Cinco de Mayo
In the late ’70s Ellen Kahaner recruited a number of Columbia MFAs to work on Unmuzzled OX. One was Valerie Sayers, now a widely-honored novelist. Another I will call Susan; she was a frail and pretty girl with thick glasses. She worked diligently for two months and disappeared. Six months later Ellen breathlessly reported that Susan had gone to Mexico with a boy who promptly sold her into a brothel. It took four months for her to escape.
posted by Michael Andre at
5:04 AM
5 Comments:
Isn't that like a federal crime or something -- to sell someone to a brothel? What happened to all these people?
Still tapping Ming fingernails and waiting for an update.
After Ellen told me the story, we went silent at the horror. The three of us had been buddies. I don't know if she even returned to Columbia. I think the man who took her to Mexico planned the whole thing from the start. He would be a trafficker and con man.
Sexual slavery is common. Some years ago, waiting for a friend with business in the courts in Luxembourg, I had lunch in a cafe where a half-dozen women loudly expressed their discontent; they had ended up as whores after an immigration fraud. Their story, unlike my friend's, was no secret. The laws of Luxembourg are capricious. But are sex workers everywhere foreign-born?
Ask Natalie Holloway.
I think there's a reason they can't find the body.
Travel is exciting when it is dangerous. Some trips, of course, leave you a wreck. But, all in all, is there a greater adventure than travel? In Peru my wife thought she might die from altitude sickness. Then, in Bolivia, I fell victim to the Inca's Revenge.
Like I say, travel can leave you a wreck.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home