Today at YANA

For those who are new to this site: YANA is a nonprofit program in Baltimore for women who prostitute or who have prostituted in the past. In the years that the YANA counselors met thousands of times with hundreds of women, they found that almost all of the clients were victims of overwhelming childhood sexual abuse -- often perpetrated by their own families. Fathers, stepfathers, uncles, cousins, and big brothers raped our women when they were little girls. Mothers, stepmothers, aunts, cousins, and big sisters pimped them out to family members, drug dealers, landlords, and strip club owners -- and sometimes molested them as well. The prostituting women we've met are often intensely conservative, shamefaced women doing what they were taught as children, while yearning for a community where they can be treated with respect. YANA is a place where they have that respect. Today's post gives an overview of the typical needs and accomplishments of our prostituted women. Anyone who wants to know more about the women discussed today can look them up through the labels on the right.

For those who are old friends of this site: today I'm posting updates on Liz, Jessie, Diane, Linda, Tina, and many others.

Liz: As the result of heroic effort by Heather, from People's Community Health, working through YANA, Liz has now had two meetings with social workers and doctors who are getting her into a detox program for alcohol, followed by a place to live. Liz has looked to be close to death for a long time. She was so thin, so often beaten up, so often in tears, trembling, praying not to die or telling us all that, "The Lord has me." Now at the age of 49, she is about to go on the "cocktail," getting treatment for her long term HIV infection (probable AIDS). She warned us all today that she'd be getting fat soon after the detox. Liz said she once weighed 185 pounds. She rocked back in her chair, legs spread and up in the air, one hand out giving us the finger. "I had a picture taken in a bikini just like this!" Then she roared with laughter along with the rest of us. "My son said, 'Mom! Put some clothes on!'" Liz has got to be Liz. Losing the addiction does not mean losing the attitude.

Jessie: She's been clean for years now, working full time at a job through her transitional program and taking classes through Open Doors. Jessie is a tremendously likable Black woman who wishes she had become a scientist, but thinks that the head trauma she suffered from an abusive boyfriend has left her "not smart enough" for serious study. Still, the hospital where she interned has called her back for an office job. She had done research work at the hospital during her internship that sounded at least comparable to the first job I got after getting a degree in English from William and Mary. Jesse has a handicapped son whom she gave up for adoption years ago when she was still using. She longs for contact with him, but knows, "I can't give him the kind of lifestyle he enjoys now." Jessie has saved $500 that she wants to give the adoptive mother to spend on Jessie's son as well as the woman's other children.

Diane: Diane is doing better with her depression and anxiety, though taking classes on her HIV status has her frightened. She gets nervous sitting in a group of people she doesn't know, especially when they're talking openly about a subject that still makes her feel ashamed. Diane, a Black woman around the age of 40, loves other people, but she prefers to do little helpful things for them without having to spend a long time involved with anything emotional. She is planning to move out of her Section 8 housing without telling her on again/off again boyfriend and abuser where she is going. This much is great. Less great is her plan to let another man move in with her at the new place. He is someone she's known and liked for a long time, but the moving in together is his idea, not hers. This is a woman who once stood at an intersection for over an hour afraid that she would be hit even if she crossed with the light. A stranger finally helped her across. Diane really does not need anyone pressing her into an anxiety provoking situation.

Linda: An older White woman, Linda is one of my favorite clients. She's back in town after spending some time in Ohio with one of her daughters who needed her. While she was gone, another daughter moved without telling her. Linda stood at her daughter's old door knocking until the police drove up wanting to know why she was there. When she answered, the police accused her of wanting drugs instead (abandoned buildings quickly become crack houses). "No sir," Linda answered. "I've been clean for 3 years, and I don't want to go to jail no more."

"Oh, I've never heard that before!" the cop told her. "I guess I'll have to take your word!" (Yes, he was being sarcastic.) Linda continued explaining until suddenly the officer realized who she was. In fact, Linda's daughter had left a message and the new address with no one other than the officer's girlfriend. He gave it to her. Linda was still amused, telling me about it.

Later, Linda (forgetting how much I already knew) talked about how she stopped using heroin. She gave all credit to Sid, telling me that Sid talked to her for 4 1/2 hours. "I didn't know she knew the signs of when people needed to use, but she did. She told me she know I was going to see the money man as soon as I left. I said 'WHAT?!" Then I told her she was right."

I doubt that Sid (our director) spent a full 4 1/2 hours talking to an addict in need of a fix, but I know she spent a long time, and I know how deep and sympathetic her understanding can be. For many women, talking to someone like Sid can be a life changing experience. Linda didn't even go into rehab. She "lay down for 3 days" and didn't use drugs anymore. And she did one other thing: she rescued a 12 year girl out prostituting on Wilkens Avenue. That experience is written up on the Whatever Happened to the Little Girl post.

Linda was in getting donations, telling me the other women in her house got into her room and wiped her out while she was away visiting her daughter. How Linda -- blunt, street smart Linda -- could have been surprised by that still amazes me, and yet, our women are constantly being surprised by the bad things that happen to them. I guess they need to believe that their friends are nicer and their surroundings are safer than they really are just to survive.

Tina: Tina, a tiny white woman in her late 30s, didn't come in today, but she was in yesterday. She's suffering from pneumonia, which may actually be good news since she has been unable to breathe for some time. She's been afraid she was about to die like her sister did recently. Tina wants to live for the sake of her sister's children. She is very sick, and she is in pain. She flags; she rallies; she makes wise plans; she comes in drooping from what has to be a fist full of street pills on top of her methadone.

The New Women: Two new women came in today, one White, quiet, anxious-looking, the other a bit younger, Black, warmer and more outgoing, dressed a little crazy. They were both court ordered to YANA. I think they both liked it. Time will tell, but Sid, feeling a little exasperated, has said that women do as well at YANA when they're forced to come as when they choose to. My guess is that even the ones who are forced soon make the decision that they want to be in a place where they are welcome and respected.

Liz's Rainbow

Some of our professors are back -- I'll let them write in and identify themselves if they care to -- and they're asking our women about their hopes and dreams again. They brought craft supplies for YANA clients to make big pictures of their goals. Liz, dressed like the 60s had exploded all over her, purple tie dye, giant dream catcher earrings and all, spoke up right away. "The rainbow!" she called across the room. "I'm going to paint the rainbow!"

I was surprised by how excited I was by the thought of Liz revealing her goals. "At the end of the rainbow?" I asked. "What's at the end of Liz's rainbow?" Liz just smiled. I went back to taking care of the day to day needs while Liz joined the four or five women who were who were making their posters. Liz got into the glitter markers right away. She drew a long, brilliant rainbow from corner of the poster board to the opposite corner, using no colors any rainbow ever saw.

"What's at the end?" we asked. She told us there was a pot of gold, then obliged by drawing a few round smudges to represent the pot. When we asked what was in the pot, Liz answered, brightly, a little uncertainly, "Everything."

Other women drew happy homes, sobriety, pretty clothes, peace. Liz had no idea of what to draw. I don't think she has ever had any dreams, just a wild, long streak of glitter and her name signed beneath in tall, red letters.

Liz, Again (No Good Deed Goes Unpunished)

Liz was in, looking sick, distressed, pulling out an envelope full of medical forms for me to see. She showed me six prescriptions and gave me the copay amounts for each. They totaled about $21.00, which seemed reasonable to me. Liz often comes in needing copays. She stays a couple hours, washing up, picking out new clothes, weeping, and chatting, and bragging, always leaving in a visibly better mood. This time, however, one of Angela's community health care crew pulled me aside to talk about Liz.

Without giving any privileged medical information, the woman told me how badly Liz had acted out at the hospital. "Showing her tail" was the phrase used. I tried to believe that was a metaphor. Unfortunately, it was not.

I told her that of all our battered clients, Liz was the one most frequently beaten, that she goes through long periods in which she seems to suffer a serious physical trauma nearly every week. The woman nodded in ready comprehension, "Hmm hmm, with that mouth," she said. No argument there. This time Liz had been acting out with the health care providers who were trying to get her into the long term rehab she needed to save her life. "She doesn't want the prescriptions. She's dope sick," the woman concluded.

And there I was about to hand Liz enough cash for two hits of heroin at the same time that our group was swelling from its normal size of 5 to 15 to more like 30, when I needed to leave YANA to pick up a volunteer who had generously made lunch for the crowd, when a tired-looking middle aged woman who had been procrastinating for months over reentering the job market had finally decided that she was ready to work on her resume with me, and, when, oh, yes, Kimberly had shown up with her nephew (see the previous post). I took the coward's way out, got the health care worker to agree to take Liz to get the prescriptions filled, and hurried out the door to get the lunch and volunteer, stopping only to tell Liz that she was getting a ride to the drug store. Liz reacted with a lot of quick talk about how she didn't need a ride. She was in a hurry. Nobody needed to treat her like that. She needed her medicine right now -- in other words, with all the anger and agitation you would expect from a junkie being denied a fix. Whether Liz is on drugs again (likely) or whether she was that overwhelmed by a delay in getting her usual fifth of vodka (also entirely likely), she was in no shape for me to leave, and I was in no position to stay and try to -- I don't know -- talk her out of needing drugs or booze? I left. She was gone by the time I returned, and there were plenty of other things to do then.

It wasn't until the next week that I found out that Liz had sat in the open area of YANA loudly cursing the health care work in front of the other women, that she had screamed so much in the car that she was dropped off at the drugstore rather than supervised there, that the health care worker and Angela then had words about whether the rules even permitted her to drive a client anywhere. . . In other words, no good deed goes unpunished. You can't care about people's recovery more than they do. Some people can not be helped. Liz is Exhibit A for a whole host of truisms.

And yet, in frequent, but very short intervals, Liz can be loving and funny and kind. She holds on, holds on valiantly, to a kind of cowboy pride in her own sexy toughness. She also seems to go out looking for trouble, daring a world in which dares are answered with gun butts to the head, a pair of girls kicking her in the ribs and face once they've gotten her down, a boyfriend who hits her with his fists. Then she basks in whatever love she can get, gets back up and swaggers right out there again. Liz in other words, is still full of life, however twisted and self defeating that life may be. The next time I'll probably just put everything else on hold and go get the medicine myself.

Liz's Sister, Part II

A wonderful woman, Angela Jackson, comes to YANA sometimes with her coworkers from People's Community Health Center to talk about AIDS and related health concerns. We had a moderate crowd of listeners, including a few women I'd never met before, and I sat in the back, enjoying another of Angela's smoothly-run lectures and discussions. Shortly into her presentation today, though, a tiny, strange looking woman entered the room. When I got my first, partial view of her, I thought I was looking at Liz, though when she turned to look in my direction, she looked quite different. I wondered why I thought of Liz at all.

The strange little woman sat up front near Angela, talking, interrupting, almost trembling with freakish, random, small waves of agitation. At one point, she got in some cross talk with another client and then said she apologized. Immediately, she said she apologized again. In about another half second she said again that she apologized, this time sticking her face forward and grimacing until it looked like the exoskeleton of an insect.

At one point Angela asked if anyone knew how Hepatitis A was spread. The strange woman said it was from using the bathroom and not washing your hands. She said that's how her dad got it since he had never used drugs. This particular revelation seemed to leave her momentarily relaxed and amused, but as Angela followed up on the spread of Hep. A through feces, the little woman's haggard face continued its rotating display of tics and sags.

At the end of the talk, the little woman made her way to me, said, "I'm Liz's sister! She's in the hospital, and I'm so worried." Then she fell into my arms, making crying noises without actual tears. Samantha was, indeed, a real person, and, at long last, I had met her.

There isn't too much to tell at this point. I took her back to talk to Sid and Angela, and Samantha immediately began interrupting again, explaining that she had brain damage. Soon Angela needed to talk to Samantha alone about some health questions. The good people from Community Health Center agreed to follow up with Liz's hospitalization, and I had to get back to the larger group. It seemed to me, though, that if you grew up loving Samantha, you would have to keep on loving her. She seemed so obviously brain damaged, so incapable of being anyone other than who she was, so far beyond any rational criticism or rebuke.

To my mind, one of the worst things you can say about anyone is that he or she can never be expected to do anything differently or better. It's condescending. It's saying the person is hopeless, saying she's doomed, and I have learned long ago that those poor, helpless people can prove you wrong every time. Probably, I tell myself, there's a lot more to Samantha than I've seen in this one little meeting. But, still, my God. It's actually disorientating to think that Liz must be the healthy one in the relationship.

Liz's Sister Part I

One of our relatively new clients, Kimberly, has a lot to say. Apparently, she also makes cakes in a cast iron skillet. I'm supposed to get a peach cake one of these days. I'll let you know if I ever do. Anyway, those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know about Liz, one of our sicker, more troubled, and, in many ways, more endearing clients. Liz lives with a sister named Samantha. None of us have ever seen Samantha, but we hear a great deal about her. Samantha steals from Liz. Samantha spends all her money on drugs, then takes to her bed, demanding care from beleaguered, overwhelmed Liz. Samantha takes Liz's money, then throws her out of the house, not even giving her time to get her heart medication. Samantha has been married to a bipolar man in the suburbs for decades, taking his money and living with a series of boyfriends in the city while pretending to be faithful.

These damaged, complex relationships aren't unusual for our clients, but the stories Liz tells about Samantha can't possibly all be true. Years ago, Samantha kidnapped somebody, and Liz rode in the car afterward with her sister and the victim. Liz was sentenced to more time than Samantha, the judge having explained that being an unknowing accessory after the fact was worse than committing the underlying crime. Samantha also gave Liz syphilis by taking a bath in the same tub that Liz later used. Apparently, the 13 years of stripping and the 17 arrests for prostitution had nothing at all to do with Liz's catching a venereal disease.

I believe that Liz is a reasonably honest person. I don't think she has either the inclination or the self discipline needed to concoct elaborate stories or to prevent herself from blurting out pretty much every single thing she has ever done or thought. Still, the Samantha stories got so over the top that I sometimes flirted with the notion that Samantha didn't even exist. She seemed to be taking on the mythical qualities of an evil twin in the ongoing Gothic horror movie that was pretty much Liz's life.

Then we learned that Kimberly lives right next door to Liz and Samantha. In a cheap Baltimore row house, right next door is really right next door. Kimberly seemed to know everything about the two sisters and to have no compunction at all about sharing. According to Kimberly, Samantha exists all right. She exists, and, if anything, she's even more horrible than Liz ever told us. In Liz's presence, Kimberly reported the continual bedlam Samantha and her array of strange men produced. She repeated language so vulgar that even in Jr. High I wouldn't have wanted to hear it (at least, not all that often in the middle of the night). She emphatically stated that Samantha regularly took Liz's money and then threw her out of the house. She even told us that Samantha had thrown Liz out naked once, and that Kimberly had brought her in and given her clothes. Liz didn't seem to like being reminded of that particular incident, but she nodded grimly when Kimberly looked to her for confirmation.

"And Liz is sweet as gold," Kimberly told us several times. "Nothing at all like her sister. Sweet as gold." At YANA Liz is, well, something of a pain in the ass. But then, YANA is the place for abused people to strut their stuff a bit, act entitled, burst into tears and then luxuriate a bit in all the hugs and kisses that follow. Liz outside of YANA, is just a dying 48 year old woman, still prostituting, still getting fall-down drunk nearly every day, still under the power of a sister she loves.

A Note on Tina and Liz

They're cousins. I'd had no idea, but I probably should have guessed there was some family relationship. They have the same small builds, light brown hair, and regular, even features. They have the same intense love/hate relationship with their sisters, with whom they both live and by whom they both claim to be abused on a regular basis. One day they come in distraught, telling us that they have no clothes, no medicine, no place to live because their sister put them out on the street after collecting the rent money. The next day they are borrowing a cell phone to check in with their sisters and say they love them. They have much of the same illness and the same sweetness.

Tina and Liz are two of our sickest clients, the ones we watch striding the brink of death, strangely undaunted, grasping at small victories and slender attachments. They are both still ready to throw their little, semi-invalid bodies into the mix, Liz still prostituting, Tina still up for a street fight. (Liz has occasional flashes of self awareness, though. She once told the room that cars slow down for her, get a good look, and then speed off. "They're thinking, oh no, grandma's out tricking!" Liz told us. Then she roared with laughter. Tina, on the other hand, narrates a fight with another woman at the homeless shelter with no sense at all that there's anything futile and strange in a brawl between two sickly women exhausted by their own diseases. "We had to stop," she tells me. I assume she meant someone broke up the fight. "No," she says. "We couldn't breath.")

They were probably both once beauties. They are needy, and mannerly, and small. They are mentally ill. They make me think of two little old men -- leathery old cowboys, maybe -- who never retired. They keep riding the bucking bull, getting thrown until their bones are crushed almost to dust, imagining that the few sad blocks of South West Baltimore are the glorious, wide, open plains. Never guessing a world could exist beyond their horizon.

YANA Today

YANA was slow today. Liz came in after two weeks on a psych ward, still wearing a hospital i.d. on her wrist. She was sad about having gotten drunk immediately after having been detoxed. And her sister has kicked her out yet again, so that she has no clothes, no medicine, no food, no place to sleep. Our visiting professors tried talking to her about available resources, but Liz has good medical care when she wants it, and she had no interest in going to a shelter. She got some warm clothing, and Diane fixed her a cup of soup and a cup of coffee. I asked her about the abandaminium Officer Leather Glove had set up for her. Officer Leather Glove, as she calls him, has been a friend to Liz for years, showing special kindness to one of the more frequently abused citizens on his police beat. Months ago, he put some sort of notice (a sign? crime tape? I wasn't sure) around an abandoned house and told people that only Liz was allowed in there. I think Liz values his caring about her more than she does the house, but at any rate she smiled happily at the mention of Officer Leather Glove, and told us that she was staying in the abandominium he gave her.

In other news, we've had a nice illustration of how much working with the poor does to expand one's overall sense of charity, compassion, and general, dare I say it. . . saintliness. YANA, exasperated by minor, but ongoing, variations in the use it permits other groups to make of its space, has banned any use at all of its space by any other group. The decision had been discussed with Hezekiah House management in advance and heartily approved. Approved, but apparently not followed when one of the nuns needed the space. Then, as Sid and I carried on an immensely important discussion of my personal life in the general office area, Brother Joe pointed out, with the kind of accuracy that can only be described as barbaric, that we were doing exactly the same thing we had banned other groups from doing. After we retreated to Sid's office, we realized that Lilian had been ringing the front door bell in the rain for something like ten minutes. The manager of one of the banned groups had been downstairs the whole time, but, knowing that she was a YANA client, had declined to let her in. As the rain soaked woman and I went upstairs, I told her that he was angry at us because he couldn't use the YANA area. "Well good!" Lilian answered. And then, triumphantly, "It's our space!". She forgot the inconvenience and personal insult, cheered, enormously, it appeared, by a bit of gossip about having put something over on one of the other charities. What the hell, she was happy the whole afternoon. There seems to be plenty of room for pettiness in saving our little part of the world.

Tina and Liz

I didn't get to see Tina the next day because I left early to give a talk at Notre Dame. I did see Sister Catherine, though, and told her about Tina's belief that anyone who overdoses goes to hell. "Oh that old Catholic teaching," Catherine said. "I'll keep an eye out for her." Catherine spoke with the kind of determined growl you'd expect from an undaunted old nun who'd spent her life defending the poor. I hope Tina came back in that day. I was sure she'd be in good hands with Catherine.


I saw Liz for a while that morning. She was much her usual self, sad, victimized, worried about her future, eating grits, and finding some new clothes so she could begin her transformation into a loud mouthed, laughing, sexy -- albeit toothless -- woman again. Then she gave me two bucks. I'd given her a five for her three dollar copay on her zoloft prescription. She brought me change. Most of the time, Liz lives on the street. She has switched from heroin to vodka, but she is an addict all the same. She is also damaged in more ways than I can count. And she matter of factly brought me change I'd never asked for. If you've never worked with addicts, you may be wondering why I'm bothering to write this. If you have worked with people like Liz, all I can say is that it really happened. I swear it.

Instant Grits

They're probably the best snack food to keep on hand: not attractive enough to be stolen, heavily fortified, an easy meal, and sugar-free. It's the sugar free aspect that's most important. Quite a few of our clients have Type II diabetes, although most of the women who have it are thin, not fat. I believe the medical explanation for all our skinny adult-onset diabetics is that people who are genetically disposed towards diabetes are likely to develop the disease if their bodies are subjected to long term stress. Obesity is a stresser, but not the only one. Long term alcoholism and drug use are other types. Our underweight women tend to have the most serious substance abuse problems, and the result is a lot of skinny diabetics. Perhaps there are some doctors or other medically knowledgeable people reading this blog who can tell me whether I'm right or not. All I know for a certainty is that we have some very small women who recite mind boggling numbers when they tell me what their blood sugar has been and who can go through some pretty dramatic mood swings after they eat.

Diabetes is not the only illness common in our group. The long term injuries can be impressive too. Today, I watched one woman help her friend take off her jacket. The woman being helped stood with her arm out in front of her at a crazy angle like a curving tree limb. She had an unreal smile plastered on her face, and she told me that she had cried from the pain this morning. She'd had surgery on her arm almost a year ago and seemed to have accepted intense episodic pain as a normal part of her life. When she mentioned the surgery, Liz looked over and commented that she'd had two surgeries on her arm. Another woman standing nearby had chronic pain in her leg from having dropped something on it when she was doing some pick-up construction work. We have a fair number of limping women. The people who built Hezekiah House wisely included an elevator. Not having to climb even one flight of stairs is a relief to many of our clients.


Most of our clients make very little of their ailments, accepting their accumulating disabilities as an unremarkable aspect of middle age, rarely bothering with a cane or walker. With some women, though, paying attention to the physical injuries is unavoidable. Yesterday, a tall, heavy set woman came in for the first time and loudly treated the room to her biography (sexually molested by eight different people as a child, beaten by her mother when she told about it, slashed her wrists when she was thirteen, beaten in the head with a pole). "I've died five times," the woman solemnly intoned. Personally, I'd have liked to believe that this mentally ill woman had imagined it all, but there were the broad scars on the inside of her arm. There was her face, askew in three places as if the skin had to be refashioned over the crumpled skull. Who knows? Maybe she did flat line five times. Maybe every word of her litany was the God's honest truth. Certainly, she was a walking testament to her injuries.

We've had a few women with endocarditis. My understanding of this disease comes from them. Apparently, dirty needles aren't just needles previously used by people who are sick; they're also needles that just physically have dirt on them. Push that dirt into your vein when you're shooting drugs, and you can end up with bacteria or fungus infecting your heart. I think that if something else doesn't get you first, you eventually die from it. Certainly we've had young women go into the hospital then nursing home for weeks at a time with their endocarditis problems. Little Tina isn't the only one to speak matter of factly about her body not being able to get enough oxygen.

The list of health problems caused by the various forms of abuse is certainly much longer than diabetes, broken bones, and endocarditis. We had a women with fissures that opened up across her body like the cracks in the ground at the beginning of an earthquake. Quite a few women walk around with one leg substantially larger than the other. In addition to AIDS and hepatitis C, missing teeth, swellings the size of baseballs, infected pick marks, and soaring blood pressure in young women are a pretty routine part of life for the prostituted women of Baltimore.

A nurse practitioner and HIV specialist from Health Care for the Homeless come to YANA every Thursday morning, to give testing and treatment. They are nothing short of valiant as they row against the tide. We try to give out blankets and coats during the winter. I remember giving Tina a blanket last fall and hoping that she survived the cold, living on the floor of a garage. And now I've figured out that instant grits would be a good idea. There are times when I think that these little stop-gap measures are nothing short of pathetic in the face of the massive disorders our women face. Our women, however, do not agree. They're delighted to line up like they did today to get flu shots from Health Care for the Homeless. They know how vulnerable they are and how much they need the small measures. Liz beamed at me when she got the grits. They anxiously search our little supply of donated clothes for something warm to wear and revel in a good coat. They want to live. They want to get better. The woman who died five times thanked God for her blessings and thanked us, repeatedly, for the few small things we gave her.

Note: Anyone who could help me in understanding the medical issues is urged to write in with corrections, additional information, or any other comments. People who would like to donate coats, blankets, and other warm things for the coming winter can do so by clicking on the YANA website on the right hand column.

Speaking of stereotypes. . .

I've described our women as being the victims of brutal childhood rape, poverty, and isolating stereotypes. This is how I see them, but it would be a mistake for me to portray them as nothing but child-like victims who loathe every minute of what they're "forced" to do. They are quirky and sometimes strong. They can take some strange routes to prostitution, and when they find what they consider "goodness," such as motherhood or God, they can lord their discovery mercilessly over anyone in their path. They often look nothing at all like frightened teenagers, and, like Diane with Edgar, they can get some pleasure out of the street life, or at least from their idea of what that life is supposed to be. Here are some moments from today.

Today was the last day for Ellen, a quiet woman who has only been coming for a couple months and whose story I don't know well. Ellen is probably in her sixties, extremely obese, with waist length hair, and the dazzling blue eyes so many of our white clients have. She looks a little like someone who should be living in a forest with the Keebler elves. Asked how old she was when she became addicted to crack, she broke into a grin that was half embarrassment, half elven merriment. "Fifty-five," Ellen answered.

Ellen had been smoking pot intermittently since she was 19, but apparently didn't start on crack until her sister, "Miss Crack-head of the world" moved in with her. Then her life went to hell in a handbasket -- not that it was all that great before. Back in the 80s, her husband was arrested and convicted of serial rape. He was given three consecutive life sentences, but it was Ellen who was the pariah among their friends and family because she had given the police the evidence they needed. She has said that sometimes she feels guilty because she didn't turn her husband in earlier and protect some of his victims, but then she says she remembers what the man did to her, and her voice trails off.

Did she have a background of child sexual abuse? Did she start prostituting as a little girl, before she even had the comfort of pot? How can anyone stand to put their face in a stranger's crotch, be sodomized by someone who has no reason to care how rough he gets, go off with man after man not knowing if this is the night to become a murder victim -- without at least a little dope? Did she wait to start prostitution until her crack addiction, in her 50s? The fact that several of her siblings have serious drug addictions and that they turned against her, rather than her husband, when she gave evidence of his brutality suggest that she came from a severely abusive family. For that matter, the fact that her sister's presence triggered her addiction suggests it too. But the fact that she reports long periods of no drug use and stability while raising her children (and while hubby was out raping the neighbors) shows control, doesn't it? And apparently she waited something like ten years between the husband's conviction and her crack spree, so it sounds like more than simply trading off one form of degradation for another.

Maybe if I'd gotten to know her better, I would have seen that her background fitted a predictable pattern. Maybe not. Maybe I would have seen a weird, meandering path, blazed partly by her parents long ago, and then continued with whims, odd chances, conscious bad choices of her own. I doubt much of it was meant as a highway to adventure, though. She drew a picture of her dreams once -- a picture of a little house on a hill with sunshine and a lake "for swimming and fishing." She told me that having an image like that in her mind was "a survival technique." She said that when people wondered "where she had gone" when she stared off into space, they didn't know she'd left them behind to go to that peaceful home.

Ellen, of course, did not fill the whole day. We had the ravening hordes in for their clothes and "personals." They're an issue to be addressed later at YANA and in the blog. We had a very sweet, young volunteer, one who's loved by the clients, who talked to me about how trendy "sex work" has become among college students who see it as feminism and power. I hope that, like so many fashions, it mostly talk, mostly temporary. I managed a few words about the need for hurt people to master a bad situation -- trying to glamorize and conquer it. Feel bad about sex, get raped, get humiliated even, and maybe you have a great need to get control over the whole thing by making somebody pay. I don't know whether that's the driving force behind the feminism/power business, though. Maybe it's just all those idiots singing songs about pimps and 'hos.

I was bothered by the idea of it, anyway, and bothered by the fact that our t.v/vcr with its outdated tapes has been hijacked to play a single movie every day, nobody paying full attention to it, but everybody looking over at it from time to time. The movie is "Coyote Ugly." It's full of very sexy women dancing on a bar, in a half-way strip. They look kind of feminist and powerful, to tell you the truth.

We also have another little outburst of nasty religion. Generally it's snide one upmanship as to who knows the bible the best or who really knows how to pray. The remarks are kept more or less neutral, delivered with a smile, but they get their point across. Today, however, we had a new client who went into an intense, full-out harangue, first trying to use her grandmother status to tell other people what to do, then trying for the same domination using the Jesus & prayer rationale. If she does that again, I expect I'll be writing my first post about throwing a client out.

We also had Liz, another woman pushing 50, who came in, crying as usual. I have become very fond of Liz, though I'd be hard put to tell you why. Perhaps it is partly because what she repeatedly says about herself is true: she is dying or very close to it. Telling all about Liz would take far too much space for this blog, but I will say that she fit her usual pattern today. She came in, weeping and announcing her latest hardship. What's difficult about Liz is that they really are hardships, very serious ones, often visible in the bruises and abrasions on her face. Today she said she had cirrhosis of the liver. Given her astounding level of drink, liver damage was pretty much a given. After she cried and got hugged and received, once again, far more than the theoretical quota of donations, she went to the bathroom to wash up and put on her new clothes. Liz emerged, as always, triumphant. Weeping little old lady gone, somewhat faded beauty-queen stripper returned.

Lots of "I love you's" from Liz, lots of talk about surviving and kicking ass, and looking sexy. Mentions of her newest "friend." This one wants to commit her to a psych ward until she goes in for her interferon treatments. We nod when she says the psych ward might be a good idea. "I might go psycho on someone!" she says, waving her hands threateningly and laughing her Liz laugh, filled with bravado. The cure for Liz's mind boggling array of problems is always the same, and it always works. Give her a hug and help her look pretty. The rewards of being a girl are like jet fuel for Liz. She comes in, gets refilled, and takes off soaring.