"Ok. Take a quick right here...whoa! Slow down! This is the prime area." directs my brother from the front seat of our nondescript suburbian Honda Accord.
Of course, the only time it's nondescript is when we're in the good areas of town, not downtown where we are now. Here, rust-cancered trucks and repainted, retired city cabs troll the streets past bums pushing carts full of their collections. Our Accord gleams as it turns corners in the poorest areas of our city, just after dusk.
"Look! OHMYGOD..OHMYFUCKINGLORD. Pay dirt!" squeals Janet from the back seat. Janet is my brother's and my mutual friend. She's pointing a finger at a woman in a long trenchcoat and pointy heels.
Yes. That's right, we went out hooker hunting one Friday night. I guess the idea sprung from our 'crossing the tracks' into the bad area of town, the industrial, blue collar worker area of town. The place where townhouses, with paperthin walls, are full of arguments during prime sitcom watching time. We started the evening with a dinner in what we hoped would be a shitty (and yet entertaining) restaurant, but the exterior was deceiving and we had a half decent meal, with a pricey bill.
Bored after our non-eventful dinner (except for the blonde girl at the bar who kept staring at us, the newcomers, as she talked loudly to some guy on a cell about 'partying together, etown style') we took the long route home, through downtown Edmonton. There were a few strung out looking people walking around, and gaggles of plaid workshirted construction workers mulling about outside cheap bars. The sun had just gone down, and the streetlights were casting weird shadows over everyone's faces. My brother put in some music, and we drove in relative silence, listening to the CD.
Then my brother told me about his and Janet's dirty little secret, and how when I was gone on a recent trip, they would spend time looking for hookers on the streets. I asked for directions to what they called "Cunt Central".
We spotted a few ladies that night. We were even at a red light when a police vans lights flashed on, two cops ran out and pulled open a parked cars passenger door, and yanked out a half dressed, bedraggled looking woman with mussed hair. "Why are they only pulling the woman out? What about the guy paying her?" I asked rhetorically. We drove away before I got to see if the john was yanked as well. By the cops, that is.
"Let's go by the peep shows," Janet said.
We drove past the sad little clapboard signed windows with sex dolls in the front, their eyes staring at no one in particular. On round two, I saw a large woman leaning on a fire hydrant, impatiently shaking her leg, and consequently her jellylike folds of fat hanging on her body. "She's shakin the goods!" I said. I felt sad when Janet and my brother laughed.
She was a woman in her 30s...hard to tell, her face drawn out from drug abuse or long nights spent awake, doing the things no one speaks of in 'proper' culture. Her teal shirt was inadequate for the cool night, and clashed with her bright pink leggings. We went past, and my brother waved at her. Her eyes dropped to the ground.
As I came to the intersection to get us back on the road home, I realized I hadn't changed lanes and we had to loop back past the woman we had dubbed "Big Mama". I suddenly felt a pang of guilt and embarassment at having to pass this woman who was really no different from me. In fact, maybe the only thing separating us was a few bad decisions on her part.
The Honda's headlights lit up the street as we rounded the corner, heading towards Big Mama's strip. She wasn't around, and I wondered if maybe she was a few tricks closer to heading home for the night. But no, she sort of skipped out at seeing the headlights, and leaned nonchalantly on her fire hydrant, as if waiting for a friend to pick her up.
My brother started to wind down his window on the passenger side, and I said, sharply perhaps, "No, man. Don't degrade her or us anymore".
"I just want to ask how her night is going," he whined.
I blasted the music and sped past the poor woman who maybe felt a little more worthless because of three stupid kids looking for an adventure. And I felt a little less respectable.
"You guys are going to hell." I said to Janet and my brother, later that night.
"Aren't we all, Kelly?" said Janet.
::::
And maybe that's true, because today my brother was in a pretty bad car accident that totalled our little Accord. He wasn't downtown, it apparently wasn't his fault, and he's okay, but I can't help but feel like we've been punished. I certainly felt guilty when my Mom said to me today "What did we do to deserve this?", an accident in a seemingly long string of misfortunes for my family.
Sorry Mom. And I'm also sorry for the ridiculing I did Friday night to those women who might be moms, too. It was truly poor taste to drive past the women as if they were in a zoo.
Of course, the only time it's nondescript is when we're in the good areas of town, not downtown where we are now. Here, rust-cancered trucks and repainted, retired city cabs troll the streets past bums pushing carts full of their collections. Our Accord gleams as it turns corners in the poorest areas of our city, just after dusk.
"Look! OHMYGOD..OHMYFUCKINGLORD. Pay dirt!" squeals Janet from the back seat. Janet is my brother's and my mutual friend. She's pointing a finger at a woman in a long trenchcoat and pointy heels.
Yes. That's right, we went out hooker hunting one Friday night. I guess the idea sprung from our 'crossing the tracks' into the bad area of town, the industrial, blue collar worker area of town. The place where townhouses, with paperthin walls, are full of arguments during prime sitcom watching time. We started the evening with a dinner in what we hoped would be a shitty (and yet entertaining) restaurant, but the exterior was deceiving and we had a half decent meal, with a pricey bill.
Bored after our non-eventful dinner (except for the blonde girl at the bar who kept staring at us, the newcomers, as she talked loudly to some guy on a cell about 'partying together, etown style') we took the long route home, through downtown Edmonton. There were a few strung out looking people walking around, and gaggles of plaid workshirted construction workers mulling about outside cheap bars. The sun had just gone down, and the streetlights were casting weird shadows over everyone's faces. My brother put in some music, and we drove in relative silence, listening to the CD.
Then my brother told me about his and Janet's dirty little secret, and how when I was gone on a recent trip, they would spend time looking for hookers on the streets. I asked for directions to what they called "Cunt Central".
We spotted a few ladies that night. We were even at a red light when a police vans lights flashed on, two cops ran out and pulled open a parked cars passenger door, and yanked out a half dressed, bedraggled looking woman with mussed hair. "Why are they only pulling the woman out? What about the guy paying her?" I asked rhetorically. We drove away before I got to see if the john was yanked as well. By the cops, that is.
"Let's go by the peep shows," Janet said.
We drove past the sad little clapboard signed windows with sex dolls in the front, their eyes staring at no one in particular. On round two, I saw a large woman leaning on a fire hydrant, impatiently shaking her leg, and consequently her jellylike folds of fat hanging on her body. "She's shakin the goods!" I said. I felt sad when Janet and my brother laughed.
She was a woman in her 30s...hard to tell, her face drawn out from drug abuse or long nights spent awake, doing the things no one speaks of in 'proper' culture. Her teal shirt was inadequate for the cool night, and clashed with her bright pink leggings. We went past, and my brother waved at her. Her eyes dropped to the ground.
As I came to the intersection to get us back on the road home, I realized I hadn't changed lanes and we had to loop back past the woman we had dubbed "Big Mama". I suddenly felt a pang of guilt and embarassment at having to pass this woman who was really no different from me. In fact, maybe the only thing separating us was a few bad decisions on her part.
The Honda's headlights lit up the street as we rounded the corner, heading towards Big Mama's strip. She wasn't around, and I wondered if maybe she was a few tricks closer to heading home for the night. But no, she sort of skipped out at seeing the headlights, and leaned nonchalantly on her fire hydrant, as if waiting for a friend to pick her up.
My brother started to wind down his window on the passenger side, and I said, sharply perhaps, "No, man. Don't degrade her or us anymore".
"I just want to ask how her night is going," he whined.
I blasted the music and sped past the poor woman who maybe felt a little more worthless because of three stupid kids looking for an adventure. And I felt a little less respectable.
"You guys are going to hell." I said to Janet and my brother, later that night.
"Aren't we all, Kelly?" said Janet.
::::
And maybe that's true, because today my brother was in a pretty bad car accident that totalled our little Accord. He wasn't downtown, it apparently wasn't his fault, and he's okay, but I can't help but feel like we've been punished. I certainly felt guilty when my Mom said to me today "What did we do to deserve this?", an accident in a seemingly long string of misfortunes for my family.
Sorry Mom. And I'm also sorry for the ridiculing I did Friday night to those women who might be moms, too. It was truly poor taste to drive past the women as if they were in a zoo.
