Saturday, February 13, 2010

"The Demon Lucy", "I thought you had to be human to drive a taxi" and other charming, rainy Saturday stories.

I am sure to the average person that thinks of the dangers and risks of being a street prostitute include disease, being beaten up and stuff like that. Those are definite issues of the job but one of my own personal and most terrifying incidents was neither one of those things.

I as usual, am using real names because anyone that knows anything about the dope scene downtown will immediately know who I am writing about when I say the name "Ronnie" (and as I have mentioned before I have loyalties to no one on the street - and if on rare occasion I do choose to preserve identity, then lucky them). Ronnie lived in a big house on Marine Drive. This house was sort of famous to the girls of the hood and to certain other individuals.

The first time I met this guy was through another date of mine, Willy...he came around one day telling me that Ronnie had a room at the Regent (I think) and wanted some new girls with which to get naked and wasted. Ronnie was big into buying and selling real estate or companies or something, total business man - he was from a family of money (I am not going to use the J word). He was a total dope fiend. He was around 35-40 ish plus at the time (? maybe?) and was like 5 ft tall. I went with Willy when he asked me to and I guess it was odd to him that I had never had dealings with Ronnie - girls on the street jumped on Ronnie, they loved him. When they had nothing going on they would call him at his house and ask to come over. He always had dope and money and he had a pool and it was total debauchery apparently.

As an aside I will mention that Willy and I had had many successful dealings in the past. He was a total weekend crack head - he had a job and appeared normal but on the weekend he would get super crazy on crack. He would only smoke crack in his bathroom with the tap on - in case his neighbors could hear his lighter when he went to do his tokes (as if). He would give his cat to his downstairs neighbor -which is nice- and would set his apartment alarm from the inside in case anyone tried to get in or get out. He would cease to speak after the first ten minutes of getting high or so and would develop major trust issues. He picked up girls for sex and company but also was always on the search for the perfect girl that wouldn't make him sketchy when he was high and could keep him from getting all paranoid. Our first "date" was great but almost every one after that was messy. Messy but I always got paid and he always came back. I remember him silently crying one time and using begging body language to keep me from leaving when I was tripped out by his creepiness. He did NOT under any circumstances want to turn off that apartment alarm but I told him I was going to scream and so he eventually had to let me out. The thing is, is that Willy not on crack was a total dude. Normal as can be. We hung out other times and did E and sometimes he would come find me when a friend of his needed a girl - and AHEM, I was on the top of his list. It was good to not be a weirdo because a lot of repeat business in this "profession" (har har) is by word of mouth. Which is what led him to find me that particular day and bring me to Ronnie. If it matters, Willy was not getting high that day - he was in no way a social user. He needed his controlled environment and all that.

There was a few girls there, in Ronnie's room at the hotel...your typical idiots..the usual. We ended up going back to his "mansion" and continued to get high and hang out, etc. He actually had a girlfriend at the time, her name was "Lucy" and she was not a downtown girl but she was a dope fiend all the same. She hated when girls were at the house and wouldn't hang out with us - she would just come in the room once in a while and be intimidating and stuff. I didn't like her. She was hot though and very tall.

At the end of it all I was the girl he wanted to have stay but Lucy was seriously giving me bad vibes and since I wanted to go back downtown he took me to a swanky hotel on Davie, rented me a room so I could sleep if I wanted to and left me a bunch of cash and dope to stay and wait for him to come back. He never came back and I didn't care.

One unassuming afternoon a fellow "co-worker" Elise and I were both working Campbell Ave and there was nothing happening and Elise said she was gonna go call Ronnie. She called him and me thinking that he won't even remember me anyways - I said fine I will go for a little while and then we can come back downtown. Ronnie agreed to pay for our taxi and so we went. AT the time I think I had been awake for about 2 and a half days. I had been staying with this guy Carl who was a dope fiend as well so he never really expected me back at his house...he just knew that I would show up eventually.

So Elise and I go to Ronnie's. It is just the three of us at the time but after a bit Lucy shows up. During her absence Ronnie had told us that he was so sick of her but she would not leave and she was using all his dope and making him spend his money on clothes for her all the time and that she was very jealous of other women that were around him.

Anyways, no need to draw it out ...we got high, smoked crack, did down...blah blah blah. We did - not Lucy. We ended up downstairs and from what I was TOLD Lucy had passed out in the main bedroom upstairs. Elise was wanting to leave after a few hours but Ronnie did not want me to go. I really didn't want to stay especially since Elise had told me about the last girl that Ronnie had kept there while Lucy was in the house. She told me Lucy had came up behind this female and bashed her in the back of the head with a baseball bat. Being the pussy I was and being so afraid of physical threat I was really not wanting to stay. But Ronnie kept saying it was fine that I should just stay, that Lucy was sleeping, that he would take me to a taxi if I changed my mind etc. So fine, I said I would stay and Elise left.

He had been pumping us with dope the whole time we were there, obviously. He would cook his own dope from powdered cocaine, lots of people do. You can buy it pre-made or make it your self. He would just dump a bunch of coke into this metal measuring cup then add some baking soda (in case you were wondering how it was made, kids) and then apply gradual heat...etc. It was gluttonous really but he could afford it.

As I mentioned I had been awake for days. I was really good at handling my dope but on rare occasion I would freak out a little. On top of the sleep deprivation and the copious amounts of cocaine and heroin I had been doing in such a short amount of time, compounded with the ever present threat of the wrath of Lucy..I guess it all created this chasm of destruction inside my brain.

What happened still gives me chills when I think about it and it scared me to the most inner core of my being.

Ronnie left the room for one reason for another and I was left alone with the TV on, sitting on a bed for quite a few minutes. All I know is that one minute I was looking for my lighter so I could smoke my dope and then I realized something: I didn't know who the f*ck I was.

I knew that I was going to tell Ronnie that I wanted to leave as soon as he was back in the room but when I was thinking about where I wanted to go when I left his house...I had no idea. Of course my destination was Carl's apartment on Nanaimo but I didn't know that at the time. I mean, that knowledge was gone. It was at THAT point that I came to the realization that I didn't know where I was, where I was going, I had no idea who I was, what was my name or anything. Maybe that doesn't seem scary to you but I assure you it was truly horrifying. Not knowing who you are is not a fun experience. I can't even stress to you how helpless a feeling it is. I mean, it isn't like you sort know what is going on, it is like in the movies where a person gets amnesia and is at the mercy of those around them. I mean, you know you are a person - but what person are you?

It isn't even that I was just void of thought and rational information. I was totally aware of what was happening but in regards to the core things one knows about themselves, I had nothing. It was literally black, empty.

Ronnie came back in the room and I didn't tell him what was going on other than that I had to go. HAD TO. He drove me to the 7-11, gave me $40 for a taxi (he had already had given me tonnes of dope) and dropped me off after he told a taxi driver to take me downtown.

I had started to come to in regards to certain information..I remembered my name slowly..then eventually the knowledge of Carl's apartment came to me, etc. I had no idea how much the taxi would cost and I needed to go get a lighter (I hadn't found mine at Ronnie's) and my plan was to just buy one with some of the dope that I had. Crack is like money. Of course, Carl would have a lighter I knew that - but he was a crazy drug addict too and there was no guarantee that he would even be at home to let me in when I got there. I needed to make sure I could still smoke while I waited for him, if I waited.

The driver took me to Hastings where I got a lighter (he knew what I was doing, the cabbies down there are very in the know about what goes on) and then took me in the direction of Carl's house.

When the driver had taken me to get the lighter I had given him $20 to wait for me before I jumped out so he knew I was coming back once I got it. I was still very shaken up - don't be thinking I was all back to normal. A person doesn't just forget everything and then bounce back from that with out a second thought. I was still reeling from it all and was vulnerable maybe...

When we got in front of Carl's apartment and I went to give the taxi driver the other twenty bucks, I couldn't find it (the drive from R's to get lighter then to C's was like $35 altogether). I was frantic. I looked all over the cab - then I thought I must have dropped it on the street when I was getting the lighter on Hastings. I started crying and telling the guy I had no more money and that I wasn't trying to scam him and that I just had NO MORE MONEY. He then told me to give him my dope. AS IF - I had like a friggen' eight ball and I was in no hurry to give him any of it. So then he decides that there is another way I can pay him. With a f*cking bl*wjob. Of course, I have no choice but to agree.

There I am, not in my right mind....totally unstable..now crying and he has his hand on the back of my head ferociously making me go down on him ("making me" in the sense that it wasn't for fun - he wanted something for the ride he had given me in his cab).

Afterwards, when I got out and he drove away I realized that I had given him both bills and not just one when we had arrived to pick up my lighter. He knew I had given all that money to him and he still totally took advantage of the situation.

Carl WAS home when I got there - I told him everything and I was crying and he hugged me (we were sort of like that) went got me some super good heroin and then we smoked all of my crack. The end.

Ronnie doesn't live in that house anymore. I heard that he moved onto some farm and had these delusional fantasies about having a n animal rescue thing going on, so I heard.






1 comment:

  1. c-r-a-z-y but good story. cab driver is disgusting!

    ReplyDelete