Somebody's Daughter (3 page)

Praying the pimps would not notice, Annie Mae slipped out of the pool hall and found a phone booth nearby; she called the apartment she and Stacey shared with their pimps and told her to get out right away, without stopping to pack. Unknown to her, Anti Pimping Task Force officers had responded to a series of desperate phone calls from Stacey's mother and launched a sudden unexpected raid in Toronto that struck at the heart of the Scotians' powerful and seemingly unassailable pimping machine. Within a few hours, it was all over: Stacey and two even younger girls from Nova Scotia were on a flight back to Halifax; five key members of the Scotian ring were sitting in a Toronto jail. Among them was twenty-seven-year-old Manning Greer of North Preston, Nova Scotia—the Big Man, as he was known to Scotian players and prostitutes, and to those involved in The Game on both sides of the law across Canada.

That was only the beginning: less than three years after the raid, sixty Halifax-based pimps had been arrested through the efforts of the Halifax task force. All but three of them were jailed after convictions on charges ranging from living on the avails of prostitution to exercising control for the purpose of prostitution. The three men who walked away did so after the young girls they were accused of pimping refused to testify against them in court. Those who did not walk out of court were sent to federal prisons for terms ranging from two to seven years. Less than three years after the raid, Halifax, whose Scotians a Toronto police officer once described as one of Canada's most brutal pimping rings, was all but rid of at least the menace of juvenile prostitution. Officers patrolling the city's main stroll on Hollis Street rarely saw an underage girl there, nor were they turning up in other major centres.

In the fall of 1992, there were more than a hundred Nova Scotia teenagers selling sex on the streets across Canada and enduring the cruelties of their pimps. More than half of these young people responded, in some way, to task force members' efforts to get them off the streets and their pimps behind bars. Not all of the girls who sought help from the task force remained free of The Game, but many did. In the beginning the girls shared the belief held by Annie Mae—that police were not to be trusted. That gradually changed as the task force officers got to know the girls, chatting with them on Hollis Street and north-end strolls, sympathizing with their plight over coffee (or their preferred snack, a burger and fries), and finally offering them protection in exchange for their agreement to testify against pimps who had in some cases been brutalizing them for years. The assistance ranged from witness relocation programs—the girls could opt to change their identities and start new lives in a different city—to temporary accommodation in a safe house set up on the grounds of the Nova Scotia Hospital, located in Dartmouth just up the road from the apartment where Annie Mae died. The facility, which opened near the end of 1992, housed prostitutes whose decision to testify against their former pimps—“sign” on them was the phrase pimps used—made them vulnerable to the pimps who were still at large and were less than thrilled with these “betrayals” of their fellow players. Unlike youth facilities in the Halifax area, the safe house had no age restrictions. A seventeen-year-old, by any definition a heartbreakingly young victim of The Game, was considered too old for the protective custody of a juvenile training facility; yet such a girl, as well as much older women, desperately needed the security of a restricted environment. It was the age restrictions in many existing juvenile facilities that was in large part responsible for the establishment of the Dartmouth safe house.

The Sullivan House—the name given the safe house—welcomed a girl like Stacey Jackson who was too old to be accepted at the youth training school in Truro where other girls were sent: when the safe house opened its doors, she was the first to enter them.

Stacey hadn't been doing well in the months following her return from Toronto. She had agreed to participate in the task force program and sign on her abusive pimp, but her early experiences in rejoining the “straight” world, as players refer to any social structure other than prostitution, had been disillusioning. Tense, difficult weeks in relatives' homes; a brief and disastrous stint at school; sojourns in a women's shelter and a psychiatric unit, Stacey rebelled in all these environments, running away from the shelter and even considering a return to the streets. The safe house was a vast improvement, offering the reassuring and helpful companionship of girls and women who understood where she was coming from and shared her fundamental desire to make sure she wasn't going back. There were more regular visits with her task-force case officer, John Elliott, a Mountie who had been part of a 1990 investigation of the pimping problem in the Halifax area and who was deeply committed to helping its victims. Stacey had been living outside Halifax before moving to the safe house, and hadn't met as frequently with Elliott as she would have liked. She saw him as a father figure, even telling him so on their rare visits earlier in the fall. John Elliott had not even been the case officer assigned to Stacey Jackson; he was handed the file after it became clear she had quickly developed a strong bond with him.

The change that had come to Stacey's life in the more tolerable confines of the safe house made her days just a little less bleak, the possibilities for a real future just a little more credible. Despite that, she hadn't entirely closed the door on her old life when she stepped through the huge wooden door of the safe house. Some days, reminiscing with other prostitutes about street life, she succumbed to nostalgia, preferring to recall the closeness of her relationship with other girls than to remind herself of the man who had whipped both her legs into a solid mass of bloodied flesh. It did not help her resolve to put him behind bars when she received a death threat from one of his relatives, although police quickly stepped in, arresting and charging the pimp's nephew, whose voice she had recognized during the telephone conversation in which the threat was delivered.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Stacey found herself spending more and more time wishing she was back on the street with Annie Mae. They hadn't seen each other since Toronto. Stacey knew her friend had refused to get involved with the task force and was still working the streets, despite all that had happened. She had begun to believe it hadn't really been that bad, that maybe if they got together, they could somehow make The Game work for them. She was filled with a fear that her pimp had been right. There was nothing for her in the straight world; her real place was with her new family. The beating he had given her was severe but Stacey remembered how her real father had physically abused her mother for years, before she left him. She also remembered it was her father who had helped Stacey get her own place after the sixteen-year-old gave birth to a son, conceived in the dying days of her relationship with her childhood sweetheart. Debbie Jackson, now Debbie Howard, was happily remarried and obviously concerned about her daughter's welfare, but Stacey and her mother were like gas and fire—a very volatile mix. Stacey had been able to forgive her father for the abuse he dished out against her mother. When Debbie finally decided to end her marriage and walk away, Stacey and her younger brother chose to stay with their dad rather than give up the stability and friendships his home provided. If she could forgive her father maybe she should give that same chance to her pimp. Stacey had begun to believe all of her problems were of her own making and not the fault of the men she had been involved with. The custody of her own son was apparently going to his father's family. What difference did it make if she returned to the streets? That was probably where she belonged, she thought, and as for the violence, well, it probably would not have happened if she had not broken the rules.

Stacey was in the common room of the safe house, so lost in her thoughts that she didn't hear John Elliott approach; he was suddenly there, looking very serious. “Why don't we go for a drive and talk, Stacey?” he suggested. “I've already signed you out at the desk.” She always looked forward to their conversations, but he seemed upset, his compact, muscular body held rigid as they walked towards the car. They sat in silence as the car pulled out of the hospital grounds, and then he told her. There would be no reunion with Annie Mae.

Elliott was prepared for the angry tears, the shock, the string of obscenities, and finally the sullen silence of the emotionally devastated teenager. What he didn't expect was the vehement fury against all pimps that poured out of her when she began to speak again. He knew Stacey would always detest the man who killed Annie Mae, but because she had been hinting to him so strongly that she could be back on the stroll soon, he anticipated a defensive reaction: not all pimps are alike; it's possible to beat the odds, anything to justify going back to the streets despite what happened to Annie Mae. All Stacey could think about was how her friend had always been there for her, even when it meant jeopardizing her own life, back in that summer of horror they had experienced. Now she was dead, and it was with a sudden jolt of comprehension that Stacey realized it could as easily have been her, or any of the dozens of other teenagers she had met in her brief but hellish career as a prostitute. They had all been brutalized, regularly and often without provocation; it was a wonder any of them were still alive. A very powerful memory she had washed away in her self doubt sprang to the front of Stacey's mind—it was her, lying on a bed stained with her own blood, pleading in agony to be allowed to die.

Stacey Jackson made a commitment to herself and to John Elliott in that car. She swore she would never again work the streets and she vowed to get even with the pimps who had very nearly ended her life and who had now taken away her closest friend. John Elliott sat quietly in the car; he was happy to have Stacey back on side but he knew her moods could swing and he could lose her again.

A happy ending, or was it? For Stacey Jackson, and for many other Nova Scotia teenagers, it certainly seemed to be. Stacey did testify against her former pimp, Michael (“Smit”) Sears, who was sentenced in 1993 to six years in prison. She did leave The Game and rejoin that straight world. Today Stacey derives great satisfaction from talking to high school students about her experiences. She has seen how young people readily accept a lesson learned in the school of real life. When Stacey visits a school she does not see that glassy eyed expression of teenage boredom that often greets a guest lecturer offering advice—even if that advice is something the teens really need.

Stacey paid dearly for her involvement in the deadly game. She lost custody of her son to his father's family. She also lost her home after realizing she could not stay in Halifax, as she had wished. For two years after her court appearance, she insisted on living in a small north-end apartment and maintaining her friendships with the young women she had met as a prostitute but who, unlike her, had been unable to break free. Perhaps she hoped to steer them away from The Game; certainly she felt they deserved at least her support and sympathy, but in the end she yielded to pressure from her family and from police. In early 1996, as the date for Smit's possible parole neared, Stacey Jackson moved to another part of Canada. That the location, like her name, must remain unknown is another painful consequence of her experience with the world of violent crime.

Yet Stacey Jackson was one of the lucky ones. Other young prostitutes, like her friend Annie Mae Wilson, had paid the ultimate price. Still others stopped being juvenile prostitutes only because they turned eighteen. The Game is still being played on the streets of Halifax, although now the rules have changed. The task force has all but disappeared; before it fell victim to the budget cutter's knife it sent a ringing message to the pimps who still ply their trade in Halifax. The brutal treatment of prostitutes, whatever their age, is not to be tolerated. Tough new federal anti-pimping legislation, carrying much longer prison sentences for pimps who prey on juveniles, has enhanced the message. Violence had been touted as the key to a pimp's success. Today it is seen as a weakness. The Game is played for money and the players adjust to rule changes quickly. If beating girls means going to jail, then beating girls is not a smart man's way to play. One jailed pimp recently joked about this trend, saying his colleagues now had to buy ice-cream cones for their girls to keep them happy. That change in attitude may have made life safer for the young girls in Halifax it has not stopped the brutality elsewhere. The pimps know young girls are more profitable and they are not yet willing to give up that easy money. Police in Montreal and Toronto still report serious problems of violence against underage prostitutes, and task force members still point to the east coast as the source of that violence. The major change: the victims now tend to come from northern Ontario rather than Nova Scotia.

The anti-pimping task force was a success, but unfortunately that success has seen a return to the status quo. Prostitution has once again slipped to the back burner on the political agenda.

What the task force could not do, what it was never asked to do, was target the real source of the problem. In Nova Scotia, pimping is a complex, uniquely delicate problem with roots stretching deep into the province's history—a problem that is widely misunderstood and formidably challenging. In a word, the problem is racism.

Unfortunately, what happened to Annie Mae Wilson and Stacey Jackson is fodder for the racists. It is the kind of fodder that perpetuates the ignorance that lies beneath racism. Merely to state a single fact—that the vast majority of Nova Scotia's pimps are black men from a small community just outside Dartmouth—is to hold a lighted match under the powder-keg of racial politics past and present. If the discussion proceeds past this first danger-point, add a second fact: their “employees” are invariably white women and girls. Annie Mae Wilson and Stacey Jackson—white victims; Bruno Cummings and Michael Sears—black criminals. Those facts are enough for the racists.