Fall

Fall

I had seen her before, walking along “The Boulevard”.  Some “boulevard”, maybe back in the 1950’s, when it was a main thoroughfare, the way into town from the west, but now, it was a backwater, replaced by more modern roadways, siphoning away its potential traffic, and with that traffic, its life.

I go there from time to time, easy walking distance from my apartment, over by the more modern highway.  It was a walk back in time, to a bridge, an old bridge, on the old boulevard.  I would go there often to catch it in different light.  Sometimes in sun, or in fading light, now and then, I’d catch it with a nice sunset in the background, or maybe from the other direction, a sunrise.  Whether in rain, or fog, or nice light, it was an interesting looking bridge, and I’d photographed it many times, in color, in black-and-white, and from all sorts of angles.

She was walking ahead of me on the street, glancing about, looking for cops, or her pimp, or potential customers.  She was stumbling, wavering slightly as she walked.  Facing away from me, she only glanced toward me briefly, but quickly making me for none of those other, more important categories of people she was keeping watch for, she didn’t pay me any mind. 

She was interesting…from a photographic point of view I mean…but I never dared point my camera toward her.  As sure as I did, her pimp would appear and come over to introduce himself…and kick my ass.  So, I paid attention to my business, and kept the camera pointed at the bridge.  But I kept looking, glancing at her.  It was hard to turn away.  At a bit of a distance, and while walking away from me, she had a rather enticing look about her.  It was her ass, in short, cut-off blue jeans, tilting first right, and then left, then back again, with each step.  Round and shapely, and well suited to a pair of blue jeans, her ass was indeed an asset…I mean, for a person in her business.

The bridge was old, from another era.  As shabby now as the neighborhood, it was first built on this path back before World War I.  But narrow then, it became rapidly outdated as the city grew in the fast-paced life that followed World War II.  So they knocked it down and replaced it in the early 1950’s, using the surplus of labor that existed just after the Korean War.  Funny how the pulse of life for certain things can be linked directly to the pulse of those other huge social events we go through.  Each time, the threat of war brought a sag in the economy, and then as bullets began to fly, and war matériel began to be consumed, the economy took off, to feed the shiny metal teeth that ground young men to pieces.

Rivets, maybe one of the last bridges built that way, since, after World War II, welding had replaced riveting in most forms of manufacturing.  But for bridges, rivets were still the way back then, and for me, a benefit.  Long, smooth lines of efficiently welded steel  structures may look cool in some places, but the bumps and lattice work of a rusting, riveted, use-worn bridge were far more interesting in an intimate, up-close, black-and-white photo.

Concrete too, the side rails, rather unique.  An intricate set of forms had been used so that simple, inexpensive concrete was cast into railings that took on the look of carved stone.  It looked great, at least initially.  But later, as cars and trucks left dents and dings in it, as they slipped about on the wet bridge deck, the city found out how difficult (difficult = costly) it was to maintain.  So, in recent years, as traffic on it waned, and interest in the old bridge waned, having been replaced by the new highway to the North, the city had taken to tying metal railing panels across the damaged areas of the concrete.  Rather than a cherished old landmark, it began to look like an old farmer’s fence, held together by bailing wire and duct tape.  I often had to position my camera so that my old friend, that old bridge, didn’t come out looking like an ageing hockey player, where all you notice are the missing teeth. 

Slowly she walked, and slowly she trolled for customers, with what turned out to be the asset of hers that had held up the best, in the difficult, dangerous life one finds out on the street.  I walked along, heading back home, but choosing to keep walking in her direction, for a bit…to get a better look…only “window shopping”…not stopping to talk, and certainly not stopping to “buy” (or “rent”) anything.  I just thought, “what the hell…let’s have a look”, to see what she looks like from the front.  (1)

Crossing the street, I made sure I wasn’t getting too close, I didn’t want her pimp, whom I’m sure was watching from somewhere nearby, to take any interest in me.  Finally, as I drew opposite her on the street, I caught a good look at her front half.  Not bad, at least it hadn’t been, in the months or years past, before the street, and the drugs, and the men, had begun to wear on her. 

His name, her pimp I mean, or at least his street name, was Manny Jack.  Manny for Manuel maybe, Jack for who knows what.  I was standing near some guys one day when Manny came around the corner.  They said his name, in a not-so-warm way, tolerating his presence, respecting the danger he posed, but not liking him, not friends with him.  No, for a guy like Manny Jack, these were the kind of guys his act, his street shtick, was supposed to have an effect on.  Manny was a small player, in a low neighborhood, but like a dog in a junk yard, that crummy street was all he had, it was his turf, and he needed to look like the “hooking bull” when he walked down it.  (2)

She must have been about twenty, maybe she’d run away from home, as happens every day, out there, somewhere, maybe when she was fifteen, or sixteen.  A horrible tragedy at her home, or maybe a non-event, depending on her home life, if she had caring parents, or maybe animals, from whom she felt she had to flee.  Not big breasted, she must have plopped a couple of cookies into that push-up bra, but with it, and a low-cut top, she managed a rather nice display.  Those were her weapons, her lures, to attract men.  From the front, while leaning into a car, that cleavage helped her negotiate price, or that ass, as a “long-distance weapon”, drew men in close, where the tits could set the hook.

But her face, her face, was showing the wear.  Too often a hand had been raised, striking hard across her cheek.  Lines from falls, form stumbling into walls, from drinking away her earnings, and getting beaten again, for bringing home no money.  A couple of shiny dangles hung from her ears, like fishing lures, but even they could not hold up the price she was able to demand.  She’d gone from meeting nice looking men in bars, to groping on the street with any ”johnson” with a couple of bucks.

Manny, he was an animal.  Two-footed, yes, human, yes, but an animal nevertheless.  Instead of stalking, killing and eating her, as a coyote would a chicken, he consumed her by lying to her.  He convinced her that he cared for her, and that her street business, while unpleasant (or horrible) was their ticket out of there.  Not “her ticket”…”their ticket”.  And in the mean time, the money it brought was the ticket to more drugs, which dulled her mind and made the business a little less horrible.  She needed the business for drugs, and she needed the drugs for business.  She needed Manny for protection on the street, and he was the force that kept pushing her out there.  Those two awful cycles, inextricably intertwined, could have only one possible end.

That wasn’t the first time I’d seen her, nor would it be the last, but it would be the last time I’d see her walking, trolling, selling.  The next time, was with a small crowd of only partly interested cops, walking around her, on the sidewalk.  It was on a late night attempt to shoot the bridge in the nighttime lights, and with a fog rolling in.  I’d run down there on a lark, just on the off chance I could catch the light and the fog in an interesting way.  There she was, lying still, on the sidewalk. 

No idea what had happened to her, but surely one could imagine, one of the frequent pitfalls for a person in that profession, living that life, out there on the street.  Either a John, or her pimp, had beaten her to death, or the drugs had finally caught up to her, or the alcohol, or maybe, all of the above.  The cops were going through the motions, following procedures, but they couldn’t save her in life, and there wasn’t anything much they could do for her now. 

And what about the animal that did it ?  If a coyote were walking down the street, eyeing a stroller, looking for the moment to pounce, to run off with a baby, we wouldn’t ponder over it too much.  We would shoot him, and hang his ass on a fence, where all the other coyotes could see.  So why not Manny ?  He was guilty.  Even if he wasn’t the one who killed her, her being on the street was his doing, and that’s what did her in.  We could all see it coming, there could have been only one end, and yet, nobody shot Manny and hung him from a fence.  Why is that ?

It was funny, if it’s right to say that.  The angle from which I was looking, she was still, well, attractive.  She had fallen facing away from the place where I was now standing, fallen basically on her side, her ass-end toward me, knees and feet together, like maybe she was curling up, into the fetal position, in pain, or in fear.  Still in the same cut-off blue jean shorts, her ass was still shapely, still round, still intriguing, at least to a male eye.  From where I was standing, I couldn’t see her bare chest, her top ripped open in her final struggle.  I couldn’t see the blood, and the fluid that had dripped from her nose and mouth, puddling on the cement.

The cops did their jobs.  They covered her up, finally, but not before I’d finally taken a photo of her.  Her pimp wouldn’t be anywhere near now, and she certainly was in no position to object.  From where I stood, it didn’t look like a photo of death, not like a tragedy…just a shapely, feminine back-side, wrapped snugly in some hot, skimpy shorts.  The cops, with gloved hands, carefully slipped her body into a plastic bag.  They sprayed something on the blood, then gathered up all the soiled gloves, and threw them away.

 

Fiction.

- Mark W. Laughlin

28-Feb-2014

 

 

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

 

Citations:

(1)               Mark W. Laughlin.  (2007)  A Description and Analysis of the Inexorably Dysfunctional Understanding and Communication between Adult Male Humans and “The Female People”.  World Psychology Today Magazine, Vol. II, p. 270.    (Yes, well, I would like to write this one day, and so maybe I will…for a taste of the message, take a look at http://writtenpost.blogspot.com/2012/09/high-school-message-for-my-niece.html ).

(2)               Mark W. Laughlin.  (1997) A historical Analysis of Human Power Structures on the Macro and Micro Levels.  American Psychologist Magazine, Vol. XX, p. 48.    (again, not really…but it is the way the world works, on a “local/proxy-power basis”…one day I will write about this, as well as other laborious but no less important subjects).