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BOOK SUMMARY
My Daddy, the Devil, and Me is the true story of a daughter who was sexually molested by her father for more than two decades. Her father gave her cocaine to keep her under his control, trained her to be a prostitute, physically abused her, and used her as his chief accomplice in a series of bank frauds.
This memoir tells how a young girl was brainwashed to believe it is was normal to have sex with her father and fall in love with him, in the hope of one day marrying him.
Her dreams began to shatter as the years went by. The pain of not knowing where she belonged in this world or whom she could trust led to feelings of shame and guilt, and thoughts of suicide. Worst of all, she didn’t know how she could ever face her mother again.
CHAPTER ONE
The Night My Daddy Took Me to Hell
It was the happiest day of my life. I was fifteen years old, and my Daddy was coming to pick me up.
I’d been living with my mother and my stepfather all my life. My stepfather was Army—a Sergeant First Class when he retired—and I hated him, mostly because he wasn’t my Daddy. I didn’t want him telling me anything, and I made life miserable for him and my mother—even though I had everything I wanted or needed. The truth is, I was spoiled. I didn’t even make up my own bed until I was about fourteen years old.
We lived in Freehold, New Jersey, in a duplex apartment on Monmouth Avenue. On this sunny afternoon, summer of 1973, I kept looking out the window, watching for my Daddy’s car, while my mother kept telling me, “You really shouldn’t go with him, he’s no good.” I’d heard this from her so many times, I didn’t want to hear it again. She always tried to keep me away from him.
I had a charcoal drawing of my Daddy nailed to the wall in my room, and I looked at it while I waited for him. It was a large portrait, bigger than 8x10, and I used to stare at it all the time, to see if my nose looked like his nose, if my lips looked like his lips. I just wanted to know him.
Someone drew that picture in prison, I found out later.
I look very much like my Daddy. I look like him more than I look like my mother. We’re close to the same height—we could wear each other’s jeans. All my life, I’ve heard people say, “You look just like your father.” Up to a certain age, that made me happy to hear.
Finally, his big tan Eldorado pulled up in front. Soon as I saw it, I ran outside. My mother was looking out one door, my stepfather was at another door, watching my Daddy hug me. It was like my knight in shining armor had come. (I was also showing off for my stepfather, because he said my father wouldn’t show up.) I jumped into that Eldorado, ready to go anyplace my Daddy wanted to take me.
He took me to New Brunswick. I knew he had a wife there, named Angelique, but we didn’t go to her house, we went to the Howard Johnson’s on Route 1.
On the way, he told me that he had a truck, that he bought with a partner, and he was going to make a lot of money with the truck. That was his job, and I could go with him if I wanted.
He was thirty-four years old then, trim, not too heavy. He shaved his head, but usually had a thin covering of hair. He had very dark skin, with the most appealing grayish-bluish eyes. They were captivating, really. To this day, I have never seen any eyes like that on another black man.
Aside from his eyes, his looks were average, but he always considered himself handsome, a sort of five-foot-nine Denzel Washington. My love for him made me feel the same way.
His smell was another story. He wouldn’t bathe, but every hour or so, he put cologne on his hands and face and clothes, to cover up the musty smell—a lot of cologne. Polo was his brand.
As for me, I never thought I was pretty. I had really bad acne—looked as if someone had thrown a bowl of blackberries in my face. I have very long, pecan-tan legs and a small waist, but as far as breasts, I wasn’t fully developed into womanhood yet. My best features, like my Daddy’s, were my eyes. But mine are big and brown.
I had on blue jeans and Converse sneakers: that’s what I always wore. I had my hair with bangs in front and a small pigtail in the back. I was basically a shy, withdrawn person, with very low self-esteem. But that afternoon, I was on top of the world.
His motel room was on the first floor. The walls were yellow, and the bedspreads were bluish green, with flowers. It had two double beds, and a small cot set up by the wall. His partner was there, a white man with long blonde hair, and his partner’s girlfriend, also blonde. Her name was Ginger, and she was only a couple years older than I was. My Daddy introduced me to them. It felt a little weird, seeing this hippie-looking white guy in the room, but I was happy to meet Ginger, because she seemed happy and appealing, and closer to my age.
I trusted my Daddy completely, completely, completely.
I didn’t know a thing about life.
I played in the motel pool all afternoon with Ginger. I do love to swim. She told me, “Once we get to Florida, I have a pony that I want to give you.” I had been horseback riding in Kentucky, before we moved to Freehold, and I was really excited about that. I thought, If I can just get to Florida with them, I can have my own pony.
Once it started to get dark, around nine or so, we went back to the room and toweled off. Ginger left with my Daddy’s partner—they went out to dinner, and didn’t come back until the next day. I think they wanted privacy for themselves.
I was lying on the bed in my wet rolled-up blue jeans and T-shirt—I didn’t bring a bag or a bathing suit with me—watching Let’s Make a Deal. My Daddy said, “Debbie, you can get comfortable. Here, put one of my shirts on.”
He gave me a yellow dress shirt, long sleeve, and I put that on. Then he went over to the dresser and took something out of the top drawer. It was a little packet, aluminum foil, about as long as my thumb and folded flat. He opened it up and set it on top of the dresser. There was white powder inside, and he told me to sniff it up my nose.
I asked, “What is it?”
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing that’s gonna hurt you. Just do what I say. Don’t worry about it, it’s not going to hurt you. Trust me.”
He had the powder in a line on the dresser, and he gave me a coffee-straw to sniff with.
“What do I do?”
“Just go—” sniff “—like that.”
I did what he told me. It burned the inside of my nose.
“You’ll be fine in a minute,” he said.
I didn’t know what to expect, but it did make me light-headed after a while. It also gave me a slight headache. Prior to that I had smoked a joint with my friend, but that was it. I didn’t know anything about cocaine or the harder drugs. I never even heard of it, never knew it existed. My first thought was, My mother would never let me do this. I just thought it was something for grownups.
Why would a father give his teenage daughter cocaine? I think it was a party drug to him, to get me more relaxed. I also believe he wanted to get me addicted—so I wouldn’t think about what was going on around me. Everything was for his own purposes. When I look back, after everything I went through with him, I believe that was his intention. Yes, he cared about me to a certain extent, but not the way a father should care about his daughter.
He sniffed some powder too, but I didn’t notice how much. We hung out for a while on our two beds, watching TV. He told me how glad he was to see me, that I was growing up, and that he loved me. I told him I was glad he came and got me. No matter how good they have it, kids miss their father.
He asked me did I want to come with him on his truck. I told him Yes, and he said, “I’m gonna take you to Florida, you’re going to love it. We’ll go to Disney World.”
I believed everything he said.
He was lying on the bed with his feet crossed, his arms folded. He didn’t like the game show I was watching. “Why do you watch this?” he asked. “You really should watch the news. You can find out what’s going on in the world if you watch the news.”
The next thing he said was, “You know, you can come over here and lie next to me.”
I went over and lay next to him. I didn’t think nothing of it—he was my Daddy. He put his arms around me, and rubbed my shoulders. His hands were soft and smooth—he never had calluses. And then he kissed me, on my lips.
It was just a little peck. I thought it was a bit weird, but I was still glad to be there. Then he started kissing me harder. I went cold inside, not understanding. He kept talking to me, saying, “You can lay on my chest, you can relax, I’m your Dad, I love you, nothing bad is going to happen to you. It’s okay if you kiss me.”
It didn’t take long before he was on top of me. Just a few minutes after that first kiss, he was pulling my panties over to the side.
The room lights were out by then, but the TV stayed on. That was the only light. I didn’t speak up. I didn’t say anything like, I don’t want to, or Please don’t, or I’m scared. I can’t really explain why not. I was emotional, I was crying, but I never said, Don’t. I just kept hearing myself think, My father is having sex with me. Oh my God.
My eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling. Tears were falling down the side of my face.
The TV stayed on the whole time.