Katrina Prado - The Whore of Babylon, A Memoir

“You do,” I agree.

We talk, haltingly about a variety of subjects. Chevy recounts to me her physical therapy and how she feels almost back to normal. I tell her of Robyn’s rescue but leave out my marital issues. Chevy is silent for a moment.

“Robyn is very lucky,” she says. “Havin’ a mom like you.” She draws a hand to her mouth and begins biting a fingernail.

I smile but say nothing. My heart is suddenly riven with emotion thinking of my last encounter with my daughter. Watching her ferocious struggle against deliverance from a world so depraved as to have no redeeming value. A world that only wants to use her up until nothing is left. I grind my jaw against the sting of tears as Chevy talks, and I manage to force a weak smile onto my face.

“I remember trying to talk to my mom about these things,” she says.

She brings a hand to her mouth again and begins work on another nail. I push a wisp of hair out of her eyes.

“I told her, like, we could do better, you know? But she wasn’t interested. The next day I found her. She’d OD’d.” She looks down and purses her lips.

“That must have been very difficult for you,” I say.

The longer I stare at her, the more my vision begins to blur. I see Robyn’s face instead of Chevy’s. I have to blink to restore my vision.

She shrugs in response to my comment and begins chewing on her nails again.

“I guess,” she says finally.

“Have you ever thought about finishing school?” I ask.

“Sometimes. But you gotta, you know, like be organized.”

She begins her teenage catalogue of excuses about why she never finished school and my mind is again wrenched back to life with Robyn. The struggles with learning, the unfinished homework and the endless succession of parent teacher meetings.

“What’s it like?” she asks.

“What’s what like?”

“Working in an office? Isn’t it boring?”

“Not at all,” I respond. “Bookkeeping is very rewarding because you create order from confusion.”

Chevy gives me a wistful look and then says, “sometimes I wish my life was, like, you know, different.”

And that’s when it hits me. The disjointedness of life. Chevy, who has had absolutely no breaks in life, no chances, no nothing and Robyn, who has had a good family, has had everything a child could want or need; they both end up working the streets. The impossibility and hopelessness of it all.

Chevy is rattling on about what she imagines life as a grownup will be like; her little hopes and dreams. As she talks my eyes well with tears.

“Why do you do it?” I ask, interrupting her stream of consciousness.

“What?” she asks, looking puzzled.

“How on earth can you prostitute yourself?” The question itself makes me want to retch.

Chevy sits up, wipes away my tears.

“There’s lots of reasons,” she says. “For me, it started out as a way to get money just to eat and stuff.”

“Robyn always had food on the table,” I say in protest.

“For Robyn it was different.”

“Different? Different how?”

“At first it seems glamorous. You know, thinking about guys wanting you; the money and the clothes and the nightlife. It seems like the life of a movie star or something. But, like that’s not how it really is and you don’t find out until it’s too late.”

“Oh God,” I cover my face with my hands.

“Hey,” Chevy says. “It’s okay. Don’t cry.” She is stroking my hair and murmuring words of encouragement. Her kindness plucks me from my despair.

I mop my face brusquely with the back of my hand.

“Well this is something,” I say, reigning in my emotions. “The patient comforting the visitor.”

“It ain’t no big thang,” she says with her teenage inflection, laughing.

I reach over and give her a hug, being careful not to squeeze her too tightly, mindful of her healing ribs.

“Everything’s gonna be okay,” she whispers into my ear.

October 7, 2002

It’s just after seven when I cross the threshold from work. The house is hot, as usual; the weatherman warning against a “protracted heat wave the likes of which we’ve never seen before.” I close my eyes to the heat and think about the sweet relief of a cool shower washing the heat of the day from my body.

I drop my purse to the floor and close the door behind me. The little pamphlet that Sister Margaret gave me the other day about praying the Rosary falls to the floor. I pick it up and fan through the pages. Inside are various pictures with titles like, “Second Sorrowful Mystery”, and “Fourth Glorious Mystery”. Though reading through the entire pamphlet seems daunting, I open to a single page of Christ holding bread out to his disciples gathered round him at the table. The title at the top of the page is “Fifth Luminous Mystery”. I begin reading the meditation below the picture when I am interrupted by the telephone. I stuff the booklet back into the folds of my purse and sprint to answer the phone.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Skinner?” a male voice asks.

“Yes?”

“John Simpson here. From Peaceful Acres.”

His voice is taut with an unnerving disquiet. My heart flips in my chest.

“Yes?”

“I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

“What’s wrong?” Needles of fear prick my spine.

“Robyn was doing really well; we felt she was ready for a field trip to an NA meeting with the main group of young adults.”

“And?”

“It was all a ruse. She snuck out of the meeting, gave our administrator the slip, I’m afraid.”

My body is suddenly gelatin weak. “How can this have happened?” My voice has risen in volume and timber.

“Look, I’m very sorry, but like I said. We thought your daughter was really getting the program when it turns out all she really wanted to do was gain access to the outside world so she could escape. There’s no way we can foresee that kind of deception.”

I realize that any continued conversation will just turn into a pissing contest and so thank Mr. Simpson for his time and hang up the phone. Helplessness splatters through my body like spilled red wine on white carpet. I glance at my watch while simultaneously dialing Bart Strong’s number. I have no hope that he will pick up at this hour, but it doesn’t matter. He owes me a phone call anyway.

To my shock and satisfaction he picks up on the first ring.

“Bart Strong,” the familiar husky voice answers.

I explain what happened.

“BLU BOY must have found out where she was, and convinced her to leave the treatment center. He was probably waiting for her when she ran off.”

“Maybe,” he says. “Or maybe she just ran away on her own.”

“I’m going back to San Francisco tonight,” I say.

“Hold up a minute. You don’t even know if that’s where she is.”

“Right now it’s the only thing I have to go on. Maybe I can get someone in the Tenderloin to talk to me.”

“I wouldn’t count on it. Look, sit tight for a few minutes. I’m going make a couple of phone calls.”

I huff out an impatient breath and give my watch yet another glance: seven twenty.

“I’m leaving at eight,” I warn.

Hanging up the phone I immediately begin mobilizing various articles that I surmise might be useful for my foray into the dark San Francisco night. I stuff a flashlight, a pair of binoculars I picked up a month ago at an Army surplus store, my ubiquitous bottle of water, a sweater, and my Rolaids, just in case, into a small canvas bag.

I pace the living room, one eye on the portable phone on the coffee table, one eye on my watch, willing the minute hand to hasten its glacial sweep towards the twelve. With five minutes to go, I am suddenly startled to hear a knock on the front door.