Believe Like a Child (18 page)
M
eanwhile, in North Philly, Harlin was falling apart. Not so much because Alessa was gone or because he missed her, but because the money she had earned for him was no longer there. He had had his crew canvassing the neighborhood in search of her since she had disappeared. The longer she was missing, the more her absence fed his rage. He gloated over all the ways he would teach her the lesson of her life, when he found her. He would make her regret she had ever been born. He knew Tasha was in on it and intended to get the truth out of her. He didn’t care if she was his sister. No one double-crossed Harlin, not even Tasha.
Now that Alessa wasn’t around, Tasha visited her brother far less frequently. When she looked in on him, she could see he was becoming desperate for income to support his drug habit. Two of his three large television sets were gone, along with some of the paintings he had bought over the years. She assumed he was selling his belongings for cash to buy dope. He was also beginning to pressure her to sell more weed. The quantity she’d been selling for years and which he had considered enough to meet his needs was insignificant to him now. She tried to talk to him about his addiction in an attempt to make him want to get help, but this only enraged him further.
Tasha also knew that he was on edge from his drug use and his obsession about finding Alessa. He could very easily become violent. She had told her parents about what was going on with Harlin before she went to his house on a Friday morning so that they would be there shortly after she arrived.
“Hi Harlin,” she said. “You doing okay?”
He scowled at her. “I will be doing better when you tell me where she is. Don’t even try to lie to me, Tasha. I know that you helped her. Otherwise, you would be a crazed bitch by now, wanting to know what had happened to her. You better tell me now. The sooner you tell me, the easier it will be.”
“I don’t know where she is,” Tasha said, trying to control the tremor in her voice. “And what do you mean by ‘the easier it will be’? Are you threatening me?”
“Nah, course not!” Harlin said nonchalantly. “I don’t need to threaten my baby sister. Tasha, I don’t care who you are. If you fuck me over, I will always make it right. You know how I operate and you know what I am capable of doing. So the way I figure it is, if you don’t tell me where she is, you will have your sweet ass out on the street tonight making me money. I’ll have clients set up for you by noon. The decision is yours. Either I turn you out on the streets tonight or you tell me where she is and this all goes away. What’s it gonna be?”
For the first time in her life, Tasha began to panic. She knew Harlin all too well and understood perfectly that he would do exactly as he had threatened. Until this moment, she had never been as terrified of him. She had always had him protect her. Tasha tried to buy time. She knew her parents would be there any minute. She didn’t want to tell her brother where Alessa was, without warning her first to give her time to move.
“Harlin, why are you treating me like this?” Tasha began, forcing out some tears. “Don’t you love me anymore? How could you even think of sending me out on the street to sell sex? I have nothing if I don’t have you, Harlin.”
Harlin stepped up close to her. “You’re so right!” he said. “You don’t have nothing without me. So you tell me where she is or
you
will be out making me the money she owes me.”
Just then, the front door was flung open and Harlin’s parents stepped into his living room. Tasha breathed a silent sigh of relief. Harlin’s parents were shocked at his appearance. When they confronted him on his drug use, he turned belligerent.
“So what?” he said defiantly. “What the fuck do you want from me? If you don’t like it, get the fuck out of my house!”
Harlin’s mother rose to her feet and slapped him across the face. She turned to her husband and gripped Tasha by the arm. “You can see us when you decide to make your life right,” she told her son. “Until then, you are not to come near us. Do you understand me?”
Harlin gave her a wicked smile. “Sure, Mother, whatever you say.” Then he looked at Tasha and said, “You know the deal.”
As Harlin’s parents and sister left his house, they were all visibly shaken. Their mother turned to Tasha and asked, “What did he mean by ‘you know the deal’?”
Tasha’s eyes darted away from her mother. “Nothing, Mom,” was her evasive reply. “He’s just talking shit, because he’s all fucked up on dope. I have no idea what he meant. Let’s just go home.”
Tasha knew she needed a plan and quick. She would call Alessa at the shelter, when she got back to her house. She needed to find a way to protect both of them now, even as she mourned the loss of the brother she had once loved deeply.
D
uring the same two weeks that Tasha was racking her brains to find a way out of the trap her brother had set for her, Alessa was living the closest to a normal life she had ever known at Eliza Shirley. There were always people around. The staff was friendly and helpful. Her roommates were nothing to write home about, but for the most part, they minded their own business. Although they wanted to know about her past, Alessa did everything she could to avoid giving them any information. All they got out of her was that she had left her home in Plymouth Meeting and magically appeared here at the shelter. Behind her back, Alessa’s roommates gossiped about how she must be some spoiled brat who had had a tiff with Mommy and Daddy and gone running.
Alessa took long walks in the city with Ebby. She had completely changed her appearance. She had cut her hair short and dyed it blonde. She had bought a cheap pair of sunglasses from a local store and never went out without wearing them. Sometimes, she would wear a baseball cap that Ebby had given her. In spite of that, she lived in constant fear that Harlin would find her or that one of his crew would recognize her.
Ebby tried to allay her anxieties by reminding her that two whole weeks had passed since she left North Philly, but Alessa knew better. She knew that when Harlin was mad, he got revenge. Ebby assured her that a detailed description of him had already been given to the police. Alessa tried to relax, but was certain Harlin would find her. In therapy, Ebby tried coaxing her to get in touch with her sister, Rosabella. Based on what Alessa had told her, she understood that Rosabella had never caused her sister any harm. Alessa believed that out of all her family, Rosabella alone may have been aware of what had happened to her and how Caterina and Danny had both used her.
Although Alessa thought about calling Rosabella, she was apprehensive of being rejected by her. While she would have loved to have at least one family member in her life as part of her support system, she was terrified that it would give the others the license to come rushing back into her life too. Not that any of them had ever searched for her. When she last talked to Zoe nine months earlier, she had learned that no further inquiries had been made about her whereabouts. Alessa was glad the pricks had gone back to their fucked-up lives and left her alone. She hated all of them, but she especially despised Caterina and Uncle Danny. She would never forgive either for the life they had condemned her to.
While at the shelter, Alessa started classes to prepare for her GED test. She knew education would be the first step to a better life. Her roommates teased her that GED stood for “Good Evening, Dummy”. She thought that was clever of them and giggled. All these years, the people in Alessa’s life had always sprung surprises on her, forcing her into situations that were hateful for her. Ebby was a surprise too, but a pleasant one. She had come to love her in a way that was different from the way she loved Rhonda and Tasha. The girls had both protected her, but Ebby was teaching her to move forward.
Ebby never judged or made fun of anyone. She taught Alessa how to be kind to herself and to look deep inside to find her inner strength. Alessa, of course, still wasn’t sure if she had any. Within a few short weeks, however, she knew she had a chance for a new life.
Ebby had told her, “Not everyone can turn their life around. It takes a lot of resilience to take your life back into your hands and many people give up. You managed to deal with the ugliest circumstances, without making your life any worse than it already was. That takes a lot of courage and inner strength. Why do you think you were able to survive the way you did, Alessa?”
“I don’t know, Ebby,” she replied. “I guess I’ve never seen it as survival. It was just my life. Most kids are raised on Cheerios, but I was raised on sex.” Alessa blushed. “I really don’t know. I always wanted to be something more so that I could get away from all that fucked-up shit. I’m not sure why bad shit follows me, though. It’s not like I go looking for it.”
“No, of course you don’t look for it. For some reason, people take advantage of you. We need to fix that part of you so it doesn’t happen again. We need you to give out signals that you are NOT to be messed with and that you command respect. I believe you will achieve that kind of freedom in your life. You are certainly capable of anything. So now we just need to get you focused on moving forward.”
Alessa loved her sessions with Ebby. Time spent with her always made her feel as if there were no limits to what she could be or do. She confessed to her that when they weren’t together, her inner hope and confidence seemed to recede.
Ebby tilted her head to the side and said, “You know, there is nothing I can say that will make you any stronger than you already are. You need to find the place inside yourself to hold onto your confidence. There’s no magic by which I can give you confidence and strength. If you have it when you’re with me, then it is yours and you need to acknowledge that as the truth. If you give me credit for how you feel, you’re just denying yourself once again of the power that you hold. Give yourself credit and stop second-guessing everything. The sooner you learn to be kind to yourself, the sooner you will heal and move on with the life you want. It’s time to stop letting other people run your life and control how you feel.”
Two weeks had passed since Alessa escaped Harlin’s iron rule. She remained on alert, fearing that any moment, he would come looking for her. But she was starting to see that she could have so much more than she had ever had before.
She was in her room, studying for the GED, when one of the staff members entered. She told her there was a telephone call for her. Alessa’s heart began to pump wildly in her chest. The only person who knew she was there was Tasha.
Alessa practically ran to get the phone.”Hello?”
“Alessa,” Tasha said urgently, “you need to move. Harlin is turning me out on the streets tonight, if I don’t tell him where you are. You need to leave from there right now! Your life depends on moving fast. I’m sorry, sweetie. I love you.”
Before Alessa could respond, the phone went dead.
A
lessa darted off like a rocket to find Ebby. One look at her and Ebby could tell the girl was terror-stricken. She rushed over to her and asked breathlessly, “What’s wrong?”
Alessa told her about Tasha’s phone call. “Ebby, you have no idea what he will do to me! No one gets one over on Harlin. I need to leave this place
now.
Otherwise, he will find me and kill me or worse, take me back to North Philly. Oh Ebby, I can’t go back there again!” she wailed, flinging herself into Ebby’s arms.
Ebby assessed the situation quickly. She didn’t want to lose Alessa to the streets again, but she would also have to consider the safety of the other women in the shelter. She led Alessa to her office and asked one of the staff members to have the shelter director come and see her. “Tell him it’s an emergency,” she said urgently.
Ebby sat Alessa down on her small sofa and seated herself beside her. The girl clung to her and cried, her mind racing ahead to consider what her next step should be. Perhaps she could move to another shelter in the city?
Jon, the director, came into Ebby’s office within minutes. A handsome black man, he was six feet two inches tall and had the physique of a body builder. “What’s going on?” he asked in a voice that rang with authority and commanded immediate respect.
As Ebby explained the situation to him, there was an extra edge to the concern in her voice which he did not escape him. The next moment, he had picked up the phone and dialed the Philadelphia Police department. They had experience dealing with this kind of situation in shelters all over the city. In the past, pimps and abusive partners had gone looking for the women who had fled to the shelter for safety. Jon stepped out of Ebby’s office for a few minutes and returned with one of the staff members who led Alessa to the office across the hall.
When they were alone, Jon turned to Ebby again. “What’s going on?” he inquired. “We’ve been through this a hundred times, but I’ve never seen you this shaken.”
Ebby explained the nature of the relationship between Harlin and Alessa. “It goes beyond him pimping her out, Jon, this man sounds like the Godfather of North Philly,” she said. “Alessa has seen him kill a man. From what she told me, this Harlin character opened a guy up with a knife from stomach to sternum. He was apparently protecting Alessa, after he caught another man raping her. However, since then, he has been earning a pile by forcing her to have sex with other men. It’s a real knight-in-shining-armor tale.”
Jon grunted his acknowledgement of the situation just as someone knocked on the office door. The Philadelphia Police had arrived within minutes. The two of them told the officers about Harlin, without divulging all the details that Alessa had shared. The policemen knew the routine. They could gauge from Jon’s expression that this asshole, Harlin, could become a real problem for Alessa and everyone else at the shelter. Just to be on the safe side, they posted two men inside the shelter lobby.
The officer-in-charge turned to Ebby. “Ma’am,” he told her crisply, “she has to be moved out of here today. We can help with transportation, but you’ll have to find somewhere else for her to go. We wouldn’t recommend moving her to another shelter in the city, because that will be the first place the guy goes looking.”
After the police had left, apart from the two officers staked out in the lobby, Ebby brought Alessa back into her office and sat her down. Alessa had calmed down, knowing the police were in the building. Ebby explained to her that she would have to leave the shelter, both for her own safety and for that of the others who lived and worked there. Alessa frantically searched her mind for a response, but could find none.
“You’re not in this alone, Alessa,” Ebby reassured her. “I’m going to help you, but you need to be strong. You were strong enough to leave Harlin. And now you have to be stronger still. I’ll be honest with you: this is not going to be easy. I’m in this with you, though. I will do everything I can to help you, okay?”
Alessa nodded.
“Do you think you might be able to stay with your sister, Rosabella, for a couple of weeks?”
Unsure of everything now, Alessa said, “I don’t know, Ebby. I haven’t talked to her in almost two years. My family doesn’t even know if I’m dead or alive.”
“Well, I think it may be worth a try,” Ebby decided, leading the girl to her desk. “Do you think you could call her?”
Very reluctantly, Alessa agreed and gave her her sister’s full name and last-known address. Ebby dialed Information got Rosabella’s telephone number from the operator. Then she looked at Alessa and asked, “Are you ready?”
Alessa nodded. Ebby dialed the number she had been given and handed the receiver to her.
Rosabella answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Hi Rosabella, it’s Alessa. How are you?”
It took a few seconds for this information to sink in. “How am I?” Rosabella responded. “I’m fine. Alessa, where the hell are you? I thought you were dead. Uncle Danny told everyone that some creep had come and picked you up the night you left. He said you had told him that you hated us all and if he tried to stop you, the dude you were with would kill him. Mom acted real upset at first and everyone felt sorry for her. The way she presented it, it was all about her. She played the grieving mother to perfection. She got a lot of attention for a while and you know how she thrives on attention. Anyway, at that point, the family and the neighbors were bringing in food and shit.”
Alessa was silent as she listened to Rosabella. She had been right all along; they had never really made a serious effort to look for her. And her Uncle Danny had gone out of his way to make it her fault. Sick old bastard, she thought.
“Rosabella,” she finally said, after her sister had finished speaking, “none of that is true. None of those things ever happened. I left, because I couldn’t live there anymore. Uncle Danny wasn’t very nice to me and once Rhonda died, I was like a prisoner in the house.”
By her sister’s tone, Rosabella suspected there was more to the story. Their mother was not only a liar, but someone who lived in denial, the queen of her own fantasy world, believing only what suited her to believe. Rosabella had never had any respect for their mother, but she had not thought to share her feelings with her younger sister. “Where are you?” she asked her now.
“I’m in the city. I came here after I left home. I was living in North Philadelphia, until a couple of weeks ago. Rosabella, I’m in trouble. There’s this guy looking for me and I need a place to stay where he won’t find me. He’s very dangerous. I ran from him when he turned me out on the street to prostitute for him. He does a lot of drugs, and Rosabella, I watched him kill a man. Do you think I could come and stay with you for a couple of weeks?”
Rosabella hesitated. “Alessa,” she said gently, “I would love to help you out. Really, I would. But since you left, I’ve had a baby and I’m living with my boyfriend now. He was okay, at first. But he’s turned out to be a big asshole. I have to ask his permission for anything I do. I could ask him about your coming to stay, but if it pisses him off—and everything seems to these days—he’ll just beat the hell out of me.”
“Oh my God, Rosabella!” Alessa cried out, alarmed. “Why are you staying with someone like that?”
Rosabella was sobbing now. “Where am I gonna go?” she mumbled between tears. “Our parents are useless and everyone else we know thinks we’re just white trash. It’s not like I have a lot of options. Besides, he’s okay as long as I don’t piss him off. How did our lives get so fucked-up?”
“Because our parents abandoned us a long time ago,” Alessa replied sadly. “They focused on their own survival at the cost of their children. Mom is a selfish fucking bitch!” She took a deep breath before asking, “What about Anna or Anthony? Where are they?”
“Anna met some guy, got married and moved to Arizona,” Rosabella told her. “I talk to her about once a month. She seems happy, but she did admit that her husband drank a lot. She doesn’t have any kids yet. Anthony moved out and is living with a girl he met at a bar. They seem content, but he works long, crazy hours. So I rarely get to talk to him. Being the only boy in the family, he didn’t have as difficult of a time growing up as we did. Mom always favored him over us girls. You know that whole ‘my Italian son’ bullshit. When I see him, which isn’t often, he always slips me some money to buy stuff for the baby.”
“Do I have a niece or nephew?” Alessa asked her.
“You have a niece. We named her Eva; it means the ‘breath of life’.”
It was only natural that Rosabella should choose a name based on its meaning, Alessa thought. From the remote recesses of memory, she dredged up the meaning of her own name: “defender of mankind”. Not that she felt like a defender of anything at all, but she did cherish the fact that her grandmother had chosen the name because she had seen at least some good in her. Maybe someday, she would be able to live up to her name, but today was not the day. Today, all she wanted was to run and hide. Get as far away from Harlin as humanly possible. “Listen, Rosabella,” she said, “I have to go now.”
“But where will you go?” Rosabella screeched into the phone. “How will I know you’re okay? Who is this guy anyway?”
Alessa expelled a long sigh. “I’ll be fine,” she reassured her sister. “Please don’t worry about me. I will tell you everything once I get settled. I’ll call you then.”
“Do you promise to call me, Alessa?” Rosabella’s voice sounded desperate.
“Yes, I will. You take care of yourself and Eva. Be safe and don’t let that asshole beat on you.”
Alessa hung up the phone, having concluded that Rosabella’s life wasn’t much rosier than her own pathetic one. At least, her sister hadn’t been forced to fuck her own uncle or strange men to make money.
Ebby had been overhearing Alessa’s side of the conversation and didn’t need to be told that sending her to her sister’s place to stay for a while wasn’t an option. Alessa seemed stoic as she told Ebby she would leave the shelter and figure out a solution. She was beginning to withdraw, once again, to her quiet place, an alternative universe within her mind, from which she drew her strength.
Ebby watched her disengage, and took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. “No,” she said firmly. “That’s not how it’s going to be. Go pack your belongings and meet me out in the lobby in half an hour.”
Alessa stared at her, as if she were talking to her in another language. But she obeyed.
Thirty minutes later, she was back in the lobby.
Ebby was waiting for her. “Come on,” she told Alessa, “we are leaving through the back entrance.”
Stepping out into the sunlight, Alessa saw a black sedan waiting for them. Ebby guided her to the car and they both got in.
Ebby turned to Alessa. “The Philadelphia Police department arranged for this car to get us out of here,” she explained. “That way, if anyone is watching, he won’t know you’re in here.”
Alessa looked scared and confused. “Where are you taking me?” she asked in alarm.
Ebby put her hand comfortingly over Alessa’s. “To my house,” she answered.