James Conway - In Cold Blonde

Syd nodded, grateful. The man was tall, lanky and shaved bald. And though he seemed scary as hell with that gun in his hand, there was something incredibly soulful about him. His eyes were dark brown with a few flecks of green and he had thick, sensuous lips. Then she realized, “Oh, my God. They got all my stuff. My clothes, my money…”

“Do you have any friends in L.A.? Is someone waiting for you?”

She shook her head as tears formed. “No.”

“Then let me be your friend,” he said, sticking out his hand. “My name is Ernesto.”

Ernesto.

Her savior.

Oh, that first night, the night he rescued her, Ernesto was so charming. So caring and gentle. He gave her a glass of wine, scrambled her eggs, told her he was a musician, singer-songwriter, and he was just a couple of weeks from recording his first CD. Then he kissed her. It seemed so natural, so right. Then they were naked. Ernesto was the first man she’d ever made love to she’d wanted to make love to.

Afterward, he pulled a joint out of the bedside table and lit it up. He took a deep drag and offered it to Syd. She’d never had grass, though most of her friends had been smoking for years. She didn’t like what the booze and pills did to her mother, didn’t want to be like her. But now, she had a new life, maybe even her first boyfriend, and she didn’t want to offend him, so… she took a hit. It was an A-bomb. A joint laced with heroin. The smoke filled her lungs, and as the heroin invaded her brain, it metabolized into morphine, the sweetest of all drugs, and she was transported to a blissful euphoria she didn’t know could exist.

She was hooked. Just like Ernesto knew she would be. And he had another runaway for his stable of young hookers, willing to do anything to keep the sweet nowhere flowing through her synapses.

Ernesto ran anywhere from three to six girls. The number fluctuated depending on who found God that week, OD’d or crawled home. They lived in a cramped two-bedroom apartment in the same building.

He recruited his girls from the Greyhound bus stop. It was the loaves and fishes of desperate females, delivering a seemingly endless bounty. And he usually recruited them the same way he’d rescued Syd.

The three guys who robbed Syd worked for Ernesto. His miraculous appearance in the nick of time was all part of the plan. The grateful teens almost always went home with Ernesto. So not only was he able to steal all their valuables, within a few days he’d usually absconded with their souls.

Syd went to Ernesto’s best customers first — the guys willing to pay extra for a seventeen-year-old girl. These were guys he knew, guys he could trust. Because even though he was willing to whore her out, Ernesto actually kind of had a crush on the cute redhead, and didn’t want anything too horrible to happen to her. They lived together as boyfriend and girlfriend, and Syd couldn’t be happier.

Looking back, Syd realized she was living in a drug-induced haze. It numbed her to the strange men who violated her body two or three times a day. It numbed her to the life Ernesto’s other girls were leading — sent out to the streets to give blowjobs in front seats or spread their legs in rent-by-the-hour motels. Or the girls sent out on special assignments and came back battered and bruised by Ernesto’s more violent customers.

It took almost eight months before Ernesto got tired of Syd. And he moved Syd out the same way he always did — he gave her something she’d love more than him. The needle.

Ernesto was always very careful to make sure Syd only smoked or occasionally snorted her heroin. You get hooked, but it’s a manageable situation. Two to three times a day at the most, and you can live an almost normal life, for a hooker. But once you mainline, once that pretty poison is shot directly into your veins, the jolt is all you live for. All that matters.

So when Ernesto was ready to move Syd out and another pretty young thing in, he convinced a stoned Syd to try the needle, just once, just to see what it feels like. Of course it felt wonderful .

And suddenly, when Ernesto said, if you move into the apartment with the other girls, I’ll give you another fix. Sure . I’ll give you another fix if you troll Hollywood Boulevard for blowjobs. Love to. There’s a frat party that wants someone to strip and gang bang. I’m your girl. I’ve got a friend who’s into a little S&M. Bring him on .

Syd did anything and everything. She ate little, living on Chablis and potato chips. Soon Syd was bone thin and had the same glazed pod-person stare as her roommates. She was eighteen years old. A drugged-out sexual automaton going through the motions and her expiration date was coming due.

Then she OD’d. It was an accident, and if one of Syd’s roommates hadn’t been there when it happened, she would have died.

Enter Eric, EMT.

Eric Templeton, to be exact. An army vet, Eric was just twenty-five when he wheeled Syd out of the apartment. He had served two tours in Iraq as a medic, and then joined the fire department when he got home.

Eric fell in love with Syd on the ride to the hospital. Sitting in the back with her, wiping the sweat off her face he stared, beguiled, at all the freckles. She looked so beautiful but so broken.

Eric had been to the Vine Street apartment before; another OD. They saved a young black girl; as soon as she was revived at the hospital, a slick bald dude paid her bill and walked her out the door. A cop filled him in; the girl was a hooker, the guy her pimp. Eric and his partner were called back to the apartment two months later; the black girl had OD’d again. This time they were too late; she was dead.

Well, not again, Eric vowed to himself. This time he was going to save her. Once Syd was stabilized at St. John’s, he grabbed her chart, wheeled her to the fifth floor and hid her out on the maternity ward.

Eric watched, amused, as the blustering Ernesto freaked out when the hospital couldn’t find her, but what was he going to do, call a cop? The pimp finally stormed out yelling that he’d be back and they better have his niece. Niece, right.

When Syd regained consciousness, Eric was at her side.

“Where’s Ernesto?” she asked through chapped lips.

“Gone. But I’m going to help you.”

Panic filled her eyes, sweat beaded on her body, muscle spasms rippled her body. She was in withdrawal. “I need a fix…”

“You keep shooting heroin you’re going to die. You know that, right?”

“I’ll do whatever you want. Suck you, fuck you. Anything.”

“I can get you in a program, get you drugs, methadone. Get you cleaned up. Give you a fresh start. Would you like that?”

Syd started crying. “But it hurts so bad.”

“Let me help you, please.”

Syd looked into the face of the paramedic. She’d stared into a lot of men’s faces during the last eighteen months; embarrassed, lonely, desperate, faces. Arrogant, angry, cruel faces. But the paramedic’s face was different. His face was honest, caring, genuine. Syd realized she could trust him.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Eric.”

“Okay, Eric. Do what you’ve got to do.”

It took three weeks for Eric to flush the poison out of Syd. He moved her to his apartment. She suffered mightily, tried to escape twice, but Eric was resolute, firm when he had to be, always nurturing, and most of all, loving.

And as Syd got stronger, as the chemical haze cleared her consciousness, she felt the first stirring of hope. She could envision a life beyond the next fix. She could envision a new life, a real life, all because of Eric.

And Eric had all sorts of plans for her. He wanted her to take the high school equivalency exam and enroll at Santa Monica College. He wanted her to find a career, become a nurse or a doctor or lawyer.