Prostitutes Redux OR Stories from the Recession

I was awoken at 3:00 this morning by a loud fight taking place outside my building. Now, living in midtown Manhattan I do not expect pastoral silence for my slumbers. Pretty regularly, we get boisterous revellers (read: drunken bar-goers) caterwauling their way down the block but this did not sound like the type of noise typical of my neighborhood.

What I heard was what sounded like one woman loudly screaming at someone to "get out of the car!" Along with plenty of cursing and the like.

Much as Father does in the celebrated poem Twas the Night Before Christmas, I sprang from the bed, flew to the window in a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash(fn1) to see what was the matter...

Instead of a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, however, what appeared to my wondering eye was two African American prostitutes and a drunken white businessman.(fn2) They were having quite the argument in and around an SUV parked directly across the street from my apartment.

How nice.

From what I could gather of the fight, the two hookers must have picked up the john to do their business in the SUV and at some point (impossible to tell when during the proceedings it might have happened) the man refused to pay. This had understandably upset the prostitutes terribly and they were demanding that he get out of the car so they could leave. It was hard to make out what the man was saying, as unlike the ladies he wasn't screaming at the top of his lungs, so I'm not quite sure what his argument was, except perhaps "I'm a drunken idiot who wants to have an argument."

How can I be sure they were prostitutes? Because at one point, after they had apparently drawn the man's ire by asking him loudly, "If you're a millionaire, where is your money? Where are your friends? How come you're walking down the street at night alone??" To which he responded (audibly, for the first time), "I'm going to take down your license plate number!" Whereupon one prostitute replied, displaying admirable logic, "Go ahead! I'm a prostitute! What you gonna do with a license plate number??"(fn3)

There were also a number of asides to the ladies by what I can only assume was one or the other's daughter in the vein of "Let it go, Mom, let's just leave!" Sensible advice but predictably slow to be heeded by prostitutes who would take their daughter with them to turn tricks.(fn4)

At any rate, eventually the prostitutes tired of haranguing the drunken lout and managed to extricate their car enough from his inebriated grasp to peel out and away.

The disheveled, suited man then took a moment to survey the surrounding buildings and, as my head was perched in front of my still mostly-closed blinds, caught sight of me. He looked dead straight at me and then slowly extended to me a middle-finger salute -- a gesture I would have though more appropriate coming from me whom he had awoken. I shook my head slowly and then withdrew for a moment. He began to stagger off down the street and back to bed I went.

It took me an hour to fall asleep again. I wish I'd called the cops (there's a station two blocks away) when I first heard the noise. It would have given me great joy to have had that man thrown in jail, though that probably wouldn't have happened.

So prostitutes again. In my neighborhood again. I was a bit groggy and at a much further distance this time, but I have to say this pair was much less appealing in both appearance and -- most certainly -- demeanor than the one who propositioned me from an SUV some months back.

I can't help but think the increasing prevalence and apparent rising disregard for stealth is somewhat related to desperation brought on by the worsening economic conditions. But maybe I've just been reading too many sob-stories in the Times.

fn1: Well, drew the Venetian blinds, things have changed since Victorian times...

fn2: My sig. other informs me that the man was British. I do not recollect this but, if true, it would lend an additional sad air to the fall of that once great people. She also says there was a significant part of the fight during which one of the women was yelling about being pregnant. I also do not remember that. Ah, how interesting to see how people's recollection of an event can differ! This is why eye-witness testimony is not the gold-standard that you might think it would be and why circumstantial evidence, though it sounds much inferior, can actually be sig. more persuasive.

fn3: This exchange immediately followed an amusing comment by one of the prostitutes to the effect of "I"m a real New Yorker! You must be from Jersey or somewhere!" Ah yes, a status fight between a prostitute and her john. I'm reminded of the tag line from the first (which lamentably was not also the last) Alien vs. Predator movie: "Whoever wins... we lose."

fn4: Perhaps they had confused this with the child-friendly version of "trick-or-treat" or perhaps the daughter was deemed to be of age to start an apprenticeship, who knows.