Anatomy of a Girl Gang (9781551525303) Read online

  Z

  my namez Z. ima graf wryter. graffiti iz aRt dEzyne NOT $treet cryme!!! my aRt iz all ova di$ citee & aLL up & doWn mayneland BC. u problee $een $uma my werk. bin throwin up Z, throwin up i love you, throwin up mad colorz all ova chinatown all ova DTE$ cuz u know dem $ad a$$ junkie$ need $um colorz in der live$. dey need $um1 2 tell dem i love you. cuz tru$t me, ain’t nobudee tellin dem. $o i make sum aRt 4 dem. cuz dey got real uglee live$, u know? i been approached by a few crewz. do Z wanna joyne dem? na uh. Z got her own thang goin on. i know dey ju$t wanna find out my $ecretz. Bcuz i can do mad upsyde downz, i get up in da Heaven $potz. dey $ay, grrl, dat $hit iz fre$h! dat is ri$kee bizness! howd u get up in dere? i say, how u think? cuz ima $tealthee a$$ muthafucka!!! lyke how i get up toppa billboardz, on monUmentz, trucks, trainz, & alla dat $hiznit. itz FUN. nobudee gonna fynd out my $ecretz tho. Na uh. Z workz alone.

  i pict up my 1st $pray can when i wuz 12 & paynted my old $k8board. a year l8r i wuz catchin my 1st tagz, now my $tuff iz all ova. prolifik Z, dat$ me!

  i kinda ran away frum hOme. i go back $umtimez @ nite when evrybudee’s $leepin. i took off cuz i quit hi$kewl & den my parentz brainz XplOded. i quit $kewl cuz my teacherz $ed i can’t be a graf aRti$t for a career. dey $ay dat$ no kinda career. $ame w/ da parentz. dey ju$t don’t under$tAnd. dere lyke frum another planet or $um $hit. & my $i$terz R megAbitches. dey nevR leev me alone. call me a queer & a dyke & a boy & awwwww fuck it. my parentz R alwayz tryin 2 set me up w/ dese chineze boyz. i tell dem, I DON’T LYKE BOYZ!!! but i don’t $ay it out loud. i yell it in$yde my hed in$ted.

  i go out @ nyte, do my aRt, den go hOme & sleep & eat in da daytyme when evrybudeez @ werk & skewl. itz aiight. 4 now. i don’t wanna B a product of my eNvironment. i want my eNvironment 2 B a product of me.

  MERCY

  We need some more members, Mac said. The two of us sat at our kitchen table smoking cigarettes, chopping crack. I’m sick of this shit.

  What? Chopping?

  Yeah, chopping. Chopping, cooking, inhaling these fuckin fumes. Dealing with dirty-ass junkies, fuckin crackheads and their fuckin dirty change, talking to pigs, standing out there on the corner getting drenched, risking our lives, all of it. All of it. You know?

  Yeah.

  We need someone who can be our narco girl. Someone who deals with all the prep and the running and slinging. Then she can be out on the corner all day while me and you go after the bigger fish, the cars, the ATMs, you know, the easy stuff. Instead of freezing our asses off all damn night to sell three-dollar rocks.

  What about Kayos?

  Nah, she don’t know enough about it to do it alone. And she sticks out too much right now. She’s a fuckin Shaughnessy chick, Merce, she’ll get picked out in an instant. And you know what else? She ain’t controlled enough to do it. Someone looks at her the wrong way out there, she’ll fuckin curb stomp em. That’d be bad for business, know what I mean?

  Yeah, I guess it would, I laughed.

  We need someone chill. Street smart. You know anyone else? Anyone trustworthy?

  Let me think. Someone trustworthy … down here … Nope. Not a soul.

  I’m serious.

  Me too.

  She crushed her cigarette into the ashtray and glared at me.

  Give me some time to think about it, I said. A few faces floated in my mind. A couple of hang-arounds I knew from the neighbourhood, some chicks I was in the group home with, but most of them were gone now.

  She nodded, lit another smoke, and slid open the window beside her. Cold air rushed in and wrapped around my throat. Did you see that new mural in Blood Alley? Mac asked.

  No.

  Fuckin beautiful, man. Brilliant.

  Oh yeah?

  Yeah. The writer just signs it Z. Do you know who that is?

  Nope.

  I’ve seen some of his other work around. It’s really good. I’m gonna see if I can find any of his stuff for here.

  Really?

  Yeah, it’d look awesome on one of these walls. Trust me.

  It came as a bit of a shock to me that Mac had spent a chunk of our profits on original art. I never realized she was that into art, and I’d known her for seven years. Made me wonder how much there is to know about a person, and if you can ever really know anyone at all. Mac didn’t draw or paint, but I think she secretly wanted to. We had repainted the house the month after we moved in, and she really got into choosing the colours. She had all these paint swatches lying around all over the house. She’d hold one up to the window and say something like, It looks different in the afternoon light. Or, does this colour remind you of blood or ketchup?

  Both, I’d say, and walk out of the room, leaving her hunched over a hundred little squares of red.

  The only room she didn’t choose the colour for was mine. I painted it a deep purple. It was the exact same colour my room had been when I was little, living with my dad and brother in Surrey. My dad told me once that purple had been my mom’s favourite colour, so then it became mine too. She died when I was three so I never really knew her. Hit and run. I remember the thick white lines of the crosswalk. Groceries all over the road. Then some stranger scooping me up and covering my eyes, and then I didn’t see my mom ever again. My dad didn’t talk about her much, so I had a hard time remembering her. We had fun in Surrey, though, me and Ranj and Dad. We were a good team, for a while.

  Even though I knew those days were long gone, something about being in that purple room made me feel like a kid again, like magic existed and people were honest, and dreams could come true. Like the world was good and so was I. Stupid, I know.

  Mac wrapped up the last packet of crack and reached for the piece of paper beside me. So, what’s on the wish list this week? She read from it: An Escalade—black. A Lexus SC 430—white. A Porsche Cayenne—silver. Not bad. Wanna go pick them out later?

  Sure.

  Through Mac’s Uncle Hank, we’d been hooked up with a car-theft ring run by Lucifer’s Choice. They contracted us out and gave us a new list every two weeks. There were usually three to five cars on the list; model, make, colour, sometimes the year, although it was safe to assume all the buyers wanted this year’s model. Then we’d cruise around the city in our little beat-up Honda Civic hatchback, smoke, listen to gangster rap, and find the cars.

  Hank had put an app on my phone called OnStar. All I had to do was start the app within three metres of the car, and it would search through a series of coded number sequences. Once it found the right one, my phone would vibrate, and the car would unlock. Then I’d get in and start it with the keyless ignition button, or my nail file, if it didn’t have one. Depending on how long the app took to locate the code, I could drive almost anything away in about five minutes. Too easy. And the cops never looked twice at me rolling in on my 24s, because I was just another Punjabi Princess, cruising in daddy’s Beamer. I’d deliver the car to the port, and the dude at the parking booth would hand me a fat envelope. We made two grand per car.

  If the car alarm went off or it was being a bitch to start, I’d say fuck it, and we’d go find another one of the same make. Sometimes we had to go out to Burnaby or Richmond to get the order, but not too often. Mac was good at spotting the cars, but she had never stolen one. Thieving was my thing.

  I started when I was twelve, after my dad got killed in his cab. It started small: makeup, chocolate bars, magazines, junk like that. Then, when I lived at the group home, a girl there showed me how to line a shopping bag with tinfoil and boost whatever I wanted from any store in the mall. Then I’d get shitloads of CDs, designer clothes, shoes, jewellery, whatever, and sell it off at school or at the group home. I guess I haven’t really paid for anything in about four or five years. But you better believe I’m the best-dressed PCP in East Van.

  There’s something about stealing … I don’t know. I think it’s good for me. I’m good at it. Really good. Maybe it’s the only thing I can do really well, but at least it’s something useful. Like when I’m doing a jo
b, it’s like nothing else matters, you know? And I don’t think about people who have hurt me, or all the times I’ve fucked up, or my mom and dad being dead, or my little brother in foster care, or my friends who have died. I don’t think about any of it. I’m just totally there, in that moment, taking something that doesn’t really belong to anyone anyway.

  SLY GIRL

  One night I woke up, and there’s a dirty-ass bum beside me with his fuckin hand down my pants!

  Jesus Christ, man, at least pay for that shit. I pushed him off and stood up to zip my fly. And then I’m wonderin, why are my feet so cold? Look down and see someone stoled my shoes. Stoled my frickin shoes right offa my frickin feet! Oh, that’s nice, I says. That’s real nice.

  You get to thinkin people are your friends out here, eh, you think people are watchin out for ya? They could give a fuck. Anyone and everyone will screw you over sideways if they think they can make a dollar off it. So I’m huntin around for somethin for my feet, it’s raining, and it’s a thin, cold rain that cuts right through your skin. It’s still dark, and there’s glass and rigs and shit all over the damn place. I need somethin for my feet. I’m goin through a dumpster and I find a grocery bag, eh, kinda heavy, maybe a little slimy. Could be somethin to eat, I think. My stomach’s rumblin, all hungry and gettin excited. I open the bag. What’s inside? A newborn baby, cold and grey. Its blank blue eyes starin straight up at me, all glassy like. Reminds me of this doll I used to have when I was a kid.

  I dropped the bag and threw up on the pavement beside it. I walked and walked in the cold rain. Finally, I found a couple a garbage bags and some ripped up t-shirts in another dumpster, and I wrapped them around my feet. I walked around for the rest of the night in the freezin rain with these stupid dirty rags around my feet, just lookin for a fix or a bit of rock, a cigarette, just somethin, anythin, anythin at all. Because it’s so cold and hard out here and I got nothin. Not even shoes.

  I walked all night, no one would front me, no one would share what they had, and I had no cash cuz whoever took my shoes took alla that too. When the first light of morning burned through the clouds, I wandered down to the water and unwrapped my feet. They were bleedin and blistered, with bits of glass and stones stuck all in them and totally disgustin. I wanted to throw up again but there’s nothin left in me to come out. I washed my feet in the ocean. Stung like a motherfucker. I could feel the junk sickness settlin down on me. It’s heavy and dark, like a mean storm cloud. I knew then I needed some kinda change.

  There’s a drunk asleep on a bench in Crab Park. In his shoppin cart there’s a pair of shoes. They’re boy shoes, ugly as sin. They’re a couple sizes too big for me, but they’ll do. I didn’t feel too bad about takin them cuz he already had shoes on, so he don’t need them as bad as me.

  I went back to workin the strip, but it’s too early, there’s no one around. Stood around a couple hours and finally got a trick, a BJ.

  It’s twenty, I said as he’s puttin hisself back in his pants. He’s skinny and red-faced, with a dick like a pencil.

  He snorted. I’ll give you five bucks.

  But the price is twenty.

  Yeah, but my dog is prettier than you, he said, and shoved a crumpled-up five into my hand, leaned over me to open the car door, then pushed me out onto the street and pulled away.

  Does your dog give you blow jobs? I yelled after him. Pencil-dick prick!

  I bought a three-dollar rock and smoked it to my head. Then the sky clears up and the sun comes out some and I feel like eating.

  So I’m at the Carnegie, gettin a two-dollar lunch. A nice soup, a nice salad, nice bread. Then I see this little girl come in with her mom, little Native girl, and she’s got her dolly swingin from one arm and she’s holdin her mom’s hand with the other, and she’s gigglin and chatterin away and lookin up at her mom like … like she’s the only person in the wide world that matters. Her eyes all shiny and bright. Then suddenly, outta nowhere, I’m cryin into my soup. Just bawlin, eh. Like somethin inside me just broke, and I can’t take another minute of bein who I am: livin on the street, turnin tricks, shootin junk and coke, smokin crack, smokin meth, stayin up all damn night so nobody climbs on toppa me. I mean, it’s almost as bad as it was on the rez. I’m just so tired. I’m sick and I’m tired and my feet are bleedin and snot’s drippin down my face into my soup and I don’t even care. I let it drip. After awhile a fat white worker lady comes around and puts her hand on my shoulder and says, Do you want to go somewhere and talk, sweetie? And I hate that she calls me sweetie, cuz that’s what some of them tricks call me. Even though I try never to think about them or remember them, I can’t help seein some of their faces flash behind my eyes when she calls me sweetie. But how could she know that? And I do want to go somewheres and talk, away from all these grubby-ass, slobbery, stinkin bums, starin at my fucked-up face, I do. I do. So, I do.

  She takes me upstairs to a quiet little room full of books, and she gives me a hot mug of tea. It’s black tea with milk and sugar, my favourite, and I love this fat white worker lady. I want to ask her to be my some kinda mom, and can I go home with her when she’s done her shift at the Carnegie? I want to live at her house with her and I won’t even get in her way, I promise I won’t. I can sleep in her closet, and she won’t even have to worry on me because I will be good. I will be so good and never make a mess or get high or have boyfriends over or anything. I’ll just stay out of her way and sleep in the closet and drink tea.

  When I’m calmed down enough to talk, I tell her I need a change. I want to get off the street. I want to get off the drugs.

  She nods like that’s exactly what she was expectin me to say. How old are you, hon?

  Thirteen.

  Well, the good news is there’s a lot of help out there for you if you’re ready for it.

  I nod, gulp my sweet milky tea. It doesn’t burn me, it doesn’t burn. It’s okay. Everythin’s gonna be okay. I start cryin again and she hands me a box of Kleenex. I want to ask her to be my mom, but I don’t.

  VANCOUVER

  The blue-black night folds into me, and the people of my city search for sleep. Some find it on waterbeds, futons, goose down feather mattresses; others in parkades, stairwells, dark doorways, shining alleys. Still others don’t look for sleep at all, but something else entirely. Something necessary and familiar. They hunt through the night, bleary-eyed, fervent, skin glowing green under the buzzing streetlights, moaning into the wind like hungry ghosts.

  MAC

  One day, around Christmas, I was weighing out baggies when Mercy burst through the front door, all excited and grinning.

  I found her, she said.

  Found who?

  Our runner. Our narco chick.

  Oh yeah? Who is it?

  Little Native girl from the neighbourhood. We used to sell to her, long time ago. She’s got kind of a fucked up face …

  Wait a sec, we used to sell to her? Fuckin forget about it.

  But—

  No way, Mercy. No fuckin way. No junkies. No crackheads. No tweakers. No fiends. No way, no how. Come on, what the hell are you thinking? You know how they are. We’re trying to run a business here!

  She’s six weeks clean.

  Whoop-dee-fuckin-doo. That don’t mean jack shit.

  Well, she’s got the right background. She knows her shit. She knows all the customers already, and she’s smart.

  How do you know?

  Because you don’t last on the street if you’re stupid.

  I shook my head. Not happening.

  She blinked her eyes a few times and pouted. I wondered if she was wearing fake eyelashes. Then she came around behind me and started rubbing my shoulders. She smelled like salt water and cinnamon. Come on, Mac. She’ll be good for us. Let’s give her a chance.

  No, Mercy! Forget it. I pushed her hands away.

  I couldn’t believe she would even suggest bringing an addict into the Black Roses. It would destroy everything we’d worked so hard to build.
She didn’t understand that six weeks clean meant fuck all—hell, six months, too. I’d grown up with an addict. She hadn’t.

  Sometimes I would feel like a normal little kid. Mom would go straight for a while and get her welfare cheques sent directly to our landlord so she wouldn’t be tempted to buy coke and heroin with the money. She’d make macaroni and cheese or scalloped potatoes, and we’d sit on the couch and drink Ovaltine and watch Sally Jessy Raphael or Geraldo. She’d call me her princess and braid my hair, make sure I brushed my teeth, tuck me in at night, and read me stories from the National Enquirer. Those were the good times, the times I hoped would last forever. But then it would rain for six days in a row, or something I did would piss her off, and she’d get restless. Then she’d say, I’m just going out for some smokes, honey. And she’d be back out on Hastings. Gone for two, three, twelve days at a time. She’s still out there, far as I know. Either there, or rotting in pig shit out in PoCo. I haven’t seen her in about four years. I don’t even know if I’d recognize her if I did see her. I know it sounds stupid because she’s a crack whore and everything, but sometimes, I miss her. I really do.

  SLY GIRL

  Turns out the well-dressed Indian girl’s name is Mercy. She invited me over to her place for Christmas dinner tomorrow night. I almost cried when she did, cuz it’s my first Christmas on the street and everythin, and for the past week and a half it was like God took a fat, slushy shit on the whole world. When she came up to me, I was freezin and hungry, and all the tricks had gone home to their wives for the holidays. It was the nicest thing anyone could’ve done for me right then. I decided to stay straight too, cuz I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of them girls. I’d told Mercy I’d been clean for awhile. Which was sorta true, cuz I hadn’t been doin hardly nothin at all, and I’d gone through detox and everythin. Man, I’ll tell ya, that was some kinda nightmare. Then, after detox, they put me in a group home while I waited for a foster home. But it didn’t work out. Story of my life, eh. Ha ha.