Lady in Red
Say what you will, but one of my favorite memories from growing up was driving down State Street in South Salt Lake at sunset and making a game of pointing out which of the girls standing on corners were just waiting for the bus and which were waiting for another kind of pick-up...
(I'm using a jump here because what follows might not be considered "family friendly" to some people, and I because I'm running some review campaigns in the near future (so you can win money! I'm doing it all for you!), I just feel better about talking about hookers somewhere other than on my homepage. Cool?)
So. Hookers.
In Utah they're not always easy to spot, as they, like everyone else, wear mostly jeans and T-shirts and comfortable shoes and questionable hairdos, whereas in Vegas, for instance, it's simpler once you know the code. To separate the vacation-trashy from the career-trashy (because in Vegas there's a high preponderance of women between the ages of 17 and 45 wearing spandex dresses and too much makeup), simply remember that the true working girls are far too practical and professional to suffer platform stilettos and can therefore always be positively identified by their slutty clothes paired with sensible footwear. They'll change their shoes once they're inside a casino and on the arm of some greasy schlub, of course, but out on the street, look for mini skirts + tennis shoes and, bam, that's your girl.
And also? She will have a "fuckbag"--not a purse but a fuckbag, and I'm sorry, but that's what it's called--filled with sundry sleepover supplies and whatnot. Yes. Ahem.
(Please note that we didn't call it a "fuckbag" when I was growing up because, yes, even though we were out in the car playing a rousing family game of Spot the Ho, we were still just children, for heaven's sakes, and my parents weren't monsters.)
(Also, for the record, it's not like we made an event out of this, all "Come on, kids! Lets go find some women selling their bodies!" It's just something that would happen on the drive between downtown and the suburbs, and the reason I got such a kick out of it back then, and why I have such fond memories of it now, is because I was fully aware of how twisted it was, especially in the context of my uber-normal childhood. See also: recreational visits to historic cemeteries, including spending Mother's Day of 1989 in a cemetery in an old Colorado mining town (Silverton, I think?) looking, as my dad said, "at some dead muthas." Grotesque and morbid, and my first taste of black humor. Thanks, Dad!)
My dad...well, you might say he had a thing for hookers. BUT IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK. My mom knew what fun he had playing our amateur version of Hooker Lookout, so one year she set him up on a ride-along with a cop friend of hers who had a side gig as a prostitution sting officer. They'd wire a lady cop with microphones under her streetwalker "uniform" and then hang out across the street in an inconspicuous beater of an unmarked car and wait for her to make a deal. When the time was right, the car would peel out into traffic, and my dad's job was to flip down the passenger-side sun visor, exposing the red and blue flashers on an otherwise undercover hoopty ride. And the guys they would catch? They weren't what (or when) you might expect. These were dudes headed to work or on their lunch breaks. Dudes with BYU license frames and various other church/family parahernalia decorating their minivans. One guy was so scared and humiliated he wet himself right there next to his parked car. Just wow, right?
Anyway, once your eye is trained to this sort of thing, it's hard to unlearn it, and although the Bay Area has its own distinct cultural hallmarks (there's big business in tranny hookers, for instance), I can't help being able to see what I see. When I moved to Berkeley, it wasn't long before I noticed the activity down on San Pablo Avenue south of University, and even a novice can tell just exactly what the girls are up to on International near High Street in Oakland. We're not talking jeans and Pumas here but skirts shorter than my underwear and heels as high as the Tribune Building downtown. And when you drive by--man, woman, happy little family of three, whatever--the ladies wave and smile and make no apologies for what they're doing. I find myself both cringing and blushing, and it's actually--obviously--really terrible; the woman/mother in me shrinks back as much as she wants to reach out.
And yet...pointing out hookers with Simon brings back fond memories of warm summer nights in Salt Lake City, driving home sleepy after a full day day with my parents and brother, and feeling like I had it pretty darn good. Admittedly, it's pretty gross that spotting hookers with my beau reminds me of my picture-perfect childhood, but there you have it.
A few years ago, when we used to drive through the same intersection every day after work, Simon and I had a "favorite hooker" (legs up to HERE, I tell you), and one evening we passed by her corner and found her getting her portrait taken up against the brick wall by three uniformed officers. We didn't know quite how to react. At first, we kind of booed at the cops, but then we quickly revised ourselves and hoped that this would get her off the streets for good; she looked like a nice girl. It was a bit of a letdown to not see her holding up the wall anymore with those daddy longlegs limbs every day, but of course the best case scenario is that she found somewhere else to go, something else to do.
Now that I'm picking Simon up after work, we pass through a prostitution hot spot on our way home, and in the last few days of warm weather, the ladies have been out in force. There's none of that catty fighting for "territory" because there simply aren't enough street corners to give each girl her own. They're just there. Everywhere. And it's hard not to gawk. Forget about the girls wearing the clothes, the clothes themselves defy the laws of physics.
On Monday we were stopped in the left-hand turn lane of a busy street and Simon caught eyes with a skinny little thing in a lipstick-red minidress and shoes that would put a stiltwalker to shame. Simon--the consummate friendly guy--met eyes with the girl as she sucked on her lime popsicle, and when she smiled back and pointed her finger at him like a tractor beam, I gulped and turned away, feeling embarrassed and shy and guilty and who knows what else. I'd never seen anyone break through that barrier before. My kid was in the back seat.
Hand to his chest ("moi?") , Simon smiled back at her, then shrugged his shoulders and patted me on the head, which I guess is International Sign Language for "Sorry; I'm sure you're lovely, but I have a little wifey." (And what little wifey wouldn't be charmed by that? Blech.) But then this girl in the siren-red dress did something that made me want to laugh and cry and blush and barf and keep a secret and tell the whole internet about, all at the same time: she smiled, pointed at Simon, pointed at me, held up three fingers, and then gave her popsicle a lick. I could have died.
And that, my friends, is the first time I have been propositioned by a hooker.
(It doesn't need to be said that we made the left-hand turn--just one and not four!--and then kept on driving, yes? Okay, good.)
I must be completely oblivious because I *never* notice hookers. Anywhere. And we live, like, a block away from where there are hookers regularly.
(I hope you took her proposition as a compliment!)
BEST. HOOKER. STORY. EVER.
And I think I told you guys my hooker story? Which (until now) was pretty dang good, I thought? Involving going bald, Highland hospital, a male nurse and Fruitvale?
Man, the thing I miss most about my old neighborhood is the hookers. We had a favorite one too. Yeah, that came out wrong. You know what I mean.
Holly--As soon as I posted this, I worried about getting mean comments from people accusing me of being insensitive to the plight of the less fortunate, a la your crack whore story.
Please know, however, that if you ever need a hooker fix, our neighborhood is your neighborhood.
RAD. Marvelous. I need to move to YOUR neighborhood.
Do we have hookers in Iowa? I am now on a hunt. Thanks for turning my downtown Saturday's Farmer's market into The Hunt For The Red October, hooker style.
So... this isn't a sponsored review? :(
I know, not the point, but I can't help but hope that her offer was made exactly because she could see your sweet family and just felt like messing with you. Not that there's any realistic hope this isn't her life and she isn't that jaded, but...
(So not judging you or thinking your not sympathetic to the plight of others yada yada yada. Just having a little trouble shaking the blatancy of that image on a day when I'm already feeling sensitive.)
I don't doubt for a second that she was messing with us, but I also know for certain that if we had pulled over and asked her to hop in she would have because that's how she makes money. But heck, I'd take the pair of us over some sleazy john any day, wouldn't you?
Oh god this is hilarious. And horrifying!!! Sweet little 'bat being so close to her whorish ways.
BTW, one term every Oaklander must have in their vocabulary is "tumbleweave". I'm pretty sure you can guess what that is.
BTW, I wonder if you could hire her to do anything you wanted. Like....mop the floor or something. Weed the garden a bit. Something useful!
Mop? Not in those shoes!
Does it seem weird that I completely love this? It's pretty rare that I actually notice any of these ladies around Portland, but when I do they have to really stand out! I will be on the lookout for comfortable shoes from now on.
I love that other families play Spot The Ho and also, kudos to the hooker for that lime popsicle bit. WELL-PLAYED.
Amy took the proverbial popcicle out of my mouth...Well played indeed. Look at that ho, showing off her skillz!
So I am terrible at identifying hookers, but maybe I should pay more attention. This seems like a fun game and much more exciting than I'm Thinking Of A Number Between 1 And 10 or the States And State Capitals game.
A friend of mine and I were once propositioned by swingers. That was awkward.
I love it when you write stuff like this :) Very engaging. Of course I love reading about Wombat too especially since I'm 8 months pregnant with my own little man, but this is a nice change of pace, and I really admire your writing.
Enjoyed this and not trying to go all NBB commenter/crack-whore on you, but the uptick in hookers has to go hand-in-hand with the crashing economy, which kind of sucks.
heh heh!
heh heh!
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Thank you for the good writeup. It in fact was a amusement account it. Look advanced to more added agreeable from you! By the way, how could we communicate?