Drowning Tucson (46 page)

At sixteen she started doing coke, which was all the rage on the strip. The first time a cop told her they wanted to give her a gummy she reeled in horror, unaware of what this deviant act might be. Since he was one of the plainclothes on the drug taskforce, his coke was top-notch. He licked his index finger, opened the baggy, and plunged his finger deep into the powder. Then he pulled her close to him and made her open her mouth, wiping the cocaine between her lips and gums, all around her jaw. It tasted like what she imagined baking soda would taste like. Kind of salty. Kind of metallic. A hint of tartness. But it numbed her mouth almost immediately, and then he cut two lines on the table next to the bed, the rickety particleboard table covered in cigarette burns, and handed her a rolled-up twenty and said do it just like this, showing her how he pushed one nostril closed with his left hand, holding a rolled-up bill in his other nostril with his right hand, and snorting the caterpillar-sized line up in one second flat. She copied him. Her entire mouth was numb, and now so was her face, right behind her forehead it was like someone sprayed foam in there and it felt great and the feeling crept down her spine, down her chest, spreading all over her body and she hardly noticed when he took the twenty from her, tucked it behind his ear, and shoved his cock down her throat, holding the back of her head and slamming himself into her as hard as he could, and she thought thank god he gave me that gummy because my throat is probably ripped to shreds, and she closed her eyes and enjoyed the foamy tingly feeling spreading throughout her body and waited for him to finish.

Once the undercovers knew she loved coke, they brought it to her all the time. And so did judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, teachers, professors from the U of A, ministers, and priests. Everyone had coke when Rainbow was sixteen, and she hardly remembered doing anything but racing up and down the sidewalk, then into the hotel room, bang bang bang, out to the sidewalk, back to the room, a gummy, a throat fuck, bang bang bang, and on and on until one day she was seventeen and wondered where that year had gone.

Then she decided to lay off the coke, since there wasn’t nearly as much of it around anyway, and she picked up drinking. It was far less
intense, and it made her relax. It made her numb too, but in a fuzzy, comfortable way. Not the uptight way she’d reel around the Mile, night after night, pumped up on coke and pissing off the other whores because everyone liked her fresh meat better.

Hangovers were no good. And she found she could remember things better without the whirlwind blur of coke, so she started feeling the remorse of drinking too much when she rose the next afternoon, groggy and wondering whether she’d made any money or just drank it all away. She thought of Brightstar, hoping he was all right. She made it a point to take at least one night off a week and go out to dinner. She liked to pretend she was a girl just like any other. But when she saw kids cruising down the strip, hanging out of windows or standing up in the back of limos, their torsos peeking out from the roof of the car where they squealed drunkenly on their way to prom, so happy to be in love and the boys hoping their dates would give it up at the end of the night, she realized she would never know that kind of life.

She visited the tunnels every few months, but they weren’t the same. With Brightstar gone, there was no reason to hang around. Besides, the city had only grown more violent since she’d moved to the Mile, so it wasn’t wise to hang out there more than a few minutes. Maybe smoke a cigarette and walk a little ways into the tunnel. Nowhere near as far as where the two of them had lived because surely someone else had come to claim that prime piece of property by now.

Drinking on the Mile made things easier for her. If it was a slow night, she’d stand beneath a streetlight, or at the entrance to a parking lot, and share a bottle of vodka with one of the other girls looking to kill time until some business came along. The later it got and the more alcohol that was served, the more violent the men became, and they were pushed out the back doors of strip clubs by massive bouncers who stood by and watched, amused, as the drunk men went at each other’s throats, punching and clawing until one of them managed to get the upper hand and began pummeling the other guy’s face. These were the guys who didn’t have enough money at the end of the night for a hooker, having spent too much on strippers, convinced they were getting somewhere and actually stood a chance at bringing one home.

Sometimes there were surprises, like the night she went into the alley to piss and found a man passed out, clutching a paper bag with a ring of silver around his mouth and nose. The man’s half-open eyes were rolled back into his head, foamy spit slowly seeping from the corner of his mouth and streaming down his neck. She tried to rouse him, but he was dead weight. And the spray-paint can he’d been huffing was empty, so there was little she could do. She sat by him, holding his hand until his breathing stopped, staring at the buildings downtown and the ever-present red lights blinking atop the tallest one. Then, after she sifted through his pockets, she told one of the cops about him and went back to work.

The Mile was a ghost town in the daytime. But it transformed within minutes of sunset. Women stood in small clusters beneath streetlamps, some smoking cigarettes, some passing a joint, wearing next to nothing. The outfits were like bad Halloween costumes, like a group of ten-year-old girls playing dress-up in their older sisters’ sluttiest clothing.

Sometimes the churchies came out and tried to witness to them. Of course many of them were customers themselves who thought they’d go unrecognized, but since the women wanted them to return and bring more business, they let them put on their little show for each other.

Rainbow’s favorite night was when the pastor from one of Tucson’s largest churches rolled up in his wheelchair and asked them if they knew what they were getting into, being out here on a street full of sin. One woman shot him a bored look and said just what the fuck ARE we doing out here, prick? If you’re threatening us, you probably should reconsider before I splatter your Jesus brains into the dirt, you crazy fuck. She blew smoke in his face. He wasn’t playing the game they were supposed to play. He was supposed to approach cautiously, pick one of them out as if he were picking out a greeting card, get a room at one of the dives, and climb on top of her for thirty minutes—or however many it took him to get off. Either they liked how she looked or they didn’t. If not, move on to the next girl. It was as simple as that. But the preacher rolled closer and said look around here at your friends. She turned and asked so what’s the big deal? They’re fucking hookers? So that makes them what, criminals? Why? Cause we charge for what other dumb bitches
give away for free? What else are we supposed to do? Can you see me bein some kinda goddam secretary? Managing a Denny’s or Bob’s Big Boy? Cmon man, you’re not THAT fuckin stupid, are you? You really think I’m gonna look at my girls over there and that’s gonna convince me to stop being out here? This is my life. And I’m good at it. If you gave me five bucks and stepped behind that dumpster over there, I’d have your jizz all over my hand in a second. Then you’d understand.

She bent over, lifted her skirt a little and revealed that she wasn’t wearing underwear. Go back to the fuckin congregation with that shit.

When the preacher left, exasperated at his inability to shame the women into giving their lives to God, Rainbow told them about how he’d been to her room several times. How he was faking all along with that wheelchair, and they all had a good laugh. You sure told that small-dick motherfucker where to go. Haha.

Six weeks after Rainbow found the dead body inside the tunnels, she finally decided to go back again. It was nice to get away from downtown and hide out. She took a fifth of vodka with her for the bus ride and by the time she got off at Wilmot, the bottle was nearly finished. She had a good buzz going.

This time she was wearing her favorite outfit—a pair of skin-tight black stretch pants with black heels, and her silver glittery T-shirt—because when she finished her visit to the tunnel, she planned on treating herself to a nice dinner somewhere, then taking the night off to rest up, have a few drinks, maybe watch some TV back at the Congress.

She took off her heels to slide safely down the side of the wash, then stood up and dusted off the seat of her pants and walked toward the tunnel entrance. Nothing had changed. In all the years since she had first stumbled upon this place, it still seemed as though no one had figured out these tunnels were here, except for the neighborhood thugs who obviously saw it as a matter of pride to spray-paint at least every few days. But there were no signs of anyone else living here.

Just as she was about to step into the tunnel she and Brightstar had once shared, two boys came running out with a little pen flashlight, panting. Don’t go in there, they gasped. There’s DEFINITELY someone
in there, probably someone crazy. We heard him. She pretended to be scared with them. Pretended she was grateful they’d spared her from something horrible roaming beneath the city, but when they were gone, she sat down in the entrance and cracked her bottle open and drained the rest of it in one chug. Then she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. Just for a minute. Just to rest them while she reminisced about Brightstar and wondered where she would have been without him.

Then she heard voices. Laughter. And suddenly she was yanked by her arm into the tunnel, her heels coming off as they dragged her inside just enough so no one in the wash or above it could see what was happening. The dark tunnel was crowded with bodies she could not distinguish. She tried to get to her knees but hands grabbed her from behind and pressed her to the tunnel floor, and she shook her head, trying to tell them she wasn’t working right now but they could come visit her later and she’d give them a discount if they just let her go, but she couldn’t make the words form and it didn’t matter because the tunnel was spinning from her alcohol and she felt her new shirt being torn from her body as she curled up into a ball of tired drunk woman, and cold air hit her breasts and then her legs when they had her pants around her ankles and the guys gathered around her whooping and cheering at the naked body she futilely tried to cover up, and voices shouted it’s that bitch from the Mile, what’s she think she’s doing here? this is King territory, and someone got on top of her and grabbed her breasts hard and more hands pried her legs open and searched her body, and someone grabbed a handful of her hair and said I guess you’re ready to work now, you nasty bitch, and Rainbow cried and wished she were back aboveground, back in her bedroom all those years ago with her wedding plans envelope or safe in bed with her grandfather, and she tried to ignore the familiar and relieving feeling of a man inside her and sweating on top of her while he grunted and voices yelled hurry up so we can get a piece of that, and she tried to move but was too dizzy and her hands and feet were being held down anyway, and then the man was done and another climbed on top of her and grunted and laughed and pulled her hair and Rainbow tried to cry out but couldn’t because a hand
shoved a fistful of dirt into her mouth and covered it up so she could barely breathe, it was like trying to suck air through a stir stick, and tears streamed down her cheeks and her whole body felt like it was on fire and then the next guy was done and another climbed on top and then she felt warm blasts of come landing on her chest and in her hair and she wanted desperately to beg for them to let her go, please, I’ll never come back, I swear, just let me go, but then another man was inside her and more sneering and more yelling and then the sounds faded away as Rainbow began to drift in and out of consciousness, and soon the entire tunnel was filled with unbearable heat and lust for Rainbow and the men circled around like dogs, waiting their turns and cheering for whoever was on top of her at the time, biting her and pulling her hair and choking her, Rainbow lying on the cold concrete floor, covered in scratches and blood and come, her sweaty body battered and bruised.

Then the hand on her mouth was gone, and she spit out the dirt. She couldn’t tell if she had any cuts in her gums or nicks in her teeth, running her tongue around her mouth to check for damage. But then her mouth was stuffed full again, this time with someone’s cock, and Rainbow chomped down on it as hard as she could.

His scream was so horrible everyone froze—even the man inside her—and he hovered there for a moment, his Adidas grinding a few granules of dirt into the cement floor, and before Rainbow had time to react, the guys realized what had happened, saw their boy holding his bleeding limp dick, and they swarmed around her. They pulled her to her knees and slammed her up against the wall of the tunnel. And she blacked out.

What woke her was the prodding of feet, kicking her slightly, enough to nudge her awake. She heard voices speaking excitedly. The sound of a pipe scraping against the tunnel floor. She tried to focus her eyes but saw nothing. It was getting dark out and there were too many bodies around her for light to get in from outside the tunnel. All she saw were the outlines of several men.