She sold her children

She sold them, her babies. She sold her children. A woman, with two children; a boy and a girl. She sold them and went on a cruise with the money. Took her damn fiance too. 

I grew up with her. Our moms were friends who met at work. We would go over to their house for parties. Their home was called the "party house". There were always people there constantly. The people always seemed random. How could any family know that many people and why were they always around? When I went over there, I ‘d feel uncomfortable around the older men. They would either talk low when the little girls passed or beckon you over to say something inappropriate. I never actually asked but I wondered, do you even know all these people? Why do you trust them in your house? Around your purse? Around your daughters? Everything in the house, even the dogs, seemed un-supervised and wild.

Maybe all of the trust was odd to me because I’m a very anxious and untrusting person. I actually love people but I don’t trust them and I have BAD anxiety. My life experiences have led me to be this way. Life has said to me, "Bitch, to make it, you better have anxiety!" So, I do. I'm a controlling person or at least I try to control the things around me as much as I can. I make plans for my plans and make sure I assign a timed schedule to it. We've all had bad things happen in life. Some people turn to bad habits to cope with them and I'm not against those people. Really, I wish I could help them. 

I was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was at that house that I saw my very first stripper; a male stripper. Wasn’t the first naked man I’d seen unfortunately. I’m almost ashamed to mention my age at the time. We were all at a baby shower. 

Just five minutes before the strippers arrived it was a typical shower. There was laughter, excitement, kids were running around everywhere and the mom to be was glowing. The whole house was filled with women and children. We played fun baby shower games like using string to guess the pregnant mom's belly size; guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar; and my favorite, tasting baby food blindfolded. 

There was a sudden shift in the room that was an extreme contradiction to the previous five minutes. The music changed first, like a record scratch in a 90’s movie. Suddenly the older women didn't have the same patience for the kids who were now a burden that needed to be ushered away. The mom-to-be was whisked away to sit in a make-shift throne and handed a stack of ones. What was happening was no surprise to her and she was very excited. She wore a sash and a crown now. There was no mistaking who’s big day this was. The foldable chairs in the room were immediately moved to create a large semicircle with her in the middle. I thought maybe it was time for a dance-off which was not an uncommon occurrence at family parties. I was very wrong. The music was blaring now and all the explicit song versions. The moms, aunts and cousins became  a group of party women and screamed “WHOOO!” 

Next I heard, “Get the kids out of here!” It was an old lady's voice. She didn’t move to get rid of us and none of the other women cared about our presence… we weren't’ their kids.  There were three males. They showed up in costumes: one a cop, one a fire fighter and the last, I guess I’ll call his costume a banana. I stayed, I watched and not a soul cared.

House parties, or as we call them “Kick-backs” were a regular occurrence. I had been to so many in Las Vegas and a few of those house parties had been at her house. The girl who years later would sell her children. 

I remember being so jealous of her freedom. We were so young, between the ages of 12 -18 and her mom would let her do anything she wanted. She was allowed to have boyfriends her whole life and from a very young age, she was allowed to have boyfriends over AND STAY THE NIGHT.

She would talk to her mom like she was a home girl. Tell her mom what she was going to do instead of asking. None of us really had a curfew but I was not allowed to be out with her late at night. All the parents  knew that she had no rules in her life, but unlike them, I didn’t know how horrible that would eventually be for her. 

Las Vegas is a 24 hour city. Anything you can do at 2pm can be done at 2am even on a Sunday. It doesn't matter. I was always out late. I had a job at a movie theater for a while. I'd do the closing at around midnight and meet with friends for breakfast. If you don't know, in Vegas you can get a steak and egg dinner for $2.99. Plus, restaurants in casinos are usually the only place underaged people can hang out.

I had met up with two friends of mine after work one night. Vegas is a big town but it's small with people; meaning, people will know your business. I ran into her. She was with a pimp.

Now before I explain this situation, I have to point out that the pimps in Las Vegas are like no other. I’m not bragging about them at all, I sincerely hate them, but it's something I’ve never been able to understand. The hold they have on these young girls, I don’t get it. I once heard a pimp say to keep his hoes in line he beat them to an inch of their lives, then he’d be the one to nurse them back to health. They’d be so happy to be safe and alive again that their loyalty would be unquestionable. 

That night, it was around 3am at a restaurant called the peppermill. Pimps have been meeting there at that same time since I can remember. She didn't say anything to me and I didn’t approach her either. The last thing I would want to be is on any pimps radar. One moment she was sitting on an old man's lap and then she was gone. She disappeared for maybe 10 minutes but the man was gone and she was back. Now on another man’s lap. It was awkward knowing what she'd done, but I wasn’t judging her at all. I’d seen people get used and abused a whole lot worse than that by the time we were 16. Still, I had no idea what demons she was dealing with. Her and I were in the same community. She had a home, parents who treated her like a friend and had all the freedoms I thought I wanted. She was young and pretty. It made no sense to me. Why was she selling herself? I was hoping that would be the worst of her demons. I'm glad I was ignorant to what her life would turn into.

I loved my hometown but I knew I had to leave. I think it’s impossible to grow up there and not have demons, but I wasn’t going to let mine win.  When I turned 18, I immediately joined the Air Force and left. 

My first base was in Germany. I was at work talking with coworkers. One of the guys invites us to his wife's baby shower. I was the only girl and five other guys that he had invited. First thing in my mind was why were these guys willing to go see a naked man. Really there’s no judgement if they did, but this was before the repeal of DADT. Either way, I was open to it. I asked him first if he was going to be there. [short pause] "Uh, yeah...it's my baby's shower. I'm sure my wife would divorce me if I didn't."

"Oh that's cool. What about you guys? You cool with a baby shower?" I asked. 

"Well he invited us and I'm not busy." One guy responded and everyone seemed to nod in agreeance.

"Ok, cool!" I had no idea these were my people. Everyone in this room was down with male strippers too?!? 

"So will there be male and female stippers then?" I asked. [LONG PAUSE]

I'm sure you get the point. Some eyes were opened that day. I didn't know it was uncommon for strippers to be at a shower and they didn’t know it happened anywhere. Apparently none of them were cool with the idea of male strippers at their children's showers. Weird flex, I thought, she's already pregnant with your child, but ok.

After Germany, I was stationed in South Korea. I really loved being overseas. I was just an American. I'm biracial and always had identity issues as a child. I was either not black enough or too black. The black people told me I wasn't black because I was half Samoan and Samoans said the same. They called me Afakasi which means ‘half-castle’ in Samoan. I won't go too far into that, but if you or anyone else you know is dealing with something similar... F**k them! No one can tell you who you are. 

"What other people think of me is none of my damn business!" -Rupaul Charles

Korea was a drunken blur. There was a place right outside the gate that had a toilet bowl drink called the 'plunger'. They kept a toilet seat and plunger in a closet. When you ordered it, they mixed soju and sprite in the plunger. The drinkee then put the toilet seat over their head and drank the contents of the plunger. Then the bartender neatly tucked the plunger and seat back into the closet, no washing, nothing. I'm pretty sure that was their regular toilet plunger too. It was called “green-beaning” When you were new to the shop, you HAD to do the plunger! No, not I, said me! I NEVER did the plunger.

It was in Korea I saw the email from my mom. ‘It’s an emergency!’ was the headline. There's no worse feeling than when you're in the military far away from family and you read something so ominous. You know that you can't just leave at a moment's notice and until you get someone on the other end of the phone telling you what's happened, you assume the worst. 

I had to dial a million numbers to call her. This was before cell phones that could easily call internationally with an app or even a lot of social media use. 

When my mom finally got on the line there was a lot of silence. She'd let out a deep exhale as she tried to get more than one word at a time out. "She... her kids... they're gone... she sold her damn kids." Finally it was out but I was so confused.

"Who sold what? What's going on?" I was getting frustrated now.

"Kanisha, she showed up at her mom's house crying. Saying she couldn't find her kids. She said someone took them" Looking back now, I can see how even though it had nothing to do with my mom, passing on something so horrific. Especially when it deals with a child. How do you not carry a piece of blame? Children should be safe. Saved at all costs. Their innocence is the most amazing, hilarious and scariest thing on earth.

"So, someone kidnapped them?" I was confused. If someone took them, that’s not the same as selling.

"No, that’s what she said at first, but when the police showed up, her story fell apart real quick." My mom explained. 

Kanisha hadn't seen her kids for 8 days before showing up to her mothers crying frantically and looking for them. Where was she for 8 days? First she said that she had been on a bender. She had been on so many drugs that it was only now that she was coming back to the real world. However, the police didn’t quite believe her and questioned her more. Statistically, they were already out of the window of hope. They had no leads and it had already been eight days since they’d gone missing. 

Next they asked if it was possible that the children were with someone she knew but had forgotten that she’d left them. Kanisha was a horrible parent so it didn’t seem odd that a friend would help. A half decent friend would say, let the kids come with me. Maybe she just didn't remember. 

Drug addicts are thankfully horrible liars. After less than an hour of questioning, the sad truth was admitted. She broke down and admitted she had come into a large sum of money. For eight days she partied like a rockstar: went to clubs, partied, bought drugs, jewelry and even went on a short cruise with her then fiance (not the father of her children). 

She’d had all of the fun with the money she made from selling her four year old son and 2 year old daughter. She’d only stopped her fun when the money was gone. Kanisha had no idea who the people were. She claimed it was a couple who wanted children and paid her a lot of money to not call the police or come looking for them. I hope with all my heart that's true. I hope they were good people and those kids are safe, but that options is slim. This happened in 2007. No arrests were made, no news channels picked up the story, no follow-up was made. If her kids were blonde-hair and blue-eyed it would have been national news; they didn’t even make it to local news.  

For a year after her children were gone, Kanisha tried to seem like a good person. She acted like she was searching for them. Her mom was really the one who was devastated. Her mom printed flyers, tried to get police to take some kind of action, and asked around as much as she could. But nothing. 

Now over a decade later, Kanisha is again a mom. I lost contact completely with her and her mom once Kanisha got married and had more kids. She was just moving on with her life. She had atoned for what she’d done but it’s something she’ll never be able to fix.