I would see him out most nights going up and down the alleys, around and around the blocks of the stroll, obviously looking for someone. One time I guess he couldn't find his regular girl because he stopped to talk to me. We conversed, a deal was stuck, and I got in. He was funny though..he asked me all sorts of questions about what I would let HIM do to me. This does happen, guys wanted to pleasure the girl (which is kind of harsh because some girls are less than hygienic at the best of times - not to say I was like that. I had enough people I could count on for a shower and the Army and Navy is really good at selling things like underwear for like a dollar..so really there is no excuse for being nasty) - but more often then not, it is all about them, the buyers. This guy asking me if he could do stuff that wasn't degrading or anything, it wasn't like he wanted to piss on me or something (would you believe you that lots of guys pick up girls so the girl will pee on them? Even in them?), he just wanted to do various intimate things to me. I am not going to say what these things are but I am sure you can imagine.. think of the standard things a guy does to a girl when he wants to get her off (or hopes she will). I said sure..I will do those things..for money...and so I got in the car. Everything has it's price.
His name was All Yee. He was Chinese, but didn't really look it, he looked more half Italian and half Chinese and was sort of geeky as well as a little chubby. He was not at all creepy or anything like that, just lonely maybe. The type of guy that never really had girlfriends and suffer the consequences of society being so hung up on appearances. We hit it off right away and even after the transaction was completed we hung out for a while and talked.
A few nights later he was patrolling the 'hood again and spotted me in an alley. He pulled up to talk to me and me, not wanting him to feel obligated to pick me up for a date, I told him hi and that he can still go look for whoever else he wanted and if he decided that I was what he wanted, he could just come find me back in the alley. I did this sometimes..because as I have said, a million times, even though it is prostitution you still need good business sense, which includes "non-pressure sales". I also had an ulterior motive at this point which was my pocket full of dope that I was itching to get into, immediately. Of course, he came back. They always do...
So, this began our acquaintance. He lived in the core of china town, within walking distance of the red zone and when night came he would wait until his Mum went to bed and then would leave, get in the car and cruise.
Like I said he was sort of chubby and geeky. But as I was saying a few paragraphs before, you may think that all guys that pick up prostitutes are totally hurtin', disgusting individuals but that isn't so. I mean, of course there ARE men like that but lots of my previous "clients" were hot and lots of them are like Al. Sort of socially retarded in a sense...or maybe just unpopular back in high school, etc. So when he picked me up, we would hang out. It wasn't just money-sex-take me back. It was more like he wanted to hang out with me and understood that in order for me TO hang out, I would need certain provisions (dope). He wanted to do a date too, but it was sort of different. Maybe it is hard to imagine having someone that you have sex with and it really doesn't change anything between you, but if you have ever sold yourself for sex you would understand that you become desensitized and sex eventually has no meaning, ie. sex with strangers or whatever. To ME it was never really sexual, it was a job. And it seems that I still may be suffering the residuals of this personality "adaptation" that was necessary to do what I did.
Let's move on. Sorry, I get sidetracked with the details, I need to focus.
So, over time..Al developed a fixation on me, a big one. A lot of these guys are not used to women paying attention to them and they mistake what is happening (our working "relationship") for something that is other than business. He wasn't overly possessive (right away) and he knew I worked the street and would come find me some nights or I would call him super late..I would work, get my dope, and then we would go to Stanley Park. eventually we would both fall asleep in our seats. I just want to mention too though, I would often wake up early and get out to use the washroom and there would be crack all over my seat. If I was really tired, which I almost always was, I would load up my pipe with the intention of smoking it and then would do the nod and the piece would fall out of the pipe and me, totally unaware would find it in the morning, even after I had thought that I had smoked it all. It was awesome.
Sometimes, though, the pieces would drop on the floor or elsewhere and I wouldn't see them. So, on occasion I would be out of dope when I was with Al and he would pull out theses little chunks for me that I had dropped at some point and surprise me with them. It was almost romantic, like when I guy goes to the store to buy his girlfriend tampons. Well, maybe it was nothing like that, but it was sweet that he saved them for me for I was in need. Crack and jonesing isn't very romantic but one finds meaning in whatever situation..and this was one of those situations.
Al would sometimes let me sleep in his car on nights when he stayed home. Like I said, he lived right in the danger zone so it was convenient for me. It was sort of creepy though, he didn't have tinted windows and super late at night anyone could come up to the car and demand something or whatever, as if it was my vehicle. I didn't often sleep in his car but sometimes I was so f*cking tired that I couldn't even work, and even knowing that I would wake up with no dope and sick as f*ck, I had to crash.
So, this one night, I was in his car with no dope and sort of sketching out at how late it was and how unsafe I was in his car, but he had gotten me this cell phone (this was when he was getting a little too into me..at the time he worked at a cell phone store and used his 5 fingered discount to get the phone and the minutes on the phone) and so that was a minor comfort.
I started raiding and searching the car for anything dope-ish that I could get high from. All I could find was weed in his ashtray. Now, I hadn't smoked weed in a super long time but I used to be heavy into the ganja and knew my way around a joint. So, at a loss, I rolled one and smoked it. Then I was wasted. Not good wasted either. Weed can be fun but not when you are already paranoid and feel super vulnerable and all that.
A few minutes after the joint, who knows how long, my eyes started to play tricks on me. He lived in the projects of Chinatown and like most social housing, the main residences were set up around a courtyard. Al always parked his car on the side of the road, at the start of a path that led into the courtyard, which led him to his home. From the angle I was at in the car, I could see the path when it went down a few stairs and the columns on each side of the entrance. In between them it was black, as in absence of light. Black, but with a minimum amount of light from street lamps providing a small amount of shadow to be present.
Here I am, wasted on the mad cheeba, staring at the space between the columns, thinking I see something..thinking I don't, and then finally realizing that I was, in fact, looking at something but because it was so dark, my eyes had taken a while to adjust.
What I saw was the shadow or silhouette of a man, at the bottom step, wearing what appeared to be a trench coat with a hat on his head. He was about 20 ft from me. I could see from his movements and his silhouette that he was jerking off like crazy. Jerking off and staring right at me.
It was one of the scariest things that happened to be down there. May sound weird considering my job was all about sex and money and men, but those times I was consciously consenting to what was going to take place, it's a totally different thing when you have no idea you are being watched. On top of that, it isn't really a normal thing for a guy to go out late at night and spot a girl in a car and then whip out his piece and start going for sh*t masturbation style. Maybe you understand what I saying, maybe you don't, but it was scary. If some guy is going to be doing this..who knows what else he was up for. All that was separating us was a few feet and the glass in car window. I was terrified. I panicked and even though Al had asked me to be casual in the car and not attract attention (since he lived there and his neighbors new his car) I opened the door (I was in passenger seat), screamed at this guy, telling him to "F*CK OFF" while honking the horn at the same time. His response was "oh, sorry" and then he disappeared into the dark. He really did say that, that he was sorry. Weird, sorry as if he bumped into me on the sky train or something.
For some reason, things like this only happen right after you reach the point of being totally inebriated, never when you are just casually hanging out.
I was spazzing and ended up calling Al a million times on my cell phone, finally waking him up, then told him what happened and he eventually came outside to comfort a crying and terrified and even violated me. He then fell asleep in the driver's seat in his pajamas and everything. I can't remember if I even stayed in the car or took off.
I knew Al for quite a few months after this and then he disappeared. I was sort of worried for my own selfish reasons and also because he was my friend, in a sense. Then one random day after I had not seen him a couple of weeks, I checked my cell phone voice mail (from a pay phone my cell phone had disappeared by this point), and there was message from him. All it said was he would be away for awhile and that he had done something really stupid and couldn't get into the details.
About 3 months goes by and he shows up again..same guy but different car. He told me that he had been in jail ( he no prior convictions) because he had tried to rob a convenience store while under the influence of crystal meth. Al smoked the odd joint but was in no way a drug user. He claimed that he had smoked a joint that had been secretly laced with the crystal and then wigged out. He said he remembered being outside the store but that was it. He ended up being charged with robbery and with some charge related to possessing a firearm. But the thing is, he said the gun he had wasn't real, it was a squirt gun that he had painted with black spray paint on the sidewalk right outside the store. That was the worst part, I thought. Sure, robbery is bad but then not even having a real gun?? Come on, Al. It is like when people downtown get busted selling bunk dope. Even though the dope may be made of wax or just pure baking powder..they still get charged. Before this indecent he had gotten fired from his job at the cell shop for stealing. I had no idea until after the fact, that he had been fired, and I guess he was stealing money to keep me happy. That made me feel pretty bad, I knew I was having a bad influence on him but by then it was out of my hands.
One time when I still had my cell phone he called me 44 times in one hour because I was not picking up the phone. That is a little obsessive. After he got out of jail he started being a dope runner, driving around delivering for a dial a dope operation. Then I became just a junkie I guess, or my spell wore off, because things were different.
The last thing I remember about Al was when I met his mother. It was mid afternoon and I was having a shower when his Mum came home from work. Al was sort of afraid of his mum and often times I would hear her screaming at him in Chinese, through his cell phone, when we were hanging out.
Anyways, I was there, so was she, so after I got dressed Al had to introduce us. I shook her hand politely. Then went to gather my things and wait by the door. I could hear her and Al having at it and he kept telling her to speak in English. Then at one point he told her that I spoke Chinese and understood everything she was saying. Laugh. I already knew that his mum didn't like me but not that you would know it by the way she looked at me all sweet and sh*t.
Later, after we had left Al told me that what she had been saying to me, was that ever since she had shook my hand during our formal introduction, her arm had felt weird. She then said that she could feel poison creeping up her arm. I am not really too sure about the Chinese culture but Al said his mother had certain beliefs and superstitions.
She was very perceptive.
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