* * *
The cops continue to call me, asking me to go to one thing or another, and there is a jerk in the socket above my stomach, a repulsion that has me tasting bile, but I take my thumb and make circles on my abdomen, gulp down a drink to wash the taste away, and find a way to say yes. It reminds me of our yearly decision about whether or not we’re gonna pay our taxes, how I sit down with whatever pay stubs Marcus or I got and I stare at those numbers and the pure desire to get away boils up and I have to swallow it and make a choice because if I pay those taxes, then I forgo rent or new shoes or bus money. Even when I know the IRS could come after me, I would rather have a well of fear in my stomach from some unsigned documents than no way to survive the tax month. So most of the time I don’t pay the taxes and most of the time when the cops call, I agree to join them, despite the disgust and the shame and the undeniable urge to run away.
The parties always take place at night, a revolving door of badges and men who take turns and then hand me envelopes full of their protection. Usually there are a few other girls or women, different rooms they keep us in so we don’t get to talk to each other. Sometimes they don’t even pay me, say they’re keeping me safe from the next raid. Tell me about the stings, the next time all the uniforms unleash themselves, like it’s gonna pay for breakfast, for Trevor’s rent and mine. Like it’s gonna make what I’m doing feel like anything but dirt shoved beneath fingernails, something I can’t figure out how to get out of.
I was able to give Vernon enough for him to not evict Dee either, told Trevor to hand Vernon my envelope of cash next time he came knocking, but April is approaching and more and more of them are trading some kind of protection for my body, saying I don’t need their cash when it is all I need.
This my job, my roof, the clothes on Trevor’s back. This every night now, a full ring of them, my own clan of men, and I don’t worry so much about not having enough to pay for hot water. Instead, I worry about bruises and guns and what Marcus thinks. Stopped telling myself it’s just sex, just skin, because it has become so much more than that; there is the sex and then there is the terror, the fear, the marble white of their eyes.
Once I paid March’s rent, I bought Trevor a new ball, the ones that are so fancy they paint them black. Gave me a little hope back when he sprung right off the soles of his shoes and it looked like he might’ve just been happy enough to dunk his whole body back into the shit pool. His smile makes it easier to tell myself it’s worth it when I hear a siren and a new part of my body knots; a whole rope wrapping around each of my ribs, like my bones preparing to be broken. Lately, the only way I can get through a night with the men is by taking shots and trying to sink into the dizziness of it, so I don’t see what they’re doing, so my body doesn’t know what’s going on enough to fear it. I don’t know if it works, but I know that when I wake up the next morning, I’m still alive and Trevor is still waiting for me to walk him to the bus stop and, at this point, that’s enough.
Tony keeps trying to apologize for his brooding and talk me out of doing what I’m doing, like I have that much of a choice. Funeral day would be a reminder of the bloodstains in the backseat of all their cars, when they’re just a little too rough, and I can’t handle standing next to Alé in a funeral home I know I am edging closer to never leaving. Alé can’t make me remember what it was like before the statues started moving, before I was the girl who wore a man’s skin and not just his clothes.
On the days when none of the uniformed men call, during the stretches of time when I start to think I am free, eating a meal that doesn’t send me right back into the nausea, I start planning a way to live without cops or sex, maybe returning to Bottle Caps and begging Ruth to give me just a couple hours of work.
This is one of those days. Actually, it’s the seventh day they haven’t called and I don’t have any more money in reserve. My insides are starting to slosh again and I know I gotta find a way to make more money, cops or not. Today, I swing by La Casa Taquería on the way to Bottle Caps. It’s not quite lunchtime yet and the place is sprinkled with folks. I spot Alé at a table taking an order and when she looks up and sees me, I catch the way her eyes widen. I stick my hands in the pockets of Daddy’s old corduroy jacket, the only one that Uncle Ty didn’t take with him, and walk up to Alé.
She finishes the order and takes me into her arms. “Hey,” she whispers in my ear, mid-hug, and it’s so simple, but there’s something about it that warms me up.