Endless
Days and Nights in Fat Alley
Fat Alley was a notorious red light district in Galveston Texas. Photographs from that era rarely show the terrible plight of the women involved in that trade. This is one poor girl's story.
Lottie was only ten when her mama died and her
good-for-nothing pa sold her to Madam Kitty in an alley off Postoffice Street.
Her job was to fetch clean water for the basin next to the bedstead in between
Johns. She kept her head low and learned to stay out of reach of lecherous men
who fancied the virginal blossom of youth.
It seemed overnight her breasts grew and soft
hair sprouted between her legs. The changes did not go unnoticed. Lottie was
all grown, they declared, and she was given her own crib with a rag filled
mattress and a lamp draped with a red scarf. Her lips and cheeks were painted
and her hair curled.
She did not know what to expect. She had seen
the tears and bruises, and unborn children carried away in the middle of the
night. But she could not imagine the pain of the endless days and nights that
were to come.