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Twenty straight hours of walking the track for the men to see.

Twenty straight hours of dodging the police, jumping in garbage dumpsters if need be. “I stayed in there once for like two hours.”

Twenty hours and seven dates. “I made close to $300. First guy paid mad money, almost $100. Hotel date.”

Two guys wanted to go to the dumpsters. “Since the rains it’s muddy back there. I had to take off my heels and carry them.”

“I passed on like ten cars. If it don’t feel right I don’t do it. I been beat enough already.”

Twenty hours later, a rest.

A rest that includes two hits of crack and a few bags of heroin. “I don’t do drugs while working. If I make a bad decision on the streets it ends in death.”

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Both were raped by family members before they were ten.

Both escaped to the Bronx streets: Takeesha at eleven and Carmela at twelve.

Both started prostituting by thirteen. Carmela found men gave her things in exchange for her body. Takeesha’s mother sold her.

Both started injecting heroin into their bodies soon after.

Both have fought with addiction, the police, and men since.

Both now have a habit that is close to $200 a day: Heroin to kill the sickness and crack to get a “little something.”

Takeesha still believes in love. “I did love Steve. He got an anger problem but I can be a crazy bitch.”

Carmela does not. “Love? There is no love out here. People only want what they can get from you.”

Both are now together. “We stayed up the first night talking and talking. We both like, “wow this person really understands what I have been through, understands I ain’t just trash.’ We watch each other’s back. Right girl?”

Samantha, 33, was raped early and often. “It started when I was eight or so. My foster mom was away working and an older foster brother messed with me. I told her but she said I was just lying.”

She ran away and turned to heroin and crack at fifteen. “Sex work? How long I been taking men to the tracks you mean? Well, since I ran away.”

“Men all want to pay me for all sorts of things. They want to cum twice. They mostly over fifty so how you think that goes for them?”

“Look. Here is the thing. I got no respect for men, and so I manipulate them and utilize them.”

“My dream? I want to be normal. That boring life everyone on TV has. You know, 9 to 5 job I dream of retiring from. Boyfriend I hate after five years. Two kids I can be annoyed with. Be able to have a glass of wine without it turning into a bottle.”

“You know what they have that I don’t though? Respect.”

Sonya is alone for the first time in eight years. Erik is in jail and facing charges of nine months for selling.

She is scared.

Shots have been fired on her street and the police have twice raided the abandoned building she and others call home. Neither time was she home.

“I need to get myself into rehab and out of here but I can’t just leave. I got cats and an aquarium.”

“I ain’t naïve. I am a girl alone who panhandles. If I have to I will just accept the beating. At least it will finally prove to them I ain’t a snitch.”

A car pulled up to the light and a man rolled down the window and yelled at her while making a crude gesture.

“Look what I got myself into. My addiction has brought me here to deal with this shit.”

I saw Carmela yesterday to show her the prior picture and write-up. We spoke for an hour.

“I am more than just a naked prostitute who smokes crack. I may seem comfortable being that but I am not.”

“I hate what I do. I feel guilty and embarrassed by being out here hustling. I get clean and somehow I keep coming back. It’s the only thing I know the only place I have power.”

“Just today I was walking down the street. This nine-year old boy kicking a ball started following me. I turned and he turned. He was following me because I was for sale. I felt awful. Would I want my boy following a prostitute around?”

“Then two hour later I was crossing streets with food from the bodega. These two elderly women where watching me. One said to the other, ‘She ought to be ashamed of herself.’ I was.”

“You know what I have always wanted to be? A square. That kid who did everything right and had parents who hugged them and told them how much they loved them.”

“Love? There is no love out here. People only want what they can get from you then they throw you away. I stopped trying to find love.”

“Here is a poem I wrote. Will you please post it?”

Don’t worry.
Don’t worry if you hear me cry,
I am just letting out the frustration inside.
Don’t worry if you hear me yell, “Go to hell”
I am just tired of him saying you better not tell.
Don’t worry if I seem tired and weak,
Its just my soles are worn from hustling in these streets.
Don’t worry about me,
Because I am a survivor,
I’ll always eat.

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