Red Light District
Downtown Blair was too cold to wear a tank top and a miniskirt, but Sylvia needed to advertise the goods. She paced along the storefront windows as her high heels clicked on the concrete and her breath escaped in a cloud. She folded her arms against herself and stepped into the cove of the recessed door to avoid the breeze. Behind the metal bars over the windows CHECK$ CA$HED! was painted in red block letters on one side and TODAY’$ PAYDAY! on the other. She flipped her long blonde hair away from her face before she lit her cigarette.
She walked to the pawnshop window next door. The streetlight reflected in the glass, the entire window flashed red. In the front display sat a wedding ring set, a diamond engagement ring and a matching wedding band, slipped onto a felt display. Sylvia bit on her thumbnail. The rings had a paper price tag attached with a string: $1250 for the set. Exactly double what she pawned it for 31 days earlier for gambling money at the casino. She had run into a string of bad luck, and it kept getting worse. She planned to buy the rings back the next morning, get back down to Roosterville and never set foot in a casino again.
She had work to do.
The crosswalk signal flashed a red silhouette of a hand. Up Van Buren Avenue, past the bridge, the parking garage spanned the block between 6th and 7th Streets. The johns that she would soon separate from their money were parked there. Beyond the garage, Van Buren was a canyon between alpine skyscrapers. Most of the lights in the buildings were dim, but hundreds of windows still emitted tiny rectangles of light.
Soon they would come to her. The workaholics who worked themselves into divorce court, the business travelers trying to finish their assignments in time to get home for the weekend, the out-of-towners who struck out in the bars and the just plain lonely were still up there.
The johns would miss the road sign that would have told them to turn at the light at 3rd Street to reach the freeway. They would pass straight through the intersection and find themselves on an overpass with nowhere to turn around. They would come to her. They wouldn’t be looking, but they’d find her and decide ‘what the hell?’ They would feel the sudden heat and stiffness in their groins. They haven’t been home in days or weeks and just need a release. They would need a little something to help them focus again.
They would see her and think that she could ease their suffering. And when they were finished she would send them away relieved. They would run straight to their wives with a renewed sense of commitment and an unexpected appreciation of home. Never again would the johns stray.
She pulled her watch from her purse. It was just before midnight. Many pairs of headlights danced out of and around the parking garage, then down Van Buren. Most of them turned before reaching the bridge that crossed over the freeway below it. A car from the garage came toward her. She faced the car as it drove past. The driver looked straight ahead pretending not to see her.
She stood at the corner of 1st and Van Buren as more traffic went by. After one final drag on her smoke she tossed it toward the sewer grate and walked backwards facing the oncoming headlights. If she thought she might need to run, she wanted to already be pointed in the opposite direction.
A rusted, four-door pickup truck pulled toward the curb. The first rule in the streetwalker’s handbook was never to get into a pickup truck or a van. Getting into one would be a one-way ticket to ending up bloated and face down on the shore of a river and being discovered by a jogger. Sylvia looked in the bed of the truck as it came to a stop. Empty beer cans surrounded a bald tire on a dented rim. The johns told her everything she needed to know just by looking at the condition of their cars.
Whenever possible she stayed behind the cluster of newspaper machines and mailboxes. The boxes would provide an obstacle for a would-be assailant to manage. There was no telling who might jump out of the cars. The driver leaned across the bench seat and cranked the window down.
“How much lady?”
“200.” She was only interested in certain types of johns. Wealthy ones. And he wasn’t. Her right hand was poised at the hem of her skirt. Her fingers traced the edge of the can of pepper spray she kept holstered on her leg.
“200?” He looked her up and down, scratched his head through his greasy ball cap and fell back behind the wheel. His truck surged forward with a squeal.
Her johns should start arriving any minute. At the parking garage, the beam of headlights darted out into the street. She stared into them as the car rolled past three lights. It stopped at the fourth light, put its blinker on and started to turn, turned the blinker off, and then proceeded straight through the light. At the next intersection it hesitated, then rolled through it, onto the overpass and down to her corner.
The driver stopped at the flashing red light. A semi-folded map covered his steering wheel as he hunched over it to see the street signs. The left turn signal on the clean, new Pontiac began to blink. The flashing streetlight made the car alternate back and forth from its silver color to an iridescent pink. She smiled and winked. He made eye contact with Sylvia. The turn signal stopped blinking. The car pulled to the curb just beyond the mailboxes.
The passenger side window eased smoothly down. Sylvia checked the front windshield. The bar code sticker in the lower left corner told her this car was a rental. The sticker was a green light that signaled to her that this john was probably not a threat. She leaned over to see the driver. He wore a pressed white shirt with a tie loosened around his neck. His suit jacket hung in the back. “I seem to be lost. Do you think you can help me?”
“I can help you with whatever you need, Sugar,” Sylvia said smiling.
“I got on this street okay. I could use some help getting off,” John said and repositioned his left hand on the steering wheel. A gold wedding band adorned his finger. Jackpot.
“I will personally take you anywhere you’d like to go, for fifty dollars.”
“Fifty?” John hesitated. He rubbed his jaw then spun his wedding ring in place around his finger. He looked over his shoulder and checked for oncoming cars. He started turning the steering wheel and was ready to pull back into traffic.
Sylvia knew she was about to lose him. Two cars traveling down the near lane forced him to stay where he was. “No one ever forgets the time they spend with me. I promise.” She kissed her fingertip, leaned forward and crossed it over her heart. The window closed. John looked over his shoulder and watched the two cars pass him. As he was about to drive away, he glanced back at the passenger window. She still traced her finger over her heart and breasts. The window was full of her cleavage. John stared. The lane was clear but John did not move. He looked at his watch, and then tapped his finger on the steering wheel. He took a deep breath and puffed out his cheeks while he slowly exhaled.
The window eased back down. “Yeah, okay. That sounds good.” The electronic locks on the doors released with a cha-kunk and Sylvia climbed in. She kept her purse on her right shoulder between her body and the car door. Slowly she slipped her hand inside it.
“Why don’t you pull around to the back of this building and we’ll get started.” Sylvia pointed to the street that led to the alley behind the check cashing building. John followed her directions, parked the car and slid his seat all the way back. “Do you have some money for me, Sugar?”
John lifted himself partially from the seat and pulled out his wallet. Outside he saw nothing but overflowing dumpsters, stacks of broken pallets and crumbling brick walls in the dimly lit alley behind the buildings. Suddenly uncomfortable he swallowed and brushed the back of his hand against his forehead. He adjusted himself in the seat and turned his body to conceal the contents of his billfold. He removed one crisp fifty-dollar bill, clutched it in his left hand and returned his wallet with his right.
“Can we hurry and get this over with?” John asked as he held the money.
“Relax, Sugar. I won’t bite. Unless you want me to.” She motioned for him to give her the money. She took it and in one movement stuffed the bill into her brassiere and pulled out a badge on a chain from inside her tank top. John wrinkled his brow. His mouth hung open. Sylvia pulled her hand out of her purse holding a two-way radio.
“Money in hand, Tony,” she shouted into it. “I need back-up now! Now! God damn it! Now!”
“No. Oh, shit! No.” John was shaking his hands in front of himself, denying his intentions. Sylvia dropped the two-way into her purse and pulled the can of pepper spray from her leg holster.
“Get out of the car and put your hands on the hood. Right now.” She locked her elbow pointing the can at John.
“Lady, please. No. I can’t get arrested. I have to meet a client tomorrow morning.” He turned his head and shielded himself with his shoulder and hands.
“You should have thought about that earlier. Come on, get out of the car and put your hands on the hood.”
“Please. If my wife finds out…She’ll…” John sobbed.
“I’m not going to tell you again. What’s it going to be?” She held the spray can to his face.
Reluctantly, John stepped from the car. She kept time with his movements keeping the can aimed at his eyes. He put his palms down on the hood. She crossed the front of the car and walked behind him. One at a time she pulled his hands behind his back and closed the handcuffs into a ring around each wrist. Two rings. Sylvia saw one engagement ring and one wedding band holding his arms behind his back.
“Come on lady. All I wanted was directions back to the freeway.”
“Sure it is.” She kicked at the inner edges of his feet to widen his stance.
“Why are you doing this to me? Can’t you just let me go?” John asked.
“Let you go? Hmmm,” Sylvia frisked him.
“I’ve never even done this before,” he pleaded. “Just let me go. Please.”
“I am feeling pretty generous today. How much cash do you have on you?”
“What? Cash? Why?”
“Oh so you think I should not only let you go, but I should let you skip out on paying the fine to the city, too? You’re too much. Forget it. You have the right to remain silent-”
“Wait! I’ll pay the fine. I’m not sure how much I have on me. How much is it?” John started to attempt to remove his wallet with his hands cuffed behind his back.
“You hold still!” She held the pepper spray can at his face.
“Okay. Okay. I’m easy to get along with.” He squeezed his eyes closed and turned his head away.
Sylvia lowered the can and held it under her arm as she removed his wallet from his pocket. Fanning it open she pulled the stack of bills from it. His plastic photo holder flipped over to a photograph of him standing with a woman and two young boys. The family smiled at her. Sylvia closed her eyes, preferring to not know anything about their personal lives. She quickly flipped the photo over and counted the cash, $412. Keeping out $300, she put the rest back in and shoved the wallet in his pocket. “300,” she said. “The fine is $300.”
She folded the money and put it in her bra with the fifty he already gave her. With one hand pulling the handcuffs and the other between his shoulder blades she bent John over the hood of his car. She turned his head so he looked down the front of the car. “Hold still, I’m going to search your car. If I don’t find anything that shouldn’t be in there, I’ll let you go. Before I look, is there anything in there I should know about? Any drugs? Weapons? Anything at all?”
“I don’t have anything like that,” John said.
“I mean it, you hold still. If I see any sudden movements I’ll have to spray you.” Sylvia sat in the car. She opened the glove box and the console. It was the only downside of the rental cars; the drivers usually had lots of cash but very rarely had any valuables. All she found worth stealing was a pair of Oakley sunglasses. She could get at least twenty dollars for them at the pawnshop in the morning. She slipped one of the bows of the sunglasses onto the back of the waistband of her skirt as she left the car.
“Okay. You’re clean. You can go. But don’t let me see you down here again or next time I might not be so nice to you,” Sylvia said as she unlocked the cuffs and backed away from John.
He stood at the hood of the car and stared at her blankly. “Thank you.” His hand checked for the bulge of his wallet in his back pocket. He did not move. She was never sure what to think when the johns thanked her.
“Well? What are you waiting for?” Sylvia pointed back to the side street. He looked uneasy. Confused. He just stared at her. “Go back the way you came and turn left on 3rd Street. Now get out of here before I change my mind!” John was behind the wheel and gone in an instant. Sylvia heard his tires squeal around the front of the building. She tucked her badge back into her tank top.
She took out a nylon drawstring bag from below the stoop at the back door of the building. The sunglasses found their way into it with the other trinkets she had collected from the john’s cars. She sat on the stoop at the back door of the building. Her skin was flushed red. The chill in the air no longer had an effect on her. She smoked a cigarette, gathered her thoughts, and returned to the sidewalk out front. Before long more shiny new cars stopped to ask for directions and left paying the city’s sliding scale fine directly to her.
She walked to the pawnshop window next door. The streetlight reflected in the glass, the entire window flashed red. In the front display sat a wedding ring set, a diamond engagement ring and a matching wedding band, slipped onto a felt display. Sylvia bit on her thumbnail. The rings had a paper price tag attached with a string: $1250 for the set. Exactly double what she pawned it for 31 days earlier for gambling money at the casino. She had run into a string of bad luck, and it kept getting worse. She planned to buy the rings back the next morning, get back down to Roosterville and never set foot in a casino again.
She had work to do.
The crosswalk signal flashed a red silhouette of a hand. Up Van Buren Avenue, past the bridge, the parking garage spanned the block between 6th and 7th Streets. The johns that she would soon separate from their money were parked there. Beyond the garage, Van Buren was a canyon between alpine skyscrapers. Most of the lights in the buildings were dim, but hundreds of windows still emitted tiny rectangles of light.
Soon they would come to her. The workaholics who worked themselves into divorce court, the business travelers trying to finish their assignments in time to get home for the weekend, the out-of-towners who struck out in the bars and the just plain lonely were still up there.
The johns would miss the road sign that would have told them to turn at the light at 3rd Street to reach the freeway. They would pass straight through the intersection and find themselves on an overpass with nowhere to turn around. They would come to her. They wouldn’t be looking, but they’d find her and decide ‘what the hell?’ They would feel the sudden heat and stiffness in their groins. They haven’t been home in days or weeks and just need a release. They would need a little something to help them focus again.
They would see her and think that she could ease their suffering. And when they were finished she would send them away relieved. They would run straight to their wives with a renewed sense of commitment and an unexpected appreciation of home. Never again would the johns stray.
She pulled her watch from her purse. It was just before midnight. Many pairs of headlights danced out of and around the parking garage, then down Van Buren. Most of them turned before reaching the bridge that crossed over the freeway below it. A car from the garage came toward her. She faced the car as it drove past. The driver looked straight ahead pretending not to see her.
She stood at the corner of 1st and Van Buren as more traffic went by. After one final drag on her smoke she tossed it toward the sewer grate and walked backwards facing the oncoming headlights. If she thought she might need to run, she wanted to already be pointed in the opposite direction.
A rusted, four-door pickup truck pulled toward the curb. The first rule in the streetwalker’s handbook was never to get into a pickup truck or a van. Getting into one would be a one-way ticket to ending up bloated and face down on the shore of a river and being discovered by a jogger. Sylvia looked in the bed of the truck as it came to a stop. Empty beer cans surrounded a bald tire on a dented rim. The johns told her everything she needed to know just by looking at the condition of their cars.
Whenever possible she stayed behind the cluster of newspaper machines and mailboxes. The boxes would provide an obstacle for a would-be assailant to manage. There was no telling who might jump out of the cars. The driver leaned across the bench seat and cranked the window down.
“How much lady?”
“200.” She was only interested in certain types of johns. Wealthy ones. And he wasn’t. Her right hand was poised at the hem of her skirt. Her fingers traced the edge of the can of pepper spray she kept holstered on her leg.
“200?” He looked her up and down, scratched his head through his greasy ball cap and fell back behind the wheel. His truck surged forward with a squeal.
Her johns should start arriving any minute. At the parking garage, the beam of headlights darted out into the street. She stared into them as the car rolled past three lights. It stopped at the fourth light, put its blinker on and started to turn, turned the blinker off, and then proceeded straight through the light. At the next intersection it hesitated, then rolled through it, onto the overpass and down to her corner.
The driver stopped at the flashing red light. A semi-folded map covered his steering wheel as he hunched over it to see the street signs. The left turn signal on the clean, new Pontiac began to blink. The flashing streetlight made the car alternate back and forth from its silver color to an iridescent pink. She smiled and winked. He made eye contact with Sylvia. The turn signal stopped blinking. The car pulled to the curb just beyond the mailboxes.
The passenger side window eased smoothly down. Sylvia checked the front windshield. The bar code sticker in the lower left corner told her this car was a rental. The sticker was a green light that signaled to her that this john was probably not a threat. She leaned over to see the driver. He wore a pressed white shirt with a tie loosened around his neck. His suit jacket hung in the back. “I seem to be lost. Do you think you can help me?”
“I can help you with whatever you need, Sugar,” Sylvia said smiling.
“I got on this street okay. I could use some help getting off,” John said and repositioned his left hand on the steering wheel. A gold wedding band adorned his finger. Jackpot.
“I will personally take you anywhere you’d like to go, for fifty dollars.”
“Fifty?” John hesitated. He rubbed his jaw then spun his wedding ring in place around his finger. He looked over his shoulder and checked for oncoming cars. He started turning the steering wheel and was ready to pull back into traffic.
Sylvia knew she was about to lose him. Two cars traveling down the near lane forced him to stay where he was. “No one ever forgets the time they spend with me. I promise.” She kissed her fingertip, leaned forward and crossed it over her heart. The window closed. John looked over his shoulder and watched the two cars pass him. As he was about to drive away, he glanced back at the passenger window. She still traced her finger over her heart and breasts. The window was full of her cleavage. John stared. The lane was clear but John did not move. He looked at his watch, and then tapped his finger on the steering wheel. He took a deep breath and puffed out his cheeks while he slowly exhaled.
The window eased back down. “Yeah, okay. That sounds good.” The electronic locks on the doors released with a cha-kunk and Sylvia climbed in. She kept her purse on her right shoulder between her body and the car door. Slowly she slipped her hand inside it.
“Why don’t you pull around to the back of this building and we’ll get started.” Sylvia pointed to the street that led to the alley behind the check cashing building. John followed her directions, parked the car and slid his seat all the way back. “Do you have some money for me, Sugar?”
John lifted himself partially from the seat and pulled out his wallet. Outside he saw nothing but overflowing dumpsters, stacks of broken pallets and crumbling brick walls in the dimly lit alley behind the buildings. Suddenly uncomfortable he swallowed and brushed the back of his hand against his forehead. He adjusted himself in the seat and turned his body to conceal the contents of his billfold. He removed one crisp fifty-dollar bill, clutched it in his left hand and returned his wallet with his right.
“Can we hurry and get this over with?” John asked as he held the money.
“Relax, Sugar. I won’t bite. Unless you want me to.” She motioned for him to give her the money. She took it and in one movement stuffed the bill into her brassiere and pulled out a badge on a chain from inside her tank top. John wrinkled his brow. His mouth hung open. Sylvia pulled her hand out of her purse holding a two-way radio.
“Money in hand, Tony,” she shouted into it. “I need back-up now! Now! God damn it! Now!”
“No. Oh, shit! No.” John was shaking his hands in front of himself, denying his intentions. Sylvia dropped the two-way into her purse and pulled the can of pepper spray from her leg holster.
“Get out of the car and put your hands on the hood. Right now.” She locked her elbow pointing the can at John.
“Lady, please. No. I can’t get arrested. I have to meet a client tomorrow morning.” He turned his head and shielded himself with his shoulder and hands.
“You should have thought about that earlier. Come on, get out of the car and put your hands on the hood.”
“Please. If my wife finds out…She’ll…” John sobbed.
“I’m not going to tell you again. What’s it going to be?” She held the spray can to his face.
Reluctantly, John stepped from the car. She kept time with his movements keeping the can aimed at his eyes. He put his palms down on the hood. She crossed the front of the car and walked behind him. One at a time she pulled his hands behind his back and closed the handcuffs into a ring around each wrist. Two rings. Sylvia saw one engagement ring and one wedding band holding his arms behind his back.
“Come on lady. All I wanted was directions back to the freeway.”
“Sure it is.” She kicked at the inner edges of his feet to widen his stance.
“Why are you doing this to me? Can’t you just let me go?” John asked.
“Let you go? Hmmm,” Sylvia frisked him.
“I’ve never even done this before,” he pleaded. “Just let me go. Please.”
“I am feeling pretty generous today. How much cash do you have on you?”
“What? Cash? Why?”
“Oh so you think I should not only let you go, but I should let you skip out on paying the fine to the city, too? You’re too much. Forget it. You have the right to remain silent-”
“Wait! I’ll pay the fine. I’m not sure how much I have on me. How much is it?” John started to attempt to remove his wallet with his hands cuffed behind his back.
“You hold still!” She held the pepper spray can at his face.
“Okay. Okay. I’m easy to get along with.” He squeezed his eyes closed and turned his head away.
Sylvia lowered the can and held it under her arm as she removed his wallet from his pocket. Fanning it open she pulled the stack of bills from it. His plastic photo holder flipped over to a photograph of him standing with a woman and two young boys. The family smiled at her. Sylvia closed her eyes, preferring to not know anything about their personal lives. She quickly flipped the photo over and counted the cash, $412. Keeping out $300, she put the rest back in and shoved the wallet in his pocket. “300,” she said. “The fine is $300.”
She folded the money and put it in her bra with the fifty he already gave her. With one hand pulling the handcuffs and the other between his shoulder blades she bent John over the hood of his car. She turned his head so he looked down the front of the car. “Hold still, I’m going to search your car. If I don’t find anything that shouldn’t be in there, I’ll let you go. Before I look, is there anything in there I should know about? Any drugs? Weapons? Anything at all?”
“I don’t have anything like that,” John said.
“I mean it, you hold still. If I see any sudden movements I’ll have to spray you.” Sylvia sat in the car. She opened the glove box and the console. It was the only downside of the rental cars; the drivers usually had lots of cash but very rarely had any valuables. All she found worth stealing was a pair of Oakley sunglasses. She could get at least twenty dollars for them at the pawnshop in the morning. She slipped one of the bows of the sunglasses onto the back of the waistband of her skirt as she left the car.
“Okay. You’re clean. You can go. But don’t let me see you down here again or next time I might not be so nice to you,” Sylvia said as she unlocked the cuffs and backed away from John.
He stood at the hood of the car and stared at her blankly. “Thank you.” His hand checked for the bulge of his wallet in his back pocket. He did not move. She was never sure what to think when the johns thanked her.
“Well? What are you waiting for?” Sylvia pointed back to the side street. He looked uneasy. Confused. He just stared at her. “Go back the way you came and turn left on 3rd Street. Now get out of here before I change my mind!” John was behind the wheel and gone in an instant. Sylvia heard his tires squeal around the front of the building. She tucked her badge back into her tank top.
She took out a nylon drawstring bag from below the stoop at the back door of the building. The sunglasses found their way into it with the other trinkets she had collected from the john’s cars. She sat on the stoop at the back door of the building. Her skin was flushed red. The chill in the air no longer had an effect on her. She smoked a cigarette, gathered her thoughts, and returned to the sidewalk out front. Before long more shiny new cars stopped to ask for directions and left paying the city’s sliding scale fine directly to her.