Sisters of the Road (20 page)

“
September 4.
I almost said something in the group tonight about my Dad, but then I didn’t feel like it. I was going to call up Mom and ask her why they got divorced, but I didn’t do that either. She gets so upset when I talk to her, and Rob would be there and he probably wouldn’t even let me talk to her anyway. Today at the center I met two girls, Rosalie and Karen. They just stopped by to check it out, they just came to Seattle. Karen is on the streets. Rosalie isn’t. She’s the first person I met who stopped because she didn’t want to anymore. She said one day she just couldn’t anymore, it made her sick. I don’t do it much anymore but there’s no other way to get money.

“
September 6.
Got high with Rosalie and Karen in their room. The thing I hate about living in the group house is that I don’t have any privacy. And we’re not supposed to get high either. It was good getting high, it made me forget about my Dad. Rosalie said she’s going to be a dealer, that’s the only way if you don’t date. I told her about Wayne, but I said I didn’t feel like seeing him. Karl got him started but now Wayne does all the business. I feel sorry for Karl sometimes but he sort of gives me the creeps how he lives so I don’t want to see him either.

“
September 8.
Whenever I’m not high, I think about my Dad. I keep feeling really mad. At least Wayne treated me like a real person, I mean, he told me what we were doing and explained it and everything. And he loved me, so it was all right. My Dad just did it to me when I was a little kid, when I didn’t understand. It’s really scary thinking about being so little, only five years old, and having that happen.

“
September 15.
Rosalie is down because Karen split. Karen said she was sick of supporting her because Rosalie wouldn’t do dates, but Rosalie said she was still going to deal drugs if she could, she didn’t want to do it with a man again. She couldn’t. Now she just wants to get high all the time. I’ve been doing it a lot too, because I know if I didn’t I might go down to Portland and confront my Dad. I guess the reason I don’t is I’m afraid he’d say he didn’t do anything. He’s such a hypocrite, talking about Jesus all the time and going to church. Rosalie keeps bugging me about Wayne and getting some coke from him. I said if we hooked up with him again we’d have to do dates all the time, just like I did before. She said she wouldn’t work for no white pimp and I’d be a fool if I did too. But I said she didn’t know Wayne, how he was. He wasn’t ever mean, he just talked you into things, and then there was this weird way you felt like you belonged to him. It’s harder now taking care of myself than it was with him. She said she still wanted to get some coke from him. She said, be tough girl, she said I could depend on her. But she doesn’t know Wayne, how he makes you feel.

“Yesterday I didn’t go back to the group house, I think it’s fucked they have this curfew. I didn’t go to the center either, to the group, because I did some dates last night and don’t feel like telling them. It doesn’t do any good anyway. I used to think talking made me feel better about myself, but now I don’t think anything can.”

That was the last diary entry. Trish had come down to Portland and her father had lied to her, just as she thought he would. After that, nothing much had mattered anymore. She had started working for Wayne again, taking drugs, maybe supporting Rosalie. Had Rosalie gone back to prostitution herself, or had she managed to become a dealer? Had she worked with Wayne, or against him? And how did Karl, the man who gave Trish the creeps, fit into all this?

The diary didn’t give me the answers I wanted. I looked through it again. In the back was a folded torn piece of paper tucked into the pages.

“Dear Art,

I know what you did, even if you say you didn’t. I don’t care if you say you didn’t. I hate you, you are not my father. You hurt me when I couldn’t do anything about it and real fathers don’t do that to their kids. I will never forgive you first because you did what you did and second because you lied to me. I will hate you til the day I die.

Patricia.”

P
ORTLANDIA AND SISTERS
of the Road were not the only models of help in the city; every agency had its own perspective on the problem of street kids, why they were there and what to do about it. I called the numbers Beth had given me and met with everyone she’d suggested.

It was a long Monday.

The social workers seemed uniformly optimistic in their jargon. They talked about social service delivery systems and quoted statistics to show how their various programs were succeeding. They talked about broken homes, sexual abuse, families that were no longer “intact,” drug and alcohol problems, as if such things could be solved by a little peer group interaction, a job counselor, a case worker’s timely intervention. They talked about the rapport they had with kids and how there was no problem getting kids to talk, to confide, to trust them.

But the man at the drop-in center had a much bleaker view.

“Kids tell social workers and cops what they want to hear. It’s not really manipulative, not intentionally, it’s just a way of getting adults off their backs. Most adults feel a need to solve a kid’s problems. That’s what they’re trained to do and what they feel comfortable doing. But it’s really a form of control. What the kids need is a safe space just to talk, an outlet for what happens to them on the streets. I don’t try to intervene unless they ask for help. I only ask two things of them: that they stay alive and that they not pass on the abuse.”

His name was Joe and he looked an overgrown kid himself, a tall, weedy man wearing jeans, a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and suspenders. I couldn’t quite fit him into any of the categories I had for people in the helping professions. He refused to keep his distance; what was going on out in the streets pained him as if it were happening to his own children, or himself. Even Beth, who cared so much, seemed far more self-protective.

Most of the social workers I’d talked to seemed to take my search for Trish for granted, or else they never asked. But Joe pushed me. “Why are you looking, what’s it to you?”

How easy if I could have said, “I’m a private eye,” or “I’m a cop.” How easy if I could have hid behind some professional label, instead of having to admit I had no claim on her, was in no one’s service. I couldn’t even say I knew her very well, or that by finding her I’d be able to do anything to change her life. Maybe it was my own life I wanted to change.

“I just need to find her, that’s all.”

Joe looked at me. All around there were kids, kids talking, laughing, trying on clothes from the free racks, helping themselves to toothpaste and soap from the free boxes, even sleeping amidst all the noise. In one corner was a girl crying and a boy attempting to comfort her; in another was a group playing cards. None of them looked more than sixteen.

“Don’t feel so sorry for them,” Joe said. “There’s a lot to admire and learn from here. Kids who leave home for the streets have a lot of courage. They could have stayed and taken the abuse at home. They didn’t. The way to support them is to tap into that courage.”

“But how do you get them to trust you?” I asked. “What does it take?”

“Only one thing,” he said, and laughed a little. “The hardest thing of all. You’ve got to be trustworthy.”

By the time I got home I was exhausted and fully conscious that I’d gotten nowhere. Janis had told me I was on my own for dinner; she was working late. I heated up some Szechuwan Tofu Triangles and had a beer. Then I called Detective Logan.

He was working late and his voice was flat with an undertone of frustration.

“We found Wayne. Talked to him briefly. He wouldn’t say more than that your friend Trish was his stepsister. He had no idea where she was and he didn’t know a Rosalie or an Abby.”

“That’s a lie!”

“Prosecuting a pimp is almost impossible. Even with testimony. Building a drug case or a murder case takes a lot of investigation. Wayne may be everything you say he is, but it’s going to take time and hard work to prove it. And I don’t have enough men as it is.”

“But he had Rosalie’s fake ID! Doesn’t that prove anything?”

“Maybe, maybe not. For now we’ll keep an eye on him, and if you find out anything more, give me a call.”

Like when I find Trish’s murdered body somewhere?

“What about Karl?” I said.

“He wasn’t at the address you gave us. We’ll keep trying.”

Fucking police, I thought helplessly as I hung up. Am I supposed to do everything on my own?

I was still sitting by the phone when it rang.

“Hello, hello? I want to talk to Pam Nilsen. Is this Pam?” She was shouting as if she were calling from Singapore. The connection was clear as a bell.

“Hi Carole.”

“Pam, I feel like we had a misunderstanding the other night. I never dreamed you’d leave town because of it.”

“I didn’t. I’m here to look for Trish.”

It’s not that I don’t think you’re attractive. You’re a very attractive woman. It’s just that you took me by surprise.”

“It’s all right, Carole. It wouldn’t have worked out.”

She was still shouting. “But I’ve been thinking about it. Why the hell not? Live dangerously. Screw the rules. Take a chance. I think I’ll come down and join you.”

“No, don’t do that,” I said, horrified. “I mean, I like you, it’s not that, but I’m pretty busy here. Look, can’t we just forget the whole thing? I made a mistake, I got carried away for a moment, it was just… just the coke.”

“You made a mistake?” she shouted. Then her voice suddenly dropped. “Oh, all right. I just thought I’d give you a second chance.”

“Well, I appreciate it, Carole. Maybe some other time…”

“Yeah!” she said cheerfully. “Maybe sometime when you’re not working at Best.”

Now what the hell did that mean? I wondered as I hung up. Were she and June planning a coup? Still, I felt better. It was nice of Carole to give me a chance to reject her too. Now we were even, which is more than you could say of most relationships, embryonic, full-fledged or over.

I had another beer and looked through Janis’ books, decided they were too hard for me, and turned on the TV to watch
Cagney and Lacey.

Detective Lacey was pregnant and at home. Her husband Harve, the one good man in the world, was his usual loving and nurturing self. Sergeant Cagney, meanwhile, was following a rape case, helped by an overeager young woman officer who stayed up all night feeding data into the computer. Why was this young woman so determined to find the rapist, to the detriment of her own career and the good name of the 14th Precinct? “I’m sure he’s the man we’re looking for!” “Until we’ve got proof, we can’t do anything,” Cagney said, uncharacteristically cautious. She looked through the medical files of the young woman officer and found that she had once been a rape victim. Ah-hah. A personal vendetta. She hadn’t been able to find her rapist, so she’d fixated on this one.

They gave the officer a medical leave, but she secretly kept on the case. She rented a room in the area where the rapist had attacked his victims and she donned a long brown wig—all his victims had long brown hair. There was a horrifying scene of her waiting in the rented room at night, propped up on the pillows like a child, the window open, the curtains blowing eerily in the wind. Cagney found out at the last minute where she was and raced to the scene, only to find that there had been a homicide, and the room was filled with cops. She had killed the rapist.

The young woman officer had sacrificed her police future to get revenge, not on the man who’d raped her, but on the man who’d raped so many others. She had taken the law into her own hands because the law didn’t protect women.

She and Cagney looked at each other and the scene froze, the series’ trademark ending.

And I almost burst into tears. It was as if I understood the story on some profound level and was afraid of its meaning. Was that the only way to stop violence against women? To kill men? To kill them back?

I didn’t want to believe that.

Janis came in like a quiet cyclone. “What? Watching television? I thought you’d be out on the streets still.”

“I’m exhausted,” I said. What I meant was, I couldn’t face it, couldn’t face the eyes of the men in the cars.

“I hear you,” she said unexpectedly. “I’m beat too.” She collapsed next to me on the couch. “I notice that whenever I don’t have a lover I work like a maniac. I just hate those evenings home alone.”

“Yeah.”

We sat for a moment, almost companionably, missing people, then I asked her, “Was it hard for you? Breaking up with Beth?”

“Oh, I knew it was coming, it couldn’t last. She’d just close down when I tried to talk to her; that’s her way, she shuts down, she can’t help it. Which just makes me more anxious, more demanding, I guess. Vicious circle.”

She brushed her hair behind her ears and leaned her head back, but when the phone rang she leapt up to answer it. I had the feeling she was always waiting for a call. I’d been like that myself last summer.

“It’s for you,” she said. “A man.”

Art didn’t even say hello. “I’ve found her, I’ve found Patti,” he roared. “Safe and sound.”

“Where was she?”

“Oh, I just drove past her and recognized her by chance. Since you told me she might be in Portland I’ve kept my eyes peeled.”

Just drove by? I wondered if he
had
been out on Sandy Boulevard. That’s great,” I said. “Can I talk to her?”

“Just for a minute.” He seemed reluctant. “She’s tired. But she’s all right.”

Trish came on the line. “Pam?”

“Hi,” I said. “I’ve been worried about you.”

She was silent.

“Is it hard to talk because your father’s there? I’ll come and see you tomorrow.”

“Pam,” she said again. This time it wasn’t a question, but a flat little hopeless bleat.

Art took the phone. “Safe and sound,” he said. “No need for you to worry. I’ll take care of her now.”

“I’m coming to see her tomorrow.”

“Well, maybe,” he said. “We’ll have to see how she’s feeling. Judy wants to take her shopping you know.”