The Hooker Story

It really was going to be a great winter's night.

I left work about 2:00 p.m. after it had already been snowing for about an hour. It took me about three hours to get to "the villa on the hilla" that Hotass and I shared. Nashville drivers turn into complete morons whenever anything falls from the sky.

I got home and touched base with Hotass, who was closing at Pier 1. He was stuck there for a while. Snow nor sleet nor dark of night can keep retail from its appointed rounds. So I settled in for what should have been a long winter's night.

I lit some candles, made some mulled cider, and flipped around through the channels, trying to find something mindless to settle into. After surfing for a while, I decided to step out on the front stoop to watch the snow fall.

Now, let me just preface this part of the story. Hotass and I had a nice apartment to be as broke as we were. We lived in a convenient apartment complex to most everywhere in Nashville. Gated community. Two bedrooms. Two bathrooms. A dishwasher. A patio that stumbled right off into the woods. The dumb blonde and the stoner chick lived above us and they were fabulous. And even if we were just a stone's throw from Murfreesboro Road, second only to Dickerson Pike in its reputation as Hooker Row, we felt like we lived in a safe environment.

And thank God, we didn't live in Hickory Hollow. Yet.

However, we thought the guy across the breezeway was a little odd. Scruffy, scary, and when he opened the door to his apartment, there wasn't furniture. Only piles of blankets and clothes.

So on this snowy night, I stepped out on the stoop to watch the snow fall for a minute, and to try to take some pleasure in nature. Blah, blah, blah.

"Hey! Are you leavin'?"

I whipped around to see her on the metal stairway. She was wearing black patent leather pumps, and a lime green lace mini-dress. And to top off her glamorous outfit, she wore a black psuedo-satin trucker jacket.

"Huh?" I so eloquently replied.

"Are you leavin'? I really need a ride."

"Well, um, no. I was just..."

"Oh please. I really need a ride. Just right up the street to the Drake Motel..."

Now, had I not been feeling so charitable, I might have realized that the Drake Motel was Hooker Hideaway. But instead, I was naive, and failed to think this through.

"Your neighbor brought me up here for a date, and then told me he didn't have no money."

Still naive, I think what a crappy thing to do. Promise a lady a lovely evening and tell her you're broke. In addition to not having furniture, the scruffy neighbor was losing points quickly.

"Please?" she pleaded and I caved.

"Sure, c'mon on in. Let me put my shoes on."

Now, let me remind you that I still have no idea that Lady is a hooker. Never occured to me. Not for one second. I'm thinking she's just a little trashy.

"Hey, you want a blowjob?"

"Huh?" I'm so good at that.

"A blowjob? It's just 10 dollars."

"Um, I, uh, no thanks."

Dude, she's a hooker! In my mind, you would have thought I had just won the Nobel Prize. But, I had bigger problems to solve. I had already promised Betty Blowjob a ride back to the Drake Motel, and she was sitting on the barstool in my apartment. Hooker or not, she was still a human being, and would it kick me to show a little kindness?

How do you kick a hooker out into the cold?

"So can I still get that ride," she asked, nonplussed by my rejection

"Sure." And I finshed lacing up my Timberland boots. "Let me grab a coat and my keys."

"Great. I'll get my friend."

Friend? What friend? There was only one hooker on the steps. I hadn't counted on this being a package be-nice-to-a-hooker, get-the-Unabomber-free deal.

Unabomber met us on the landing. A little wild-eyed. A long coarse beard with streaks of gray. He wasn't the guy who lived across the breezeway but I had seen him come and go a few times.

So I put Unabomber in the backseat of my two-door Pontiac Sunbird, and put the Hooker in the front seat. Being the nice guy I am and wanting make them as comfortable as possible, I started the car to let it warm up and I got out to scrape the ice and snow from the windows. It was Southern hospitality at its worst.

Fortunately, they didn't steal my car. I got back in and started the long drive to the Drake Motel in about three inches of snow that had yet to be scraped off the street.

"Did ya know that Christy isn't hookin' anymore," Hooker asks Unabomber. "Oh no, she got picked up for grand theft auto."

A police car passed us at a top speed of 35 mph. In the snow, I could only drive about 25 mph, and I prayed that the cop wouldn't leave my sight.

"Hey you can just drop us off at the store," the Hooker suggested. There was a convenience store just across from the Drake Motel.

I'd like to say that I whipped into the parking lot, but with the snow I could only creep across the lanes, and pull into the parking lot of the convenience store.

The Hooker got out of the car, thanking me profusely for the ride, and Unabomber flipped up the seat and got out too.

"Hey, if you can wait just a minute, I'll need a ride back," Unabomber asked. It wasn't as if I could speed away. Instead, he got into the 1980 Buick next to us. I saw an exchange of some sort across the front seat -- hands passing rapidly over the bucket seats. Oh, it wasn't enough that I had to give a hooker a ride; I had to give a crack addict a ride to his hook-up too.

Unabomber finished his transaction and got back in the car. Suddenly, the Hooker came running out of the store and pounded on the hood of the car.

"Gimme some money! Gimme some money"

Unabomber rolled down the window and slipped a wad of cash through the two-inche crack.

"Thanks," she said and went back inside.

All the way back to the apartment, Unabomber was extremely gracious and thanked me for my generosity.

When we got back to the villa on the hilla, Unabomber retreated into the crackhouse next door and said that he might need a ride later.

I replied that I might not be around. I went inside and turned out the lights.

I told my story to the apartment manager on Monday, and she confided that the crack addict across the breezeway was fresh out of jail and his brother had rented the apartment for him. Within a few days, he was evicted, and I never saw Unabomber or the Hooker again.