the beach where you could hide away and play pool without a huge crowd even on the busy nights. He was always smiling and ready to talk. Johnny was about 5’9 with a bald head and a New York Italian in his early 30’s with a medium build. He would constantly give us money to hit the jukebox and play a bunch of good songs. I looked forward to nights at his bar mainly for the great conversation and fun banter. His eyes were always smiling in general but they shone a little brighter when he saw Sara. She had that effect on a lot of people. 

The next 2 weeks Sara called me her wife. We would have dinner together almost every night between both apartments.  I was still slowly moving in and so was Claire. We did our shopping together and ran some errands and split ways to go to work.  My nightclub coworkers were used to it when she would come hunting me down at the bar when I worked the VIP parties so at that point they didn’t ask questions. Sara had also started talking to a new guy that lived in Pensacola in the military before we had done our promise ceremony and was now talking about going to visit him for a few days at the end of the month. We had already agreed that no matter what, dating wouldn’t change because our marriage was more a marriage of friendship. In my eyes it didn’t matter if we were sexual or it was a real marriage on paper. She was my partner for life. 

She planned a whole week vacation to go visit him and the few days before she left we day drank and had as much fun as possible. Looking back now, part of me almost wonders if she was partying on purpose. She spent the entire week with him and while she was gone Claire and I worked a lot for the club.  Sara came back in love with her new friend and I was happy for her. The next two days Claire and I had decided to officially move fully out of the boxes in the apartment and started the great unpacking between work so we could settle in. The third day after Saras return she started to whine about the matter that she hadn’t heard from her new man. I kept telling her that because he was in the military, he probably was stuck on duty since he had taken the PTO to spend the week with her.I tried to convince her she need not worry and he would more than likely call within the next 2 days. It was the 4th day after her return when she really started to wallow in self pity and started a downward spiral into worst case scenarios. Her biggest fear was that she had completely fucked it up and done something wrong with this amazing guy. Claire and I tried to calm her fears but it seemed that she was in panic mode. She popped a xanax and decided to go hang with a friend for a bit. When she returned Claire and I were surrounded by boxes and at the tail end of the last bit in a serious zone of unpacking. Sara came up the stairs and burst into the apartment crying. She had gone out with her boss to discuss work and drove his car and gotten into a fender bender and she was panicking. Claire and I tried to console her but I felt that the xanax was causing more of the mood swing than anything because her mood would bounce back just as fast as we got her calmed down.  Every topic she brought up we tried to calm her fears. Finally at one point it looked as if we won the battle. Sara calmed down and I told her to write everything she was feeling about the situation to her new guy and in the morning if she hadn’t heard from him I would send it out just in case he was avoiding the calls like she feared, but I still persisted that he was probably on duty. 

Continue reading “Chapter 9”

Sara

Sara was 5’1″ with strawberry blonde hair and serious curves. Her boobs were most of her upper body and her personality was bubbly and light.
We met while sitting in the lounge area of the escort agency. In the lounge of the office you would usually see the girls on their phones or freshening up their makeup and watching movies. Pretty woman was the usual movie of choice and I always found that completely ironic. The sheer thought that these women still had hope for love after seeing the lust driven and perverted tendencies was always amusing to me. Don’t get me wrong, I hoped for love as well but I knew it wasn’t going to come to me through a call with one of these John’s.  Sara was on her phone waiting to go on a call when we started chatting in the lounge. It didn’t take long for me to see she had a bright and bubbly personality and we both were laughing at the movie choice in no time. A call finally came in asking for 2 girls that were comfortable with each other. I knew what that meant, they wanted a threesome. Sarah confided she had never done that but she already had decided that if she was to do the call she only felt comfortable with me being the other girl.  We went on the call together and the whole time we basically stayed laughing and keeping it light while I tried to make her as comfortable as possible with our call for the night. At the end of the night she and I had become friends enough that Sara invited me over for dinner at her place the next night before work. I accepted the invite and loved the conversation while we ate lasagna and garlic bread. I made the comment that it was a shame that I was leaving the agency and moving to Vegas in a few days and I could tell instantly that she was just as disappointed in losing a new friend as I was. I barely had to say anything else before she chimed in that she hated to see me go and wished she could hang more with me. By the end of dinner she had made up her mind and was putting a plan into action of taking a week off and driving with me to Las Vegas.
Three days later she was hopping into my beat up bronco with WaChee and I, ready to adventure.
We were like two giddy school girls laughing and playing with my CD player picking tons of great road tunes. She was such a light energy that made me think of what my life could have been like if I didn’t have such a dark past.  Before I began planning my trip I had spoken to my high school friends Tamara and her sister Karen and we decided to meet up in New Orleans since Karen lived and worked there now.
Sara and I were high on life when we arrived in Nawlens. We got to Karen’s later in the afternoon only expecting to hang out for the night and grab dinner so we could be on the road the next morning. Boy were we in for a whole new game plan. Karen and Tamara had decided we were going to go drinking since they both joked that they had never seen me drunk in all the years they knew me. To say that any place we walked into dropped into a quick audience as all 4 of us would walk in was an understatement. Karen was slightly shorter than me with dark long hair and a thin build, Tamara was a little shorter with deep red hair, fair skin, green eyes and freckles and then there was Sara the shortest. It was as if you had a menu in front of you of every type in one group and the guys would clear the bar area for us the minute we walked in.
I barely remember buying more than 3 drinks but we never were empty handed. It was almost 5 clubs later and a ton of laughter that I was feeling the effects of the alcohol taking its toll on my stomach. See I had never gotten truly drunk but 2 times in my life there were a few times I was very tipsy but they never qualified as drunk to me. My stomach was always the first to feel it, and once it got to that point I knew it was time to expel the liquor and get ready for my body to hate me by morning. I walked straight into the next club and left the girls to the bar as I went to puke. When I returned it was time to call it a night. Karen refused to believe I was drunk and I had to let her in on my secret. The only reason no one ever knew I was drunk was because I would just shut up and sit back and watch everyone once I got close and then drink water the rest of the night. She finally agreed to call it a night. The rest of the crew was definitely drunk and ready for our exit. I don’t remember climbing the last 2 flights of stairs to the apartment or stripping before I hit the couch.
The next day Sara and I were so hung over that only the hair of the dog settled our day. It was almost 3 days later when we both agreed we needed to leave or we would stay drinking forever in that town. We barely made it to Baton Rouge before we pulled into a hotel and decided to get a room for the night. WaChee wasn’t exactly easy to hide in hotels so we were thankful that the hotel gave us a room at the back that we could sneak him up the stairs into the room and it would’ve been smooth sailing if it wasn’t for the fear factor moment of a lifetime.

Sara and I had grabbed everything including WaChee and started to head up the stairs when all of the sudden all we heard was the yells of federal agents doing a drug raid. We both froze mid climb and just gawked at each other while our hearts nearly came out of our chest and we heard “DEA FREEZE! EVERYONE ON THE FLOOR!”

We had brought some party favors but not much, Sara was partial to pills and weed, meanwhile I was usually carrying a little coke to keep me level while drinking. We sat there in complete heart attack mode and sat on the steps now laughing as one of the DEA agents came down the stairs and saw us. It must have been a sight because he laughed and told us that we were ok and they were just busting a meth lab on the other side of the room. Sara and I had now completely gone into a sober adrenaline rush. Once we got to the room, sleep was no longer a mission and all we could do was laugh.
The next morning we hit the road and kept on with our journey.
We stopped in Texas for dinner and to get a hat from Texas because Sara refused to leave Texas without a hat. After we finished eating we were leaving the steakhouse and I was opening the truck door when WaChee nearly lunged, growling and barking at a guy I hadn’t noticed that had followed us out and was directly behind me. He tried to make light of being behind me but ended up turning tail and leaving. Sara and I had a reminder that we needed to keep our eyes open at that point. WaChee earned his steak that night.
It was a stint until we came up on border patrol in New Mexico. Sara and I had stashed our party favors in our bras after the baton rouge ordeal and it was in good thought. Once at the border patrol they asked us to exit the truck and pulled out WaChee so they could search the vehicle. As we sat in the holding cell while they searched and had the drug dogs sniff the truck all we could do was laugh and joke about how this trip was definitely the most memorable one ever. After an hour they let us go and we couldn’t be happier for the release. We kept driving until we decided on a hotel and then planned on trying to find Sara’s mother in lake Havasu since her mother traveled with the local Indian tribe there. Sara hadn’t seen her mother in years since she had left to be with the new boyfriend and wanted to try to see her while in the area. We spent an entire day trying to track down her mom with no success. By the time we hit the southern Cali border patrol both of us were frazzled.
We had pulled into the line of cars and Sara broke down and pulled all her pills out and a few tabs of acid and decided to eat it all. I tried talking her out of it but before I could get out the full objection, she had already popped them in her mouth and swallowed them.
When I pulled up to the patrol officer and she asked if we had any fruit to declare, it took everything I had to not completely lose it laughing as I looked at Sara and said,”Yeah HER”.
We pulled out of the border patrol laughing hysterically and wondering what else was next.
I made it an hour before Sara was fast asleep for the rest of the drive into Vegas.
It was almost 9pm when we came over the mountains and the bright lights of the city showed the way.
Sara woke up just in time to see the beauty and realize her acid was now in full swing.
I had planned on visiting a cousin that I learned had moved to Vegas first so that I could get time to coordinate with Joe and scrotum before completely settling in Sara to the whole situation of how I knew them. As far as she knew I was going to go back to a boyfriend. So we stopped in at my cousin’s and let WaChee settle in for the night as I took Sara out on the town to enjoy while her trip continued.
We spent the night at the casinos bar hoping and by the end of the night, the floor could’ve been the best bed in the whole world but we didn’t care.
Sara spent an extra week playing in Vegas with me before leaving on a plane back to Florida. It was after she was gone that I finally got a hold of Joe.
I had sent them money to get us a place and upon my arrival they still hadn’t secured anything. It was then that I could see the whole connection start to unravel. At first we still connected but I could feel the pulling away so I didn’t bank on staying with him.
I was now living in my truck with WaChee trying to find a place and make sense of everything. The guys were giving me the cold shoulder and scrotum was now throwing a fit that I had brought WaChee with me. It wasn’t even a month and the whole plan had fallen through and now I was trying to find ways to make it easier. I went out after work at the shop for a drink and to try to talk to someone about a job and had to leave WaChee in my truck which was parked in front of Scrotum’s shop, in the warehouse district away from normal traffic for 2 hours. When I came back, he was gone and my truck looked like there had been a struggle. I was completely broken. He had traveled so many times and he was content with sitting in a truck while I went into places to eat so I never thought it would be a problem especially to have someone steal him.
I cried and searched the surrounding streets that night for any signs of him. The next morning I spent hours calling every animal shelter in the city and then drove to every one of them looking for him and writing reports. I searched every shelter every day for 3 weeks. Sleeping in my truck or occasionally crashing at my cousin’s place long enough to shower and make calls. I was trying to find work and nothing was working. At one point I met a beautiful young Indian woman who was escorting and she hired me to be her lookout and safety net in case of anything happening while she found clients. I enjoyed hanging with her since she was extremely sweet and I learned that she was also a mother just trying to make ends meet for her family.

One night while I was waiting for her to finish with a John, I hid at the back of the casino on a video poker game. A guy approached me. I didn’t even acknowledge him at first but he kept hitting on me and I tried to avoid his advances. Finally after almost 20 minutes of him trying to talk to me, I made the comment for him to leave me alone because he couldn’t afford me. When he asked how much,I figured I’d throw a large number out and he’d go away. I told him 5 grand and that’s when he informed me he was a cop and arrested me for solicitation of prostitution. FOR FUCK SAKE! As he led me away in cuffs I was seething. By the time we got to the precinct I was down right pissed and told him that it was entrapment since I didn’t even approach him. My phone call was to my friend to have her bail me out. I was bailed out before I was brought in front of the judge all while a few of the officers kept hitting on me. By the time I was released I had already decided I was done with Vegas. I gave the Indian couple my truck and signed over the title, called Sara and caught the first flight I could back to Florida.

She picked me up at the airport and brought me right back to her place to recover from my whole ordeal. A week later I had a miscarriage. Unbeknownst to me I was almost 2 months pregnant with Joe’s kid. The stress had kicked it right out of me and now the last of my money went to a doctor to make sure I was going to be ok.
Sara welcomed me to stay with her with open arms.
As I lay recovering on her futon we finally had the talk that needed to be said. I told her all about my family, my real name, why I went to Vegas and who Joe was to me. I owed her that much. She was the only person to be there in my moments of need and play. I filled her in on my life up to that point and that’s when the Universe revealed who she was too. She informed me that her dad was a pilot and flew for drug runners and that he lived in the keys now that her mother and step mother had left him and her two siblings. She named 2 of the men that I knew as uncles, as the guys her dad worked for and my world got a little smaller.  Here in Sara I found a comrade. We both knew the struggle and she was just as alone as I was. We bonded that night and realized no matter what we had found each other by fate. For the first time in a long time I didn’t have to lie to anyone including myself. That night we started planning the next steps in life.
That was the moment I gained my biggest ally.
Sara helped me start to look for work. While she worked I became the perfect house guest. Cooking and cleaning and doing everything while I had no money. I was completely broke. All the money I had given Joe and Scrotum disappeared,  and most of my savings went to surviving and the trip out there and back so I was down to absolutely nothing.
I had contacted Tamara to try to reconnect one night so that I could start to get out of my own head.
We met at a bar for a drink that she wanted to buy since I told her about my predicament. While sitting at the bar talking, her boyfriend of the month called and after a few minutes he hung up. She got irritated to the point of crying because he hung up too fast and didn’t say that he loved her. It was at that moment that I realized just how far away from her world I was. When I tried to calm her down she screamed at me that I didn’t understand.

She was right. I didn’t. I couldn’t. Here I had just lost EVERYTHING I cared about in the last 4 years, compromised Everything and done so many things in order to just survive only to be at this moment completely broke, having just had a miscarriage and living on a futon. It all seemed trivial to be that upset over a phone call because of 3 basic words that no one ever meant anyway. At that moment all I could do was say goodbye to Tamara and walk away.

Sarah and I shared a bottle that night while realizing that we were mentally worlds away from the others around us.
This was the start to the partnership and understanding that I always wanted in a friend, all it took was me going through complete hell to find her.

From that moment on we were together everyday wherever we had any time outside of her work and me finding a job. We would climb out the window of her efficiency at night and sit on the roof of the apartments overlooking the people and watch while laughing at the trivial shit they did and drinking. It was a routine as much as we could have one. The only serious routine was every Sunday, we would make strawberry daiquiris and order a blooming onion (or three) and sit on floaties in the pool while trying to imagine life like this all the time. She would get stoned and I would usually crack up at her crazy antics.
It wasn’t long before I started working again at another escort agency since the original one I worked at had been shut down by the cops and moved. I was happy when I could finally get enough money to move off her couch and into an apartment just downstairs from her . My back door was literally 10 feet from the stairs to her apartment so we never were far apart. I had found a woman that had passed away in the area and her family was giving away her furniture so my place was furnished in a day for free.
I was still dealing with nightmares and my PTSD was still in full swing from everything. I would Boobie trap my doors and was thankful I had rocks under my windows. Every night I would place empty beer bottles just balanced enough on my doorknobs so that if anyone opened them they would alert me. I had my gun under my pillow and closed all doors that led to me just so I had warnings. Sara would constantly scare the bejesus out of me by ignoring everything and barreling into my apartment. Truth be told I almost shot her a couple times and then realized I needed to change weapons so that I wouldn’t accidentally kill her.
I had been back in Florida all of 4 months when I got a call from my Uncle John, telling me that the DEA Had reached out to him trying to find me so that we could talk. They had questions and knew that he was the only one in the family that they could reach out without getting the door slammed in their face. Thankfully he had asked as many questions for me as he could about the why’s and had been assured that they only wanted to talk and I wouldn’t be detained. He was given a number to the lead agent on the case Sean and was told to give it to me if he found me.
I remember getting the call from him and writing down the number and just staring at it… Did I really  want to go down that road? Would I really walk out of that meeting? What did they want to know from me? I had a million questions. So now I had to figure out how I was going to do this. For all I know this could be a trap. It could be someone pretending to be an agent. What if I went in and with what I knew and what I had to do they arrested me and I never came out of the interview.
I needed to contact Sean and put my mind at ease. I could care less about Billy, as far as I was concerned that man could be taken out the next day and I would only want confirmation so that I could set my mind at ease to finally feel freedom from him in my life. I worried more about how I was going to be able to be free from his deceptions. I worried about my safety still because I didn’t know if anyone knew we were on the terms we were. Did Billy want me dead after everything? I needed to start living instead of surviving. I was keeping my head under the radar and still going by my fake persona. All my identity as far as everyone in my life was concerned was My fake, I had a fake id, fake social and she was years older with my fake birthdate. As far as everyone knew I was 25 years old and just another escort dumb blonde named Rina from New York. Little did anyone know except Sara and the few people I would still talk to that it was me, the 20 yr old Florida native related to the mob, family girl. So I decided I would call him but I had to be smart about it all.
It took me a week to figure out exactly how and when. I decided I needed to make a “just in case” envelope. In case I didn’t walk out of that meeting I needed certain people to be warned so they knew what to do next. I made an instruction list of people to call and how to call them(they couldn’t be called from any number tied to me). I left exact instructions just in case I was taken into custody. Now all I had to do was contact Sean and hand over the envelope to someone I could trust. Sara was the only person I could see in my life at that moment that would understand the severity of the situation. As much as I didn’t want to give her that responsibility I knew she would be the only one that wouldn’t open that envelope unless it needed to be done.
Now it came to calling Sean. I looked and searched for a week for random Pay phones in the city and then settled on one that was somewhat close but not too close to my place. It was a mental breakdown. If I went too close they could find my place easier and follow me, if it was too

Continue reading “Chapter 8”

 The Journey

When Billy caught wind that I bought a puppy he was pissed. He wanted me to get rid of him. But there was no way. WaChee was now bonded with me and Clung to me. He guarded me wherever we went. It limited me going to hotels so now I had a Ace up the sleeve as to why I couldn’t be bounced everywhere.  Scrotum hated it but loved it at the same time. Now I was only at Eddie’s or Lisa’s and while I was at Lisa’s I would raid the box of cash here and there. I never took much,but I’d snatch a hundred here and there saying it was for food or whatever but I was starting to slowly save money. Everytime they handed me money for anything I’d take out whatever wouldn’t be missed and pocket it. $5 here, $50 there, whatever I could do. I’d say I needed clothes and went to the thrift stores just to pocket as much of the cash as I could. Finally I think scrotum started to catch on, though he never came out and said it. He had us go back to Vegas one day and started working with me in the shop again. It was almost a month later that one of the other guys, Glenn (that was around Billy in the past) came to the house finally and was genuinely surprised to see me with the guys sitting there eating dinner. He confided in us that Billy was pissed and looking for us saying that we took off with his money and drugs and put a price on my head. Without knowing, Scrotum had shifted me under the radar to Vegas without his knowledge and was trying to help me without anyone in on the plan, including me. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Billy, my own father, laid a price on my head. Scrotum explained to me that he couldn’t take seeing me so unhappy anymore. He knew he had to act and help remove me from his reach. He explained that he did take some money but not enough to really be anything crazy. He had lied to my father about where I was to try to give me a chance to find normalcy and Joe had helped. In the time that I was in Vegas they both had basically played hide a bitch and kept WaChee and I in the shadows. Glen was cued in and asked to keep quiet until we figured everything out.

I was humbled. Here both of these guys had risked everything to give me a life back. Ariel even helped and would play offense with the guys. This was it. The moment I needed to realize that I needed to take my life back for myself. Billy thought I was gone along with the money. I didn’t want the guys to have to pay for freeing me in the long run because god only knew what he would’ve done to them. It was that night that I jumped into action. I told no one. By morning I had a car rented and bags packed. Ariel came to the house just as I was packing the last few things. She saw my flustered hurry to just get gone and decided she wasn’t gonna let me go alone. I didn’t even tell Joe and scrotum. I wrote them both individual letters. To scrotum I explained that I didn’t want him taking the fall for me and that I truly appreciated him sticking his neck out for me but I wouldn’t be the reason anything would happen to them. I told him to lie and say that he had heard I went to Vegas so he went there searching for me and found me the same night that Glenn did. To Joe the letter was about the same but more detailed in how I truly loved and appreciated him in all our time together. I explained that I would be going home and that they both needed to keep a distance from Billy until I cleared up some things and it wouldn’t be long so they just needed to give me less than a month to make sure they would not be in danger. Now it was time to save them like they saved me.

I left Vegas early afternoon on July 11th. That day is forever burned into my mind as My Independence Day.  That was the day I took my life back and decided I would never again let anyone else think their life was worth more than mine.I left that day and the weight of everything melted away as I put more miles between me and the city.

Ariel sat shotgun while WaChee lounged across the back seat of the red Volvo station wagon I had rented. Windows down and a wine cooler in hand we cheered to freedom and traveled the road.

That drive into the desert was the biggest breath of fresh air I had been able to have in years. Ariel and I turned up the radio and tuned into the expanse of the road ahead. That night we rolled into a cheap little hotel and slept truly comfortably knowing that not a single soul knew where we were.

The next morning I woke up to my 20th birthday and I started making calls to people I knew were safe in my corner to find out numbers of friends along the route. I had 2 buddies from high school that had gotten into a college in the heart of New Orleans.  I decided we needed a good pit stop to collect our thoughts and plan. Ariel wasn’t privy to my plan yet and I didn’t want her to know so she couldn’t talk me out of it. A part of me was giggling at the fact that I just stole my father’s girlfriend away and that was going to be just the start. The whole drive to New Orleans I felt as light as a feather. I had gotten the boys number and they were excited to see me since in high school we were thick as thieves and hadn’t seen each other in almost 3 years now.

It was almost 2 and a half years, I had been on the run and bouncing for 2 years strong.. 2 long and crazy years. It felt like a decade. The day I landed I told Billy he had 1 year to clear everything up and he only made it worse. Only by the end of the second year, he wanted his own daughter dead.  The realization that all the boundaries were off to him really hit home. This man that was supposed to be a father had lied, gotten me into a life of hell, tried feeding me to a known rapist, set me up to be a mule, constantly set me up to be the distraction and money courier and now wanted me dead because he thought I skipped town with supposedly 50 thousand.

Talk about fucking Daddy issues.. Yep it was time to take my life back.

The visit with my friends in New  Orleans was just what I needed to reset myself into a mindset of living.  Ariel loved it cause both of them were smitten with her. We spent 2 days before we hit the road again. We stopped to visit a friend of hers along the way and while she was distracted I started getting to my plan.

It took us a week to pull into my grandmother’s driveway. Pat was happy to see me and acted like she knew nothing, which she may not have. I used it to my advantage. The morning after we arrived I ate breakfast like nothing was going on and waited until both Ariel and Pat were relaxed and went off to their ways for the day. Ariel went for a shower and that’s when I made my move.

I had accumulated every hotel and their numbers that Billy had ever stayed at under every alias he ever used. I picked up the phone and started dialing and calling every single one from my grandmother’s phone. I had already been warned to never call her before because Billy suspected her phone was tapped and he wasn’t wrong. I could hear the clicking on the line the night before when I called a friend to let her know I was safe and to test the theory. 

I called every number I had in every state and asked every front desk if he was there. He wasn’t and I knew it but it would give the crew on the other end a starting point and that’s what I banked on.

Did I know if this would completely work? No, but I hoped it would, and that would give me time to figure out the next move.

I played it safe with my grandmother and kept my last 2 years of activities under wraps for the first few days basically just telling her I was visiting and trying to figure out the next move.

3 days.. that was all it took. 3 days and Billy was found in a house in Bel Aire with over 1 million dollars in cash and drugs. This from a man that constantly lied and said he didn’t have much money.

I got the call 2 days after that from Joe. I had told him in the note Pat’s number in case he needed to get in touch with me. He had left a quick message and I called him back to hear what was going on. Him and Scrotum were keeping low when they got the news and now they were trying to figure out what was the next move. I told him it was my time to help them. It was time for them to live the life they wanted.

Pat didn’t know yet what was going on and I decided it was time to set myself up to get into working. I immediately started looking for a mechanic job and got one almost instantly doing wiring. I decided I would take some of the money I had squirreled away and go to night school for diesel mechanics. And so I started working while Ariel and I played in my off time with WaChee on the ranch.

It was about 2 weeks later that I broke the news to Ariel and I could visibly see the relief in her body the instant it sunk in. She started planning her next move and I couldn’t be happier for her. It was a few days later that I took Ariel to the airport, I gave her a hug and a few hundred Dollars to help her once she landed and Said goodbye.

I never saw her again. I hope she’s living her best life to this day somewhere and being treated like the amazing woman she was.

It was about a month later of me working and doing school when Joe came out to visit me.

Joe stayed with me for almost 2 weeks. He was happy and mostly relaxed. I still had nightmares but they weren’t as consuming as they were before so having him to curl up every night helped me to relax. Pat would comment here and there like he was my boyfriend and up to this point was just happy that I was there but we finally had to break it down about Billy.

She didn’t believe a word I said. She laughed it off when I told her that he was dealing major drugs. She tried gaslighting me telling me that there was no way it was true and that Billy told her I was working his coffee carts out in California. Coffee carts?!?! It didn’t matter that Joe was confirming what I said, or that I told her there were no coffee carts. She believed the lie he said over what her own granddaughter was telling her with a back up person confirming it.

She called me delusional. My mother even came in on the conversation and completely added that I was lying and had chosen to go with Billy instead of being pushed into the whole ordeal by the Columbians.  They both were now on a gaslighting mission and even Joe was flabbergasted. No matter what I said they called me delusional and a compulsive liar. My mother even recommended therapy and suggested group therapy because it was cheaper. My face must have said it all that day in the kitchen because Joe took one look at me and instantly shut up. I lost it completely on both of them, telling them how I would totally go to group therapy and that the first thing they would look at was my family and let’s really look at that shit show. I told them how I would walk into group and tell my story and then I could imagine every person in the room getting up and walking out because they all agreed I needed more help and their lives were not nearly as fucked up as mine. Both my mother and Pat sat there in shocked silence and then looked at each other in disbelief.

I couldn’t hold it anymore. I straight out started laughing like a mad woman, I wished it was all a dream or a made up lie but this was my hell.

My fucking hell that my own family wouldn’t even look at or knowledge even to see my point of view. “Fuck this” was all I could hear in my head over and over again.

I stormed out of the kitchen and up to my room to pack my things when Joe came in behind me. I was in tears.. I felt like I was crazy but he was here to remind me how crazy I wasn’t and his eyes screamed how sad he was for me. I hated that everyone always looked at me like a wounded puppy dog when they saw my family for who they were. It always made me angry that others got supportive families and here mine was just making my life a bigger Shitshow.I was constantly reminded of how corrupt and immortal they were.

I couldn’t do this normal shit with them because they weren’t normal. I needed to find my own space. Joe had to calm me down and took me out of the house to get some space from them.I called my friend Tamara to exit Pat’s as quickly as possible.  I was trying to brainstorm a new place to stay when she recommended a guy she had met that needed a roommate. Joe wasn’t staying long and urged me to do it and keep him updated on everything.  He left only a few days later and the minute he was gone I left my grandmother’s.

I met the guy looking for a roommate and instantly hit it off. The moment he answered the door I was more hit by his appearance. Mike was this 6’4” well built tanned adonis. He was in jeans with no shirt and long blonde hair that was disheveled from sleeping after working the night shift. Who wouldn’t want a hot roomate to eye from time to time. He was nice and very cut and dry about the room to rent. His dog was super sweet and he liked that I had my own dog that could give her company.  I moved in 3 days later. I was working in a marina keeping my head down and doing school but the schooling wasn’t looking like it was going to be a good fit.

The school had hired a director of a parts department to be the teacher and this man didn’t know anything except what parts went to what. It wasn’t very long before I was teaching electrical to the class myself and that’s when I decided to leave and stop wasting my money. During the days I was turning a wrench and afternoons my roommate and I would cross paths long enough to order a pizza and chat about our day.

In my now free nights I decided to get a job at a local diner that was open all night as a waitress.

I started inserting myself back into social gatherings only this time still staying in the shadows. I didn’t want to be fully in the light yet because I still needed to get my other issues cleared that dealt with Billy.

I still had no idea if I was being hunted by the people he fucked over and all I knew was Billy was not on the board at the moment and I needed to figure out the next move.

While working at the diner the late nights were perfect, most of the people that came in were drunk and leaving the bars or were the truckers that were waiting for the port to open. Once in a while there would be a table of a few beautiful girls that weren’t drunk but always dressed nice and they always tipped well.

I overheard them talking about their Jobs for the night and realized they were escorts. After about a month of working there I finally asked the girls about it one night and they told me how much they made and they loved that they could do whatever during the days so no one knew. At this point I was killing myself trying to save money. Every paycheck I would pay bills and stash away as much as I could. I had pulled my grandfather’s car out of storage when I returned. It was my car when I had to leave years before. My grandmother had put it in storage after it was cleared. When I returned, I was driving it only a few days, when someone tried to steal it and destroyed my steering column. I was working to get everything fixed so that I could re register it and have my car back. The night I got it back from the mechanic on my way home, a woman ran a red light and plowed into me. I couldn’t catch a break. I had 3 friends in the car that I had picked up to take to their place so I could drop my car and go out for the night with them. Thankfully no one was hurt. Except my car. Now the windows had shattered, the front driver side was totaled and all my money was a waste. When the cop arrived on scene, they understood that I was getting it back from the mechanic to go register it again. She ran my information and the registration came back to me but the title was now in Billy’s name . It was another stone in the bucket. She informed me that it showed in my name years prior but that he had switched it to him 2 years ago. I was livid. All the cop could do was give me two options. Option#1 she towed it back to my place and I would have to clear it all up myself. Option#2 she could tow it to the impound and find Billy since it’s technically his car. Fuck it, I went with option #2. I explained the situation and she probably thought I was crazy but took it all in. Once the car was on the lift she told me the only bad side was no one could claim anything if we were injured. The upside, I was never in an accident. No points, no insurance fees, nothing. I took the win with the loss, said goodbye to my grandfather’s car with all the memories and goodbye to any connections left to Billy.

I ran into that same officer 3 weeks later, she gave me the update that she had tracked Billy down through the DEA(that’s where I told her to find him since I knew they busted him) and when she told him about the car he was more angry about the car than my welfare. She said he actually replied,” what good is the car to me now that it’s totaled?” The officer was as aghast as I probably would’ve been with him. She conveyed how he had no care about me and my well being and only cared about the currency lost instead. Yep.. That’s what I figured he would worry about. Fuck it. He could have it.. what was one more thing for him to steal from my life. I’d already lost 2 years, my life before, my relationships, my family and my sanity. The car was just the cherry on top. 

I was talking to Joe on the phone weekly and he and scrotum were still in Vegas working in the warehouse and they always talked about missing me, honestly I missed them. I had decided I was going to save as much as I could, get my own truck and drive back to Vegas. I hated that I still looked over my shoulders, I hated that people around me still expected me to be who I was before everything and I hated trying to tell anyone what I went through. I was surrounded by people that had expectations of me being the same, when I’m reality I was nowhere mentally close to the old person.

I was at a park one day when I heard someone call my name. I froze.. Up to this point I was going by my alias and was still scared to have a trail. It was some kids from my public high school years before. They were rambling about how they were so amazed to see me because they had heard that I was killed by the mob. That confirmed what I figured. People were talking. I guess the disappearing really made the gossip corners.  I didn’t recognize the kids at all and I felt bad that I didn’t recognize them because I always tried to remember who was who. Now I found myself really looking at my life before the whole ordeal. How far off from the ideas I had in high school about how my life would be at this time.

My roommate Mike was a motocross rider and a worker for the electric company. As far as he knew I worked days at the marina and nights waitressing. He was a guy that my friend Tamara had been with but he was totally new to Florida and that was the appeal to being his roommate. We would occasionally cross paths going to and from work and play and his dog played well with WaChee. On occasion we would both bring home engines, me with my marine, him with the motorcycles and we would order a pizza and work on them brainstorming while we ordered pizza and drank.

When I  decided to do escorting I never told Mike. I had asked the girls what agency they worked for and they gave me the card and told me that I would definitely get hired.  They were right. Being 5’8″with blonde hair and a curvy body definitely paid off. Now I was by no means one of those drop dead girls you see but I also wasn’t turned down very often. Even when I gained weight I still never had a lack of suitors.

Not gonna lie I was scared the first time I walked into the office, but once I sat down and another girl walked in and she started a conversation I relaxed a little. I asked her all about her time working while I waited to be sent on a call. She was super nice and basically told me that I could always walk out if I didn’t like the vibe of any of the jobs.  When I finally got my first call I was relieved to find it was actually a guy that just wanted company and was wanting someone to talk to while he pampered my feet. I felt more at ease and welcome in my calls and at the office than I did with my own family.. that should speak volumes.

I don’t remember every call I went on but I will say that while working there I started to look at relationships differently. Yes, you got the normal calls where the guy wanted to be pleasured, but a lot of the time they wanted to just pleasure me. Whether it be pedicures, body rubs, bathing me, having me decorate the house topless, sometimes even just taking me out for dinner and a movie or shopping, it was always interesting to see what they would pay for. I heard so many stories and I didn’t have to talk about me at all. It was perfect for me while hiding away but still trying to feel like I was social. I made friends with the other girls that worked with the agency and we would occasionally hang outside of work. The girls were like a whole case study to me. Each one came from different backgrounds. Some were single mom’s, some were students putting themselves through college, some were dancers, and you’d get the occasional wild card. It was fascinating to me. I enjoyed the knowledge I got from it while being able to still hide.

I was able to screen the calls I went on so that I never got anyone I knew from the club and family circle of friends (which did actually call for girls occasionally).

I eventually quit the marina because the money was so good and I didn’t want to always be tired.

I told my roommate Mike that I worked at a call center and he never questioned it. That was until one night when it was a girl’s night out. A bunch of the girls and I had decided to have a girl’s night and so as I got ready, Mike for the first time saw me dolled up. I had put on a dress that one of the girls lent me and when I came to ask him how I looked, his jaw hit the floor. It gave me a good laugh considering I had a strict no shitting where I eat law. He just about fell over himself asking me why we never hooked up when the doorbell chimed .When I answered the door to see the girls and let them in I didn’t think his eyes could get any bigger. Each girl that walked in was beautiful. There was a girl for every type. He stammered at one point and excused us into the other room to grill me on where In the hell I worked because these were the most beautiful girls he had ever seen. All I could do was smile.

It wasn’t until the next day that I broke the news to him that they were all escorts. You would’ve thought he turned into a lap dog. He wanted to know each girl and when he could come by the office. It was like telling a kid he could look but not touch the candy in the store. Mike became more talkative with me after that night. Before that we were just roommates that hung out with the engines and talked shop, now he wanted to know more.

During this time I was still talking to Joe weekly and I had told him of my plans to save money and possibly go back to Vegas. He was seeing Martha more but still staying in Vegas even though she lived in another state. He still enjoyed our talks and agreed that it would be awesome to have me move back. Scrotum had even said he couldn’t wait to be roommates again. I had confided in Joe about my new job and he actually loved hearing the details of my experiences. We would talk about how interesting it was and how crazy some of that world could get especially when you got into the dominatrix world. That was a whole nother experience I never expected to see, but it was educational to say the least.

After 8 months I had saved almost 5 thousand and the lease was about to be up when Mike informed me that his ex and him were getting back together and he was moving in with her. I called Joe and sent him money to secure a place.  The last night of my work I was ready to spend the next 3 days packing when I met Sarah. The instant click of energy with her was like a total sideswipe. 

In Hiding

The thought that Billy had been run over hit me. Part of me was thinking this was the moment I got my life back, the other part was panicked to think what did they know and were they after me next.
Joe wasn’t sure if he had survived. Scrotum was with Billy when it happened and had called Joe the minute it all went down to make sure I was safe. We were to leave for a safe house and he would keep us posted.
That drive was so long and quiet. Joe held on to my hand like it was his last connection to sanity, or he was holding on to mine for dear life.
We drove for hours through the desert. All I remember was Joe saying over and over that no matter what he was going to figure it all out. All I could do was stare out that window as the desert passed by. Staring into the nothingness and feeling only numb.
It was a few hours after sunrise when we pulled up to a house in the middle of Las Vegas. I don’t even remember how we got in. I just remember grabbing my bags and going inside to a house completely empty of furniture. It was huge. And all I could do was stand in the middle of the den holding my bags and just stare into nothing. Joe came up and grabbed my bags from me only to drop them at our feet. He hugged me firmly and lifted me up so that I wrapped my legs around him as he carried me to the counter and set me down. He pulled away from me just enough to stare into my eyes and kiss me.
There in the silence we just stood and embraced. It was silence, just silence but it was calm. In the chaos there in the kitchen was just a quiet calm.  He grabbed my hand and led me upstairs to find a room to claim as our own. We didn’t pick the biggest, it was a smaller room, but it was cozy. There on the carpeted floor we laid down and fell asleep in eachothers arms. It was a peaceful sleep even though we had no pillow or blanket.. There was a complete stillness in that room that morning. It was peaceful.
The world around me, even my old life in Florida, wasn’t even a blip in my mind at that moment.

When scrotum finally called we had already gotten up and gone out for food like this was just another normal day. No talk of the situation, just relaxed movement. When he told us that Billy had survived but was in ICU and had needed surgery and was going to need more so we were going to need to stay put for a while and distract ourselves until he could come in the next few days we both didn’t know whether to be happy or sad.

We decided this was going to be our time to enjoy what we could. We didn’t care about furniture, all we needed was each other at that moment. First thing first, we went shopping. We got food and drinks and took the time to goof around in the isles playing like children with the random things we found. We got to the house and unpacked. The energy was light even with all the uncertainty, but we were light as could be. In a new city, new house, no pending doom. It felt great for once. We decided to explore the pool and hottub. We christened the hot tub and layed out beside the pool staring up at the night sky. The air was slightly cool but still warm. We could have sat there for hours.
This was a breath of fresh air and we were like a whole new couple. It felt like a fresh start.

It was about a week later when scrotum joined us. He instantly commented on the lack of furniture. We didn’t care, it was not a priority in any way. We actually enjoyed sitting on the floor eating like a picnic or on the counter. Scrotum decided we needed direction instead of just locking ourselves in the house and playing all day. He went right to work trying to make plans. It was about a week later that he brought us to a warehouse. When we walked in Joe lit up. It had a boat and a 71 stingray Corvette car and tons of tools. Scrotum said if we were going to be stuck here we were going to do work. Joe had been a mechanic in his life before this. I knew the basics, being the only girl around all the guys growing up, so now they decided they were going to teach me what they knew.

The days were filled with working on everything from engines to upholstery in the warehouse. The evenings we drank and filled the time with each other. Life started to feel normal.
Joe and I were always together and always smiling. My nightmares became less and there was a relaxed groove to normalcy. Scrotum’s younger brother came to visit and even worked in the shop with us when he visited. The warehouses next to us had other mechanics and we made friends. No one got the back story. We just made up a whole new life. One of the mechanics we were friends with would invite us for barbecues occasionally and Joe and I would go. It was like a normal life. We had double couple dates. We went to casinos and drank. We would take acid and go get lost in the day giggling like children. People that didn’t know us commented on how perfect we were together and how they could always see how we would orbit each other. If we slept over their place, they would comment how we were always touching even in our slumber.I would imagine that this was our life, working together as mechanics during the day, having friends and just enjoying life by night. It was the dream that kept me alive with hope to have that one day.
Weeks went by. Word finally came that Billy was recovering and wanted us back in LA.

The dark clouds started to roll back in.

Once back in LA it was back to taking orders again.. We were back at Eddie’s occasionally. It was bouncing all over again. I was sent back to Lisa again while they had to do work things.. I felt like a bouncing ball. Joe was getting aggravated by it but we looked forward to our time together.
Billy was literally keeping us bouncing. He introduced Ariel at one point. She was a dancer from Vegas that was his side piece to all the other girls. I liked Ariel. She was closer to my age and we could hang out and have fun. Scrotum liked her being there cause she and I would connect when Joe wasn’t there.

We started traveling more this time as well and now we were going all over. Back and forth to San Diego, Las Vegas, New York and even Colorado. Sometimes it was Joe, scrotum, Ariel and I and sometimes it was just scrotum and I.
Eddie’s was the occasional pit stop. Joe and I were always happy to see eachother but getting used to not being together constantly. One day he got a call from back home saying they needed him. At this point we were saying I love you and I was settled in that this was what my life was going to be for now.
Joe left and life continued. Ariel and I would see each other in passing and occasionally she would call me to do drinks. I would keep myself busy wherever I was now just accepting my fate in this life. It was almost 2 agonizing weeks before Joe came back. I was looking forward to it, counting down the days. I couldn’t wait to see him and surprise him with some things I had bought to surprise him. He had joked how I never wore summer dresses and was always in darker clothes so in his absence I had gone shopping.
The day he was to arrive I got dressed in the most colorful summer dress I had bought and waited patiently for him to arrive. I had gone and bought the most colorful summer dress possible despite my internal voice cringing at the barrage of colors.
Hours passed and I was starting to get impatient. I talked to scrotum and he told me how he had to have a meeting with Billy when he came back so he might be late. More time passed.. And I kept waiting.I say there second guessing the dress over and over while soothing myself over and reminding myself this was a surprise for him. I feel asleep waiting on him
It was the next morning when he finally arrived. I was upset it took so long but still happy he arrived. It was his reaction that made my heart sink. I had rushed down stairs and to the front door when I saw him pulling up into the driveway. He barely smiled and walked almost right past me into Eddie’s. He walked right into the living room and sat down. It was as if his puppy had died. My heart sank. I went to him to ask what was going on, I started to ramble about how I tried to surprise him with the dress and how I expected him the day before but no one would tell me when he was due to arrive. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and said I looked beautiful and he loved me but he needed to talk to me.
In that moment my world shifted. He asked me not to interrupt because he needed to get out what needed to be said. I listened contently as he dove into his explanation.
He told me that the Christmas before while he was gone he had gone home and started seeing an old girlfriend of his, but once he was back that he pretty much put her on the back burner. He explained how they talked on the phone all the time. He explained that while we were in hiding in Vegas she and him barely talked and he had focused on us but that once we returned she started back up again and once in a while she would fly out to see him and that was the reason he wasn’t always with me. The call he had gotten was of his dad needing medical attention so when he went back, she was there and they got closer and he realized he truly loved her and also loved me and he couldn’t lie to me any longer.
I just froze. I couldn’t process it. Here he was my anchor to sanity and all I could think about was how this man really did only look at me as some kid he was just playing babysitter with. It hit me all at once like a brick to the face that I was just playing myself that there could ever be more. Reality zoned back in as he’s pleading with me to not hate him and explaining how he loves me too but he doesn’t want to hurt me and her and now he’s trying to figure it all out. He was crying to me and begging me to forgive him.
Tears welled up and I went numb. He tried to hug me and I couldn’t. I pushed him away and then the screaming started. I yelled at him and let it out. How could he keep lying to me, how could he pretend he Loved me and make me fall for him knowing he had her. How could he keep her on the side constantly leaving her hanging. At the end all he could do was cry and plead to me to understand that he really did love me and her and he didn’t know what to do.
Part of me knows it was also my own fault to ever think that maybe this was going anywhere or that he was being truthful. I just wanted to feel normal so bad that I deluded myself into hoping for more than being a job.

I decided to go for a walk because my head was reeling and I couldn’t be there at that moment. He understood and let me go. I walked to the park down the way and sat there in shock for a while but then after contemplating everything it all made sense.

I made the decision for him. She was normal, a normal life outside of this chaos. She was a life beyond this hell. I couldn’t hate him for it in the end. With her he could live a normal life not running. With her he could have a family not attached to Billy and this hell. What future did I really have?  What could I really have in the long run while everyone else determined my direction? Shit I didn’t even have a job or know what I wanted to do because I couldn’t ever think that far ahead. I was in a constant state of limbo and there wasn’t any end in sight of the end of this rollercoaster. Every truth was sitting right there in front of me as I looked at the people in the park playing soccer and playing with their kids. I couldn’t give him that. Billy had stolen that from me. I had given him a timeline and he had surpassed even that.I couldn’t even plan a month out.  But she could. They could build together, I was his break for fun but she was his long term. Now I just needed to set it in motion. I couldn’t hide from reality any longer. I was just playing house, this wasn’t living, it was barely even surviving. I’d lost everything I’d cared about in the last 2 years and I didn’t see an escape, but here I could give him his.

When I came back from the walk he was waiting patiently for me looking like the kid waiting on the verdict. We sat and talked. I told him my conclusion and he cried some more. I had made the flip switch in my mind. What we had was over. I would take what I could get for the time together. There was never to be another” I love you” to be said. He hated that because he said he really did love me. He voiced how he just wanted time to figure out what he really wanted but deep down I already knew the choice he was going to make and I didn’t hate him for it. All I wanted was no more lies. I wanted to know when she was coming and going, I wanted to know if it was her on the phone. I would no longer be in the dark. I would control my emotions and just take what I could get since that’s all I could enjoy.

Just like that I flipped my switch.

Our dynamic changed. We still did our lives and still were light but now there was an unspoken glass wall.
Ariel now became my party friend. The bouncing was still in full force so her and I would steal away time to go to any bar and drink. And now I was hitting on random guys because, hell, I had no future.
Joe and scrotum were still back and forth around me and scrotum even confided in me how he felt bad because he knew about Joe’s other girl Marta, and he didn’t like her. Scrotum and I now were on the same side. We both didn’t like her being in the atmosphere and we both wanted to avoid her so he became my other distraction buddy.
The looming reality was always there. This was surviving.. No pretty picture of a future, no amazing life. This was just moving without going forward completely.

One weekend I was in my hotel room and Ariel was in another room while Billy and the boys were somewhere off doing business. All of the sudden the entire hotel went dark.  In times like this most people wouldn’t panic, it’s just a quick outage.. In my situation, it’s complete panic flight or fight mode. My survival mode kicked in and instantly I went for my gun. In seconds I’m planning my escape and positioning myself closest to the sliding glass door without being in view from outside and hiding in the curtains inside. I checked the buildings all around and all have their lights on, yep now even more panic. I’m listening to the hallway for any signs that danger is coming. I could see a faint light under the door stop directly in front of it. Oh shit, this is about to go down. Quietly there is a faint knock at the door followed by Ariel’s shaking voice. “Please let me in, it’s just me and I’m scared shitless’ ‘. I slowly made my way as I could hear her pleading. I wouldn’t answer her.. god forbid someone has her as a trap. I checked under the door. Only one set of feet… I check the peephole. It’s just her.
I open the door and she’s in tears. I pull her in and blow out the candle just in case anyone outside the window is trying to see. She was shaking like a leaf and I’m in protect mode . She starts freaking out crying telling me how she’s panicking trying to get to me when all I could think about was how to keep us both alive if this is someone coming for us. All the other lights in all the other buildings around us are on as well as the street lights so this is off. My spidey senses are on high alert. I tell her to shut up and grab my flashlight without turning it on. I place her behind me and I lead her into the hall. We make it to the stairwell and I lead her 2 flights up away from our floor and sit in the corner with her and tell her to keep quiet. We sat in the darkness on the cold concrete stairs for at least 30 minutes. I sat and listened to people come and go in the lower stairwell. Every time someone came into the stairwell I had to look at Ariel and calm her down and make sure she was breathing slowly. Finally the lights came on. She almost broke down crying right there. We finally made our way back to my room. Once there, she completely falls apart. My heart is pounding through my chest and all I can do is try to keep her calm. This was the longest hour and 20 minutes of my life. Another 30 minutes goes by when my phone rings. Scrotum is panicking trying to find Ariel. Once I tell him she’s with me and I’ve got her, he calms down. Billy and Joe are MIA and out doing business somewhere in the city. He had arrived in the last minutes of the darkness of the hotel and went to check her room first since she stayed with Billy. Now that we had all lost our damn minds we needed to breathe. I grabbed Ariel and we set off to the bar that I loved to hide in. It was this perfectly set up little bar/restaurant on the main strip on sunset. The front entrance was the restaurant area and back at the bar on the way back was a little dart board and next to the kitchen there was a small spiral staircase that exited to the parking area around back. Perfect to hide away and escape easily. Once there the drinks didn’t stop and now Ariel and I completely ignored everyone else to ground ourselves after that hell.
Scrotum wanted to join but he was shipped off to another errand. Ariel and I got tanked, eventually stumbling back to the hotel and into my room. Once there I don’t even know how it all started but next thing I know we are stripping and she and I start kissing. Now this wasn’t my first time with a girl but it was the first time that it went on for hours.
The next morning my hangover was horrible and as I rolled over I realized she’s still in my bed. I get up and hunt down some aspirin and water and move over to the bed to bring her some. At that moment my phone rings and it’s Billy. Hearing his voice Ariel sits upright and gestures to me to not give away her presence. He’s looking for her and I lie and tell him she went off with someone last night and I haven’t seen her. Once I have him off the phone she’s giggling and thanking me. She confides in me that she’s not in the mood to deal with him and doesn’t want to let him know where she is. We spend almost all day in bed talking about him and how he treats her and she tells me how she actually likes being around the rest of us more but doesn’t know how to remove herself. Part of me is only thinking about how weird it is that I just slept with my father’s girlfriend, and the other part is now in the mental swing of starting to realize I gotta get out of here.
It’s almost mid afternoon the next day when she finally goes back to him. My phone kept ringing all night with him constantly trying to see if she had contacted me. It was only after the 5th call that we came up with a good enough lie that he finally stopped calling.

Joe was making himself more and more scarce with me and honestly it was perfect. I started going to the bar more with Ariel and we would pick up new guys to enjoy the nights with and then she would return to Billy. She would also come and go like the rest. I was being left more and more but still given directions as to where and when I had to be certain places. In my stolen moment at the bar one afternoon I met Jim. Jim was a trainer and super sexy and brooding over a game he was gambling on. After a few drinks and some food we ended up back at the hotel. Jim was relaxing. He knew nothing about my life and all he cared about was making sure we met up at the bar whenever we could both steal away. I eventually brought Ariel with me and she even liked him and would leave us to have fun alone. His rare mornings with me were always a treat of breakfast and coffee before he ran off to go train people for the day. Joe was now being more occupied by his girlfriend Marta more and she was becoming more common in conversations where I shrugged off and would then slink away to meet Jim. The Harley rides with Jim, the occasional dinner with friends and card nights were a nice change of pace from the constant ping pong with Billy and that whole crew. I would almost find myself daydreaming of this being my life but then I’d always come back to reality because not one of them really knew who I really was. I barely knew who I

Continue reading “Chapter 6”

 The Darkest of times

I had gone to the movie and after the movie I had met a girl named Katie while she chatted with friends at a coffee shop. Once I got back to the townhouse Lisa was in the kitchen with a Jack and Coke waiting for me.

She had heard the message.

Now it was time to face the hurt. She handed me the drink and a burner to call Kelly. The minute Kelly heard my voice she started to yell at me. “Where were you?! Why didn’t you pick up!” Kelly proceeded to tell me how D had gotten belligerently drunk the whole night before and showed up at her house begging to find me. Crying that he needed me. It was only because of this she had dialed the number and given him the phone. 

Angie was pregnant and it was a shotgun wedding. She was 5 months along and he was doing it out of duty.

Because I didn’t answer, he walked the aisle and they were now married. I’m the end that was the whole reason I walked out the door. I knew this was his decision to make and I knew without me what he would do. He proved me right.

I cried, not because I didn’t pick up the phone to stop it. I cried because he wasn’t strong enough to admit that wasn’t what he wanted. That it took him being drunk to break down and reach out. Kelly understood where I came from but she also knew what everyone already knew. That if really given the chance he wouldn’t be with her.

My heart sank in my chest and I could feel his sadness from there.

It consumed me for the next week. All I could think about was If things had worked out differently. What if I wasn’t on the run, what if I had stayed there and what if I didn’t turn him away that day at the townhouse. “What if “was all that ran through my mind. It was driving me crazy. I did love him and I would’ve spent my whole life loving him if he hadn’t walked away. But he did and that was a statement that kept coming back to me. He did leave me, he stood up for her with everyone, he even came to me to get me to stand up for them to everyone in town.  He didn’t want me and that was what hit home the hardest. No matter what he said to me,no matter how much he would keep coming to me, she was still the one in his arms because it was easier for him. At that realization I felt the loneliest I ever had at that point. Here I was fighting for just the chance at a life to be normal and there he was running from himself and choosing to sacrifice himself for everyone else’s ideals.

I was stuck in a city with only one person who was paid to take me in and had no one. The one person that I was comfortable with in the whole situation was still an employee technically and he was gone. I couldn’t call friends, I couldn’t just get a job to take my mind off things. I was waiting and stuck in neutral. I would sit on the cliffs there in Encinitas and just stare at the ocean. Sometimes hours would pass and all I would do was look out into the horizon. I would draw sketches of the cliffs, as if they weren’t already burned into my mind. I would watch as the tide came in and the dolphins played out in the surf. I would watch surfers get ready up in the lot and travel down the cliffs there to catch a set or two. Ah, surfing. I missed it. I missed sitting on a board in the middle of the ocean. Part of me wanted to do it again, the other part was afraid that if I went under I wouldn’t even try to come up. Another side of me longed for the simplistic thinking to just be able to enjoy it all again and ignore the reality of my life and where it was now.

I was sitting in the car and I had gotten so low that all I could think about was just putting the car into drive and driving off that cliff. I thought about it so much that I started to convince myself it would be quicker and easier if I just did it. One day while sitting on that cliff in the car, at the exact moment when I reached for the shifter, I heard D’s voice clear as a bell. “Don’t you dare, don’t leave me alone!”  I swear it was so loud it was like he was next to me in the car. I froze. I needed to change direction, whatever direction would get me away from this cliff…from this part in life. So I went to a pet store down the road. That’s where I got patches, my pet rat. I needed something to give me a purpose.  At least I could hide her and take her with me.. She was small enough to fit in my sleeve. She was sweet and I could tell she was just happy to not be in the cage anymore. She never even tried to bite me. She became my new confidant.

Now I had something to be responsible for that would keep me going,I needed some kind of accountability to keep me going. Then I realized I needed a friend that wasn’t on Billy’s payroll. I needed a safe place for myself, even if it was a safe person. I decided to call the girl Kelly that I met at the coffee shop. We decided to go and visit Mexico for the night in Tijuana.

Kelly was great, she was light and airy in conversation and I didn’t have to go deep into life.. we would talk about me being new to town and all the places I didn’t know. We talked about things she really wanted to do or try. I could sense she was always in her box too somehow. There was a bond that was unspoken. We decided to do everything together since neither of us had someone to really do those things with. We both found a sense of freedom. We never worried about all the bullshit.. we just supported each of our dreams.. If she wanted to try something or go do something, we did.. If I mentioned a place or thing, she would go with me. It was a mutual exploring buddy.

We would go drinking in Tijuana and pick up strays (the service guys) from time to time. We went and got pierced and tattooed together, giggling like children and laughing from the adrenaline the whole time.

Lisa would always want basic reports of where I was going and would always just treat it like I was a roommate but she knew this was keeping me occupied and happy so she never bitched. As long as I came home and was there by morning after going out for the night, she was fine.

Billy showed up for Christmas Eve. That was interesting to say the least. He tried to come in and play Dad for a night. He built a shelf Lisa had gotten herself but not put together yet. I watched as he put half of it together backwards. We did the whole dinner thing together. The tree and presents were basic needs like socks and some shirts.  He told me it would still be a while and that he was going to be running around some more until after new years and he wouldn’t see me until after the new year. Lisa was the part time girlfriend and I could tell she was happy with that. So it was back to just trying to kill time. Lisa was always relaxed and patient about it all. She was a chef and worked days so she would be gone most of the day but come dinner time I could always depend on her making an amazing dinner and drinking a jack and coke. She didn’t care that I was underage, she would always pour me a drink as well. She figured I was mentally old enough that I should be able to do whatever I wanted. She was one of the rare few that understood me mentally.

After New Year’s Joe came back. He came to pick me up and bring me back to LA.  He seemed different though. Not as light with me completely but still there was a slight change. I figured it was just him missing his family and friends like I did.

When we got back to LA we were hotel hoping again. I kept touch with Kelly in San Diego from time to time and now that I had patches it helped me keep focus. I would put her in my hoodie and go out and about. Billy had brought another girl around in LA that was a real dumb blonde. Thankfully I only had to meet her once and really hang out but it was mentally numbing. I couldn’t understand how Billy could even be attracted to these bimbo’s but then again it helped him get away with whatever he wanted. I hated when any of them would look at me like I was a child. Mentally I was years past them in many ways, it was only physically that showed my age. Most of them couldn’t even carry a full conversation without giving at least one blank stare showing they had no idea what we were talking about. I was happy when he found one that could at least keep up mentally, only to have them be a fleeting  fancy.

It was almost spring when Billy told me he needed me to go out of town because the heat was in town and he needed me gone. Scrotum and Joe were to take me to New York. Off on a plane we went. This time I had my own room and the boys had their own. I would constantly be carted off to places . Always waiting on whoever but Joe was still there smiling from time to time with me. We went fishing in Montauk Bay, had dinner in the city, and had a few new people around us. I could feel the pull away… It was in one of the moments when the guys weren’t looking that I decided maybe I needed to do coke to numb my soul since I could feel all the sorrow creeping up. Not gonna lie, I was kind of hoping I would do it and it would kill me so that I wouldn’t have to feel anymore. I swiped a baggie from scrotum’s stash and hit my bathroom and layed out a rail. Once it hit the back of my throat I was already liking the drip. Joe came in about 20 minutes later and I was wanting to have fun. I was in complete rush mode. He noticed. We had sex and once we were done and laying in the bed he asked me. I told him about the baggie and that I just wanted to have fun. Joe and scrotum would do coke from time to time but always kept it out of sight of me, so he didn’t like that I stole a small bag, but he understood. He made me promise to just ask when I wanted it. So now it was a “ask and you shall receive” kind of arrangement. After about a week in New York, it was finally time to go back to LA. I was packing my suitcase when there was a knock at the door. I looked through the peephole to see an older Mexican man holding a bag that looked like lunch. I didn’t order anything. I asked through the door who it was and he gave me his name and said that Billy sent him and I was to take something back to Billy in LA. Yeah that didn’t scream freak out. I told him to hold on a second while I confirmed. I called Joe instantly and he confirmed that we were supposed to meet with a guy but he didn’t know when. Joe said he would be right over and to let him in. Once I let him in he introduced himself again formally and shook my hand. He said he couldn’t stay long but that I was to take what he had and bring it to Billy. He handed me a large paper bag that felt very heavy and excused himself just as Joe was coming in. Joe shook his hand and said thank you and the guy disappeared. I was puzzled. We opened the bag to find thousands of dollars in stacks, more money than I had ever seen. I freaked out. How was I supposed to bring this casually back to Billy through the airports. That’s when Joe showed me how to hide it almost in plane sight. He brought in his suitcase also since I only had a small square rolling suitcase. We layed out the money on Black t-shirts and rolled the shirt over it and then lined the suitcases. That took most of it, but there was still so much more. We both looked at eachother puzzled with the rest of it. That’s when I came up with a plan. But I needed pantyhose. Joe called scrotum and sent him to the store. Once scrotum got back to the room and saw the conundrum, he was just as puzzled. I put the pantyhose on, stuffed as many stacks as I could in the belly and then opened a few stacks to smooth it over. Then I put on some overalls with a shirt , looked in the mirror ,I was preggo. The guys stood there in shock and then started to laugh. They couldn’t get over how perfectly normal and legit it looked.

That was the most uncomfortable walk and plane ride ever. The money itched and maybe it was only my own mind but I swear I could hear it crinkle from time to time. It didn’t help that the plane was also delayed on the runway for an hour.

When I finally got it off me at the hotel I was sweating and pissed. I let Billy have it. Joe didn’t blame me. We were completely side swiped at the last second and it was a lot of money and he didn’t like me being used like that.

I reamed Billy a whole new asshole. He swore it would never happen again and it was a last second decision.

After that I told Joe I needed a line. He obliged and got us a bag and we went off to the room.

 (Thoughts sang in my head over and over)

Give me a line and make it long, I want to hear my dying song……

I did a big rail and we drank. Whenever I could I was going for another one… I wanted out of this hell hole, and I wanted out now. I could tell Joe was just along for the ride watching me for the night. I was in no place in particular in my head but I was wanting to dive into the abyss. It was about 2 bottles later and probably about 2 eight balls that the night/morning ended. The next morning/afternoon realistically when I got up out of the bed naked and went to look for another line that’s when Joe broke his silence. Staring at me from the bed wrapped in the sheets he sat up and kept watching.

He saw me start to cut out a line. “I know what you’re doing,” he said . I looked at him joking and replied, “Oh Yeah,What?” That’s when he called my bluff. “I saw the look in your eyes yesterday, your trying to kill yourself with it” he flung the sheets off and came over to me. Grabbing me and pulling me close. All I could think was, “So what if I am, you’re only here for the pay”… But I said nothing.

He confided in me that he was there once and he knew the look. The look of “fuck this world I want off this ride.” I couldn’t hold it back, I broke down. I started screaming at him, so what if I wanted off,I was just a job in reality for him and I wasn’t anything more than a pawn to Billy. He grabbed me and held on to me while I sobbed, beating on his chest to let me go. He pulled me to the couch and held my hands staring at me. It was then that he made me a deal. He promised me I wasn’t just a job and he wouldn’t ever treat me as such and then told me that he didn’t ever want me to do coke like that. He wanted to show me how to just enjoy the time we were there and he made me promise to him that I would just follow his lead and he would get me out of it all but I would have to not go off the deep end.

He would regulate me with the partying if I would help regulate him to keep it real.

As I looked into his eyes I could tell he was pleading for me to just stay. He wiped my tears and stayed there frozen until I agreed.

Joe was hard to say no to. He had this mesmerizing energy about him that just sucked you in. Even though I knew he was sometimes so far away mentally one look was all it took and it was like we were enveloped in each other.

We spent the rest of the day and evening locked in the room watching TV and cuddling. He answered any call we got but made it clear that night that he wasn’t leaving my side until I was ready.

Most of the weeks just were a blur. It was a constant repeat of waking up in a hotel, occasionally doing an errand and usually back to the room.. Lots of take out or late night calls to pink dot for delivery. I started playing darts to pass time.. I’d find any prono mags and pin up the centerfold to a wall and go to town. It was like a weird version of groundhogs day.  At some point Billy brought us to Eddie’s place. Eddie’s house was in West Hollywood and it was huge. When you walked in the door it was like walking into a 70’s retro House. The living room had brown shag carpet with a projection TV and a desk overlooking the livingroom that looked like a perfect mob coke desk. It was gold with 2 lions for the legs and a huge mirror for the table top. The back yard had a pool, there was a mini gym, large kitchen and upstairs was 3 bedrooms and a pepto bismol pink bathroom that was completely retro. Eddie was this 5’4″little old man that wore black slacks and a wife beater with suspenders and shiny dress shoes everyday. He was an old hairdresser that loved Frank Sinatra with his cutty sark whiskey and was a high energy personality. We were to move into Eddie’s and help him do some remodeling of his backyard.

Finally I had something to do. 

Joe and I shared the room in the front of the house upstairs. Every day we would wake up and get to work. Pulling the plants in the planter, we redid the concrete around the pool. Eddie would make us food and tell us stories. He was always a great host. He realized how Joe and I were always watching eachother and revolved around each other. When Joe had to go do errands Eddie always would come talk to me. He would do lines with me from time to time and he would try to keep me busy. I guess my soul screamed lost. It was around the time that we moved into Eddie’s that my nightmares got worse. I was trying to keep composure but kept latching to Joe for my sanity. I would wake up in a sweat some nights, others I would be woken up by Joe trying to console me because I would talk, scream out and cry in my sleep. He became my emotional Tether. Eddie would occupy me whenever Joe had to go somewhere… It was like I was constantly being babysat. 

Around this time Billy started doing other business in LA and Rick James, the singer, had just gotten out of jail.

Billy informed us that he was going to be paying for Rick’s revival album and we were going to be helping him get on his feet . I took this as a money laundering investment. Joe, scrotum and I were to help paint his new house while they got the studio time set up. One night he called a meeting and told Joe to drop me at the hotel room with Rick while they had a meeting to discuss the process. Joe didn’t like it, he kept telling me the whole way to the hotel how I needed to be careful and keep my distance. He informed me about Rick’s past. Rick was known for being a date rapist and that was part of his jail time history. He told me he would try to come back for me as soon as he could but that I needed to keep sharp. Billy told me he had instructions to not touch me but I didn’t trust that.

Going to Rick’s room just screamed creepy. When we got there he opened the door in a robe with a cocktail in hand. He introduced himself and invited us in. Joe stayed for a minute and then had to excuse himself because Billy was already blowing up his phone.

Once Joe was gone Rick settled into the couch and then relaxed into conversation but I stayed seated at the breakfast bar.

Some may have looked up to this man but at this moment all I saw was a seedy snake trying to slither his way into me being comfortable with him.

He pulled out a crack pipe and started to smoke, offering me some and trying to get me to move closer. If that wasn’t creepy enough then he turned on the TV to porn.

The 2 hours in that hotel room were the longest ever. He kept trying to get me to get close, he constantly would try to get me to let my guard down. I knew better and I was more disgusted with this man by the end of those 2 hours than I ever thought any human could ever make me. Once Joe finally came knocking I couldn’t get out  of that room fast enough. You could almost see the disappointment on Rick’s face when I left. It was at that moment that I knew my father set this whole thing up and tried to feed me to this rapist. It disgusted me. Joe was shaking when we left the room and would not let go of my hand. Once we got to the truck he hugged me tight and I could feel that he was genuinely trying to let his own hate go.

We went to the bar after that and tried to drink away the night. He always distracted me after there was hell. He would try to instantly make light of the situation and wipe it away.

The next month we were around Rick and his new wife, who I later found out was a date rape that got pregnant and had the baby while he was in jail. I couldn’t fathom her thinking, but there she was riding that train.

Everyday we did errands and work whether it be painting or building something and every evening we drank and hung out with Eddie. My nightmares were getting worse. Some nights I would wake up no longer in bed. I would be under the bed or in the closet when I would wake up crying and I could hear Joe frantically searching for me. Sometimes it was an easy find, other times he would be in a panic by the time he found me.It was taking a toll on both of us.

He would try to take me away from the city whenever he could, a long ride down the PCH on the motorcycles, day at the beach for lunch. I loved riding solo but I enjoyed being his backpack more. Anything to distract me. We drank mostly. A Lot of drinking. Days where he was called away I would go for long walks or try to distract myself with drawing or writing poems. Ashes my rat filled my time until she finally passed one day. I knew it was inevitable but at the same point I mourned her loss and really preferred the thought that at least she was free of this hell.

At one point Rick was finally in the studio and we were called there to help out. I met his band and most of the guys were pretty nice. I connected more with his bassist Allen. He had a clean energy about him and he seemed to always deflect me from having to be near Rick. I even asked him once why he still worked with him since I could see he didn’t approve of the man Rick was, his answer saddened me but made me understand. It was always about the money in the long run.  Allen pulled me aside when he could and would teach me the bass. Joe didn’t mind leaving me when he had to as long as Allen was there.

Billy was getting more brazen with his living. He was now partying and going out more. He had started dating this girl V who you could tell was more in it for the fun and money.

Scrotum and Joe were always by my side. Scrotum was hanging around more and drinking with us more. We were like a tripod. Joe and I would play the wing man to scrotum and try to find him a girl to pull into our click. But at the end of the night it was always Joe and I. Some nights the nightmares interrupted our sleep and other nights I was content in his arms.

It was also around this time that Billy started to notice being followed more.. Paranoia started to kick in with the boys and they clung to me more and were always aware of any constant faces. The minute they became uneasy we switched bars or patterns.

It was 3am when I was woken out of a dead sleep by Joe telling me we had to pack our things and leave Eddie’s and do it quickly. I didn’t ask while I packed, I could see the frantic worry in his eyes. I packed everything as quickly as I could and even Eddie was helping us to get everything together so I knew it had to be bad.

Eddie hugged me and wished us safe travels. I wish I could’ve hugged him longer, he was an amazing spirit. 

It wasn’t until we were driving out of the city when Joe told me what was going on.

Billy had been hit by an unmarked car while on his motorcycle in a hit and run and was in bad shape as far as he was told. He was being carried off to the emergency room and it didn’t look good.

There was a small voice inside me that whispered “This could be your escape”

 On the move.

City of Lost Angels.. Well I was definitely lost but I definitely wasn’t around angels. Settling into my room was so surreal. My head was reeling and I just wanted to get out of my wig. I looked at my clothes and felt like I was wearing someone else’s body completely. I pulled out the change of clothes I had jammed into the bottom of my back pack and stripped out of that fake persona to only stare at the clothes on the bed like they were someone else’s. Who was that chick and how could she look normal wearing that?

Everything my mother would have loved for me to wear and look like was right there, except the wig. Matching jogger set with gold trim, the high top sneakers with EG socks and dripping in gold jewelry. Ugh,I hated it all. Even the wig was not my style. a perfect little bob of dark brown hair. It made me look like  the tennis playing college girl that was so normal to be carrying around that large of a sum of money. The envelope was handed to Billy the minute I got into the hotel room. Part of me wished I would have just gotten off the plane at a connecting city and disappeared completely. Looking back now, I wonder how that would have worked out. But, then I wouldn’t be writing this book.. so let’s continue.

Bodyguard, it’s just another word for glorified babysitter. I didn’t want a babysitter. I wanted to just go and explore this new side of the world. When Bob and Joe showed up in Billy’s room the next morning and the introductions were made,I felt like I didn’t want them as much as they didn’t want me.

Joe was younger than the rest with a kinda Keanu Reeves from the matrix look only tan. Bob was more the office looking guy with a balding head and small build. Billy had more of a connection with Bob and Joe was more the runner from what I could tell. The minute Bob looked at me he laughed and said “Oh, Great, Tits” my dry response was,”awe it’s a scrotum.” Joe giggled. At least I knew this wouldn’t be complete hell. I would sit in the living area of the suite while the three of them would talk business or whatever. I didn’t want to know. The less the better. I would tune into the TV or read a book and just ignore them usually until it was time to order food. It was about a week in that I got so tired of it all. Boredom was excruciating. Finally I convinced Billy that I needed clothes since I only had 3 outfits and a set of sleep clothes. Joe was to take me shopping and Bob was to drive. That was actually the best option.

Joe was fun to talk to and shop with. He would keep close but acted like a friend more than a babysitter. When it came time to eat he was the one to convince Bob that we needed drinks and not just food. While out of the hotel I was soaking in the west Hollywood views. All the amazing places I had seen in movies were now right in front of me. Joe could tell I was excited to just explore and he now became my center with conversation. We started talking in an easy flow. Once he had a drink or two he just opened right up with laughter and jokes. Joe would crack jokes on Bob,and after a bit even Bob lightened up like we were buddies. The banter between Joe and Bob was fun and light enough that it didn’t feel like having bodyguards completely.

From that day on,everytime Joe could, he would steal me away to go do errands with him. We would drive and he would always keep an eye out for anything that seemed off. It was time with him that just flowed nicely. When Bob was around it was like having the father figure that would occasionally scold us both for giggling to much. Billy would always be the big buzz kill. It was instant serious the minute we entered the room with him. Even when he was light in conversation it was like having an eagle eye watching just waiting to give you shit.

Whenever major business deals were being done I was escorted by Joe to my room and told to stay put. Noone was to know I was even there. I was told not to call them unless it was an emergency, otherwise they would call and check in on me. This lasted for a few weeks, honestly it could’ve been 3 months but my sense of time was nothing more than an endless groundhog day movie.

One meeting lasted almost 2 days and I was getting impatient. I wanted to go out. Not be locked in the room all day. Occasionally Joe would call the room to check on me. At one point I finally had enough and told him I was sick of sitting there. He told me to hang tight. Next thing I knew, he was at the door with liquor smiling and being devious. He came in and handed me the bottle begging me to just be patient a little more and he would come and rescue me in just a little while longer. At this point, part of me was beginning to become attracted to Joe. He had the greatest smile and in this prison of a life he was the one thing that I looked forward to everyday. So 4 hours later when he knocked on the door and came sneaking in I couldn’t keep my flirting aside. That was all he needed as a window. I took a swig off the bottle and told him that it took him long enough and joked that I was almost about to call up security just to have my way with the hotel bellhop when he came in close. He was so close I could smell his cologne and he smiled at my cocked eyebrow. In that second our eyes locked and he gave into temptation and grabbed me close and planted a kiss on me. The energy between us started to bubble up. The kiss went from questioning to consuming. We got so caught up in the kiss that the bottle dropped to the table and in an instant we were up against the wall and he was now going to my throat.  I was whirling. And just as fast as it started, he stopped. We both had to give each other space to breathe. He still stayed close but now there was a few inches between us. His smile said it all though. He wanted to be with me just as much as I wanted to be with him. He cleared his throat and then told me that as much as he wanted to stay he only stole away a minute to”check” on me and he had to go back. He gave me a devilish smile and promised he would be back for good in an hour no matter what so I just had to be patient. With one more small kiss and a promise to return, I sighed and waited.. This was going to get interesting now.

Now I had a partner in crime.

He returned in an hour, just as I was finishing my dinner. The minute he came in the hotel room, he dropped everything and moved the living room table from in front of me and landed another kiss on me while murmuring about thinking about me the whole time. It was a whirlwind of hands and clothes flying while connected in kissing.

We spent the rest of the night exploring every inch of each other.

The next morning we agreed that we couldn’t tell anyone. We would keep it a secret, and I would have something that was mine to look forward to in those stolen moments.

Joe and I tried to keep it under wraps but Bob cought on after a week and now he was in on some of the jokes. Billy took a little longer to realize since he mainly left me to Joe and Bob (who I now nicknamed scrotum) most of the time.

Billy would make an appearance every few days and every so often we would change hotels or hotel rooms. It was a constant game of hide and seek. Joe and I would take long drives at night through the city looking at all the clubs and people.

One night, they were all busy again in a meeting so I decided to go out. After almost 2 months of being caged(not always a bad thing) I was getting antsy. I put on my leather jacket,a tank top and rip torn jeans and headed to the concierge. I was sick of hotel food. I wanted something different. They told me about a place around the corner and down about a block that was known for great food. I set out and once I got there I was ready to chow.

This moment felt free, no babysitters, no constant supervision. As much as I loved hanging with Joe, I wanted alone time in the city. I got to the restaurant and went to the hostess ready to eat and enjoy a meal alone. It was then that she informed me that the restaurant was closed that night for a private party. I guess the disappointment showed when I asked her where there might be somewhere else because she paused then made the decision in her head to let me in. They told me it was a Barmitzva and that most people didn’t know each other at these things anyway so she planned to sit me at the bar and I could have free food and drinks on the house. All I had to do was tip the staff and lie that I was a friend of the family.

That night stands out as one of the best nights by myself in LA. I sat at the bar eating and drinking while socializing with a whole bunch of random people all while the staff was in on the joke. That moment I didn’t have a care in the world.The family had no clue and most thought I was a girlfriend of one of the cousins.At one point when we thought someone caught on, the bartender even lied and said I was his girlfriend that came in as a surprise for the night from out of town.I tipped the staff well that night, they were incredible. I had the time of my life at that bar mitzvah, that was until I got back to the hotel room to see Joe and scrotum seething.

I couldn’t blame them.. I scared them both. I had left a note on my bed that I would be back and I just went for food. It was only after 2 hours that they really started to worry. Once I told them what happened they really couldn’t be mad much longer but that night I had to make a deal that I wouldn’t go anywhere unless they knew exactly where. It was like being a child all over again.  Now I had a perimeter to stay in and it wasn’t far.

Billy was around less and less. He had random women once in a while that I would meet in passing. I never paid much attention since most of them seemed to be very bubbly and not very smart.

One day after telling Joe I really wanted to ride a motorcycle and learn to drive one Billy took an interest. It was about a week later I was informed I was going to a motorcycle class. Joe was going to the East Coast and it was going to be a few days until he came back so I was to do it alone. I was to take the class and get my License, but the new license would be under my new alias and I had to come up with a good name and birthday that I would remember easily. When I questioned how I was going to be getting this new license Billy had given the information that he paid a guy to put everything into the system as if I had already shown my paperwork and all I had to do now was just take the last test to get the ID. He even went so far as to get my social security number for me as well. I figured if I was going to be a whole new person to the state, I would make this my whole new life for now.

Joe had become my confidant. While in bed some nights we would talk and I would confide in him all the things I wanted to do or things I missed since I was in lock down mode. I told him how with everything still in the air, I now looked at life differently. I had started a bucket list. One night he finally had me show it to him and he giggled at some of the things on the list. That’s when he decided we were going to start trying to do what we could on the list.

I would write little notes to myself and he saw how I would draw when I was bored so he surprised me one day with a sketch book in a nice leather binder. I had told him how I wished I could let friends back home know I was ok and how I worried about them. We had devised a plan to get postcards and I could send them just little notes, nothing that gave anything away. He would take the post cards and when he would go on the trips for Billy, in between at airports, he would drop them in the mail.

While he was gone I found myself writing constantly. Without him to brighten my day I was back to being in the hotel room again and stuck in my mind. I would collect post cards whenever I found them. Scrotum would take me to class and pick me up then disappear for hours with Billy. I started going to a bar in my perimeter just to pass time.

I thought about D still from time to time,wondering how his life was going and what it could’ve been like if I wasn’t forced to exit the picture. I wondered if we would have eventually gotten back together or if the saga with Angie would have escalated more. But there was no way I could call home to anyone to see what was going on. I was just going to have to settle with me sending notes one way for now to my few close people I knew I could trust.

One week turned into 2 and when he came back I was beyond ready for some light time with him.

Billy had surprised me with shopping trip to Harley Davidson and gotten me some gear to wear on a bike. Now that Joe was back, Billy also introduced us both to Al. Al ran a bike shop in LA that Billy obviously had a hand in. I was surprised with a 78 Sportster Harley Davidson in Al’s garage. Joe and I couldn’t wait. Al was a nice guy, he wasn’t your big scary guy. He was more your medium built mechanic that loved to talk bikes. Joe and I liked him a lot. We became friends after the first ride. I was scared to death,especially since the bike’s paint job alone was worth more than my whole wardrobe. I almost ate it at one point but I saved it at the last second and both Joe and Billy were impressed.The streets of LA definitely scared me on a bike. Joe and I would ride with scrotum to San Diego for the day. On occasion Billy would ride with us. I loved the wind on my face and the rush of the bike. It was on one of these rides that I met Lisa. She was one of Billy’s part time girlfriends that lived close to San Diego.I liked Lisa. She was smarter than the others and was very personable. She invited me to come visit whenever.

Halloween was coming and as much as I was passing the time with Joe I really missed my friends back home. While I was at Lisa’s one day she offered for me to use her phone to call home while Billy wasn’t paying attention. She was more in the know about everything from what I gathered and she felt sorry that I was stuck not being able to have a life line. She even offered that I could give her number to an answering machine for emergencies back home. I was still not comfortable enough to call anyone but it was nice I now had something for back home to reach me.

Joe was great, don’t get me wrong, but there was still a part of me that missed the boys back home. I missed talking to everyone and I really worried about my close friends and hoped that none of them were wondering about me. I wanted to ease their fears, that was even if they had any. They were the only ones that seemed to care, but god only knows if they really did.

I confided this to Joe and he decided to help me go home even for a few days. I wouldn’t be staying with anyone I knew and I would have another bodyguard the whole time but I could go down and make a quick appearance. He convinced Billy it would be perfect to throw anyone off the trail with him. As soon as I knew I was going I sent Todd a postcard. Just a hint. I hinted that the ghost behind them on Halloween just might be me. I hoped he would get the hint.

Joe wouldn’t be going but he would be picking me up when I got back. So the plans were made.

I flew in earlier in the day on Halloween back to Lauderdale. I was greeted at the airport by a tall thin and almost geeky guy. He looked like he was part of the nerds movie cast. As I went to the meeting point I was given, he walked up and gave me the code word. I was thrown back by his looks. This guy was to be my bodyguard? I looked more threatening than him. But off to his place we went. Once I was at his place he asked what my plans were to be for the night. He was instructed to take me wherever and give me a burner phone to make any calls. I didn’t waste time, I knew my one girlfriend would know exactly where the party was. Once I got her to calm down cause she was frantic. I got the scoop. They were going to the warehouses first then off to a show. That’s all I needed. Now I just had hours to wait. I told her not to tell anyone in fear of anything going wrong.

While I had time to kill my guardian decided to give me a lock picking course. Seems that he was a locksmith by day and bodyguard for me for the night. He also gave me my first class on a gun. He schooled me on the revolver he wanted me to carry just in case anything went south.

When the time came I felt I was ready for anything.

The warehouse was first. The band was playing and the minute I walked into the door, half of them froze in place. Music stopped and it was a rush to give me hugs… It made me want to cry. Here I was worried that I would walk in and they would ignore me like I was some annoying little girl that was just a groupie.

I was met instead with hugs and questions. Todd had brought the post card to the warehouse and pinned it on the board on the wall. He was beaming claiming he knew I was dropping hints and wondered if I sent it in Texas.. I hadn’t been there yet… But Joe’s plan had worked.

They were so excited. I told them I wanted to go to the show at one of the local clubs and that’s all the words I needed to say. They all loaded into their cars and tried to convince my chaperone that they would take care of me but he wouldn’t have any part of it. The boys were way more menacing than this guys appearance, but he did have knowledge.

When we rolled up to the club there was a large group of people outside and the minute I stepped into it you would’ve thought I was a rock star. Everyone around me was hugging me and expressing their worries about my absence. One of the guys Donk threw me over his shoulder and refused to let me down.

It was at that moment I caught eyes with D and his girlfriend Angie. She wasn’t happy but she wasn’t pissed either so at least there was that. Kelly came up and made Donk put me down. It was about then that my chaperone got a phone call and told me he needed to go do an errand and he needed me to go. The guys that had surrounded me argued with him. He tried to convince them he couldn’t let me out of his sight but the boys weren’t having it. After he made sure I was armed and the guys convinced him they wouldn’t let anything happen to me, he left.

I spent the next 2 hours enjoying all the crew for the night. At one point I pulled Kelly to the side since she was one of 3 people that was always in the know, and gave her Lisa’s number for emergencies. I avoided D and Angie. At some point my bodyguard had come back and was going through the crowd trying to find me, he was asking people if they saw me and no one would tell him anything. Most played dumb and he spent almost 45 minutes trying to find me in the small club. It was Angie who brought him right to me. In that instant I knew If given the chance she would be the death of me. She knew we came together and she figured since no one would tell him she would help, but deep down I knew she just wanted me gone.

After saying goodbye to everyone I disappeared into the night with my bodyguard.

One of my roommates Trish was now living at my grandmother’s since she had nowhere to go and was pregnant when I left. Trish was good for inside information so I made sure to give her a heads up that I would send her a line from time to time.

The next morning I was back on a flight. By the evening I was jumping into Joe’s arms.

He was excited to see me gleaming. I missed the crew but I loved being somewhere that no one knew me but a small few. Even though I was in hiding and constantly looking over my shoulder I still had a sense of belonging there. Joe and I celebrated that night with Al at one of the strip clubs. It was a glimmer of good times that didn’t feel so horrible even though I knew it wasn’t going to be like this all year.

Billy was doing coke with his friends when I wasn’t around but up until now he hadn’t given any clue to it.  Now it was like the cards flipped. The next morning after getting back I walked into his suite and barely sat down just as he threw me a small glass ketchup bottle filled with huge chunks of coke fresh cut off the key.

Well that was interesting. He was almost proud.. ” Check this out, straight off the key” I looked at Joe and we shared a blundered look.

What do you say to that?!?

“Gee Dad, looks nice” was all I could muster up. I had never done coke before but I had seen it. Many friends at the bars had been big on it but I didn’t ever see the draw.

 I had never really even seen it up close before until then. I was the kinda kid that smoked pot, did acid, took ecstasy or drank. I stayed away from the hard stuff. It was bad enough it tainted my family on the crime side. I didn’t want to do any part of it. I associated it with suicide. It was too harsh in my head. Here I was holding a bottle the size of my hand and all I could think was”How much is this worth?” I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to even worry about keeping an eye on the bottle. So I handed it back to him and tried to brush it off like my father didn’t just hand me probably hundreds of dollars if not thousands in drugs.

And this is where it started to go a whole new route.

It was getting close to Thanksgiving when Joe had told me that he needed to go back home for family time through the holidays. I couldn’t be mad at him. I know he wasn’t the one on the run technically. He had told me about his ex wife and his family at home. So Billy decided I was going to stay with Lisa for the holidays.

I spent as much time with Joe before he left as I could. Then I was brought to Lisa. She had a great townhouse not far from the beach. It was in a little town that was quiet. And quiet meant I had too much time to get in my head. Lisa didn’t hover. If anything it was the opposite. She gave me keys to a car and she would hand me money every day to go on an adventure. I told her about how I wanted a bass guitar because I missed the bands but I knew I wasn’t coordinated enough for a regular guitar. She even found a tutor for me. The room I was staying in didn’t have a normal bed or anything, so it was a mattress on the floor. I didn’t care. To me this was enough for me. One day I was on my way out to the movies when I heard the machine pick up. There on the line was D… Drunk and begging me to pick up the phone. It stopped me dead in my tracks. I stood at the machine hearing him sob into the phone. “Please pick up, if you pick up right now I won’t get married today”

My heart sank. Married… What did he mean by married? My head started to spin.. and as if on cue my head spoke back. “No, he needs to make that decision for himself” My head was right and I knew it, I couldn’t save him. He needed to save himself. So I grabbed the keys and walked out the door.

I went on auto pilot trying not to think about the message I just heard and continued on to the movie. All I could hear in my head was his message on replay. Was he kidding, was it all a lie to get me to pick up, and if it wasn’t why was he marrying her? He had ran a month after our marriage talk. Why her, and why so soon?

I waited to call Kelly until after I was home. I made sure it was a while first, I went to the movie and barely watched it. Honestly, I couldn’t even tell you what movie it was. I was so distracted in my own head that I picked the first one playing. I even went to a coffee shop after, seriously trying to drag my feet from going home to Lisa’s and facing reality. Secretly I hoped I had just dreamt it all or that I was crazy and my mind was playing tricks on me.

But on the other side of the country, D was drunk and the wedding went on.