Ariel Gore - Santa Fe Noir

Despite all that, my awareness of this dark side of existence had, for the most part, faded conveniently into the background once I’d gotten out into the world on my own. Until now.

“Holy fucking shit,” I said, “it sounds like the house was being used for sex trafficking. That shit is real.”

I told her about the recent bust in Albuquerque, and my Aunt Lupita, as we gulped down the rest of our Manhattans. We talked about how fucked up it is that this shit goes on everywhere, right under people’s noses, because people want to believe it’s not happening. But even gleaming, tech-wealthy San Francisco is known to be one of the biggest sex-trafficking hubs in the world.

“Well, if the cops won’t do anything, I guess I’m just gonna have to scope it out myself,” I said to Erica before calling it a night.

Which is why I’m sneaking down this driveway right now after a couple of weeks of driving by at different hours, on the lookout for anything I can use to get the cops to go over there again.

I make it past the toys and around to the back of the house, out of view from the street. I take a second to catch my breath. I wait another to see if anyone has noticed my trespassing.

The house feels deserted. There’s no sounds at all other than the singing of the birds in the trees. So I turn to the sheds in the backyard. The first in my line of sight are the two that look like little houses.

I head over to the first, stand by the front door as silently as humanly possible, and lean my ear in to listen for sounds of human life. Nothing. So I walk around to the side and try to peer in the window, but I can’t see a thing behind the thick dark cloth on the other side.

I repeat my motions with the second shed, with the same results. This leaves only the concrete shed in the back corner. The one that had the light on inside.

I don’t scare easily but I’m aware of my heart racing and pounding in my chest as I approach it. I stop for a second and reconsider. I’ve come this far unspotted, unhurt, and, most importantly, un- traumatized . Maybe I should cut my losses and leave now.

But I keep seeing SOS Sex in my mind. The place those words were scrawled on is right in front of me, and it might’ve just been teenagers being stupid, but it might not. I have to find out, because if it’s as bad as I suspect it might be, I need to do something.

I walk over toward the concrete shed. It’s about six feet by eight feet and there are no visible windows from this side except a small one in the rusty metal door. I walk over to the door and stop. I steady myself and wait for several minutes, listening intently. I remember that I might want a picture of what I see, and take my cell phone out of my pocket to be ready. Then I take a very deep breath, turn to face the window, and I look in.

The light’s still on but it’s dim and the window is dirty so it’s a hard to make out anything at first. As my eyes begin adjusting, I see a small wooden chair next to a plastic folding table covered with alcohol bottles and other crap, and across from them: a metal cot.

My heart skips a beat. I quickly look away and glance around me to make sure no one’s there. I look over the fence at the house for sale on the other side. No one. I pull up camera mode on my phone and look back in.

The cot has a thin mattress and old pillow on it, and wait... there’s something hanging from the metal frame. I squint, forcing my eyes to adjust further to make out the shape. It’s a pair of handcuffs.

Holy shit.

I start backing away from the door reflexively but remember that I should take a picture to show the cops. I head reluctantly back to the door, point, zoom, press, then make for the back of the house without checking to make sure it came out okay.

I stop for a second to catch my breath before heading back down the driveway to the sidewalk. I look at the picture. You can’t see them at first but when I zoom it in there they are: handcuffs on a metal cot.

I make it to my car and drive away, heart still racing. I don’t know what feels weirder: what I saw, or the fact that it was right there, in this cute family-friendly neighborhood named, ironically, Casa Alegre. The minute I’m out of there, on Agua Fria, I pull over, take off the wig, and call Erica.

“Do you think we’ve stumbled upon some sick sex ring run by the same people at the house in Barrio la Canada?” I ask her over a sunset margarita at La Choza that night.

“Well,” she nods, “they certainly have some similarities.”

I drink enough to ensure that my head is spinning for some reason other than my messed-up discovery and the thoughts it has elicited, and Erica drives me home. Next day I wake up earlier than usual, as often happens when I’ve gone to bed piss drunk. The sun’s just started rising but I take a Lyft over to my car.

I turn it on and find myself instinctively driving back to Casa Alegre. I’ve never driven by this early, I realize. I might see something new. I turn onto the street and park a few doors down, with a good view of the house.

I light up a cigarette to buffer me from this seediness, and have just exhaled my first disgusting six a.m. drag when I see a black Escalade with tinted windows pull into the house’s driveway. I slide down my seat a bit. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen any activity at the place.

The driver, a man, and the passenger, a woman, get out and head straight to the backyard with their heads down before I can get a good look at them. I suck my cigarette down in record time, sitting here wondering what’s going on. I see them heading out carrying heavy-looking duffel bags as I’m about to snub it out. The woman drops hers when she opens the car door. There’s a sound of clunking metal.

“Fuck!” I hear her mutter as she bends over to pick up the bag.

She leans out away from the car for a moment and I notice that she’s sporting the longest French braid I’ve ever seen. It’s so thick and long that it looks like a horse’s tail, or mane, if it were braided, and the hair’s laced with so much gray that it looks dusty. The woman’s skin is aged and caramel-colored and her wrinkle-bordered eyes are dark brown and round.

She looks like a horse, I think. A mean, old, weathered horse.

Just then I feel my phone vibrate. I slink down farther into my seat to take a look. It’s my mother.

The horse woman closes her door and the car backs out immediately and speeds down the block. I answer the phone.

“You should see my garden, Marcos, it’s beautiful ,” my mother launches in.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m still half asleep or because this kind of stuff, sadly, makes me think of her, but I tell her the whole story. At some point midway it hits me.

“Fuck, I didn’t get a picture of the license plate number!” I yell into the phone, “Damn it!”

“That’s fine, Marcos, it’s okay, don’t worry,” my mother reassures me. “You shouldn’t get this involved in all this stuff anyway. These are probably very bad people, and Santa Fe is a small city.”

The Escalade is long gone by the time I get to the part about the horse woman, and when I do I hear her gasp a little on the other end.

“A long French braid?” she asks, sounding startled.

“Yeah, like really, unusually long. Why?”

“There was a girl that went to school with my sister and me who everyone thought was weird,” my mom begins. “She almost never spoke and she looked nervous or sad most of the time. After my sister had been missing for a while and it looked like she might not be coming back, the school held a service for her, and the girl came with her mother.

“At some point I broke down sobbing, and when I looked up, her mother was staring right at me. You’d think she’d look sad or concerned or something, but no. It was the weirdest look on her face and I never forgot it — or her — because she had the longest French braid I’d ever seen.”