The second installment of Michael Troy's new blog:
Suicide Betty, who we called Miami Betty until she killed herself, was a young woman whose life had been filled with bad luck. She was a beauty — part Seminole Indian, part Cuban, part white trash — who already looked considerably older than her 22 years.
She’d grown up in foster homes around the Miami area. Her foster parents, men and women alike, had spent most of the time that Betty was in their care fucking her and then beating her up, or beating her up and then fucking her.
She would run away constantly. On the streets, she’d turn tricks or sell drugs. Much of her time was spent at Miami-Dade Women’s Correctional Facility. But it didn’t matter what city she took off to; wherever she went she had a near genius for finding the worst part of town, turning the wrong trick, and winding up busted.
During her time in prison she grew to mistrust men and to rely on women. Betty wasn’t big or tough. Her only hope for survival was in being adopted by the roughest of the older prison dykes and the most hooked-up of the guards.
This article appears in Apr 8-14, 2009.