Katrina Prado - The Whore of Babylon, A Memoir

We query the clerk at the front register, a fat balding man with a black mustache, but he only gives us a gruff reply with a shake of his head. He claims to have seen no one matching Robyn’s description. Ever. And by the way, he wants no trouble in the store.

Heading back outside, we search two full square blocks encompassing the Bread and Butter Market, querying everyone we see on the street as we go, including the line of homeless men and women waiting in line for a meal and a bed for the night at Glide Memorial Church. Our search is fruitless.

We trudge back to the Bread and Butter.

“We need to call the police,” I say.

Rob squeezes his eyes shut and then washes his face with his hands. “Yeah,” he replies.

We ask to use the market’s phone and after waiting fifteen minutes, we figure it’s going to be a while, Rob says, “I gotta eat something. You want a sandwich?”

The burn in my stomach has begun to flare higher, up into my throat. Though I have a couple of Rolaids left, I know a bit of food would calm the fire heaving in my gut.

“Sure,” I say, “whatever.” I wave him off as he retreats back to the deli.

The disheveled man, still whispering his mantra, at last stands up, seizes his roast beef sandwich and tosses it into the garbage before plodding outside.

I sit on the stool he just vacated and my thoughts turn to Chevy. In my mind’s eye her soft brown doe eyes appear. She smiles at me, and I wonder: did she make contact with Robyn? Did Chevy convince Robyn to call home? This whole ordeal simply cannot be a coincidence. I make a mental note to ask Chevy the next time I see her; if I ever do. I’m bounced out of my reverie by Rob tapping me on the shoulder.

“My card was denied,” he growls, thrusting the Visa into my face.

I dig through my wallet and hand him a ten dollar bill. Rob wanders back to the deli. I peer at my watch; nearly two-thirty. We’ve been waiting for the police now for nearly half an hour.

Rob returns, plopping a turkey sandwich with all the trimmings down in front of me. Though it looks and smells delicious, fingers of nausea begin to coil around my stomach.

Rob angles his sandwich around left and then right, finding a suitable spot and chomps down, talking as he chews.

“So, what’s the deal with the Visa?”

“I told you,” I say defensively. “I took an advance out and gave it to Sister Margaret, remember?”

“You said you were going to help her hand out food to the hookers,” he says.

“Well, the nuns have to have money to buy the food,” I counter. “Besides, you should see these girls. Any one of them could be Robyn.”

“Well, they’re not Robyn. Criminy, Margot, we barely make enough between the both of us to cover the rent and utilities. We can’t afford to feed half of friggin’ San Francisco.”

“I don’t want to feed half of ‘friggin San Francisco ’,” I reply, quoting the air with my fingers. “And I told you, we’re doing fine. We can make minimum payments on the cash advance as long as we need to. If we can make the Corsica last one more year, that’ll help. And we’re saving lots of money now that I’m packing your lunches.”

Rob rolls his eyes as he pops the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth. “Yeah? Well a man likes to eat more than just baloney all the time.” He swabs the corner of his mouth with his thumb.

“You really need to meet this Sister Margaret person,” I say, changing the subject. “You know what she asked me?”

Rob gives me a shrug as he shakes the last remnants of the potato chips from the bag into his opened mouth. I have a sudden image of an open-mouthed blue whale pulling plankton through its baleen. I shake the picture from my head.

“What did Sister Margaret ask you?” he says in a flippant tone as he crunches the chips.

“She asked me if I had any faith.”

Rob grunts, and then grabs his soda, taking a long pull on the straw. I watch my husband carefully for any reaction about the subject, but he declines to offer me anything. I have thought a lot about that question posed to me by the nun with the bright gray eyes. As if faith were the kind of thing you could just go out and buy, like laundry detergent and then be done with it all.

“Do you?” I ask.

“Do I what?”

“Have any faith?”

Rob shoves the air towards me with his palms.

“Hey. Don’t go there with me. You know how I feel about all that stuff.”

I nod. From Rob’s strict Catholic upbringing had come his fatiguingly irksome one-liner about being a recovering Catholic. Memories of my own Baptist background complete with the terrifying hellfire and brimstone sermons that seemed to stretch in ever-increasing length every week until I came to dread Sundays with an unflinching hatred still loom in my own memory.

“I know, I know. But-”

“Didn’t you tell me once,” he interrupts, “about that preacher your mom liked so much and how he caught got with his pants down, literally, in some motel with the church secretary who was married or something?”

“Yes, Rob, I remember that and I remember all your stories about how the nuns mistreated you in school. But Sister Margaret is different.”

“Yeah, right.” He grabs my plate and considers my uneaten sandwich.

His eyes catch something in the window. I crane around, to get a look at whatever he is watching. An older woman, obviously a prostitute and a middle-aged man exit the O’Farrell Theatre arm in arm, laughing. The woman glances in the direction of the Bread and Butter Market as they walk; her uneven smile reveals several missing teeth.

“Oh jees,” Rob says, cringing. He consults his watch. “Criminy, where are the friggin’ cops?” He stands up and huffs out an exasperated breath.

And then, as if cued on a movie set, a black and white patrol car eases into view and double parks in front of the market. Two policemen emerge from of the car looking all business and walking tall. It isn’t until they are at the door of the market that I realize one of them is a woman.

We are questioned together and then separated. Rob is ferried towards the back of the market by the tall black cop, out of my sight and earshot. I am ushered towards the front window by the young Chinese woman whose condescending smile makes me already dislike her. We go through a series of standard issue question and answers. I try to contain my impatience with her as the swirl of fire in my stomach begins turning again into nausea. I clasp my midriff with my hand, which startles the policewoman.

“You look a little pale. Are you okay?” she asks me.

“I’m fine. Please. You’re not listening to me,” I say in protest. I suddenly feel clammy; I wipe my hair back from my face with my forearm. “My daughter. Her name is Robyn. Here’s her picture. She’s-”

“I know, Ma’am. She ran away.”

“She didn’t just run away,” I reply curtly. “I already told you. She’s listed as an endangered runaway. Her picture’s been distributed by the NCMEC. You should have a record of that. She called my husband,” my voice cracks with emotion, betraying me.

“Calm down, Ma’am.”

“I am calm!” I reply angrily. “Why don’t any of you people take me seriously?” I realize I am on the verge of hysteria. I pull down a deep breath of air, trying to still the passion of my despair.

The crackle of the policewoman’s radio perched on her shoulder breaches our war of words. She turns her attention to the radio and responds. I step towards the front window and lean my forehead against the cool pane of glass, closing my eyes. My God I feel sick. The aching in my stomach feels as if it has pushed deeper into my body. Instead of the usual ebb and flow of pain, it is now a persistent, roiling, volcanic explosion, seemingly burning flesh upon flesh.