2 Sides 2 Every Story

 

FIVE

Even though I went back to finish school after Neffe was born, I had to get on welfare to support myself and the baby. It’s a reality that a lot of women in similar situations have to face every day. No one likes to have a picture plastered on a welfare card. I decided to enroll in a training school to be a medical assistant to try and get an income coming in.

Not only did I enroll in the training school, I completed it. That’s right, got my certificate and everything. I graduated from Career Time College. It was a nursing school or something like that. This was the profession I thought I was going to be in. An honest, respectable profession in the medical field that may have changed the way things panned out for me. I know the whole medical terminology from AD to ICU to cardiac arrest. And no, it ain’t from watching reruns of ER or House. Holla. That knowledge came from a school, and it stayed with me throughout all these years. Soon after graduation, I got a job at a hospital.

As an employee of a hospital, I know I was doing a good job because the patients took a liking to me. I got very attached to my patients and that became a problem. See, I’m a very sensitive person. Two of the patients became very sick while I was there. Albert Jr. had full-blown AIDS, and another patient had cancer. It was all too depressing and I just couldn’t take coming to work everyday and having to look at them dying. You get close to people and then in the blink of an eye, they’re gone. I knew pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to be able to stomach a job where I would come to work one day and see somebody and then come to work the next day and they’d be dead.

I struggled hard after my firstborn.  She had the most beautiful name, Neffeteria. She was every bit of that.  Things got really hard for me.  Welfare wasn’t enough. So I met this semi-drug dealer.

Charles was a friend from high school. Back in school, Charles was just a normal guy, someone you thought would have a regular job. But after we graduated, Charles started hanging out with the wrong group of people. And you know how that story goes.

We hit it off really good though.

It was probably about the middle of January, and despite the fact that we were in California, it was cold. Neffe was only about a month old. She was my baby though. Most of the time, Neffe stayed at home with my mother who would take care of her. I was broke of course, and my mother and I weren’t getting along. But I had Neffe with me a lot back then.

Anyway, Charles and I were running the streets a lot. It was the beginning of the downfall for me. When I wasn’t at home, you could find me on the streets. Charles and I were hanging tough at that time and he told me he knew how we could make some money. Together, we met some people that were in the fast life.  Yes, the fast life.  They were pimps and prostitutes, not hoes or hookers. Before I knew it, it became part of my environment and I was one of them. 

            One day, I got in the car with him and he drove to San Paolo. Whenever I felt hopeless in my life, I didn’t really know how to deal with it. Instead of facing my problems head on, I used to run away from them. Thinking back, I know that’s where I went wrong. Once again, I ran away. It wasn’t the right decision, especially with a baby that’s only a month old. My self-esteem was so bad at that time, I didn’t care what I was about to do to my body, and I never thought about how it would affect my family or my children. I just knew that I hated being home. My mother was so strict and I hated living in her house. Anything was better than being at home in her house. And so I really didn’t care. I left.

            I had a feeling that Charles’ idea of making money was going to involve some things that I had never experienced before. We were driving around in his car and he pulled up to a dark corner, dropped me off there and handed me a box of rubbers.

            “What the hell is these for?” I said to Charles, holding up the box of condoms. He had some nerve, I thought. I knew what they were for, but I couldn’t believe that he was leaving me out on the street with a box of rubbers. I wanted to hear him say it. This fool thought I was going to just hit the streets because he said so.

            “You know what they for, Frankie. We gotta get this money.” Charles said. “All you gotta do is stand here and wait for somebody to pull over, and they gonna offer you some money.” Charles raised his eyebrows at me in a gesture that suggested I knew what to do next.

            I looked at Charles, and contemplated the situation. I had heard about what he was doing and the types of people he was hanging around. But could I really do this? How much money could I actually make? And really, how bad could it be? It’s not like anybody out here knew who I was. That first night, I never anticipate having to make a living like that for so long. It was just something I would do to make some quick cash before I could figure out other ways to make money. I looked over at Charles, who had a smirk on his face.

            “Aight. Pick me up later.” I said to him. “I’m bout to get this money.”

            And with that, I had decided to take part in the oldest profession in the book. Prostitution. I stood out there and waited until eventually my first customer pulled up.

“You got some money,” I said to the driver. He flashed me the dead presidents and I jumped in his car. Slammed the door, took the cash, and then performed him a service. When we were done, I told him to take me back to the corner he’d picked me up from. It happened so fast, and afterwards, I was holding the cash in my hands. I figured I could do this. I just needed to get some money for now. I stood out there in the cold and waited for someone else to pull up, and they did. And it became a routine. At that time, I didn’t know the road my actions would lead me down. I was just trying to catch a date.

            After getting through the first day of being out on the streets, I was ready to get paid. I kept going with it because I liked how the money came in fast. I was thinking, ‘wait a minute, they paying for this.’ Holla. Back then, I was a good-looking little lady. Before I had all them kids, I had the double Ds, and the girls were always out. I could bring home $1500 a night prostituting. And I needed that money. But the sad part was that Charles needed it too, and so he put me out there to get money for him. He was using me and I was working for him. Charles became my pimp.