Fuck it, I thought as the liquid warmed my insides. Whadaya got to lose? Besides, you gettin' the munchies!

So I turned my second trick-with Bob. He wasn't violent or mean in any way. In fact, he was kind and gentle. He promptly paid me my money and dropped me off in Thousand Oaks, just like he said he would.

The lessons were clear: men want you only for sex; sex makes you money; money bought necessities like food, shelter, booze, and drugs; drugs and booze make life-and the sex-not so bad. Most important, doing anything anywhere was better-and safer-than just sitting at Diane's waiting for the next beating.

8.

I'D NEVER BEEN in Thousand Oaks, so when Bob dropped me off, I plopped down on a curb, enjoyed my high, and checked out my surroundings. A gas station sat catty-corner across from me. What looked like a flower shop sat on one corner, a small market on the other. I looked behind me to see what was on my corner. It looked like a two-story office building. Since there were no apartments or houses in sight, I figured I was in some sort of business district. A couple of blocks away, I thought I saw a hotel sign.

Enough looking around, I scolded myself. You gotta figure out what you're going to do now.

I didn't know where I was or where I was going. I hadn't thought much about what to do, now that I'd successfully made it out of Lancaster. I pondered the question for another half hour or so. Finally, a little voice told me to call Jr.

I walked across the street to the gas station to use the pay phone. I picked up the receiver, dialed 0, and told the operator I wanted to make a phone call. She told me to put in a dime. All I had were the two twenty-dollar bills that Bob had given me.

"Do you want to call collect?" she asked. I didn't know what collect was, but so long as it didn't require coins I was for it.

"Sure," I replied. She asked for my name and Uncle Jr.'s number and then put me on hold. A few minutes later when I heard Uncle Jr. say, "Hello," I started crying. I couldn't talk. I was so happy. All I could do was cry. We hadn't spoken since Mr. Burns took us away because Jr. had no idea where we'd been taken, and Diane never allowed us to use the phone. I was so busy trying to survive, it never dawned on me to try to sneak and call anyone. But now, hearing my uncle's voice, I could let out all of the sadness and hurt I'd been holding in. He let me cry for a while.

Once I got myself together, he asked me where I was. I told him I was in a city called Thousand Oaks. I gave him the rundown of how Mr. Burns had given us to Diane who had taken us to Lancaster. I briefly told him about Diane's violence, but didn't go into great detail. I didn't tell him about Pete because I still remembered Pete's threat.

Jr. listened intently. He was angry and wanted to call the police, but I told him not to, because they would only return me to Diane's, just as they had done the last time I'd run away. He asked about Larry. I told him I didn't know about Larry-it was everybody for themselves. He moaned when I said that.

"Cup, he's your brother."

"Fuck him!" I screamed. "I'm having enough trouble trying to take care of myself!" I began to cry again.

"Okay. Okay. Calm down." He sounded distressed.

We decided he would send me some money through Western Union and I would catch a bus to San Diego. We'd worry about what to do with me once I got there. I gave him the name of the gas station I was at and the surrounding streets. He took down the number to the pay phone and said he'd call me back in a few minutes. As I waited for him to call me back, I again checked out my surroundings. I was sure that that was a hotel I saw several blocks away.

Maybe I could stay there.

There was also a park nearby.

The sound of the phone ringing startled me. I answered it. It was Jr. He said there was a Western Union about ten blocks from where I was. However, it would take two to three days for the money to get there. Jr. asked if I could wait that long and what I would do in the meantime. I lied and told him I had a friend who lived nearby but that the friend didn't have a phone. I also told him I had some money. He didn't ask about the friend or where I'd gotten the money. Thank goodness. My money was for drugs and booze. His was for the bus ticket. We agreed I would call him every day until the money arrived.

I didn't want to stay on the phone too long. I was concerned someone would notice me and call the police. But I didn't want to hang up either. Just his voice was comforting.

"I love you," I blurted. I just felt like I had to get it out.

"I love you too," he replied softly. "And, don't worry. It will be okay."

We hung up. Now all I had to do was lay low for a couple of days and I'd be home, sweet home.

I made my way to the hotel. It was a dump; but they still wanted twenty-five dollars a night! I had at least two nights to go until Jr.'s money arrived and all I had was forty dollars.

I decided to skip the hotel and headed toward the park. On my way, I bought some booze. Enjoying the midday sunshine, I was sitting on a park bench drinking when I spotted some white girls sitting in a car nearby smoking what I was sure was a joint. Without hesitation or shame, I approached them and asked where I could cop some weed. They gladly drove me to their connection's house around the corner where I bought a dime bag. We returned to the park, where I smoked a joint with them. (That's one thing about druggies, they'll gladly take you anywhere you need to go, if there's a high in it for them.) I spent the next couple of days partying in the park, and the nights sleeping under park benches or the freeway underpass. As promised, I called Jr. collect every day. He didn't know that I was drinking and doing drugs. Still, he was concerned about my being out there all alone. But what could he do? We both knew if he called the police they would take me back to Diane's. And I swore to him that I'd just run away again.

Finally the money came. I walked the ten blocks to Western Union, but the little old white lady behind the glass counter said she couldn't give me the money because I didn't have I.D. I.D.!

"Fuck!" I yelled, "I'm twelve years old! I ain't got no fucking I.D.!" I was pissed. I don't know when it happened, but at some point I'd lost the ability to control my anger. I was stomping around cussing and crying. The little old lady was scared, concerned, and confused. She said she wanted to help me, but the rules required I have I.D. After enduring a little more of my temper tantrum, she decided to call Jr. who vouched for me. Still, it took awhile for Jr. and me to convince her that we wouldn't sue her before she finally agreed to give me the money.

Jr. sent me one hundred dollars. I was rich! I asked the Western Union lady to call me a cab. She said it wasn't something she would normally do, but seeing as that I was so young and obviously out of place, she agreed.

I stood outside waiting for the cab. It took only fifteen minutes to get there, but it seemed like forever. I was excited about going home, and ready to go. Finally, an old Mexican guy pulled up in a bright yellow cab. I hopped in, told him I was heading to the Greyhound station but we would be making a stop along the way. In broken English, he said he'd stop anywhere I wanted as long as I paid the waiting fee.

We stopped at a nearby liquor store. I paid the cabbie five dollars to go in and buy me some Mad Dog. I also had to pay the meter fee during the time he was in the store. I didn't care, so long as I got my drink. He dropped me off at the Greyhound station, where I drank the booze while waiting for the bus. Four hours later, I boarded a bus headed for San Diego. I had a long bus ride ahead of me, but I didn't care. For one, I was quite tipsy from the Mad Dog and would sleep most of the way. Second, I was out of Lancaster and away from Satan herself. And, most important, I was finally going home.

9.

JR. MET ME at the Greyhound station in downtown San Diego. I could tell from his bulging eyes and dropped jaw that he was shocked when he saw me. First of all, I was dirty (it never occurred to me that one should bring a change of clothes when running away). On top of that, my hair was a mess (nor did I think of bringing a comb). And, worst of all, I stank (I hadn't bathed in days because I'd been living in a park). He was happy to see me nevertheless.

"The first thing we're going to do is get you a bath!" he chimed as he gave me a big hug. He said he couldn't get ahold of my daddy, so my aunt Pam was going to keep me until they could figure out what to do. Aunt Pam was one of my maternal grandmother's nine siblings. Finally someone from my sorry-ass family was steppin' up to the plate.

When we got to Aunt Pam's, she immediately stuck me in the tub. When she came into the bathroom to bring me a towel, she noticed the weltlike marks on my back. Although they were now fading, they were still visible.

"What are those?" she asked.

I couldn't see what she was referring to, but I didn't need to-I knew what she was talking about: I remembered the painful pounding of Diane's whip just a few days before.

"Those are from the whip," I replied nonchalantly.

"The whip!" she screamed. "What whip?"

I told her about Diane and her abuse. Aunt Pam scurried out of the room saying she was going to call "the authorities." After a while, she returned saying she had also called Jr. who was coming over to see the welts for himself.

"Why'd you call the authorities?" I asked.

"Because this looks like child abuse!" she screamed.

So that's what it's called, I thought.

When Jr. got there, Aunt Pam told him she had already informed the child welfare agency who'd said they were sending someone over. Jr. looked at my back and winced.

He tried to wait for the agency folks, but had to go to a mandatory meeting at work. Aunt Pam convinced him that she could handle the authorities by herself. It's a good thing Jr. didn't wait. It took them forever to send someone. The little white lady they finally did send wanted to know who had legal custody of me. Aunt Pam tried to explain what she knew-that I'd been given to my biological father who, in turn, had given me to a foster mother whom I had run away from. The lady interrupted Pam and told her that the first thing they had to do was determine where I legally belonged. However, in the meantime, because neither Jr. nor Aunt Pam had the legal right to have me, they would have to take me to Hillcrest Receiving Home. Hillcrest was a large facility in San Diego that housed children who had been abused, neglected, or abandoned.

Aunt Pam walked with me to the lady's car while telling her about the welts on my back. The lady never lifted my shirt to see them. She said that the folks at Hillcrest would "look into it" as part of their investigation.

I hugged Aunt Pam before hopping into the car headed for Hillcrest Receiving Home.

- I loved Hillcrest. It was like a big party. Tons and tons of kids.

Several days after I got there, Larry came in. It seems he, too, had run away from Diane's, though he refused to tell anyone why. Just as he'd done for me, Jr. sent him some money to return to San Diego. None of the other kids at Hillcrest knew Larry and I were siblings. We didn't feel or act like brother and sister, so we never told anyone we were.

Shortly after Larry's arrival, Jr. heard that the elementary school I'd been attending when Momma died was having its sixth-grade graduation ceremony. Believing that allowing me to see friends I'd grown up with would lift my spirits, someone (I don't know who) decided I should attend the ceremony. I was ecstatic-I'd get to see my old friends and my sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Johnson, on whom I had a secret crush. I told Jr. I wanted to wear one of my mother's outfits to the graduation. I knew exactly which one too; one of her favorites: a red-and-white suit. Yup, that's what I would wear.

"Cup, you can't fit in her clothes," he gently responded.

"I don't care! I want to wear something of my mother's!"

"Okay, okay," he agreed.

After Momma's death, Jr. had moved all of our belongings (or at least what wasn't taken by scavengers) into his garage. Because everything was done in such a hurry, it wasn't organized in any way. So he spent hours going through box after box to find that red-and-white outfit. He brought it to Hillcrest, along with the red shoes and matching purse I'd told him about.

I thought I looked cute in my momma's outfit. The clothes were way too big, the shoes a lil high, and the large white vinyl purse way over the top for a twelve-year-old. Still, in my eyes, I looked like my momma, so I looked good. But when I got to the graduation, I was crushed. My friends didn't react the way I thought they would. In my mind, I had imagined a tearjerking reunion with everyone saying how much they'd missed me and how great I looked. Instead, they laughed at me. Even my two closest friends, Mona and Rosemarie (who we called "Rose" for short) fought back giggles as they asked, "What are you wearing?" They did at least say they'd missed me and were sorry to hear about my momma's death.

The other kids, though, were nowhere near as polite. They said I looked like an old woman. They laughed and pointed and whispered. Even some of the parents looked shocked at my attire. I heard one of them murmur in the most piteous voice, "Poor thing, she looks so pathetic because she lost her mother, you know. There's no woman to dress her."

I wanted to run and hide. Soon, my hurt turned to anger as the people I thought were my friends, the people who hadn't seen me in months, said nothing about my momma's death or my unexplained absence, and instead teased me about my clothes and how grown I looked. Life at Diane's had taught me how to put on a mask to make hurt and pain imperceptible. I'd learned that no matter how much someone hurt you, you never let that person know or see it. So, amongst the giggles and snickers, I squared back my shoulders, stuck out my chest, proudly walked across that stage (actually I wasn't used to the three-inch heels, so I more likely stumbled across it), and received my sixth-grade diploma.

- A couple of days later, the court scheduled an "emergency" hearing. Jr. had called Daddy to tell him what was going on, but neither of them, nor Aunt Pam, were allowed to go to the hearing. Larry and I weren't either, so I don't know what happened. What I do know is that one of the counselors in Hillcrest said the court needed time to "investigate" things and check out my story. Since Hillcrest wasn't really a long-term facility, and because they were unsure as to how long the investigation would take, they decided to place us in foster homes in the San Diego area.

Another hearing would take place in a couple of months, at which time they would have decided what to do with us. But they couldn't find a home willing to take me and Larry together, so we would be put in separate homes (which was cool with both of us). What pissed me off, though, is that the court said that until it was decided where we would go, there would be no "nonparental" visits, which meant that neither Jr. nor anyone else would be allowed to visit us.

Momma still hadn't been dead six months.

- I was sent to live in a foster home in a small town east of San Diego. The foster mother who came to get me said her name was Mrs. Bassinet. She was a short, plump black woman who wore a wig. It wasn't a very good one, because even I-a child-could tell it was a wig. She had piercing gray eyes and large, thick lips that opened into a wide smile. Mrs. Bassinet lived in a nice big house, just like Diane's, except the Bassinets' was twice as big. It was two stories, and they had a pool in their backyard. I never knew any people who had their own pool.

Mrs. Bassinet's husband was a tall, burly light-skinned black man with green eyes, who pretty much kept to himself. He didn't speak much, just grumbled a lot. As we entered the house, he grumbled a barely audible "Hi." The Bassinets had two boys of their own who were nine and fifteen. They also had two temporary-foster boys who were brothers.

Diane and Mrs. Bassinet shared similarities other than their big, beautiful homes. One was their obsession with cleanliness. But the major difference between them was that at the Bassinets, everybody cleaned-at least all the children did. The only person who never cleaned was Mr. Bassinet.

The Bassinets drank a lot. Every day, actually. Which meant there was always booze around for me to steal. And, because they stayed drunk, they were oblivious to what I was doing.

Mrs. Bassinet wasn't as physically abusive as Diane, but she cussed us out daily something terrible. She'd talk about you so bad, you'd wish she would hit you and get it over with, because when she'd been drinking (which was all the time), she just wouldn't shut up. She'd talk about yo' momma, yo' momma's momma, and even her momma! She really did have a talent for making you feel like shit. "Ugly lil black bitch," she called me. I didn't need any help with feeling ugly.

Still, I felt like I could handle being at the Bassinets. I still had to clean like a slave, and I got cussed up one side and down the other all the time, but at least I wasn't getting raped and beaten, and I was eating okay. But I still hadn't yet seen the real Mr. Bassinet.

- Because I'd missed quite a bit of the sixth grade, the nearest junior high, La Pressa, thought I'd be more "caught up" if I took some summer-school classes. I actually enjoyed summer school because I had great classes: English and choir. English was my favorite subject, probably because I was good at it without really having to try. And although I couldn't sing a lick (I couldn't carry a note if you put it in a bag), I still loved to sing. I also liked the mixture of kids at La Pressa-they weren't all white or all black.

Shortly after starting summer school, I decided to sign up to be a cheerleader for a children's football league. I'd heard they were accepting cheerleaders, and I'd always wanted to be one, so I thought, What the hell.

When I asked Mrs. Bassinet, she screamed, "Hell, no! You don't have time to be doin' no fuckin' cheerleading!"

Damn, she was mean.

"Let the girl cheer," Mr. Bassinet grumbled from behind his newspaper. He was sitting at the table. At first I wasn't sure it was he who spoke. He normally just walked around like a drunken mummy, grumbling under his breath. He never responded when Mrs. Bassinet cussed him out (which was daily), and he never reacted when she cussed us out (which was also daily). All he did was drink and watch TV and, periodically, grumble.

I was shocked. I didn't know what to say or do. Mr. Bassinet had never spoken up for me before. Not even the time when Mrs. Bassinet had slapped me for failing to clean to her satisfaction. That day, as I lay on the floor sniffling from the blow, he walked right by me.

"Let her cheer, woman. It's not like she doesn't do enough around here. The least you could do is let her have some fun after school."

He spoke very softly and very slowly, as if he were trying to convince her cautiously.

I just stood there. I didn't know what to say.

Obviously, neither did Mrs. Bassinet. She just stood there, fuming.

"Fine," she retorted. "The lil bitch can cheer-if she can get there!"

What little hope I had was beginning to fade. Cheerleading practice was held at a football field a few miles away from the Bassinets' house. There was no way I could get there if no one would drive me.

"I'll take her," Mr. Bassinet replied. He was still speaking quietly and cautiously.

"Humph," Mrs. Bassinet snorted as she angrily hurled a dust rag at me. It smacked me in the face. Happy that she'd hit her mark, she turned and stomped upstairs.

I took the rag and began dusting the living-room furniture. When I realized that I was actually going to be a cheerleader, a smile actually started to crack my face for the first time since I couldn't remember. It looked like my luck was finally starting to turn around.

- A couple of days later, Mr. Bassinet and I were on our way to cheerleading practice. We were in Mr. Bassinet's big yellow van. Vans were in back then and his was wildly fixed up. It had a small TV that sat in a specially made cabinet in the back. It had a jammin' stereo system with twelve speakers strategically placed around the inside of the entire van. It even had a lil refrigerator that housed all of Mr. Bassinet's beer. Everything was covered in bright yellow fur-the seats, the carpet, the dashboard, even the steering wheel. I was so excited about cheerleading that I didn't even mind being in his gaudy old van. I was finally going to do something creative, something positive.

There was a Kmart half a mile or so from the Bassinets' house. I'd seen it a dozen times because you couldn't get to or from the Bassinets without passing it. Mr. Bassinet pulled into the parking lot.

Maybe he's got to get something, I said to myself. Maybe he'll get something for me."

But once parked, Mr. Bassinet didn't get out of the van and go into Kmart. Instead, he climbed into the back and sat down on the couch that made up the rear seat. I stayed in the front, not moving. Shit. I knew what climbing into the back meant. I felt all of the enthusiasm drain from my little body.

"Com'ere," he slurred. It was then I realized he was slightly drunk. Unfortunately I wasn't.

Obediently, I made my way to the back. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a little pink pill. As he handed it to me with a beer he said it was "acid or LSD."

Which is it? I asked myself. Acid or LSD?

I'd never heard of either one, but Mr. Bassinet didn't look like he was asking me if I wanted to take the pill. The frown on his face and the wrinkles in his huge forehead told me he was ordering me to take it. So I did.

As I swallowed the pill and chugged the beer behind it, Mr. Bassinet stood up, unhooked his belt and pulled his pants and underwear down to his ankles. By now, I knew what that meant, so I started to lie down. But he stopped me. He grabbed me by my hair and forced me to kneel in front of him. He pointed his thing at me.

"Suck it."

Was he kidding? No one had ever asked me to do that before. This was something new. I was pondering this odd command when he punched me in the jaw. The blow knocked my head into the refrigerator next to me. A tear trickled down my face as I straightened myself back up. He grabbed my head and forced it down.

"If you bite me, I'll kick your ass!" he hissed.

It became obvious to me that my dream of being a cheerleader was just that. But soon it no longer mattered because the little pink pill began to kick in. All of a sudden my jaw stopped hurting and the horrible reality in front of me transformed into a lovely fairy tale. Suddenly, it seemed I was sucking a lollipop in a sunny, daisy-covered field! And the van wasn't a van after all. It was a beautiful giant yellow butterfly that was gonna fly me away from this wretched place.

Yup, I'd started trippin'.