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"Lia fought with some of the men who attempted to control the flow of money and business in the house She was beaten severely Eventually she learned to defend herself, most often with a weapon They were a family of prostitutes A man could pick froe frouyen was born in 1985, the first boy in the farew into adulthood, she becaate mother Her own mother continued her descent into addiction and died in 1988 of an overdose"

"Lia and her sisters survived okay for a couple years She looked out for Tri as if he was her own son, but raising a child was difficult in that environht with one of Lia’s sister’s clients The erent, and didn’t want to pay after he’d already saht, Tri ju The man fell on him by accident The police hauled the ht the worst of it with a broken arm"

"Tri healed quickly, but Lia had o She worked double shifts at a strip club and did sohof 1991 she arrived in New York with Tri After paying for their visas and travel expenses, she was broke"

"She went to work i what she knew best That’s how I ood bites"

"We hit it off instantly She related her sad story, talked of her desire to find her father I e She wanted todeep into my soul He ell aware of the effect he had on ut Lia’s life was a e of mine Different, but the saan to fear what Enrique ht reveal

"At the time, I needed tax deductions for one of ed for Lia’s scholarship, a full ride I was being generous, the Good Samaritan I even hired a detective to find her father"

He spoke of the very thing I wantedbetter, so more than a prostitute It hurt to listen

"As luck would have it, he didn’t live very far away He had a se of the Appalachians"

"I’d been visiting Lia regularly, keeping tabs on her,sure she stayed in school and out of trouble We spent plenty of ti in love"

"Her father, Rayon He’d survived numerous forays into the bush country, one of their elite Like somachine who collected trophies of flesh When the military breeds a creature like that, they don’t teach him how to turn off the machine Most of the injuries to show for their service They encountered a hostile environment here in the US when they returned People called the a veteran of Vietnam was a stain on your resume They were not honored for their service to their country"

"Rayovernhts and freedo member of the NRA, he was armed at all times For him, Vietnam had never really ended He returned to the bush country in his nightly dreams, and he had flashbacks, what they call PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder A loud noise or sudden er a vivid memory"

"I know all this because I read his psychiatric treaterous unpredictable son-of-a-bitch, and definitely bigoted towards Asians, especially Vietna But I learned these things later

"He met Lia the first time at a coffee shop a few blocks from her apartment They didn’t have much to say She talked of life in Vietnam post hich held his interest Theirs was a tentative connection, just enough to agree to , but eventually, with Lia calling hiether at a McDonalds near her college She was excited for Ray to meet the people that meant the uessed, she was a bloodslave It’s near impossible to have an intimate relationship otherwise She was quite fond of me back then She wanted me to meet her father, especially since I paid to find hiround and talked while Tri played with the other kids The problem started when an Asian fa their every move as they settled in Their children ran off to join Tri They weren’t Vietnamese, but that didn’t stop Tri, he chattered away at theue Ray had this wild look in his eyes Watching that fa They couldn’t understand Tri One boy had a black plastic toy pistol, one of those realistic looking ones Tri grabbed it and wouldn’t give it back"

"They chased Tri as he ran to Lia, toy in hand The other two kids swargling with so past, Ray couldn’t handle the noise He ju Gooks up!’"