Scott Wittenburg - See Tom Run

Tom was floored. At the drop of a hat, this young impressionable girl had run away with a virtual stranger who was eight years her senior to New York to pursue an acting or modeling career. The rest of this story could only get worse.

“So how did that go?” he asked.

“Well, at first it was exciting. I mean, it was pretty obvious that Kyle had exaggerated somewhat-his movie production company wasn’t much more than an extra room in his apartment. But I really didn’t care, I was just so thrilled to actually be living in New York City! The people, the buildings, the lights, Broadway, everything!”

“So his apartment was in Manhattan?”

“Well, no. It was actually in Brooklyn. But we were only twenty minutes from midtown,” she added. “Anyway, I decided to call my foster parents to let them know I was okay. They of course wanted to know where I was and begged me to come back. I just told them that I would keep in touch and not to worry about me. I felt bad for them, but I really thought I was doing the right thing at the time.”

“So how did you make ends meet? Did Kyle have a regular job to pay the rent?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“He, uh, sort of had his own side business,” she replied slowly.

“You mean making movies?”

“Well, he did that, too. But he got most of his money from dealing.”

“Great,” Tom muttered.

“I’m not going to make any excuses for him. He was a drug dealer and it got scary at times. I mean, strange people bopping in at all hours wanting to score some weed or coke. I once begged him to give it up because it was only a matter of time before we got in trouble and he, uh, wasn’t very happy with me.”

“Meaning?”

“He beat the crap out of me-I sure learned not to do anything like that again!”

“Jesus, Erin. Why did you stay with him?”

“I don’t know-I was just young and ignorant. I really believed that I could go somewhere there, model or something. And besides that, I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I was stubborn and did not want to go back to boring Cleveland. So I figured I was better off where I was.

“It wasn’t always as bad as it sounds-at least not for awhile, anyway. Kyle was a really good photographer and shot a modeling portfolio for me. It was really good. I showed my book around and went to a few go-sees. I almost got a couple of jobs, too, but it is really competitive in the modeling industry.

“Kyle started getting pissed off that I wasn’t getting hired anywhere so he thought of another way to bring some money in.” She said this under her breath so softly that Tom could barely hear her.

“What was that?”

“Porn. He started taking shots of me for the internet.”

She saw the expression on Tom’s face and quickly added, “I told you I wasn’t proud of my past! Now you hate me, don’t you?”

“Erin, I do not hate you. And I wish I could say that I’m surprised to be hearing all of this but I’m not. Kyle reminded me of a very shady character who was quite capable of taking advantage of a young impressionable fifteen year old if given half the chance.”

Erin sighed. “Well, it gets worse,” she declared dismally. “At first he shot stills of me and uploaded them to kiddy porn sites. He had me, uh, get naked and pose in all kinds of positions. Then he decided that that wasn’t enough, that he needed to ‘spice things up a bit,’ as he put it.”

Tom braced himself. “How was that?”

“He had a friend, Gino, who started posing with me. He had me-do stuff to him. It was disgusting! I told Kyle I didn’t want to do those things!” she cried.

Tom reached over and placed his hand on her shoulder comfortingly. “Erin, you don’t have to go on with this. It’s only getting you upset.”

She gazed at him in earnest. “No, Tom, I want to tell you this. I need to get this off of my chest and be up front with you about me.”

“Okay, kiddo, it’s your call.”

“Kyle basically didn’t give a damn what I didn’t want to do. You see, by this time he had gotten more and more into drugs-not just selling them but taking them, too. He started doing a lot of crack and his personality changed a lot for the worse. He didn’t really care about me anymore, he just wanted to use me. I realize that now, of course, but I was clueless back then. You see, I was starting to do drugs, too. I was messed up half the time.”

Tom thought: surprise, surprise. As much as he felt bad about Kyle’s violent demise, right now he was glad the son of a bitch was dead.

Erin went on. “Anyway, Kyle made me keep doing the porn shots and apparently made good money off of them on the websites. He was thrilled at how much money was rolling in ‘for such little work,’ as he put it. But it wasn’t enough-he always wanted more and to expand his horizons. So, he started shooting porn movies.”

“Don’t tell me-”

“Yes, I was the star of them, too. There were a few other guys he knew that joined in as time went by. Kyle would create these retarded ‘screenplays’ where I would like, come home from school, wearing my plaid skirt with my hair in pigtails, and start watching television in my bedroom. I’d hear a knock at my window and it would be some older guy staring in at me. I’d let him inside and start undressing while he played with himself. It was so stupid and disgusting!

“There were a couple of other girls he would occasionally use in the videos, too. One of them was only ten or eleven. That was when I finally drew the line. I told him flatly that I was not going to be a part of this sick shit anymore!”

“What did you do?”

“Well, he of course beat the shit out of me. He said that I would do what he wanted me to do or he would throw me out on the street. I told him that was fine, that I was going to leave him anyway. That made him even madder and he beat me some more. He beat me so bad that I was knocked unconscious for hours. When I came to, it was morning and Kyle wasn’t in the apartment. But he had tied me to the bed and locked me in the bedroom.”

“What happened when he returned?” Tom asked.

She smiled. “I don’t know-I wasn’t there when he got back!”

“You managed to escape?”

“Yeah! What Kyle didn’t know was that there was a pair of scissors in the nightstand. I managed to get close enough to work them out of the drawer and cut off the rope. Then, I figured a way out of the bedroom. There was a fire escape outside the window but Kyle either forgot about it or figured that even if I did manage to untie myself, I would never have the nerve to climb out onto the rickety thing. That’s where he misjudged me,” she added.

“So I packed up a few things, took some money I had stashed under the rug and left by way of the window. When I stepped out onto the fire escape, it shook and squeaked like it was going to collapse with me on it. But I was determined to get out of that place one way or another, so I walked over to the edge, tossed my bag onto the sidewalk and hang-dropped twelve feet onto the concrete. I sprained my ankle, but at least I made it!”

“Good for you. Where did you go?”

“I didn’t waste any time-I took the subway to the Greyhound station on Eighth Avenue and bought a one-way ticket to Cleveland. It took every cent I had.”

“So you went back to your parents?”

“No. I knew that Kyle would come looking for me so I stayed with my best friend, Courtney for awhile to figure out what I was going to do next.”

“But what about your foster parents? Why didn’t you simply go back to them and let them take care of Kyle in case he ever tried to track you down?”

“You know what he’s capable of! The man was a raging druggie by then and would have done anything to force me to go back to New York with him. The last thing I wanted to do was put my parents in the same dangerous position you had been in.”