Does every hotel have a resident whore? Mine does. It also has a ghost, but thats another story for another day.
i dont know her name, and clearly thats for a reason. The first time i saw her she had on see-through pants. The moment she walked into my gift shop i thought: stripper? She asked if we carried condoms, and if lifestyles was "all we had." i then thought, prostitute!
It was wild. I had never spoken to someone i thought might actually do something so irreprehensible. She came by many times and had a routine: condoms out of the box, no receipt, exact change. she was the woman whom i would talk about behind her back: "i wonder how much she makes? people have sex with her? her boobs are sooooo fake." i was the ultimate in this seasons hater fashions. she was 6 foot garbage walking to the bar. a person i could look down on with VERY good reason.
but...
as time went on something weird happened. i realized she looked like a girl i used to know. a girl i used to laugh with but had lost through the years. that girl had a name: lindsay. I even mentioned them -lindsay and the unnamed whore- in a poem i wrote. Thats when she became human. Thats when i started to think of how she spent her day.
A few weeks ago she came into the shop in a cute outfit (Over the past months she'd realized dressing like a whore wasnt the key to making money). Before i knew what i was doing, i complemented her. We joked about how before someone bought it for her, she had no idea how to even pronounce enyce, a point i could relate to (NYC? ennice? e-nee-cee?). here i was, this person who believes i am so much better than this girl whose only source of income was between her legs, talking and laughing with her.
the othe day, i watched a documentary which included this group of asian transxexual cabaret performers. of course i watched in awe and novelty as i relayed the things they said and did to kesi over the phone. "they look like women! they have boyfriends too! there's 300,000 of them in thailand!" then one of them said something like, "we may be different, we may be men or women or both, but no matter what we look like, we are all alike in our emotions."
all this is is to say, everyone is human. I at one point looked at the prostitute as something to not be. Everything about her was wrong. and while i cannot follow in her particular choice of career- at the same time, i couldnt be a nurse or an accountant- there's got to be some redeeming qualities in her and anyone. god loves her- and me for that matter and i have done some dumb shit without taking money- so who am i to judge?
in conclusion, stop hating.
-from "searching for michelle"
"there's a girl
a prostitute who comes by my shop
buys condoms and pays with exact change
she hands me the box and the reciept
she looks like lindsay
and every time i see her i want to ask
'did you ever shave your head?
do you have a sister?
what happened?'
but i dont
who wants to ask why youre a prostitute?"
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3 comments:
Hey Joy... I've really been enjoying your writing... it's similar to Lauren's, but quite a bit less depressing.
Take care...
It is hard to find the humanity in people but I find that when you do it is much harder to judge. So thats what I think we have to aim for...finding the humanity in people even when it seems like there is none. You have always been quite good at this, what with your sunny attitude in contrast to my ability to wade in dark waters no one else acknowledges. But I think somewhere along the way you began to protect yourself from people by making them caricatures: 2 dimensional people who had these "things" about them...kinda how your mother does which leads me to think maybe its a learned behavior. But 1 thing I've always admired about you is your ability to transcend. ANd I think this is a perfect example of just that. I'm proud of you dearie.
Oh and by the way Shani...thanks for calling me depressing. See if I call you when I need to talk.
this is very interesting. i have a burning desire to interview strippers. i want to know why they're strippers. my conspiracy theory is b/c their father didn't talk to them. i'm convinced b/c of that until they get some help they will spend the rest of their lives searching for a man to give them some attention. i think you should ask her. she would probably tell you if you asked w/o judgement. she's also probably never had very many female friends. i'd love to hear her answer. ask what she wanted to be when she grew up.
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