Not This Time
26
Failure
I SPENT ALL FALL and winter trying to work out a strategy with Les for improving conditions in the Washburn Neighborhood.
“Rapes and prostitution decrease in winter,” Les told me as we looked out his office window on the park. “Even power-mad men don’t want to go through the extra work of unwrapping a woman bundled up against the cold. And a prostitute in snow pants and a parka doesn’t attract much attention.” Ten degrees outside and I could see that the park was pretty much deserted.
“Where do they go?” I asked. If they weren’t turning tricks, how were the women of the street living? Where were addicts getting their fixes if the pusher wasn’t available?
“A few use bad weather to make a break. They come to the clinic and ask for help shaking their addictions and we send them out to the shelter. The shelter is a pretty unhappy place in the winter. There’s a lot of crying. A lot of screaming,” he said. “Some either try to make it south to warmer climes or try to get a hotel job on Hennepin Avenue. If you know where to look, there are at least a dozen escort agencies that fill orders around the convention center and sports arena. A few go to strip clubs, but the clubs are pretty picky about whether a dancer is turning tricks.”
Les pointed at a white Lincoln Continental cruising the west side of the park.
“That’s Ernie. He’s smooth. None of his girls ever show a mark from being mistreated. I’d even say he fancies himself a hero. Certainly, some of his girls think of him that way. Prostitutes are actually safer from assault and rape than the college girls. They are protected. He has a big house on the south shore of Lake Harriet and keeps a dozen girls there for the winter.”
“Wait! That’s my neighborhood!”
“He’s probably one of your neighbors. He brings two girls at a time and cruises all the popular market spots between here and Hennepin and between Lake and Franklin. The johns all know his car and know they’ll get a quality woman. Quality meaning beautiful and willing. Ernie makes sure they understand that if they mark one of his women, he will mark them. Permanently. No one ever mistreats one of Ernie’s women. Except Ernie. There are stories about his personal playroom that you don’t want to hear.”
“I don’t want to hear any of this. Why don’t the police do something?”
“What? None of his girls would ever testify against him. The police can arrest the girls if they catch them with a john or if an undercover cop gets solicited. But his girls don’t solicit. That’s one of the protections they have against police. Cops can’t solicit. It’s called entrapment. And Ernie never carries drugs. He’s been stopped, but he drives his own car and is always clean. There have been several occasions when the girls in the car weren’t even working girls. He makes a practice of ‘helping damsels in distress.’ He watches for women who have missed the bus, are crying, have fallen on the ice. He’s a regular white knight. He helps them. Gives them a lift home. Never makes a pass or an inappropriate suggestion. They learn to think of him as safe. Then when they really need something, they call on good old Ernie. When they ask for help, he charges. When he just offers help on the street, it is strictly benign.”
“That’s so insidious,” I said. It made my flesh crawl.
“Over there. That’s worse,” Les said pointing to the east side of the park. A black Cadillac was just coming into view. “That’s The Dragon. Pretty presumptuous for a slimy pimp and drug dealer. He operates from here to Chicago Avenue, a lower class clientele than west. He pushes his boundaries as far as he can, except where he might overlap Ernie. He steers clear of Ernie’s territory. He operates through domination and intimidation. There is nothing kind about The Dragon. I’ve seen his girls in miniskirts on a corner in sub-zero temperatures. We’ve treated a few for cuts, burns, and frostbite.”
“So how does he get away with it?”
“He’s fourteen.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Running a minor in would never make a cop’s reputation. If he succeeded in getting a conviction for something, the record would be expunged on the kid’s sixteenth birthday. As long as he avoided murder, the police wouldn’t waste their time.
“He has his girls drive the car. If one gets caught soliciting, he simply shrugs it off and says he just gave the bitch a ride. His girls live five or six to a room in apartments here in the neighborhood, almost like college girls. Some of them were,” Les said.
“Les, what can we do? You have me sold on the need. What’s the answer?”
“We help people one at a time. That’s all I can promise.”
I considered going undercover. For about thirty seconds. It would take a woman made of sterner stuff than me to agree to being raped, addicted, prostituted, possibly tortured, and ultimately killed. So, I decided to become a social activist and I started at our annual holiday party. We held it at the Normandy Hotel this year. My Loring Neighborhood sales office was being slowly dismantled. My staff was being absorbed by Jim or by The Mill. Personally, I wanted to keep Renata by my side, but she had recently fallen in love and was just hanging on until the office closed so she could stop commuting from her new home in Eden Prairie.
Carla was as sparkling as ever at the party. She had been rising steadily in the city/county government and had kept herself clean. She was a supporter of women’s business and of ‘cleaning up the city.’ Apparently, Gordon’s work in real estate had not been a bad influence on her campaigns. I maneuvered her aside to present my case for the cleanup of Washburn Park.
“We can’t supply drug paraphernalia,” Carla said. “Can you imagine what an outcry it would cause if we sponsored a needle exchange. Even the condom program had to be privately funded.” There were still people who objected to the availability of condoms in high schools. Others wanted the program extended down into the elementary grades. It made me shudder to think of Emily in first grade in the fall.
“What about the disposal?” I asked.
“Well, we do have hazardous materials disposal and they sweep that park about once a month when the snow is gone. They never find them all, of course. Do you think having collection points for needles would solve the problem?”
“It’s like trash cans,” I said. “They don’t eliminate litter, but they make it easier not to throw trash on the ground. Of course, if the can is full and things are falling out, then people just join in tossing crap. Nothing is going to be a 100% solution, but I think we can implement several 80% solutions.”
“I like the idea of the removable bin,” Carla said.
“We want to protect the waste workers as well as the users,” I answered. “This unit was designed so that it is never opened at the site to remove the used needles. When the bin is full, it is removed and a new one installed. The workers are never exposed to the hazardous waste. The old method of having plastic liners that were removed was stupid. Needles were always poking out.”
“If you can keep them from being an attractive nuisance for kids, that will help. And if you need extra funding for the exchange program, I might know some people who have a little cash lying around that they don’t need,” she said. I followed her glance to her husband and smiled.
Bruce was still in bed when Lily rushed to the bathroom the morning after the party. I could hear her vomit and rushed to help her.
“Did you have too much to drink last night, sweetheart?” I asked soothingly as I smoothed her hair. She shook her head.
“I didn’t drink. I’m fine now. Maybe I’ll make some tea.”
“I’ll do it. Do I need to take you to a doctor?” She shook her head again. Tears were streaming out of her eyes.
“I… I think I’m pregnant.”
My mouth dropped open as the words soaked in. Lily was ten years older than me. Pregnant? At thirty-five, she was pregnant? By whom? Well that was a stupid question. Bruce, of course. He was the only man she’d allowed in her since well before we met seven years ago. I glanced toward the bedroom.
“Honey!” I whisper-shouted. “Does he know?”
“No. I wasn’t sure. I thought I was going through early menopause. But I’m positive now. This is the second morning I’ve started my day retching. I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to do it. And certainly not without talking to you first. I’m so sorry.”
“Lily, do you want a baby?” I asked. She nodded her head. “I’m going to take such good care of you! I’m going to rub cream into your tummy and talk to our baby. I’m going to lick you to orgasm to start your labor. Lily, I’m so happy for you. For us!”
“What do you think he’ll say?” she asked. “He doesn’t know anything. Does he want a baby, too?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
“Wait,” she said as I turned toward the bedroom. “I’m not ready to tell him. Let’s plan a party next week after I’ve been to the doctor. We’ll make a special dinner.”
“How about strained carrots?” I giggled.
A baby. My little girl would have a baby brother or sister. Things were so different. So exciting.
My six-year-old little girl bore less and less resemblance to the little one I’d raised twenty-five years ago in the future. Willa had honey blonde hair and it curled (with a little help from Mom) into long locks that were intentionally patterned after Keri Russell in Felicity. I was much less under the influence of television in this life and more influenced by urban fashion. Emily’s dark hair was cut with bangs and a short bob so she could get out and play. She wore popular bib overalls and flannel shirts to kindergarten. Only the fire in her eyes told me that I’d raised this child once before. Only this time I had help. I was amazed at how well Lily, Bruce, and I blended in our care for Emily. Now there would be two! There were days I was sure that was all that held us together.
I didn’t know how true that was.
We had prepared everything in advance. I picked Emily up from kindergarten with her friend Melissa and took the two girls to Melissa’s home where her mother, Dar, was preparing to host the two little girls on their first sleepover. That was a glorified name for having Dar babysit overnight.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s no problem. The girls get along great. Who knows? They might be best friends for the next seventy years!” she laughed. “And besides, you forget that I have experience. Melissa’s sister is four years older. Is that what you’re working on tonight?”
“Well, you never can tell.”
“That’s what happened the first time I let Jessica stay overnight with a friend. Nine months later we got Melissa!” We both laughed about the shared joke and I headed home to get dinner ready.
I pulled over abruptly into a parking spot on Xerxes.
Why had I never thought of that? I was young, healthy, financially secure, and definitely breedable. I had never once let Bruce in my vagina without protection. I was on the pill, but Lily wasn’t because of medical issues. The one time that she slipped up, she got pregnant. So, he had viable sperm. Was there some hangover from my former life that said I could only have one child? What fun it would be for Lily and me to have children near the same age! In my mind’s eye I could just see us walking around Lake Harriet together pushing our strollers; sitting side-by-side as we nursed with our approving baby-daddy running to get us juice.
There were tears in my eyes as I thought about sharing that marvelous experience with my lovers and raising another child in our family. I needed to talk to Lily. I could feasibly get started tonight, or at least go off the pill and start practicing. I could feel myself getting turned on by the thought of making love with the intent of getting pregnant.
As soon as I could get my eyes cleared of the tears enough to drive, I headed home, humming a happy tune.
“Bruce? What are you doing home so early, baby?” I said when I saw him in the living room.
“Day off,” he said shortly. His words were slurred. A day off? School had only reconvened on Monday. I looked more closely. He had a glass in his hand and took a drink as he stared at the television screen. A bottle of scotch sat on the table in front of him with an empty potato chip bag.
“Bruce? You’ve been drinking.” The words just restated the obvious but my bafflement still couldn’t grasp them. We seldom had hard liquor in the house. Wine, yes. Cold beers in the hot summer, certainly. But to sit and drink scotch in the middle of the afternoon was unheard of. To actually be drunk was unimaginable. “What happened, baby?” I asked as I settled next to him. I took his glass and set it on the table before wrapping him in my arms. He truly stank. It wasn’t just the alcohol. He smelled of rank perspiration. He smelled of fear.
He sat there stiffly in my arms, not moving to hold me or to acknowledge that I was petting his greasy hair. I knew he’d showered this morning. Whatever was bothering him was coming out of his pores. He was a mess. He drew in a deep shuddering breath and collapsed against me.
“I lost my job,” he croaked. A huge sob shook his body as he finally responded and squeezed me so tightly it hurt. “They fucking fired me.” He wept against me, occasionally muttering imprecations against himself or the college or both. “Stupid.” “Worthless.” “Betrayed.”
He’d been at that school for five years! How could they just turn around and fire him a week into the winter term? It just didn’t make sense.
At last he was quiet except for the noise of blowing snot bubbles and I realized he was asleep.
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