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Pain Of Others Is A Regret Of Mine
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As a note, I have changed the names of the people involved to protect their privacy.
I still remember my first girlfriend. A goofy girl who had a reputation at the young age of 12. I did not realize at the time how this particular reputation would contribute to her and her sister's future, but it did play a part. It's a small part to the story, but they were advanced in puberty.
I went to elementary school with the two prior to dating the older of the two. I remember that the boys were always making sexualized comments to them and at them. I even remember some girls yelling things at them. You know the age, where you are just beginning to learn slang, and terms for things that are completely foreign, but you have an idea of what is going on.
I never made these kinds of comments, and so did a few others, but I never said anything against it. I may have been too young to make the connection, but to this day I wish I had done something.
Guys started getting grabby, and completely rude, shouting slut and whore if they didn't get what they were after. These girls did defend themselves, but looking back I realize the pain in their faces. They were blocking it out, but it was there.
Anyway it was a typical junior high failed relationship. A high school guy started talking to her, and that was it for me. I didn't feel like a lost, mostly because at 12 how do you compete with a guy with a car and a job?
We lost touch after that, and I heard stories from other guys at the school I went to, always referring to her body parts and saying crude things. I still didn't say anything.
Several years later, at 17 I was picking up a friend from his job, he was working the closing shift. She worked there too, and was waiting for her mother to pick her up after she worked an extra shift. We caught up, laughed, were glad to see each other.
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Turned out she had a two year old at home. She quit school so she could work. And the father, who she was not married to was in prison for a charge I didn't pay attention to. See, it was enough that he was in prison, and swore her off when he went in. Stating explicably that he would not be supporting the child because he had demanded an abortion.
I didn't say anything, I didn't judge, I didn't even explore options. I pretty much took it for what it was. Another girl who got involved with the wrong guy, whatever. Just so happens I know this one.
She also told me about her sister, who was in still in school but struggling. She was wrapped up into a relationship that was volatile. It wasn't physical but it was angry and verbal, and probably on the verge of being physical. Again, nothing coming out of my mouth. It sucks, but what can I do or say.
So I continued to pick my friend up several times after that. She worked day shift, so I never ran into her again. A few months later he told me she quit.
I never put another thought to it. I never tried to reach out, I just continued on my way, and put it to very back of my mind.
Then I went off to the Army, where I become a Military Police Officer. I was sent to a couple bases around the country, where my assignments were with law enforcement assigned units. While many MP's train for combat and go to war, I went to units that exclusively covered the law enforcement end of the spectrum.
Towards the end of my tour, I was assigned to a base that was very close to my home, within several miles. There I was, working close to home, subsequently making contact with people I had graduated high school with only three years ago. It seemed awkward at first, but after some time I got used to the fact that some people I knew in school would end up doing things that they should not do.
There is a mid-sized metropolitan type city outside a couple of the gates on the north end, and we end up assisting the agency many times when soldiers are involved in incidents near the gates. The particular section of town outside the gate is a run down strip near a highway. Lot's of drugs, lot's of prostitutes, lot's of violence.
It's not completely unusual that a soldier does something dumb like go out on a payday Friday and solicit a prostitute. So when I got a call over the radio to pick one up who did that very thing, I was not at all surprised.
As I drive up, I see the soldier standing at the back of the patrol vehicle handcuffed. And I see the prostitute, handcuffed in the back of the car. The Officer lets the soldier go with a summons to appear. As I am walking him to my vehicle, I look into the back of the Officer's vehicle and realize that I know the person. Rather, I knew her.
It was my first ex's sister. I couldn't believe it. I just could not believe what I saw. I put the soldier into the car, closed the door swiftly, and asked the Officer if I could talk to her.
As soon as I opened the door, I blurted out "Samantha Jones! What on earth are you doing in the back of this car?!?"
She looked right at me, and she knew who I was, but tried to play it off. "Who are you, she stated?"
"You know good and well who I am Samantha, don't play around. What are you doing out here?"
She gave me the story, that is the story a criminal would give to try to get out of being arrested for something they were caught in red handed. She told me how this guy did ask if she would do something for money. She then stated that's when the police arrived and arrested her.
I knew it was bull, as the city's street light cameras would confirm, she took money from him and went to the side of a building, and opened his pants. The videotapes sealed the deal. Not having that information in the moment, I began talking to her about why she was in this town, and not at home.
Apparently she had a falling out with her mother. Her mother, who raised the two girls with no support from their father, and had many bad relationships play out in front of them was a pretty good mother. She was guilty of bad taste in men, and not being around enough to keep her two girls out of harm's way, but really these are things that any mother could be guilty of, and still wind up with two good kids.
She ran away from home at 17 because of the fighting, and went to her boyfriend's home in this town. But they were always hiding her because of her being a runaway. Her boyfriend was a dope dealer, something she danced around, but I got the picture. She also said he used to be a pimp. I scanned the area, thinking he might be around, and sure enough I saw someone who seemed to have an interest in what was going on, but was not involved in the initial incident.
I told her I could see him down the street, and she got excited and tried to look for him. She saw him, frantic on the sidewalk. I asked her if he was her pimp. She thoroughly denied that, and stated she would never let that happen. But she did also mention how they were hurting for rent money.
As I began taking a closer look at her face, I realized she had scaring from what looked like fingernail scratching. Real deep scratching, that probably caused bleeding.
Meth is a big problem in this area, and again I put it together. I asked her if she was a meth user, which she surprisingly admitted to. I guess because this didn't involve drugs, she figured what was the difference.
I asked her if she felt good where she was at in life. And then she got very surly, and barked that she was doing just fine and that she was tired of talking. I parted by saying I hope not to ever see her out here again because this was no place for a girl with a future.
I got back into my car, and radioed in that I would be heading in with the soldier. As I placed the car in gear he said "Boy, is my commander going to be mad."
I thought to myself, "Yeah bud, your big problems." This guy would get a small disciplinary action from his unit, and a fine from the court. But he'd still keep his job, and really lose very little.
This girl I saw had already lost everything. I remember when it started, with all the viciousness that adolescent kids have, and it continued into her teen years until she was so messed up that she trusted a guy who was demanding that she sell herself to strangers in a bad part of town so they could live under a roof. What is this guy she with risking for her?
That day I saw a girl who had been so used and abused that her soul was withered to a tattered piece of cloth, and it was everything but hollow.
No matter what encouragement I gave her, it was far too late. She wasn't going to change, she was going to keep on the way she was. No one truly believed in her before, no one ever stuck up for her, so why would she care what I have to say now?
I know I can't accept all the blame. I know a lot of people might think I had nothing to do with it. But I can't but feel if I condemned what those kids said to those two, that maybe that would be the little bit they needed. Like just the little bit to push them to push themselves.
It feels like I failed someone I cared for. I can't imagine how they feel about their lives and the pain they've had to endure while evil people have lined up to use them for their own selfish purposes. Sometimes when I think about it, it aches in my ribs.
And in the end, no matter what I think would work, would not. You can't change people. They have to change themselves.
I just wonder about the kids they bring into this world. What is it that we are leaving behind for them?
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