Meyers - And He Called Me Angel The Story of a Human Trafficking Survivor

AuthorHouse

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2015 . All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 2/2/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-6729-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-6727-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-6728-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015901524

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Contents

Note From The Author

T his book was written to honor and give reverence to all the souls lost to Human Trafficking. And so that you, the reader, can get an understanding of why some children cant just get out of this situation on their own. The most frequently asked questions of a trafficking victim is Why did you stay? Why didnt you get help?

I was trafficked for sex as a teen and it is not as simple as it seems. This is a billion dollar industry and it will not be overcome easily. The traffickers have increased in numbers and so have the victims. Statistics say hundreds of thousands are currently being trafficked, there are many more than we are awar e of.

Sex Trafficking isnt alone, in Labor Trafficking people are forced to work to earn small amounts of food. Humans die in both of these industries. Trafficking will not stop until more is done about the demand for humans, whether it be for sex or labor. No demand, means no need for traffickers to e xist.

Please, read my story and find out what happens on the inside. Learning about trafficking betters your chances of recognizing the signs of trafficking so you can protect the ones you love.

Some names/locations in this book have been changed to protect others. Please excuse the language, it was necessary to express the culture of the lifestyle. Some conversations may not be exact in original wording, but all of the stories are real.

~Chapter 1~

Two 20s for a 40

M emories, something most people try to hold on to, those are things Ive tried to forget. I only have a hand full of memories of the old house out in the country in Arkansas. I can remember a silver Christmas tree that I thought was very weird, going to see the new house in town when I was around 4 or 5yrs old, and the day Mom killed the Dog. We had a black dog, and one day the dog bit me on the hand. I dont remember why the dog bit me but I remember momma changing the bandages and the healing part. I guess because it hurt more after than it did in that moment. What I do remember most though is Momma walking down the dirt driveway. You see, our house was down a long country road that ran between endless cotton fields. The driveway to the road was a dirt path lined with several trees and filled with tire grooves that led you to the house. She was walking with a quick determined pace because she was real upset. She had the dog by the collar dragging it along with her. In the other hand she had a gun, it was long and black, a rifle. I watched mom rush down the driveway until she disappeared between the trees. A few seconds later I heard it. Pow! I knew exactly what it was, I was used to guns. My dad and uncles frequently shot clay plates they sent flying through the air with a slingshot. What I didnt know before that moment was that guns were used to kill, let alone my mom would use one to kill. The dog had bit me and she killed it. All 6 of us kids cried for our dog. Mom helped us give our dog a proper burial and we all lined up to say our goodbyes. Our only brother was at the head and the five of us girls followed in order. It was a very sad day. I thought about it for years after. My mom killed our dog because of me. Being one of the middle children I was often forgotten about, but not that day. That day she wanted to protect me so much that she killed that dog, our dog. I remember that the most. And moving, I remember moving. The six of us were growing up and we were moving into town so this meant neighbors, school, and most of all friends. My Aunt had come by and was asking about the new house in town. I was excited to move so when my aunt was telling mom she was going to see the new house I wanted to go. Number one I loved riding in a car and number two I would do anything to go to town. I ran into the living room Aunt Janell, Aunt Janell I wanna go, I wanna go, please take me with you. I begged. She smiled and looked at my mom, can she go? Mom quietly said yes so I went to town with Aunt Janell and got to see it all by myself, no other kids. We rode through Main Street, there was a drugstore, department store, barbershop, and a couple of other buildings all connected in a row. Our new house was Just a few blocks from the downtown area, and as small as the town was everyones house was a few blocks away. We moved there a couple of days later. The house was big and white and was technically three stories to us kids because we counted the scary attic. There was a big wrap around porch and a big ole beehive inside the wall of the house when we first got there. My dad and some others got rid of the bees; of course, we kept the honey. In town, there were two stores to get food from, one we called Reba Blands, and the other was the Blacks. The Blacks store was Just down the road from the big house we moved into in town. We had a big garden in the back for vegetables and Dad would sometimes hunt or fish for our meat. I remember going froggin with him. He would take these pitch forks on long poles and spike them down into the water from a bridge above. Those frogs were huge, and they taste Just like chicken. After dinner I would try to be the one who got to lay on moms chest while we watched the science fiction shows my dad liked. I remember laying on her chest and hearing her heart beat. I would try to listen for mine as well to see if our hearts beat the same. I would slow my breathing to try to match her breathing. I thought, well, if I come from her, I should be in rhythm with her. I would work at trying to stay in her rhythm, sometimes I could make it work, but most times we were slightly off. She would talk and it was like having your ear up to a speaker with a bit of a muffled sound. I would hope that she would talk during the show just so I could hear the inside muffled sound. Those were the daysit was exactly what you would think small town living woul d be.

There were good memories in that town, but it didnt end that way. It was famously touted throughout the family that dad had proclaimed to mom. When you turn 40, Im trading you in for two 20s. It was a joke, to us, but it wasnt to him. He meant it and he did it, he traded mom in for two girls who were not quite in their 20s but they were in our family, my moms blood kin. Yep, thats what I said. Two blood nieces! Yea, not good, I knew then and know now how not good that was. Moms mood changed when that happened. She used to be happy, now she was just there. I never seen her cry but I watched her face fade away over the pain day by day. My cousin showed off their relationship before they even began the divorce. That added more pain and less momma. Very shortly after that our big ole white house burned to the ground, the only thing still standing was the freezer that was in the dining room. We had to move to a house several blocks away and when we did dad didnt. Mom was never the same afterwards, being his wife was all she knew. They met when she was finishing out her teen years. She was raised in the country in the cotton fields and went from there to Dads house. She only finished 6 th grade. According to her, Grandpa wanted them to learn to read, write, and do arithmetic, then go to the cotton fields. Her family slowly migrated to Oklahoma leaving her there in Arkansas mostly alone. The sister she had there wasnt exactly on her side, she had moved there only because Dad convinced her to come back. With no one and nothing to stabilize her, I personally think mom had a mental breakdown. It was only weeks later when mom met her new boyfriend, and he didnt come alone. Shed never had any other relationships besides Dad. She had no clue what was coming at her. The twins Dan and Ron quickly became the disciplinarians of the house. They were much younger than she was, she had traded off for two twenties as well. I dont know if she intended for it to be that way but it was. She had done the same thing to Dad that he did to her. Only thing was, they werent doing anything to each other. They were doing something to us kids but they were too busy in their own worlds to realize it. Mom had gotten things together to go to night classes at the high school to get her GED so she could get work to take care of us kids. Shed never had to have an outside job before, she had a job, and it was called Mom! Shed never been away from us either. This was the first time she would need to be away but it was important. How could she take care of 6 kids with no education? So she went to school and when she did, the twins began babysitting / molesting all six children in some way, shape or form. Ron had taken Amanda for himself and Dan had the rest of us to his self. I didnt fully understand what was going on, but I knew deep in my soul it was wrong, it felt wrong, as wrong as wrong could be. I waited for mom to step in and do something. She didnt know at first but after a few weeks I told her about Shelia having to go to the bathroom with Ron and her telling us stories about it. Dad was told by others in town that the twins were living with us and according to mom, he was steaming mad. I was glad someone told him and was waiting for the moment when he would walk through the door and stop all of this since mom was ignoring the existence of it. He never showed up. It was only a day or so later that mom told us to pack a bag. She said to put a few suits of clothes and some underwear in a bag. I thought we were going to a friends house or the church for a camp of some kind. Each of us grabbed a hand full of things and we waited for moms friend to show up. When it was time to go mom was acting strange. She was looking out of the windows and acting all nervous. When the car pulled up she opened the door and hurried us all out to the car. We threw our bags in the trunk and got in the backseat. Get down, get down! mom yelled to us. We had no clue why but we got down as low as we could. After driving for a while on the highway she said we could get up. We looked out the windows and there were nothing but cotton fields all around. We started going through a town and pulled up to a building with a lot of windows. We filed out of the car and into the building mom went to the counter while we found seats. We were there for hours and it wasnt hard to figure out that it was a bus station. Mom finally told us that we were headed to Memphis, Tennessee. We got on the bus when it was our turn. It was fun at first but after a while that long drive wore us down. It was night time when we pulled up in Memphis TN. We had just gotten off the bus when I looked up to see a very familiar face. I froze right where I was. How was the ride? was the first thing he said. I couldnt say anything back, it was Dan and Ron. Clearly they had planned with mom to meet us here in Memphis. Why were they here? Why was she going to let this start happening again? We walked with them several blocks away from the bus station. When we got to the tall buildings we went inside one. Mom got a hotel room and we went up the elevator to the room. Mom went back down and told Dan the room number for him to come up later so the hotel didnt know there were so many people in the room. We only lasted a week or so there and Dan didnt let a day go by without some kind of contact with me. The only income was the twins going to the blood bank and they could only do that once each. Mom went to the legal aid office and they paid to put us back on the bus. Now we were on our way to Oklahoma. This is where I met my grand-parents and other family members. It was great, at first, until mom let the twins join us in Oklahoma. The molestation began again the night they arrived. We were living in a small shack of a house near the fair grounds that my uncle owned. My Aunt didnt like that Dan and Ron had come to Oklahoma and it wasnt long after that we moved. We moved in with old man Letcher that mom did side jobs with. We were only supposed to stay for a little while, just long enough for mom to find another place. I guess it was easy for the old man to see what Dan had begun so he followed suit. I had gotten sick and my mom sent me to sleep in his bed. I thought it was to take care of me, it was for a whole other reason. This is when I really began to wonder if being touched and messed with was just a part of getting older. I hadnt spent much time at others houses to observe because we were always grounded even though we did what we were supposed to. And we moved every couple of months. It was Dans way of keeping us from being close enough to anyone to tell on him. So I didnt know if this was happening to my friends too and I didnt want to ask. We eventually moved to, what we called Little Mexico a neighborhood just south of downtown Oklahoma City. The house we moved into was not quite done, some of the walls were gone on the inside. You could see through to all the rooms in the front. There were the outside boards and that was it. The landlord gave us stacks of sheetrock for the twins to put up in exchange for the deposit and first months rent. We were in that house for a while. It didnt take but a few months for the landlord to catch on to what the twins were doing, just like Letcher did. He started taking us with him to help with paint jobs in the summer. He would buy us all lunch and that was payment enough for us. We would work all day to get that burger and fries. I didnt like being around him. I knew what he wanted. I couldnt get home fast enough. I didnt ever want to go with him. When he would come over I would go hide in the room and act sick. Mom would make us go because it was free food and a break for her. But it wasnt a good place for us to be. That part didnt matter much. Through the years it became more evident that everyone knew what was going on. We had several visits from the state but they always left us there. They would talk to mom and she would tell them it was all lies between sisters over an ex-husband. She knew it was going on, the lies were hers, not th eirs.