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Night on the Town, #2

Bill Tope

    “What are you doing on the streets at this hour?” demanded the cop, frowning heavily at the 14-year-old girl before him.
    She wiped her mouth with her palm and answered, “I’m on the street selling my ass, so we can make rent.” She frowned back at him, though she held no animus toward the officer. She knew he was a good man.
    Rob took a sharp breath. “You can’t be doing that, Emily!” he said, suddenly furious. “Your mama doesn’t know you’re out here,” he said.
    “Sure she does,” she contradicted him. “She’s eight months pregnant, or she’d be out here herself. How do you think she got knocked up in the first place?” Emily asked indignantly.
    “She wouldn’t have a child, it wasn’t hers and Winston’s,” asserted Rob desperately.
    “Ha!” spat Emily, taking a small pipe out of her purse. She filled the bowl and lit it up. “You ain’t up on your state abortion laws,” she said.
    “What the hell are you smoking, girl?” asked the flustered cop.
    “Only pot,” she said dismissively. “Mama got it at the cannabis dispensary in town,” she explained. “It’s legal!” she said impatiently, drawing deeply on the stem.
    “Not for no 14-year-old it ain’t,” he came back at her.
    “What?” she said. “You’re going to bust me and lock me up on a possession charge?” She smirked.
    Rob drew a sigh. “No, you know I ain’t going to do that. But, ‘Em, you’ve got to be careful. You don’t know what kind of diseases you can pick up on the street,..”
    “I don’t screw,” she interrupted him. “I only give head. You can’t get HIV from a blow job.”
    “You don’t know, girl,” he returned. “The odds are low, but they ain’t non-existent.”
    “Is that what you tell the hookers on 4th Street, when they suck you off so you’ll not roust their johns?” she asked with a maleficent glare. She loved Rob, yet she hated him for what he made other women endure because of his own appalling appetites.
    Rob had no answer to that, so he said only, “You be careful out here on the streets, Emily.” He fitted a twenty dollar bill into the pocket of her faded jeans.
    As she skipped up the street she turned back. “Thanks. Love you, Uncle Rob.”

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