whore street

The area in which I worked was on the fringes of skid row. Trash lined streets with old liquor stores and porno shops and cut rate hotels. The throng of deviants who prowled the night were out in full force. Junkies squealed and meth addicts howled at the yellow moon as prostitutes of both sexes did their orchestrated ballet back and forth in front of the Rialto Theater. Florescent shadows played along cracked walls.

“Hey, man - ya lookin’?” White boy in hip-hop clothes asked through crooked teeth.

“Nah, I’m cool.” I kept walking.

Dark avenues packed with filthy, tattered hobos lay in their own piss and well-dressed, hip blacks on the hustle, clenching crack rocks in quivering, cold hands dominated the carnival atmosphere. I stealthily passed liquor stores and blue red purple neon of porno shops which peddled it real nasty all night with all kinds of sick junkies screaming in the back alleyways of the world.

I walked along discolored, spotted pavement and found a bar full of hip kids and fags. I sat there at the counter savoring my beer when a middle-aged black man - tall and rail thin - barged in and sized me up as an easy mark. He plopped next to me on a stool and began gesticulating with over-sized, boney hands.

“Now, what you need is a safistamacated woman.” He breathed liquor and halitosis into my face.

I glanced indifferently over to him and croaked, “What?”

“A safistamacated woman, boy. One’ll fuck ya all night.” When he said ‘all’, his yellow eyes rolled around a bulbous, ashy head.

I mumbled fuck off or I don’t have time for your stupid shit or something equivalent and he stared me down all gangsta and shit, but opts to jet, leaving me to my beer. I quickly finished up, paid the man, and headed to work.