Toni
I’m in front of the building when I get the call.
“Is this my two nights ago?” he says, and a shiver runs down my spine.
“Maybe,” I say.
“Good,” he says, “What about now? Same place.”
I throw a glance over at the Factory, its ragged exterior nothing compared to what’s awaiting me inside. Getting out of this would be nice; I’d like nothing better. And yet I know. There will be no getting out of this. I have to go in there, see the horrors that lie inside. I have to know.
I have to do this.
“What about tonight?” I say, “Same place. Seven.”
“Sounds good,” he says, then “Wait-”
“Yeah?”
“What’s your name?”
I laugh.
“What’s yours?”
“I asked you first.”
I laugh again.
“We’re not there yet. Maybe tonight.”
“I’ll get it out of you,” he says, a smirk in his voice, and hangs up.
I smile as I slip the phone in my back pocket.
At least I have something to look forward to tonight. After this.
I turn to face the Factory and force my legs to start walking.
Better savor that smile while it lasts. After I go in here, the last thing I’m going to want to do is smile.
When I walk in, a few bored-looking men come over, raising then lowering their guns.
“Piccolo,” I say, pointing to myself.
They nod, muttering to each other.
As I walk on and take in my surroundings, I try to keep my breathing steady, my head erect and upright.
But already this is like a scene from some horror movie. The walls are coated with angry slashes of graffiti, the floors with worms of dirt.
The worst, however, is the quiet. It’s as if nothing living is here. And, in a way, there isn’t.
When I round the chipped-off corner, the sight of what’s there paralyzes me.
Dogs of women are tied to a pole jutting out of the floor. From an out-of-place armchair in the corner, their cowboy-hatted guard nods at me. Just another day in the life for another regular white old hillbilly.
There’s about ten or so women. Most of them don’t even glance at me, though some slide glassy gazes in my direction. They’re dirty, gray. Everything’s dirty, gray, dank. Everything except their lingerie: bright fuchsias, baby blues, yellows. They’re like half-unopened mashes of candy. Their limbs are smeared with bruises and dirt, their faces with traces of makeup and happier days.
Most are Asian, there’s one black and, in the corner, there’s me. Or almost. The woman looks just like me. She’s curled in the corner with a chunk of a book. Her head is dipped deep into it, probably trying to make sense of the cut-off words.
I inhale, then exhale, but more breath, more clarity, only makes this worse.
No, there’s no making sense of this. No making this right.
I walk over to my doppelganger in the corner, lean down. When I put my hand on her shoulder, she jerks.
“Hey,” I say, “Hey, I…”
But she keeps her gaze locked on the book, on the sawed-off words, the chunked together meanings. Her eyes are drug glazed, her skin malnutrition-faded.
I turn away, and the man shakes his head, gestures to the woman with his gun, “No English.”
He grins gums. I stare at him and he grins back obliviously.
He has no idea. No concept of how wrong this is.
I open my mouth, “This…”
My voice dies away, dies in the face of his complete and utter ignorance. The man probably hardly knows English himself.
I take another look at the clump of women in the center.
The few who noticed me already lost all interest, all their focus on the bottles of beer or wine they have cradled in their arms. They scratch absently at the tears of dirt on their faces and the indents of handcuffs on their wrists.
I don’t blame them for hardly taking notice of me.
After all, to them I’m just another one of their merciless captors. For them, this is just another pit stop in their journey of hell.
The man shoots me a disgusting smile, a grin of camaraderie.
I step forward, to tell him just how wrong he is, to yell at him - this man, this monster, this horrible sick monster - to save these women.
My hands tremble with impotent rage. They want to strike this man, beat him how I can see he beat them, so he can never hurt anyone else again. They want to cut these women’s chains and take them with me, to the hospital, to anywhere. To help them.
Behind me, footsteps sound. The men with the guns are coming in, eyeing me curiously.
I inhale, then exhale. Wipe away the tears brimming in my eyes.
Even if I could get these monsters to agree to let the women go, Carlos and the other lieutenants would have another shipment of women here in a week. The only thing that would change would be that I’m no longer in charge. No, to help these women, to really help any of them, I have to stop all of it.
No, I have to let this horror remain, continue – for now.
As soon as the decision is made, I stride out of there. I can’t take another second of it.
Out in the fresh air, in freedom, the tears fall.
I can still hardly believe it. What I just saw seems surreal, like an overdone movie. And yet, the image of that woman hunched over the book is as imprinted in my mind as if it had happened to me.
I take a long look back at the dilapidated hellhole of the Factory, letting the tears fall. I don’t wipe them away.
Now, I know. My life has been built on a wrong. And, now that I know, in order to live with myself, I’m going to have to make it right. I’m going to have to stop all this.