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What’s Love Got to Do With Anything?

Kirk Alex

    (from the Working the Hard Side of the Street anthology)

    12:30 AM. Airport Hyatt. A guy in his 50s with a weather-beaten, sunbaked face gets in my cab. The suit he's got on is not cheap. White shirt, a tie.
    'Where can we find a girl?' he asks in what sounds like a Southern drawl.
    'Nowhere around here,' I say. 'The Strip is about the only place.'
    He hesitates.
    'It's only a fifteen-minute ride,' I explain.
    He says: 'What the hell, why not?'
    Twenty-five minutes later we're in West Hollywood. We cruise Sunset Strip. As we near Schwab's a group of hookers spot the potential john in my cab and suddenly come to life as we slow down. I turn the corner at Laurel, and there they are running toward the cab. They smell money; that's all the suit sitting in my cab is to them: $$$.
    The first hooker ruins her chances by quoting $200/250. 'De-pending on what you want and for how long,' she explains in an admixture of aggression and desperation. He shakes his head, doesn't like the price and he is not about to pay it. This is a seasoned customer I've got in my backseat and is playing it right. Then another white hooker elbows her way to the man's window and throws herself inside. She's got a lot of makeup on, too much. It's enough to turn your stomach. Maybe some guys like it that way. I don't recognize her right away because she's wearing a type of snug, white hat that resembles a turban, but then she starts talking and I remember picking her up at the Beverly-Wilshire a couple of times a while back. I remember she's the one with the kid and an 'old man' she's been with seven years.
    'What chu got to spend?' she asks my passenger.
    'One hundred,' the man answers.
    She counters with: 'One-fifty.'
    Another hooker sticks her head in the window, and says: 'How about a menage?'
    The man is not interested and shakes his head.
    Danielle, the hooker I know, gets pissed off at the other hookers for moving in on her and rolls her window up.
    'Go to hell, bitch!' the other hookers all shout at her right then. Danielle turns to the john. 'Can you spend one-fifty, baby?'
    'One hundred,' the man says.
    'But I got to pay for the cab, baby, on the way back.'
    'I'll pay for the cab.'
    'It's been a bad night. Can you make it one-fifty?'
    'Maybe some other time,' the man says. 'All right?'
    'I just can't do it. It's been a bad night for me.'
    'Let's forget it,' he says, and seems to mean it. Danielle changes her tune. 'All right, all right.'
    I pull away from the curb. She recognizes me, says: 'Hi, lover boy.'
    I say hello, and it does lessen the tension inside the cab.
    'I didn't recognize you with the turban,' I explain. She counters with: 'Why didn't you call me? You got my number.'
    'I don't keep numbers.'
    'You do mine.'
    We laugh at that.
    She turns to talk to the fare. He's from Houston, in the construction business. She asks him the usual questions: How long you been in town? How long you staying?, etc., etc. We make it to the hotel. I've got $27.30 on the meter. The man gives me $32.
    'You want me to hang around?' I ask Danielle.
    'Yeah, baby; wait for me,' she says.
    I park the cab and wait about a half hour. When she comes out of the hotel and gets in the cab she wants to know if I can give her a discount.
    '$20,' I say to her. I want to be paid for my Waiting Time.
    '$15.'
    '$20,' I repeat. 'I think it's fair. Do you know what most charge? About thirty bucks.' And it's the truth, because most cab companies have the higher rates.
    'Okay, baby.'
    And we head back to the Strip. We start talking a bit. It turns out her old man was an engineer, used to push dope. I wonder how the guy she's living with is able to cope with what she's doing.
    'He don't mind,' she says, then chuckles. 'Sometimes he do. Sometimes he do, when I get off, know what I mean? He don't like it when I get off with the young guys, know what I mean, baby? I tell him everything.'
    I'm nodding and saying 'Yeah' like I understand, but I don't.
    I didn't see how it couldn't bother a guy to have his woman balling a bunch of strange men. And we start talking about relationships, how impossible it seems to keep one going these days.
    She readily agrees.
    'We had our ups and downs,' she says. 'We sure did. I ran away twice from that man. Twice.'
    'What happened?'
    'He came and got me. I lived in Florida for four months without telling him. He came and got me.'
    'He must really love you,' I say.
    'Of course, baby. Me and that man been through a lot. He shaved my head completely bald once so I wouldn't leave, but he had a good reason because I did him dirty, too. I left that man in a Phoenix motel once, took the car, all the money, and split. I forgave him because I was wrong.'
    I never expectedI'd be talking to a prostitute about relation-ships, about love, but we're doing it, and I tell her about the woman I had split up with, that I still love, and feel helpless in doing anything about. Guess I'm seeking answers any damn way I can.
    'Get her back, baby,' she says. 'If you really love her, get her back.'
    'How? She doesn't want anything to do with me. I wouldn't know what to do.' And I tell her about the concert I had wanted to take my girl to about a year back, and how she had sent me a letter telling me to leave her alone. That it was over.
    Danielle looks at me, and says: 'You better stop talking about her before you start crying. Just get her back, baby; don't wait.'

    We're driving north on La Cienega, and she says: 'We get back to the corner I got to tell those bitches to fuck off. I don't like that shit, the way they did me like that. See, all them stupid bitches got pimps. I don't believe in that shit.' She had told me once before that she had had a pimp. 'I gave that man more money than you ever saw in your life. I don't need that shit.'
    I turn west on Sunset.
    As we near the corner of Sunset and Laurel she asks for a piece of paper and a pen, writes her number down.
    'In case you get anybody that wants a date,' she explains.
    I don't like the idea. I don't want to start doing that.
    'What if you're not in?'
    'Don't worry, baby,' she says. 'I call in every hour on the hour.'
    'What if your man answers?'
    She says: 'So what? If he answers he'll pretend it's a wrong number and talk like a Mexican, you know the way they do-then he'll call right back acting like it's the answering service. You know what I'm saying, baby?'
    Not really, but I nod.
    She gives me the piece of paper.
    'Call me if you just want to talk, all right, baby?'
    'Okay.'
    She steps out of my cab, rejoins what's left of the old gang: a couple of shivering, diehard whores on the sidewalk. I can hear the verbal exchanges. Expensive cars are cruising the Strip, johns on the prowl for action. And it's a cold, windy night for L.A. and not much action in sight, not much makes sense in this world.
    I take the piece of paper with her number and I shove it in the ashtray. I make a U-turn, taking it west, west, to look for another fare.

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