her. Ms. Bailey’s assistant, Catrina, was writing their names and noting exactly what each of them received.
“You got something for me today?” Clarisse asked, a lilt in her voice. Then her eyes landed on me briefly, but I didn’t seem to register. She smelled like liquor; her blouse was undone so that one of her breasts was nearly popping out. Despite the cold weather, Clarisse was wearing a black miniskirt and sliding around perilously on high heels. Her face looked vacant, and her mouth was frothy. I had never seen her in this condition before. She had told me herself that she didn’t do drugs.
“You’re messed up,” Catrina said, peering over her thick glasses. “You need to shower.”
Ms. Bailey was in the next room, speaking with a tenant. “Ms. Bailey, look who’s here!” Catrina called out. “Ms. Bailey, you need to tell her to get out of the office!” Catrina turned back to Clarisse and shot her a disapproving look.
Ms. Bailey came out and told Catrina to calm down. Then she motioned for Clarisse to come inside. As she closed the door, she rolled her eyes at me and sighed. I couldn’t make out the whole conversation-it was unclear, in fact, if Clarisse was talking at all- but some of Ms. Bailey’s proclamations were plainly audible.
“Get yourself clean or you ain’t getting nothing!… Don’t embarrass yourself, coming in here high on that shit! …You call yourself a mother? You ain’t no mother. You could be one, if you stopped smoking that junk!”
The door opened, and Clarisse stumbled out, tears in her eyes. She dropped her purse and then, as she stopped to pick it up, tripped and fell, ramming into the pile of donation baskets. As she tried getting up, Clarisse vomited, some of it landing on the baskets.
Catrina and I jumped over to help her. Both of us slipped on the vomit. A strong wind blew in from outside, and the smell filled the room. Clarisse resisted our help, but she couldn’t manage to get up by herself. Her pretty face had turned pale and pasty.
“Grab her and get her out of here!” Catrina yelled. She had to say this two more times before I realized that she was talking to me. “Sudhir! Grab her and take her home. Now!”
I tried being delicate with Clarisse. She was falling out of her clothes, and I didn’t quite know how to touch her. She began throwing up again, and this time it landed on my arm.
“Sudhir!” Catrina yelled.
Clarisse was on all fours by now. She was drooling and heaving, but nothing came out. This time I wrapped my arms around her stomach and yanked her up. I figured I’d better get her out of the office even if I had to drag her.
“That bitch don’t want me to feed my babies,” Clarisse moaned. “I need food to feed my babies!” She started looking around frantically-for her purse, I realized.
“Clarisse, just a few more feet,” I said. “I’ll get your bag, don’t worry. But let’s get you out of the office.”
“My bag!” she wailed. “My bag, I need my bag!”
She started kicking and flailing, trying to make her way back inside the office. With one last effort, I heaved her upright, causing us both to stumble and slam against the gallery’s chain-link fencing. She sank back to the floor. I hoped I hadn’t hurt her, but I couldn’t tell.
As I turned to retrieve her purse, I saw Ms. Bailey, standing in the doorway. She held the purse in her hands.
“Is this what she wants?” Ms. Bailey asked. “Is it?!” I nodded. “Look inside. You want to help this lady, then look and see why she wants her bag.”
I shook my head, staring at the floor.
“Look!” Ms. Bailey snapped at me. She strode over and held the bag up to my face. I saw a few condoms, some lipsticks, pictures of her daughters, and a few bags of either heroin or cocaine.
“Have to have that fix, don’t you, baby?” Ms. Bailey asked Clarisse, sneering. We all stood there for what felt like an hour but was probably only a few seconds. Catrina tried to interrupt, but Ms. Bailey waved her off.
“Go ahead, Sudhir, take her home,” Ms. Bailey said. She bent over to stare down at Clarisse. “If I see your babies coming over and telling me that they ain’t eaten no food in three days, I’m taking them away. You hear?”
Ms. Bailey turned and left. Catrina, with a disinterested look, handed me some paper towels. I bent down to wipe the vomit and tears from Clarisse’s face. She didn’t resist this time when I helped her up.
I walked Clarisse upstairs to her apartment and led her to the couch. The apartment was dark, and I figured it would be best to let her sleep. In a back room, her two daughters were sitting on a queen-size bed. They looked to be about two and four years old and were watching the TV intently. I closed the door to their room and put a glass of water on the table next to Clarisse. The scene was a study in contrasts. The apartment was neat and cozy, with wall hangings and framed pictures throughout, some of Jesus Christ and some of family members. It smelled as if it had just been cleaned. And then there was Clarisse on the couch, breathing heavily, eyelids drooping, a total mess.
When I had first met her, on the gallery outside J.T.’s apartment, Clarisse had set herself apart from other prostitutes-the “hypes and rock stars”-who sold sex for drugs. Plainly, she had lied to me about not using drugs; I guess she’d wanted to make a decent impression. At this moment I wasn’t too concerned about her lies. She needed help, after all. But it was pretty clear that I had to be careful about blindly accepting what people told me.
I sat on a recliner next to the couch. “I’m afraid to leave you here alone,” I said. In the dim light, I couldn’t really make out her facial expression. But she was breathing heavily, as if she’d just gone through battle. “Let me call an ambulance.”
“I’m okay. I just need it to wear off.”
“What about the kids? Have they eaten?”
“Ms. Bailey wouldn’t give us nothing,” she whimpered, a stage past crying. “Why she treat me like that? Why she treat me like that?”
I felt a sudden urge to make sure her kids were fed. I went into the bedroom, asked them to grab their jackets, and walked them over to a local sandwich shop. I bought them cheeseburgers, chips, and soda, and on the way home we stopped at a small grocery store. I had only fifteen dollars with me, but I told the owner, a Middle Eastern man, that the family hadn’t eaten in a while. He shook his head- as if he’d heard this story a million times-and instructed me to get what I needed and just take it with me. When I told Clarisse’s girls that we were going to fill up a shopping cart, they looked like I’d just given them free passes to Disney World. While they grabbed candy, I tried to sneak in a few cans of spaghetti-alas, one of the most nutritious items on the shelves- and some milk, cereal, and frozen dinners. When we got back, Clarisse was asleep. I put the food away, broke out a few Ring Dings for the kids, and put them in front of the TV again. They fixed on the cartoon images as if they’d never been gone. Since Clarisse was still sleeping, I left.
Two days later I returned to the building. Walking through the crowded lobby, nodding at the people I knew, I felt someone grab my arm and pull me into a corner. It was Ms. Bailey.
“You’re sweet, you’re young, you’re good-looking, and these women will take advantage of you,” she said. “Be careful when you help them.”
“Her kids hadn’t eaten,” I said. “What could I do?”
“Her kids ate at my place that morning!” Ms. Bailey said. She tightened her grip on my arm and moved in even closer. “I make sure they eat. No children go hungry in my building. No, sir.” She tightened her grip even further, and it hurt. “These women need to do the right thing if they have a baby. You remember that if you have a child someday.”
“I will.”
“Mm-hmm, we’ll see about that. For now, be careful when you help the women. They’ll take advantage of you, and you won’t know what hit you. And I can’t be there to protect you.” I wasn’t sure exactly what Ms. Bailey meant.
I nodded anyway, mostly so Ms. Bailey would loosen her grip. When she finally let go, I walked up to J.T.’s apartment to wait for him. It was the second time I’d been warned that I couldn’t be “protected.” First J.T. and now Ms. Bailey. I decided not to tell anyone, including J.T., about the conversation I’d just had with Ms. Bailey. In fact, the conversation had put me so out of sorts that by the time I got upstairs, I told Ms. Mae I had some schoolwork to do and had to get going. She fixed me a plate of food for the bus ride home.
A few weeks later, Ms. Bailey invited me to the building’s monthly meeting. It was open to all tenants and
