Creole Gaudet

“No, baby, these hos are not your friends. All they want to do is impress their pimp. It’s the hos that are the most dangerous. They do the recruiting, the conditioning, the lying and the scheming.

“Whatever… He beat my ass behind that shit.” She showed the bruises on her arms and along her legs. “He won’t let me get high at all. I can’t even fucking smoke!”

Natalia looked to me. “This is what I’m saying. You see what happens when you bring a child into adult situations?” She turned to Sway. “Why don’t you go outside and wait in the car. Then, when Andre is done talking with the ladies, he can take you home and let you play with your baby dolls.”

The crowd was now smiling and cheering. I felt hot, cold, and clammy all at the same time. I looked back at Sway. She tugged my arm as we left to a round of applause.  I couldn’t make it to the exit quickly enough.

“After what Rosebud and Mandy did, I tried calling them to… I guess to explain. I was probably trying to ask for help, but I didn’t know how. My sister answered, and we were talking. They took the phone away from her and hung up on me.

It racks your nerves when you’re hot. You begin to imagine scenarios where, if being pulled over, how you’d run at least far enough to toss the shit out. Knowing you would probably be arrested anyway for evading the police or whatever list of charges they have on the books, it would still be better than being caught dirty.

“Yeah. I won awards. I would have had to have gone to college, but I’d made up my mind that I was never going to put myself in that kind of debt. That’s a ripoff. All that for a job starting at fourteen or fifteen dollars an hour. It would take me nearly seven years to pay that shit off, all while living in poverty. Fuck that.

“He was trying to make it seem like I was using him and that he was trying hard to make me a star and that I was ungrateful. He pointed out that even Mandy was doing everything she could for me and that it wasn’t even her fucking dream.

“What’s so messed up is that I knew he was fucking with my head, but I was still buying into it.”