GYPSY’S LETTERS – JUNE 2009
First read on Sextrade101.com
Written By: Gypsy
To the Survivors
"I was beginning to understand that my experiences with the
dysfunctional status quo of the prison culture - as well as drug
addiction, poverty, gangsterism, racism, and other roadblocks - had
become the excuses that defined my life. But no longer would my life,
my being, be dictated by blind ignorance. Nor would I ever again allow
the excuse of circumstance to dictate who I should be. It was daily
studying and questioning that prompted my soul searching. I began to
develop a sense of critical reasoning from which sprang the first
stirrings of conscience. This was the moment when redemption infused
itself into my life."
Stanley "Tookie" Williams III (December 29, 1953 – December 13, 2005)
In response to questions in emails sent to Gypsy Letters and
Sextrade101.com, I thought I'd start with "What was the most terrifying
moment I ever experienced on the street?"
The most terrifying moment was walking away. I walked down unknown
paths into unknown territory into unknown spaces to have an unknown
experience with an unknown outcome every night. Walking away from the
only life I could remember and the only family I had known was the
most terrifying experience of the unknown I have yet to experience.
Since Donna's murder I had become obsessed with thoughts of finding a
way to save my children and for the first time I was thinking about
saving myself. Donna's murder had made me bitter and I was filled
with unstable, volcanic rage. The life just wasn't the same anymore
and all these years out here had made my weary. I started fantasizing
about changing my life but I never knew where to go with those
thoughts. I had owned a nail salon, a tanning spot, and designed a
little clothing line tagged Gypsy Gear while in the game, but I didn't
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want to do those things again. I found myself often reflecting about
all the people I had watched die from overdose and disease or knew
that had been murdered in the game. Being superstitious, as people
who deal with the threat of losing their life everyday do become, I
started thinking I was just lucky. I started thinking about the fact
that I did not have any family to leave my children to if I were to
meet my demise out here on the streets. I looked back over my life
and wondered if anyone outside this lifestyle, this community, this
culture would or could except my children without prejudice or stigma.
I wondered how I could live without alcohol or drugs if I did get out
the hustle. My sleep was choked by nightmares and aches in my body
and soul from the battles I had fought everyday of my life, for over
three decades, screamed at me like a the crazy banshee. I had been on
the front line of this war since as far back as I could remember, and
my war had started with my first memory not on the street. I had
never blamed the game or anyone in it for where I was in the world. I
was comfortable there for most of my life, it became my normal. It
was normal to hear someone got raped or murdered, or made 5 grand in a
night...or an hour(grin). It was the norm to raise your babies and go
to work all night, then stay up to make sure they get to school with
homework finished and lunches in hand. It just was what it was.
Where was there for people like us to go even if they wanted to? The
experiences of stigma flashed through my mind and stung like being the
geek that got bullied in the playground. The fear only intensified my
anger.
One of my partners in crime for years and good friend, Natasha Falle
or Tiny as we called her on the street, had went to George Brown
College in 2001 and started taking the Assaulted Women and Children's
Counsellor and Advocate course after Donna had been murdered. Tiny
called me and told me our life experiences were valuable. She bugged
me about getting on my sons computer and just trying to play games on
it. She would visit me at work always with the same message, that I
had always been the "mother" of the girls on the tracks and who I was
on the street had a job title in the square world. She said the job
was what my friends at Sanctuary, Maggie's, and The Works did....they
were outreach workers. She said they actually had a course to learn
about abuse to women,(I just couldn't believe it-who had to be taught
about abuse? Didn't square people know?). I didn't let Tiny know I
was interested in the course or going to school at all. The girls on
track had come to know me ....if not by personally than by reputation.
I always played well with others but took on the role of judge and
jury on our stroll and often executioner so no one doubted my
convictions if I made them. I spearheaded memorials, and connected
people with who or what they needed and occasionally had the privilege
of putting a girl on the train and sending her home or somewhere safe.
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I was worried that if I tried to accomplish this challenge of school
and did not make it, it would prevent my girls from trying to escape
this life if they became ready. I shook my head at Tiny and told her
I couldn't do it. I just couldn't live in the world of squares and
their rules, stigma and judgements. Tiny brought an application to my
corner one night because she has always been hard headed as hell. She
rolled up to me all smiling like she had a sting in her pocket with
some paper in her hands. Privately we filled in the blanks of the
college application. I didn't see the application ask about criminal
back ground and I respected that.
By this time in my life I had become very Elaine Warnos like. I was
so angry I could not deal with anyone touching me at all and had to
intake huge amounts of toxins just to cope with the night. My girls
even avoided me some nights due to my frenetic nature and total lack
of respect for life.
I didn't tell anyone, just sent in the application for the course and
got directions in the mail. I hide the letter, I was kind of
embarrassed. It made it even worse in my mind thinking that I might
make it into phase one and then get turned away; NOW no one could know
I was applying.
I went to the college to take the written part of the entrance test.
Sitting outside the campus in my beat-up red Grand Prix, covered in
the evidence of my lack of respect for material things, my life or
others. Dents saddled every side of my car and the under carriage was
oozing oils that probably shouldn't mix together, and I lite a smoke.
What the hell was I doing? If I failed, the girls who might find out
about my failure might not try... wouldn't try. I hadn't told anybody
I was taking the test, not even Tiny. I had just applied and got told
to go to this room inside the college where I didn't know what would
happen (the scene was familiar enough)...I kept telling myself to just
go.
I did.
I must of done well enough on the written part, although I couldn't
understand how but they sent me to go to a meeting at a different
George Brown College to congregate with about 25-30 women in a room
with a professor. I was so intimidated by the title Professor. I
made a pact with myself to stay quiet so the professor wouldn't
recognise my lack of schooling.
I knew Tiny had went to rehab and isolated with the support of her
family outside the city and had got clean and sober before she had
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started college. I knew it was a hard journey to embark on and I
wasn't sure I could be as strong as her or if I even wanted sobriety.
I have no family except my boys and I didn't know how I could support
them. (In an answer to my prayers the Sanctuary and Greg Paul and
the Fast family donated an amount of money to pay my rent and bills
while I was in transition.)
The woman at the front of the class didn't introduce herself as a
professor, she said Sandra Fishley. Her kind, understanding eyes
illuminated her inner spirit and I believe no one in the room felt
uncomfortable.
I started to talk in the group and coming from my outspoken culture I
rudely let people know about themselves. I felt like I was defending
my culture in that room and so became combative. Hyped on my normal
10 morning percs and a six pack for comfort I let them know they had
all been abused but they did not even know it...but I knew. I knew
because their husbands and fathers had told me what they had done and
who they were. I knew their daughters and their pasts, the streets
were full of traumatic stories of oppression and abuse.
I went home defeated thinking that those smart kind eyes knew I had
come from the street and was considered a social deviant. She
probably knew I was high. I was overwhelmed that a large percentage of
those women didn't knew what I thought I knew about the real extent of
abuse and the correlating side effects of it.
I received 2 letters in the following month; I was excepted for OSAP
the other I was accepted into the AWCCA Program.
The first person told was Tiny. I wanted her to know she had planted
the seed which had lined the path off this concrete corner into a
forest on a softer path. I thought about what this feeling was I was
experiencing and it took me many years to realise that feeling that
had drilled a hole into the coldness that had protected me for so
long, was hope. I hadn't felt hope in so long I had forgotten how it
felt.
I never looked back although I went back many times.
I knew I had to start changing my mentality and picked up a book. I
started learning to fight with my mind instead of my fists. My
spelling was atrocious. I left school years before I ever dropped
out and I hadn't picked up any book but the Bible and Stanley Tookie
William's book Blue Rage, Black Redemption since I was a teenager.
Stanley "Tookie" Williams was put to death on December 13, 2005, by
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lethal injection by the state of California. The case of Mr. Williams,
an author and Nobel Peace and Literature Prizes nominee, brought
capital punishment back into prominent public discussion. Mr.
Williams was convicted of four murders committed in 1979, and
sentenced to death. Williams professed innocence of these crimes. He
was also co-founder of the Crips, a deadly and powerful Los
Angeles-based street gang responsible for hundreds of murders. About
five years after incarceration, Mr. Williams underwent a religious
conversion and, as a result, authored many books and programs to
promote peace and to fight gangs and gang violence. He was nominated
five times for the Nobel Peace Prize and four times for the Nobel
Literature Prize.
I had met Tookie Williams back in the day when I was on tour with
Ice-T and was always interested in his progression from Godfather of
the Crips to child author, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and gangland
peacemaker.
I thought maybe I could do the same thing and take this life of crime
and support others when they need to go....even his execution on Death
Row in San Quentin had brought his message to life.
Leaving my home, friends and lifestyle was the most terrifying thing
I've ever done. It wasn't the steps to get to school or start a new
life, it was my first step off the corner. My first breath off that
corner, the first time I chanced to dream of this new life. It was
having to tell my man I was leaving and knowing I would lose him. He
was the only man I ever loved but I knew he wasn't ready to leave the
game. I couldn't ask him to take the same chances I was about to
take. It was about leaving Sally, Franka, Fifi and the rest of the
woman who had put their lives in my hands every night and I had put
mine in theirs. I loved them like sisters, they are sisters to me.
It was about the "turnouts" who I believed needed me to teach them to
work safe, always use condoms, work in pairs, record license plates
and support each other through everything. It was terrifying to leave
everything I had known, everything I believed in, everything I had.
Even now I easily weep at the loss of family.
The day I got my acceptance letter into college to take AWCCA I called
Tiny and told her I would be in college with her next September. At
first she thought I was joking but then screamed knowing I would not
joke about all of this. I eventually told the girls on track. The
response was mixed. There was grief , excitation, fear and jealousy.
After 2 years I graduate with a 3.8 GPA and won the Sandra Fishley
Scholarship for activism, attitude and awareness. My professor of
English, JP Hornick told me she thought I should consider taking the
Human Services course so I did. I majored in addiction, (easy A for
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an addict of 20 years), and minored in mental health while
simultaneously completing the Certified Life Skills instructors
course, and graduated again.
I looked back daily and like a 12 step program took it one day at a
time. I weened myself off the track and into a job at Voices of
Positive Women where my lack of social skills and knowledge of this
lifestyle was not judged but unexpectedly embraced and supported.
Janet Rowe the Executive Director of the agency, even to this day is
one of my dearest friends who has shown me that I can survive, even
here, even now.
While I was transcending into this new life my girl Tiny was building
and structuring Streetlight Support Services which is a diversion
program for sextrade workers. She was speaking at engagement that
often included politicians, police, church ministries and educating
public groups all over Canada.
As our lives ever evolved we kept looking back. She got an
idea-again. The brilliant idea to use our own space to use our voices
to represent our community there on the street. Our opinions are very
different, our experiences shaped us into 2 women who naturally fight
like siblings. But we agreed there needed to be support for the
people who found it was time to leave the corner, hang up their heels
and move on. There needed to be an agency run by ex or acting sex
trade workers who spoke the same dialect as those on the street, who
they could disclose to without judgement, who had walked in their
shoes and their souls were worn out-(poem title by Jan Rothenburg)
Tiny started putting the website together and here we are.
Respectfully
Roxanne
A.K.A Gypsy
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