Jabali Smith - Slave : A Human Trafficking Survivor Finds Life

SLAVE: A HUMAN TRAFFICKING SURVIVOR FINDS LIFE

Jabali Ornelas Smith

Jabali Ornelas Smith. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, except for passages excerpted for the purposes of review, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information, or to order additional copies, please contact:

TitleTown Publishing

P.O. Box 12093 | Green Bay, WI 54307-12093

920.737.8051 | www.titletownpublishing.com

Edited by Kylie Shannon, Judy Mandel & Jackie Gay Wilson

Cover design by Mark Karis

Design & Layout Editor | Erika Block

Interior design and layout by Euan Monaghan

Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Contact Publisher Tracy Ertl for all review, media, reprint inquires at (920) 7378051 | tracy@titletownpublishing.com

Represented for Film and Television by Intellectual Property Group

Office of Joel Gotler | (310) 4025154 | joel@ipglm.com 10585 Santa

Monica Blvd., Suite 140, Los Angeles, CA 90025

publishers cataloging-in-publication data

Smith, Jabali.

SLAVE: A Human Trafficking Survivor Finds Life / Jabali O. Smith.

1st edition. Green Bay, WI : TitleTown Pub., c2017.

ISBN: 978-09-96295-14-7

Proudly printed in the USA by Ken Cook Co.

www.kencook.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my son, Ach Durrani Smith.

Believe in yourself and all your dreams will come true!

Acknowledgments

Piero Amadeo Infante Thank you for the wise council.

Jesse Bradish Thank you for your help and for believing in me.

Randy Peyser Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Without you, we would not be here.

Amber Espinosa-Jones Thank you for all your hard work.

Tracy Ertl For your kindness, authenticity, and faith in me.

Judy Mandel For your patience and fantastic work.

Jackie Gay Wilson Photo credit

Prologue

T he warm, blue waters crashed softly against the glistening white sand. I watched my 12-year-old son Ach frolic in the waves with his friends under the hot Mexican sun. His joyful screams brought unconditional love racing to my chest. Sipping a cool pia colada, decorated with a slice of pineapple and a small pink umbrella, I was delighted to be able to provide this experience for my only son and our friends. My waiter was dressed in an all-white, bellman-like outfit. His cotton shorts and shirt did little to help with the heat.

Would chu like sontin else? he asked in broken English.

No, gracias, I replied. Our tables and chairs were positioned under large umbrellas alongside other vacationers. The sounds of young college kids echoed in the background, mixed with a crying baby, and a trio of brothers having a sand fight before their mother snapped at them, all filling my ears as the mariachi band did a rendition of Bamboleo in perfect harmony. In the middle of his beach play, Ach looked up at me, waved, and smiled. His golden brown skin made his teeth appear extra white. Again, I was present to my love for him. Our table was full of half-eaten burgers, fries, tacos, and freshly cooked shrimp on large skewers. There was an array of different drinks, partially consumed beers, juices, and bottled water.

My attention was suddenly stolen by a child no more than five years old. Her hair was matted and disheveled. Her green-and-pink-striped shirt was old and dirty, and her once-white skirt was torn and frayed on the bottom. Snot had collected on the rim of her nose and the sweat from her little head dripped down the side of her cheek, mixed with the tears of her predicament. The dirt of a long days work made a muddy mess on her otherwise beautiful, innocent face. I looked up to see who was caring for this sad and heartbroken child. A few feet away stood an old, equally sad-looking woman who appeared to be her grandmother. As my eyes found hers, she quickly looked away, forcing me to look back into the eyes of this desperate child.

Her big brown eyes looked through me, as though she had looked into the face of a thousand people that day. With hopeless despair, she held up a small box with an assortment of multi-colored packets of Mexican gum red, pink, blue, green, and white. Chicklets, she said in a monotone voice. Her inclination was to turn and walk away almost before I could respond, assuming I would ignore her or shoo her away like those before me and presumably those after me.

My heart was touched by the sad reality of her plight. It had been 37 years since I was last in the town of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Returning turned out to be an unexpected encounter with the ghosts of my childhood brought on by the innocence and pain of this infant human being.

A rush of emotions filled my body as I reached into my pocket to retrieve a 100 peso note. I handed it to her expecting a smile or some outward expression of appreciation, as this amount was many times the value of the entire box. But there was none. As she accepted the bill, she took a double take, wondering if I didnt know the value. I smiled reassuringly, a smile I had cultivated over many years to hide what I felt inside. She waited for me to pick the ones I wanted, but, to her mild surprise, I took the entire box and set it on the table. She looked back at her caretaker, waiting for a signal, which she got in the form of a small nod of her head. The old woman turned to walk away, equally unimpressed with the size of my contribution. The little girl managed to mumble out gracias, then stumbled through the hot sand in pursuit of her abuela (grandmother).

I could only hope that my gesture would provide the little girl with some moments of rest and maybe a snack before she had to get back into the blistering sun. However, this was not the case. This child got no rest. The old lady reached into her knapsack and handed her another box. I watched them cross the endless crowd of vacationers, stopping momentarily, raising the box in offering, then lowering it after receiving a dismissive gesture from an uninterested old man.

The sounds of the crashing waves and the mariachi band had now faded into silence. My thoughts were pulled back into history, back to the ashes of my childhood when I was a child slave, an early victim of human trafficking in this very town.

***

The year was 1979

I could see myself sitting on the floor of a small, stuffy, and humid motel room in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Incense and the breath of three adults absorbed all the clean air. The walls were white, with heavy brown stains from water that had leaked in over the years. The brown trim that surrounded the bathroom doorway matched the worn curtains that kept the room dark despite the early morning sun.

The squeaking of the loosening bolts on the bed frame made a sound similar to that of an old passenger train, not unlike the one I had ridden into Mexico City a few months earlier. I listened to that, along with the low baritone humming of a large black man, whose sweaty chest and broad shoulders blended into the shadows of Room Number 7, giving me a sickening but familiar sensation. His humming matched that of old Tibetan monks far away in a mountain temple. He was accompanied by a tall, slender brunette whose sweaty wet hair stuck to the side of her face even as she gyrated aggressively, pushing her backside against the abdomen of her humming cohort. Both were blissfully unaware of the third member of the trio, another brunette whose fully naked, short, plump body earned her a distant second place in this pornographic ceremony.