Katrina Prado - The Whore of Babylon, A Memoir

Up ahead a young girl. She is dressed in typical hooker garb. High heels and a mini skirt that is so short I can actually see part of her bottom, like two adjacent obscene smiles. She stamps out a cigarette and then turns facing the street. Her face is grotesquely painted and the only thing on her torso is a black bustier laced in red. She looks barely old enough to be out of elementary school. Not Robyn. Standing back from the edge of the sidewalk, she scans drivers of cars as they go by. She looks briefly in my direction and then away. She looks to be about Robyn’s age. I nudge the car towards the curb and pop it into park, leaning over the passenger’s side I quickly roll down the window.

“Excuse me,” I say.

The girl’s face turns in my direction and it is then I see her eyes. They are filled with the darkness of a blunt void. She is chewing gum and saunters over towards the car.

“Lookin’ for a party?” she asks, plastering a fake smile onto her lips.

“I’m looking for a girl named Robyn,” I say.

“You can call me Robyn,” she says, advancing closer now.

Her perfume invades the car and I am peppered by tiers of a sweet, synthetic musk.

Her smile deepens as she props an elbow on the opened window, leaning over in an exaggerated motion, allowing me a full view of her small, juvenile breasts. Cheap red polish is chipping off her short fingernails.

“Ten dollars for a party,” she says.

“No,” I say shaking my head.

“I’m looking for my daughter. Her name is Robyn.” I thrust out the photo of my daughter towards her.

Silence glimmers between us as the realization of what I am after creeps into her brain.

She backs away, and stiffens; the smile falls from her face.

“Get lost, lady,” she spits out. Her voice is suddenly hot with contempt. Her eyes dart left and then right. She continues backing away from my car.

“She ran away,” I bark, as this young, pathetic thing ebbs from my grasp.

“Get away from me,” she says.

“How old are you?” I shout.

It is then I see fear in her face. She waves me off.

“Get the hell outta here!” she yells, beginning to walk quickly away.

“Wait!” I yell.

I jerk open the car door, clambering out of the car. My heart pounds in my chest. Does this girl know something? Does she know Robyn? Did fate bring me to the one, single person in the entire city who knows where my daughter might be?

“Wait!” I shriek out again excitedly.

I am surprised by the frigid air in this city. Nothing at all like the stifling bog of heat in Pittsburg. I tear to the front of the car, still idling, watching the girl as she runs from my view, ducking into an alleyway thick with refuse. Before I even reach the sidewalk, she has escaped into the shadowy yaw of a doorway that leads to who knows where. I fight the web of panic that spreads over me.

I stand there a moment, frozen. To my right, another homeless soul approaches. He is about ten yards away. But even from this distance it seems I can already smell the sour stench of urine and vomit that precedes him. He is rambling to an invisible partner and I am suddenly afraid for my safety. When he sees me, his pace quickens. A bell of alarm rings in my ears. I whip around, heading back for the car door.

Across the street I spy a well dressed man who appears to be heading for an aqua-colored BMW so shiny and new it looks like it came from a showroom. I catch the license plate: BLU BOY. Our eyes meet and then he looks at the homeless man making a beeline towards me. Instead of his car, he chooses to walk in my direction and I am suddenly, unaccountably flooded with relief.

When the homeless man sees the man in the suit heading towards him, he makes an about face and begins heading the opposite way. As the well dressed stranger comes closer to me, I am struck by his appearance. He is dark complected and the word ‘swarthy’ registers in my mind. His suit is shiny, a grey sharkskin hue, double breasted that seems a little too dressy for this neck of the woods.

“ Perdida?” he asks in a thick Spanish accent.

A slender, sinful black mustache curls as he gives me a cruel looking smile. I look backward in the direction of the retreating homeless man trying to conjure that old saying my mother used to recite. Something about the frying pan and the fire.

“I, um.” The words stumble out of my mouth as I back towards to my car, the driver’s door handle now pressing into my buttock.

The man keeps coming, invading that imaginary social space that society allows. I try swallowing but my mouth is suddenly as dry as sun-bleached bones. The air outside is freezing but I am not cold. The pads of my fingers are behind me, resting on the cool metal of my Corsica. He is now only inches from me. The heat from his body is oppressive. His eyes narrow to slits. He cocks his head to the side, considering me.

“Jou don belong here lady,” he says. His breath is sour and stinks of decay.

I instinctively hold my breath to keep from gagging.

“My daughter,” I whisper in a blind panic. Tears spill from my eyes. I can feel my bottom lip trembling in fear.

“Jor daughter is not here,” he says.

“Jou,” he growls, “don belong here either,” he repeats.

He presses his lower body to mine. Where his pocket is, I feel a hard, rectangular object. A gun? My heart leaps to my throat.

“Please,” I plead.

We stand there a moment, his stare boring into me. The dark and cold engulf me now. His hand is on my cheek now. I pull back slightly in a reflexive jerk. In an oddly tender motion, he wipes away a tear with the back of his thumb then licks my tear from his skin.

“Jou go now,” he says, winking. He backs away slightly. Enough for me to get my hand onto the handle of the car door behind me. Keeping my eyes on him I scoot into the safety of my car.

“Jou don’ come back,” he threatens.

I feel watched. As if the windows had eyes and all of San Francisco waits with a sullen anticipation, my exit from this place.

I wrench the car into drive and speed away. I drive, reckless with emotion, sobbing as I think about my precious little girl entangled in such a gruesome world. How can I ever save her?

After what feels like hours but is probably only a few minutes, I somehow find my way back to the Bay Bridge and speed home; hopeless and without a plan.

Saturday morning.

I’ve been awake since three-thirty, fighting my churning stomach with antacids. After several hours of traipsing uselessly around my dirty kitchen, grinding my teeth and sipping tepid coffee, I decided to head to San Francisco again.

I left Rob snoring the morning away in the bedroom. He is still angry with me for my first trip to the City. Rob and I have become strangers, little atoms, bouncing off each other in our confined space, the hovel we call home.

I have come here three additional times in the past week; trolling the streets, visiting various youth shelters as I locate them, surrendering pictures of my daughter to anyone willing to take a copy.

Pale sunlight diffuses the tired, dirty streets in lacy patterns; tufts of frosty air from a rigorous August wind lash my cheeks as I make my way towards the Diamond Youth Center on Central Avenue, just north of Fell St. The youth center is the last place I haven’t yet visited that caters to the lost and neglected runaways in my search for Robyn.

Irrationally, my thoughts alight on visions of Bart Strong, the private investigator I hired to help me find Robyn. If I try hard enough, I can almost conjure up how it will be: he will call me and in a triumphant and manly voice, tell me that he has Robyn, safe and sound, sitting in his office and I can come pick her up anytime. I wipe away a mote of dirt that has flown into my eye with the heel of my hand and dispel my fantasy. Since our initial meeting we have had only minimal contact. I called him the day after my first visit to San Francisco, telling him of being threatened by the swarthy man in the business suit and the BMW with the license plate: BLU BOY. Bart said he was probably a pimp and my presence there wasn’t good for business. He promised to do some checking to see if he could come up with any concrete information, pledging a phone call within the week.