Anatomy of a Girl Gang (9781551525303) Read Online Free PDF Page B

her if I did see her. I know it sounds stupid because she’s a crack whore and everything, but sometimes, I miss her. I really do.

SLY GIRL
    Turns out the well-dressed Indian girl’s name is Mercy. She invited me over to her place for Christmas dinner tomorrow night. I almost cried when she did, cuz it’s my first Christmas on the street and everythin, and for the past week and a half it was like God took a fat, slushy shit on the whole world. When she came up to me, I was freezin and hungry, and all the tricks had gone home to their wives for the holidays. It was the nicest thing anyone could’ve done for me right then. I decided to stay straight too, cuz I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of them girls. I’d told Mercy I’d been clean for awhile. Which was sorta true, cuz I hadn’t been doin hardly nothin at all, and I’d gone through detox and everythin. Man, I’ll tell ya, that was some kinda nightmare. Then, after detox, they put me in a group home while I waited for a foster home. But it didn’t work out. Story of my life, eh. Ha ha.
    Well, I couldn’t wait around with all them crazy chicks for six to twelve weeks, or however long it was gonna take to get a foster place lined up for me. Jeez, some of them girls were brick shithouse insane. It was too much to have to sleep beside them, eat with them, talk to them. They were all fucked up. And I know I’m not perfect, but these chicks made me look like an angel. I thought this one girl was gonna kill me! Serious. Nasty white chick. She liked my jeans. Then she liked my lipstick. She said maybe somethin bad would happen to me, then she could have all my stuff. This other girl said she could make it so my right eye matched my left, and showed me this rusty steakknife she kept under her pillow. Said she could do it while I was sleepin, so I wouldn’t feel nothin. Crazy bitch. So I took off. And now here I am, back out on the street. Just tryin to make it through, one day at a time.

MERCY
    I didn’t think Mac would let Sly Girl into the gang, but I had to try anyway. I don’t know why. Something about this girl … stopped me. I felt like she needed us. She needed the Black Roses, and we needed her. Just one of those feelings you get sometimes about a person. You ever get that?
    So I brought her over for Christmas dinner. Kayos couldn’t come because she was feasting with her family somewhere in Shaughnessy, but she said she’d sneak out later and come over. Mac and I had nowhere to go, and I thought it would be kind of lonely with just the two of us, so I brought Sly Girl over and made mashed potatoes and butter chicken. I could tell by the way she ate that she lived on the street, but it didn’t really matter to me. I knew she would be good for us. And I knew she’d be good at selling our shit on the corners. She already knew who was who and what everyone’s poison was and what they would be prepared to pay. I mean, she would probably be better at it than me and Mac. As long as she stayed sober. And I doubted that anyone out there would fuck with her because she looked so scary. Her left eye and cheek were all disfigured. Like she’d been in some kind of accident, or attacked by a dog or something. She told us she was from an Indian reserve in Alberta. I figured her scars were from something that had gone down there. She said she was never going back. She said the Downtown Eastside was a kind of heaven compared to that place. At least people look out for you here, she said, and shoved a forkful of potatoes past her lips.
    I looked at Mac. She had hardly said anything all night. She took a big gulp of her wine.
    Ask her, I mouthed across the table.
    Mac and I watched Sly Girl as she swallowed without chewing and shovelled more and more potatoes into her mouth, until they were all gone and she reached for seconds.
    So, you get high? Mac asked.
    Nah, not no more. I used