Sex and Crime: Oliver's Strange Journey (33 page)

The whole cancer thing was just way too big,
way too elaborate not to be true. There was just way too much
detail for all this to be a lie.

Then one day Linda disappeared. I was used
to her calling me at least 3 or 4 times a week. Now I hadn't heard
from her in over 2 weeks. So I searched around a bit, and found an
online forum where people were talking about her. Apparently a lot
of people were very pissed at her, because altogether they had
donated tens of thousands of dollars to her and her sick baby. But
when some of those guys wanted to go visit the baby in the
hospital, and they started to ask more and more questions, it
turned out that she wasn't in any hospital. The whole cancer story
was a big lie. Linda's baby daughter was in perfect health. People
called the cops and tried to press charges against her, so she
decided it was time to disappear. I never heard from her again
after that.

I should have known. When Linda and I had
spent time together in Pennsylvania a year or so earlier, she had
seriously suggested that we should start a church together. She
didn't believe in God or heaven any more than I did, but she
thought it would be a great way to con gullible fools into donating
lots of money to us.

"Every harlot was a virgin once."

William Blake

"Prostitution happens to you because of troubles you
had. In reality no woman would choose to do that."

Catherine Deneuve

"We fear violence less than our own feelings.
Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what
anyone else can inflict."

Jim Morrison

Haley was a pretty blonde with glasses. I
had met her on one of my first trips to Florida, right after my
divorce from Donna. She was thick, but it looked good on her. She
had big, beautiful breasts. Not as large as Donna's, but not too
shabby. She built websites and sold stuff on Ebay, so we had a
couple of things in common. She also sold fancy shmancy wine
bottles.

Haley and I had the same sense of humor. I
really enjoyed hanging out with her. She had a great personality
and was very easy to talk to. She was smart, witty, funny, and
really sweet. We ended up having sex. Haley knew that I was only
visiting Florida for a couple of days, and then I was going to go
back to my house in Pennsylvania. She gave me a lift to the
airport.

We kept in touch while I was up north, and
every time I flew back down to Florida, Haley and I met up, hung
out and had sex. We made plans to go to one of the resort hotels in
Orlando together, but we never ended up going.

Over time I started to see a change in
Haley. She wasn't as cheerful anymore. She always seemed exhausted
and tired.

Then I met Alice in Pennsylvania, and I
stopped seeing Haley on my trips to Florida. Haley still called me
every few weeks though, to see if I was still with Alice, or if I
might want to get together the next time I was in Fort Myers.

After Alice ran away from rehab, and I moved
to Florida by myself, I just didn't have the ambition to meet
anyone new. I was way too depressed. Then suddenly, out of nowhere,
Haley called me again. I told her that Alice and I had broken up,
that I was living in Bonita Springs now, and that I was utterly
miserable. Haley told me that she had moved to Miami a few months
ago, and asked me if I wanted to hang out. She said she'd cheer me
up and help me forget Alice. Sure, why the hell not, I thought. I
agreed to meet her in Hollywood, Florida, between Fort Lauderdale
and Miami. We made plans for a romantic evening in Miami Beach.

While I was driving on I-75, through the
swamps of the Big Cypress National Preserve, Haley texted me: "Oh,
BTW, I live with a lot of people, so we can't hang out at my
place."

After dealing with Alice and her druggie
friends for a year and a half, my instincts told me that Haley was
now a drug addict, too. If she lived in an apartment with
roommates, she would have texted me: "I have a few roommates. So we
won't have privacy." But she wrote "I live with a lot of people."
To me, that meant she lived in a crackhouse with a bunch of random
strangers. And only addicts live in crackhouses. So that one
innocent little text made me think she was now a crackwhore. I was
right.

When I arrived at Haley's home in Hollywood,
some skinny dark-haired girl was standing on the sidewalk and got
into my car as soon as I pulled up. It was a shady neighborhood.
And now this girl just got into my car. I figured she was some
crackwhore who assumed I was cruising the ghetto to pick up a
"date." I was just about to tell the skinny strange girl to get out
of my car, when she said hello and hugged me. It was Haley. I
recognized her voice, but she looked nothing, n-o-t-h-i-n-g like
the thick pretty blonde girl I remembered.

"Honestly, I'm too tired to go to Miami
Beach. Let's just get a motel room," Haley said.

"Wow," I thought, "she doesn't waste any
time."

She told me she knew a cheap place and gave
me directions. On our way to some grimey motel in the worst part of
town, I told her I didn't even recognize her, and asked her how she
had been since the last time I saw her over a year and a half ago,
before I met Alice.

"Not so good," she said with a sad smile.
"When we are done at the motel room, do you mind if we pick up my
friend Rosie? She's at my house right now. There's a lot of drugs
there. I'm worried about her. She does drugs, but it's not safe at
that house. Do you mind if she stays the night at the motel room
with me, after we're done? At least that way I know she's not on
the streets."

"Sure, I guess," I said. "So, your friend
Rosie takes drugs, huh? What about you?"

Haley gave me a sad look and said: "Yeah, me
too."

I had never told Haley about Alice's drug
addiction. I was too embarrassed. It's not exactly something you
brag about. But now that Haley told me about her own drug problem,
I felt I could open up to her and tell her what I had been through
with Alice.

Haley was a good listener. She was very
sympathetic. "You poor thing," she said. "No wonder you're so
miserable right now. That girl broke your heart every which way
possible."

It felt good to be able to talk to someone
who understood, really understood. I teared up. Haley did, too. We
hugged and cried together. And I wasn't embarrassed about it at
all. I had talked to Linda, Crystal and Kayla about Alice, but I
never felt comfortable to let any of them know how deeply hurt I
really was. Yeah, I told them I was really depressed, but I never
cried when I talked to them about Alice. Instead I'd make sarcastic
jokes about Alice fucking some dope boy and how stupid she was for
ruining her life.

But talking to Haley was different. For some
reason we connected on a deep level, and I felt like it was ok to
be vulnerable in front of her. I didn't feel like I needed to hide
my pain behind a tough front.

On our way to the shittiest motel in town,
Haley opened up about what she had been through. The last time I
saw her about a year ago, she had been so excited, because she had
bought a little convertible. She was so proud of her new car.

But she had started snorting coke, because
her baby daddy Rodney sold it, and she got it for free. Then they
both got addicted to oxycodone pills. Those pills are basically
legal heroin. Addicts in Florida call them Blues. They crush them
up and inject them into their veins, just like the junkies in New
York inject heroin.

At some point Rodney was arrested and went
to jail, and Haley started hanging out with some black dope boy. He
ended up killing someone, and used Haley's convertible during the
murder. Her car was found at the crime scene, so now the police was
on her trail. She told them she didn't know anything, and ran away
from Fort Myers. That's how she ended up in Miami, and then
Hollywood.

She didn't know anyone when she got there,
but addicts have a sixth sense when it comes to finding drugs. It
didn't take her long at all to find a dope boy in Miami. He pimped
her out. She was raped and beaten regularly. Her life in Miami was
absolutely horrible, so she moved to Hollywood. But things weren't
much better there either.

She got arrested for prostitution and spent
time in Miami-Dade County Jail. Shortly after her release, she went
to jail again, for drug possession with intent to sell, because she
was riding around in the car with a dope boy.

When we got to the dirty motel room, she
told me that she was actually on the run from the police right now.
She was supposed to be moved from jail to a rehab facility, but she
jumped out of the car and ran. Great. So now I was aiding and
abetting a wanted fugitive. Lovely. I was starting to get a
headache.

Everything she went through came pouring out
of her. It seemed like she was talking nonstop, without even taking
a breath. I guess she was high on coke or crack. Then she asked me
if we could go back to the house where she was staying, to pick up
Rosie. But we had just gotten to the motel, and I really wasn't in
the mood to drive all the way back to where we just came from. So
she tried to bribe me: "You could fuck both of us! Rosie is really
hot. You're gonna like her." That was the first time a girl asked
me if I wanted to have a threesome.

Threesomes sound great in theory. But to me,
the thought of disappointing not just one but two girls at the same
time, seems like way too much pressure. I think I'd be way too
nervous, and probably wouldn't even be able to get hard. I prefer
being with just one girl.

Haley and I had sex. It was a pretty sad
experience. She was completely different than I remembered her. She
was so skinny and mangy. And where her big beautiful breasts used
to be, she now had two saggy skin flaps that looked like deflated
balloons. She used to be such a sweetheart. But now she was
overacting like a porn star, grinding her pussy into me like she
just couldn't get enough of my dick. She kept screaming and moaning
so loud, I thought the people in the next room would complain about
the noise. I didn't like it. And being around her in this condition
was actually getting pretty stressful.

After we finished, we weren't even dressed
yet, and she already wanted to go back to the house. Supposedly to
get Rosie, but by now I was pretty sure she really just wanted to
go back there to get more drugs. I told her I had a headache, and
that I wanted to go back home to Bonita Springs. I offered to drop
her back off at the house, and then she and Rosie would have to
figure out a way to get back to the motel room on their own.

A few days later some guy, who sounded like
a cop, left a voicemail on my phone. He said Haley got arrested,
and she wanted me to bail her out. I called him back. He turned out
to be a bondsman, not a cop. I told him that I didn't really know
Haley all that well, and that I wasn't going to pay $1200 to bond
her out. He told me that he couldn't blame me, because the charges
she had were pretty serious, and people in her position tend to not
show up for their court dates, and then I'd be on the hook for a
lot of money. Haley spent the next 45 days in jail.

As soon as she got out, she called me and
thanked me for not bailing her out. She said she had been totally
off the chain and her drug use had become so severe, she probably
would have died, if she didn't sober up in jail. Haley told me that
by not bailing her out, I probably saved her life. She said she was
all better now, and that she would never go back to using drugs.
She was tired of that horrible life and she wanted to go back to
school and make something of herself. I was really happy to hear
that, and we made plans to get together again soon.

A couple of days later, she called me again
and told me she had moved back to Fort Myers, and she found a room
for rent. She said she just needed $20 to be able to move in.

"$20? To move into a room?" I asked.
"Really? Are you sure, you're not just asking me for $20 to go buy
some crack?"

At first she denied it, but then she
admitted it: "Yeah, it's for crack. But I'm not gonna let it get
out of control this time. I'm just gonna smoke crack casually, here
and there. On the weekends. I'm never gonna let it get as bad as I
was before I went to jail."

Yeah, right. I had heard that story before.
I knew that if she starts smoking crack again, she'd be a wreck in
a matter of days. I told her: "I'm sorry, sweetie. But I don't want
to be the one to make you relapse, so I'm not going to give you
money for crack."

She called me almost every day after that,
and we started hanging out again. She stayed at a house off of Palm
Beach Boulevard, with a man named Lorne. He was a 70 year old
convicted drug smuggler who had spent his youth in prison. He only
had one arm.

Haley had gained a lot of weight while she
was in jail. But she lost it again at an alarming rate, because she
was smoking so much crack and not eating. Palm Beach Boulevard is
one of the worst drug neighborhoods in Fort Myers. There seems to
be at least one crack house, or trap house as kids like to call
them these days, on every street.

Haley supported her drug habit by walking
along Palm Beach Boulevard, getting in guys' cars and having sex
with them. Sometimes for as little as $10. Or she spent all day and
night in a trap house, having sex with whoever would stop by and
throw her a couple of dollars or a hit of crack.