Taking a Wrong Turn

It was raining and dark and I don’t drive well at night under the best circumstances. Somehow in the dark, the lights in traffic spray out and go blurry in my eyes. I know I need to get my glasses redone for night driving—but that would require bifocals and my reading prescription is just perfect as it is. So of course, when we were driving last night, despite the GPS lady that Wolfie insisted we take, I went too far on I-20 way on the other side of town. When I realized my mistake I got off the interstate so I could backtrack, I took a wrong turn around the Fulton Industrial Boulevard exit.

I have been in that area during the day. There’s an airport over there. Gas stations. Ugly industrial-looking buildings. The GPS lady told me to turn right, which made no sense to me—I was born in this city—so I turned left. “Mom, this is a bad street, this doesn’t look good. We need to get out of here,” Wolfie said nervously.

He pointed out the women standing under a street lamp, despite the rain, despite the dark, with their shirts open, exposing more than anyone would want to see—or should see. It made me feel cold just to look at them. “Mom, are they prostitutes?”

I have never actually known a prostitute and it’s probably not a good thing to judge people by appearances, but I knew instinctively that these shivery women, who were dangerously calling out to each passing car—including us—were indeed practitioners of the world’s oldest profession. “I’m pretty sure they are,” I said.

Still, I figured if I kept driving I would find my way without the GPS lady, a recognizable street, a landmark. Nothing. We were on a side street, like a cave, the further we went, the darker it became. First nervousness set in. Then fear. No longer were the people on the roadside helpless, sad women, whose life took a wrong turn who knows where, now we saw men, who wore stocking caps and floppy coats covered in big, deep pockets. They gave us reprimanding looks: “You don’t belong here.” We didn’t actually see any bad-evil-doing. It was more what we saw in their eyes, like a glaze where violence and hatred had pooled together.

Well, we found our way out, after about 10 minutes. My stupidity, of course, has made the rounds on the family phone tree. My eldest son, Vincent, has called twice this morning from Naples, Fla., to hear the details. Wolfie has chided me to no end. “I told you not to turn there!”

And this morning—although I’ve missed church AND Sunday School—my absolute favorite part of the week—we are safe. We are in our warm house in Avondale. Wolfie is lying on the sofa reading philosophy for school. And I am drinking a cup of coffee, sitting here by the window, in my fuzzy robe.

“Those prostitutes were yelling at us,” Wolfie reminded me again a minute ago, perhaps hoping that I, his mother, can make sense of what we saw. Unsaid: why isn’t anyone helping them?

“I know,” I offer weakly. “I just don’t think they’d be interested in doing the kind of work I might have for them—house work, yard work.”

I cannot get the image of those women out of my mind. Even this morning, they’re still stumbling in the dark, immodestly exposed, wet, cold, in danger. I have seen them and while I will pray and think good thoughts for them, I know they need more. And I feel helpless because I don’t know what that “more” is and I know that providing that “more” is completely beyond me.

As I contemplate the problem, I remember what I heard at the Council of the Diocese that I attended in November with Patricia and Maggie and Laura and Renee. It was in a committee that Maggie and I sat in on—to debate and approve or table a resolution to oppose and prevent sex trafficking of children in Atlanta. The room at St. Philip was packed, and as the magnitude of the problem became clear—some 200 to 300 young girls are exploited in Georgia every month--the sentiment of several people in the room shifted to the idea that the problem was so complicated, so overwhelming, so beyond comprehension, that the resolution needed study. It should be re-crafted and brought back next year for a vote, several voices said.

Maggie Harney, the priest who runs Martha & Mary’s Place at St. Dunstan’s, quickly lost patience. “We can’t afford to wait another year while these children are in harm’s way!” she told the committee, with an intensity and immovability that wasn’t up for challenge.

I was sitting by Maggie, immediately proud of her tenacity, awed by her fierce compassion for thousands of children, perhaps not even a single one of which she will ever meet. Simply put, Maggie was a pit bull in a room where there were a lot of poodles.

Eventually language was crafted that said the Bishop should appoint a committee to study the problem and find the next best steps for Diocese to help.

Now I don’t know where the Bishop is with this project at this point. But I will mention this—in the committee, we learned about the Atlanta Urban Internship Program, a ministry of the Diocese that works to oppose the commercial sexual exploitation of children in this city through education and direct intervention. For instance, the interns assist with programs at Covenant House, a shelter for runaways. There is training involved to help these girls, who have been deeply abused physically, spiritually and mentally.

I don’t know what the success rate is to help these children so that they don’t grow up to become the sad, hopeless specters that Wolfie and I happened upon last night. But I do believe that even speaking up—like Maggie did that day—can make a difference. To contemplate, to study, to remember the people that touch us when we take wrong turns--even from the relatively safety of a locked car--I think, is also important. As our Presiding Bishop is want to remind us--each human being is made in the image of God.