I was a senior in college with a head full of dreams, starry eyed and sheltered, only a semester away from becoming a real, living, breathing certified elementary teacher. It was a Thursday night in October and I received a call asking if I was interested in picking up an off-campus babysitting job. Sure. I needed the money. I called the number back. A woman answered the phone in her raspy voice. Her voice was worn; she bluntly informed me that she was a dancer at Sassy Reds and needed someone to come tonight so she could work. Could I be on the north side of town in 30 minutes? I was skeptical. The north side of town was not known for its’ rainbows and unicorns. It was sketchy to say the least. Dark. Bad stuff happened...things I had only heard about...happened...on the north side of town.
A half an hour later, I knocked on the cracking, stripped paint of a delapidated shack of a house. The door opened and there towering over me was a big hairy man covered in dark biker pants, tattoos on every last inch, and a black vest. Had I missed his Harley outside? Intimidated to say the least, trying to work up the nerve to walk in, I pushed myself forward. A skin and bones woman with stringy blond hair and leathery, wrinkled skin, probably about 30. But to me she looked like someone who had lived a long, long life.
A quick intro of her daughter, a tiny replica of what her mama might have been decades ago, a blonde cherubim, unblemished, perfect skin, ragged, stained clothes, thick and yellowed with smoke. Her name was Fancy. That Reba song rang heavy in my ears.
And the next 5 hours marked my life. I had conversations with a 4-year old that sounded a whole lot more like a 18-year old, high school girl, who had already traded her virginal ways. She talked about things even I was too naive to know. I was a Bible college girl. She talked about mommy’s boyfriend and boyfriends and boys and the men who came and went from her house. And the details of what these men liked to do. And then Fancy informed me she would be peeing in the bathtub that night as she took her bath. And I had no idea what I could say or do to make her life better or to change anything. Fancy made regular use of four letter words. And how often she had new babysitters and how she was accustomed to strangers....and I stood there speechless, in complete shock, wondering if there was anything I could do and feeling more than helpless, wondering what kind of perfect, horrible, sheltered, Christian bubble I had been living in.
Past 10 o’clock and I noticed the roaches wouldn’t cross over the linoleum onto the carpet floors. And there were plenty of them. Those icky, fast-moving German cockroaches. And all I could do was hold Fancy and sing “Amazing Grace.” And she asked me to sing it over and over and over again.
Mama came home sometime after midnight, Fancy asleep, with her head on my lap, Dora still playing on the TV. Biker dude at her side and mama told me it had been a good night. She walked quickly into her room and reappeared with a Crown Royal bag from which she grabbed a wad of cash and wrote my number in crayon in the yellow pages.
Silently. Thoughtful. I drove home. Up the stairs to my dorm room. It was clean. Quiet. Focused. My perfect little world. Organized. Put together. A life on the brink of all my dreams and big ideas; my unicorns and rainbows. Crawled in my bed, praying for and thinking about what would become of Fancy, that blonde cherubim, just a baby in a grown up world, and cried myself to sleep...
We live in a city where this is the reality for hundreds and thousands. Literally look around you and you will see all the Fancy’s out there. In the words of Reba, “Just plain, white trash...” but her name meant so much more. See every little girl and every grown up girl deserves to know she can be more. And I believe, we could be the shapers of someone else’s future...the lifebringers...and storywriters...
In a just a few short months we will come together for “Unwritten” Inspire
Conference 2016. I believe that we each have a sister or a friend or an abuela or a hopeless teenager that’s never had anybody tell her she could be more or a single mom struggling to make it any way they know how, a dancer or a prostitute or an escort. Our city is full of women who once were tiny, beautiful, unblemished “Fancy’s.” What if you or I could help them write a better story, because they simply don’t know how to be fancy, purpose-filled, or fearless on their own? We can fill the unwritten pages of their life with love and hope and a fantastic, amazing story. And they just need someone to believe in them. Someone who will help them to change their story. To write a better story. To begin a new chapter. Sponsor a sister, a stripper, a stranger. Who will you sponsor? Who will you bring? From this day forward, the past is gone, the future is limitless. Our tomorrow UNWRITTEN.
