big—New York, L.A., you know, I had dreams. I was working in a bar over at Five Points and going to school. Things were great at first. Then Steve started to change. He became abusive. We used to be so close.”
“What changed?”
“He started hanging with this tough crowd. Sometimes he’d come home with money, and he wouldn’t tell me how he got it. We fought. A lot. He told me that he had some people he wanted me to meet. I didn’t like them. But it seemed important to him and I thought at the time maybe we could work things out. I guess that’s how the drugs came into the picture.”
In that, at least, her parents had been correct. But Steve hadn’t vanished, and Lena wasn’t living on the street. He had stayed in her life, and ruined it utterly, and Lena was living somewhere far worse than on the street.
The people, who had eventually discovered her through her boyfriend, weren’t interested in art. They were the kind of people who saw her youth and beauty as a commodity, one that they traded in every day for the thing that matters most, the money that brings with it power. They have a trap that always works: Heroin. It was enjoying a certain vogue at the moment. It was also killing lots of kids.
The next thing Lena knew, she was “entertaining,” which boiled down to turning tricks for her newfound “friends” who put them up in the lousy apartment house where I had found her and made sure she needed something only they could provide—so she couldn’t go anywhere else. I’d seen it before, heard every word of her story told by other young people in the same predicament, and I knew that I would see and hear it all again. People run away, and they are like people running with knives in their hands; they fall on them, and they hurt themselves, sometimes to death.
“It was awful—the first time. He owed these people money and Steve said they were going to kill him . . . unless I . . . and then he said they told him they would kill us if I tried to leave. Steve said they have a lot of people . . . people everywhere, that’s why no one will cross them. I had to do . . . this . . .” Her hand took in her entire predicament in one vague sweep, “. . . and so here I am.”
She looked at me with big, frightened eyes. Good old Steve. I had heard that one, too. I asked Lena for the names of the creeps. She came up with a name that I recognized. I knew his real name, so did the police; but it didn’t matter; the only name that applied to him anymore was Big Daddy. He was the smack guru from the North Side that controlled the waxing and waning of a mind-blowing heroin blizzard that blew into The City, the North Side, and the tortured lives of the people he and his minions had corrupted. Like Lena.
“Lena, you and I both know, the threats of Big Daddy and his henchmen aside, that it is staying in the present situation, and not leaving, that means dying, too. Maybe not as quick, but it’s a sure bet.”
“But I can’t leave . . . just pick up and leave. Steve . . . he wouldn’t let me . . .”
“You don’t have to worry about that. You can leave here any time you want and nobody can change that. Don’t be afraid of Steve or anyone.” It sounded so good I wanted to believe it. She looked down for a long time, her pale arms shaking, and when she spoke, I barely heard her.
“Not like this.” Her eyes rose to meet mine. Though they were still filled with tears, I could see there was a great deal of determination there, also. “I’d leave here, go back home, but . . . I can’t. Not this way. It would kill them to see me this way.”
I touched her shoulder as I stood.
“I can understand you wanting to kick this before you go home, but that’s not the smart play here, Lena.”
She shook her head adamantly. “No.”
“At the very least you need to get out of here. Away from the dealers and the junk. If it’s not in front of you every day, your chances are better. Go somewhere that you