Whalloped by a Trollop

"There are girls who manage to sell themselves whom no one would take as gifts" - Nicholas de Chamfort

I had to make a quick stop at Wally World on my way to work this morning. I was out of hair product. (This had nothing to do with the sparking nun, by the way.) As I was rushing down the aisles I almost tripped over an old whore.

It was Georgia Amore. She looks to be about 70, but she's probably not a day over 69. Georgia and I spent a couple of years together in the early 90's when she was on my caseload. She was on probation for a DWI. She was a grouchy old crone, even then, and she gave me fits!

Georgia was riding in one of those Wally-Carts and had someone with her who looked like a paid care-giver. I'm not sure whether or not she recognized me. I certainly recognized her, even though her normally coal black hair was in a flaming red beehive.

We used to make the raids on the local night clubs, looking for probationers. Since Fake Cow County is dry, only private clubs are allowed to sell alcohol. To become a member of a club, all you had to do was sign a list normally kept in a spiral notebook by the door. Georgia Amore was the only one of my people who would sign in using her real name. I always stopped by the door to read the list when we went into a club.

We would invariably find Georgia ensconsed in a corner table in some dark dive. She always wore heavy-duty blue eye-shadow and spangly, curiously twisted shirts with silky gold pants. She also always had her gimpy leg propped up on a chair next to her. Every time we caught her she was pretty toasted and never really quite sure who we were and what we wanted.

I could never understand why anyone would want to purchase her services - a limping, wrinkled old lady with really od fashion sense.

Stupid me.

I'd watched too much television. The 80's cop shows painted much to elegant a picture of your average prostitute. My first real eye-opener was the time I talked with a girl who, like most, was prostituting for drugs. If real life had been like Hunter, she would have been using the money to feed her baby and keep her elderly aunt out of a crummy nursing home. And maybe even putting a few dollars in the bank so they couldn't forclose on the family farm and turn it into a parking lot.

Not so in real life. This girl's main income came from working a back room at crack parties. There would be a house full of people drinking and smoking crack and pot. She would be in a back room somewhere, doing blowjobs for $2.00.

Two dollars.

She'd earn enough to buy a couple of rocks, which she would use that day and be back "at work" when the high wore off. This wasn't the Stephen J. Cannel version of the oldest profession.

I never questioned Georgia about the particulars of her professional life. There are some things I just don't have to know. I wonder what Georgia's up to these days. She probably didn't have much of a retirement plan. But she's still got her fashion sense and evidently no shortage of blue eye-shadow.