The Girls of Spring

Spring is a time of hope and the promise of life breathed into all that’s dead or dormant. It is the celebrated 're-birth' that warm weather junkies like myself wait for all the cold winter, for Spring heralds Summer. Ahh Summer... How my body yearns to amble instead of speed walk, every muscle in your body tensed in an effort to keep your core warm. Today was warm enough to justify the sundress I wore with black tights and boots. Warmer weather here in my part of Fayetteville returns the prostitutes to the main drag and I’m sucked right back into my morbid fascination bordering on obsession. I scan the sidewalks on Bragg Blvd until I find a likely candidate at which point I use a process of elimination based on my own stereotypes to determine if she is indeed a prostitute or just dressed like one. Fashion is not as reliable as it used to be though. Outfits you’d expect to see on a prostitute are now common place and acceptable at the club and the lines between club and grocery store have become more and more blurred in certain demographics. So if I see a woman that I don’t recognize as one of the regulars, I look for other tell tale signs like how interested she is in the oncoming traffic. Today I saw a very young woman on the Blvd squeezed into ill- fitting dark jeans, a purple t-shirt and knock off Uggs. She was walking with her back to me and didn’t draw my attention until I noticed while waiting at the light, how she kept turning around to look at a man in a truck also waiting at the light. Suddenly I realized she was phishing for a John and I became mesmerized by the brazenness of her stare and the total lack of self-consciousness, sexuality or coyness that I associate with seduction. And yes I do associate a certain amount of self-consciousness with seduction, the more alcohol I’ve consumed the easier it is to get out of my own way, but I am not by nature a very sexually confident person. I’ve also never tried to seduce a male without having some emotional or egotistical investment. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I have scanned a room like I owned it, making eye contact with any male that happened to look back. There was tequila or whiskey involved every time to be sure.

Is this business like approach to getting sex considered seduction? The definitions of the verb 'seduce' are: To attract someone into a belief or course of action that is inadvisable or foolhardy; entice into sexual activity or to attract powerfully. I guess that what they're doing is considered seduction though I personally fail to see anything sexy about it. Once she gets in the car does she make eye contact? Does she smile and try to make him feel at ease? After finding out what he wants does she give him a list of don'ts? What would be on that list? Does she get sore- I mean how many men can she comfortably have intercourse with in one day? Does she pretend to enjoy it in hopes of gaining a repeat customer? How many time will she run into a customer at Walmart or Waffle House and how does it make her feel? You see now what I mean by near obsession don't you?
I think part of the reason I'm so curious about it is that sex has been such a troublesome subject in my marriage the past five years or so. It's such a production for me to get in the mood and mainly I would do it because I wanted to keep the peace. Finally I stopped altogether because I was so emotionally and physically removed from the act that it felt nearly like what I imagined prostituting to feel like. That was within the safety of a monogamous marriage with a partner that cared greatly whether I was enjoying myself or not, so imagining what it would be like with a multitude of strangers who could care less about me, who might smell god awful, call me names like bitch, slut and whore while they slammed themselves into me again and again heedless of the pain, is very burdensome.
Most of the regulars hang out at one gas station and keep themselves drunk or effed up on something and I understand why. There's no other way to get through a day like that. One of the regulars looks to be about my age and is the most far gone. She is tall and lanky with closely cropped black hair and dresses like a street punk from New Orleans. She does not possess what I would call a 'come hither' presence which has led me to think that her tricks must be more of the blow job type. She was out at the station the other day with another woman at about 11am and had already tied on a powerful buzz. She jerks and lurches around with grand gestures and a masculine swagger. She is puzzling and maddeningly intrigues me. I will never know the type of life or the choices that led her to half madness, to her pre-noon drunkenness, to the fate that awaits her, arriving in rusty pick up trucks, shiny new mustangs and caprice classics jacked up on 24 inch spinners. I just watch her from behind the safety of my sunglasses and when my tank is full I get into my luxury car glance at my two beautiful children in the rearview and drive on to my warm home where I feel safe and loved, respected and needed. I look for her ever time I pull off of Johnson and I haven't seen her in weeks. This seems to be normal, to disappear for several weeks, maybe working a different part of town or being trafficked somewhere else. I will never know her story but she has irrevocably and unknowingly become a part of mine. I hope one day to turn this guilty fascination into something more powerful, a way to say to women like her-"I see you, I recognize you as a sister, how are you today?" For now I will use her memory to re-enforce my appreciation for the way my life has written itself so far and watch from the stoplight, windows down, the Girls of Spring turning tricks while all around them delicate buds on trees prepare to open and seduce the bees into pollinating the neighborhood. And so the world goes round.

Don't Count Your Chickens...

I’ve got blisters on my fingers from learning chords on the guitar, darker hair cause I discovered some new grays and a ball of ugly emotion right in my core. I’m working hard to release that ball before it wins the whole day. My husband got the call yesterday that his deployment got pushed back from March to July. Just like that. How many things were riding on that initial March date? How many decisions were made based on that March date? How many sacrifices did that March date require of me? It just serves as a reminder that no matter what, I cannot live this military lifestyle any longer. It is not in my nature to play second fiddle. It is not acceptable to know that my plans, no matter the importance, are not considered by those who hand out the orders. Ah well, life doesn’t play by rules when handing out the orders or consider everybody’s plans so I need to button it.

I went to see ‘Crazy Heart’ on Sunday night. Great movie, great sound track. I had some time to kill before the movie started so I decided to do a little work. I write an entertainment blog for a local glossy and basically get paid to visit bars and restaurants where I am given entrees and drinks and then write a review on the ambience, cuisine, crowd etc… They have me on a project while I’m here promoting a city-wide cocktail competition that will be featured in their May food and wine issue. I’ll get to pick the top ten winners and there will be a photographer to chronicle my sipping escapades. So I decided to pop into a few bars to drop off my card and recruit for participants. The first place I stopped at is a biker bar and as soon as I pulled into the parking lot about 14 bikers pull up in their colors. There were about 12 more already in the small bar when I walked in and it occurred to me that some one raised differently from myself might not have been as comfortable sauntering into this particular atmosphere. Alone. But hell I’m from NH and grew up around burly, nasty looking men in denim and leather so I can hold my own and at the very least appear confident. Second place I visited is what I like to call your basic, square bar. Small and square with one window and the light from one door. Old men with their cans of beer snuggled in their own koozies they brought from home. Coupla drunk Mexican men walk in trying to act sober enough to get some beers.. A pool table is squeezed in one corner and the players are good naturedly vying with other patrons for space to shoot. And there’s this great band playing all my favorite classic rock tunes so I have to stay for a beer. The band is comprised mostly of middle-aged men but the bassist is some young stud in sunglasses. They’ve got talent and a hell of a lot of love for these old tunes and I quite enjoyed myself. The really, really old man to my right identified himself as ‘Peanut’ and a manager of the bar. He had a koozy full and one on ice in his little beer bucket in front of him at the bar. There was a constant variety of patrons coming up and buying him a beer so that little bucket always had one chilling. Then one of the patrons was nice enough to replenish my beer as well as Peanuts’. His name was Bill and Bill is a skydiver. Bill seems to eat, drink and sleep skydiving. Bill talked to me about skydiving for a long time. A long time.

Now that’s the kind of review I wish I could write but the magazine is pre-tty conservative so my blogs are basically like advertisements for the places. Today is a crappy, rainy day. Even the kitties are choosing to sleep away the gloomy hours. There’s the occasional flash of red or blue in our yard of a cardinal or bluebird. I can hear the rain dripping on the flower boxes outside and our wind chimes are working overtime. I can get through today, hopefully with some grace and positivity and tomorrow I am attending women’s group for dinner and a break dancing competition in Raleigh. I’ll spend the night with my friend T, have coffee in the morning and take my time instead of rushing back like I usually do. That will recharge me enough so that I can resume chugging along towards god know what. But hey- I got to rub elbows with an ancient man named Peanut, drink some beers, eat some pretzels, listen to a live version of ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ and now possess a walking wealth of information about skydiving. Life ain’t all that bad.