enovel Nobody Cries For Me Sara Harris [Future Story Codes]

---

.....8253 home .....8255

Nobody Cries For Me ....(105k)    by Sara Harris

"My Mother, God rest her soul, was a sporting girl."

With these simple and shocking words, a professional prostitute known as Joan unrolls the incredible and sordid story of her life.

From her childhood in the Boston slums to her present dope-ridden life in New York, Joan spares no one in her candid and terrible odyssey.

Rape, abortion, jail-brothels, pimps, madams, junkies, cops-these are the events, places and people that populate the prostitute's world, the hunted and terrifying life beyond conventional morality.

Intensely human and profoundly moving, this amazing document casts a penetrating light on the problem of prostitution.

Sara Harris, to whom Joan told her story for this book, is a writer and social worker, whose last book, Cast the First Stone, was written in collaboration with Chief Magistrate of New York John. M. Murtagh.

"NOBODY CRIES FOR ME should make all socially conscious individuals really cry for the many emotionally deprived children who are propelled into anti-social behavior in their blind efforts to satisfy their unmet needs. It shook me."

-Dr. Etta S. Taylor

Assistant Executive Director Essex County, N. J, Youth House

Contents

* * *

A Note to the Reader

This is the true story of Joan, a prostitute. She was one of hundreds of prostitutes whom I met while researching the book Cast the First Stone, which I wrote with the Chief Magistrate of New York, John M. Murtagh. I was attracted to Joan because I recognized from our first meeting that here was a woman who, despite the humiliation, despite the sordidness, despite the abasement of her life, had still managed to retain some measure of dignity and integrity. I considered those qualities a connection of sorts between Joan-"weirdie," "oddbal!"-and the rest of us; a link, if you will, between her world and ours.

My relationship with Joan has undergone several changes. I remember the first time I met her. She was high on narcotics and, as many addicts are at such times, chock-full of confidence and self-assurance. The second time she was sober and she spoke in shame, afraid because I was "a square broad," and she was "in the life." She kept watching me, looking for the shock I should be feeling at the sign of her corruption. After a while she was only half-ashamed, half-afraid.

People have often asked whether I trust the truth of Joan's story. The answer is yes. She may not have told the truth about every incident of her life-does anyone ever? But I know for a fact that, to bring this story out, she has dug into herself rigorously and deeply. She has brought out her true weakness, her true qualms, anxieties, and illusions.

To me, Joan's truth is vastly frightening because it reveals as vividly as any story I've heard or read the import of the statement once made by Max Otto, the noted philosopher:

"The deepest source of a man's philosophy, the one that shapes and nourishes it, is faith or lack of faith in mankind. If he has confidence in human beings and believes that something fine can be achieved through them, he will acquire ideas about life and about the world which are in harmony with his confidence. Lack of confidence will generate corresponding ideas."

If this were my story, I would not be immodest enough to say the following, but it is Joan's and so I feel I can: in some ways it is more valuable in pointing up the true nature of the drive toward antisocial behavior than is many a sociological treatise.

Sara Harris

* * *

CHAPTER ONE YOUR MOTHER GOES WITH LOTS OF MEN

My mother, God rest her soul, was a sporting girl. I remember her as the sweetest, prettiest woman I ever knew. She had greenish-colored eyes, chestnut hair, and a smile that, according to my stepfather, "lit up the whole world." She was a wonderful cook and such an immaculate housekeeper that you could have eaten off her floor. And she was smart. She could talk to anybody on any subject.

I found out she was a sporting girl when I was ten. My best girl friend, Jeanie, told me. Her mother told her. I was very unhappy because I had always looked up to my mother so and because I wanted to believe that she was better than other children's mothers, but I can't say I was shocked. In those days I didn't see anything wrong with the sporting life. I had known plenty of sporting women, including Jeanie's own mother, Mrs. Lamberta.

My mother was different from Jeanie's mother-much less open about what she was doing. Actually she was not a prostitute in the usual sense. I know she never would have lived the way I do now. Sometimes I'm glad she's dead and doesn't know the kind of life I lead. She used to have sweethearts, maybe three or four at a time, and they must have liked her type because they'd keep coming back to her. They were all bachelors and legits. And they'd provide her with a beautiful apartment, a car, and the best of clothes. In her heyday, she had money to burn. She was such a generous person. Never went to visit any place empty-handed. She took good care of all the relatives, not only her own parents, brothers, and sisters, but also my stepfather's family.

My stepfather! I sure love that man. He's the ugliest gink, short, fat, bald-headed, and with a nose that's been broken about four times-he had a bad temper and would fight anybody at the drop of a hat-but what a lovely guy he is. He was very good to me when I was little. He loved me because I was my mother's daughter. He did so many sweet things; took me swimming, played games with me, bought me little presents. One Christmas he got me a beautiful doll all dressed in powder-blue silk. I guess I had it half an hour when I started taking it all apart. My mother wanted to lick me, but Len wouldn't let her.

He said, "Aw Mame, let the kid enjoy herself, why dontcha? There's plenty more dolls where this one come from." Meaning the store he'd stolen it from was pretty well stocked.

Len never had a legit job in his grown-up life. He used to say he hadn't worked since he was a little kid and they had teams and horses. After he married my mother and, I guess, for a long time before, he made good money doing the "Maryellen." That's bumping into somebody and taking his wallet out of his pocket. He had a real knack. He could Maryellen with any two fingers of either hand.

He had other rackets too. One of them was holding up crap games. His sister Josie, who still runs several of the big games in Boston, used to tip him off and he'd give her a cut of what he got. He'd have done real fine with that if he hadn't had to split everything with a cop who knew the score. Even so, he did O.K.

And whenever he didn't make enough out of Maryellens and crap games, he and my mother used to do the badger game with her tricks. That's the shakedown racket and it's so old that most squares are wise to it today. But in my mother's time it was still a good thing. She and Len used to pull it with this old restaurant guy named Joe. He was nice, but a jerk to fall for the same thing over and over again. The way Len and my mother worked it, Mom would invite Joe up to the apartment and after the two of them had had time to undress, Len would come in.

He was an actor. He'd grab hold of poor old Joe and yell to beat the band. "Why, you big Irish mick. You lousy, no-good bastard, you, what're you doin' with my wife? I ought to knock your block off."

My mother'd be standing around, naked as the day she was born, and wringing her hands, "Aw, Len, now listen, please don't start any trouble. After all, you realize...."

Len'd make a fist at my mother. "You better go get some clothes on, damn it, before I push your face in too."

Then Len'd scare Joe some more. He'd quiet down after a while and turn the tears on. And he'd behave like he was softening toward Joe. "It ain't really your fault no more'n mine. She's a witch and that's all. I wanna walk out. There ain't no sense in hanging around here no more when you got such a wife. I got some good opportunities out of town, so I tell you what I'm gonna do for you, Joe. Gimme enough money to leave town and I'll get out and leave Mame to you."

I lived the first years of my life not with my mother and Len, but with my maternal grandparents and my Uncle Artie. This was the Jewish part of my family. My real father, who died when I was three years old, and Len, my stepfather, were both Italians.

My Jewish grandmother was named Rosie, but I always called her "Bubby." She was very young for a grandmother, having been only thirty-five years old when I was born. Like my mother, she was a pretty and a warm woman. But she had an unhappy life. My grandfather, whom she loved more than anyone else in the world, left her after seven years of marriage. He was a good-looking son of a gun, a big racket man in New Jersey, and he made more money than he knew what to do with. After he married his second wife, Patsy, he bought a big home and the two of them began acting like a pair of squares, raising horses and putting on the dog.

It really used to burn me because I knew that my grandfather never contributed anything to the support of my mother and Uncle Artie. Before the war, World War I, my Bubby supported them by doing sewing at home. She used to tell me all the time about how she'd stay awake night after night and sew by the light of kerosene lamps. I'd cry every time she told me.

By the time I lived with her, Bubby was married to my step-grandfather, whom I called Zadie. I used to be embarrassed by him because some kid on our block nicknamed him "Cokehead" and all the others began calling him that. I don't know why. He certainly wasn't a drug addict, and he wouldn't have known cocaine if you'd waved it in his face. But he had a bald head. And he hated kids. So they got to hate him in return. I guess the name "Cokehead" was just their way of letting him know they didn't respect him much. Kids are like that. Every town has its Barney Google, and children who grow up in neighborhoods like I lived in had to have someone to pick on. Just to get rid of their troubles. Lots of the kids I went to school with used to go into the five and dime and steal things. Most of the time they didn't even need the things they took, didn't even keep them. And sometimes they'd go and steal cigarettes and cigars and throw them down the sewer. They just felt mean because they didn't have things, and they'd need to take it out on something or somebody.

I grew up on a slum block in Boston. All our neighbors were poor and raggedy and the other kids around had a lot less than I did. We, my Bubby, my Zadie, Uncle Artie, and I, had a three-room tenement apartment. The toilet was in the hall and we took baths in the washtub. There were mice and rats.

My mother hated Bubby's apartment. She and my stepfather used to talk their hearts out trying to get her to move, but Bubby was a stubborn woman. She told my mother:

"Mame, if you don't know what to do with your money and want to throw it around on apartments for people, give it to me instead. I'll put it in the bank and, sometime, on a rainy day, I'll give it back."

You never knew how you stood with Bubby. I sure as hell didn't. Sometimes she'd spoil me, give me anything I wanted, and then again she'd yell and scream at me for nothing. Now I know the reason she was so hard to get along with. She was beginning to lose her mind. Poor woman ended up in the insane asylum. So did her mother, my great-grandmother. And my great-aunt, her mother's sister.

Of course, I didn't know my Bubby was going crazy. Or rather, I couldn't bring myself to face facts. I remembered her from the days when she was sane and good and loving-and even after I had all the proof I couldn't believe there was anything wrong with her mind. The other kids used to tell me, but I laughed off what they said. I knew she did peculiar things like laughing when there was no reason for laughter and getting all upset when we played casino because she thought I'd cheated her.

I'd say, "Bubby, I didn't cheat. Honest." And I really hadn't.

She'd say, "I work my hands to the bone for you. What do I get? You cheat me, your own grandmother."

Still, I just considered her nervous and maybe a little bit on the eccentric side. Until, one day-I can't remember what I did to provoke her-she got mad and started hitting me, and when I ran out of the house she followed me into the hallway. She was all naked except for the girdle she was still pulling on. There were a couple of kids standing around the hall, and they laughed and made shame. One started singing, "There goes Crazy Rosie. There goes Crazy Rosie." The others joined in. It hurt me terribly because I loved her and remembered her from the good days. I tried to beat the other kids up, but they were bigger and there were more of them.

Actually, my grandmother's insanity didn't become really bad until I was ten years old, going on eleven. That was the year I was going to spend a couple of months with my Italian family in New Jersey.

"Joanie," my grandmother said, "I don't want you to go."

I said, "Aw, Bubby, please...." I was tired of staying home with one old lady. I wanted to be with other children, my cousins, and with my aunts and uncles, who were young and gay.

She said, "Joanie, you'll miss school."

But that seemed like a silly argument. I had been taken out of the Boston school during other years and placed in a school in Jersey. Maybe I'd lose a class, but who cared? I said, "Oh Bubby, school, schmool." Like she often used to say herself.

But this time it made her mad. She started beating at me and crying, "Joanie, Joanie, if you go away from me now, you don't ever need to come back. You won't find me here no more when you come."

I felt terrible to hear her, but I knew I couldn't let her stop me. I cried inside all the time I traveled to Jersey. But once I arrived I forgot about Bubby. It was a lot of fun to be with so many relatives.

First there was my Italian great-grandmother, Nana. She was some character, so bowlegged you could put a barrel between her feet, and weak-eyed, with thin salt-and-pepper gray hair. She spoke very little English. The two words she used most were "stupid" and "bum." Everybody who spoke no Italian, including my mother and me, was stupid, and most people were bums.

For all her bad habits, Nana was still a fine person and a good grandmother. She'd give you the shirt off her back. Anytime she saw any of us kids, she'd go into an old hope chest and pull out sheets and pillowcases she'd made for when we got married. It didn't matter how young we were. Then, after she'd given us the trousseau stuff, she'd go over to a little safe she had and take money out and give it to us. She was always giving people money out of that safe, I mean grown people, not just children. She used to say, "You got to take this because I give it from here," meaning her heart. She was all right.

Then there was Aunt Mary. She was all right too, although I never liked her much after I was ten. She was a good Catholic. She and her husband, my Uncle Mac, loved kids. I think they were godparents to about forty nieces and nephews including me.

So, when her own baby was born a couple months before I came to visit, she was about the happiest woman alive. She dressed that child like a doll. I used to like to stand around and look at him. One time I was there when she and Uncle Mac were giving him his bath-admiring him as usual-and Uncle Mac held the baby's penis up and said, "Well, son, you're going to have to find some other way. You'll never make it with this." Aunt Mary blew her top. I started to laugh, I couldn't help it, and then she got mad at me.

"You, Joanie, stop laughing, you little scum. Just like your mother."

I said, "What do you mean, just like my mother?" But I knew. I remembered what Jeanie had told me. I felt so terrible I had to cry.

Uncle Mac put his arm around me. "That's O.K, baby." He turned to Aunt Mary. "You. You're such a good Catholic, aren't you! You think the church'd think it's right to hurt a kid's feelings? You're just jealous of Mame, that's the trouble with you."

Now I know that wasn't true. Uncle Mac just said it to make me feel good. But then I believed in it. I guess because I wanted to so much. I knew Aunt Mary was poor and dowdy while my mother always had the best of clothes and the prettiest of apartments. And I tried to make myself think money mattered more than being respectable. Although, of course, at that time I didn't even know the meaning of the word. But I thought, Who is Aunt Mary to be so snooty? My mother never came to Jersey once without being loaded down with presents for her and all her relatives. All her sisters and brothersin-law and their kids. And even though they made such a big stink about how they behave so proper, there are skeletons in their closets too.

Like my Aunt Cassie. She had four kids, one of them about ready to get married. And she always went to church every Sunday as regular as clockwork and even had the priest come to her house, she was that holy. Still and all when she got a couple of beers in her, don't you think she used to sneak out on the old man? Only thing with her, she didn't take any money for what she gave away. At least, as far as I know she didn't.

There was only one aunt, Gilda, who didn't make cracks about my mother. That's why I loved her best of all. And when she turned against my mother and me, later on, I felt bitter and began hating her. But, of course, during the year I am talking about, my tenth, I loved her with all my heart. She was taller than my Aunt Mary and she must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. She told people she was a widow. After I grew up I found out she'd never had a husband to her name. All her four kids had different fathers. They were different nationalities too. One thing about them though, they were all Catholics. After the fourth kid was born-Linda, who was just my age-Aunt Gilda turned respectable and stopped going out with men. She got a job in a toy factory and also cleaned and took care of her house. She joined the church. I'm glad to say, all her kids went legit and are doing fine today. They're married and living a good, decent life.

It was Aunt Gilda who had me baptized a Catholic. One night she called a meeting of all the relatives.

"This kid's been a heathen long enough. We got to do something about her. We got to save her."

So they went out and got me beautiful white clothes and had me baptized. Nobody thought about what my Jewish Bubby would think-not even me. I enjoyed my baptism. I guess "enjoyed" is the wrong word. I should say it touched me to the heart.

Soon after I was baptized, I saw Jesus Christ. Before He came to me, I'd been frightened of all the statues my Nana had in her bedroom-the cross at the head of the bed, bleeding-hearted Jesus at the foot, and all over the room, statues of Jesus and the Blessed Mary. On the nights when I had to go to sleep in her bedroom-I'd often have to do that because my own bed was in the dining room-I'd look at the statues and imagine they were growing bigger. I'd lie m bed and shiver.

Well, on this particular night I'm talking about, there was something different about the way I felt toward the statues. I had fallen half-asleep, and I woke up with the sense: "Somebody is in this room." It was like that, like conversation and not like something that comes from inside of you. For once in my life I wasn't afraid. I was just excited. I looked to where I was led to look, to the foot of the bed, and there, standing in all His glory, was the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Then I didn't think about why He had come to me, of all people. But now I know why I was so privileged. It was so that, no matter what happened to me for the rest of my life, I would always have something to go on. And until today, whenever I get real beat, real down, I think of how it was when I was ten. Jesus looked at me. He stood at the foot of my bed for a long time and looked at me like He pitied me. I still remember how much He pitied me. He stood there at the foot of my Nana's bed looking at me with all that kindness and yet with so much pity. I think it was because He knew what my life was going to become. He didn't say anything to me, and I said nothing to Him. I just kept looking and soaking all the beauty in.

I often think today how strange it is that people who have done nothing but good all their lives have never been privileged to see what I saw.

After my vision, I became happier at Nana's. For one thing, I was no longer afraid of the statues in the bedroom. For another, I began feeling closer to the whole Italian side of my family.

Still, I was glad when it came time for me to go back to Boston. I had missed my mother, Len, and Artie something terrible. And I don't think I'd gone to bed one night without a guilty conscience over Bubby. I prayed to God to look after her and not let her miss me too much. Now I thought I'd go home and make things up to her.

Once I'd got home though, I found my good intentions weren't so easy to carry out. Bubby was sicker in the head than when I left, crazier. She thought people were trying to poison her food. She hardly ate and became thin. Many times she didn't let me eat anything either. I'd have to wait until she fell asleep and then I'd sneak some food on her. Or else my Uncle Artie would take me out to eat after he came home from work.

My mother would cry every time she came to see us. Still, she wouldn't believe Bubby's mind was going. And even though she was afraid to leave me, she wouldn't take me out of Bubby's house because that would be aclmitting there was something wrong.

I was never really scared of Bubby myself until one day-it happened to be one of her good days when she not only let me eat but also ate, herself-I mentioned that my Jersey family had had me baptized and that Jesus, Himself, had come to me. I thought she was going to kill me, she got so mad. She began throwing everything in the house and she started to beat me over the head with a broom.

"You should only drop dead. You and all the other goyim. You're not mine any more. I don't want you. I won't own you, you shikse, you. Go back to the goyim. Go on. Get out of here. Go back to the goyishe side of your family. Go. Go. They can have you. I don't want you. Go, go already before I break your head."

I ran out the door and down the stairs, and she followed me, all the time screaming and waving her broom. A cop I knew came up and got hold of her. He took her to the police station and they talked about having her committed to a hospital. My mother came and talked them out of it. I'm not sure, but I think she promised the sergeant he could come and see her sometime. Anyway, he shook her hand when she left and she slipped him a piece of paper. Since I could see it wasn't folding money, I assumed it was her name and address.

We took Bubby home and put her to bed, and my mother said she was nervous and I must be careful not to say things that would upset her.

I said, "Ma, I don't understand why Bubby should be upset just because Jesus Christ came to me."

My mother said, "Joanie, there are a lot of things little girls don't understand. Bubby is a Jew in her heart and it hurts her to think you are not."

After our conversation about my baptism Bubby became haunted by the fear that I would go to the Catholic church. And I wanted to. I needed to. Something drove me to go. So I'd sneak to church.

Come Sunday, I'd take my hat, put it under my coat, and start leaving the house.

"Joanie," Bubby would say, "where are you going?"

I'd cross my fingers so God would make her believe my lie. "To Jeanie's."

"Now, Joanie, don't you dare go to church."

"Oh no, no, Bubby, I won't go."

She'd look at me suspiciously. "Remember, Joanie, if you go and I find out...."

One day she grabbed me and shook me and the hat fell out of my coat. She knew you had to wear a hat in church. Her face got red and she looked like she wanted to kill me. But then, instead of hitting me, she began talking. And in a very sensible tone.

"Now, Joanie, I made up my mind about one thing. If you want to find God, you got to go to the synagogue to find Him; not the church."

But I couldn't go to the synagogue. I don't know why. To me, to this day, Judaism has always been more of a man's religion than a woman's. I don't know why. I respect Judaism and Protestantism and all religions, but Catholicism seemed right for me from the time I was a little girl. Ever since those days when I had to throw my hat out the window so my Bubby wouldn't know where I was going, I have felt peaceful and clean in the Catholic church. In spite of all the dirt in my life today, I still feel, while I'm in church, that I know God. In other words, no matter how much evil there is in the world and how closely it touches me, I'm sure in my heart that there is a God who looks down and watches over me and his other children. There's got to be. After all, it's common sense to know that there is a reason for being born and living and dying. You can't just be born and live a few years and then up and die. There's got to be something beyond. I find it in the Catholic church.

I often tried to tell my mother. She wouldn't be convinced. She'd been an atheist all her life and she'd laugh her head off when I started talking about religion. She teased me about my Catholicism. Not that she was ever mean. My mother didn't have a mean bone in her whole body. She just enjoyed her own jokes.

"Joanie, when Jesus Christ comes down off his cross, that's when I'll start believing in Him."

I'd say, "Oh, Ma, don't talk like that, you got to believe in God."

Then she'd take a five-or ten-dollar bill out of her pocketbook and wave it in my face and say, "This is my God. The almighty dollar. It's the only God I trust."

CHAPTER TWO PLEASE, THAT MELODIOUS VOICE

When I was eleven years old, my heart was broken for the first time. My Bubby got so sick they had to take her to the insane asylum. My mother said Bubby wasn't suffering because she didn't know where they were taking her, but I never believed that. Because she clung so to all of us-to my mother, Uncle Artie, and me. Especially me. She got me in a fighter's grip around the neck and held me tight. The two men from the asylum had to pry her off me. They had to pull her hard because she clung like a leech. My mother and I begged them not to, but my uncle said, "Let them. The sooner this is over with, the better for all of us, especially her."

The day after they took Bubby away my mother came and got me. She felt that a house with two men and no women was not the place for a growing girl.

Being with my mother and Len for good and all was fun. I often pretended that we were an ordinary family. And the two of them played right along with me.

"Len," my mother would say, "how was work today?"

Len would shake his head. "Tough. Tough. And how was yer work, Tootsie?"

"My work? You call what I do work? Taking care of the house and the child all day?"

"Oh, the child. I almost forgot about her. How's she, anyways?"

But we didn't have time for too many games. Len was out a lot of the time and so was my mother. She had been used to bringing her tricks home, but after I came to stay she went to other places with them. She wasn't going to have me see any dirt around the house. She wanted me to be legit. She had big dreams for me.

"Baby, you're going to be pure. You're going to be married in white, not like me. Then when people see what I've made out of you, they'll never be able to say, 'Like mother, like daughter.'"

She was funny, the way she always worried about sex and men coming after me. Like when I came home from school and sometimes took short cuts through the alley, our conversation might go like this:

"Baby, how'd you get home so fast?"

"I took a short cut."

"Joanie. Not through the alley."

No matter how many times she preached at me I couldn't get it into my head that she really was afraid of what could happen in the alley. "Yeah, Ma, sure. All the girls go home that way. There's nothing wrong."

She'd sit down and pull me onto her lap. "Oh God, baby, you don't know the dirt in this world, men's minds, the way they run. Please don't take the alley home. Come the long way and, if it is night, only walk in the streets that are brightly lighted. If you have to, walk in the middle of the street. You can look out for automobiles but you can't handle men maniacs."

My mother was like most sporting women and like I still am today-deep down under she was scared to death of men. She knew them from their dirty side, and the only one she trusted was Len. I wasn't always sure she trusted him either.

She didn't really like men and she enjoyed tricking them. She used to tell me a sporting girl who looked like a lady could take a man easier than one who looked like a whore. That was the secret of her success, the difference between her and cheap prostitutes. That's why she had all the luxuries while Mrs. Lamberta, Jeanie's mother, had to make do with little five-dollar tricks.

She'd tell me, "No matter what happens, you must always behave like a lady. I keep you dressed beautifully, so please, that melodious voice. Talk softly. People will listen to you then. They'll hear you better than if you're loud and boisterous. Sit like a lady. Don't cross your legs. Keep them straight in front of you. And always keep your dress down. Never let your slip or panties show. Eat everything that's put in front of you. Always, a thank-you and a please. A little courtesy doesn't cost you anything."

I guess if courtesy did cost, she wouldn't have given it away so freely. Because there was one bad thing about her-she was certainly mercenary. Not just when we talked about God and Jesus but any time, her conversation no matter how it had started out would shift back to money, money.

"Dear," she would hold a bill up, "this that I have in my hand is your best friend, your only friend. It's a better friend to you than anybody and that includes your own mother. This bill I have in my hand is your first best friend. I'm your second. And you haven't got any third one."

"Ma, isn't Len my third best friend?"

"While he lasts, honey, while he lasts. And you know how long he's going to last? Just as long as I go on acting like a lady. That's why I'm talking to you this way. Baby, I know if you act like a lady, look a lady, you will always be treated with respect. It doesn't matter what you do, the lowest thing in the world. You got to remember that. And also remember, you come first in this world. If Joanie don't look out for little Joanie, nobody else is going to do it."

I'd get unhappy when she talked like that, not believing in anyone or anything, although I knew it was only talk with her, trying to be smart. Because no matter how she sounded or what she said, she was always good in her heart. And God and I both know she was never a cold woman.

She certainly wasn't cold that night, about a year after I came to live with her, when the cops came to get Len. She scratched one sergeant so hard I think he must have carried the mark of her fingernails to his grave. And she kicked another cop right where it would hurt his wife. The kind of fight she put up, Golden Gloves would have paid her a mint.

They got Len on a bum rap anyhow, trying to prove he shot a cop. I know he didn't do it. He wasn't that kind of character. Doing the Maryellen, holding up crap games, all right, I'd be the first one to admit he did those things. But shooting a guy, even a cop, you got to be mean to do that, you got to be nasty. Len wouldn't hurt a fly.

Go tell it to the cops though. I knew those bastards wouldn't believe the truth.

Len told them: "I didn't do it." And he didn't.

The way the shooting happened, Len was holding up a crap game at my Aunt Josie's house and she, or somebody else, started whispering "Cops." Everybody ran like hell, and somebody took a shot at this cop who was a nasty bum anyhow. He didn't die, but still the whole force got dedicated to getting the "guy that got the cop." The newspapers had to come out and shoot their mouths off too. After they got through bulloxing up the deal, you knew the cops were going to have to get somebody or else give up their pretty silver badges. So they went out to find a sitting duck and elected Len. He fit the bill in one important way. He was Italian and so were all the guys who'd been at the crap game.

Len knew who the real cop-shooter was and he could have saved himself by ratting. Some saving himself! All that would have happened, the other guy would have been thrown in the clink and one of his "friends" would have picked up Len, shot him in the back, and dumped him in the river. My stepfather wasn't born yesterday. He kept his thick lips clamped so tight you couldn't have forced a toothpick through.

I was lonely after Len went to jail and my mother was lonelier but she wouldn't admit it. Not her. I don't remember the time she didn't keep a stiff upper lip. I tried to break her down too. I don't know why I was so cruel.

"Ma, don't you miss Len?"

"Joanie, you're getting too big to keep saying Ma all the time. Say Mother, it's politer."

"All right then, Mother."

"All right then."

"Don't you miss Len at all-Mother?"

"Yes, I miss Len. But I'm no young girl with hot pants. Life must go on, you know. There are many fish in the sea."

"But Len was so good to you all the time."

"Yes."

"You'll never find anyone else to treat you like he did-Mother."

"Yes. So?"

Then I'd grow angry. Why wasn't she feeling what I felt? I don't know why. In fact, when I think about it today, I don't really know how she felt. Because in spite of all her fancy talk and all the business she gave me about acting like a lady, she became a junkie during the time Len was away from her. And I mean a pitiful junkie.

Now, I can understand how come she did. Without him it was a terrible life she led.

She had her tricks of course, but what are tricks good for except money? And the only other things she had were me and her car, a Buick coupe. She was a reckless driver. She'd make that car go so fast. I don't know, she seemed to find herself when she was driving. She couldn't spend her whole life in a car though, and she needed junk to keep her from thinking. She was a confirmed addict by the time I was thirteen, high most of the time. She'd goof half her days away. She'd sleep on trains and streetcars and in public restaurants. She'd just sit and go on the nod and get sleepier and sleepier until finally she'd go off. Sometimes she foamed at the mouth. I'd be so embarrassed.

At first I used to try talking to her. "Ma, please, you're not acting like a lady."

She'd get angry. "Who's not acting like a lady? I'll have you know I was born a lady, I was raised a lady, and I intend to die a lady."

"Not if you carry on like this."

"Like what?"

"Like you're doing."

"And what am I doing?"

"You're goofing, Ma."

"And you, Joanie, are an ungrateful little bastard."

One thing I'm happy about. My mother never went to jail as an addict. In the days when she began using dope, there weren't so many junkies and the cops didn't have the nets out for them. In fact, the few times my mother was picked up, nobody pegged her as a user. Instead they just put her down as drunk and disorderly. I often wonder how she would have been as an addict today. I don't believe she could have taken the guff. I don't think she would have been able to live through today's addict jails with their cold-turkey cures. She was different from me. I'm a tough cookie and can look out for myself. She was always the delicate one.

From the time I was thirteen and knew she was an addict, I tried to keep my eye on her. I used to be afraid to leave her alone in the house because she liked to goof and smoke at the same time and there was no telling what she could do to herself. I didn't like her walking alone either, because when she had an overdose of stuff-and she had it whenever she could get it-she wasn't responsible for anything.

She really got down after she got on drugs and with Len in jail and Bubby in the insane asylum there was nobody to help her but me. It was terrible how my mother's so-called friends left her after she got down. Not only left her, they kicked her in the teeth. And her family wasn't much better. Uncle Artie was the only one who had a good word for her. The others, when I'd talk to them, it didn't matter how the conversation started out, it would always come back to this:

"Your mother's no goddamn good." They hurt me so much and yet I couldn't hurt them back. I don't know, I used to have a big mouth, a filthy mouth, I used to have a comeback for everything else and yet, when she was sick and down on her luck and all those people talked so rotten, I had no comeback.

I guess I would have felt like blowing my stack if it hadn't been for Jeanie Lamberta. She was a wonderful friend, more of a sister. We were very close to one another. Maybe that was because we hadn't anyone else to be close to. We were afraid to make other friends because we thought everybody knew about our mothers. We were always scared stiff of being hurt and so we never left ourselves open. We said to hell with everybody else. They wouldn't want us-so we didn't want them. It was the same with the teachers in school. We were always afraid to let them get to know us too well. Not that any of them really tried. Teachers and children were alike. We built a shell around ourselves and they let us stew in it. Not that I blamed them. After all, they had lives and troubles of their own. Why should they have bothered with two outcasts who seemed to choose to be that way?

But Jeanie and I had something rare between us. We really cared about each other. We never had jealousies and spats like other girls our age. Of course we knew that if we once lost each other there'd be nobody else for either of us. But necessity was not all that kept us so good together. It was love that did.

Jeanie is dead now. The poor kid committed suicide. And yet, to this day, she is just as much with me as she ever was.

CHAPTER THREE LIKE MOTHER, LIKE DAUGHTER

When I was fifteen, I went back to Jersey and the Italian part of my family. I didn't want to leave my mother in her condition, but she begged me to go.

"Baby, you know how I'm going to miss you. But it'll be good for you to get away from me and all this for a while."

She wouldn't have been able to talk me into it except for one thing: she had taken a new lover, Vincent Bola, and he moved into the apartment with us. He was an addict like my mother and he pushed stuff for a living. He had a couple of good connections in Boston and they trusted him even though he was a junkie. Which meant he could do at least well enough to keep my mother in all the stuff she needed-and she needed plenty now, about thirty to fifty dollars' worth a day. He was a great, big, clumsy gink about fifty years old and he was crazy for my mother. It was Mame this and Mame that, and anything Mame wants I'll get her even if I have to kill someone to do it.

So, knowing that my mother was with a man who wouldn't let her down, I agreed to go to see my aunts and cousins. Poor old Nana was dead, so I went to stay with Aunt Cassie. Boy, she'd sure turned into a different woman since I'd last seen her. She'd done some job of squaring up. Either that, or else Uncle Billy had finally succeeded in beating some sense into her. Or maybe it was just that she'd begun to realize she was no spring chicken any more. Anyway, there were no more beers, no more guys, no more nothing. And Aunt Cassie spent most of her time cooking up a mess in the kitchen and making dresses for her three daughters, Jane, Louise, and Sylvia. When she wasn't being domestic like that she was matchmaking for the girls.

Both Aunt Cassie and Uncle Billy were glad enough to see me, although Aunt Cassie, now that she'd turned so damned respectable, wasn't exactly hot about having me at her house. And she talked so much about doing her duty that I wanted to tell her to skip the damn duty and send me home. But I knew my mother would be disappointed if I came too soon, so I kept my mouth shut. It was hard, especially when my cousins picked on my mother.

"Joanie, what's your mother doing now?"

"Aw, nothing much."

"But what?"

"Oh, stop bothering me, will you?"

"Everything's a bother to you. We're your cousins, you're supposed to tell us things. There shouldn't be secrets between relatives."

"If you want to know something about my mother, why don't you ask her?"

"But she's not here. You are. Say Joanie, is it true your mother's got a new sweetheart? How many does that make, anyhow?"

I don't mean to say that all my time at Aunt Cassie's was bad or that my cousins were always mean. Sometimes everybody was just as lovely as could be to me. Like, sometimes Aunt Cassie made me feel I'd done her whole family a favor by coming to their house, and the girls tried to introduce me to young people I would want to know. But not too often. Most of the time I was lonely as hell.

And right after I came to Aunt Cassie's, I developed a wild streak. Maybe it was deep in me all the time. Maybe not. I don't really know. All I do know, I started running around like crazy once I hit Jersey. I went with every Tom, Dick, and Harry who asked me. I found I liked playing around and I thought I was too smart to let myself get burned. I handled the boys. Being the daughter of a high-class pro had given me a good instinct for it. I didn't have what you'd call a voluptuous build, but I did know how to use what I had. I'd throw my body around like a little old whirling dervish. And I knew how to make promises with my eyes that I didn't intend to keep. In other words I was a big tease, but I sincerely meant to heed my mother's advice and hold on to my virginity.

I don't know what made me behave like I did. I knew right from wrong and yet there was something in me made me lead boys on so I could tell them where to head off when they fell for my line. What I'd do, I'd let them touch me in intimate places just so I could watch them get excited, then when they did, I'd tell them off in that nasty way I had. None of the kids really believed I was a virgin and I used to laugh up my sleeve at them.

Until I met Mike Luca. My cousin Jane brought him home one night. He was five years older than me and had a good job in steel. He was a handsome guy with a cute little turned-up nose and long, black eyelashes. He was a sharp dresser and, when he talked to you or took you out, he had a way about him that could make you feel you were the Queen of Sheba. I fell for him like a ton of bricks. I remember, I wrote Jeanie a letter: "Kid, what do you want to bet I'll be marrying this fellow?"

All of a sudden, I wasn't such a wise little girl any more. All Mike had to do was snap his fingers and I came running. But I didn't sleep with him. I said, "Only if we got married."

Well, he said he would marry me as soon as he earned enough money to take care of me.

"Baby, I want you to have everything."

I'd say everything didn't matter. All I wanted was him. I said, "I'll be sixteen soon. And then I can get my working papers. With both of us working, we can make out fine."

"I wouldn't have any wife of mine going to work. My wife's going to have it easy."

Well, when we'd pass a furniture store: "Baby, pick out our bedroom stuff for after we get married."

When we'd pass a jewelry shop: "Sweetie, which ring do you want me to buy you when we get engaged?"

When we'd pass a bridal shop: "Honey, I can just see you in one of those veils."

I suppose what happened had to, but it might not have happened so soon if I hadn't had a fight with Aunt Cassie. It was about my mother, as usual. I got so mad at my aunt's mealy-mouthed cracks, I told her to shut her dirty mouth. I said she wasn't good enough to clean my mother's toilet bowl. I'd never been so fresh to her before. I ran out of the house and slammed the door. I said I never wanted to set foot there again.

I called Mike from a drugstore and told him there'd been a tragedy. He came running. He took one look at me and said:

"I'm taking you to the clubhouse, honey."

Now I know what was in his mind. He figured-tonight the kid's ripe for it. But then, little jerk that I was, I thought he wanted to-take me to the clubhouse so he could give me the comfort I needed, hold me in his arms, kiss me a little bit, tell me he loved me.

Well, he had me on the pool table. It was terrible for me. And after everything was over, he looked at me and, instead of saying "I love you more now than I did before," he laughed very low down in his throat and said:

"Jesus Christ, kid, you weren't kidding when you said you were a virgin."

If I'd had the sense I was born with, I'd have stopped seeing him after that. After all, I was pretty hurt, not just by my first intercourse but also by the mean way he behaved to me. He didn't have to be such a joker. He could have said a couple of nice words to make me feel less guilty.

Still I continued to see him and, I am ashamed to admit, to love him. Of course I believed he loved me too. I had to believe it.

I'd say, "Mike, tell me the truth. Do you love me?"

"Yeah." He'd shake his head absent-mindedly, his mind on other things, sex for one.

We used to have sex in his car all the time. I never got to like it. I always did it just to please him. I kidded myself into thinking I was holding him with my sex and that some day he'd carry me off to the little white cottage for two-or three. Corny? I was only a kid, remember, f. don't know whether being young is a good enough excuse for the way I behaved, but anyhow, it's the only one I've got.

One night we were in Mike's car making love and a cop shone his light in on us. I don't think I was ever so embarrassed in my life. I pulled away and jerked my dress down fast-but not fast enough.

"It's all right, kid," the cop grinned. He was a big, red-faced Irishman. "You can't cover up, so don't knock yourself out. I caught you in the act."

He took us down to the station house. I remember he pushed us through the door like we were tough criminals instead of a pair of kids. I felt I was a long way from home and the dreams Jeanie and I used to share in her big double bed.

A new cop took me into an inside room, and the one who had brought us in handled Mike outside.

"What's your name?" my cop asked. He was a fat, beefy character who looked like a butcher.

I told him my name.

Then he said, "What's the fellow's name?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" And then he used a four-letter word I don't have to go into here. I guess everybody who's lived where there are walls or fences grew up knowing the meaning. But that cop acted like he thought I didn't and like he was saying it to me for kicks. He kept repeating it too. I've had plenty of perverts talk the same way since I became a whore, but they know they have to pay to make me listen. This cop used his uniform and his position. He's the one who first caused me to lose respect for the law. And I haven't gained it back since either. All I have to say is, the President, the Congress, the mayor, the people who make the law, must not respect it any more than I do. Else they'd be a little more careful of the people they hire to carry it out for them. Not that all cops are bums. I've known some decent, nice guys on the force.

"So you were in this car with this guy and you don't know his name, huh?"

"All right, then, I'm not telling you his name. Let's put it that way."

"You're a fresh little stinker, aren't you? How would you like me to pull your pants down and teach you a lesson?"

I knew all about what cops could and couldn't do from Len and my mother. So I stood up on my hind legs and said: "Boy I dare you."

"I'll say one thing for you, kid," he answered. "You got guts. But you better answer my questions or I'll hit you over the head."

I was thinking of some words to throw at him, but before I could bring any out Mike and his little boy blue came in.

His cop said to mine, real cute like: "I want you to meet Mike Luca, the Romeo of Newark, New Jersey."

My cop said, "Believe it or not, this little bitch wouldn't tell me what his name was." Then he turned to me. "Did you have sex with this fellow?" Only he didn't put it so gently.

I knew I'd been seen but, I figured, why should I be the one to make that cop bastard's job any easier? "No."

The other cop pointed to Mike. "He told us yes."

"So he's a liar."

Mike said, "Joanie, I told him I was the first and only guy you were ever with."

Well, they put me in jail. There were a couple of old-time pros and drunks and disorderlies in the same cell I was. They passed the time away by telling me dirty jokes.

My Aunt Cassie came after I was in about four hours. She cried and said I was disgracing her good name and Uncle Billy's and the good names of all my cousins. I had it on the tip of my tongue to say, "I knew you when, old girl," but what the hell was the good of it all? I didn't need to take my bitter feeSngs out on her. She must love me, else she wouldn't be in this jail right now. I ought to be grateful to her, that's what. I decided to listen politely to anything she told me.

"Joanie, did you let Mike make love to you?"

"Yes, Aunt Cassie."

"Why?"

"Because I love him."

"That's a hell of a reason. Do you realize that, if this comes out, no boy'll want to marry you?"

"Mike'll marry me, Aunt Cassie."

"And what makes you think so?"

"He told me."

"Oh, my God, are you really as dumb as you sound or are you just acting that way?" She mimicked my voice and my look. "He told me. He told me. Oh, my God, how stupid can a girl be? How dumb can you get? Didn't your mother ever tell you not to believe everything men say? Don't you know yet what liars they are? Don't you know anything?"

I was bullheaded. "Mike said he wants to marry me and he does."

For a while, Aunt Cassie and I were both quiet. We looked around at the prostitutes and disorderlies, who had stopped talking and sat staring at us.

Finally I said: "Aunt Cassie?"

"What?"

"I never had anybody else. Mike's the only one."

And then Aunt Cassie said something I've never forgiven her for. "I know you, Joanie girl. He may have been the first. But now that you've thrown your olive away, I can bet he won't be the last." She didn't say, "Like mother, like daughter." But I knew that that was what she meant.

I stayed in jail overnight and came up before the judge in the morning. He looked like a nice old grandpa type and I couldn't help but like him. He asked whether Mike and I had slept together before and I admitted we had. Then he turned to Mike and said:

"Do you know whether or not you were the first man in this girl's life?"

"Yes, Your Honor, I was."

That was my Mike. He was standing by me after all. He could have been like some other guys and blamed everything on me. After all, judges sometimes were hard on fellows who took virgin girls. But he was taking the risk for my sake. Now I knew he loved me. I was right and Aunt Cassie was wrong. He must want to marry me after all.

"Don't you feel guilty over having been the first?"

Mike smiled and somehow he wasn't Mike any more. "Well, no, Your Honor. You see, she has a terrible reputation in the neighborhood."

I was sitting next to Aunt Cassie and I couldn't help it, I grabbed her arm and started squeezing it. I just couldn't believe my ears.

The judge said, "I didn't ask you about this girl's reputation. Now, will you please answer my question and hold any opinions you have until I call for them-if I call for them."

"Yes, Your Honor."

"All right, were you the first man to have intercourse with this girl?"

"I guess so."

"Do you know whether or not you were?"

"Yes, Your Honor, I know I was."

"All right. If you had the opportunity, would you marry this girl?"

I held tight to Aunt Cassie. "Only if I have to, Your Honor."

So that was that. The end of my first great love.

I was called to take the stand and the judge asked me a lot of questions about myself. I guess I managed to answer them all in the right way.

Finally he said, "Tell me, little girl, would you like to marry this man?"

I smiled. "Only if I have to, Your Honor."

"All right," he said. "You don't have to."

I said, "Thank you, sir." Just as though he'd taken a load off my mind.

I was grateful he had chosen to question me after he finished with Mike. Suppose it had been the other way around. Then I would have blurted out the truth. I had had a narrow escape. At least I still had my pride.

The judge ordered me back to Boston and my mother. I wonder where he would have sent me if he'd known who my mother was.

CHAPTER FOUR MY WEDDING WAS A FUNERAL

Back home, nothing seemed to have changed except that my mother was more of a junkie now. She and Vincent Bola were high most of the time and they didn't have much room in their lives for me. They made me know I was welcome at home and I had all the money and clothes I wanted and my mother loved me and made over me as she'd used to do before-but still, they lived on a tight little goof-island of their own and I felt like there was no real place there for me.

Besides, much as I hated to believe it, my aunt's barbs had left their mark. I still sympathized with my mother, I still loved her, but I began disapproving of her. Her prostitution was bad enough. But her addiction was worse. Why had she let herself get sucked in this way? Why was she such a weakling?

So, because home was less pleasant and because I was so lonely I just got to the point where I couldn't stand it any more. I'd just have to walk out.

But where to go? I haunted the movie houses. I'd see pictures three or four times until they were coming out of my ears. It was morbid but I couldn't think of anything else to do with my time. Finally, I started hanging around the downtown bars. At least they were gay and friendly. After a couple of months, I graduated to the slummy seamen's bars. I was still just hanging around for the company.

My mother tried to stop me from going round to the bars. She tried everything, crying, screaming, taking my allowance away, begging me, ordering me, preaching at me. But, as I said, I resented her. I felt sorry for myself, thinking how different my life might have been if my mother had been a square instead of a sporting girl. I figured, who the hell was she to be preaching at me? I still collapsed inside when I think of the way I talked to her. May God forgive me.

I said, "You can't tell me what to do after the dirty life you led. You can't guide me. A whore and a dope addict. Ma, you couldn't guide a cockroach."

She said, "But I tried, Joanie."

I said, "Aah, tell it to your junkie friends." And I ran out.

I ran all the way down to Scollay Square to this seamen's bar I knew. What a dive it was, filthy, with sawdust on the floor and pictures of half-naked women tacked up on the walls. Every once in a while some drunk would get stuck on one of the pictures and tear it off. Or else some whore might stand up and ask whose shape was better-hers or the picture girls'. Boy, what a hubbub would go on then. Some seamen are gentlemen and liars. But most of them are rough and tell dames the truth. Believe me, I saw many a cute little sailor boy about to get his eyes scratched out by some mad she-cat.

Most of the people at the bar the night I am talking about were old-timers. I came in and it was a big hello from everybody: "Hi, Joanie baby. You're lookin' nice, sweetie pie." But no passes. Those guys knew I was jail-bait and they weren't having any. The bartender let me hang around and served me drinks, but I guess guys figured that was his business, not theirs. And if anything happened on account of my being underage, it would be his headache.

I looked around and saw only one new face, a great big bruiser of a seaman with blue eyes and blond wavy hair. I liked his type and I gave him the eye. He came over and sat down at my table.

I said, "What's your name, fella?"

"Jonathan Matthew Rowly the third." He had the sweetest Southern drawl I'd ever heard.

I started to laugh at how Southern he was. "An' where you-all from, honey chile?"

"Way down Alabamy way. Ma folks is farmin' down there."

"Now ain't that a co-in-ci-dence," I drawled. "Ah-all comes from Alabamy way too."

Now he laughed too. "Ma'am, ah hate callin' a pretty gal a pre-var-i-ca-tor, but you got Beantown written all over yer self."

We kidded like that for a long time. We hung around talking and drinking till the bar closed and Big Tim, the proprietor, told us to get the hell out.

We went on talking to each other.

"Hey, what'sa matter witcha? Deef or somethin'?"

We still went on talking.

"What do you want I should do, carry you out in my hands like a couple lousy bottle babies or somethin'?"

Finally I said, "Jonathan Matthew Rowly the third, ah wouldn't be at all surprised, at all, at all, if that nice gentleman didn't want us all to git all the hell all out of here."

"Well, now, ladyfriend," Jonathan grinned. "What d'ya all know about that?"

We were drunk and stood around outside the bar for nearly half an hour. Then Johnny said, "How's about finishin' up at ma place?"

I said O.K. I liked him and I told myself nothing can happen to a girl if she doesn't want it to. I could take care of myself.

That's what I thought.

Johnny was not a fellow to waste time on preliniinaries. And I guess he figured he'd had enough conversation for one night. So, as soon as we got to his room-it was one of those crummy furnished places with wallpaper that looked like somebody's nightmare, a big double bed so he could have company without putting himself out, a chair, and a dresser--he began taking off his uniform.

I cracked wise. "Hey, just a minute, Southern boy. I didn't come up here for no free show."

"Well, ye're gonna git one anyways. Git on the bed now and be a good girl like Daddy-o tells ya."

I tried the door. It was locked. "Let me out, Johnny, please."

"Nope."

"I'm young. I'm jailbait. You think I'm older than I am.

"Honey chile, for what you got, ahm willin' to go to jail."

"I'll scream."

"Ah'll knock yer teeth out, baby doll."

Johnny raped me and sent me home crying. You'd think that would have been the end. Well, it wasn't. I went with him whenever he wanted me. I told myself I wasn't in love with him. I told myself I hated him. But in my heart, I knew I was crazy about the brute and I often had daydreams about making him fall in love with me and changing him all over after he did.

Johnny shipped out about two months after I'd met him. I missed him terribly. Every day I'd wait for a letter-he'd promised faithfully that he'd write-but, no soap, never a word.

Well, now I really felt alone. I got sick with loneliness. I never knew what to do with myself. And then I was frightened because my period stopped. If I became pregnant now it would be the last straw.

Well, the weeks and the months went by and after a while the day came when I had to face facts. I was going to have a baby, Johnny's baby, and that was that. So I waited till my mother was a little soberer than usual and then I let her have it.

She broke out crying. "I made so many plans for you. I wanted you to have a decent life. Oh, Joanie, goddamn you anyway."

I said, "Ma, you got to do something." I was desperate.

"God, Joanie. I don't know."

"Please."

Now she was talking more to herself than to me. "I got rid of plenty of babies myself. I don't know whether you know or not."

"Yeah, I know." I was ready to clutch at any rope. My mother had had abortions and they hadn't hurt her. But I'd known women who'd died in childbirth. "Get rid of my baby." Nobody in this world will ever know how it hurt me to say that. I was a Catholic and I knew abortion to be a sin against God and man. But I was so frightened to have a baby, so afraid I might die. "Joanie, I can't."

"You got to, Ma. You got to, that's all."

"No."

I couldn't understand her. "You're mean. You don't love me." She was not a Catholic. She wasn't even religious. So why was she acting like that? "You don't love me, Ma."

"I love you all right. That's why I can't. If you weren't my daughter, I could do it easy. I could always do it easy for myself. But, with you, it's different. Don't talk to me any more. I don't care what you say, I can't. Suppose you died on me?"

After a while, Vincent came in and my mother told him my story.

He said, "Joanie has to get married before she has this baby."

"Why?" I asked.

"Why? Why, she asks. I'll tell ya why. Ifn ya don' they'll sen' ya to reform school. Or jail."

Here was another horror I had to face. "Vince, if they do, I'll die. I'll kill myself."

Vince said, "Don' worry, hon. I ain't gonna let 'em sen' ya noplace."

My mother said, "Now, Joanie, tell me about the fellow or fellows. Was there more than one?"

"No, Ma."

"Thank God."

I told them all about Johnny then, how I'd met him, what he'd done to me, everything.

Vince said, "The no-good bastid. I'll crack his head open."

My mother said, "It's too late now. Joanie, do you want to marry him?"

I said, "Yes, Ma. I could see his chaplain and he'd make him marry me. A girl I know told me."

Then she exploded at me. "Why, you little idiot you, don't you have any pride? A man rapes you. You keep going to bed with him anyhow. You see him whenever it's convenient for him. He doesn't do a damn thing for you-and still you go on seeing him. And now you want to lower your pride some more. You want to force him to marry you. Don't you know that if you went to that chaplain, it would be like you were begging this boy for something?"

"Ma, I love him."

"You don't know what love is. I don't want to hear you talk about marrying a man who doesn't want you. Now we got to plan how to keep them from sending you away."

Vince had been silent while my mother and I were talking. All of a sudden he brightened up. "Mame, I got it. I got it. Let Joanie marry me."

I started to laugh.

"Over my dead body," my mother said.

Vince was hurt. "Aw Mame, whaddya take me fer, a cradle snatcher? I figger if I'm the one she marries she won' get touched or nothin' an' after the kid gets born we c'n get a divorce."

Vince's explanation seemed to relieve my mother's mind. She kissed him over and over again and kept grinning like a Cheshire cat. But I was still miserable. God, I didn't want to marry old Vince.

My wedding was a funeral. I spent my bridal night in my own single bed. I remember calling to my mother:

"Hey lady, you're sleeping with my husband."

So we ended on the light touch, trying to cover up from each other how we really felt underneath.

A couple of weeks after Vince became my so-called husband, he got busted for pushing. This meant he would have to break his drug habit cold turkey in jail. My mother cried for days. She cried for Vince, not herself. She never loved him the way she did Len, but he had been kind to her and she could not bear to think of his suffering.

For once in her life it didn't pour when it rained. Because soon after Vince got busted, my stepfather Len came out of jail. My mother was like a new woman with him home and I felt easier too. He gave me one bawling out and then began babying me like he used to do when I was little. I sure took to it.

Well, my day finally came and I got myself a nine-pound bruisier of a son. The nurses said he looked like a prize fighter. I thought he looked more like a high-jumper because he had such long legs on him. He was cute as hell. I'll never forget the first time they brought him to me, I just couldn't believe he was mine. He was so sweet to hold.

I took Donny home to my mother's house. She doted on him, but she was afraid to be left alone with him. Because, when she took a load of stuff and started in to goof, she could become unconscious. She almost burned the house down a couple of times.

She said: "I'd die if anything happened to our little precious."

She never let me out of the house after I brought the baby home. I got so used to talking baby talk, I was afraid I'd never be able to sound grown-up again.

I'd beg for a little freedom. "A couple of hours, Ma, please. I promise I'll be back soon."

"No."

"I'm going crazy cooped up like this. Honest to God."

"You made your own bed, Joanie."

"All right. All right. But I don't have to stay in it, do I?"

"When Donny gets old enough to get left in a nursery school you can get out."

"Gee Ma, thanks a lot for giving me the sleeves off your vest."

"Joanie."

I stayed quiet. She always felt guilty when I didn't talk.

"Joanie, I'm sorry for everything. But what can I do? What do you want from me?"

"All I want is for you to take Donny off my hands once in a while so I can go to a movie or a friend's house. I'll go crazy if I keep hanging around here all the time. You'll have to send me to an insane asylum. Like Bubby."

"Don't talk like that."

"It's the truth."

"I don't want to hear it."

"Crazy. Crazy. Like Bubby. Crazy Rosie. Crazy Joanie." I knew my mother couldn't stand to hear me and so I went on talking.

Finally she said, "All right, all right, go out if you want to."

Of course, I headed right for the old stamping ground. Everything was just as it had been before I went away. Those whores and lushes never looked so good to me.

After I'd been sitting around for a couple of hours, Patsy, a fat, dumb blonde with sex oozing out of her pores, said: "Say, Joanie, I don't know whether you're still interested, but your sweetie's turned up again."

I didn't want her to know how I felt. I said, "What the hell do I care for that son of a bitch?"

She smiled. "Yeah, sure, kid."

"For all I care he can drop dead tomorrow."

"Yeah, you wouldn't go to his funeral."

"Hell no. You wouldn't catch me shedding any tears."

"No, I know that. Say, Joanie, what would you do if he was to come walking in here tonight?"

"Listen, that bum walks in, I walk out. See?"

Well, after a couple of hours he did walk in and I didn't walk out. I just swallowed my pride and smiled at the old Reb. I knew I looked a fool but what could I do? I wanted Johnny again.

He came up to my table. "Well, now, honey chile, who'd ever thunk ah'd be findin' ya heah tonight. Ah was jus' sure as shootin' ya'd gone away an' left this wicked oT place forever. Ah been eatin' ma heart out for ya. Bee-lieve it or not."

I said, "Why didn't you write me like you promised?"

"Why, sugarplum, didn' ya know ah'm not a writin' man?"

I tried to joke with him, but I couldn't make it.

"Johnny, listen to me, we have a baby. I named him Donny. He's the cutest thing you ever saw. Wait'll you see him. You'll fall in love with him."

"Honey chile, what's wrong? Y'all been out in th' sunshine too long? Ah swan if ya ain't gone an' got yourself a stroke."

After a while, I gave up trying to make him feel like a father. I guess some men just don't have a knack for fatherhood. They're too kiddish or too selfish or too downright bastardly. But what can you do if you love such a guy? You can't go changing him. If you try, he'll kick you in the teeth and walk out.

Johnny suggested we go housekeeping together. He said he would give up the sea and stay home with me.

I said, "What'll we do? How'll we live? You don't know anything but the sea."

He laughed. "Maybe ah don' know nothin' else, honey chile, but y'all do with that cute liT ol' body ya got, you an' ah ain't gonna have no trouble at all."

I was seventeen years old then, but I can't say I was so young I didn't know what he was talking about. And I can't pretend he forced me. He didn't try to talk me into it. He didn't act eager. He didn't say he would love me forever. He gave me the whole proposition straight, take it or leave it.

I took it because I loved him. Besides, what else was there for me, what other kind of life? What legit man would consider marrying the daughter of a sporting girl who was also the mother of a bastard? And supposing that, by some weird chance, he would? So, what then? What would such a husband ever give me? What did most husbands give their wives?

Of course, these were just arguments I gave myself in the hope they'd make me feel better. I didn't really believe them for a minute. And besides, they didn't help me any where my conscience was concerned. I knew I'd go to hell if I went with Johnny. And I knew I'd be letting my God down flat as a pancake. I wondered whether He would ever forgive me. I spent many nights praying and I promised God and myself that I would only live "the life" for a short while. I thought, Well, what's to stop me from making Johnny learn to love me and then once I'd done it, going pure again myself and taking him right along with me? In the meantime I'd con him because I had to.

When you want someone the way I wanted Johnny, you can't really reason with yourself. You can't say, "If I do A it will be better and if I do B it will be worse." All you know, you want your man. I am not saying all this to excuse myself for what my life has been. As I've said before, I'm the one to blame for what's happened to me and I'm the only one to blame. If I'd turned Johnny down on his proposition, he'd have shrugged his shoulders and taken up with some other tomato.

CHAPTER FIVE ALL YOU KNOW, YOU WANT YOUR MAN

Johnny and I began living together two weeks after I met him the second time. I got a little apartment close to the center of town, in the home of a sweet old French lady. She thought, until she got to know better, that we were nice young newlyweds.

I worked hard to fix up the apartment. I sewed drapes, built bookcases, scraped floors, washed windows. Of course, I had to do everything alone. His Royal Highness never got off his royal behind or lifted a royal finger to help me. I didn't expect him to. All I hoped for was a word of praise. I'm still waiting to get it.

After I had the apartment fixed, I got a terrible urge to bring my baby home. I'd taken him away from Len and my mother and put him out to board. The people were good and kind, but they were keeping him for money, not love. A baby needs love. He needs cuddling in his cradle. He needs someone to kiss and pet and make over him, not just to change his diapers and give him his bottle. My baby didn't have love during the time he needed it, and all of us are suffering for it now. He isn't right. The doctors tell me it's his I.Q. But I know better. I know he's a child who's dried up inside, because he never had love.

I tried many times, both before and after I began prostituting, to get Johnny to let me bring Donny home. But he laughed at me and couldn't understand why I wanted him so much. He said so long as I knew he was being cared for, I had nothing to worry about.

Johnny had Corrina May, a little redhead he knew, teach me car-soliciting. She was only nineteen, but I think she'd been born to the business. A couple of other pros I know thought she was dumb. Sure she was dumb, dumb like a fox. She'd been in a couple of houses and she'd learned all the tricks of the trade. And what makes me know beyond a doubt how smart she was, she was one of the few free lancers I've ever known in my life. She used to say lying on your back's not so easy as most people think, and so any whore who'd give her hard-earned dough to a guy ought to have her head examined. She'd get friendly with fellows like my Johnny but they'd never be able to get her to hustle for them. Since she was a terrific moneymaker, plenty tried.

She used to say, "Ah tell 'em, 'Now, looky here, ya ain't got nothin' under them thar pants that I ain't already seen too dolgone many times. Why should ah give ya ma money jus' fer somethin' ah got too much o' now?' "

That HI' ol' angel pie was from down South too. Yes-sirree, some of the best HI' ol' operators in New York or Boston come from where the sun shines bright.

Corrina May taught me which were the best corners for car-date girls and how to pick out the likeliest-looking cars. She said not to waste my time on fancy words and such, but to tell men right out what I would do. But I couldn't bring myself to use dirty words. I could do everything else, but not that. I don't know why. I could go with a man and all, but I couldn't talk the language.

I never felt anything for the men I went with. No doubt I was afraid and I pushed my feelings down. But I didn't know what I was doing when I first started in the business. I thought I really was casual. I'd tell myself I was in a business just like any other business. Supposing I was waiting on table for a living. What would I feel about that? I had to feel the same about my whoring. It was a living and that's all it was.

Car dates are the quickest kinds of dates. Usually, the car trick is nervous and as anxious to get the thing over with as you are. He doesn't care about preliminaries the way house and call tricks do. I hardly ever stayed in cars more than five minutes and I'd usually get three to five dollars a time. Once in a great while I'd find a trick who'd pay ten and want to keep me longer.

Today, most prostitutes' men expect their girls to bring in at least a hundred dollars a night. When I first started, fifteen years ago, thirty or forty was considered good. I'd earn around fifty.

Johnny used to beat me when I didn't do well. That was O.K. with me. All the girls I knew got beat. It was part of "the life."

In my experience, only square broads expect to be treated with kid gloves. I think the only time I ever got mad at any man of mine who pushed me around was after I'd been with a couple of nice squares and seen how they were together. Of course, my mother was lucky enough to get men who acted like squares to her, but I've never known any other prostitutes who were.

So, as I say, I used to take Johnny's beatings with a smile. Some of them were rough too. One night, I remember, I didn't quite meet my quota. I think I came home with about thirty-eight dollars instead of the usual fifty. I'd been scared all the way home and I'd tried to talk some horse sense into myself. Who was this no-good bastard that he should be able to scare me so? I was the one who worked. I was the one who earned everything we had. Who was paying for his food and room? Who was paying for those fancy, handmade shoes? He was the one ought to be scared. I'd go home. I'd tell him a thing or two.

So I went home. Oh boy, did I tell him.

He was lying on the living-room couch. He wore a stunning red-silk bathrobe I was still paying for. One thing I've got to say for him, he looked like a million and I was proud he was my guy.

I said, "Baby, I'm sorry ... I didn't ... I mean I didn't ... I mean I couldn't...."

"Yeah?"

I blurted it out. "I only got thirty-eight today. Gee, Johnny, I'm sorry."

"How come y'all don' remember what ah tol' ya? One mo' bad day an'...."

I said, "Johnny, it wasn't my fault. You got to believe me. There weren't any cars out tonight."

"Ah think ye're lyin' to me."

"No, Johnny."

"Ah think ya are."

"No."

"Ah say yes."

"Johnny, I swear. Look. I'll tell you what you do. Come out and see for yourself."

"Ah don' believe a word ye're sayin'."

"You don't need to believe me. But you'll believe your own eyes, won't you? So, please, come out with me. See for yourself."

"Ah'll come. But if ye're lyin' to me. ... Go git me some clothes."

He got dressed, and we took a cab over to the theater section which was my beat, and I almost died. There were dozens of cars, hundreds of cars, altogether stopped or else driving bumper to bumper. Of course, I knew the reason. This was showbreak time and I'd gone home too early.

"No cars, Joanie?"

"Honest to God, it was different before."

"How?"

"There weren't any cars. It was empty."

"Take us on home," Johnny told the cab driver. He was a friend of his, an old-time pimp. The only reason he drove a cab was that he made plenty on the side steering out-of-town customers to prostitutes he knew.

The cab started up. I knew Johnny's temper when he was good and roused as he was now. I started figuring ways to get away from him before we got home. We had about twenty blocks to go.

I jumped out of the cab when we stopped for a red light. I remember we were right in the middle of the colored section. I started to run like hell. But Johnny was too fast for me. He caught me and held me tight. He dragged me back to the cab. I was yelling all the while. There were people out but they didn't bother about me. They weren't interfering.

In the colored sections they're wise to whores. We yell our heads off while our men are hurting us, but just let a stranger butt in and we end up mad at him. Plenty of good fellows have been hurt because they tried to keep men from beating up their girls. And you know who hurts them most often? The girls.

It's the same with the cops. If they come on the scene while a man is giving his girl the business, she'll beat her lip at them: "It wasn't his fault. I'm the one who started everything. If you got to pull somebody in, take me." Or else she'll say, "Why don't you coppers mind your own damn business? Why don't you take care of murderers and thieves instead of sticking your nose in where you're not needed?"

That's how girls like me are different from square broads. We'll scream like hell while we're being hit, but everyone knows we'll never follow through on what we start. So our guys aren't ever really scared of us. They're just mad when we embarrass them.

Which is how things were with Johnny and me. I kept screaming, "Help, help. He'll kill me. He's not my husband and he's going to kill me. Help. Help."

But nobody came and Johnny got me back in the cab. He started slapping me around as soon as I was in. He talked and he smacked. "Oh, so ya turned into a rat now, eh? Ya thought ya'd call the cops on me. Ah know how to deal with rats." Slap. Bang. Bam.

Finally, the nightmare ride was over and we were home. Johnny dragged me into the apartment and turned the lights on. His eyes looked crazy. I kept praying to myself. "God, you're the only one who can save me now."

"Take that watch off," Johnny said. It was an expensive watch. He had given it to me himself and I often took comfort from it when I thought he didn't love me. I'd say, "See, you jerk, he must love you. If he didn't, why should he give you such a watch?" Forgetting, of course, that my money had paid for the damn thing.

"Well, ya heard me, ya bitch. Take that watch off before ah tear it offa ya."

I took it off and stood holding it.

"Now give it heah."

I handed him the watch.

"Ah bought that for ya but now ah don' want ya wearin' it. Ya don' earn enough money to deserve a watch." He threw it on the floor and jumped on it.

I stood and watched him. Scared as I was, one part of me was fascinated in a morbid sort of a way. How far would he go tonight? Would he scar me, cripple me, kill me? Or would he be satisfied just to break up things I valued?

"Now," he pointed to a picture of me as a child of nine, long curls, big smile, the works-incidentally, the only picture I owned of myself as a child. "Bring me that thing theah."

I said, "Please, not that, Johnny." Thinking to myself, Damned if I don't sound like a new version of "Fireman, save my child." I couldn't help giggling. The giggles turned into sobs.

"Ah'll learn ya to go callin' the cops on me. Ah said bring that goddamn picture here and ya better hurry up."

I brought him the picture. He threw it on the floor and tramped it under his heel. The glass of the frame splintered into a million pieces. "Now ya ain't got no mo' pictures of when ya was little. Ah can' let ya have none. Ya ain't good enough, see? Then ya was pure. Now ya ain't nothin' but a old hoor. Ah can' let ya have no pure pictures around heah no mo'."

I don't know why the destruction of that picture should have seemed like the end of everything to me. I've had many more dreadful things happen both before and since then. But somehow, at that moment, this seemed like the last straw. I thought, What good's my life now, what am I living for? Much better to be dead than the way I am. And I made a dash for the window. I wanted to throw myself out. Johnny pulled me back.

"Vail don' need to kill yourself, honey chile. Ah'll do it for ya. Ah'll save ya th' trouble."

He took a knife out of his pocket and held it in front of my face. He brandished it very slowly, back and forth, back and forth. I followed the movement with my eyes. I began feeling hypnotized.

Suddenly, someone knocked at the door. I heard the knock but I couldn't bring myself to do anything.

Johnny whispered, "Ya answer that."

I said, "Who's there?"

It was my landlady, the French woman. By this time, she knew we weren't the nice Utile couple she'd taken such a liking to. "Why all zis noise?"

I laughed. "I fell against the windowpane and broke my watch and stuff. You know me. Clumsy elephant."

"I will call ze police. You tell me and I call zem."

"Oh no, no. No need for anything like that. Like I told you, I fell. But I'm O.K. now. Everything's fine and dandy. Thanks anyway."

She knew more than she let on.

"Now," Johnny said, "now ah'm gonna do it." He brandished the knife some more.

I was going to beg him not to cut me, but I figured what was the use? And besides, who gave a damn anyway? So I stood still and waited. This was a new twist. Usually, when he threatened, I'd beg for mercy and run all over the apartment trying to escape him. But now I was so mad, so tired and fed up with beatings, I didn't have the energy to beg or to run.

He said, "Ain't ya scared?"

I didn't answer. I just stood up there and looked him in the eye.

He plunged the knife into my back. I saw him pull it out and I noticed that it was covered with blood.

I passed out, I don't think from pain but rather from the sight of the blood. When I came to in about half an hour or so, Johnny had moved me onto the bed and dressed my wound. As usual, after he beat me badly, he looked miserable.

He said, "Joanie, baby, are ya hurtin' much? Ah'm so sorry, honey. Ah feel so tumble ah could lay down an' die right heah."

I said, "Listen, Johnny, call a doctor."

He started to cry. "Ah can' do that, Joanie. If ah call a doctor, he'll repo't me. If ya want me to ah'll call a doctor an' then disappear ma'self fo' a little while."

I couldn't let him go. Now that he was so warm and loving I needed to keep him with me. I needed him worse than I needed a doctor. I said, "You stay. Bring your chair over and hold my hand."

He came close. He kissed me. "Ah got to get ya a doctor, baby. Ah just got to, that's all."

I had an idea. Why not call my mother's doctor-the one she sometimes bought her stuff from? His name was Andrews and he knew me way back when. He was an old trick of my mother's. I knew he wouldn't tell on us. Especially if we slipped him a fifty or so.

Dr. Andrews came as soon as Johnny called him. He was small, pudgy, and bald-headed. His legs were too short for the rest of his body. But to me he looked like an angel that night. He fixed me up and made me comfortable and then he turned to Johnny, who was standing around looking useless.

"Somebody ought to crack your fat skull open."

"Doc, ah don' know what ye're talkin' about."

"Who beat up on this kid?"

I said, "Doc, I was walking along minding my own business and some maniac grabbed me and next thing I knew-"

Doc turned to me. "Listen, Joanie, you got to get up pretty early in the morning to fool old Doc Andrews, see? Walk out on the bastard before it's too late. He's no man. He's bad medicine for a kid like you."

How foolish can a girl get-even a sporting girl? I said, "All right, Doc. I'm not going to try fooling you any more. You're no ordinary square. Yeah, Johnny cut me. But I had it coming. And now I want to ask you, please, not for his sake, for mine, please do me a favor and don't report this case."

He played cagey. "Joanie, I'm a doctor. I'm true to the oath I took. I got no choice, I got to report the case."

I took Johnny's wallet out of his pocket and got a fifty-dollar bill. I placed it in Doc Andrew's hand. He said, "If I got caught, I could get thrown in jail, Joanie."

I took two tens out and gave them to him. "For the risk you're taking, huh Doc?"

"Well, Joanie, I really don't know. I ... well, O.K, kid. Just for you, I'll keep my mouth shut. Personally I'd like to see this big bum boiled in oil." I said, "Thanks."

"You're welcome, kid. I'm only doing this because I got a soft spot for Mame and you remind me of her a little bit."

He spoke like the loot I gave him had nothing to do with his accommodating ways. Oh well, that's life. Even squares have some larceny in them.

The day after our fight Johnny was very sweet to me. He cooked breakfast. He kept me company all day, and at night, when it came time for me to go to work, he said, "Why don' ya take th' night off, honey baby? Ah'll take ya to the movies if ya want."

We went to an all-night show and sat like any pair of square kids, kissing and smooching and holding hands. I remember thinking how marvelous it would be if things could always be this way. Then I began laughing at myself. I'd better look out or I'd be turning into a square myself. Then what would happen to me? Oh well, a girl can't be killed for dreaming, can she?

The next night I calmed down and, a little the worse for wear, I was back on the job. I did very well because I began soliciting with the four-letter words Cor-rina May told me to use. Men were funny beasts, and nobody was in a better position to observe it than a girl like me.

Now that I had begun doing better, I upped my prices. I began making eighty, ninety, a hundred dollars a night. In those days, that was terrific money. Johnny was very happy with me. And he stopped looking for any other girls.

Of course, he said he never had been looking for anyone but me, but I didn't believe him. Some of his friends had stables with four or five cows in them. They drove Cadillacs instead of ordinary cars. They lived in more luxurious apartments. They had better clothes and more money for boozing and balling with. I knew he was jealous and I often wondered why he stuck with me. He was good-looking and presentable enough. He could have picked working chicks up at a dime a dozen. Why didn't he? I'd ask myself, "Why?" And answer, "Why, you fool you, because he's in love with you, that's why." And I'd be very grateful to him.

Of course, I gave him all the money I earned. Some girls held out on their men, but I never did. Firstly, I didn't want to be that dishonest with Johnny. And then I didn't think holding out was good sense. Suppose I did it, where would it get me, what good would it do? If I bought a new dress or something, he'd be bound to notice it since he bought most of my clothes himself. If I bought a present for Donny or my mother, it might come out someday. If I had myself a steak dinner or a couple of drinks, how could I be sure that nobody in the restaurant would recognize me and report me to Johnny? The same went for movies and other amusements.

No, it didn't make sense to hold out on my man. I tried it once for a couple of months before his birthday. I'd save two dollars out of every twenty I made. I figured that I'd have quite a boodle after a while and I wanted to buy him a diamond ring like one of my girl friend's men had.

Maybe I acted guilty or looked guilty or something. I don't know. All I know, Johnny was suspicious. He'd sit me down and grill me for hours. That boy was a master of mental torture.

"Joanie, y'all no damn good. Tell me ya ain't."

Nothing.

"Joanie, ahm talkin' to you."

"All right. I hear you."

"Well then, what's ma talk doin'? Goin' in one ear an' out the other?" Nothing.

"Joanie, ahm warnin' ya. When ah ask ya questions, ya better answer 'em."

"O.K. I'm no damn good."

"So. Are you givin' me all ma money? Or are ya holdin' out, huh?"

"I wouldn't hold out."

"Not if ya know what's good for ya. Down South one time, ah killed a nigger wench done that."

"What happened then?" To this day I don't know whether he was kidding or serious.

"Why nothin' a-tall. Nigger church give her a big funeral. Ol' folk stood aroun' cryin'. Nobody had a idea ah was the one done her in."

"I'm a white girl."

"So what d'ya wan' me to do? Kiss yer fanny?"

"If you ever killed me, you'd be in trouble."

"Ah would, honey? Y'all mus' be kiddin' me, sho nuff. Why don' ya make me mad enough and then we can see what'd happen?"

Why does a woman stay with such a man? All the squares I ever met ask me that. I can't answer them. I honestly don't know. They ask whether I was in love, and I have to say that I don't have the answer to that one either. What is love, anyway? I'm sure no prostitute would know what a square really means by love. Did I love Johnny? That's a big question. Sometimes I hated him so I dreamed about killing him. I had visions of stalking him some dark night and choking him to death the way he had often tried to choke me. I could hear the ratde in his throat and I stood around in my dream, laughing my head off and waiting for him to drop dead. And still, no matter what terrible thing he might do to me, I knew I could never leave him.

Square broads say, "Well, maybe it was the sex that held you." No, it wasn't. And, I don't say that only because, as a prostitute, I had more sex than any ten women put together. Plenty of my friends in the life, in spite of all the sex they get, still enjoy their own men. It's different being with your man than it is with a trick. It's nicer and closer. But, it wasn't that way with Johnny. He was what we girls call a weirdie and psychiatrists call a sadist. He liked to beat the hell out of a girl while she made love to him. I got plenty of broken bones in bed.

I was a nice healthy girl when I met Johnny. By the time he left me-he was the one to walk-I weighed ninety-eight pounds and looked like a shadow. I couldn't eat while I was with him. He'd drive me batty at mealtimes too. We'd go into a restaurant and he would order a steak dinner for himself. Then he'd tell the waitress:

"My honey's going to have a vegetable plate an' a big, big glass o' milk."

I hated vegetables and I couldn't stomach milk. But I managed to get them down because I knew what would happen if I didn't. He'd make a scene and ram the stuff down my throat.

When we were home, I had to do exactly as he wanted me to. I'd cook all kinds of special dishes for him. God help me if they didn't turn out. And I had to make over him from the moment I came into the house-rub his back, rub his feet, cut his toenails, manicure his fingernails, clean his ears. Now I know he got his kicks out of making me do such things, but then I couldn't understand what was driving him.

He was a funny guy all right. Actually, underneath, he was pretty sad. He'd order me around like I was dirt, but he was scared to death of most men. I never saw him in a fight. Big as he was, he was a coward. If a guy made a face at him, he'd turn around and run like hell. I'd have to keep building him up, telling him how great and brave he was. Sometimes he was like a little boy, the way he depended on me. I'd feel like his mother instead of his girl friend. I guess I loved him best when I could feel he needed me.

He had a pretty tough life when he was young, tougher than mine if you want to figure it that way. His folks were squares and they were hard-working, but they didn't have any love in them for each other or anybody else. Johnny grew up in a house full of hate. The father could have fallen down dead in front of the mother and she wouldn't have bothered to pick him up. He was a first-class rat. He'd come into the house and she'd start nagging him for money. So he'd take out a couple of bucks and throw them on the floor. She'd have to bend down and eat dirt just for a little lousy money. After he'd leave, she'd spit at the door.

Johnny was maybe four years old when he first noticed how his parents were, but I guess he must have felt it even before then.

I once asked him why his parents were never divorced, and he said they stayed together on account of the kids. I had to laugh at that. How could they think they were doing kids a favor when they brought them up in such a home?

Johnny's mother was some card. She used to beat hell out of him when he was little. For nothing she'd beat him. Maybe she didn't like the way he looked that day. He once told me he was always sore from the way she treated him-sore face, sore head, sore everything. But then, as soon as he grew up she started liking him better. All of a sudden, she wanted him to be her little angel boy. All the time he displeased her now, it was: "Johnny boy, why do you treat me like this? After everything I did for you."

Sickening. What'd she do for him-bring him into the world? That was her pleasure, not his. He didn't ask to be born. I sure would have liked to have told her off but I knew I couldn't have done it. Johnny would have killed me first. In the days I went with him, with all the way he beat hell out of me, he was still a mouse when she was around.

His sister too. Evangeline's her name and she's pretty as a picture. At least she was when I knew her. The kind of life she leads, she's probably a hag by this time. She hates her old man too. Funny how history repeats itself. She really hates him, but she sticks with him on account of the kids. That's what she says, anyway. Personally, I don't believe her. I think she sticks because she doesn't have the guts to walk out. But that's her business, not mine.

I told her that too. I said, "Your life's your business and my life's mine." She didn't even know I was a prostitute then, and still she said the hell it was. That's the difference between squares and girls like me. Squares think that because they live a good life by their lights they can go around telling everyone else what to do. Well, I'm not having any. I know my life's lousy and sickening. I almost vomit sometimes when I have to think about it. But I don't think most other people are in any position to call me names. Especially not Evangeline. She didn't know how I was managing but she did know I was supporting her brother and giving him money to buy her and her kids fancy presents with.

I guess Johnny was always nuts about his sister. The way I understood it, she was all he had while he was growing up in that crazy home. The two of them, Vangie and Johnny, stuck together against the parents and protected each other. Actually, I guess you could say they stuck together against the world. Neither of them had many friends-in that kind of a house, how could they have had?-and so they grew to depend on one another for everything they wanted-love, friendship, everything. If I want to tell the truth, they ended up with a sort of a crush on one another. And didn't Johnny let me know that every day. From the very hour I started living with him it was Evangeline this and Evangeline that. All he could talk about was her purity. It must have killed him to have her sleeping with her husband nights.

He'd say: "Ah'll bet you Vangie's cold to him."

One time I really made him mad. I said: "If your sister's as cold as you're making her out, I'll bet her husband's a pretty good trick."

He locked me in the closet that day. He didn't let me out for hours.

So, realizing how he felt about his sister, I couldn't help but be surprised when he asked me to come with him to Detroit, where she'd recently moved.

I said, "Son, you must be sick or something."

He said, "Ah ain't a-tall. Ah just want to interduce ya to ma lovely bT sister."

Well, I finally got to meet the great Vangie. She was awfully cute, little with big blue eyes and a turned-up nose. She came down to the station with two of her kids. They were really babies, four and six years old. The little one reminded me of my Donny. So I picked him up and fussed over him a little bit. She took him out of my arms.

"Ah'd rather ya didn' pick 'im up no more. An' no kissin', please. Ah never let my chillun kiss strangers."

I put the child down.

Johnny picked him up and piggybacked him up and down the station platform. The kid kept yelling, "Giddyap, Uncle Johnny, giddyap." The two of them laughed like hell and had a wonderful time.

I watched Johnny and his nephew and hoped that my bitterness didn't show in my eyes. Look how he was with this little boy, and yet his own kid, my kid, was in some lousy boarding home and he didn't give a care whether he lived or died. And I, damn fool, was no better a mother than he was a father. Here I was with a bagful of presents for Vangie's kids, we'd been buying them for weeks, but my baby had hardly any toys. His father had a fit every time I tried to buy him some.

You'd never have known to look at me what my thoughts were. I behaved like I adored Vangie and her kids.

I kept the pretense up all the time I stayed in Detroit. Of course, I did it out of necessity, not choice. If I had allowed my real feelings to break through, Johnny'd have knocked my block off. He used to watch me like a hawk whenever his sister and I were together.

"Ah don' like th' way ya looked at Vangie tonight."

"Jeez, Johnny, how'd I look at her?"

"Don' go talkin' back, ya bitch."

"O.K, Johnny."

Sometimes he didn't like the way Vangie's husband looked at me. Mac was a big truck-driver type, and I guess dear, delicate Vangie wasn't giving him what he needed in bed. He never told me anything or made a pass, but every once in a while he did look at me funny. I didn't like his look any more than Johnny did. After all, I was trying hard to pass for a square. I never worked while I was in Detroit and I liked to kid myself into thinking nobody could tell what I was. But when Mac looked at me the way he did, I got the feeling he knew damn well I was not exactly "nice." Maybe he didn't know I was a prostitute, but he must have known I was easy to get.

Well, I was sorry if he knew, I had hoped he'd never find out, but whether he did or not I didn't think I should be blamed for anything. Johnny didn't agree with me. He thought I was leading Mac on because I didn't like Vangie.

One time I came down the stairs walking like I usually do. Johnny tripped me on the last step and I fell and cut my eye.

"Ya bitch. Ah'll teach ya to shake yer fanny in front of my sister's husband."

Mac wasn't even around. I said, "This is just the way I walk. I always walk the same way. Mac's got nothing to do with it and you know it."

"Ah want ya to start walkin' differen', damn it. Ya think ah want everybody aroun' knowin' what ya are?"

Once in a while I got my licks in too. "No, you don't. Because when they find out I'm a whore they'll know you're nothing but a lowdown pimp."

I knew that'd hit him where it hurt. Many pimps are proud of themselves, but Johnny wasn't. He'd been a good, church-going kid in his time and there was always something in him wanted to square up. But there was all that larceny in him too. Shucks, some old waitress-whore had started him pimping for her when he wasn't any more than sixteen years old. When I say pimping, I don't mean he did anything for her, got her customers or anything like that. All he did was sleep with her and rake in the loot. Boy, she was made for him, and there was nothing she wouldn't have done to hold him. I guess he learned from er how easy it was to manage us sporting girls-and he ever forgot the lesson. After he'd given her the go-by, after she'd wisened him up, that is-he got himself a whole stable of real young chicks. Jeepers, by the time he was twenty years old, he had himself the best black and tan stable in the whole Southland. At least, that's the way he always told the story to me and I can't say I had any reason for disbelieving him. He was sure enough acting like a pimp who knew the ropes by the time he picked me up.

Of course, like I said, in spite of his larcenous, black heart, he had a real wish to be a square. That's how come he'd been working the sea when he first came into my life, and that's also how come we were with Vangie in Detroit. He figured, around his sister and her family, we'd both have to be good, like it or not. But he was plenty tense and worked up over his goodness and naturally enough, he always took it out on yours truly.

Johnny took all his tension out on me. He'd go along calmly for days at a time and then, all of a sudden, something would hit him and he'd have to have something to pick on me about. If I didn't happen to give him cause, he'd make it up.

I remember one time he went for a walk by himself and came home with a hot dog.

I said, "Oh gee, I wish you'd bought me one. Could I have a bite?"

He split it in half. "Here."

I ate my half and licked my lips. "That was good, Johnny." He hadn't started on his half. I said, "Eat your hot dog. It's good." He gave it to me. "You eat it."

"I don't want it, Johnny. It's yours."

"Ah tol' ya to eat it."

"I don't want it, Johnny. It's yours."

"Eat it or ah'll ram it down yer throat." So I ate it.

He watched me. When I was finished he said, "You're selfish. Ah nevah met such a selfish gal in all ma born days."

No, our small try at respectability didn't work out very well. Johnny treated me worse in Detroit than he had in Boston. I don't know what would have happened to us if we hadn't gotten word that Donny was sick and I hadn't had to leave town immediately.

I told Johnny I'd go back to work once I got home and send him all the money that was left over after I'd paid my board and Donny's. He said he'd save it for when he came back and that when I'd sent enough so he could feel secure, we'd go into real housekeeping, buy furniture, and take Donny to live with us.

CHAPTER SIX JUDGE, YOUR HONOR, TELL IT TO THE MARINES

When I got home I went straight to Donny's boarding place. The poor kid had the mumps and he was burning up with fever. He was so glad to see me, it was pitiful. He kept kissing my hand and saying, "Mommy, you came." I spent all my days taking care of him. I'd talk to him like he was a grownup. I know he didn't understand me, but he'd look at me and smile as though he did. I'd read him stories and play little games with him. Those were among the happiest days of my life.

My nights, of course, I spent working. I stopped doing car dates and got myself a bar connection in the South End. It was a real crummy dive. But the fishermen who came in from Gloucester were loaded, and the bartender always steered me to those with full jeans. I paid him 10 per cent of everything I made. I'd get fifteen-twenty-and thirty-dollar tricks. I took five or six a night. I didn't mind working hard because I thought if I made enough money Johnny would keep his promise and let me have my child with me. Every two days or so I'd send him eighty or ninety dollars.

About two months after I'd made my bar connection, I had to stop prostituting. I began to have daily bleeding. I went to old Dr. Andrews and he warned me good. He said that what with my days being taken up with Donny and my nights with the bar, I had grown very run-down. He gave me injections, put me on a diet, and said I had to have ten hours of sleep a night. If I hadn't been so frightened of my condition I'd have laughed in his face. Ten hours of sleep a night.

I said, "What do you want to do, Doc, turn me into a square?"

"Joanie," he answered, "that wouldn't be a bad idea."

Maybe it wouldn't have been at that. Maybe I had the makings of a square in those days. I know I was happiest when I was bustling around, tending to my little boy. If God had offered me a choice of lives I'd like to lead, I'd have asked Him to make me a homemaker and a mother. But now, how could I afford to stop prostituting? Donny cost money to keep and Johnny was depending on me back in Detroit. If I wrote and told him the doctor had recommended I stop prostituting, would he believe me? Most likely not. And he might walk out on me. I couldn't stand to lose him. Not now. Maybe later, it wouldn't matter so much if he left me. But now, I'd die. I had to know he'd be coming back. I had to have his letters while he was away. I couldn't have my dreams explode in my face.

So I started boosting from department stores. I knew how. My mother had many booster friends and they had taught me all the tricks when I was little. But I was too scared to do right. I got caught in the jewelry department. And that, coupled with what the court research officer discovered about the life I led, got me five years at the State Reformatory for Women. The judge said if I behaved right while I was there, I'd be eligible for parole in fourteen months. He was nice, about fifty-five, a pudgy little goodhearted coot.

He told me, "I hope you believe that we are sending you to the reformatory for your own good. You are still a very young woman and there is a chance that, if you are away from your present life and associates, you can begin to see the light. We do not wish to avenge ourselves upon you for your crimes against society. We are aware that you are a victim of your environment. We believe, from all that we have learned about you, that you have been as much sinned against as sinning. We do not want to hurt you by this sentence that we have just rendered. We have, indeed, every desire to help you.

"Use your time at the reformatory wisely and well. Learn a trade while you are there. Prepare yourself so that, when you return to the world, there will no longer be any need for you to practice your shameful occupation. Consider that you will be helping, not only yourself, but also, and more importantly, your little boy. Use the personnel at the reformatory who stand ready to help you and other unfortunates like you. Use them wisely. Use them well. Above all, know that they are there for one reason and one reason only, because there is in them a dedication to humanity and a desire to help their fellow men."

That judge was such a cute coot, I think he really believed all the drivel he dished out. But what he didn't know about the State Reformatory for Women-and all the other prisons I've been in since-could fill a dozen books. The way he talked about the prison personnel as God's little angel children. Well, really, if they're angels, I'll take devils any old day. A dedication to humanity. A desire to help their fellow men! B.S. The only dedication they've got is to that lovely pension they're going to get some day.

Not that I can blame them. It's a tough life in prison. And it's as hard on them who work there as it is on .us prisoners. They're prisoners too, in a way. I feel sorry for them. But to call them dedicated and all that stuff!

Would you say that a screw who'd talk about men and how it felt to be with them, just so prison girls would get upset because they hadn't been with men in months, was dedicated? I know now the poor soul I'm talking about used to get her kicks that way. And so I'm sorry she didn't have more natural ways. Still and all, I'd hardly call her dedicated. If my cutie-pie judge overheard her teasing girls sometime, I wonder whether he wouldn't change his mind too.

And she's not the only one. What about screws who leave the door to their kitchen open just so you can smell their coffee boiling and let your tongue hang out? They know you can't have any coffee and they know you're dying for some. So what do they do? Leave their door open so you can know that they are better women than you. Dedicated? Anxious to help? Phooey. The judge ought to tell it to somebody who isn't going to find out different.

And what about those who make fun of you in your prison uniforms? Seeing you look lousy seems to make them feel good.

What about the backbiters and the gossips among the screws? Not just toward the girls, even toward their own. Boy, they'd rather crucify you than look at you.

And the ones who can be bought? So that if you've got enough loot, your life inside can be easier than if you haven't.

What about those who make you bow down low every time you meet them in the hall? Most of them are such jerks you wouldn't spit on them outside.

And the ones who use prisoners to do all their dirty work?

What about the "les-be-friends" screws? I met plenty of Lesbian hacks in jail and I knew a couple of kids who slept around with them because it was the only smart thing to do.

Above all, what about the screws who really hate your guts? Why are they there? Because they're dying to help you out? Judge, Your Honor, tell it to the Marines.

Of course, not all the screws at State Reformatory were bad. And a couple of them really knocked themselves out for the girls. I'll always remember the good women, God bless them. Some of them were loving and you felt like you could go to them when you were in trouble, like they were your mother or something and you could go and lay your head on them and cry your eyes out. There were a few like that and I think I'll remember them as long as I live. They were the ones who first made me know that some squares had hearts.

I'll never forget my last day in court and my first day in jail. I said good-by to my folks in court. Uncle Artie, Len, and my mother surrounded me after my sentence.

Len said, "You gotta excuse her, baby. She's so her up over you." Meaning my mother, who was loaded for a change.

I said, "Yeah, sure, Len. It's O.K." Uncle Artie looked at Ma like she was dirt. I said, "Don't look at her like that, Uncle Artie. She can't help it."

He said, "Neither can I, Joanie. She can't help bein' like she is and I can't help feelin' like I do."

He made me feel like hell and I hurried to change the subject.

"Len, will you promise to take care of Donny for me? Pay his board every week? Don't let the charities get their hands on him."

"Baby," Len said, "I'll take care of that little bum. You don't have to worry about nothin'."

"Maybe if you took care of your wife better...." Uncle Artie glared at Len.

Len glared back. "You mind your damn business."

Their fight made me feel terrible. It was a big burden to carry into jail with me. But that wasn't the worst. The worst was Johnny. I had written him so many letters since I'd gotten in trouble. Len had called him on the telephone a couple of times. So had Uncle Artie. He'd promised them both he'd get in touch with me. I hadn't had a word from him. At first, I'd had a screwy idea that he'd be on a plane as soon as he heard. He wouldn't let me take a rap without coming to stand by me. I saw him getting up before the judge and saying:

"It's all ma fault, Yer Honor, and if ya just let 'er go, ah promise ya she'll never be in trouble no mo'."

I saw him crying while the police matron led me away. I saw him bumping his head against the floor. I saw him holding Donny in his arms and both of them throwing kisses as I was led through the jail door.

And once I knew all of that couldn't be, I saw him writing me a letter. At first I thought it would be long. But then I remembered how he had told me, "Baby, ah'm not a writin' man," and began expecting a short one, a note, a few words. "Thanks for what you did. I love you." Or, if he wanted, he could forget about the thanks. I just needed him to say he cared.

But no letter came during my arraignment and my trial. And now, on my way to serve my sentence, I still hadn't received any word. It had certainly begun to look like I was a girl without a man.

All during my first two weeks in jail, I didn't think about anything but Johnny, Johnny. Will I hear from him today? If not today, tomorrow? Or the next day? I never thought about anything else. It was terrible.

The first two weeks in jail are miserable, anyhow. You're all by yourself in an isolation cell. It's dark and dingy in there and you don't have anything to do but brood. You don't see anybody except the doctor and the psychologist and a couple of social workers. Oh yes, and the screws who come and escort you wherever you need to go. One thing I noticed about those psychologists and social workers. They're so busy looking into your chddhood and stuff, they don't have time to deal with the problems you want to talk about now. What I mean to say is, they're more like machines than people. Or maybe they don't think of you as a person. You're just a number to them and they think you're just like all the other numbers who came before you. They think they know you and your problems better than you know them yourself. They're so busy telling you what your troubles are, they've got no time to listen to what you think they are.

I tried every way I knew to find someone to talk to during my isolation weeks. But there wasn't anyone. So I lay on my cell bed all day and all night and thought about how I'd kill Johnny-o when I got out.

I'd also think about food. I'd get myself believing I was hungry as a lion. Then when my trays were brought in, I wouldn't eat off them. I'd peck a little here and there. Of course, the food was lousy, burned potatoes and watered-down stew, but I'd have eaten it anyhow if I hadn't been so miserable inside. Or if somebody, one screw, had said: "Joanie, why don't you eat something?"

The screw who brought my breakfast and lunch food was a long, skinny dame around forty-eight or so. She never smiled. I guess she was afraid her face would bust if she did. I nicknamed her "Stormy Weather." Sometimes I called her "Frozen Puss."

"I'm sorry to send my tray back so full." Once in a while, I'd try to talk to her when she came.

"Your loss."

I'd say, "I guess I'm not used to prison food yet."

"Nobody is when they first come in."

I tried to ask her about herself, how long she'd been a hack and so on, but she wasn't talking.

My supper screw was just as bad. The only difference between her and "Stormy Weather," she was fat. She came, she did her duty and she left. She never said, "Good evening." She'd only nod when I did. I don't know why people have to be that way. Good God, it wouldn't have killed those two screws to say a couple of words to me. Everybody needs a kind word.

Well, finally, my isolation was finished and they put me back in population. I shared a cell with Audrey Winston, who was a year or so younger than I but a whole lot smarter. Her old man and old lady were both thieves from way back and they'd taught all they knew to their little girl. At nineteen, she had twenty-odd breaking and entering charges against her. She'd been sent up this last time for hobnobbing with a crew of six boy thieves. She organized them to hang around fairy joints. They were all six of them cute-looking kids, so what they'd do, they'd wait until some fairy made a pass and then they'd go home with him. One guy'd go home with his fairy and a couple of others would tail him. Sometimes the guy slept with the fairy, sometimes not. But he and his little pals always robbed him of everything he had around the house. And if the fairy called the cops he'd point the finger at him and pretend to be a little innocent who had been hurt by the awful man. His friends would back him up.

They'd say: "We were all just standing around when this character comes and starts talking to Joey. He's very sweet and all and when he wants to know Joey better, the kid falls for his line. We tell him not to go to apartments with strangers, but he says, 'This is a nice man and I want to get to know him better.' We're worried, so we go too and hang around outside. It's a good thing. After a while, we hear Joey screaming. We run up and break in the apartment and there's this guy trying to make a pass at Joey."

That Audrey was some brain. She also used her boys as a gigolo service for older women. She really controlled them.

At first, when they met her, they hadn't wanted to let her into the gang. But it didn't take long before they found out she had more guts than all the rest of them put together. She was the one who cooked up their best jobs. She'd done everything except murder and I don't think she'd have stopped at that if she had a reason or an opportunity. In fact, she and her boys almost did kill a man, a little tailor whose shop they were robbing. He began yelling and they beat him up pretty bad.

Audrey not only liked hurting people. She didn't mind getting hurt herself. Little and blond and cute as she was, she had a big scar running from her forehead to her nose.

One day I asked her where she got it, and without batting her silky, long eyelashes, she said: "I let the boys cut me."

I've met many weirdies since I came to New York, but I hadn't known any before I ran into her. I said, "What do you mean, you let them?"

She said, "Just what I said, I let them. Period."

I thought I must be hearing things. "Listen, Audrey, did you want them to cut you?"

"Hell, sure."

"What for?"

"For kicks, girl."

She was always wanting to teach me new ways to get kicks. She'd say, "You listen to me, kid, and when you get out of here, you'll be the best pro in town. You'll see. You'll be able to earn more money than you ever dreamed about."

I'd answer, "I was doing all right before I came in, thank you."

She was always trying to get into bed with me, but I threatened to scream and call the guards on her. She said she'd kill me if I did. Still, she only made verbal passes. She stayed out of my bed.

Audrey's passes weren't limited to when we were in our room together. I'd go outside to hang some clothes up on the line and she'd be right nearby, leaning down to touch me and look at me.

I'd say, "Go 'way, honey. I'm not in for fifteen years. I'll be going out in a couple and when I do, I'm going to get myself a man."

She'd just stand around and laugh at my turndown. She wouldn't get nasty like some of the other butch girls would.

"I'll be waiting for you when you're ready, sweetie doll."

"Maybe you'll have a long wait."

"Maybe so, maybe no."

She was a weirdie, all right. She used to find ways to make me want to hit her. They always angled around Johnny. When I first came in I told her all about him, how he'd let me down and how I was still waiting for a letter from him. She saw me every mailtime, hoping like crazy for a letter and then dying inside because there wasn't one. And she'd start on me.

"Hey, Joanie, you poor kid."

I'd turn away so she wouldn't get to look in my eyes. "I said, 'Hey, Joanie.' "

"Yeah, O.K. I heard you the first time."

"The son of a bitch still's not writing, huh?"

"No."

"Why don't you stop thinking about him then?" Why didn't I stop thinking about him? How could I-ever?

"You know what I think, Joanie?"

"No."

"You care?"

"No."

"I think he's got another girl."

"I think you ought to keep your big mouth shut."

"I bet she's pretty. You want me to try to imagine what she looks like?"

"No."

"Well, she must be a big girl, beefy, not fat but with plenty of flesh on her bones. I can see them in bed together."

So could I. That's the worst of being in jail. You see your man in bed with another woman and all you can do is bite your nails and eat your heart out.

"Joanie?"

"Don't bother me."

"I bet she buys him a Cadillac. I bet she's got a bunch of good tricks who pay high for her."

I'd take her talk as long as I could, and then I'd get so antagonistic I'd have to hurt her back. So I'd kick her in the shins or punch her in the face or, if I was embroidering as I often was on off-hours, I'd take my needle and stick it in her a couple of times. I never knew what I did when she got me so bugged up.

If I'd been able to control myself, I wouldn't have given her the satisfaction I did, especially not after I'd begun digging how much she liked it. She'd sit around and smile while I stuck needles in her. I learned a lot about her type in jail, and on the outside, when I met others like her, I knew what made them tick. Whatever else you can say about jail, you can't say you don't learn a lot of new things while you're there.

The jail I was in during my first bust was not a bad place physically. It was in the country, and you could look out of your window and see grass and flowers and trees. And our cells were really rooms for two, with two single beds, two chests of drawers, two chairs, and a small desk. You could decorate them to suit yourself. Audrey and I had embroidered spreads and matching curtains at the window. I had my mother's picture and my baby's picture hanging on the wall. Quite homey for a jail.

The building was old though, and the dining room was like a big barn. The warden had tried to fix it up. She'd had it brightly painted and brightly lit, but it still looked like a room out of hell. And we'd see mice and rats around. I thought they lived and bred outside the kitchen where the big garbage pails were kept. It wasn't only the garbage. Sometimes sinks and toilets didn't work and we had to use buckets for washing and going to the bathroom in. We kept them full of disinfectant, but the rats and mice came anyhow.

The girls who had duties out by the garbage pails told terrible stories about great big rats, all lined up, looking at you like the parole board, with their beady eyes. Maybe they were exaggerating. Maybe not.

My first big trouble in jail came on account of those beady-eyed garbage rats. I'd never seen them at first hand and I hoped I never would. But I worked in the dining room and all the dining-room girls had to take turns emptying the garbage in the pails the rats congregated around. Finally, my turn came. I told myself there was nothing special about me. I could do anything the other girls could. And I tried to brace myself for the job. But I've always been scared to death of rats. I don't know why, but that's the way it's been all my life. When I was a little girl I started having nightmares about rats and I still have them today.

So I told the dining-room officer my story. It was hard because I was afraid of her, too. She was fat, I'll bet she weighed three hundred and fifty pounds, but she wasn't cheery like fat folk are supposed to be. In fact, she was the meanest bastard it's ever been my misfortune to meet. And she looked mean. I wasn't the only one who hated her guts. All the girls tried to avoid dining-room assignment because they hated her so much. Whenever you were around her, you got the feeling you were worthless, a real low-down kid.

I told her, "Miss Beam, I'm awful sorry, I'll do anything else you want me to, but I can't empty that garbage. I'm deathly afraid of rats. I'd die if I had to get near them."

"Don't believe everything you've heard about the rats, Joan. You girls are inclined to exaggeration. Stop talking and do your job."

"No, ma'am. I'm sorry."

"If you don't take that garbage out, I'll see that you're locked in solitary for three days." I stood still.

"Joan, I'm not fooling with you. If you know what's good for you, you'll apologize and do your job this minute."

"I'm sorry but I can't." I didn't want to cry, but I couldn't help myself. I was so afraid of everything. I had heard all about solitary-it was a dungeon underneath the rest of the prison and there were rats there too-and I was scared to be sent there. But I was still more scared of taking the garbage out.

Miss Beam said, "Wipe up those crocodile tears. They leave me cold. And blow your nose."

I blew my nose and tried to stop crying.

"I haven't got all day, Joan. Get that garbage out of here."

I said, "No, ma'am."

"Joan, you'll stop that sass and get the garbage out or I'll give you six days in solitary."

A big, burly Negro woman came up. She was in for junk-pushing and she was the leader of the "les-be-friends" gals. I don't know why, but the butchers really looked up to her. Most of the screws did too. She had plenty of money and a lot of good connections outside. There used to be talk about a couple of screws who'd left their jobs and gone to work for her and her pals.

She said, "Now, Miss Beam, this kid ain't foolin' with ya. She's a scared liT tomato. Lemme carry th' garbage out t'night."

"I should say not," Miss Beam said. "Let's go, Joan."

I got so nervous I didn't know what I was doing. I began yelling and stamping my foot. "No, no. I won't do it. I don't care what you do to me, put me in solitary or anything. I still won't do it. I can't. I can't. I'll kill myself."

Finally, Miss Beam called for Miss O'Rourke. Miss O'Rourke was one of the assistants to the warden and she was also in charge of prisoner placement. I had about a dozen interviews with her when I first came to the reformatory. Each time she asked me what my three faorite work spots were and each time I told her kitchen, bakery, and farm. So she'd placed me in the dining room. It's always like that in the so-called modern prisons. They blow off a lot about how they're going to give you choices and things, and then, at the end, you find they're full of stuff and fine words. They don't mean to give you any more choices than the old-fashioned jailers did. I sometimes think the old-fashioned ones were better. At least you knew where you stood with them. I'm always happier when I know what to expect. I'm more comfortable that way. I'd have felt a hell of a lot better about being sent to work in the dining room, if I hadn't heard all this talk about: "We want to give you a work assignment you'll be happy with."

Happy, my foot. A hell of a lot they cared whether I was happy or not. With all their tests and questions and hypocritic rantings.

Still, I had a kind of soft spot for Miss O'Rourke. She had one of those nice, big, open Irish faces. She had a man's haircut and she talked like a man, sort of fast and clipped. She had a good sense of humor and, what I liked best about her, she treated us girls like we lived in the same world she did.

She came up to where I was standing. "What're you bawling about, kid?"

Miss Beam said, "She refuses to do her assignment. It's her turn to empty the garbage and she insists she won't do it."

Miss O'Rourke frowned. "What's the matter, Joan? Why won't you do as you're told?"

I got my story out. I don't know whether she sympathized with me or not. I kind of thought she did. But of course she had to back Miss Beam. I wasn't so dumb I couldn't understand it. She gave me two days of bread and milk in solitary and she changed my assignment to laundry.

I didn't mind the bread and milk-the prison diet wasn't so hot that I felt I was missing anything-and the couple of days in solitary weren't so terrible as I'd thought they'd be. At least I didn't see any rats there. All that really bugged me was being assigned to laundry.

That laundry was the meanest assignment any girl could get. It was usually filled with discipline problems, with the toughest girls in the jail, the ones all the other vocational supervisors couldn't handle.

This supervisor, Miss Jones, could handle anybody. She was a mean-looking cuss too, about forty-five, crosseyed, with a big, false-looking blonde pompadour and always made up like somebody's pet horse. I began calling her Madame Pompadour. All the girls said she was an ex-con herself. She was supposed to have been in for forgery or something. I don't imagine they were telling the truth, nobody was ever able to prove it. But one thing was sure. She was on to all our tricks. How the hell did she know so much about us and the way we thought and everything we did except if she had once been one of us herself? I don't care how long screws work around jails, there are certain things they never find out. Yet she knew everything and it wasn't because she had such a good imagination or because she was the kind of woman could put herself in the girls' shoes. There are a few squares like that in the world, but I can bet anybody double to nothing they're not working around as jail hacks.

Anyway, she took a quick dislike to me from the minute she laid her eyes on me, and she started giving me the dirtiest assignments. Not that any of them were very clean. The stench from the soiled linen alone was enough to knock you over. Some of the girls, mostly teachers' pets, used to man the big washing machines. But I had to stand all day holding a big stick and swishing sheets around in tubs full of boiling water. The perspiration ran down my face even in the wintertime. And a couple of times I swished so hard with my stick that I caused the boiling water to hit me in the face. It burned like hell. But there was no sense complaining. If you did, Madame Pompadour put you down as a crybaby who ought to be disciplined better. And could she think up disciplines! I was always in trouble with her. I got so fed up with jail. The only bright spot, the only thing that kept me from blowing my top good was the thought that if I did right and never rubbed a hack the wrong way, I'd be eligible for parole someday.

Funny thing, from the day I hit that jail, it was like my life there didn't exist in itself but only as a lead-in to parole. I think all the girls felt that way. I still remember like it was yesterday how we girls used to feel on parole days. They came up once a month and they gave us all the creeps.

Parole days were terrible. Staff was always prepared for "incidents." The girls were tense and they sometimes snapped when refused parole. A friend of mine did. She was a big, strong lushroller. One parole day her mind went sick on her. She talked crazy and began hitting at the hacks. They locked her up in isolation-it took six screws to hold her down-and then they sent her to the nut house.

Plenty of girls try to commit suicide on parole days. The screws watch you like hawks. Not that most of them would mind if you succeeded in killing yourself. They just don't want to be on duty while you're doing it. Too damn much red tape, don't you know?

The whole damn institution is quiet as a grave on parole days. A girl can walk down the hall in rubber-soled shoes and you can hear the sound of her walking. It's eerie as hell.

Around fifteen girls sit outside the parole room, waiting for their turns to go in. They don't talk. They don't whisper. They just look.

I'll never forget my experiences with parole. The first was the worst. I'd been in fourteen months and I was longing for out. I sat on the line nervous as a coot. Finally they called me in. I stood up in front of the table and looked at those commissioners and I nearly fainted. First, there was this big bum of a bald-headed director. He was surrounded by his seven dwarfs. All eight of them examined my records for about ten minutes, passing them back and forth. Then the questions began.

"Well, well," says the head ward, "look at this record. Very good, I must admit. And now, tell me why a girl who makes such a good record in jail does so badly outside?"

He talked like he was the judge on his bench. No, more like God in His Heaven. I hated the sight of him. I hoped he couldn't tell. After all, I was looking to get out of this place. I kept my eyes cast down, afraid he'd see the hate in them if I once looked up.

"I've been trying very hard, sir, since I got in jail. If you see fit to let me leave here, I intend to keep on trying outside."

"Oh, you do?"

"Yes, sir."

"What guarantee can you give me?"

"Only my word."

"So far as I can see, that hasn't been too good up till now."

"No, sir."

"But you think we can take your word now?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

I said nothing. I thought, You bastard, you lousy son-of-a-bitch bastard. Drop dead. And still I kept my eyes down.

He said, "What have you got your hair red for?"

Some question to ask a woman. I found out later that his daughter was a bleached blonde. Incidentally, he himself, was a big lush.

"I like it red. It gives my face more color."

"Well, are you planning to do it again outside? Assuming we let you go out?"

I knew the rules for parole or indenture. You were not permitted to change your appearance in any way. Men weren't allowed to grow mustaches and women weren't allowed to bleach or dye their hair. So I said, "No, sir."

Then he shut up. And the number three ward to the right of him took over. He was a timid-looking little man with a peculiar booming voice.

"What kind of job would you want to have on the outside?"

"Well, a waitress."

"Why? Because of the glamour?"

Some glamour to stand on your tootsies twelve hours a day. I thought he might be kidding. The dumb bastard was serious.

I said, "No, sir. I just don't know what else I could do. Unless I got a job in a factory."

"Why a factory? Why not as a domestic?"

Let him go work as a domestic. Let him knock himself out kissing the feet of those rich bitches. I knew a couple of kids who'd gone out of jail as domestics and came back damn soon because they couldn't take the guff.

"Sir, the reason I want a waitress or factory job is that I'm happier when I'm with people."

"You also get in trouble."

"Not necessarily."

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'not necessarily.' "

"Oh, I thought that's what you said."

Well, I knew damn well I wouldn't get parole that day. And so I let loose at the bums. I told them what I thought of their lousy old jail. I said it made girls worse than they were when they came in. I ran out crying.

Miss Levine, one of the screws, saw me. She was swell. I don't know what in hell she was doing in a jail. She should have been home in some kitchen, rocking a couple of babies, and cooking gefilte fish. She came running after me.

"Joanie, Joanie, wait a minute." She caught up to me and put her arms around me. "Go ahead, cry."

"What I got to cry about?"

"Cry a little bit, darling. You'll see it'll do you good."

"The hell with crying."

"When I was your age, I cried a lot."

"So you must have had something to cry about."

She held me close to her, God bless her soul. While we were standing together, another hack passed by, an iceberg type. She looked at me like I was dirt. Miss Levine too. In that jail, they didn't think guards ought to get too close to the girls.

"Joanie," Miss Levine said, "there'll be another parole day next month and then you'll go in with your chin up and you'll tell the board you're sorry you didn't behave right. Everything'll be O.K."

Having her talk to me like that made me feel a hell of a lot better. But I was still sick at heart and sorry for myself. I still was filled with hate toward squares. I figured I couldn't dig them.

The day after the parole day I'm talking about, I had some news that knocked me out and made me try to hang myself. It was about my mother and it went back two and a half months.

That was the last time I'd had any word from home. It was real peculiar. My old lady wasn't like some of those square mothers who never wrote their kids. Loaded or not, I'd get a letter a day from her. And packages! I never knew what to do with all the stuff she sent me. The girls always said she was more like a sweetheart than a mother.

Well, one day I didn't get a letter. Everybody began bugging me:

"Hey, watsa matter witcha sweetheart?" I told them she must be sick or something. They laughed like hell.

Two days passed without a letter, and three and four and a week. No packages either. I knew in my bones something was wrong. I just sat in my cell and thought about my mother. If she wasn't sick, Len must be. Maybe my stepfather was in jail again. Maybe all my mother's tricks had left and she had no money for junk. That meant she'd have to go off dope cold turkey. I knew how it would be-a living death. She could go crazy.

Maybe she'd been thrown in jail. But she'd write me from jail.

She might be in a hospital though. Still, she'd get word to me.

What was wrong anyhow? Where could my mother be? And where was Len? Where was Uncle Artie? Why the hell wasn't somebody writing to me?

The days wore on. Now it was two weeks since I'd had word. And when I couldn't hold out any more, I went to see my social worker.

She was a young woman of twenty-five or so named Miss Pepper. All the same, there was something of the old lady about her. She was fluttery. She was on the sloppy side too-hanging slips, runs in her stockings.

She was supposed to be very smart. She thought she knew everything there was to know about you. According to her, all your troubles went back to when you were a baby or before you were born or something. She was always trying to get into your mind. She asked embarrassing questions. Plenty of times I felt like telling her to mind her own business.

Sometimes I told her the worst lies. I wanted to shock her. But I never got anywhere. She was pretty goddamn shockproof. Probably learned to be in that school of social work, from those professors she thought were God. She was always telling me what those smart professors said about prostitutes. A hell of a lot they knew. How many of them had ever met a gal like me face to face?

And that's why I'd want to laugh every time she started telling me why I'd become what I was. Some people think you can learn all about life from books.

Speaking of books, Miss Pepper was a real weirdie in mine. I guess I'd never have gone to talk with her about my mother if I hadn't been so desperate for someone to talk to, anyone.

I said, "Miss Pepper, I haven't heard from my mother in over two weeks."

"And how do you feel about it, Joan?"

"Worried. Couldn't you call her for me? Could you please send someone out to see whether she's all right?"

"Joan, when was the first time your mother let you down?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"How old were you?"

"What do you mean? How old was I when?"

"When you first realized you couldn't count on your mother."

"I could always count on her."

"Joan, you can be honest with me. I understand how you feel. You want to love your mother."

"Well, sure. Everybody does, don't they?"

"Wanting to love your mother and actually loving her are two different things."

"Miss Pepper, I do love my mother."

"Now, Joan, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that you don't. I'm just trying to explain how your love is mixed up with your hate."

"But I don't hate my mother."

"That's what you prefer to think. You don't face your hatred. You push it down. Once you bring it out in the open, you'll feel better, dear."

Oh, God help me to handle this nut and make her find out what's wrong with my mother.

The weeks kept roiling and still I heard nothing from home. And there wasn't anyone to talk it over with. A couple of times I started telling Miss Levine, the nice hack, but she said she wasn't allowed to handle such problems; Miss Pepper was in charge of them. So I went to see Miss Pepper every week at least once, but she never listened to what I had to say. She was too damn busy looking into my childhood.

Finally, I'd gone for two and a half months without hearing any word from or about my mother, and I got hysterical. They took me to see the warden. She was a fine lady, sympathetic and understanding, but you had to be off your rocker before you could get to her.

She didn't give me any of the Pepper malarkey, thank God. She promised to get somebody out to look my mother up.

Well, the next day I was called to her office. Len and my Uncle Artie were both sitting there. They looked sick.

Len said, "Joanie, baby, I don't know how to tell you this. I rather cut off my right hand. I'm the one done it to her. I didn't watch her like I shoulda."

I said, "Ma's dead, isn't she?"

Uncle Artie said, "Joanie, listen, honest to God she's better off this way. You know how independent she always was. You think she could have lived with a paralyzed body?"

"What paralyzed? What the hell are you both talking about?"

Len said, "Artie, you tell her. You got more words than me."

I said, "Damn it. Damn it to hell. Somebody tell me."

Uncle Artie said, "Ma was home alone, Joanie. She was high. She was goofing and smoking. And, Joanie, look, she burned the house down, see, and-"

Len said, "My God, she set herself on fire; that's what she done. Jesus Christ, but she suffered. And me, son of a bitch, I was playin' cards."

Uncle Artie said, "If she'd lived, her whole left side would have been paralyzed. She wouldn't have been able to do for herself."

Len said, "But she should've lived anyways. I'd've done for her. D'you believe me, Joanie?"

"Yeah," I said. "Listen, how long's she dead?"

"Two and a half months now," Uncle Artie said.

I turned to Len. "What kind of funeral did she have?"

"Good, baby. The best money could buy."

"Who came to it?"

"People, baby."

"What people?" I wanted to know whether those my mother had helped were better to her in death than they had been in life. "Who came from Jersey?"

Uncle Artie said, "What the hell's the difference now, Joanie?"

"You tell me, you hear, I got to know."

Len said, "One thing, Joanie, them Jersey folks can all drop dead in front of my eyes and I'll step over their stinkin' bodies."

Uncle Artie said, "To hell with them, Len. We didn't need them at the funeral."

"Uncle Artie?" I said.

"Yeah, Joanie baby?"

"Didn't you need me there, either?"

"Joanie, sweetheart, what the hell're you talking about?"

"Len?"

"Huh, baby?"

"Didn't you need me at my mother's funeral?"

"Joanie, you don' know all the times I was wishin' for you, baby. You're all I got now."

I couldn't cry. I felt hard inside, all choked up. "I hate you, Len."

Len said, "No, Joanie."

"You too," I told Uncle Artie.

Uncle Artie said, "Look, baby, we thought it would be better for you if you didn't come to the funeral. We talked about it. We decided we couldn't have stood it to see a couple of cops bringing you in handcuffs."

"Goddamn it," I said. "I got a right. Everybody's got a right to see their own mother get buried."

I might have said a lot more if Miss Pepper hadn't come in. Her slip was hanging as usual and her eyes looked cloudy behind the thick glasses.

She said, "Joan, we were all so sorry to hear about your mother."

I don't know why, I could have killed her at that moment. I thought she had a hell of a nerve to talk about sorry. For two and a half months I'd begged her week after week-find out about my mother.

She said, "All of us feel sympathy for your loss."

I said, "Stick your sympathy."

Then I went back to my cell and lay on my bed. Two screws came to call me to supper and I said I didn't want any. I heard one screw tell another:

"I guess we'd better leave her be. We'll bring her a little something later if she gets hungry."

When I was sure everyone was in the dining room, I tore my sheet into a couple of pieces and wound it around my neck very tightly. I thought I could choke myself. They caught me before I could finish the job.

The next morning I made plans to escape from jail and go to where my mother was buried. I told Audrey and a couple of other friends, and they promised to come with me.

But in the end they all decided against going except for this one colored kid, Lorraine. She was all right, that girl; she'd spent most of her life in institutions. In other words she'd been to all the prep schools for the reformatory. She was twelve when they first got her as a juvenile delinquent, and she was twenty-two when I knew her. She wasn't afraid of the devil himself, and the night we left she stole four regular street dresses, two for her and two for me, off a couple of hacks who were our size. She got keys for unlocking the doors from a couple of trusties she knew.

Boy, it was raining cats and dogs the night we left. And we had to run through an open field with hundreds of chopped-down tree stubs. After a while, I thought I couldn't make it.

I said, "Lorrainey, I'm dead. You go on without me."

She wouldn't. She took my hand and we ran together. We finally hit the woods around the institution. At about four o'clock in the morning, we were on the open road. We were cut and bleeding, but we were out.

Since we were close by the airport, we walked there and hailed a cab.

The driver said, "Where are you going?"

I said, "To Boston."

"Have you got the money for your fare?"

"Well," I said, "my husband is waiting there and he has the fare."

And Lorraine took a little ruby ring off her finger and gave it to him. "Here. You can have this for security."

"I don't want your ring, lady, but I want to make sure I'll get paid for going all the way into Boston. It's a long trip. Say, what's a colored girl and a white girl doing together?"

"I'm part colored," I said.

He said, "Oh yeah? You don't look colored to me. You sure you're not runaways from the reformatory?"

I tried to laugh. "Who, us? You kidding?" Then I said, "Well, I guess I better tell you the truth. We were out riding with these two fellows-"

"Colored or white?"

"Colored, of course. We don't like going over the line. Like I was saying, they made some passes and-"

He called another taxi driver over. "Hey, Joe, keep an eye on these dames, will you? I got to go to the John a minute."

I said, "What do you mean, keep an eye on us? What do you think we are?"

Lorraine started running away and I followed her. The two taxi drivers ran after us and a couple of others joined them. They soon had us surrounded. Our driver went away. He came back in a few minutes.

"Yeah," he told his pals, "they're from the reformatory all right. I just called up. A couple of the ladies'll be down to get them."

I said, "Why the hell didn't you mind your own business? You're not going to get a thousand dollars for us, you know. Nobody's going to pin a medal on you."

A couple of hacks came down with a uniformed cop and brought us back to the reformatory. They put us both in solitary confinement. My cell contained a bucket, a basin of water, and a mattress on the floor. I stayed in for six days. They'd bring me a meal a day.

On the fourth day, the screw who brought my meal asked me how I was doing.

I said, "Oh, fine. That woodpecker's the only thing that bothers me."

I could see she thought I was going stir crazy. Good enough.

On the fifth day, a hack named Jackson came with my food. She was the one I'd been laying for-a real yellow type.

So I said, "Listen, get me out of here right now or else....And you get out of here too. You come in this cell again, I'll break your damn head open. And don't leave this stinking food here either. Take it out with you. Throw it away or, better yet, eat it yourself."

Well, the next day I was out of solitary. I was also on my way to the New Bedford Jail. That was a hundred times worse than the reformatory. It was a real no-kidding kind of jail. Most of the officers were old and old-fashioned and tough. Most of the girls were there because they couldn't be handled in the reformatory. Maybe they were queers or stools the other girls were going to gang up on, or maybe they'd been in bad fights.

New Bedford had men as well as women. A man sheriff ran the joint. He was a lulu, a big cop type. And when he said, "I'm not going to take any nonsense from you," brother, you knew he damn well meant what he was saying.

The lady screws were no doll babies either. They didn't believe in talking too much. They'd tell you something once and you wouldn't listen, bam, a bop across the head.

They had some cute-looking outfits at New Bedford-brown stockings, black men's state shoes, bonnets like the old-time Mormons-the sheriff said they were for protection so the men wouldn't see our faces-and shapeless gray cotton dresses. Sometimes we tried to wear belts so that we could remember we had figures-but God forbid we should run into the sheriff while we wore them. I guess he wasn't mad for the female form.

I had some time at New Bedford. I'll never forget my first day there. I'd come up with a little alky kid, still drunk and disorderly when they dragged her in. She didn't know whether she was coming or going. A big fat hack told her to get ready for her reception bath.

The kid grins from ear to ear. "I ain't dirty. I don' need no bath."

The screw's not having any of her back talk. She's got to prove who's boss. Jeez, it wouldn't have killed her to put the kid in her cell and let her sleep her drunk off and then she would have had her bath after she got slept out. But to behave like that you got to have a heart.

"Take your bath right this minute," the screw screams, "or I'll have you sent down to the dungeon."

The kid didn't even connect enough to know what all the lip beating was about. She stood around and laughed like hell.

I said, "You know, ma'am, I don't think she understands you."

"Maybe you'd like me to send you to the dungeon too? I don't go for no busybodies."

Well, that little alky gal got brought to the dungeon. Two guards from the men's part came and got her. I guess that was so our lovely hack wouldn't have to soil her lily-white hands.

That New Bedford was some place all right. The cells were built so low and narrow you'd feel like a rat inside of a box. And aside from your cot, all they had in them were buckets for toilets.

I was the girl in charge of the bucket brigade. We had a bathtub outside the jail, and the girls were supposed to empty their buckets into that. It was covered by a screen. What you would do, you'd throw your dirt on top of the screen and then you'd take a broom and keep sweeping until everything fell in. I supervised the sweeping. I'd stand in all kinds of weather wearing a man's mackinaw and that crazy Mormon bonnet. Aside from that lovely little job I had nothing to do and I almost went batty with boredom.

Well, after three and a half months at New Bedford, they sent me back to the reformatory. I was as happy as though I was being sent on a trip around the world. I at least had work there. I worked as a reformatory baking girl. It was a job for a muscle man, and I had to lift hundred-pound bags of flour, but it was still something to do. I remember one time some of the state authorities came through the institution and saw me working. They were shocked.

A sweet old gentleman clucked over me. "A little girl like you lifting such weights. It's disgraceful."

I shrugged my shoulders. "No one else around to do it, sir."

"Well, you shouldn't be either. I'm going to see there's something done."

Of course I heard no more about it. I didn't expect to. I've often seen squares come into jail and fall on their faces because things are so tough. I've heard big promises. But I never saw a change. That's life. Out of sight, out of mind. So what?

I got up at five o'clock in the morning after I became a bakery girl. I had to report to my job at quarter of six. There were three girls working under me. We all got along swell except for one nut. She was peculiar, although to look at her you'd think she was just a normal, square kid a little prettier than most, maybe. I was supposed to teach her how to bake. So I spent hours telling her so much salt here, so much lard there, so much this, so much that. Then I took her into the room next to the oven where the bread was raised. As I walked in front of her, she swung out and gave me a good sock across the face. For no damn reason.

I said, "Hey, that hurts. Are you nuts or something?"

She said, "Oh, you dirty guinea bastard, you."

Well, I'm no angel. And I was sick and tired of everything anyway. I don't know, I went out of my mind. I took out on that poor nut everything I'd felt since I'd come to jail. I began beating on her so bad she couldn't defend herself.

"I'll show you who's a dirty guinea bastard."

I got a big knife we used to cut the bread with. I said, "You come on here and I'll show you how dirty this guinea can be."

I think I would have killed the kid if the kitchen supervisor and a couple of other staff hadn't come and grabbed me.

The kitchen supervisor, a fat, old, goodhearted gal always liked me. But this time she had to give me the business. She said I'd have to go in solitary for a while.

I was put in solitary two days before Christmas. On Christmas Eve I had just finished talking myself into believing that this was really not Christmas Eve at all-that it was just a night like any other night and there was no reason to be so bugged for my family-when I heard some girls singing "Silent Night, Holy Night." I said to myself, "Oh, that's great, that's real great. You had to come here, didn't you?" The girls went on singing. I told myself, "Just keep it up." And I put my hand through the slats and bars and unbreakable glass of my cell window and ripped it to my elbow. I've still got a scar for a souvenir.

I was in the hospital for about a week after I got out of solitary. Miss Levine used to come and see me every day. We talked a lot about life. It was the first time any square had ever been so good to me. After a conversation with her I really yearned to turn respectable. More important, that sweetheart of a hack even made me believe I could do it.

She'd say, "Kid, you got two important things in your favor."

"What?"

"Your guts and your religion."

"Miss Levine, you really think I can make it on the outside?"

"I'd bet my bottom dollar, baby."

"You're not kidding, huh?"

"You bet your life I'm not."

Well, that one swell screw did what the whole jerked-up jail couldn't. By the time I was ready for out, I was also ready for the good life.

They let me out on indenture. That meant I had to work on a job under prison supervision. They made me a cook in a convalescent home. I lived in and could have my little boy with me. It was wonderful to be with my baby. But I soon found I had less time for him than I did when he was boarding. I had to be up and at work by seven in the morning and I was never through till ten at night. I was paid twelve dollars a week and all the food I could eat.

Life was drearier at the home than it had been in prison. I was young and I wanted to go out once in a while, but how could I? Working till ten at night, I could never be dressed before eleven or so. And I had to be in at midnight. If I came in after twelve, some cutie pie would report me to my indenture officer.

I took the life as long as I could, but one day I got so fed up I called my indenture officer. She was on vacation. I told the secretary:

"Well, please get someone else to help me. I'll go nuts."

The answer: "Sorry. Your worker is on vacation."

I called three times and then I said to hell with it. I took my kid, packed our two shopping bags-we didn't own a suitcase-and came to New York. I had twenty dollars to get us there.

Well, when we arrived in New York, I still wanted to do right. First, I went to a priest. I asked him would he please get me a job with my child. I told him I was on indenture in Boston and wouldn't report until I had another job-which they might or might not let me keep.

He said, "Are you a member of this parish?"

"No, Father, but I would like to be."

"Sorry, there's nothing I can do for you."

Well, he didn't change my feelings about my religion or anything else, because one person's attitude to things wouldn't make me change what I felt. But I did decide the square life wasn't for me. Legit jobs for a person like me, a parole violator, were too tough to get. I'd go back to the life I knew.

CHAPTER SEVEN THE CITY BARKS

Being a prostitute in New York was easy. Of course, the competition was keener than it was in Boston, more girls, more attractive girls, and all that-but the demand was greater too. Many tricks came in from out of town. I don't know why, but the New York pastures looked greener to them.

Of course I didn't start out so self-assured as I sound now. I was scared all the time. I kept wondering how such a little hick could get along and howl would ever be able to take care of my son. Right after I realized I'd never be a square, I found a good boarding home to place him in-and it cost like crazy.

One night I was in the women's room of a bar feeling down because my kid's board was due and I didn't know how to start making contact with tricks. Where could I go? What could I do? I had heard Forty-seventh Street was the mecca-but how the hell did a girl proceed once she got there? Suppose I got picked up? The cops'd send me back to Boston, where I was wanted for having broken my indenture.

So I was in this ladies' room crying my eyes out. A fat, blowsy woman of about forty-five came in. She put her hand on my arm and smiled at me. She had the nicest smile.

She said: "What're ya bawlin' about, honey?"

I told her my kid's board was due and I didn't have any money. I was usually too proud to talk to strangers, but she was different for some reason. I got the feeling she was interested in me. Of course, she was. Why shouldn't she have been? She was Marlena Jones, one of the best madams in the business, and I was young and pretty.

She said, "You're in the life, girlie?"

I nodded. "But I never worked in New York."

"Scared of the city?"

"I guess."

"I know. It won't kill ya, though. It barks but it don't bite."

"I guess."

"Say, ya hungry, kid?"

Hungry? I was starving. I had a little money in my pocket, but I was afraid to spend it. I said, "Well, I could eat."

She began laughing. "Don' kid Mamma. I know when a girl ain't been eatin' too good. I had some bad days myself."

She took me home. She had a gorgeous apartment on Seventy-sixth Street in those days-a great big living room and six bedrooms. She did her business there. She also lived there with her pimp. In those days, she was what folks in the life call a "talent scout." That is, she went in for young men. She gave them everything, kept them in the greatest luxury. But she never let them have money to spend on other women. They had to account to her for every dime.

The boy she had when I met her was named Michael Davidson. He was about nineteen or so, a big-eyed, curly-headed, skinny lean bastard.

When Marlena introduced us, he looked me up and down like I was a new horse.

"Mikey," Marlena said, "you like, huh?"

Michael smiled. "Yeah."

Marlena said, "Me too."

I stood around like a big dope.

"Take a load off your feet," Michael said.

I sank into the soft couch, and I was so tired I had to close my eyes after a while. I don't know how long I slept, but it must have been pretty long because Michael had to wake me and when I opened my eyes there was dinner.

What a dinner! Steak, French fried potatoes, salad with garlic dressing, garlic bread. Marlena had put flowers on the table and we ate by candlelight. I hadn't had anything like that since before my mother died. I couldn't help it, my eyes filled up with tears. Michael began laughing. Marlena told him to shut his mouth. She put her arms around me and held me like a baby.

Madams like her are not a dime a dozen. I've known plenty in my time and most of them are lice. Marlena was a human being who felt for people. That's why I was so happy when it came my turn just a couple of months ago to do something for her. Not much, I'm sorry to say, since I'm not in such a hot position myself, but at least I could let her know I cared about her.

The woman had turned into a derelict from liquor. When I met her she'd just been put out of her furnished room. Her face was bloated from drinking too much, she had gained fifty pounds or more and she was on crutches. A coincidence-I saw her this last time in the same Forty-seventh Street bar she'd picked me up in.

She came over and asked me to buy her a drink. Since I didn't recognize her I gave her a dollar but I did not ask her to sit down.

She said, "Joanie, ya gettin' snooty now that ye're makin' loot?"

I recognized her voice. I said, "Oh, my God, Marlena. Sit down, honey."

She said, "No, it's O.K. I better git goin'. If tricks see me sittin' with ya, they might not wanta come up to ya or somethin'."

I said, "Let them drop dead then."

We talked for hours while I bought Marlena drinks. Alcohol had gotten her down so, I knew she could never get back on her feet again. She knew it too. She always was realistic. She said she got her crippled legs when she ran into a car while she was drunk one day.

I said, "How're you living now, doll?"

"Han' to mouth, kid."

"Oh, my God."

She snapped her fingers the way she'd used to do in the good old days. "That's the sportin' life, man, an' what're ya gonna do about it."

I said, "Marlena, quit kidding and tell me one thing. Where the hell are you sleeping tonight?"

"Aw, here an' there, Joanie. Here an' there."

"You're sleeping at my house."

"Yeah? How come? Ya doin' fine, sweetie pie?"

"No," I said, "I'm not doing fine." I was on junk myself by this time and so was my man and we had to spend every cent on our habit. "But I can share whatever I got with you, can't I? There are two studio couches in my living room and I got a refrigerator that's always full. Please come."

She shook her head no. I remembered that stubborn shake from the old days. I talked till I was blue. My man joined us and he talked his head off. Still no soap. I began to cry. I said:

"You can't do this to me, Marlena. After everything you did for me, I'd never be able to sleep if I knew you were out prowling the streets like some damn cat or something. Please stay with me."

"No."

"Marlena, how can you be so lousy?"

"No, Joanie."

"Please."

"No."

"What do you want me to do-get on my knees to you?"

"That'll be the day, Joanie, when I wan' somebody to get on their knees."

"Marlena, do me a favor."

"Some favor I'd be doin' ya. Givin' ya a beat-up ol' cripple to worry over. Listen, Joanie, I'll make you a promise an' I mean it. If I can' do nothin' else, I'll come to you."

"You would do me a favor. Honest to God. May I drop dead if I'm lying."

"All right, Joanie, I tell ya what I'm gonna do. I'll promise you I ain't gonna sleep outside tonight. If I can't make no better arrangements, I'll be over at yer place."

"What do you mean, better arrangements? Some mission on the Bowery or something?"

"Hell no, kid. I ain't th' holy type. Seein's how they don' go for no drinkin' ladies." She began laughing and banging her fists on the table. "That's jus' what they call me in them missions, Joanie, 'a drinkin' lady.' Ain't that th' funnies' damn thing?"

"Yeah," I said, "very goddamn funny. I'm busting my gut laughing. And now will you come home with me or do I have to get a couple of guys to grab you?"

She got up from the table, kissed me on the head, and walked away. Well, I learned later that a bunch of tricks she had from Brooklyn chipped in and took care of her. They didn't give her so much. But at least it wasn't charity. I couldn't bear to think of Marlena going through all the mess and red tape of getting on city welfare. It would have killed her sure.

Actually, those tricks owed her plenty. They were all handicapped guys-cripples, deaf-and-dumbs, blinkies. Some of them begged for a living and made plenty. You got to be in the life to know that beggars can make more money than legits sometimes. And they don't have as much to spend it on-no family obligations-and they'll pay prostitutes better than normal men. You got to do differently with them, of course, give them more time and attention. They're no in-and-out boys. They want a girl to put on an act, fuss over them a little, tell them she loves them.

Marlena knew all about them. She was always talking to us girls, trying to make us sympathetic to the handicapped tricks who came into her house. It was not just so we'd make more money either. She felt for those guys. I remember she used to say:

"Joanie, if not fer you, some o' my tricks wouldn' know what a woman felt like in bed. Jesus, Joanie, every man ought to know that. Be good to 'em. Knock yer-self out. Ya help a poor cripple, an' when ya need it somebody'll help ya."

I wasn't having any of her gab in those days. I hated going with handicapped men. Plenty of times I'd have to go to the bathroom and whoops after I got through having sex with, say, a man who had stumps where his arms and legs ought to be.

Of course, I often whoopsed after having sex with normal men too-or maybe I should say so-called normal men. Their wives and everyone else might have thought they were O.K.-but I knew better. Up till today I know men differently from the way other women do.

As a prostitute I see them at their rottenest. I wish I didn't know them as well as I do. I know I'd be happier. All I have to do today, after the experiences I've had, is to look into a man's eyes and I can tell what he is and what he's' thinking. I don't know, I sometimes feel all men are degenerates. Even those who claim to love their wives. I think I met only one decent man in my life. I often think about him.

He wasn't good-looking, not too tall, I remember, and a little too broad for my taste. He was wearing working-man's clothes and he had dirt under his fingernails. So what? His soul was clean.

I approached him where he stood at the bar. "How about it, mister?" He smiled.

I went into my usual line. I told him everything I'd do, all the perversions I'd practice.

At first he didn't say anything. After a while, he pulled out a ten-dollar bill and laid it on the bar.

"Let's have a drink together, girlie, and you keep the change. I'm sorry I can't go with you. I've been married fifteen years and I never cheated on my wife. I intend to keep my record clean."

I felt good hearing a man talk like that even if he did refuse me. Most times, whether a guy's not in love with his wife or whether he's crazy about her, he'll still go to a prostitute. The most of them will come to sporting girls and take what they can get. I hate them. I get a kick out of conning them. In some ways, it's the only kick I get-talking them into coming with me and making believe I'm passionate when, all the time, I'd like to spit in their faces!

If they could read my mind! I lay there and think, How long will this one take? And in order to make the whole damn act more bearable, I count the money I'm getting over and over-now I can pay this bill and next week I'll pay that one. I think they'd die if they knew how I really felt. They're so vain. People talk about women being vain. And maybe they are, vain about their looks or brains or charm or something-but every damn man's vain about his sex. The worse they are as lovers, the better they think they are.

Actually, I find old, ugly men to be the best lovers. Not that any of them could please me. I guess I have my heart closed to a man so long as I know he's a trick. But old, ugly men are more gentle. Most men, when they take a prostitute's breast in their hands, it's like they were turning a doorknob or something. I hope they're different with their wives. Poor souls-the wives I mean. Men are a terrible ordeal to women like me. I find them harder to take, the older I get. I'm sick and disgusted with them. Sometimes I get so upset I could scream. I was able to control myself when I was younger-to say, "What the hell, it's just a job like any other job." But I can't any more.

Like once I had this fellow, an old trick too, a good trick moneywise, and I was lying in bed with him and all of a sudden I started thinking-his sweat's awful on me, when did he have a shower last. I was broke but I pushed him off the bed and started yelling: "You dirty bum, get out of here."

He said, "Hey, what'sa matter? You crazy or something?"

I kept screaming, "Get out of here. Get out of here. You sicken me."

He didn't have to ask me for his money. I threw it into his face and ran out with my eyes full of tears.

Once I asked a man, "As filthy as you are, you son of a bitch, would you go to bed with your wife that way?"

He said, "Maybe yes, maybe no. Anyways I'm paying you. My wife don't get paid."

I said, "Poor thing. Your wife, I mean. At least I can walk out. She's got to take you, like it or not."

I hate most of my tricks so much, I couldn't kiss one for a million dollars. Well, for a million dollars, maybe I could. Every whore has her price. Every good girl too. But I mean what I say about hating to kiss tricks. Most girls in the life are that way. Tricks can never understand it. They're always asking: "How come you'll do everything but kiss me?" I usually try to con them along. I say something like, "I'm just not an affectionate type. Sexy, sure. Affectionate no." Or else I say, "I got a cold, honey. I'd hate to have you catch it." What they don't know, going to bed is the least of everything for a sporting girl. And I'm not trying to crack wise when I say she's got to like a man in order to kiss and caress him.

Incidentally, no damn fool could like some of the tricks I've had to take. Weirdies.

One guy, a very wealthy man, judging by the way he lived, had me picked up by his chauffeur. I went to his home on Park Avenue and I waited around in the library. It was a big, pine-paneled room.

The chauffeur said: "You'll hear a bell and when you do, I want you to walk through that door there on your right."

I waited with my heart in my mouth until I heard the bell tinkle. I walked through the door like I'd been told. There was a casket with a candle on each end and a corpse lying inside. I screamed, and the corpse got out and stood up more alive than I was. I could tell he reached his climax, got his kick.

Then there was a trick I got through a madam I knew. She told me to bring a stick of pot since this one liked his girls to be high on marijuana when they came to him. Again, I was taken to a very elaborate New York apartment.

I heard a booming voice say: "Hello, dear, go into the bedroom, would you please?"

I went into the bedroom. I found a note on one of the chests of drawers. It said:

Dearest Darling:

I know I am going to enjoy having sex with you this evening only "sex" wasn't the word he used. You will find a bottle of Scotch, a pan of ice, a pack of cigarettes. You will also find several pairs of shoes. Choose the ones that fit you. There is a veil I want you to wear and some bracelets and a pair of earrings. When you've dressed, come in to me. Of course, I intend for you to take your own clothes off.

The room I found my trick in was dark as the cave of hell and twice as eerie. On the bed was this big, gorgeous hunk of man with steel-gray hair. He said:

"Sit down, dear, and smoke your strange cigarette." By that he meant the pot I'd brought. "Now, darling, I'd like you to have some Scotch while you smoke. Would you please?"

"Yeah," I said. "Sure."

He said, "You lovely sweetheart, you, I'd like to see you have sex with a Negro man. I'd like to see you with my girl friend. I'd like to get you all dressed up in furs and a picture hat and take you to my club. I'd like to see you having sex with me while my friends look on."

All this crazy talk before he could have sex with me.

After he was through, I went into the other room to get my clothes. I remember it was midwinter and I had laid my coat on the bed. It had picked up lint.

So I went back and I said: "Would you mind telling me where the whiskbroom is? I would like to brush my coat off."

He hardly looked up at me. "Do you mind hurrying the hell out of here? I have a business appointment in a few moments."

I got mad but I couldn't blame him. Plenty of those weirdies are like that. They're sweet until the sex is over, and then they're disgusted. Probably with themselves more than the girls, but they have to take things v out on somebody. They act like they're in a coma until the sex is over with and then they always let the girls have it. They get nasty with us because they've belit-I fled themselves in front of us. Most of them are rich v men, incidentally. Generally, the weirder the pervert, , the richer the guy. Most poor men would be ashamed to do some things that rich ones do. Either that, or else they don't have the time for thinking up fancy things. They're too busy working and making a living.

The things some men make prostitutes do. I had a regular trick made me he on ice. He had his climax while I shivered.

Oh, I could tell women things to make them sick. It's bad enough to get nauseated myself at least once every day. I don't have to make other people feel the same way too.

There was this handsome man, twenty-eight or so, six foot tall, a hundred and eighty pounds, blond hair, nice blue eyes. He said he'd gone with me because I was a redhead.

As soon as he got me in the room, he said: "Sit down. I want to explain something before we start. My mother was a redhead and she always abused hell out of me while the old man was away. So now I want to tie you to the bed and give you a little gentle abuse, but very, very gentle. You get it?"

"Yeah."

He tied me to the bed. He said, "Believe me, honey, I won't hurt you." He hit me with a belt, gently like he said. He got more hurtful as he got more excited, but he always kept himself in check. I stung pretty badly when he was through with me, but I was still able to sit around on my rusty dusty.

A couple of weeks afterward I wasn't so lucky though. I drew another weirdie. He said he wanted me to beat him. I had to get drunk to do it. Even so I was N.G. from his point of view. I'm never any good with maso-chists, because I don't like to be abusive. Anyhow, I whipped this guy with a belt the way he told me and he kept yelling: "Harder, harder." I couldn't seem to hit him hard enough. He got mad at me. He turned furious. He took the belt away from me and started beating me with it. He shouted:

"Like this. Beat me like this and not the way you're doing it."

I was black and blue for a couple of weeks afterward.

I've had so many beatings from tricks, so many of them try to cut me or choke me that I'm deathly afraid of men. Every time I go to a room with one I don't know, I figure I'm taking my life in my hands. And if I'm not in danger, I figure I'll be disgusted by something they'll do before they're through.

The things they can think of. Some men come to me and all they want is for me to help them look like girls. They make up and they wear my underwear. Recently, I had one who ran around the room in my slip and had me running after him calling, "Josie dear, Josie dear."

A few tricks in my time I've felt sorry for, though. Those are the ones who've come to me not so much for sex as companionship. I like going with them.

One man I started seeing when I first came to New York, and still see him today. He's about forty-one now and must have been twenty-eight or so then. He's a hell of a nice guy, sexually normal and all. He came to me about four times the first year and then I didn't see him for a couple of months. When he finally turned up again he looked like a man who'd got tired of living.

He said, "Listen, Joanie, I want to tell you in front I haven't any money. But if you'll trust me and have a little time, I'd like to stay a while tonight."

I knew he was good for the loot. But suppose he hadn't been? He was still a hell of a swell fellow. And it sounded to me like he needed a friend.

I said, "I always have time for nice people."

"You know, Joanie," he told me, "I don't have any friends. The few I had walked out."

"How come, sweetie?"

"Well, my brother's going around telling everybody I'm nuts. Lots of people believe him. Maybe I am a little bit nuts. Who knows? What I seen in my own home could drive anybody cuckoo."

"What?"

"My mother and my brother. In bed together." I said, "Oh, my dear Jesus."

He began to cry. "I been sick ever since I seen them. I tried to tell my brother, but all he done was laugh. He said I was off my rocker and I ought to go see a head-shrinker. But, Joanie, listen, I'm not off my rocker. You know damn well I'm not."

"Yeah," I said, "I know." I felt good to feel that, although I was a prostitute, I was still the one he confided in. I wanted to help him.

I have a few tricks like that-who touch me where I live. I guess, when you come down to it, it's easy to touch a whore. All you got to do is treat her like she's human.

CHAPTER EIGHT FORGET YOU KNOW ME, COPPER

The only relief a girl has from her tricks unless she's on stuff or drink is her man. I don't know many prostitutes who don't have men of their own. We think of them as our husbands even though we may not be legally married to them. Squares, of course, think of them as our pimps. If you'd ask any girl in the business she'd probably tell you that other girls' men are pimps, but her man is different. She's got to feel that way. If she didn't, what in the hell would she be living for? Most of the time she hasn't any family, or if she does, they've disowned her a long time ago. Her friends are other girls in the business and, although we're sometimes kind to one another, we're also a jealous bunch.

I've known many prostitutes who were cows in some pimp's stable. That is, they've had four or five or six wife-in-laws. The pimp's told each one she's his favorite girl. He's given her a big, beautiful tale about how, when he gets enough money together, she's the one he's going to take out of the business and marry or something. In the meantime, he takes turns sleeping with all her wife-in-laws.

I don't go for that. A lot of the girls say I'm too independent for my own good-but the way I feel, if I'm laying on my back and giving all the money I earn up to y man, the least he can do in return is to stick to me and only me. But, whether he sticks or not, he's still the lowest thing in the world. A man's got to be low to t a woman take care of him.

It's a funny thing about women like me, we try to tell ourselves we're so smart because we take our tricks and we don't realize how dumb we are when we give up everything we get to our pimps. And yet there's nothing any of us can do. We need our men because they understand us and speak our language. And they don't look down at us the way square men do. In fact, we're in a position to look down at them. Most of them are rotten bastards.

The first pimp I had in New York, Sonny, was quite a guy. His brother was one of the biggest gangsters around. I won't mention his name because it's water under the bridge and besides, if he read it some day, I might end up in some nice, dark alley with a bullet through my brain. I probably will anyhow, but why go round asking for trouble?

Anyway, my pimp, being the little brother of a big gang man, had some of the glory rubbed off on him. He had a lot of contact among bartenders and bellboys, and I must say he gave me a good start after I stopped working for Marlena. He knew the score like nobody else in town.

He was awfully cute-cute-looking I mean, nice build, blue eyes, premature gray hair. But he had big feet, wore a size fourteen shoe. He had a voice like an angel and he could really put a song over. He sang "My Buddy" to make the tears pour down your face. I'll bet I heard him a hundred times and I cried every time. He'd cry too, but he was a faker from way back. He was crazy and we had a lot of fun together. I forgot my miseries when I was with him. That's what I paid him for, I guess, forgetfulness.

He helped me a lot. As I've said, he knew a lot of hotel bellboys and a lot of bartenders, and because of him they all solicited jobs for me. I began making so much money while I was with him that the other girls called me the "Fabulous Joanie."

Yes sir, I made so much money that I was able to buy Sonny a gorgeous car and the best wardrobe in town. He dressed me well too. He got me a blue mink stole. A pro I knew who'd turned square tried to give me the business because he'd used my money to buy it with, but I remembered her back when she was whoring and had never had a decent dress to her name. So who was she to play the high and mighty and try to make me believe my mink didn't mean anything? Sonny had bought it on his own, nobody made him, nobody forced him, and so I knew he must be happy with me.

Of course, he had to be happy while I was making all the loot I was. Everything was hunky-dory then.

But when the hotel I hung around most was raided one day and I was kicked to hell out along with the other girls, then he stopped being so happy with me.

Incidentally, my best girl friend around the hotel was more or less responsible for the raid, and that was another thing made Sonny mad at me. Because he'd always said she was a dumb cluck and I was the one who'd brought her into the hotel in the first place.

I always had a kind of soft spot for her. She was not as bright as she might have been, but she was a kind girl. Tricks went for her. I don't know why, since she was an ugly son of a gun. She looked like the fat lady of the circus.

Cadillac Peg-she was nicknamed that because she'd had about a dozen Harlem pimps in her time and bought them all Cadillacs before she walked out on them or they walked out on her-could con a guy good. She came from old Ireland and she sure sounded like a gal who'd kissed the Blarney stone. The thing she'd promise a man.

Well, this night on which the hotel was raided, Peg happened to walk by the desk while the clerk, a guy called Whisky Willie, was trying to get some square he'd never seen before to leave the premises. The guy was beginning to take the hint and go home when Peg went and put her two cents in.

"Aw, Whisky, it's cold out tonight."

"Yeah," the square said. "I'll freeze if you send me out."

Whisky smiled. "I can assure you no one would regret that more than I, sir. But I can't accommodate you. Believe me, I am most dreadfully sorry." He was a smooth little bastard of a talker, that Whisky was.

"Listen, Whisky," Peg said. "I got a room. He can come up and stay with me."

She had two kids out in boarding homes and now she was pregnant again. Besides, she'd just gotten a brand new pimp and he hadn't received his Cadillac yet. So she was greedy for money.

"Yeah," the square said. "I can stay with the little girl."

Whisky said, "You can go home."

The square looked hurt. "What's wrong with me anyway? How come you refuse me a room in this fleabag?"

Peg answered before Whisky could. "Honey, he thinks you're a cop."

I stood around watching the fun.

The square turned to me. "Do I look like a cop to you?" I said, "No."

In those days, I was naive. I thought all New York's finest, whether they were in uniform or plain clothes, were tall and well built, healthy-looking, and with good complexions. This guy was on the short side and he had a pimply skin.

"See," he told Whisky. "This girl doesn't think I look like a cop."

"Why do you think we wouldn't admit you if you were an officer of the law? On the contrary, if we thought that, we would do everything we could to accommodate you. And even so we would not have a room." That Whisky was on the ball.

Peg wouldn't let him be. She kept bugging him until finally she won out.

The square went up to her room with her. After a while he pulled his badge out of his pocket, the dirty, sneaking copper.

The hotel would never have had to close down in spite of the way Peg was caught if the owner hadn't got damn good and fed up with bribing the vice cops. I happen to know that for an absolute fact. And Peg told me the dear, sweet guardian of the law who pinched her slept with her before he pulled his badge. Maybe so, maybe no, I wouldn't know for sure.

I tried to find out from a vicer who went for me. But he shut up like a clam every time we got on the subject. I made him drunk a couple of times. He wouldn't talk drunk or sober. I kidded him:

"Honey, I'm going to nickname you 'the three little monkeys.' Because you're a man who hears no evil, sees no evil, and speaks no evil. Or maybe I'll just call you 'evil' for short. Account of the kind of loving you like."

He and I were in a hotel down the block from where I used to work.

I said, "Hey, tell me something. Are you going to let me know when your buddies raid this joint?"

"Maybe, baby."

I said, "You'd be a heel if you didn't. What's the use of having a cop for a lover if he won't protect you?"

He took my arm and bent it till I screamed. "If you don't like this cop's kind of loving, why don't you try giving him up?"

I said, "Because you're too sweet."

Sweet. He and all his brother policemen should live so long. I believe a vice squadder is the only animal that's lower than a pimp. What kind of a man would go out and try to trap women? That is, if he really was a man. Some job to sit in a bar or some place and put yourself in line for a poor pro to make a pass at you. I've had vice squadders pose as out-of-town bankers and such and spend all night buying me drinks and food. I'd like to know where their expense money comes from too.

All right, I'm a prostitute. I can be bought for a price. But suppose I wasn't in the life. Suppose I was a square dame a little lonely and down on her luck and this so-called out-of-town banker sparked me. Who's to say I wouldn't go with him? And if I knew his money was easy to get, I might ask him for some, square broad or no. Next thing I'd likely find myself in court, maybe in jail. I knew a couple of young kids who started as prostitutes that way.

This young vice cop who got me sermonizing picked up a few square kids in his time. He was handsome, tall, dark-haired, with a nice cleft in his chin. He was a married kid-his wife was a knockout if I can judge by the pictures he carried in his wallet-and still he liked the girls. He never paid us, at least he never paid me. When I first met him I'd try teasing money out of him:

"You don't mean you want my services on the house, honey? Don't tell me you're the sort of copper expects a girl to go for love instead of money."

Ha ha ha! He'd laugh like hell. I never got a nickel out of him.

He would take me out drinking once in a while. And I wouldn't have to pay. But then, neither would he. Being a cop, he was usually on the house. We'd go from bar to bar.

One night I said, "Honey, it's very embarrassing to go everywhere and drink on the arm this way." He said, "Don't worry, doll."

Meaning he had enough on those bar bosses so they'd be glad to serve us for free. I guess it's a good life being a cop and getting something for nothing. But, personally, I'm more comfortable paying my way. I wouldn't be a vice cop for anything. I guess there are plenty of vicers who wouldn't be prostitutes.

They wouldn't be them, but they don't mind getting together with them. This little man I'm talking about made me so mad one day. After we'd been such good friends and all, while sitting at a table and drinking with me, he held his hand out and said, "You see this hand; it's a big hand; it's a web; and if ever you get caught in the web, forget you know me."

The son of a bitch meant to say that if I ever took a pinch, I shouldn't mention his name. As though I would anyhow. Even if he was a district attorney, even if he was a judge and really could have helped me, I still f wouldn't have used him. I'm a prostitute, sure, but I don't use people in such ways. I never have and I know I never will. Besides, that young punk, what good could he have done me once I'd already been picked up?

Those vice cops. I had one of those I'd gone to bed with pinch me twice-once before we'd slept together and once afterward. I'll say this for him, he was ashamed the second time.

He made the pinch and while he was pulling me into the police station, he said: "Joanie, hell, I didn't know it was you, kid. Me and my partner got a call about this girl in a hotel, so what can you do when you get a call? You got to go get the call, right? Jeez, I'd have found a way out if I knew it was you, you got to believe me, kid."

I might have believed him too-I was such a schmoe in those days-if his buddy hadn't told me the true story. He said he and my dear boy friend needed a collar, it was the end of the month and they hadn't filled their quota, and since they knew where I was, they came and got me. I was really disillusioned.

Since then, though, I've had plenty of worse experiences with vice cops. Whether or not I've gone to bed with them. One I remember got very friendly with me and then picked me up in the bar I worked out of one night. All right, that was bad enough. In a way, it was taking advantage of friendship. But what he did later was even worse. He got up in court and lied on me. He said I picked my trick up in the street when all the time I did it in the bar.

I knew why he lied-it was to protect the bartender who must have been paying him off, but good. And, as a matter-of-fact, I lied to protect the bartender too. After all, I worked out of the place and I couldn't afford to lose the boss's good will.

All right, let him lie. But what the hell did he have to stick around waiting for me to get out of jail for, and then ask me to go with him again?

Vice cops aren't afraid to ask sporting girls for anything. I had two the other night come up to me in a bar and say: "Hon, we're in the mood."

I said, "Your money's as good as anybody else's." By this time I was old and wise.

Turned out they weren't interested in spending. One of them told me, "We're looking to get a little on the house, dear."

I said, "You are, honey? Well, I'll tell you what you do then. Look some place else."

As I've said before, at one time I'd have been scared to say anything. Today, the young girls are still scared. They'll give a cop anything.

CHAPTER NINE SYMPATHY AND STUFF

My pimp Sonny first told me I didn't have to be scared of vicers.

He said: "Listen, if they want you, they'll get you whether you go with them or not. So why the hell should you give out if you don't feel like it?"

Sonny knew now to manage the cops. He knew how to throw money around and he had a way of making them eat out of his hand. Plenty of times he saved me from getting pinched while I was working out of hotels and bars. Which is not to say I didn't take plenty pinches while I was with him. Hell no. If I start figuring, that was the time I got to know the New York House of Detention for Women like a second home.

One day after Sonny and I had been together about three and a half years, he said, "I got an idea, baby. To hell with all this hotel and bar stuff and all the money I got to pay out and all the pinches you got to take. Spending so much of your time in jail instead of out in the free, clear air."

Me, schmoe that I was, I thought he meant he wanted to take me out of the life. I said, "What'll we do when I stop work? How'll we live?"

He must have thought I was nuts to go and believe in such a screwball notion.

"I'm not talking about having you quit working, honey."

"You're not?"

"Like you say yourself, how'll we live if you do?"

"Other people live, Sonny."

"Joanie, there's living and there's existing."

"You mean with a Cadillac, that's living? And without one, it's existing?"

"Hell, Joanie, a Cadillac's only part of what I'm talking about."

"O.K. What do you want me to do?"

"Honey, I want you to leave this crazy business and go into a house."

"What the hell for?"

"So someone else'll worry about paying off cops and stuff like that. I'm tired of being the one."

That man of mine was a killer all right. He was tired. He was tired.

Well, anyway, I did as he said. I've always done what my old men told me.

The first house Sonny sent me to was in New Haven. It was run by a brother-and-sister team. The man was a big guy in his forties and his sister was a couple of years younger. The two of them were the ugliest slobs I ever met in my life. They had a gorgeous mother though. Respectable too. She lived in Iowa and never came to New Haven. She had no idea of the kind of business they ran. They told her they had a hotel and restaurant, and she was proud of them. She should have been proud, the kind of loot they sent home. Folks in Iowa must have thought those two ugly ducklings had set Connecticut on fire.

They got their girls in New York. They both came in to interview. They met us at the old Pennsylvania Hotel, and I'll bet nobody who looked at them would ever have known what they were there for. He used to look a little funny with those striped jackets he wore over his fat belly, but she was pure, 100 per cent schoolteacher. She wore plain black oxfords, black dresses, and pancake hats.

The first time I saw her I wanted to turn tail and run. I figured I was in the right church but the wrong pew.

Once she began talking though, I knew that here was a true madam.

Right off the bat, she said, "How many ways will you work?"

I said, "Two."

She said, "Ya'd do better if ya was a three-way girl." I said, "Well, I'm not."

"O.K. Damn it, don' go bitin' my head off. I was jus' askin'."

"I was just telling you."

"Listen, you, I don' go for no fresh pros. Save yer wisecracks fer the customers."

I was hoping she'd turn me down, so I curtsied sarcastically. "Yes, ma'am. Whatever you say, ma'am."

"I'm tellin' ya. Save it fer the customers. Me'n my brudder don't appreciate no jokes from the hired help. Way we run our establishment, I wondered where she learned such a big word, you stay in your corner an' we stay in our'n."

She stayed in her corner all right and didn't socialize with the hired help. Not much she didn't. She only slept with the colored piano player, was all. And her brother made passes at all the girls when she wasn't around to see him doing it.

There were four girls, including me. All of us were hired for six weeks and then we were expected to be shipped to another house-sort of on a vaudeville circuit. One of the girls was tall, dark, and good-looking. The other was a dumpy redhead who talked baby talk. The third was a hard-looking bleached blonde.

We all got along pretty well together, because there were more than enough tricks to go around. Of course, the tricks were a pretty creepy bunch. I never in my life saw such a collection of ugly old men and silly young college jerks. All of us girls were money mad and still we'd want to turn customers down.

Some Dracula would choose me and I'd try to pin his attention on the redhead or the blonde or somebody. I'd say things like: "I'm just an average girl-average height, average weight, average looks, average everything. What do you want to go with me for? You can find girls like me on every block. My friends are different, though. Look at the tall one. Don't you think she's something? And that blonde there, she may not look like much, but, take it from me, she's hot stuff."

I had to get drunk before I could go with some of those men. Or else I'd have to smoke some pot. I was miserable all the time, but I made good money. Tricks paid twenty dollars, and half went to the house. I'd clear nine hundred to a thousand dollars in a six-day week. That's after I paid my board and room, which was sixty dollars for a rattrap bedroom and three crummy meals. I also paid twenty dollars a week for a maid to come in and do up my underwear and stuff. She was a nice colored gal, the only one I knew who wasn't in my business, and I enjoyed talking with her.

I had Tuesdays off and I'd go to New York to see Sonny. I lived for my Tuesdays. Sonny and I seemed to get along better while I worked away than we used to while I was staying home. But I was jealous of him. I couldn't help wondering what he did with his time while I was away. I bit my tongue to keep from asking.

At the end of my sixth week in New Haven, Sonny had me placed in a Texas house. I raised hell about going so far, but he comforted me by saying he wouldn't look at any other woman while I was gone. He said there was money down South and we'd be dopes if we didn't get some.

So before I knew what had hit me, I found myself on a Texas-bound bus. I'd wanted to fly or go by train but my generous lover said we couldn't afford the tariff.

The house I went to was quite elegant. It was an old mansion on the outskirts of town, a little decayed but veddy, veddy genteel, don't you know?

Some of the girls looked decayed too. They were different from Northern whores, more subdued and frightened. And most of them were on stuff, not heroin but a combination of goofballs and Benzedrine. Every day I'd see them taking bennys to stay awake on and goofballs to go to sleep on.

I found Southern pimps tougher than Northern men. They make their girls work six, sometimes seven days a week. And they themselves come around once a week or so just to make their collections and maybe take their girls out. Or else they might do them a big favor and climb into bed with them.

I stayed in Texas for three months, and I went all over the state. Houston, El Paso, Galveston, Corpus Christi. I earned a lot of money and my Sonny boy was happy.

After Texas, I worked the Louisiana circuit. I spent most of my time in New Orleans. That's a hot town, or at least it was when I was there. The cops ran the houses. Everybody in the life knew it, and I think plenty of squares did too. Those screws'd come around, open as you please, and give us orders. Not only us. Our madams too.

When I was in New Orleans, violence was the order of the day. I saw so many of my girl friends get hurt that I was afraid to go to sleep.

Mostly, it was pimps who beat girls. Plenty of my own friends were dragged into the woods by their men. They took them there so nobody would hear when they hollered.

It was in New Orleans I began hitting the needle. One of the girls, Louisa, introduced me. Not that I needed any introduction after the experiences I'd had around my mother. I knew more about horse when I was twelve than Louisa knew when I met her. Would I ever forget the time my mother's hands were shaking and she told me to stick the needle in her? I begged her not to make me. I remember I couldn't find her vein. I stuck her all over her arm. No, Louisa didn't introduce me to horse. She just told me where I could get some. I knew damn well what it would do to me too. I tried to tell myself I was too strong to get hooked. But I really knew what would happen. God, I must have known. By the time I returned to New York though, I was a junkie and that was that.

Broadway never looked so good as it did after my return from the land of juleps and hospitality. I wanted to bend down and kiss the pavement. Even the little tricks looked all right to me, and the other whores seemed like people I wanted to get to know. For the first time in my life, I didn't act snooty toward the other pros. As a drug addict, a junkie, I couldn't afford to be snooty. Sonny let me know that quick enough. He looked down his nose because I'd become an addict. He was always yelling about how much it took to support my habit-at that time I was only spending fifteen dollars a day, now I spend forty or fifty. Of course, he never mentioned that I was earning a lot more than I needed for junk and that I was still giving most of my money to him. He was getting damned fed up with me and he didn't mind if I knew it. Every once in a while, I'd catch him around with new young chicks. In the old days, he'd used to get upset when that happened. But now he told me, "So what? You don't like what I do? Lump it then."

So, as I said, I began cultivating girl friends. Most of them were drug addicts like me. Only one, Anita, was not. She was a bad alcoholic, though. She and I worked out of the same Forty-seventh Street bar together. She was popular with the owner and the bartender because she drank a lot and was good-looking enough to keep customers buying. I did just as well with cokes and twisted lemon peel-the tricks all thought I drank for real-but I wasn't hungry for the drinks like she was.

Once upon a time she'd done movie bits in Hollywood. She tried to make us girls believe she'd been a big star. Some star. I saw her in one of her pictures. There wasn't even a full-face view of her. All they showed was her profile. She had one line to say: "Oh, he's dead."

I died too. I fell out laughing.

I liked Anita, but she was a weirdie. She and her man had the worst fights. They'd tear each other's clothes off their bodies. Then they'd take knives and razors and slash up everything they found in each other's closets.

But what did I care? She was nice with me. The way I really got chummy with her-it was on my birthday and my man had taken every dime I had and gone off someplace. I needed money for horse and still I didn't want to work. I always hated working on my birthday, considered it bad luck. So I sat around the bar trying to make up my mind whether to work or not-figuring no workee no horsee, but still, who the hell wants to work on her birthday? Before I knew it, I started bawling.

Anita come over to me. "What's the matter, kid?"

"Oh, nothing." I always hated wearing my heart on my sleeve.

"Something is. I can tell."

Finally I told her. She was full of sympathy and stuff. But she didn't offer to give me any money. I thought, Sure, that's a sporting girl for you. She'll break you down so you'll let her know how you feel, but you won't catch her building you up again. To hell with her then. And, by God, I wouldn't work on my birthday, no matter what. I'd go home and call my pusher. Maybe he'd trust me for the stuff.

Well, about twelve o'clock that night I was home and high-my pusher had trusted me and I slept with him as a token payment-there came a knocking at my door. I was feeling good and I didn't want to move. I said:

"Who the hell's there? Go home whoever you are."

Anita's voice came through. "Joanie, Joanie, open the door."

I said, "Aw doll, disappear, will you please? Do me a favor."

"No, Joanie, I want to give you something."

"Give it to me tomorrow."

"Now. I want to give it to you now."

"Hell, it's late. I'm tired."

"Open the door, Joanie, or I'll bang it down. I'm not kidding."

I dragged myself to the door.

Anita stood there with a big smile on her face and a birthday cake in her arms. She came in and put the cake on the table. It had candles and everything. Then she handed me an envelope with a funny card and three ten-dollar bills.

"I'm sorry I didn't think of celebrating before," she said, "when we were talking together. My mind doesn't always work the way it ought to be."

I began bawling again. I couldn't help it. Here was this Anita whom I hardly knew, and she was better to me than my own damn man.

After my birthday, Anita and I became closer than the Gold Dust Twins. We shared tricks and everything. If I got a hundred-dollar baby, I recommended her for his next time out and she did the same for me.

One strange thing though, close as we were outside and often as she visited me, she never invited me to come to her house. I knew it was because of her pimp, that she was jealous as hell of any broad he got to look at, and that, much as she loved me otherwise, as soon as he was in the picture she put me down as another damn dame. She should have known better. Caring for her the way I did, her old man could have been Adonis D. Rockefeller and still I wouldn't have had him on a silver platter.

I wished I'd have been able to find some way of showing her she came first with me. She showed me one time how much she cared about me. It was after I'd been back in New York about three months and the boss of the place I worked in got a bug in his bonnet and began throwing all the drug-addict pros out. He was a nice old bald-headed papa type with a thick Jewish accent. He and I'd been friends for years. So he came up to me that night looking sorry.

"Joanie, I always been good to you, no?"

"Yeah, Sam, sure."

"I always treatened you right. Maybe I treatened you wrong sometimes, ha?"

"Gosh, Sam, you never did. You been swell to me."

"All right. So now what I'm gonna do it to you, you gotta believe it'll hurt me more than you. All night in my bed I was crying, 'I don't want to tell Joanie what I got to say to her. The other girls I don't care so much. But Joanie, to hurt her it's like tearing out a piece from mine heart.'"

It took him a couple of hours to spit everything out. He didn't have anything against me personally. I was a swell girl and always had attracted a lot of men to his bar. But he had caught me goofing the other night and it had scared the stuffing out of him. It was bad enough he had to pay the vice bulls off and look out for them; he didn't want to have to worry over the narcotics boys too.

I listened to Sam and I could hardly believe he meant to kick me out of his joint. What was I? What had I become? This bar was not so high-class and yet I wasn't good enough to work out of it.

I tried pleading with Sam but the words stuck in my throat. I tried cussing at him because he'd hurt my feelings, but he looked at me with pity and I couldn't cuss either.

We sat quietly for a long time. Anita joined us. I told her what Sam had said.

"Sam, you must be going soft in your old age," she said.

"Anita, what I can do, ha?"

"You can let her stay."

"No."

"If you kick her out, I go with her."

"So I'm sorry, Anita. I'm crying to lose the both of you."

"You listen to me, goddamn it, Sam, if we walk out of here, the cops are going to come in. I'll call them on the telephone every day. I'll bug them so much, they'll have to shut you down."

She carried her threat out. Every day she made several anonymous calls to the police. Finally, they had to go and see Sam. We were outside his door when they arrived.

Anita said, "I want to stand right here when Sam's brought out. I want to make sure he knows I'm the one who did this to him. Then maybe he won't go fooling around with my friends any more."

That's the kind of a pal she was, and yet one day I came home unexpectedly and found her in bed with my man. If I know him, she paid to get him there too. He didn't do such things for free.

CHAPTER TEN JUNKIE JAIL

About two weeks after I got kicked out of Sam's I found out I was pregnant. I nearly died when the doctor told me. He was an old guy who had a lot of prostitutes as patients and he suggested I have an abortion. He said he'd do it for me wholesale.

I don't know, I wanted that baby like a hole in the head and still I couldn't dream of having an abortion. First, my religion prevented me. And then, whenever I thought of Donny, my live baby, I knew I couldn't kill this one. Besides, something happened in me when I thought of having it. A thrill passed over my whole body.

That night I told Sonny about the baby.

He laughed and told me to get myself cleaned out.

I said, "You're rotten."

"You just finding that out?"

I said, "Don't be such a smart aleck. When this baby's born, you might find you love it after all. Fathers often do, you know."

He spat on the floor because he knew I hated to see him. "I'm no father, Joanie."

"Well, you're expectant."

"The hell I am."

"Listen to me, Sonny. Once and for all, I'm not going to get rid of this baby. I couldn't do it. You'll see, you'll love it after it comes. A father can't help but love his own kid."

"But I'm no father, Joanie. You see, I'm sterile."

He was sterile like I was sterile. I got so mad I couldn't control myself.

I said: "I'm sick of eating your dirt and paying you to feed it to me. Get out of this house and don't you dare come back in it again."

So here I was, pregnant, and without a man, and a junkie who was unwelcome in places that used to beg me to come hi.

I began walking the streets. Streetwalking's the lowest form of prostitution. It's also the hardest. I've been everything and I know.

I didn't do badly money-wise on the streets, and of course, not having a man leeched onto me, I had more than I ever had before or since. I kept myself in drugs. I ate what I wanted, although being on junk I didn't want much; and I bought myself a couple of good-looking maternity dresses. Spending my own money was a new experience.

After a while, my pregnancy began to show. But it didn't hurt my business any. Rather, it helped it. That's the kind of beasts men are. Plenty of them go out looking for pregnant women.

When I was in my fifth month I got picked up by a couple of vice bulls.

I've got to tell the truth though, I'm the one picked them up. It was around two o'clock in the morning and I saw this fatso leaning against a lamppost. He wore a lumber jacket and he had a couple of Band-Aids on his face. He looked like he'd been in a drunken brawl.

I said, "Hello, sweetie."

He said, "Hi. What's cookin'?"

I said, "Nothing much."

"You doin' anything tonight?" he asked.

"No. And you?"

"I'm doin' what you are."

I said, "How about spending twenty dollars for a good time?"

"What'll I get?"

I said, "What do you want?"

He said, "A Frenchie. And I'll give you fifteen."

Cops don't usually try to bargain you down-why the hell should they-so I naturally thought he was the genuine article and told him O.K.

At which point he called his partner, pulled his badge and brought me in.

My trial was a cinch, over almost before it had begun. The cop testified, his partner sat by, and the judge found me guilty. He looked at my record and sentenced me to sixty days at the House of Detention for Women.

I'd been there plenty of times before and I knew what it was like, a jail just like any other jail. Maybe a little worse than most, with the cells a little smaller and with hardly any recreation facilities and no outdoors except one little tiny roof. But I could take all that. In other words, if I had been just a prostitute, even pregnant like I was, I could have taken their stinking jail and kept my mouth shut. Sixty days is not a lifetime, after all.

But I was not an ordinary prostitute. I was a junkie as well as a whore. And I was knocked out by the thought of what I had heard of junkie jail in New York.

One thing I hope this book puts across if it doesn't do anything else-there is nothing in the whole world more terrible than New York's junkie jail at the House of Detention. I'd rather die than go there again.

I was sick when I got to the House. I needed a shot. It was just after noon, I remember. The van pulled up and we all filed out. A screw pointed to a couple of benches.

"Wait here'n don' make too much noise. Just sit'n behave yourselves."

I tried to grab hold of her arm. "Please, I need a shot. If I don't get one...."

She looked at me. "Tell the doctor when you see her."

"Oh God, when will that be?"

"Nobody knows."

It took three hours before I got to see the doctor. By that time, I was sicker than I'd been before. I was cold and hot all at the same time. I had pains shooting up my legs. I had terrible nausea.

I said, "Doc, I'm sick."

She said, "Strip and get up on the table."

I did and she jammed something inside of me. It made me feel so bad I could have killed her. I began to throw up. I whoopsed on her clean, white uniform.

She yelled for a screw, who brought her some Kleenex. She began wiping herself up. She looked disgusted.

When I could talk again, I said, "Gee, doc, I'm sorry."

She said, "O.K, O.K. You're through now, go."

I thought, Oh dear God, don't let her send me back to the cell without a shot. I stood there looking at her.

"Well, go on, will you? I'm busy."

"But what about my shot?"

"Will you leave or do I have to get somebody to take you?"

I thought to myself-how can anybody be so rotten? If she had been a screw, if she had been just an ordinary square who didn't know what I was going through, then there might have been some excuse for her. But she was a doctor, she'd been around junkies plenty-why didn't she give me one shot before she sent me away?

Well, two screws came and pulled me out of the office. I fought them. I needed stuff so badly I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I kicked and scratched and bit. Later, some of the other girls told me I'd put up one of the best fights they'd ever seen. A lot of good it did me. It made the hacks my enemies.

Those two cussed at me all the time they dragged me upstairs. Then, when we reached the tank, they opened a cell door and threw me in. My cell was lined with wire mesh. It was off from the rest of the prison and locked by a solid steel door with tiny holes through which the hacks could come and look at me.

Not that they came very often; I guess they had nicer things to look at than a half-crazy junkie. I yelled my head off at first, trying to get a little attention, but it wasn't long before I learned that no matter how hard I yelled nobody'd hear me anyway. I don't know why, that scared me more than anything. What I mean, I was more frightened of the hacks not hearing me than I was of their coming to me. I thought, suppose I died in the night. It wasn't just a question of nobody coming to help me; nobody would even know I needed help. Why, there was one, Rosina, who had died in the night a couple months before. I'd never known her but some other girls had. They'd heard her yelling and screaming right before she passed: "Oh God, oh God, I got to have a shot. I got to."

Although I didn't ever get to know this girl I'm telling about there's one thing I do know as well as I know my own name, maybe better-she didn't die, like her death certificate said, because she had a weak heart. She died because she was sick the way drug addicts can get and because nobody gave a good goddamn. She died because no hack would come to give her what she needed. She died because they kept her in the lousy tank instead of the hospital where she belonged.

I've heard of a couple girls who died like that and so have all my friends who've been in the tank. I'll never forget the stories of those dead girls. I think they'll haunt me till I die myself. All the girls say that.

I began recalling all the stories I'd heard of people who had died while they were in the tank. What would they say if I did, what would they put on their damned old doctor's report?

I lay around half-dead for days with only that sweet thought for company. I had diarrhea and I vomited. I didn't have the strength to clean myself up and nobody came to help me.

Once, when a hack came in, I said: "Do you think it would be possible for me to go to the hospital?"

"Why?"

May God strike me dead this moment if I'm telling a lie. I lay there in that lousy cell more miserable than I'd ever been in my life before and this hack, this so-called woman who was supposed to be helping humanity, asked me why I thought I should go to the hospital. I'd been in jails before, I'd met hacks before, but this one didn't seem real to me. I couldn't believe my own ears when I heard her asking "Why?"

After my fifth day in the House, I did what we junkies call "coming to." I actually began feeling I was alive again, I began noticing myself and my surroundings. My body looked like it belonged to a goddamn skeleton or something. I'd been underweight when I'd come in to jail and now I'd lost plenty more pounds. My uniform hung on me. And it was filthy what with the nausea and the dirt I'd picked off the floor while I was violent and rolling during one of my hot spells. My cell was more disgusting than I was myself-if that was possible. It stank to high heaven. I tried to clean it up. I tried to clean myself up too. I was too weak to do much and I didn't have anything to clean with. But, when I was finished, the place was a bit less of a hogpen and I wasn't so much of a pig. And when the hack came with my food, I smiled and thanked her. She asked if I thought I was well enough to leave my cell and join the other girls on the corridor. To listen to her, you'd thinV I'd been in some luxury hospital pavilion, and she was afraid that now after all the pampering I'd had when I was sick, the cruel, cruel world outside would be too much for me to face.

I said, "Yeah, I'm well enough."

The junkie corridor of the House of Detention is the place where addicts who are through with their first bouts congregate. It's the hallway the cells look out on, and there is a radiator at one end of it. I mention the radiator because that is sort of the clubhouse of junkie prison society. The 'Young ladies" all congregate there, as close to the heat as they can get. They sit cold and shivering all day long. You're always cold while you're kicking the monkey. You hunch up in your blanket so that you look like a crazy papoose. And you don't bother combing your hair or putting make-up on. Just sitting around is too damn tough.

I don't know, is it too much to ask that when junkies are sick they get treated like other sick people? Why can't they be put in a hospital? Why can't they get some medicines to help them through their worst times? They're human!

I may be a prostitute and I may be a junkie, but God gave me life the same as He did to squares.

You wouldn't know it if you ever came through New York's tank. Like I said before, in all the time I was there, I never got a bit of medical attention. There was a nice, clean, white hospital in the jail, all full of beds-but they were not for the likes of me. I think they only filled them with girls when they expected important visitors to come through. On ordinary days a girl, especially a junkie, would have a hell of a time getting admitted. Like poor Lilly Rosen did.

Lilly was a pro, a drug addict like me. She was a skinny little kid, about twenty-three or so. And she was in trouble, plenty of trouble, more than all the rest of us junkies put together. Poor kid had a sister, a real square broad, and the sister took sick and Lilly took her niece, the sister's baby home with her. Her pimp didn't like the idea one bit. And, as soon as she got the kid home, he said, "Now let's go to bed." Well, there was only one room in Lilly's apartment, so she told him. "We can't. The baby...." That was all pimpy boy needed to hear. He began beating on the kid, the baby niece, not Lilly. Naturally, Lilly got upset. She ran into the kitchenette, took a knife out of the cabinet, and began cutting on pimpy boy. She really hurt him. The ambulance and the cops came at the same time. Pimpy boy went to the hospital and they took Lilly off to jail.

She had been in for about a week when I came out on the corridor. She was almost nuts with worry over that lousy man of hers.

Well, on her tenth day in jail, the hospital called. Seems the son of a bitch had died. Personally, I hope his soul rests in hell. For my money, he should have been killed before he grew up and began doing his damage. But now things weren't so simple. Like it or not, little Lilly was a murderess. And even worse, crummy as the bastard was, she'd still been in love with him.

She got all crumpled when they told her. All the life went out of her. Even the social worker who brought her upstairs could hardly stand the sight. She told the hack:

"This girl ought to be in the hospital, not in a cell."

"Yeah," the hack said, "so?"

"I tried to get her admitted. They wouldn't take her. It's ridiculous. There are plenty of empty beds."

"Yeah."

"In her condition, you don't know what she'd be likely to do. She ought to be watched."

"Yeah."

Still, they dragged Lilly into her cell. She wouldn't walk and they had to drag her. And that night, the night of the day she'd heard about her pimp, she committed suicide. Well, if they'd sent her to the hospital, she might still be alive today. Why wouldn't they? That's all I want to know, why the hell wouldn't they have sent that sick girl to the hospital?

For a couple of days, that was all we girls talked about on junkie corridor-Lilly and the goddamn hospital that could have saved her life. Then, after we were through tearing her case apart, there were other girls for us to start in on.

Of course, I'm better now than I used to be. For the first year or two after I came out of junkie jail, you couldn't have got me on any other subject. Luckily, I had a roommate for quite a while who'd been in the tank along with me. That's how come she stood for my talk. She knew every lousy thing I did.

Nancy May was her name. She was a honey of a little Southern kid, and we got so chummy while we were both in the tank that nothing would do but we had to go and live together after we got out. Not immediately though. First, I got married again.

Oh yes, I had already been divorced from my old husband, my mother's guy. And so, by the time I left the tank, I was free and on the town.

Yes sir, after I left that little old jail that was supposed to do such a job of reforming me, I was ready for one thing-a nice big shot in the arm. I knew I couldn't get that unless I got a couple of tricks, so I hied me down to a bar I knew and started waiting for live ones.

A real live one came along-a seaman named Jack. He wasn't much to look at, big and clumsy as he was, but the bartender told me he'd just come off a trip and had a roll in his pocket. So I started concentrating. I gave him the eye. He made believe he didn't see me. I called him with the finger. He stayed where he was. So I picked myself up and hied myself on over to his table.

"Hello, big boy, what do you know?"

"Nothing much. I'm just off a ship."

"So I heard. I figured you must be wanting a woman."

"I know where to get one."

"Nice?"

"Hell, sure."

"Nice as me?"

"You're all alike in the dark, sister."

"That's what you think."

"It's what I know."

"How come you know so much?"

"Listen, I had dames before you was born. All over the world."

"Who the hell you trying to make believe you are? Methuselah?"

"Go 'way, cucaracha, you bother me."

"Cucaracha?"

"Yeah, cucaracha. It means cockroach."

"You shouldn't call a lady names."

"Who's a lady?"

"Who the hell do you think you are, you son of a bitch?"

"Listen, kid, I know the word for you. And it ain't lady."

"Oh no? What is it if you're so damn smart?"

"Whore, baby, whore. And you're wasting your time with me. I never paid a broad yet."

"There's always a first time, fella."

We kidded that way through most of the night. When he heard I was a junkie, he gave me money for a couple of shots. But he wouldn't go to bed with me.

The next night I met him again. We shot our mouths off some more. He knew the score and I really enjoyed being with him. He asked me to go to bed with him. I said:

"How much?"

He said, "I told you I wasn't going to pay, didn't I?"

I said, "And I told you I wasn't a freeby."

"So good-by," he said, and started making eyes at a little blonde thing a couple of tables away.

That I could not have and so I said, "Look it's O.K. I'll go home with you."

Well, after all that bad beginning, we fell in love. I mean really in love. He said he didn't want me working any more-that he would take care of me. He asked me to marry him.

I said, "You don't have to marry me, you know. We can go housekeeping without that slip of paper." I sounded a lot snootier than I felt. In my heart I thought, If he really does marry me, this will be the greatest thing that ever happened. It'll make me right with God and man. I'll be a fine, good, faithful wife.

Our wedding wasn't much, I guess-but to me it was the greatest. My stepfather, Len, Jennie, and Uncle Artie came up from Boston. Len and Artie looked fine. They were all spiffed up from head to toe. They came to City Hall with Jack and me, and we all had a big dinner together. Len behaved like a mother, not a stepfather. He cried all over the place and all he could say was:

"Oh, baby. You're really gettin' married. You really are, huh? Jeez, if only Mame could see you now. It's what she always wanted for you, kid."

"Yeah, Len. And I'll tell you a little secret if you'll promise to keep it quiet. It's what I always wanted for myself."

I meant to sound smarty-pants, but damned if I didn't join my stepfather and blubber like a baby instead.

Len put his arms around me. "Dolly, dolly, you're cryin'."

"Yeah, I'm crying. So what? You're crying too, you big baboon."

Jack came up to us. "Hey you," he told Len, laughing like hell all the time, "let go my wife, you hear? From now on, I'm the only man's going to touch her."

Len let me go. "Boy, my boy, that's the way I like to hear you talk. You got a swell little kid here, a good, little girl, and if you don't believe it, just ask her old man, see?"

Jack said, "I believe it, mister. I sure do believe it."

I was never so happy before. I said, "Listen, Jack, you won't be sorry. No matter what happens I'll never let you down."

I meant what I was saying with all my heart. I couldn't ever let Jack down. Poor guy had been let down too many times before-and always by women. First, his old lady. She picked up one day and left him and his dad. Jack was nine then and he used to worship the ground she walked on. Then his aunt, the old lady's sister. She'd taken him and his father in for a couple of months. And my poor husband had given her all the love his mother didn't want. Well, then she got tired too. I guess all that great love was too goddamn much for her. She must not have known what to do with it and so it probably made her feel bad. One day she told Jack's father he'd have to find the kid another home.

Then Jack and his dad started living around in furnished rooms, just the two of them, and Jack ran a little wild. And then the old man met another dame and fell in love. She told him:

"I love you too, but your kid's another story. I'm awful sorry, but I can't have him on my hands."

So the old man, wanting the new dame like he did, placed my Jack in a sort of an orphanage. He didn't get much love there, I can tell you. Then he got to be nineteen years old and he left the orphanage and took a job as an able seaman. All the time he went on hunting for love with a capital L. After a while he found it, or thought he did. This little tomato he met and married had, as the old-time novels would say, an hourglass figure and an alley cat's morals. She made him and she broke him and then she walked out. And she wasn't a pro like me but rather a so-called good girl.

Well, he spent a bit of time crying his heart out over her-and then he stopped and began hanging around the pro joints all over the world. By the time I met him, he'd been sleeping around with whores of every size, shape, nationality, and color. Those jerks weren't women enough to know it, I guess, but he didn't want sex from any of them. Poor doll, love was what he craved. Maybe there were times when you'd never have believed it, but it was true all the same. Every time he got stinko, he'd cry in his beer about that damn ex-wife and the kid he hadn't seen for years.

It must have been the thought of his own kid that gave him such a soft spot for mine. Soon after we were married, he said I could take Donny home to live with us. I could have gotten on my knees and kissed his feet for that. I still think it's the nicest thing any man could do for a woman.

But Donny was not such a pleasure. As I've said before in this book, I wasn't with him when he needed me and my love-and now, when I was in a position to do something for him, he wasn't having any. He used to sneer at me when I tried to get him to act right sometimes. I can't count all the times he told me to mind my own damn business and when I told him he was my business, he laughed like a lunatic.

The things he did to get my goat! I'd stock up on all the foods he liked and cook diem to suit him-and still he wouldn't taste a drop. Then, as soon as my back was turned, he'd go to the icebox and eat and eat.

It was the same with money. He knew all he had to do was ask me and I'd give him every nickel I had. But he never asked. He stole, instead.

Well, after a while, my husband got to where he couldn't stand the sight of him. I didn't blame him because, even though Donny was mine, I had to admit he was a very mean kid. Of course, I knew what had made him this way and I loved him no matter what he did-but I couldn't expect a stepfather, a stranger, to feel the same way. So I had to send him away again. This time I decided to get him into a good boarding school and so I went back to work in order to earn the money.

Jack didn't like the idea at first-but after a while he got used to it and began to enjoy all the luxuries my money bought for him. I think what happened to him-he said to himself, "Boy, every other dame I've ever known I had to go out and hustle to take care of her. Here's one who'll hustle for me. She must love me a plenty hell of a lot." There's one thing I got to say for the guy, though-he was never, never a typical pimp. He wasn't one to beat hell out of me when I didn't make enough money to suit him. Some nights I'd come home and I'd say:

"Baby, I got drunk and didn't make any money tonight."

I'd always remember Sonny at such times and expect a beating.

He'd say, "Who's asking for money? Are you tired?"

"Yeah, baby, real, real tired."

"All right, you just sit down. I'll make the bed up and then come back and undress you."

I'd never had a man who'd treated me like that. I really began loving him like crazy. How could I have helped it? He knew I was pregnant with Sonny's kid-I was showing plenty when I met him-and still and all, he'd not only taken up with me, he'd also married me. I figured it took one terrific guy to marry a junkie whore with somebody else's kid in her.

And when my baby Lucille was born, he acted like a real father. He came to the hospital every day and he couldn't see enough of the baby. Another thing I'll never forget him for-he took a big chance and sneaked junk in to me because he knew I needed it so bad. He could have gotten caught easy and, if he had, it would have been a big time behind bars for him.

I told him, "Baby, I hate to ask you." And he answered, "Joanie, you got to have stuff, so I got to get it to you. We'll worry about everything else when the time comes."

Of course, my poor little baby was born with a yen of her own-junkies' kids often are-and it broke my heart to think of her having to go through withdrawal on account of me. Jack and I talked about it while I was in the hospital, and I made up my mind that now I was going to go off the stuff once and for all. I begged Jack to quit the sea and help me through.

I said: "I'll die before I'd go back to the tank, and that's the only place you can go if you commit yourself in New York. Of course, there's always the hospital at Lexington, but I don't know if they'd have room for me. And, even if they did, I'd have to be away from you and the baby for months. They wouldn't take me for a week or two."

So, in the end, Jack, like Sonny had before him, gave his seaman's job up. We both knew, although neither of us admitted it to the other, that it wasn't just so that he could take care of me but also that from now on he'd be a pimp who'd live off me. But what the hell did I care anyhow. At least we'd tried to make it the other way-and that was more than most gals and guys in my business had ever done.

Well, I took my cure. I got myself some Dolfine pills from a doctor I knew and I gradually went off horse. I had a rough time but nothing like when I had to kick cold turkey.

Well, after I'd finished kicking, life went on the way it had been going except that now we had an infant with us. She was so cute. I'd take care of her during the day and Jack would keep her at night while I was out working.

I did very well at work now that I was off stuff. I got better tricks and they paid me more. And I was able to put money away. We moved to a nice apartment on Seventy-third Street so that little Lucille would have a decent place to grow up in and, aside from the fact that I was in the business, we lived like a couple of squares. I loved the square life. It even made some of those lousy tricks easier to take.

But my life never has run smooth. So why should it have been different now? I knew, while I was happy, that something bad had to start happening-and it did.

One night, I brought a couple of stray pros home. They were just out of the tank and they looked shabby as hell because they hadn't had time to get on their feet. They were hanging around the same bar I worked out of, and when I heard their hard-luck stories about not having any place to sleep, I said, "Oh well, come on home with me."

Jack got mad. He said, "I don't like people like that around my house and around Lucille."

I said, "Come off it, bud. You and I are not so pure ourselves."

Anyway, the girls stayed-and that night when I was in bed and Jack went into the kitchen to get himself a glass of water, one of those bitches followed him in and began fooling around with his hair. And my damn man, instead of telling her where to head in, turned around and began touching her a little bit.

Boy, I saw red. I got a shoe, a man's shoe so it would hurt more, and began beating on the two of them.

Jack took the shoe away from me and beat me back. And he told those two whores to get the hell out of our lives. Then after everything was over, he said he was leaving me. He didn't like being a pimp and having a woman tell him where to head off the way I had done.

He didn't leave me, but I was so upset over him saying he would that I had to go out and get myself another shot of horse. Or maybe he just gave me an excuse for looking to get back on the junk again. Well, after I began shooting the arm once more, my life took its usual turn for the worse. I had to spend a big part of the money I made on junk-it wasn't long before I found myself with a fifty-dollar-a-day habit. We moved into a shimmy apartment and I had to find a girl to take care of Lucille for me. As my mother had once been afraid to trust herself with Donny, so I was now afraid to trust myself with Lucille. What if I goofed on the kid? God almighty, anything could happen to her then.

As though everything wasn't black enough, I found out I was pregnant again. Again I talked about having an abortion, but I was still talking through my hat. Neither Jack nor I could really face the idea. So we told ourselves to hell with it. Whatever happened, we weren't going to kill our kid.

Plenty happened. Not only did I need more money for junk, but because I was on junk, I made less of it. Bartenders didn't like me around, customers didn't pick me up so easily-everything. Sometimes Jack and I didn't have enough to eat, but Lucille always had what she needed. After all, she didn't ask to be brought into the world.

It's funny the things you never forget about your terrible times. I remember one Christmas and how I got beat out of all the money that I started to buy presents with. I had nineteen bucks for a bathrobe for Jack and ten dollars each for a snowsuit for Lucille and some mechanical stuff Donny wanted.

Well, about a week before Christmas, we invited a couple junkies we knew to come stay with us. One was Anna, an old friend of mine, a big fat hustling broad with a good sense of humor. The other was her pimp, a colored man called Sweet Talk. I liked having Sweet Talk around because he was the best little junkie injector in the world. He could just touch me and find a good vein for the needle to go into. I never could. I was always breaking the needle in my arm and doing what junkies call "skinning" myself. That means you get your arm all marked up, and sometimes if the marks are bad enough, they never go away.

So, because Sweet Talk was so good for me and because I enjoyed Anna's fun, I was glad to put them up for as long as they wanted to stay. Until this one day, I had a couple bucks to add to my Christmas fund and found it was gone, disappeared, kaput. I just knew Anna took it, but how the hell could I prove anything?

Well, when I told Jack, he beat up on both of them and threw them out in the street.

Then he said: "Those kids are getting their presents and you and I are going to have a good Christmas if I have to kill some son of a bitch to get a little loot."

Then he started going out. I tried to stop him. I said: "Listen, honey, if you're thinking of trying Maryellening or something like that, please skip it. You don't know the ropes. Baby, listen, it's dangerous if you don't know the ropes."

He said, "I'm a big boy now, Joanie. I know what I can do and I know what I can't."

I held on to him and started to cry.

"Maybe you don't know as much as you think. I'm asking you not to leave now. I'm begging you. Jesus, Jack, I don't want to give birth while you're in jail. I want a shoulder to lean on."

Of course he didn't listen to me.

After he left, I did a little thinking. I promised myself that if anything happened to him, I was going to cut that bitch Anna. She'd remember the day she'd hurt me. I was going to sneak up and cut her face.

I didn't have to do it. Jack came back safe and sound. He and a robber pal of mine had held up three liquor stores. Jack's share of the loot came to three hundred bucks. That was enough for presents for the kids and a heap of balling besides. Believe you me, we treated all our friends real, real good.

After that, Jack began pulling more jobs. I didn't want him to. I died a hundred deaths every time he went out. But I couldn't stop him.

Well, finally, he got picked up. It had to be a big job they busted him on-the biggest one he'd ever pulled-and he got three years in the clink.

CHAPTER ELEVEN YOU ALWAYS WHITEWASH YOURSELF

Here was I with one kid in boarding school, another in her crib, and a third one on the way. I don't know what I'd have done if it hadn't been for Nancy May, the cute little Southern gal I'd met in the tank. Only she wasn't just cute. She was gorgeous, with real gold hair, a stunning complexion, and big blue eyes. She and my baby and I began living together.

It was wonderful to have company while Jack was in jail. And Nancy May was nuts for Lucille. She'd take care of her for hours and be happy for the chance.

Otherwise, she was a lazy bitch. She'd take tricks because she had to if she wanted her food and junk. And then, when she was through with them, she'd lay around the house all day. I'd get a hide sore to see her. I was pregnant and still I had five times as much energy as she did. I'd do all the housework for the two of us. I'd do all the washing.

She'd say: "Joanie, ah see y-all got a tubful of stuff. Ya wouldn' min', would ya now, honey, if ah threw a couple lil' things in?"

I'd say, "Go ahead, throw."

And then there was the telephone. It was in the hall three nights down from where we lived. And don't you think that every time it was for one of us, Joanie with the big belly'd be the one who'd run to answer? I guess that telephone business burned me more than anything. I'd say:

"You bitch, why don't you get off your rusty once in a while? Laying in bed all day with those damn True Confession magazines. Jeepers, if you got to read all day, why don't you read something'll give you a little culture? Reader's Digest. Saturday Evening Post. Ladies' Home Journal."

Still and all, we got along swell together. She was a doll in the ways that counted. If I was broke and didn't have enough money for junk, she'd share hers with me. That's more than any junkie guy I had ever did-even when I was the one paying for the junk. And when I got busted one time-the judge didn't sentence me on account of the big belly-she kept hanging around just so I'd know I had a friend in court.

Then she was so sweet to my kids. Not just Lucille, whom everybody loved, but Donny too. She'd go to his school with me and she'd treat him so nice he'd be eating out of her hand in no time. I could have kissed her every time I saw her with my boy.

She always bought my kids little presents. She didn't mind spending money on them. But otherwise, she was tight as a drum. I had to push her to buy a dress or a pair of shoes.

I'd say: "Go on, get yourself something, you're so pretty, you ought to fix yourself up."

In some ways, we were like sisters. We'd kiss each other before we went out on our dates. We'd kiss each other when we got back from them. I loved her and I wanted to see her happy.

But she was miserable most of the time. She didn't have a man of her own. She didn't seem to want one. I didn't have a man either at the time. But at least I had Jack's letters while he was in jail. And I could write to him. I wrote some crazy letters. Now you'd have to pay me to write a penny postcard-but in those days I could sit down and write my man thirty, forty pages. And I could go see him-I went every visiting time even when I got so big the hacks thought I oughtn't to come any more.

But Nancy May had nothing. I always wondered what in hell she did for kicks, since she never went out with a fellow she really liked. She did have one guy for a while, a big junk connection. As we understood it, after the stuff came in from the other side or wherever the hell it cane from, it went to this one big, big connection-and then finally to the big connection, Nancy May's fellow.

He had a face like a rat. He couldn't write, he signed his name with an X. Still and all he had the Lincoln Continental and the gold cuff links. Why not? That boy never did anything except if there was a profit in it. He had a crush on Nancy May and still he charged her for all the stuff she got. The only favor was that our junk was purer than other people's.

But Nancy May didn't consider he was doing her a favor. I used to tell her he'd do a hell of a lot more if she'd do something for him once in a while. She didn't know what I was talking about.

She'd say: "Ah sleep with th' dumb bastid, don' ah, Joanie? Ah give 'im ma body. What else does he wan' from me?"

I'd say, "Look, a guy wants love. He'll give you anything if you give him that."

"Love," Nancy May would sneer. "Love."

She was really a very hard girl. She trusted no one. She once told me:

"Joanie, one thing ah know. Unless'n ya wanna be a dang lil' ol' fool, don't be nice to nobody if they ain't been nice to you first. Somebody does somethin' for me, ah'll return the favor if ah can."

It was tough for me to swallow that kind of malarkey-although I know now I might have been better off if I had. I've always been too soft. If I liked somebody I gave them my all, no questions asked. Sometimes, even before I'd met Nancy May, I'd wished I could turn harder. I'd wished I didn't get so hurt when people let me down. But I couldn't help myself. Or maybe I just think I couldn't.

I had a pimp once tell me: "Joanie, you always whitewash yourself. You're such a goody-goody. But, actually you're a masochist. You ask for people to beat up on you."

Well, anyway, to get back to Nancy May, one night the two of us were sitting in this bar we used to work out of and Nancy May saw a skinny little dog with this big, hustling broad we both had some acquaintance with.

She said, "Gee, lookit that pore lil' of dog. That bitch don' feed it or nothin'."

She must have been right because the broad who owned it was drunk every night.

Well, Nancy May got a real yen for that dog. It was a Pekingese and I always hated Pekingeses, but on account of the way she felt I fell in love with it too. It was so good to see something besides drugs put a spark in her.

So I schemed up with this fellow I knew and we stole the dog. Nancy May was one glad girl when I gave it to her.

First off, we bathed the poor thing. We scrubbed it for hours and it hardly budged. Nancy May said it didn't move because it was so glad to get clean.

The dog was a female. We named it Gypsy and we gave it everything. We didn't have the money, so we stole what it needed. Oh yes, we'd go into the dog shops and we'd come out with a yellow chain, a yellow collar, a red outfit, a blue outfit. It got to be the best-dressed dog in town.

And food! It had dog biscuits and yummy-yums. Nancy May got it the most expensive stuff on the market. Chopped meat for a buck and a quarter a pound, and chicken and filet mignon. And that little bitch-Nancy May I mean, not Gypsy, the dog-she's living with me five months and she's never even cooked a frankfurter. She used to tell me she couldn't make a cup of coffee. And me with the big belly, I used to cook for her and keep the house clean besides. All of a sudden she can cook like a dream-for Gypsy. She used to feed it mouthful after mouthful, itty-bitty pieces at a time.

I never saw a girl so crazy about a dog. She was jealous of anybody who came near it. Well, she taught that dog to hate me. She'd laugh and she'd say:

"Joanie's gonna steal yer bone, Gypsy."

And the dog would go grrr at me.

I'd say, "Nancy May, don't do that. I don't care if she loves you more than she does me."

But Nancy got her kicks like that, so what the hell? I was glad to see her so happy.

But it couldn't last. Wouldn't you know the girl's man-that is, the man of the girl we'd stolen Gypsy from-would find out we had the dog? I guess it was my fault he did, because I let another girl bring a trick to our apartment, and she was a friend of the broad who owned Gypsy before.

Well, this girl took one look and said, "Oh, so that's where the dog got to."

I said, "I don't know what dog you're talking about. This one's Gypsy."

That girl was nobody's fool. "I know what dog it is, Joanie. Gee, but it got nice and fat."

So I said, "Look, kid, don't say anything. See how much better off it is now? You see how well it looks?"

She said, "Yeah, it's nice and clean."

Well, she went and told the other broad. I didn't talk to her for a year afterward. And every time I met her and somebody else was having anything to do with her, I'd signify how I felt.

I'd say, "I never knew you associated with rats," waiting for her to say something so I could belt her in the head.

Anyway this moron who was going with the broad we stole the dog from didn't know where we lived. So he came in to this bar we worked out of and said:

"You two aren't going anyplace until I get my dog back. It belongs to my kid and she misses it."

He was full of B.S. It was his broad's dog and he should have known we knew.

He sat down at our table and turned to me. "I know your story, Joanie, and if you don't want your man to do more time, you'll give that dog up."

I looked at him like he was dirt-which he was-and I said, "I honestly don't know what you're talking about."

Who did that jerk think he was, telling me he'd get my man more time if I didn't do what he wanted? He said:

"I know every cop in headquarters and in the sixteenth and seventeenth precincts."

I said, "If you know all them there cops, bud, you also know where you can stick 'em."

So then, when he realized he couldn't get me down, he started on Nancy May. He looked her straight in the eye and said: "You know what I'm going to do if I don't get that dog back this afternoon? I'm going to turn you in and charge you with being a junkie. And I'll tell them your friend rolled me for my dough. So, now are you coming across?"

Well, Nancy May hadn't said a word through the whole business, but now she burst out crying and said:

"Joanie, go ahead up an' get the dog. Ah can' do it."

I tried to cover up. "He's crazy and you must be going off your rocker too, Nance. I don't know any dogs except this one right here."

But Nancy May said, "Stop it, Joanie, ah can't stan' this talk no mo'. Go'n git Gypsy. Ah don' wanna see 'er again."

So I took the bum up to our apartment and gave him the dog and all her sweaters and toys and everything. By mistake, I left one of her rubber things around.

Well, Nance and I worked that night and when we got home in the morning, she saw that toy of Gypsy's and got hysterical. She said she had nothing to live for any more. It hurt me so bad to see her hurt that way. Why, she even slowed up on drugs a little bit while she had Gypsy. The dirty bastard, taking advantage of two women without a man. I would have given him a hundred dollars for that dog.

Well, the second night after we lost Gypsy, Nancy May really got bugged out of her mind. She began washing everything in sight with Pine Tree disinfectant. She scrubbed frying pans. She took the whole damn closet apart just for something to do. She made coffee and scalded herself with the whole hot pot.

Poor kid was a little bit nutty the rest of the time I knew her. That was for about two and a half years or so after Gypsy went out of her life.

A lot happened during those years. My third baby was born, another girl, and also with a yen. We named her Alicia. She was a feeble little baby and I couldn't help but blame myself for her bad health. I thought if I'd been a decent mother and gone off junk as soon as I'd known I was pregnant, my kid might have been strong instead of weak. I got so low that I wanted to commit suicide.

Nancy May found me trying to turn the gas on. She socked me in the puss and began talking like a Dutch uncle:

"Ya lil' ol' dope, ya-d'ya think ye're helpin' yer kids by killin' yerself on 'em? Why, ah'm real ashamed of ya. Ye're jus' nothin' but a coward."

She gave me a great big shot-her own junk, which she needed as badly as I did-and I balled for the rest of the night. I never forgot her for that.

Still, we stopped being friends after my husband came out of jail. I kicked the monkey about a month before he came out so I could gain back all the weight I lost and look decent for him-and Nancy May kicked because I did. We both felt wonderful. Our appetites picked up. We earned more money. Things brightened for both of us, especially me. Now I could let myself go dreaming about Jack. And I could really be a mother to my children. Although I worked at night, and had to hire an old neighbor lady to sleep in, I took care of them during the day. Nancy May helped me so much, some people thought they were her kids.

Nancy May would say, "Ah feel like ah got a part in these heah lil' baby dolls too."

I didn't mind her feeling that way about my kids, but when she wanted to share my husband too, I figured it was too much. Well, she didn't exactly want to share my husband, the way it turned out-she just wanted to put up a little wall between him and me.

I'll never forget the day Jack came home. I felt light-hearted, like I was sixteen again. And I forgot something I had on my mind-a guy I went with once for pleasure, not business. I'd brought him home to the apartment and Nancy May had met him. I must explain that, in my business, in "the life," when a sporting girl goes with a trick for free, then she's considered to be cheating on her own old man. I've known plenty of pimps to give their girls good beatings for such reasons. Not only that, I've also known them to put the girls out of their stables. Well, with me, fruity for my husband the way I was, I'd never in the whole world have cheated on him if I hadn't gotten drunk on top of some junk so that I didn't know whether I was coming or going.

Well, after the fellow was gone, I'd felt terrible and I'd told Nancy May: "If Jack ever finds out I didn't take any money from this big baboon, I'll die."

She'd laughed. "Honey, how's he evah, evah gonna find out? Ya don' think ah'm gonna tell 'im, do ya?"

And then, the first night he came home, she had to go and shoot her mouth off. We were all sitting together on the couch and he had his arm around me.

He turned to Nancy May and said: "My Joanie's a good girl. I don't know many sporting women who'd keep their home together while their old men were taking busts."

Under her breath, Nancy May said, "She cheated on you."

Jack didn't hear her, he was on the far side of the couch, but I did.

"Get out, Nancy May. Take your clothes and get out."

Well, she and I didn't see each other for many years afterward, not till after Jack had left me and both of us had taken a couple of busts. By this time she was peddling junk and I needed to make a buy from her. So I decided to let bygones be bygones. We got loaded together. And I said: "How come, Nancy May, why did you do that to me?"

She began bawling. "Because I was jealous of your happiness."

Although she had no way of knowing it, my happiness didn't last long. Jack was a different guy after he came out of jail. Or maybe he just went back to what he was before he met me. The sea had been in his blood then and now it was back in his blood again. He wasn't a typical pimp and so I shouldn't have expected him to settle down to pimping for the rest of his life. After he came out of jail, all he could talk about was sailing and the sea until I went batty listening to him.

Finally I said: "Why don't you get back on a boat again, since you want to so much?"

He gave me a big line about how he couldn't bear to leave me and the kids-but I've always been one to know when my man's full of stuff. I decided what the hell's the use of trying to hold a guy who doesn't want to be held. If he doesn't go today, he'll probably leave tomorrow. The sooner he leaves my life and I know the cord's cut once and for all, the better off I'll be.

Well, after Jack left me, or, if you want to put it another way, after I kicked him out, I went back on junk. It's a funny thing how a junkie goes back. While you're on, you keep thinking if only I get through the damn withdrawal, I'll never go on again. But then you get through and it's sort of like you've had a baby-you forget the pain and think only of the pleasure. You forget the aggravation, the money you've gone through, the people you've hurt, the jail busts, the sneaking around hallways.

Oh God, the days and nights I've spent waiting around hallways for some damn connection who might or might not come. The fear of everything-uniform cops, plainclothes vicers, and especially the pushers themselves. You never can tell how they'll be. One time they'll tell you: "Bring up your friends. Bring up anybody. Bring me customers."

So you do. You figure now they know you so well they can be sure they'll never get busted by anybody you bring. And you figure the more customers you bring them, the better they're going to like you. And then you're sitting there waiting with the big smile on your puss and the pushers come along and act like they never met you before.

"Who the hell are you?" they ask.

"Aw, come on, quit kidding-you remember me."

"I never seen you in my life before."

Getting junk's a rat race. Every junkie and every pusher's scared of you and everyone else they meet. They know that you can use them tonight and rat to the cops tomorrow. Just to try to save your own fanny from hitting the tank and getting sick. The way the cops work it these days, practically every junkie in town's stooling for them. You can't trust a junkie-or a pusher.

I'll never forget this one pusher I had, this Puerto Rican kid. I'd go up to his apartment on 111th Street and meet his old lady there. She didn't speak a word of English and I don't think she knew what the hell she was doing. I'd give her my money and she'd give me the package her sonny boy had left for me.

But sometimes he wouldn't leave any package. And it would be late and the old lady would be tired and push me out the door. So I'd go sit in the damn dingy hallway, and I'd wait and I'd wait. All the time I'd have to be careful that nobody'd see me. I'd stiffen up if I heard footsteps. In the summertime I'd get so hot I'd feel like I was in a tomb, and I'd freeze in the winter. Still I'd wait. Maybe somebody'd be at home worrying over what might have happened, but I'd be scared to go look for a phone booth. Suppose my connection came and I missed him?

And if my pusher didn't come and the yen got so strong I couldn't stand it any more, I'd get desperate. I'd run out in the street and start looking around at people's faces. Let me see, could this be a connection? This guy may be a junkie, I'll ask him to sell me something.

So you go up to strangers who look right to you and you say: "I'm looking to cop and I'll turn you on too if you get me a couple of bags."

Most times if you're a junkie, you can spot another junkie easy. I don't think I've ever been wrong but two or three times in my life. But I have gotten beat by junkies I didn't know. They've taken my money and left me waiting with my tongue hanging out and never come back with my stuff.

Now I'm a little smarter than I used to be. I'll go up to a fellow and say something like:

"Man, I want to tighten my wig."

"Give me the dinero then and I'll go cop for you."

"I'll give you the dinero when you bring me the stuff."

"Hell no."

"O.K, here's a tenner on account. I'll give you the rest when you bring me the junk. I'll give you a free turn-on too."

In the end, if he really means to cop and not disappear with my loot, he'll usually take the tenner on account.

Only after I started having to cop for myself did I realize how lucky I was when I lived with Nancy May and had a regular connection. He didn't want to have anything to do with me, though, after I'd kicked his doll girl out. All he wanted from me was the five hundred smackers I owed him. I'd call him up on the telephone and he wouldn't talk to me.

Once I got him and he said: "Joanie, if you know what's good for ya, ya'll never call my number no more. An' ya'll gimme the dinero ya owe me."

Where the hell was I going to get five hundred extra bucks these days? I needed every dime I could raise. But I was afraid to walk the streets-or to cop new stuff from anybody so long as I didn't pay him. He was a big shot and every pusher in town would have liked to have connected up with him. Suppose he told some junkie who needed him like crazy: "I got a little job for you, son."

Son'd do the job, wouldn't he? No matter what it was? Junkies can't be choosers. And next thing you know little Joanie'll get a hot shot and be found in some alleyway. Take it from me, the cops'll never trace the crime either. Junkies tell on little connections, but they never tell on big ones. That's because they have a hell of a lot more to fear from the big connections than they do from the cops. What's the worst a cop can do? Just get them a bust, that's all. He's not going to see to it they end up in an alley the way the big pusher will.

In the middle of all my troubles as a junkie without a decent connection to my name, I found out I was going to have another baby. When the doctor told me, I didn't break down the way I felt like doing. Instead I looked him straight in the eye and said:

"Well, hurray. Isn't that just too lovely for words?"

I guess the old geezer didn't dig my particular brand of humor. He shook his head.

"This is very funny. I wouldn't have expected you to be pleased."

"Well, really, doctor. And why not?" Good old Joanie was managing to keep the show on the road. "A woman in your position-"

"Oh, don't worry about that, doctor. I know a prince and a couple of counts who'd give their eyeteeth to marry me. And I can't begin to count the number of American millionaires who would."

Well, finally my show got thrown off the road and I found myself outside and alone with my problem. What the hell was I going to do now? God knows I wasn't doing much of a job caring for the kids I already had. I'd had to take Donny out of his boarding school. And he, poor little kid, was the one who had to keep the babies when he wasn't in school. A neighbor woman kept them when he was. I know she knew about me and hated my guts, and I was always afraid she'd poison the children's minds against me.

But what could I do? And, especially, what would I be able to do with a new little baby? Well, there were two choices open to me. I could have the baby aborted-but really, I couldn't do that. Or else I could do my damnedest to get over being a junkie and start living a decent life like a normal mother.

Getting over being a junkie was easier to talk about than to do. I'd tried plenty of times and always found myself back on again. And I'd never known any other person who had licked the monkey forever. For a little while maybe. But never for the rest of their lives.

CHAPTER TWELVE ADIOS TO MY UNBORN KIDS

I once talked to a headshrinker and he told me that most junkies are juveniles and that, therefore, in order for them to kick and stay kicked, everybody around them has got to play games. It's always got to be that the junkie is right-whatever he does, whatever he says. You can't let him get mad about anything. Everything's got to run smooth for him.

Whoever cared enough about me to see that my life ran like that? Or, even if a person cared enough, how could he have made my life run smooth? I don't think even a square guy could do it for his square broad.

Well, so I told myself, I want to get over being a junkie-what now? And then I went to my church and prayed harder than I ever had in my life and when I came out I knew what I would do. It was something I had always steered clear of, always found an excuse to keep from doing. But now I'd do it because I knew once and for all that the hospital at Lexington, Kentucky, set up especially to treat people like me was the only chance. I had to save my children. It was a long ways away from New York and I'd have to go for a long time and I wished I had another way out-but I didn't.

So I went to the charities and asked them to please place my kids in foster homes-and then I got a hospital application blank. They wanted to know my occupation, and I told them "prostitution." How else could I afford my habit, unless I was holding up banks? They also asked why it was so important for me to go to Lexington, and I told them about my three children and my pregnancy and I said I didn't want this baby to be born with a habit.

I knew plenty of people on the street who'd been to Lexington-of course, most of them were still using and some had bigger habits than they'd gone in with. But all of them talked about what a nice spot it was, the lovely location, the good food. To listen to them, you'd think it was a resort instead of a hospital.

I listened to them and came to Lexington all set up for a vacation. I had all kinds of play clothes. I had two kinds of pajamas, lounging pajamas for my visits to the psychiatrists and regular pajamas to see the regular doctor in. I had a bathing suit because I heard you could go bowling and I figured if they had bowling alleys they must have a swimming pool or two. I got me one of those fancy bathing caps with the tassles, the kind they wore back in the twenties. And of course, I brought lovely shoes and dresses.

So I got in after a long and tiring trip, expecting to begin my lovely vacation that very night. Some beginning. First of all they took my fancy suitcases away from me. They went through everything with a fine-tooth comb, looking for junk. I expected they'd give my clothes back when they were through. Instead, they gave me a skirt and blouse that belonged to them and my own sweater and flat-heeled shoes. They looked through the shoes first to make sure they didn't have flat bottoms with drugs hidden in them. They wouldn't even let me keep my cosmetics or toothbrush because people often sneaked drugs in in powder boxes and toothbrushes.

After they took my clothes, I had a doctor's examination. Among other things, I got a deep rectal because they thought I might have concealed my drugs inside there. It sure as hell did not suit my "swellegant lady" mood.

After my examination, they gave me something to drink. I never bothered to find out what it was. All I know, it knocked me out good, and the last thought I had was "vacation, slimacation, at least I'll get cured." Well, I didn't wake up till the next morning. I was alone in a small, white hospital room. I felt as sick and depressed as I ever had in my life before. If I'd been able to think of a way of committing suicide without hurting myself, I'd have done it pronto.

For three days, I slept most of the time. I dozed when I wasn't actually sleeping. Nurses and doctors and other people came in to see me and I had only a vague idea that they were there. On my fourth day, I started eating and was able to walk around and visit with the girls in some of the other rooms.

That was the day Doris came in to see me. She was a big, heavy-set woman in her forties and she wore horn-rimmed glasses.

She sat down by my bed and said: "Ah'm from Dallas, Texas."

I told her I was from New York.

We talked a while and I started feeling a lot better until she started giving me the business about junk:-how wonderful she felt when she had it and how it would be if she had a shot right that very minute. Well, the next day she came to see me again.

She said, "Ah like ya, honey."

I said, "Well, gee, I like you too."

"You know," she said, "ah been lookin' all the girls ovah an' ah decided you're the one ah'm gonna trust."

So I said to myself, What's this babe leading up to? Is she queer? I don't think she wants to go to bed with me even if she is, because she's just off drugs and her nature couldn't be coming back so soon. I know how it is. When I'm on drugs I hate the thought of sex, but once I get off and my nature starts coming back, I get greedy for it. Of course, the feeling only lasts a week or so, and then I come back to my normal self again.

Well, come to find out, my Dallas friend was no more queer than I was and sex was the last thing on her mind.

She said, "Listen, honey, befo' ah come in heah, ah swallowed a rubba finga chock-fulla horse capsules. Now ah'm waitin' fo it to come out. When it does, you'n me c'n take off if only ah can find somebody with the works."

I said, "Boy, that's crazy. It's real good," forgetting for a short while that I'd come to kick the monkey.

As it happened, Doris' capsules never showed, and I was happy in my heart because, if they had, I knew I wouldn't have resisted the temptation to share it with her even while I knew damn well what it would do to me. I prayed to God and thanked Him for protecting me against myself. Well, after my first weeks they gave me a roommate. It was Doris, from Dallas. They moved us out of sick ward and into a special building where they did scientific experiments. They only had four girls there altogether. Doris and me and two colored queers from Harlem. But the queers were too gone on each other to be any trouble for us. They were funny girls with a good sense of humor. And, of course, they and I knew a lot of the same contacts. The four of us used to have a ball together.

Monkeys and dogs were the only other roomers in our building. The doctors'd give them habits and take them off again. You could always tell the difference between the well ones, the ones on a habit and the sick ones who had been taken off. You could even see them getting their natures back just like human beings do.

One time they gave a monkey a habit and then took it off cold turkey. You could see how the poor thing suffered. So then, after it was cured, they tried to give it a habit again. But that old monkey wasn't having any. He recognized the man in the white jacket who had given him the habit and every time he saw him coming with the needle, he'd pull away from him; he'd run away from him; he wouldn't take it.

That monkey learned a lesson with the first habit he got. Why can't human beings be so smart?

Animals were not the only guinea pigs at Lexington. A couple of men who lived in the next building to us were also being experimented on. Every once in a while, they'd come wandering around our place. One I'll never forget. He was a Greek from New York and he'd been in about three years. He was there on sentence from the courts. Some place or other, he'd picked up a black crow and he'd made a pet of it and carried it with him wherever he went.

I remember he'd come by where I'd be sitting and he'd tell that old crow: "Talk to the lady, doll."

He used to call me "Ma" on account of all my kids.

"Well, ma, how ya doin' today, hm? Are you feelin' O.K.? Anything I can do for you, ma?"

Sometimes, after the doctors had given him his shots, he'd come in as loaded as a storage center. I'd see him scratching away and scratching away and I couldn't help it, will-power or no, I'd get frantic for some stuff. I'd keep thinking about how I used to feel when I had enough in me, all relaxed and without a worry in the world.

They do their best to relieve your troubles at Lexington. They give you a headshrinker of your own to talk to and you get a social worker, and if you get sick to the stomach, there's a physical doctor. They have swell doctors at Lexington, specialists of all kinds. They'll do anything not only to keep you healthy but also to give your morale a boost. They give you a complete overhauling and if you need an appendix out, or a wart removed, or a tattoo taken off, you can get it done at Lexington. And they have marvelous food, chicken, eggs, juices, milk, even steak once in a while.

The only thing-some of the staff are a little cold toward junkies. I guess they get tired of us and our shenanigans sometimes. They see us every day and they know we're getting the best of everything, and then finally the day comes when we get discharged. And they have high hopes for us and we have high hopes for ourselves, and there is a lot of backslapping and handshaking and thank you's and you're welcomes-and then what happens? In a couple months we're back again. Like they say-one out of a thousand junkies can get cured, one out of a million.

So as I've said, I can understand the nice staffers getting hard-boiled and saying, "What's the use, you can't be cured anyway."

And yet, to tell the truth, I don't entirely understand it. either. They can't tell. Maybe I'm a miracle and the cure will really take on me. Are they God to judge whether it will or not?

Well, after I'd been in Lexington awhile, I got me a man. It wasn't too tough, since Lexington had about 200 girls to 1,750 men. And 50 of those girls were really old women.

This man I got was a lean, good-looking bastard from New York who everybody called Speedy. He didn't remember me, but I knew I'd met him before we were at Lexington together. It was at the Forty-seventh Street bar I used to work out of. I remember I recognized him immediately as another junkie.

So I said: "Hey, you got any idea where I can cop some stuff?"

He said, "Sure, kid. Come on with me."

I was low on cash and told him he or his pusher had to trust me till later.

As it happened, he had heard of me as the one-time "fabulous Joanie," and he knew I could make good money. So he took me to a two-by-four room in some dingy dive in the West Eighties.

He said: "Sit tight, sister. The connection!! be coming soon."

So I sat and I waited. Half an hour. An hour. Two hours. No connection.

I said, "You're sure he's coming?"

"Hell, yeah. If you're getting tired of sitting, why don't you get up and take a walk?"

Big deal. Why, that room was so tiny you met yourself coming and going. I paced the floor anyhow and each time I passed him by, he gave me a little pat on the fanny.

I knew too well what was on his mind, so I said: "I came up here to cop stuff, not to make love."

He said, "If that's the case, I don't think my connection's going to show tonight."

Later I learned that he'd been the connection himself. He'd been the pusher and he'd had his junk under the very bed I sat on. Boy, I sure hated his guts when I finally found out.

So when I saw him at Lexington I didn't fall over myself with joy. But he was a familiar face from the home beat and I figured he'd be someone to talk to. We were at Jewish services-Speedy's a Jew, and I used to go to all three services, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish, because I felt close to God at any one of them. So, anyway, I snapped my fingers to get his attention.

"Hey, you Speedy?"

"Yeah."

"I'm Joanie."

"You don't say." He got a snooty puss on him. "Joanie who?"

"Joanie from Forty-seventh Street. What's the matter, jerko, you don't remember me?"

"Oh, that Joanie. Well, how're you doing, kid? Hey, meet me at the telephone tonight."

The telephone, what we at Lexington called the telephone, was the keyhole of the medicine room. The girls used to go there every single night to beg for medications they didn't need and the fellows would stand out in the hall and talk to them through the keyhole. Naturally, it had to be a pretty big keyhole, don't you know?

Well, after a while, Speedy and I got so chummy I got to where I wouldn't miss a night in the old medicine room. I'd take my shower at nine-thirty and make a quick dash. Then I'd look out and most likely see Speedy running like hell because he was afraid he'd miss an extra minute with me too. Of course, I couldn't talk long because all the other girls would be waiting for a chance at their men, but I sure did talk fast.

Another way I could talk to Speedy was if he stood outside and I climbed the radiator in my room-it was a big radiator and hard to get up on-and looked out the window. By the time I met him, I was four and a half months pregnant and it was quite a trick for me to climb up.

Well, one night I was up on my perch and talking up a breeze when my friend Doris who was supposed to be chickying for me said: "Hey, Joanie, you got company."

I looked around and there was Miss Anderson, a crumb of an officer.

She said: "I'm supposed to report you for this, Joanie."

I said, "Report me." In the meanwhile, I gave Speedy a signal so he could disappear. If they caught him, he'd get extra chores. I knew they wouldn't do much to me since I was pregnant.

Well, all they did was send me to see my psychiatrist. That wasn't so hard to take. He was good-looking and he had a German accent and he let me talk my head off about myself, which was something I've always liked to do anyhow.

"Veil," he said, "vot is zis climbing radiators and talking out vindows? Who is zis fellow you're talking mit him?"

I said, "An old friend."

"From vere he comes, zis old friend?"

"New York like me. And we were talking about the people we knew. You know, who's on, who's off, who's pushing, who's in jail, who's out."

"Ach, you don't have enough of zuch talk before you come here? Vy you need it for now?"

I said, "Well, you feel stronger when you can talk to somebody who's lived the same kind of life you have."

He smiled at me. "Go on," he said, "do vat is nez-ezary. Only ze next time you shouldn't let zem zee you."

He was a swell egg. He could have had me sent home if he'd wanted. I've known voluntary patients to be sent home for less.

Well, after our radiator romance was nipped in the bud, Speedy and I began using the mails for our get-togethers. We'd write each other long letters two or three times a day. I really let my hair down in those letters. Speedy did too. We came to know each other in a way we never could have if we hadn't had to write instead of speak. Nobody can know how important letters are to people in positions like ours.

I found out that Speedy's folks were good, respectable Jews who'd come over here from the other side. They were poor and had to live in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. That was some neighborhood for raising kids, and anyway the old lady didn't have much time for them. She was too busy helping the old man make a living.

Speedy's big brothers were strong fellows, and they were tied up with Murder Incorporated. But Speedy was too young and small to join with them. When he was around fifteen, he and a couple of pals began hanging around Times Square. That's when he first found out what a good-looking kid he was. Some talent-scout streetwalkers offered him all kinds of loot if he'd go home with J them.. One of his whores got him on stuff when he was seventeen. He tried a couple of times to kick the monkey, I but he couldn't make it.

I don't know, I felt so sorry for him when I read his letters. There was something sweet about him, like a little kid. Sometimes, he was nasty like a kid too.

He'd write: "I was fifteen when I first found out about women. They're like toys. Once you learn how to play with them, they'll do anything for you."

When I read that, I thought, Oh brother, wait'll I get you out of this place, wait'll I get you on the outside, I'll show you who's a toy.

Funny, of all the men I ever had, he was the only one I used to think I could turn around my little finger instead of the other way round. Maybe that's why I went so fruity for him. I did everything to help him while we were in Lexington. I shared all my money with him. Some shared! I gave him the bills and kept the silver for myself. So what? When you're really in love with a guy, when you're for him and he's for you, what's a couple of bucks between you?

And I had to face it, even though we'd never gotten together as lovers-I was still in love with him. I was more in love than I'd ever been with anyone in my life. I used to live just to catch a look at him. The girls kidded me so much. We had a little paper on the girls' side and they made fun of me in that. They wrote things like: "Who's the smarty-pants who's fallen hook, line, and sinker for a guy who can't give you anything but love, Joanie?"

Once they said, "We predict that Joanie and Speedy are going to make it on the streets of New York together."

I could have kissed them, because there was nothing I wanted more than to make it on the streets with that man.

Of course, we had our downs as well as our ups. One time we went to Protestant service just so we could sit and look at one another, and a lousy officer placed Speedy in the front row and me in the back. Damned if the same thing didn't happen at the Catholic and Jewish services too.

And there was the long-term prison fellow who didn't like Speedy and me because we were short-termers and self-committed. Most of the long-termers didn't like us short-termers, not just Speedy and me, the whole bunch of us. They called us "winders" because in a way we carried our own keys and could get out whenever we asked to go.

But this long-termer was worse than the others. Every time Speedy and I managed to meet for a minute, there he'd be bugging us: "If you two winders are so nuts for one another, what the hell are you hanging around here for? Go on home."

I'd say, "Please. This is the first time Speedy and I have seen each other in God knows how long. Be a good fellow and leave us alone."

"Why?"

One time Speedy got mad and punched him in the nose. He got in plenty of hot water.

Then there was a blonde who decided she liked my guy. I heard through the grapevine that she'd talked to him in the hall. My queer friend from Harlem pointed her out to me.

"Joanie, that blonde there, is she a friend of yours?"

"No, she's no friend of mine."

"Well, I seen her talking to your old man today."

Right away, I began with the waterworks, but she stopped me as soon as I started.

"Honey, cryin' ain't going to do no good. Tell her to leave your guy alone, or else. I'll come along an' back you up."

Since she was bigger and broader than the blonde and I put together, I went up and told that little gal off in plain English.

"Listen, sister, that was my man you were talking to this morning."

She was a snooty little bitch. "My mistake."

I said, "Well, if I were you, I wouldn't make any more mistakes like that."

And my big les-be-friend pal said, "Yeah, Joanie's a friend of mine, see, and if you know what's good for you, you ain't going to go making no more mistakes with her guy. You'll be real careful unlessin' you want to wake up some night with a knife in you."

"O.K, " the blonde said. "O.K." She wasn't so snooty any more. "I'll be careful."

That night my friend and a couple of her stoolies jumped the kid anyway. Just for the hell of it. They gave her a bloody nose and a black eye. She never did tell either her psychiatrist or security officer who was responsible for her souvenirs.

A couple of nights later, I met my guy for a minute outside the library door. I said:

"See how I had that blonde of yours beat up? I could do it to you too."

He said, "Joanie baby, honest to God, I don't know what blonde you're talking about."

I believed him and I started bawling. I said, "Baby, this place has me so goddamn bugged I don't know what I'm doing or saying any more. Listen, I love you, Speedy."

"I love you, Joanie."

"I love you and that means I want to be able to talk to you. I want to be able to touch you. God, Speedy, I want to be able to kiss you once in a while."

"Yeah, Joanie, me too."

"You too? Are you sure?"

"Hell, sure I'm sure."

"You really love me, Speedy?"

"And how, kid."

"Well, what are we waiting for then? What are we, a couple of nuts or something? Why don't we sign ourselves the hell out of this joint and start living like human beings?"

So we did what I wanted even though Speedy thought it was wrong. I had been in exactly three and a half months on the day we signed ourselves out. Speedy had been in five months. Both of us had been at the hospital long enough for a cure to have taken, or at least that was the way I looked at it. I told Speedy I was sure I'd never need stuff again. And after I got through talking to him, I prayed to God, I talked to Him as I'd never talked to Speedy or any other human:

"It's up to you. Please, please make me strong."

Talking to God made me feel strong too. And I knew for sure that I really was off for good this time.

Well, Speedy's friends over on the men's side didn't think I was off for good, and they thought he was a first-class jerk to be leaving with a junkie broad.

I heard them calling through the window as we walked out: "Hey, man, what'sa matter? You crazy or some-thin', leavin' with her?"

"Ain't you got enough of your own troubles, man? You need to take on a new load besides?"

Speedy just laughed. "You're jealous, boys," he told them.

We rode home on the train with another couple. They were in love too, and the four of us sat around smooching and holding hands. It was so good to be sitting next to Speedy and actually to be able to kiss and to touch him. The other couple didn't talk much, but Speedy and I made up for them. If we didn't tell each other a hundred times that we were going to square up, if we didn't tell each other a thousand times, we never said it once.

I said, "Speedy, honest to God I'm going to make it and I'll help you too. I feel it in my bones."

He said, "Yeah, baby, I know. I feel it like you do. We'll help each other, huh?"

I said, "Listen, I'll go back to work for a while and we'll save every dime we don't need for rent and food."

"Yeah, kid, sure."

"Listen, Speedy, what do you say we open a lingerie shop, when we get enough loot?"

"Sure. Sure. It won't make us millionaires, but so what?"

"Hey, Speedy, I'm so goddamn happy."

"Me too, honey."

Then we talked about how it would be after we had the shop, how we'd get my kids back from the charities, and how, after a while, we might even have a couple of our own.

I asked, "Hey, Speedy doll, how'd you like to be a papa?"

"I'd like it fine," he answered.

I had all I could do to keep from breaking out crying because I was so happy and our future life together looked so fine and mellow to me.

Then, all of a sudden, everything changed. Somebody, I don't remember who any more, started talking about how it had been at Lexington and how everybody had used to beat their lips about junk, junk-different ways you could use it and all that. Then, next thing, the other girl said she had a yen and needed a shot. The other guy said:

"Me too."

Well here's what happens when you're a confirmed junkie like me. You have your dreams and your hopes and your pictures of yourself as a square broad. And you have the times when you see yourself as strong as iron. Let somebody just begin talking about yens though, let them just begin, and boy, you start feeling one of your own yens and it hits you way down in your guts so there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

I looked at Speedy. "How about you? You need a shot too?"

"Aw baby, Jesus, what's the use of fooling you?"

Well, to make a long story short, we got back to New York and we pooled our loot and went hunting for a pusher. I said adios to my square life and my lingerie shop and my unborn kids and my kids I'd given into the charities' hands.

And I said, "Hiya, Forty-seventh Street. Remember me? I'm home again. This time I guess I'm here to stay."

THE END
Nobody Cries For Me ....(105k)    by Sara Harris





~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~







.....8253 home .....8255








---

	"Double for Nothing!! Tricks for Free!!!"™ A MrDouble Production: mrdouble

Page Design Copyright � 1998-2011, Mr Double, ALL Rights Reserved    
Stories Copyright respective authors.