The Accidental Hooker
So I've just moved to Arizona. I've moved there to be near the woman I love, and life is good. Got my first apartment, got a great relationship, I'm living in a great city... But what I don't have is a job.
I went through an agency, and on this day, I'd just left there with an address in hand. I've got a lead on a job. It's not an interview, yet, but I'm going to take a typing test to get the first step out of the way. It's a typical almost-summer day in Phoenix, meaning that it's right about 100 degrees outside at 11:00 a.m. I'm driving through downtown with my windows down (the air conditioning is out, just in time for a move to Phoenix), wearing my shirt and tie, and feeling pretty good. This job may just be what I'm looking for, and will be the final thing to get my new life off on the right foot.
I come to a stop at a major intersection, waiting at the red light. Late morning traffic is heavy, and I'm just sort of looking around. I notice a motorcycle cop pull up across the intersection from me, and he dismounts and turns his back to me. As I'm watching, a car pulls up, and this cop, with his powerful muscular build and imposing presence, lifts his arm, and he jerks an extended index finger right at the car. The motion is overly dramatic and very forceful, and puts a little chill down my spine, though it's not even directed at me. After pointing at the car, he throws his arm away from him and points to his left, indicating for the car to go there. The car does, the cop climbs back on his bike like he's a frontier sheriff mounting his stallion, and takes off after the car. I'm wondering what this person did to get such a scary cop pissed off. Not their day, I'm thinking.
After a very long wait at the light, I make my left turn. I'm cruising down this major street, enjoying the day, thinking about the possibility of gainful employment. I must have been lost in thought, because I don't even notice, until the last moment, that traffic has come to a sudden halt in front of me. There's some kind of construction going on, and the traffic light seems to be out up there. And there's a cop standing in the intersection, directing traffic. The same cop I'd just seen minutes before, on his feet with his bike parked along next to the sidewalk.
I slam on the brakes, and I must have been going faster than I thought, because I very loudly skid a number of feet. There's no car ahead of me, but for a moment, I think I'm going to slide right into the intersection. Thankfully, my van manages to stop in time. A little frazzled by this, I suddenly look up. And see the cop standing there, attention turned directly toward me.
Though he's wearing mirrored sunglasses, I swear I can see his eyes blaze red behind them.
He throws the same finger at me, with all the power of a hard punch. My heart skips a beat. I can see his teeth bared a little. He then jerks the finger at the side street to my right.
I don't even hesitate. He's that scary--I'm surprised he doesn't come up to the van with a photo of a young John Conner and ask me "Have you seen this boy?" I hit the gas and jerk my wheel to the right, crossing in front of three lanes of traffic next to me to go down this other, smaller street. I'm almost shaking. This street is one lane each way, and I don't go far before additional road construction detours me to a residential street on my left. I make that turn, and start to get my wits back.
And that's when I wonder what just happened. This cop was directing traffic. Did he just direct me? Or was he telling me to pull over? Good lord, am I fleeing from a police officer?
Now this is right near the start of my serious religious phase. I'm a good church boy. There's even a Bible on my dashboard. I'm as law-abiding as they came, and would never think of purposely breaking any laws...and certainly wouldn't try to run from a cop. The situation's too confusing. I'm trying to figure it all out. I make a right turn as soon as I can, and another to get me headed back toward where I was. If he's after me, I definitely need to find him before he has to track me down. The whole thing is ridiculous. I'm wondering how exactly I got into this situation.
I get back to the side street, but of course that construction is there, blocking off any right turn I might want to make. And traffic is backed up because the intersection light are out there, too, and construction workers are directing cars. I stop behind a couple of autos, trying to pull my head together and figure out what's going on and what to do next.
Suddenly, there's a voice at my passenger window.
There's a woman there. Due to the restriction on my neck movement, I really can't see her, just catch her out of the corner of my eye. I know she's blond, and she's fairly young. But her voice is very raspy. She's asking me if I can please give her a ride up the street to her motel.
Okay, with everything going on, this is the last thing I need to be dealing with. I'm old enough to know that giving rides to people you don't know is generally not a good idea. But I'm also stuck there because of the traffic, and my windows, as I said, were down, and she isn't going away. And it's was very hot out there. Maybe that's why she sounds so bad. She pleads for a ride, telling me it's just a little ways up the street.
So, being the polite guy I am, and having little skill at telling people no, and being a good church boy who's supposed to do good deeds for people, I finally agree after a little indecisive stammering. She climbs into my passenger seat and says thank you, and I say no problem, though my nerves are still raw with everything going on. The construction guy waves our lane forward, and I make the left toward her motel. No problem. I'll just drop her off, do my good deed for the day, and then figure out what I'm supposed to do about the mess I may or may not be in.
I see the motel, and it is quite close (so close, in fact, that if my head was clear, I'd have realized that it was easily walkable for her). I ask her if that's the one and start preparing to turn in. She tells me, strangely enough, to just keep driving. Okay. Now I'm curious as to what's happening. Is that not the right motel?
"So," she asks me from somewhere outside my field of vision. "Do you date?"
Part of me knows right then what was going on. Another part of me finds it so unbelievable that I can't quite process it. Faced with this awkward question, I stammer out something about the fact that I am, in fact, dating someone, yes. In the middle of my babbling, she cuts me off with another question.
"You want a blow job?"
Oh, my God.
I had just picked up a hooker.
Needless to say, I'd never dealt with anything like this before. And certainly the Bible on the dash in front of me kind of answered the question by itself. I was a good guy. I lived a clean life, had a good Mormon girlfriend that I planned to marry, and I wasn't even seeing R-rated movies at this point in my life. And yet, suddenly, I'm starring in a bad porn film.
And being who I am (if you know me, you're really finding this funny), I very politely say no thank you (like I'm turning down a cup of coffee) and let her know she really has the wrong guy. At this point, she starts listing off other things that I might like, then. Oh, this is just getting better and better. I again politely decline, saying if she did need a ride, I'd be happy to drop her off.
And it was at this point that something occurred to me.
I didn't have a lot of experience on the matter, but it seemed to me that if you were running from the cops, probably the last thing you'd want to do is stop and pick up a hooker!!!
This was just too surreal, and I was really starting to freak out. Still next to me, she sighs with annoyance and tells me she really needs the money, because she really has to get some drugs. Oh, she doesn't have any on her? Then I can get busted with both a hooker and drugs by Robocop. Did I maybe have any illegal arms in the back, too, just for good measure?
I again thank her politely, but tell her again she really has the wrong guy. Finally, she gets fed up and/or disgusted with me, sighs again, and says "Just pull over." Being the terminally nice guy I am, I think I even ask her if she's sure I can't drive her to the motel instead of just leaving her on the street. I'm not realizing, of course, that by leaving her on the street I'm actually dropping her off at the office. She gets out and slams the door, and walks off.
And I drive straight home. At this point, I've just lost it, and I'm too freaked out to think of anything else. Forget the typing test, forget that I may be a fugitive. I just want to forget all of it. How someone like me managed to get into a situation like that was just beyond my reckoning.
You know, I have this belief that all things happen for a reason.
God must have really not wanted me to have that job.