Carnal Prey

Prologue

Those who even remembered her would agree that Evie Bocca had most of the cards stacked against her from the beginning. Born into abject poverty on the south side of Chicago, her mother was a teenaged crack addict. Her father, as far as anybody knew, was a part time dealer and wannabe gang banger. Even as a child, Evie learned quickly and harshly about the darkness that lurked just below the surface in many of those around her. With the notable exception of her grandmother, every other adult in her early childhood was either high, disinterested or abusive. Her father, who barely acknowledged her, left for good after he hospitalized Evie's mom and ended up doing hard time over it. Evie, who was only 8 at the time, escaped his rage by hiding in a closet. Within a year, her grandmother, the single bright light in Evie's life, succumbed to breast cancer and any respite she had enjoyed quickly ended.

The following years were punctuated by a steady parade of loser boyfriends her mother brought home to entertain. More than one of these low lifers found Evie an irresistible and easy mark. While her mother stood by, too messed up to care, Evie learned the hard lessons of life at their hands. On more occasions than she could recount Evie was fondled, molested and forced to perform acts she couldn't begin to understand. Nobody noticed or even seemed to care. Despite being severely damaged and hopelessly jaded by her early experiences with men, Evie learned to survive. As she grew older, still unable to fend them off, she soon learned how to at least get something in return. She began to barter her childhood innocence, first for candy, then for small gifts, and eventually for drugs. As her education continued she learned that pretending to enjoy what they did to her would increase her reward too. Finally, she learned to find her escape in the drugs that would dull the pain and obscure her misguided sense of shame.

At the tender age of 13, child welfare finally stepped in and apprehended her. Evie's mom had been on a three-day bender with her latest boyfriend leaving Evie to fend for herself. When she tried to shoplift a frozen pizza to eat, the store detective called the cops. At that point, she became a ward of the state and firmly lost within the enormity and the ineptitude of the system. She ran away from three foster homes before she was 15 and quickly gained the reputation as a troubled youth. Evie had learned her lessons well though and ultimately found a form of refuge in life on the streets. Her new boyfriend, a 22-year-old drug dealer, noticed early on that her youth and good looks were in high demand. He began pimping her out at 16, first to friends and other dealers. Eventually he put her out to work on the streets. As long as he provided her with plenty of crack cocaine and a place to live, she willingly brought him everything she earned. On good days, she brought him five hundred dollars or more. On bad days, when the weather was nasty or her enthusiasm was low, he skillfully punished her, careful never to bruise the merchandise.

Finally, at 17, the futility of her current existence became too much to bear. In a moment of clarity, Evie realized she had to either get out of this town or die on it's lonely streets. She hustled tricks all through that Saturday night, just as usual. Then, at dawn she made her escape on a greyhound bus headed west. She had no possessions, no plan, and nobody to turn to, when she stepped off that bus two days later in downtown Omaha, Nebraska. She didn't know why she stopped there or even where she was, for sure. All she knew is that it was a long way from everything she hated about her life to that point.

With only the clothes on her back and twenty-five dollars left in her pocket Evie sat staring into her third cup of coffee at the bus depot lunch counter. She was desperately trying to ignore the cocaine addiction gnawing at her entire body as she buried her face in a stale cheese sandwich.

Evie was startled by a woman's voice.

"Hello Dear".

Evie raised her weary eyes to witness a well-dressed woman about 60 years old who looked remarkably like her late grandmother. Even through the haze of her withdrawal, she sensed instinctively that this woman was kind and compassionate. She seemed to know everything about Evie just by looking at her.

"Hi", responded Evie, cautiously.

"May I sit down?"

"Sure", responded Evie, wiping the last of the sandwich from her face.

As she sat down, the woman quietly introduced herself.

"My name is Vivian Contoise. What's your name?"

"Eve", she responded, unable to think of an alias.

"Eve, I don't know your story and I don't need to. I want you to know though that there are people here who can help you."

Vivian was the director of an outreach center called Holy Trinity located just a few blocks away. As she described the centre and its services, Evie just sat quietly and listened. Vivian ended her brief presentation with the offer of a safe temporary bed and a warm meal, two things Evie desperately needed. More importantly though, Vivian didn't ask questions or pass judgement. She simply offered help, no strings attached. Temporarily suppressing her need for a fix, Evie accepted the invitation and the two walked the short distance to the center in silence.

Vivian did her best to introduce Evie to all the social services in Omaha, but none were available to her. She had no social security number, and more importantly, was still an under aged runaway from out of state. She had no interest in divulging her history either. She was done with child welfare and her old life. What made matters even worse, though, was her lingering drug habit. As great as Vivian was, she made it clear that the center could not offer any service that would support a drug habit. Their mandate was one of rescue and healing.

Over the next few days Evie stayed at the shelter and wrestled with her addiction. She noticed that most of the girls who came and went every day were just like her. They had no past and very little future. They worked the streets or panhandled and from what she could see, most of them didn't answer to a pimp. Like her, the vast majority were addicted to street drugs.

Despite her best efforts toward sobriety, Evie fell back into her former lifestyle. She scored some crack from one of the girls and, desperate to support her habit, she returned to the streets. Cautiously she befriended one of the older girls. Her name was Daphne, but everybody, including Evie, called her Mom. You could say that Daphne took Evie under her arm. She was a long-time street survivor. They would often work the same corner for safety sake but Daphne didn't always do so well. She was quite a bit older than Evie and the years had not been kind. As for Evie, she was just happy to have a friend she could trust. She willingly shared a rock of coke or bought a meal whenever they were together.

For the next several months, Evie worked the stroll in Omaha along with all the other unfortunate victims that society had forgotten. Her life reverted to a constant struggle to get enough drugs to get high enough to be able to work, in order to do it all over again. Like all the others, Evie was busted early on by the police for solicitation. It was her only arrest. She lied about her age and her background so as not to be identified as a minor. It was easy. She never carried any identification and they accepted what she told them. From that point onward, she fell into the vicious cycle of addiction and victimization so prevalent in her profession.

At some time after that arrest, nobody is sure exactlywhen, Evie just left and never came back. Daphne was the only one who evennoticed she was gone, but she'd seen it before. Girls came and went. Some gotinto rehab. Some went home to their parents. Some just left trying to find abetter life. Daphne could only hope that Evie had moved on. There was no reasonto believe anything different. Evie'sdisappearance was never reported. Even the outreach center barely noticed. Thegirls just kept coming, mostly from somewhere else, from circumstances theycould no longer bear. They hustled, they endured and they survived. A few gotclean and were rescued. Most just lived and died much too young on thosestreets scarcely leaving a shadow of their meagre existence. Evie Bocca wasonly one of these countless Forsaken Angels.