It’s not a perfect world.

Content Warning: Mentions of trafficking and sexual assault, but no descriptive content.

It was Maria who made it clear to me that my middle-class sensibilities would not survive working on the streets among the unhoused community.

Maria was a natural leader, attracting the respect of the other folks who were in her circle, and eventually I would learn that when I needed support in that community for something that would be unpopular, winning Maria over would be an essential, early step.

She was attractive, vibrant, and intelligent. Her partner Jake beat her often during the more than three years they had been together. He accompanied her everywhere, constantly referred to her as “his woman”, and I knew of several occasions where he had beaten men who were a little too attentive to her.

I was one of very few men he allowed her to be alone with for any length of time. I think it was that I was a pastor – even people who are unbelievers often grant unearned respect to clergy folks. But maybe he just saw me – someone who taught nonviolence – as no threat to someone as overtly masculine as he was.

One day I ran into her in the park. She was sitting on the bench, alone, scrolling her phone, her bags beside her. I was walking toward the soup kitchen, and she saw me, and flagged me down. I sat next to her.

After some initial pleasantries, we sat there for a few minutes in silence as she worked up her nerve to tell me what was on her mind. Then I notice she has a bruise on the side of her face.

“Are you OK?” I ask, pointing at the bruise.

She sighs. “Yeah. I just got too mouthy with Jake when he was high. I should have known better.”

“Oh, Maria. You should get away from him.”

She looked at me with sad brown eyes – eyes not filled with sadness for herself, but at my naivete.

“You really don’t understand, do you? The first month I was homeless, I got raped twice. Got groped dozens of times. It was hell. Then Jake told me that if I was his woman, nobody else would ever touch me again. And they don’t. Everyone is scared of Jake.”

I was beginning, unhappily, to understand.

“So Jake protects you?” I ask with a bit of snark in my voice.

“Dammit, Hugh. My choice was get fucked by random men who would always hurt me or get fucked by one guy who is mostly nice, and who protects me from everyone but him. And sometimes, it’s really nice. He will bring me flowers he picked in the park, or we will go for a walk in the Azalea garden over by the TV station. And he always smiles when he sees me.”

Sounding meaner than I meant to, I said, “And sometimes he beats your ass.”

She touches her face distractedly and says, “Yeah. But it’s not a perfect world.”

She looked at the time on her phone, and said, “I got to get to the soup kitchen if I’m gonna eat. You coming?”

I told her to go ahead without me, and I walked the other way, head down, lost in my thoughts. Because I still wasn’t sure why she had flagged me down in the first place – what it was she had intended to tell me.

But one thing was clear: I had a lot to learn.